![Outsourcing Content Marketing: 13 Stats You Should See [Infographic]](https://www.fronetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/outsourcing-content-marketing.jpg)
by Fronetics | Feb 1, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
Thinking of outsourcing content marketing? This infographic illustrates how other B2B marketers are handling content creation.
Plan. Create. Distribute. Repeat.
Does the constant creation of content feel like a drain on your resources? Do you feel like the content you’re publishing isn’t on par with the standards of your business? Do you dread the days that you need to write a blog post or prepare a customer resource?
If any of these questions hit home, chances are you’ve thought about outsourcing.
Outsourcing content marketing can be a beautiful thing: You put the content creation, design, and even distribution in the hands of an expert, leaving you free to focus on your job. But, isn’t that cheating? (It’s not.) Are other companies doing it, too? (You bet.) Ultimately, is it a good business decision? (The top business blogs outsource about 24% of their content creation.)
We’ve created the following infographic to illustrate how other B2B marketers are handling outsourcing content marketing. Here are 13 statistics you need to know before you consider outsourcing.
(Made with Canva)
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by Fronetics | Jan 25, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
To stay relevant following Google’s mobile-first approach, marketers need to examine their company’s mobile user experience.
Marketers, take notice: Google’s announcement that it is experimenting with a “mobile-first” search index is a reminder to examine your website content and configuration. The message from the search engine giant is clear: Now is the time to enhance your company’s mobile online experience.
A mobile-first society
The future is pointing toward increasing mobile device use. In 2015, mobile traffic accounted for more than half of internet traffic, and that percentage is growing. Google reported that more searches take place on mobile devices than on desktops. In response to this trend, Google’s new algorithms will rank mobile-friendly web pagers higher in search results than desktop pages.
These days, it’s pretty much a given that your clients and customers own a mobile device and use it quite often in their professional lives. Your site needs to meet the expectations of the viewer, which is to access content easily via mobile. If you fall short of this, you’ll lose credibility and, ultimately, income.
What do B2B marketers need to do?
Google currently uses two indexes to rank search results, 1. desktop pages and 2. mobile pages. If Google makes good on its promise to have a mobile-only index, websites optimized for mobile use will get higher billing at the top of search results, leading to more clicks, more brand recognition, and, ultimately, more sales.
Marketers need to prepare now to ensure a prominent place in Google’s search results. Here are three tips on how to do that.
- Develop a strong working relationship with your webmaster — they are in the experts on the technical side and can keep you abreast of updates and trends in website optimization.
- Conduct an audit of your websites to check for SEO. Use a website such as http://responsivedesignchecker.com/ to give you real-time feedback.
- Become familiar with these three methods of web development:
- Responsive web design – allows website pages to adapt to whatever size screen the viewer is using.
- Dynamic serving – the server responds with different HTML (and CSS) on the same URL depending on the user agent requesting the page
- Mobile-only URL – each desktop URL has an equivalent different URL serving mobile-optimized content
Check here to see how your site is configured.
Google’s tips
Google offers tips to webmasters to make their sites mobile-first. If your site is already optimized for mobile with RWD or is a dynamic-serving site, you shouldn’t need to make any adjustments. But if not, work with your webmaster on the following:
- Serve structured markup for desktop and mobile versions
- Make sure your site is accessible to Googlebot
- Verify both desktop and mobile sites in Google’s Search Console
Should your business website be optimized for mobile searching? The short answer is undoubtedly yes.
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by Fronetics | Nov 28, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
Supply chain companies can use influencers in their prospects’ network as a strategic tool to gain new business.
The term “influencer marketing” often brings to mind celebrities endorsing their favorite brand of bottled water or jeans — not an image that is particularly useful for B2B businesses. However, B2B marketers should be taking this powerful trend in content marketing seriously.
While your supply chain may not benefit from an endorsement by Jennifer Aniston, you likely have brand influencers at your fingertips, which you may not even realize. Effectively leveraging these endorsements is a strategic tool for gaining new business.
Developing an influencer marketing strategy
Once you’ve identified your natural influencers, here are three important steps for building an influencer marketing strategy for your company.
1) Know your target buyer.
Rather than a scatter-shot approach, making the effort on the front end to identify your target buyer personas allows you to strategically target your customers. Understanding their needs, challenges, and purchasing structures is the key foundation to any content marketing effort, and influencer marketing is no exception.
2) Identify your industry influencers.
Industry influencers aren’t just the big names, though those people are certainly influential. It comes down to how your buyers make their purchasing decisions. The 2016 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report found that nearly half of B2B buyers use peers and colleagues as a major information resource when choosing a vendor.
Who are those peers and colleagues whom your target buyers turn to? Use every resource at your disposal to determine how they get their information. Connecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks is a great way to do this.
3) Use the right tools for your business.
Any effective content marketing strategy depends on using the most effective tools. In a post for CMS Connected, Leah Kinthaert makes a strong pitch for Twitter. She cites the ease of plugging in a hashtag or keyword in giving you “volumes of information — from who the influencers are in that industry to what today’s breaking news is on the topic.” Furthermore, clicking on a hashtag shows you what your competition is doing as well.
The bottom line is that influencer marketing can be an extremely effective aspect of a B2B business’ content marketing strategy. Knowing your buyers, finding your influencers, and effectively leveraging this information will help boost your social credibility, as well as generating new business.
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by Fronetics | Nov 10, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
Just as purchases are becoming more automatic, generating marketing content also needs to keep up with the times.
Automated purchasing systems are more and more in vogue, opening another avenue for strong content marketing to reign.
Did you know with the simple touch of a button, consumers are able to receive boxes of cereal, bags of coffee, and jugs of laundry detergent with hardly a thought? Amazon’s latest offering — the Dash Button — is a branded wireless device that allows consumers to efficiently order products right when they think of it. Customers can strategically place the button in their pantry, for example, so they can easily reorder supplies when reaching for the last bottle of water or opening the last bar of bath soap.
“Subscribe and save” programs available through retail giants such as Amazon and Target are another way to keep consumers stocked with the supplies they need. These items arrive on a pre-set schedule without the buyer even having to think about it. And subscription-based sales models offered by Dollar Shave Club, Starbucks, and Blue Apron keep consumers clicking through, adding big bucks to corporate coffers.
Influencing the preprogrammed bots
The robotization of consumer spending is changing the current model of marketing, advertising and shopping, according to a recent Harvard Business Review article, and marketers need to be prepared for the next level of automation in order to keep revenues streaming.
If this automation crosses into the B2B marketplace, suppliers will face new challenges — including finding ways to affect choices of preprogrammed “bots,” such as Amazon’s Dash Button. In this possible and increasingly likely world, HBR posits that advertising dollars will be diverted from traditional models to building relationships, challenging incumbents, increasing rates of consumption, and influencing marketing algorithms.
One such algorithm analyzes products that are pre-selected as the default brand in the item’s software (think: the scurry to become Apple’s default map program). Fresh and tailored content that even bots can process will be paramount to targeting content to buyers.
Content that educates the people behind the bots
In this future scenario, what can brands do to win business from competitors?
Certainly, it will take a significant effort to persuade a customer to change the algorithm’s default settings to another product or service. Vendors will have to produce highly targeted, personalized content that demonstrates a deep understanding of the customer’s business and how their product or service will better suit their needs.
Interestingly enough, that’s a preference that we’re already seeing among B2B buyers.
In the 2016 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report, 69% of buyers said relevant content that speaks directly to the company is very important, signaling that personalized content packages equate to satisfied customers and potential customers.
Using content to build relationships will continue to be of utmost importance, even in the age of bot-to-bot purchases. Optimize content to include buzz phrases and recognized keywords, and even bots will get the message.
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by Fronetics | Nov 9, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
Try these content formats and related tools for B2B social media content that keeps your audience engaged.
Conventional wisdom, careful market research, and common sense are all telling us that social media is transforming the way we do business. We know we should be leveraging these platforms to drive awareness, engagement, and revenue for our businesses. But creating content to share with your audience is actually more difficult than it sounds.
Character limits and the increasingly visual nature of these platforms means marketers are having to get creative with how they engage their audience. Here are four ideas and related tools that can help B2B organizations produce interesting, informative content that is suited to social media.
1) Video
The 2016 Social Media Marketing Industry Report rates the growing prevalence of video among its top findings for the year. It found that 60% of marketers are now using video in their marketing, and 73% are making it a goal to increase their use of video. This trend is for good reason — 64% of business that use video reported that it has led directly to increased sales.
Video is an efficient, visually appealing way to present your content in an imminently shareable format. Here are some online tools to help you create effective video content for your business.
- PowToon: A tool that guides users through the creation of animated videos and presentations, PowToon boasts an approachable interface and minimalist design that makes it simple for marketers with limited video experience.
- Magisto: Ideal for creating videos with emotional impact, Magisto features tutorials on creating video for your business, and allows users to create highly customizable video content through a simple interface.
- WeVideo: Featuring advanced video-editing tools with a simple interface, WeVideo is a cloud-based collaborative video editor that allows users the convenience of cloud video storage.
- Wideo: Allowing you to create videos in minutes, Wideo offers a variety of plans aimed toward working with your existing marketing strategy.
Creating your video is just the first step. Here are some places to upload and share your content:
- YouTube: The titan of video sharing services, YouTube allows for public and private upload, and gives users free access to analytics tools for their videos. Along the way, take a look at these valuable tips for getting more views on your YouTube videos.
- Vimeo: With a similar platform to YouTube, Vimeo is ideal for video sharing, discovery, and generating creativity.
2) Infographics
Social media platforms are becoming increasingly visual. A well-designed infographic makes your content visually appealing and delivers your message in a clear, easily digestible format. A recent report from eMarketer and the communications firm Lewis found the demands of social media and the format’s high engagement rates are key reasons for its use.
Here are some online resources that let you create and share infographics:
- ly: This site features a vast array of templates, which you can easily edit and customize and share immediately on social media platforms.
- Piktochart: With an easy-to-navigate interface, Piktochart allows you to create intricate, design-rich graphics, complete with icons, images, charts, and interactive maps, and publish them directly to social media platforms.
- Canva: This site allows for quick creation of infographics, as well as presentation covers, social media images, online advertisements, and flyers.
- Visme: A simple interface, Visme allows you to translate your ideas into engaging infographics, presentations, reports, and more. You can share your content online as a URL or on social media, embed it on your website, or download it.
3) Podcasts
The 2016 SME Report identifies podcasting as a relatively untapped way for marketers to engage with social media audiences. The audience for podcasts in the United States alone is close to 60 million people, making this medium a significant opportunity for businesses to engage with potential clients.
Here are some tools that can help you create quality audio content:
- Audacity: This open-source audio software lets you record audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings, and add your own audio effects.
- Podbean: This tool lets you quickly create and share professional podcasts, no programming knowledge necessary. You can publish them directly to social media platforms.
4) Slides
If you have a lot of dense, industry-specific content that you want to get out to your audience, presentations are ideal. Breaking up your content into slides lets you get the information to your network in an engaging and visually appealing way.
Here are some tools that help you create and share professional presentations:
- SlideShare: LinkedIn’s platform lets you build, upload, and edit presentations, and share them on social media.
- SlideBoom: Ideal for converting PowerPoint presentations to Flash, SlideBoom lets you share your presentations with your target audience.
- Prezi: This tool is available for download or as an online editor, and it allows you to add animations to your presentations and share your content on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Social media has changed the way businesses engage with their target customer base. Embracing these tools is key to creating and maintaining an active and loyal audience.
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