by Fronetics | Apr 9, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Video Marketing
If you’re trying to build a YouTube audience, you’ll need equal parts strategy, creativity, concision, and valuable subject matter.
Highlights:
- Strategy and creativity are top priorities.
- Keep content short and sweet for maximum impact.
- Offer value to your audience rather than a sales pitch.
An increasing percentage of search traffic is perusing YouTube for information, advice, and education. That makes the platform ideal for getting in front of prospects looking for products and services like yours.
But I’ve seen a lot of B2B marketers getting YouTube wrong. The good news is that the problem is usually that they’re trying too hard — and not in the right ways.
To effectively build a YouTube audience that will eventually become leads and, hopefully, customers, you need to be distributing video content that showcases your organization’s expertise in an approachable way. Here are some simple rules for how to go about that (without barking up the wrong tree).
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4 ways to build a YouTube audience
1) Be disciplined about your content schedule.
When it comes to publishing content on social media, when you post is nearly as important as whatyou post. YouTube is no different. Creating and sticking to a consistent schedule for posting new content essentially trains your audience and lets them know when they can expect to hear more from you.
Creating video content consistently doesn’t need to feel like reinventing the wheel. First off, videos should be part of your content calendar in the same way as blog posts, case studies, and other forms of content. You don’t need to create brand new material for each video. Take a high-performing blog post and re-package the ideas into video content.
2) Get creative.
Creativity for B2B companies is all about striking the right balance between entertaining presentation and informative, high-quality content. Think about approaching the information you want to convey in a different way. Can you use a different medium (like animation) or interview two subject-matter experts together if your one-on-one interviews are feeling stale?
There are plenty of technologies available today that will help you create exciting, engaging video content relatively cheaply. Or you could always consider outsourcing your videography.
3) Keep it short.
While we’ve seen recent growth in long-form YouTube content, for most B2B marketing purposes, shorter videos are far more effective. Of course, this is good news in that producing shorter videos can be less time-consuming and costly. But I cannot emphasize enough the importance of quality over quantity here.
[bctt tweet=”A 1- to 2-minute video of high-quality, well-edited content will get far more engagement (and be more successful in helping you build a YouTube audience) than 15 minutes of lecturing or poorly executed, complex animation.” username=”Fronetics”]
A 1- to 2-minute video of high-quality, well-edited content will get far more engagement (and be more successful in helping you build a YouTube audience) than 15 minutes of lecturing or poorly executed, complex animation. If you have a lot of footage about a certain subject, consider releasing a series of shorter videos.
4) Don’t make video a sales pitch.
Content marketing is inbound marketing, and video is no different. Countless studies have shown that increasingly buyers prefer informative, valuable content to blatant sales pitches.
This doesn’t mean that your content shouldn’t be branded, but it does mean that your focus in creation and execution needs to be what you can offer your audience, rather than you’re asking from them.
Use your video content to address specific concerns or answer questions that are relevant to your target audience. It’s simple: if you give something of value, you will build a YouTube audience that could eventually become your leads and customers.
What have you been doing to build a YouTube audience?
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by Fronetics | Oct 10, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Follow these 3 steps to use social media to promote events, conferences, and other business occasions.
Social media is a powerhouse tool for growing brand awareness, audience engagement, and lead generation. It’s also one of the most effective ways out there to promote special events.
[bctt tweet=”Social media is a powerhouse tool for growing brand awareness, audience engagement, and lead generation. It’s also one of the most effective ways out there to promote special events.” username=”Fronetics”]
But simply creating a Facebook event and sharing it once or twice won’t get you the most bang for your buck. You need to be strategic about your use of social media to promote events and conferences.
Follow these 3 steps to make the most of social media as a promotional tool.
3 steps to use social media to promote events for your business
1. Choose your platform wisely
Not all social media channels are created equal, and neither are all events. Finding the platform that suits the unique needs of your event or conference is a big part of a successful promotional campaign. For instance, Facebook is a great option for large-scale public events, since it lets you hone in on your target audience in specific ways.
On the other hand, for corporate events like seminars, conferences, and continuing education programming, LinkedIn is your best bet. LinkedIn lets you set up your event and allows attendees to network with each other before the event even happens.
When it comes to more informal events, Instagram is a great way to identify and engage with potential attendees. The platform’s highly visual nature is ideal for sharing imagery related to your event, and it’s an ideal place to use hashtags.
2. Pick a hashtag
If your social media circle includes people under the age of 35, you’ve probably noticed that pretty much every wedding, graduation party, and even family vacation has its own hashtag these days. Corporate events are no different. Hashtags are a fun and memorable way to foster a sense of community, and they have the important benefit of being an easy way to group all information, questions, and comments about your event.
The most effective hashtags tend to be short, memorable, and easy to read. It’s also worthwhile to do a quick search to make sure your hashtag hasn’t been used before. In all posts related to your event, use your hashtag prominently, and encourage your audience to do the same if they share or post independently.
3. Don’t forget about content
One of the most effective ways to promote events on social media is — you guessed it — content. Blog posts, related case studies, testimonials from former events, promotional interviews with potential attendees or keynote speakers, videos, case studies, and white papers/industry reports are all content types to consider.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you promote a new event. Chances are, existing content can be repurposed and reposted on social media channels. You’re serving the dual purpose of promoting your event and driving more traffic to view and interact with your content.
When it comes to promoting events, social media is your friend. Approaching it strategically can help you raise awareness, attendance, and interaction and reach for your brand.
How do you use social media to promote events?
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by Fronetics | Oct 4, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Guest posting can help you build your reputation as a thought leader, grow your contact list, improve your SEO, and expose your content to new audiences.
At Fronetics, we use guest posting as a part of our own — and many of our clients’ — content strategies. Essentially, we partner with a relevant influencer or company and swap content to post on each other’s blogs. It can be a really effective way to reach new, relevant audiences and provide interesting perspectives and voices to keep your core audience engaged.
What’s so great about guest posting?
Guest posting has all kinds of benefits. Every time you post as a guest, you expose your content to a whole new audience. We talk about the importance of exposure all the time when it comes to content marketing. Your biggest asset isn’t your products or services; it’s your expertise. Guest posting helps you establish your brand as a thought leader.
[bctt tweet=”Guest blogs can be a really effective way to reach new, relevant audiences and provide interesting perspectives and voices to keep your core audience engaged.” username=”Fronetics”]
In addition to posting with industry influencers and peer brands, guest posting for larger publications can be hugely beneficial, for obvious reasons. Not only are you introducing your brand and content to a broad audience, you’re associating yourself with an established authoritative source.
By the same token, having other brands author guest posts on your own blog is a great idea as well. When key influencers write for your blog, they bring their audience directly to you, allowing you to tap into a new and relevant set of prospects. Not only that, by inviting peers to contribute to your content, you’re forging and strengthening relationships within the industry.
Guest posting is great for SEO
We’re always talking about how to improve your SEO. One benefit of guest posting that’s often overlooked is that it can significantly improve your search engine rankings.
Search engines use backlinks from other websites, particularly popular ones, as part of their algorithms that determine how search results are ranked. According to online business expert Sarah Peterson, in a guest article for the Huffington Post, “You can use the opportunity of your guest post to include 1-2 backlinks to strong pieces of content you want to rank for.”
Grow your contact list
We all know that email marketing is hugely effective and profitable, if your contact list is strong and effectively segmented. Another often overlooked benefit of guest posting is that it has the potential to strengthen and enrich your email marketing efforts.
Because you’re being exposed to new audiences, both as a guest blogger and when guests write for your blog, you have the opportunity to target and cultivate new leads from relevant sources. Use guest posts as an opportunity to usher prospects to lead generation campaigns on your own website.
Says Peterson, “if you’re not using this marketing strategy, you could be leaving a ton of email subscribers on the table.”
How do you use guest posting in your content strategy?
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by Fronetics | Sep 5, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
When your content marketing and sales forces align their efforts, they form a powerful symbiotic relationship that grows your brand and your bottom line.
There’s a big misperception out there that content marketing represents some kind of threat to the job security of sales personnel. It’s absolutely true that content marketing is an inbound approach, contrary to the traditional outbound approach of a B2B sales force. But make no mistake: Content marketing is not a substitute or replacement for an expert sales staff.
[bctt tweet=” It’s absolutely true that content marketing is an inbound approach, contrary to the traditional outbound approach of a B2B sales force. But make no mistake: Content marketing is not a substitute or replacement for an expert sales staff.” username=”Fronetics”]
In fact, it’s when marketing and sales work in tandem that they’re most effective. They can help each other out to generate more leads, nurture current leads more effectively, and even help close more deals.
Content marketing helps generate a steady flow of quality leads, and it provides targeted information to usher prospects down the sales funnel. But even quality leads don’t turn into sales on their own. This is where a sales staff comes in, to take those leads and cultivate them into new business.
Content marketing and sales: Division of labor
For content marketing and sales to work seamlessly together, it’s important to have a clear idea of the role of each. They provide different touch points for leads at each stage of the buying cycle. Here’s a quick primer:
1. Forming a relationship
In this early stage of the buying cycle, your content marketing efforts go toward opening up a dialogue with potential customers. Often, potential leads’ first engagement with your brand comes when they read one of your blog posts, come across your website while searching for product solutions, or see one of your social media posts through their network.
This is when your sales staff picks up the ball, keeping that positive contact going by developing it into a conversation. It’s your sales team’s job to cultivate an ongoing personal relationship with that prospect.
2. Providing information
Now that you’ve established a relationship and your sales team is continuing a dialogue with your prospect, content marketing can step in. B2B buyers report spending more time than ever conducting research, using expert content such as vendor websites, user reviews, and social media before making purchasing decisions. The content that you share with prospects at this stage of the buyer’s journey should be designed to answer informed questions and tip the scales in your favor.
At this stage, your sales staff should be directly answering questions from prospects. When a potential customer reaches out with a query, it’s likely that he or she has done a fair amount of research. So your sales reps need to speak specifically to the customer’s needs in a way that content alone can’t do, to keep them interested and moving down the funnel.
3. Advocating for your brand
Content marketing increases brand awareness for your business. It helps elevate your brand position within the industry and keeps your business top-of-mind, even at a time when potential customers aren’t ready to make a purchase.
When a customer is preparing to make a purchase, your sales staff is the primary advocate for your brand. They should be proactive in pursuing business when customers show interest in your content or when they reach out with questions. They drive dialogue and get to know customers and how your business can help them.
A match made in heaven
When content marketing and sales work together, you’ll see the results hit your bottom line. Curating and creating great content will generate quality leads for your company. And it also empowers your sales force to build relationships with potential customers — and close the sale.
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by Fronetics | Jul 23, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Part four in our series on effective lead generation walks you through how to create a form that converts leads, getting you the information you need without driving prospects away.
Welcome to the last installment of our series on effective lead generation and nurturing. Now that you know how to:
- Create and package a valuable offer
- Add calls-to-action that work
- Design a landing page that converts
So, what’s next? The final step in the lead generation process, and one that’s too often overlooked and undervalued, is designing a form that gets you the information you need.
It’s all in your form
When prospects get to your landing page, they’ve indicated that they’re interested in your offer. Ideally, what they find on your landing page has reaffirmed their interest. Now it’s time for them to provide you with what you’re looking for in return for the value you’re offering them: their contact information.
The information you glean from your prospects will feed into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or other lead management database. This means that you should essentially be retrofitting your form based on your email segmentation criteria. In other words, you want to get just the right information from your prospects that will allow you to tailor your lead nurturing to best suit their needs and interests.
[bctt tweet=”An effective form strikes the delicate balance between acquiring all the necessary information and keeping the willingness and attention of your visitors.” username=”Fronetics”]
Your head might be filling with visions of long and comprehensive questionnaires — not so fast. If you make your form too long or involved, prospects will abandon it out of impatience and frustration, or feel that you are exploiting them for more time or information than they’re willing to provide. An effective form strikes the delicate balance between acquiring all the necessary information and keeping the willingness and attention of your visitors.
3 characteristics of forms that convert leads
For this last and crucial step in your lead generation strategy, it’s all about capturing leads. So, what makes for an effective form?
1. Find the length that works for you.
Conventional wisdom would have you believe that the shorter your form the more leads you’ll get, whereas the longer the form, the better quality (though fewer) leads you’ll get. But that’s a bit of a simplistic and defeatist way of looking at it.
We think you can have your cake and eat it, too. The key is to design your form with your email segmentation criteria in mind.
Ask as few questions beyond the basics as possible to get you precisely the information you need. Your goal is richness of information, as opposed to lengthy, detailed questions. For more, check out HubSpot’s guide to creating a form.
2. Don’t frighten them away.
It may seem counterintuitive, but you should avoid using the word “submit” on your form. Nobody likes the idea of “submitting” their information.
Instead, use a phrase that demonstrates that your prospect is about to get something that they want by supplying their information. For example, “Get it free,” or, “Download now,” emphasizes what the prospect will receive, rather than what they will be giving.
3. Protect their privacy.
In the current climate, we’re all thinking more and more about how our data gets collected and shared. Make sure your prospects know that you’ll be a good steward of the information they provide you.
Add a privacy message or link to your privacy policy, indicating that their email or contact information won’t be shared or sold.
Creating forms that convert leads is the final step — though one of the most crucial — in effectively turning website visitors into prospects. If you can manage to create a valuable offer, entice visitors with a call-to-action, convince them to convert on a landing page, then present a form that encourages them to complete it (rather than drives them away), then you’ve done your job as a marketer.
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