The Daily Carnage

The savvy marketer's hub for industry news, insights, resources, and culture.

Today’s Issue

The Year of Slop

SEO bait, syrup sneakers, and more.

Issues

View All

Can Your Content Handle Your Buyers?

APRIL 15, 2019

If marketing funnels functioned like real-life funnels, our jobs would be a lot easier.

Think about it.

We draft our sales funnels anticipating that customers will follow them from discovery to purchase. Unfortunately, the buyer’s journey isn’t always that linear. Research shows that 70% of buyers conduct over half their research online before making an offline purchase.

It’s important to recognize that your customers are going to follow a messy journey to your product or service.

Your content marketing efforts have to account for that ‘messy journey.’

So, how do you do it?

Produce more content that is relevant to your buyer’s journey. That might sound like a no-brainer, but there’s been a noticeable shift in brands producing content just to produce content. In turn, buyer’s continue to find less relevancy in the content itself and move on.

The folks at CMI did a bang-up job laying out the buyer’s journey and the thought process behind it.

Loosening of the status quo > Committing to change > Exploring possible solutions > Committing to a solution > Justifying the decision > Making the selection.

Takeaway: It’s easy to get caught up in sheer volume when it comes to content. Don’t do that. Focus on mapping out a content strategy that speaks to your buyer’s journey and is relevant enough to facilitate a purchase decision.

Stop the SEO Hype

APRIL 14, 2019

It’s SEO Monday!

Regardless of what space you’re in, something is always trending.

When it comes to SEO, it seems like there’s a new tactic or strategy every other day. We’re gonna address some of those trends and a few reasons you should avoid the hype.

Let’s do it.

Voice Search: It’s important to know the difference between voice search and voice assistance. Voice assistance will tell you the time, weather (etc.), while voice search will find you a late night diner after a few adult beverages. Why it’s overrated? Voice search is down in 2019 compared to the last 2 years. If you have a voice strategy in place that is bringing in revenue, good on ya, but the reality is that voice search is still in its infancy. We’re not suggesting to abandon voice search altogether, but do your research and follow the revenue.
Obsessive Rank Tracking: It’s not necessary to track every single keyword you find during your research phase. Why? The search intent behind every keyword is different. What to do differently: Focus on fewer keywords. It’ll vary based on your client, but 30 keywords are a heck of a lot easier to manage than 100.
Guest Posting: Does guest posting still work? Sure. But, if you’re not being featured on high-quality sites, there’s a chance that Google will detect link spam. Solution: Stay away from guest posting networks and focus your energy on publications in your industry.

Click the button below to see 2 more overhyped trends.

How to Optimize Your Company LinkedIn Page

APRIL 10, 2019

We talk a lot about SEO for your website, but you know who else needs some love?

LinkedIn.

With over 500 million members, LinkedIn continues to be the premier B2B social network. If you don’t already have a company LinkedIn page, here’s why you should:

More Traffic: Duh, right? Google ranks LinkedIn company pages and posts highly in the search engine results page.
Stand Out From the Competiton: Folks are savvier these days. They’re researching all your channels. You’ll look a lot more legit with a LinkedIn page.

Alright, now that you have your company page fired up, let’s talk about optimizing it.

Incorporate Keywords in Your Tagline: Look at your tagline as your ‘elevator pitch.’ Get right to the point by telling folks what you do and who you serve.
Write a Strong About Section: Groundbreaking stuff, huh? Hear us out though. This comes directly from LinkedIn. With your relevant keywords in mind, follow this framework:
- Vision. What future do we want to help create?
- Mission. How do we create that future?
- Values. Who are we? How do we work?
- Positioning. What makes our brand different?
- Tagline. Our brand summed up in one line.
- Products/Services. Here’s what we provide.
Link to Your Website: Think of your website as home base or your primary resource. Make sure you include a website link in your about section.
Complete Your Profile: LinkedIn likes company pages that are completed in their entirety. Finish it!
Update Frequently: It’s all about staying relevant and maintaining visibility to your followers. Make sure you’re consistently posting.

Got Questions?

APRIL 9, 2019

Show of internet hands, how many of you use Quora for marketing?

We couldn’t actually see your internet hands, so we’re gonna talk about Quora.

What is Quora?

The premise is simple. Folks ask and answer questions on just about any topic. The platform has been around for 10 years and drives around 300 million monthly users.

Quora has a similar feel to Reddit in that it relies on ‘upvoting’. Basically, the public gets to decide if your answer is worthy. #Pressure

If you aren’t using Quora in your marketing strategy, here are a few reasons to consider it.

Reach: The beauty of Quora is that it relies on user-generated content (UGC) and just so happens to be one of the most respected platforms in that regard. The ability to share questions and answers with 300 million monthly users is nothing to write off.
SEO: There’s a good chance that a Google search will yield a Quora result. Why? Because Quora questions are searchable through Google. Your content also remains evergreen.
Higher Quality Traffic: Potential customers want and need to feel like your product or service can solve their problem. If you’re successful at answering folks questions, you’re likely to drive some traffic to your website.
Insights: Don’t overlook using Quora for audience insights. The platform is built off of real human beings asking real questions. It has an “if you scratch my back” feel to it.

How to Develop Your Brand Voice

APRIL 3, 2019

When you think of iconic brands, what comes to mind?

Nike, Apple, Ford, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, etc.

Sure, there’s a visual component to all of these brands, but what about the voice and tone?

These are two things that often get overlooked. But, not today.

We’re sharing 5 ways to develop your brand voice.

Before we do that, you need to know the difference between voice and tone.

Voice: How you convey your personality to your audience. This should remain consistent.

Tone: The expression/moods/attitudes conveyed by your messaging. This will change frequently.

Now that you know the difference, let’s talk about establishing your brand voice.

Look at your mission statement: Your mission statement (or whatever you refer to it as) is a great place to start when determining your brand voice. It’s all about connecting your marketing efforts to your values. Mailchimp does a bang-up job with its content and style guide. Check it out here.
What are you working with: If you’ve already produced content and copy, it’s time to take a look at your current assets. Are there consistent themes? Do those themes match your values? Also, take note of your best-performing content. This should indicate what resonated with your audience.
Audience survey: If you have an engaged audience, ask them how they view your brand. Keep the survey simple with 3 questions or less.
Research your audience: Heard that before, right? But, try this. Google the names of your top 5-10 customers and check out their social media channels. What do they like? What do they read? Get your creep on.
Put together a brand voice chart: Do this, but don’t do that. That’s what your voice chart will dictate. The folks at Co-Schedule put together a template here. Download it and make it your own.

The Content Graveyard

MARCH 26, 2019

Before you dive into publishing anything new today, take 2 minutes to read this…

There’s a good chance you have some subpar content on your site.

What can you do about it?

More than you think.

Step one is to make sure your stale content isn’t competing with other articles on your site. This will not only hurt your search rankings, but it can also confuse your audience.

Once you’ve checked to make sure your content isn’t competing, it’s time to dive into hitting the ‘refresh’ button. Let’s do this.

Consolidate current posts: Determine the most important topics to your audience and couple that information with keyword research. Your goal here is to identify opportunities to show up on search. When your research is complete, head over to your blog and locate existing content that touches on your topics and keywords. Begin to consolidate these posts into a strong, up-to-date piece (aka pillar content). Then, redirect your outdated posts with a 301 redirect to your new pillar post. Ok, now have a drink.
Optimize for lead generation: Are you challenging your readers to engage and/or convert? Are you featuring relevant CTAs throughout and at the end of your articles? If the answer is yes and you’re not getting leads, you may need a new offer. If your answer is no, take some time to analyze your existing content to make sure you’re pushing your audience to engage.

On-Site SEO Tips

MARCH 24, 2019

It’s SEO Monday!

That’s not really a thing, but we typically talk SEO on Monday, so here goes.

While not everyone agrees on best practices, we feel like the following on-site SEO tips can be generally agreed upon.

Content Relevance: 90% of content generates no traffic from Google. That’s pretty staggering. You need to optimize for the following:

-User-intent: understand what your audience is searching for and why.
-Analyze the SERP of those keywords and see what’s ranking.
Deep Content: A HubSpot study found that content between 2,250 and 2,500 words tended to receive the most organic traffic. Creating long-form content can be beneficial for SEO and will make you look like a bawse in your space.

-Optimize deep content by…researching top ranking pages for a target keyword and analyzing their content.
-Use Answer the Public to flesh out questions users may have about that topic.
Tags: It’s crucial that you’re inserting target keywords into title tags and page titles. Yoast is great for this. Also, make sure you’re inserting relevant keywords into your (H2, H3, and H4s).

Copy That Converts

MARCH 20, 2019

When it comes to email marketing, who doesn’t want to create copy that converts? That’s the goal.

Unfortunately, these things take time. We’re gonna walk you through a few ways to improve your email marketing copy.

Stick with us…(we’re gonna move fast)

Write a Killer Subject Line: Duh, right? Folks need to feel compelled to open your email. Make it funny, give them some value, present some FOMO, etc. The goal is to get an open. Do what you need to do!
Clear the Clutter: Here’s an easy one. Keep your paragraphs short and use bullets. People like to skim these days. Try to keep your emails as clutter free as possible.
Avoid CAPS and Spam Trigger Words: Please don’t use CAPS. Your deliverability will suffer and people don’t like ’em. Here’s a list of spam trigger words to avoid.
Know Your Audience: We say this a lot, but it’s really important. You need to speak to your audience. Take some time to build out buyer personas and write copy that speaks to them.
Keep it Conversational: Your email copy should sound like a real conversation. Don’t be afraid to shorten some words up and have fun with it. It takes time to build your brand voice. Be patient and more importantly, be bold.
Call to Action: What do you want folks to do as a by-product of engaging with your email? Make sure you include a strong CTA in every email.

Remarket Like a Boss

MARCH 19, 2019

Is remarketing in your marketing plan? Heck yes, it is.

Let’s spend a couple of minutes discussing how to maximize your remarketing returns.

Is it Quality Traffic? In with the good, out with the bad. If you’re not getting quality traffic to your site or content, your remarketing campaigns won’t be successful. It’s that simple.Take a look at the following in your site analytics…Sources, Landing pages, Ad Campaigns, Keywords, etc. Keep an eye out for any glaring data. It could be a simple targeting tweak.
Analyze and Segment: Now that you’re checking out your site analytics, let’s start to break it down and segment target audiences.Here are a couple of ways to do it…-Segment folks that show intent through page visits. Ie: pricing, items added to cart, etc.-Segment from content specific pages. Are you targeting business owners on LinkedIn with a particular piece of content? Retarget them with something similar.
Think Big: Don’t confine your thought process to display remarketing only. There are plenty of channels to expand your remarketing efforts to; YouTube, paid social, shopping, paid search, etc. When you think bigger, you’ll be able to bid more aggressively and hopefully drive more action.