Pitchfork Opts Out of the Pageview Rat Trace (Digiday)
User experience and revenue are two equal forces that are sometimes at odds.

Is it your profits that tell you whether you’re cultivating a great multimedia experience? Here’s one brand that’s putting its foot down in favor of its readers.

How We Grew Crazy Egg to 100,000 Users with a $10,000 Marketing Budget (Neil Patel)
When you’re just starting up, you need to make the most out of a shoestring budget. The key to growing your business on a small budget?

Press, SEO, business partnerships, and conference presentations. The key to growth is distribution through content, people, and technology. Here is Crazy Egg’s amazing story.

3 Ways to Come Up with Popular Blog Topics (TOFU Marketing)
Blogging is your most powerful customer acquisition tool. If you’re not writing as often as you can, you may be missing out on a powerful networking opportunity.

There’s a powerful force, however, that holds even the smartest business leaders back — writer’s block. Here’s TOFU Marketing’s guide to brainstorming better blog topics.

What You Need to Know About Marketing Automation (Search Engine Watch)
In the audience engagement world, email marketing is a powerful tool — but are you leveraging this resource as much as you can?

Marketing automation is key for reaching your segmenting demographic groups, targeting the right users, and sending emails at just the right time. Be data-driven and as efficient as you possibly can. Automation is key.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Compared to This, Your Mission Statement Sucks (Inc)
Worried that your mission statement is missing the mark? You’re probably right in thinking you’re veering off-course.

Mission statements are hand-crafted with the best of intentions, but most of the time, they fall flat. Here’s some inspiration from one that totally rocks.

What Is Authentic Leadership (Forbes)
Content marketing helps position your brand as a thought leader. A core component to your strategy? Authenticity.

So what exactly is authentic leadership? It’s about being true to your team, vulnerabilities, ideals, and actions. Authentic leadership is what gives your brand boundless influence. Don’t abuse it. Here’s how to get it right.

Is Native Advertising Just Another Term for ‘Good Advertising?’ (Mashable)

Mashable’s Todd Wasserman may be on to something here.

Historically, advertising and user experience have been perpetually at odds. Digital media is truly switching things up to help marketers realize that brands and audiences can harmoniously co-exist. And truly respect one another.

7 Company Blogs that Build Community (Crazy Egg)
For your reading pleasure, Grasshopper Group’s Emma Siemasko rounds up some of the best company blogs online.

She points out that a good blog is more than just an SEO tool or ‘nice to have’ for users. It’s a community-builder, resource for users, and invaluable platform for sparking partnerships. If you’re not seeing results from your blog, you need to put more muscle behind it. Here are 7 brands  that are getting it right.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Contently’s VP of content Sam Slaughter was joined on the panel by Mary Ellen Slayter, founder of Reputation Capital Media, and Leslie C. Reiser, head of Midsize Insider, a website and content marketing arm of IBM. The panel was moderated by Michelle Rafter, an ASJA member and founder of the blog WordCount: Freelancing in the Digital Age.

The average age of newspaper readers is 57 years old, Reiser said, explaining how companies like IBM are exploring new ways to remain relevant by becoming publishers.

For example, beyond people visiting the IBM homepage, by pushing content outward through a variety of channels, the brand can reach consumers as a trusted source of quality information. As such, one of IBM’s content arms, the website MidsizeInsider.com, recently became a Google News provider. That means it’s a recognized news entity, not an advertorial or promotional site — an important distinction that journalists are beginning to recognize.

Companies and corporations of all sizes are using similar strategies to engage, entertain, and capture an audience. Slaughter said he attributes this rise in content marketing budgets to the fact that banner ads and SEO-driven content are less effective, especially as Google continues to tweak its algorithm in favor of stories with substance and shareability.

Slayter agreed, which is why she used her background in traditional journalism as a foundation to create her company, Reputation Capital Media, which creates premium B2B content for companies. “There’s a move away from buying other people’s audiences,” she said. Many of her clients are small to mid-sized businesses, so it’s not just the Coca-Colas of the world that are employing content marketing strategies, she noted.

Also trying to gain a competitive advantage are the journalists who are aiming to bring on content marketing clients as a key part of their business mix, such as was the case for many of those attending the ASJA session.

If you’re an aspiring content writer, here are some of the tips that were shared to keep in mind when exploring this area of the writing business:

Think outside of your media comfort zone.

Writers who are used to pitching editors for work should go to industry conferences and make connections with directors of marketing, said Slayter. “That’s your client,” she said. You can do this virtually by joining industry discussions and groups on LinkedIn, too, she suggested.

Be an influencer.

Do this and you’ll get noticed, said Reiser. Those who blog on their own, have a specific expertise, and have a good social media following are highly coveted by her team. If you are more of a generalist, however, don’t fret. It’s really the journalistic skills of accurate reporting and writing talent that are most in demand.

Forget the myth about going to “the dark side.”

The traditional separation between journalism and PR or advertising should not scare writers away from work, the panelists agreed. The lines have been blurred between traditional publishers and brands. As long as you disclose any affiliations that might pose a conflict of interest at the onset of a writing project, taking on content marketing work will not mean the end of your journalism career.

On the contrary, content marketing is providing a glimmer of hope to journalists who have been battered by a tough publishing industry.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

The Changing Face of Content Authorship on the Web (Lance Haun)
Here’s a look into the power of distribution. It’s amazing how one Amazon review can instantly amass more pageviews than your blog, guest posts, and social media profiles combined.

It may lead you to get discourage and give up blogging altogether. Do yourself a favor and don’t. What you need is a centralized hub for your content and online identity. That’s  your blog.

Can Display Advertising Work for B2B Marketers? (VantageLocal)
Even if you’re marketing to businesses, the ability to build brand awareness is key. Display is an important part of this mix, but you need to get your strategy right.

It’s not as simple as throwing a banner on a webpage either. You need managed site placements, contextual targeting, and retargeting. Through ad exchanges, it’s possible to reach the niche audiences (that you absolutely need to find) at massive scale.

The Top Five SEO Mistakes (Search Engine Land)
SEO is far from a dead discipline — is it a part of your brand’s content strategy. Search engines are powerful referral tools.

Make sure that you include the right words on your page, ensure that your website is crawlable, and leverage webmaster resources. And what shouldn’t you do? Dwell on link-building and keyword-stuffing your content. Be natural, but be smart.

How to Avoid the Broke Brand Trap (Clarity)
‘Rough times’ does not even begin to explain the early days of starting a business. To kickstart your growth and marketing (at a low cost), your content strategy is key.

Image courtesy of futureshape/flickr

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Performance pay can be smart because it invests journalists in the business metrics that publishers care about, ensuring that everyone is working towards the same goal.

Gawker’s Big Board, which hangs prominently in the Gawker’s headquarters tracking the top performing stories, has long been lauded as a key to the success of Nick Denton’s publishing empire. Even old school publishers like Forbes have embraced performance pay.

So does performance pay make sense for brand publishing? Let’s examine some of the pros and cons.

PRO: You’ll get your writers invested in your brand publishing efforts.

A lot of times, brand journalists feel like mercenaries: willing to trade their skills for cash, but not truly invested in the project at hand.

Adding performance incentive to pay can make brand journalists much more invested in the project’s success, and more likely to promote their branded work to their social graph and other audiences.

CON: Brand publishers have different success metrics than media publishers.

For most media publishers, traffic is paramount, since they’re running an ad-based business. As a result, publishers often most value content that performs well in search engines and generates shares on social media, since new visitors are usually acquired through SEO and social.

While brand publishers want the pieces they publish to perform well on social and search, they probably don’t want that to be the top priority of their brand journalists. The tone, message, and quality of the piece is significantly much more important. After all, Gawker can make a traffic push by publishing an edgy post featuring a celebrity’s topless tweet and get a big traffic win. If HSBC does the same thing, they might get a lot of traffic, but it’ll be a big disaster.

PRO: Your journalists will be more likely to tell you when an assignment is a bad idea.

If a brand journalist’s pay is tied into how well her piece performs, she’ll be much more likely to speak up when you give her a boring assignment that likely won’t perform very well. Instead of just banging out the piece and pocketing the cash, she’ll suggest an improved alternative.

CON: Performance pay will scare some journalists off.

For journalists, performance pay at Gawker — which has SEO juice and a huge audience/social following — is one thing; performance pay at an upstart branded magazine is another thing all together. How does a journalist know that their posts will receive any traffic at all? Some will think that they’re being set up for failure.

In addition, some journalists are simply promoting their branded work to their own social networks, which performance pay encourages. You definitely don’t want to miss out on top talent because of performance pay.

The takeaway

Performance pay can definitely provide brand journalists with incentives that will boost their productivity, but it can also raise serious issues. Brands that want to experiment with performance pay should make it a small percentage of overall pay (5-10%) and give brand journalists the option of a flat rate without performance pay.

We’re still in the early stages of the brand publishing movement, and performance pay is definitely an issue to keep an eye on.

Image courtesy of jessamyn/flickr

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Why BuzzFeed’s Attempt to Reinvent Online Advertising Is a Lot Harder Than It Looks (PaidContent)
BuzzMedia makes ‘viral’ content look so darn easy. Don’t be fooled, however — it’s a lot harder than it looks.

Native advertising is a sophisticated art form. That’s why it works. That’s why readers respond do it. If you’re thinking of executing a native advertising campaign, here are the building blocks of what you absolutely need to know (from the best of the best).

5 Marketing Experts Who Will Rock Your World (Grasshopper Group)
Behind every great strategy is a brilliant strategist. If you’re on the hunt for a new source of inspiration, look no further than these amazing industry pioneers.

Whether you’re practical, in love with SEO, visually inclined, generalist-minded, or entrepreneurial, these five leaders will quickly become your most powerful marketing masterminds.

7 Essential Steps for SEO Success (American Express OPEN Forum)
SEO has undergone a major face lift, but as a marketing trend, it’s far from dead. So don’t ignore it.

Keyword research, strong content, accessibility, and technical health are some of your strategy’s core nuts and bolts. Here’s a thorough breakdown of what you need to know. Human to human.

Texting the Wrong Person Is Awkwardly Hilarious on Tumblr (Mashable)
Over and over again, these amazing Tumblr-blogs surface — some with hilarious memes (ahem, Ryan Gossling) and others with emotionally captivating stories.

The lesson that accompanies these channels is profound — human experiences are timeless and powerful. Embrace the funny and emotionally moving. It’s your best content strategy.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

According to an infographic by Marketo, content marketing is a growing force because it develops trust and minimizes risk, drives traffic and captures leads, and nurtures those leads. 

The biggest problem for content marketers is figuring out how to produce engaging content, followed by trying to produce enough content. Over the next year, 51 percent of B2B marketers will increase their budgets for content marketing, and currently, an average of 26 percent of all budgets are devoted to content marketing.

Frank Reed of Marketing Pilgrim points to Econsultancy and Responsys marketing data that finds that in terms of digital marketing spending, content marketing is leading the way. Seventy one percent of marketers plan to increase digital marketing budgets in 2013, and the highest ranked priority is content marketing, followed by search engine optimization and email marketing.

The Inbound Writer found that 61 percent “of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content” and claim they will be more likely to buy from such a company. One of the top three reasons that people follow brands on social media is for interesting content, and “social media sites and blogs reach 8 out of 10 of all U.S. Internet users and account for 23% of all time spent online.”

Content marketing is cheaper than outbound marketing, which includes advertising. The average cost of lead generation through inbound marketing is $143, which is about half of the average for outbound marketing.

Image courtesy of John Kasawa/shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

By including these features, content marketers and writers can best ensure that their blogs will find an audience and resonate with it.

1. Begin with knowing your purpose

Marcus Sheridan, marketer and president of The Sales Lion, says that every blog post should have a purpose.

“A post should always address a need or a problem that a customer has or will have. For me that’s where it starts,” he said. ”It’s based on the questions that customers ask.”

2. Make it useful

Along with answering inquiries, blog posts should teach readers something new.

Amy Izzo, marketing director at Marketri, says her company writes posts so that customers can “get the educational tidbits in small digestible form. The reader might not go out and buy an industry publication but they’ll Google [a topic] and read the post. Then they might end up visiting the company’s site.”

3. Start a conversation

Both marketers agree that blog posts should be conversational in nature.

Sam Peters of Remarkablogger points out that this can be accomplished by being personal, asking questions, and arguing for a cause.

Sheridan says this is one the most important parts of a blog post: “I think everyone should have an opinion [in a post]. The more black and white you can be the more successful it’ll be. The people that stand out in the industry actually have something to say. Too many people are afraid to have an opinion on anything.”

Izzo also doesn’t hesitate in letting her clients know that an opinion or an argument is a good idea.

“We tell our clients that it’ll be fine to be somewhat controversial and illicit comments to a degree,” she says. ”It’s also acceptable to give your opinion in a blog post, which is different than an article. Those are a little bit more objective, but blog posts are a way that you can show some personality. People want to read your blog post because they want some knowledge, but there needs to be a human touch as well.”

4. Interact with readers

The conversation can start on the blog, but it should continue in the comments section.

“When your readers see you responding back to comments, they get encouraged to share their thoughts,” according to Mustafa of Performance Marketing Insider. “Everybody wants to be heard, and acknowledged. People want to build a relationship with the blogger via commenting. So by intelligently responding back to comments, you’ll automatically get more readers to participate.”

5. Visualize it

In an increasingly visual world, images and videos should be inserted to optimize any blog post.

“Images give it more interest, and are more eye catching,” says Izzo.

“We have tried out making posts multimedia and given tutorials. It’s nice to have both the print there and something else to refer to, such as a video.”

6. No bragging

Companies should follow these guidelines, and beware of falling into common traps. Sheridan says that the worst thing a brand can do in a blog post is brag.

“Companies can’t just talk about how awesome they are the whole time,” he says. ”Nobody cares unless you teach them something that they needed to know.”

7. Write great headlines

Danny Iny of Make a Living Writing says to do the research and post something that hasn’t been covered. Also, a headline has to be eye catching.

Izzo concurs, “I think it’s important to have a headline that’s really going to grab peoples’ attention. If not, you’re going to lose half the audience. There needs to be something quantifiable for the headline so readers will know what they’ll come away with after reading your post.”

8. Promote, promote, promote

After all is said and done, a blog post cannot just sit there. It must be promoted so that it will actually be read.

Izzo says that packaging different blog posts into an e-newsletter is a great way to get readers to read more than one post from a brand. Sheridan is also an advocate of email marketing, but says it depends on the industry.

If the company’s industry is common, and the web is saturated with information on the same topic, SEO would not be the way to go. Instead, social media and e-newsletters should be the main focus. However, if content in a field is scarce, keywords and search algorithms should be taken into consideration.

Blog posts are a key to any content marketing plan. The formula for success is right in front of marketers, and should be utilized for the right purposes.

Image courtesy of Thinglass/shutterstock, Brian A Jackson/shutterstock, Diego Cervo/shutterstock, kexino.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Step 1: Accept that the audience must drive your content

Identifying the target audience isn’t just important — it’s essential, says Michelle Lowery, content strategy manager for Outspoken Media, a digital marketing solutions firm.

And it’s not only essential because readers are the consumers, they are also potential advocates.

“The current audience definitely has to like and identify with the content so they feel an affinity for the brand, which can perpetuate their brand loyalty,” she says. ”But brands also rely on their audiences to share that content, thereby extending the brand’s reach and possibly bringing in more customers.”

By really knowing your audience, brands can design products and services and develop content that suits them specifically, says Mary Haugh, vice president of strategy and account management and Joe Cecere, president and chief creative officer of Little & Company, a Minneapolis-based design firm, whose client list includes Target, Microsoft and Wells Fargo.

The overall goal is to create a connection with your audience by engaging in a conversation based on what their interests are, they say.

They said their firm treats content as “a dialogue; it’s personal and on-going.”

Step 2: Identify the audience

Target audiences can be defined by both demographics (age, household income)
 and psychographics (behaviors, attitudes, motivations, goals, purpose, 
interests, shared impact, etc.).

But determining which categories of readership fits a brand might not always be clear-cut, says Lowery, which is why some initial conversations and ongoing research is key.

“For a new brand, content is usually produced with the goal of building an initial audience, and for that, the client usually has a specific demographic in mind that they want to target,” she said. ”Whereas, for more established brands, it’s about keeping the existing audience engaged and interested, while also expanding it and bringing new people into the community.”

One of Outspoken Media’s clients offers language-learning courses on CD. While most people think of travel as the top reason for wanting to learn a new language, Lowery’s team worked with the brand to dig deeper to identify a new segment of their core target audience.

“We simply asked the question, ‘Who else would need or want to learn a second language?’” she said. ”We did some research, and found that homeschooling is on the rise, and it can sometimes be difficult for homeschooling parents to include language instruction if they don’t speak another language themselves.”

The goal then was to build an extensive resource section on the brand’s site that caters to homeschooling parents and teachers, with the angle that learning a language can be an activity parents can do along with their kids.

Step 3: Focus and tweak your message

Ultimately, keeping your audience engaged is all about listening.

“Smart marketers always keep tabs on their core consumer base,” say Cecere and Haugh of Little & Company. “Those
 who take note and evolve with consumers will never have to play catch-up 
or, worse, shutter the doors.”

They say marketers must ask themselves the following hard question constantly: Is the intended message clearly getting through to the brand’s target audience? And if not, how can your content plan change?

Little & Company was hired by RedBrick Health to help garner partnerships with major employers and their employees to promote healthier, more productive workforces. But research showed that RedBrick was often confused as the actual health insurance provider.

“Our challenge was to better define the target audience and their needs, and articulate RedBrick’s business model and benefit in the marketplace in a way that was relatable,” said Haugh and Cecere.

They identified a group they termed ”Healthy Planners,” those with a health-readiness mindset but showed the greatest opportunity for health improvement — for example, those who engaged in poor health behaviors, were high risk and middle-aged.

“We then created a strong position that defines the company as one who helps employees actively manage their health choices and, when necessary, navigate the complex healthcare system – carving out a niche for the brand,” they said.

Step 4: Build upon what works to grow your audience

One of the most important things brands can do when creating content is not just cater to the audience they already have, but produce content for the audience they want, says Lowery.

Haugh and Cecere also recommend thinking beyond just the end user. As such, they say it’s beneficial to aim content in three directions:

• toward your internal brand ambassadors;
• at your external consumers who directly affect your bottom line;
• and for the community influencers who can help propel your brand.

Over the course of the last three global Microsoft Office product launches, Little & Company had to develop messaging frameworks to three separate target audiences: home users, students, and small business owners.

But, all three content plans had to have the end goal of introducing the new features and benefits while maintaining one Microsoft Office brand voice.

“As a solution, we identified unique ways to present the product content on a global scale to each audience segment by identifying unique user scenarios for each audience, and keeping the story emotional, relevant and competitive,” say Haugh and Cecere.

In short, says Lowery, to produce content without both your current and potential audience in mind is, in a word, “pointless.”

Image courtesy of maxstockphoto/Shutterstock.com, Alfonso de Tomas/Shutterstock, timlewisnm/flickr

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

It was a simple trick that made him feel like he’d gotten a personal reply from the company’s founder — but he calls it one part of a well-executed email campaign that kept the service on the forefront of his mind and eventually led to him using Twilio to build a business.

Many professionals approach their desks each day with a dedication to churn through all emails and reach inbox zero, effectively regarding emails as an annoyance and sometimes bringing marketers to write off email for their own business completely.

But email still ranks up with search as the most popular activity on the Internet and when it comes to changing behavior (read: purchasing), A/B tests between email and blog marketing beg marketers to reconsider, McKenzie writes.

How did email earn such a negative perception? We all know that there are good reasons why people grimace at email. But that doesn’t mean the whole enterprise is doomed.

Email marketing services such as Mailchimp will suspend a company’s account if it seems to be importing email addresses from users who didn’t knowingly sign up. There’s an easy unsubscribe button, but there’s also a report abuse button — so marketers may feel they need to tread lightly on people’s inboxes.

Sometimes signup forms include a message such as “I promise I send newsletters barely ever,” as if apologizing for content in advance. This may be a fitting disclosure for someone who truly plans to send few emails, but it also contributes to the feeling that emails are somehow bad.

Of course, the loudest people on Twitter are not shy about their hatred for emails, sometimes complaining that answering emails could be a full time job. But the reason a fuss is made about emails is because, unlike an RSS feed or blogroll, your job requires you to pay attention to emails — putting a marketing message right next to a personal note from someone’s boss can raise the perceived value of that marketing email.

While brands might shift resources to shiny new social media channels, there’s proof they haven’t given up on email completely.

A recent report from Econsultancy reveals that 70 percent of respondents rate email as having “excellent” or “good” ROI — no other channel except SEO was rated so high.

A company without a marketing plan for email should do one thing immediately: begin collecting emails on its website.

Before Fashioning Change launched, or even built out a product, founder Adriana Herrara put up a splash page with a widget to collect emails, she told a Geek Girls Meetup in San Diego. When she started getting emails from strangers, she knew her idea was getting traction.

Your email sign-up form can produce vastly different results based on copy and presentation. One great example is on BrainPickings: It’s simple, and confidently offers the value proposition. An immediate incentive — a free ebook download or access to a video tutorial — can also bring in subscribers.

Email can be a high-touch communication tool while passively collecting user information.

Consider this example from McKenzie: He was watching his newsletter signups in real time, and someone he respected who he’d like to be in contact with signed up. From there, he could send a direct message and say “Hey, I saw you signed up. I’m the CEO. What questions can I answer for you?”

In personal experience, I’ve done this with members of the press who signed up to hear about the mobile application I worked with, and it’s led to an ongoing relationship. I’ve also used newsletter analytics to discover which employees of our competitors were not only receiving our newsletter, but how many times they opened the email and what they clicked on.

Other trends in email marketing include personalization and segmentation. If you use an in-house email system, you can target email to behaviors — think, “We haven’t seen you in two weeks — here’s what you’re missing out on,” to bring users back to a product.

Don’t think of the emails hitting spam filters, not opened or not acted on — a percent will make it past those hurdles, and of those many will result in sales.

As McKenzie says, email is a numbers game and the numbers are motivational.

Image courtesy of Steve 2.0/flickr 

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently