Slow Your Content Marketing Down
‘Bout to blow your mind: 86 million blog posts are published on WordPress…every month! EVERY MONTH! Why are we telling you this? To prove the point that there’s already a ton of content out there in the world. So if you want to gain traction with your content, publishing more often probably isn’t the answer.
Time to embrace a new strategy—Slow Drip Content MarketingTM. (Just made that up. When you hear your CMO mention it in 6 months, remember you heard it here first.)
So what is this movement? It’s all about creating less, but better content. “Better” means more effective, higher ranking, more conversions, etc.
To further this idea, marinate on these stats:
- HubSpot found that over 90% of its blog leads came from old blog posts.
- An American Marketing Association study found that brand marketers increased their publishing by 800% over five years only to find engagement per post declined by 89%.
- Orbit Media research revealed that content creators who spend longer on each post see stronger results. Publishing frequency was not a differentiator.
Right sooo…like…how do we do Slow Drip Content Marketing?
- Hire better writers. People want to read things that are worth their time. If your writers are publishing weak content, no one is going to care. Push your budget to hire the best writer you can afford—one who specializes in your industry niche and speaks keenly to your target customer.
- Treat titles like the bait they are. Your titles should not be clickbait, but they should capture attention. Use title formula tools, like this one from Jeff Goins, or this one from CMI.
- Make use of your archives. With this strategy, you’ll be publishing less, but you’ll be able to better reuse old content! You can repost it on social media, or send it to segments of your email list. Speaking of which…
- Segment your audience (and segment it again). Go deep with segments. Segment people who have clicked on specific links, those who haven’t, people based on location, based on how they subscribed to your list, etc.
More to learn about Slow Drip Content Marketing…
Maximize Retention by Paying Attention to these 5 Things in Your Customer Data
Take it from this creative who shudders at the idea of cold, hard numbers—exciting secrets lie at the center of customer data. Secrets that inform your marketing strategies to unlock profound opportunities. By knowing what to look for and hunting for the right patterns, you’ll eventually uncover unlimited possibilities for your brand to retain customers. We like the sound of that.
Not sure how to go about that process? That’s where this blog post from Post Funnel comes in. They’ve included five customer data buckets, along with notes on how they can help you design a top-notch customer retention strategy.
We know you like your customers. Let’s figure out how to keep ’em around:
1) Mine Demographics from Loyal Customers: When leveraging data top optimize retention, one of the best places to start is all of the demographic info you have on your loyal customers. Look at attributes like:
- Geographic location, age or gender
- Company size, industry or vertical
- Business model
- Job title or salary
2) Identify Long-Term Success Events: Beyond looking at demographic info, examine how long-term customers interact with your brand over time. You can segment them based on how they interact with different marketing messages or channels, as well as your actual product.
3) Look at Customer Communication: Look at both qualitative and quantitative data from support interactions and other communications throughout the customer lifecycle. When and why do customers reach out for help? When and why do they just give up and churn instead? By studying their behaviors and asking for direct feedback, you can identify customers’ roadblocks when using the product.
Follow the link to explore more data buckets, see examples from other companies, and other insightful customer retention tips.
Here Lies
Transportation powered by sunlight and magnets might sound like a joke, but the team at Hyperloop Transportation Technologies want you to know that it is definitely not a joke.
Their newest (and only) ad starts as a eulogy to the Rust Belt. The Rust Belt, as the ad points out, was where transportation in America was born. The manufacturing in these cities built many of the planes, trains, and automobiles that transformed the country.
Once the industry in those cities fell apart, so did the cities. But, Hyperloop is here to revive the Rust Belt with their first segment, which they say will move people from Cleveland to Chicago in just 30 minutes.
This beautifully shot, narrated, and directed ad that starts as a eulogy ends with a promise: “Here lies the Rust Belt. Long live the Hyperloop Belt.”
“This is the copywriter’s task: not to create mass desire—but to channel and direct it.”
Eugene Schwartz