Clients often ask me, “How in the world did you find your team of writers?” Mod Girl Marketing has had the same solid, effective gang of content marketers for the better part of a decade. In this industry, that achievement is a nugget of pure gold! Bloggers may be a dime a dozen these days, but finding true masters of the writing craft who also know a thing or two about marketing is quite another matter entirely. Truth be told, in the early months of founding my company, it took a lot of sorting, weeding and prospecting to find the right partners. What ultimately worked for me was looking for self-motivated people with entrepreneurial spirits who worked for themselves and had degrees in professional fields like business, marketing, teaching or journalism. They were people with a passion and a natural intellectual curiosity. They read the news every day. They had spent some […]
The Content Marketing Institute reports that “70% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago, even those who say they are least effective (58%) and those without any type of strategy (56%).” In 2015, only 38% of B2B marketers rated themselves as “effective” at content marketing — which is down from 42% last year. Most marketers seem to think they are not completely ineffective — but rather, fall somewhere in the middle. As an experienced digital marketing firm, we’ve seen all manners of content — the good, the bad and the ugly. We’ve worked with some amazing companies that just needed the right presentation of their brand to boost their bottom line and gain more customers. Good B2B content is informative, unique, inspires action, and attracts an eager audience that is most ready to buy. Easier said than done, though, right?! In today’s post, we’ll take […]
According to a widely-cited Forrester Research report from 2008, most corporate blogs are “dull, drab, and don’t stimulate conversation.” Ouch! Furthermore, they found that two-thirds of corporate blogs hardly ever get comments, 70% stick strictly to business topics, and 56% just republish press releases or already public news! Many of the worst business blogs in 2008 have since cleaned up their acts in 2014. (Orbitz being one of them!) In today’s post, the Mod Girl team shares 8 tips for corporate content marketing success. 1. Content is not just “marketing.” It’s a valuable revenue stream. When we think of “publishers,” we think of newspapers, magazines, and book publishers. Yet, these days, any business can be a “publisher” even if it is not considered to be one’s central business. If you were to ask Hubspot “what they do,” they would tell you they “create software for business marketing.” Yet, they also publish e-books […]
Content is central to most business online marketing strategies these days. But what good is having well-written, researched, appealing content if no one sees it? The whole purpose of social media is not only to be more accessible to consumers, but also to provide a platform for sharing all the relevant, insightful content you create. There is more to creating a social media following than simply cutting and pasting a link, however. In this article, we’ll cover all bases and provide the most relevant tips to promoting your content with social media. 1. Promote with Facebook 3 Steps To A Great Facebook Post 1. Find a good image. Facebook is a very visual site, so you’ve got to have an image that will capture people’s attention in a long humdrum list of other feed posts. You seek to entertain, pique curiosity, inform, or stir emotion. There are many places to […]
Pinterest launched three years ago and has since amassed 70 million loyal pinners. Of these, there are about 500,000 business accounts, as more and more entrepreneurs look into how this visual medium can benefit their web traffic. While Facebook remains the top social source of referrals to company blogs, Pinterest comes in second place, beating out Twitter referrals. So read on to learn: 8 specific ways you can use Pinterest to boost your blog’s success. 1. Make your blog more visual. The popularity of Pinterest has made bloggers take a second look at each blog post. If you’re not including pinnable images with each post, it’s time to take another look. People are gravitating toward Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and other visual websites for a reason. You can make custom graphics in Photoshop watermarked with your business name to get added publicity. If you don’t have Photoshop, consider using one of […]
Did you know that 77% of all internet users read a blog, and that 23% of internet time is spent on blogs? Better yet, 61% of consumers have made a purchase based on information they received from a blog. Companies that blog have more indexed links, more indexed web pages, more inbound links, better search engine visibility and more leads than companies that do not. Check out this awesome infographic for compelling reasons to get blogging today: Starting a blog is the sort of DIY project you can do in an afternoon if you have the time and patience. Here’s how: 1. Buy a domain. Once you have a good website URL in mind, you can buy the rights to that domain name at www.namecheap.com. There are other domain sellers, but Namecheap is our favorite and most widely-respected sources — not to mention, one of the most affordable! You can expect […]
The 2012 Digital Content Marketing Survey conducted by Brafton found that businesses were most concerned about finding quality content writers for 2013. A whopping 87 percent of marketers said they planned to improve their online content in the coming years, and many planned to outsource the job to a third-party content agency. Marketing Land says that 25 percent of companies outsource content to another company currently, but trends suggest this number is on the rise. Many businesses resist hiring professional bloggers as long as possible, fearing the cost, but we’ve got 8 reasons why it’s time to turn this aspect of your business over to the pros. 1. Get another opinion on your company. It can be easy to get caught up in a bubble. Sure, all your products and services sound nifty to YOU. But what does the average consumer think? A brilliant writer may be able to get to the real value […]