Content marketing and web content writing services for UK businesses
  • Home
  • About Snappy
  • Services
    • Free content marketing help
    • Articles
    • SEO Copy Writing
    • Blogs
    • Content Marketing Consulting Service
    • News Feeds
    • Press Releases
  • Contact
  • News
  • Blog
  • Prices
  • Snappy Content, happy clients

UK content marketing benchmark survey: findings

3/11/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
Content marketing budgets are set to rise in the UK.
Businesses in the UK not harnessing content marketing are fast becoming the minority, a major new report claims.

Virtually all marketers in the UK are utilising content marketing to engage consumers, boost website rankings and improve SEO.

Nine in ten (94 per cent) of UK marketers have adopted content marketing, with the figure rising to 97 per cent among B2C marketers, according to the — Content Marketing in the UK: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends — conducted by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and the Direct Marketing Association UK (DMA).


On average, 27 per cent of marketing budgets in the UK are allocated to content marketing and if anything this figure will only rise.

Two-thirds (64 per cent) say they will increase the amount they allocate to content marketing over the next 12 months.

On average, UK marketers use 13 content marketing tactics, whilst their North American and Australian peers use 12. 

The most popular tactics are “articles on your website,” “social media (other than blogs),” and “eNewsletters.”

Improving SEO and site ranking is key, with marketers in the UK, Australia and the US consistently ranking website traffic as their top metric.

The biggest challenge for marketers is producing enough content and creating engaging content strategies.


1 Comment

Google reaffirms link-building rules for SEO in Interflora case

2/27/2013

0 Comments

 
If you were in any doubt about how important it is to approach SEO properly by building up great content for your site, just take a look at Interflora.

The company has been removed from Google rankings for manipulating links to improve its search ranking.

According to Google, the flower seller has been selling links to bypass PageRank, which goes against all that's good and true in the world of SEO.

In a blog post for Google Webmaster, engineer Matt Cutts outlined the reasons for the decision to strike Interflora.

"Google has said for years that selling links that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines. We continue to reiterate that guidance periodically to help remind site owners and webmasters of that policy," he wrote.

He added: "Selling links (or entire advertorial pages with embedded links) that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines, and Google does take action on such violations."

The first consequence for a site that sells links is that it will start losing trust in Google's search results, as well as reduction of the site's visible PageRank in the Google Toolbar.

Another consequence could be lower rankings for that site in Google's search results, explained Cutts.

"We do take this issue very seriously, so we recommend you avoid selling (and buying) links that pass PageRank in order to prevent loss of trust, lower PageRank in the Google Toolbar, lower rankings, or in an extreme case, removal from Google's search results," he concluded.

All this does is reaffirm the stance that great content is the best way to improve search rankings. Why? Because truly great website content is the only reason another site will link to yours.

Find out how great content marketing can help your business reach the top of Google

0 Comments

CMI study: 86% of B2C organisations invest in content marketing

11/14/2012

0 Comments

 

Almost nine out of ten business-to-consumer (B2C) organisations are using content marketing, a new study shows. 

According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) report, 86% of companies are investing in content, regardless of size or industry.

The data comes from B2C Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America, which is the first annual survey from the CMI about content marketing in the B2C space. 

B2C organizations use an average of 12 tactics, the study shows. Most popular among these are social media excluding blogs (84%), articles on a company's website (84%), eNewsletters (78%), and blogs (77%). 

The results are not too dissimilar to those of B2B marketers. In a previous report from the CMI, 87% of B2B marketers are using social media to distribute content, as compared to the rate of 74% that was reported last year.

However, in the B2C sphere, marketers are using mobile content, mobile apps, print magazines, and print newsletters a lot more.

"It's exciting to be able to benchmark B2C and B2B content marketing efforts and quantify differences by marketing type," says Joe Pulizzi, founder of the CMI.

"One interesting difference is how each group uses social media. For B2C marketers, Facebook is the most popular platform by far, with 90% of respondents indicating they use this for content distribution. This differs from B2B, in which LinkedIn is the most popular platform, with 83% of respondents using this (compared to 51% of B2C marketers)."

B2B marketers are spending a third of their marketing budgets on content marketing, up from a quarter in 2011. Similarly, B2C marketers are investing heavily in content marketing this year, allocating 28% of their marketing budgets on content marketing. Additionally, 55% of B2C marketers are planning to increase their content marketing spend over the next 12 months.

"Another similarity between B2C and B2C marketers is that both groups lack confidence that they are executing content marketing effectively," says Ann Handley, chief content officer of MarketingProfs. "But B2C marketers cite lack of budget as their biggest challenge (23%), whereas B2B marketers are most challenged with producing enough content (29%)."

0 Comments

Six steps to maximizing content marketing

11/8/2012

0 Comments

 
Content marketing is increasingly being seen as crucial to digital success, whether it's being measured in Facebook likes or dollars.

Here's a six-stage plan to maximise your content marketing strategy, courtesy of PR Newswire, a press release distribution service.

Monitor and Listen

"Before creating a single piece of content, listen. Learn what interests your audiences, how your brand currently resonates with them, what your competitors are saying and what conversations are happening in your industry," say the authors of the report.

Listen well and you may be able to come up with content that achieves your business objectives and is useful for your audience without being too salesy. If you're listening to your customers and responding to what they want, and your content follows suit, they will like your content.

A survey of business executives, The Content Preferences Survey from DemandGen Reports, found that 75% of respondents want content writers and creators to "curb the sales messaging".

Create and Optimise

Think about your audience's preferred content type and format. It is possible to align these with your marketing objectives in one of three ways:

Thought leadership: infographics, articles, blog posts and short white papers offered directly to interested audiences. Basically anything that goes to show the depth and breadth of an organisation.

Acquisition: white papers, video demos,eBooks or webinars. These ought to be gated so that you can collect leads.

Nurture/cross-sell: this is content used to bring a lead from marketing through sales. Content types include original articles, infographics, blog posts, guide books, comparison grids, demos and more. Calls to action – to request more information or view a demo – are essential in these content types.

One straightforward option is through news feeds. "Staying on top of the latest news also provides opportunities for you to actively participate in the breaking news cycle by adding your own relevant commentary to the resulting discussion – even incorporating the keywords noted in the news coverage within your messages and landing pages," says PR Newswire.

News feeds are one of the oldest and most tried-and-tested forms of content marketing. Regularly updating your site with topical features and analysis, and the right keywords, will always drive traffic.

Identify and Target

"There are big influencers and small influencers, and you need the right mix of both to generate a viral effect around your content," says the study. It's all about creating conversations, shares and social media buzz. Think about who you want to reach first with your content – targeted content at core influencers – bloggers for instance – can get the ball rolling a lot faster than taking a scattergun approach.

Engage and Interact

"Content can only make an impact in the social sphere if it is easily found, triggered for audience interaction and readily shareable," according to the report. Remember that once you get content out there, you will need to respond and react. Social media posts will attract comments – how do you plan to respond if they are anything but positive, for example.

Distribute and Reach

Think about how you plan to get your content in front of as many people as possible. If your website is generating thousands of page views every day, people will pick up on it regardless. If you're a smaller player in the market, think about how your content will be read.

Measure and Report

Metrics, as we've said before, are crucial to content marketing success. Decide before how you plan to measure activity – page views, sales or social media followers, for example.

0 Comments
    Snappy Content Writing news on content marketing and web content

    Author

    Alex McLean

    Archives

    May 2014
    October 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012

    Categories

    All
    Articles
    Blogs
    Content Marketing
    Content Writing
    Infograpics
    Linkbuilding
    Metrics
    Mobile Content
    News Feeds
    Paid Content
    Pr
    Press Releases
    Seo
    Social Media
    Video Content
    White Papers

    RSS Feed

Sign up for free email updates with our weekly content marketing newsletter
Home
About
Services
Contact
News
Blogs
Prices
Testimonials
Articles
Blogs
News Feeds
Consulting



info@snappycontentwriting.com
Snappy Content Writing
Picture
Content marketing, news feeds, article wrtiting, blogs and copy writing services with Snappy Content Writing