Tag: content marketing - Page 5

There is one question that is on every marketers lips. While traditional marketers who are focused on outbound marketing place their faith in creativity and understanding customers' wants and needs, the sneaky inbound marketers are finally having their day in the sunshine.

There is no doubt still a place for outbound marketing, but for any company that really cares about their customers and are open to ensuring that they have the ultimate customer experience, inbound marketing is really the only way forward.

Many small business owners are reluctant to invest too much time and money into their websites. They simply don't see the value in it - that is of course, once you've passed the fact that they need to have one.

They invest in having a web development company develop a website and populate it with content and pictures, but many still don't ensure that they have search engine optimised their website on a regular basis or that they are updating content regularly that is relevant to their target audience.

It's easy to have a website - but not so easy to keep it up-to-date and relevant.

Professional services firms are known as the "safest" b2b marketers, only second behind that of the medical industry.

Still stuck in the dark ages, many professional services firms still believe that 'good work speaks for itself' and "you need to find the clients pain" ensuring that they keep it "safe" when embarking on marketing of any kind, rather than looking deep into customer insights to drive leads and create more sustainable client relationships.

What professional services firms are forgetting is that while they may still be on track to achieving their sales goals, being complacent and not moving with the times, will make it almost impossible to stay competitve.

We have all stumbled upon a myriad of marketing and social media latest phases and without hesitation either jumped in and had a go, or stood back and watched what our competitors have achieved before investing valuable cash and resources to the latest, hottest marketing platform.

There has been one consistent marketing platform that has been more central to a marketing strategy in the past couple of years, than any other marketing activity bar social media.

Content Marketing

If you have been hearing this buzz word for some time, and haven't done anything about it, then you are in a minority. Unlike the phases of social media platforms and apps popping up into our strategies then quickly falling to the way-side, content marketing underpins all online marketing strategies, whether we like it or not.

"We have a client that is 100 per cent focused on using content to drive leads in the next 12 months and this trend is catching on with many other small businesses," said Julie Schoneveld, CEO, Marketing Eye.

"It's not difficult to out-perform your larger competitors through mileage out of content marketing  that is useful, targeted and information rich."