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22 Dec 2016
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2016 Email Marketing in Review

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As we move into 2017, it’s a great idea to briefly review email marketing best practices from 2016. These email marketing best practices are a good place to start when planning your 2017 email marketing strategy.

 

Automation

From welcome emails to renewal notices, email automation makes marketers lives easier. It has numerous additional benefits too, including:

  • better lead management and nurturing
  • better segmentation and personalization
  • better engagement
  • better access to useful data

Because marketing automation takes care of tasks that were once time-consuming, it can also save your company valuable time and money. Check out our post on automated email campaign strategies for a few email automation best practices to get you started.

 

Integration

Integrated marketing is key to present a consistent face for your brand across channels. In order to that, you need to make sure your email marketing is working hand in hand with your SEO, social media, content marketing, your sales strategies and your advertising—both online and offline. Why is consistency important? It builds trust with your customers. They come to expect a certain something from your brand. When you deliver, they feel satisfaction. Also, it makes you easily recognizable by customers who are just getting to know you.

 

Mobile

Making your emails mobile-friendly is obvious, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t include it in our brief list of basic email marketing best practices. Ensure every email you send is responsive. In particular, find out exactly which mobile devices and email programs your customers are using to view your emails. Then design, test and re-design your emails so that they’re easy to see, easy to engage with and look amazing on those specific mobile devices and with email programs your customers use most.

 

Personalization

The foundation of effective email personalization is valuable content, good data and smart segmentation. These pieces work together to help you build relationships with your customers by sending them valuable (i.e. relevant) emails. Your email content needs to be about the things that matter to specific segments on your audience. More importantly, it needs to written in language that speaks to them. Thus, email copywriting is key to successful email personalization.

You also need information about your subscribers in order to segment them and make sure they’re getting the content that matters to them. This information might include geographic location and their interests based on past purchases. You might give new subscribers the option to note their interests during your email-signup process. That’s a great way to collect information directly from your customers. Once you have good data, you can use it to segment your subscribers along all sorts of lines, such as gender, age, job title, company size and behavioral data.

 

Visual Storytelling

Visual content lets you communicate more information faster, which is key when it comes to email marketing. On average, people spend only 15 to 20 seconds looking at each email.1 You can tell a story visually in many ways, including with great photography and links out to video. Animated gifs are especially common. We’ve seen a lot of them in the latest holiday emails we’ve received. You can also tell a visual story with a smart infographic.

 

You’ll be in good shape as 2017 kicks off if you’ve begun to put these email marketing best practices from 2016 into practice. If you’ve already been practicing them, please share your success stories in the comments section below.

Are you ready to take your email marketing to the next level? Get in touch with Filament today.

20 Dec 2016
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Best Practices for Content Marketing in 2017

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At Filament, we like to celebrate a great year by looking back at what we’ve learned. To that end, we’ve put together a digest of our top blog posts from 2016 that encapsulate key takeaways and content marketing best practices from the past 12 months.

 

Visual Content

As one of the top trends for 2017, visual content is a key part of your marketing mix. When creating visual content, the best place to start is by developing a documented visual content marketing strategy.

Audiences are very much into video right now. Your brand should be too since they can help improve brand awareness, lead generation, and online engagement. Learn more about why video is here to stay in our blog post “Video Content Marketing is the Future.” If you’re looking to include video in your visual content strategy, check out our 10 video marketing best practices.

 

Integrated Content

Marketing integration helps you create smarter content that works harder. In the early part of this year, we offered a thorough series on integrated marketing. We started by sharing the benefits of marketing integration, which include building trust, efficiency, and morale. You can get a quick rundown of the steps it takes to build an integrated campaign in our blog post “Content DIY: Build an Integrated Digital Campaign in 8 Steps.” Or you can get an in-depth look into the steps with the following blog posts:

  1. Know your audience.
  2. Identify prime channels.
  3. Identify key content types.
  4. Devise an integrated strategy.
  5. Establish a unified identity.
  6. Create content that can be repurposed.
  7. Align your marketing teams.
  8. Track and optimize.

 

Technology

New technology continues to change content marketing best practices. This year we explored voice recognition and artificial intelligence technologies in the content marketing context. We also examined the benefits of content marketing automation and 4 key strategies for best making this technology work for our business.

 

Storytelling

Storytelling is another top trend for 2017. Check out our tips and techniques for visual storytelling for help in creating a compelling visual story with your content. The tips are accompanied with great examples of visual storytelling. You might also check out our more recent post on best practices for content marketing storytelling, which offer ways to integrate storytelling into what you’re already doing. It details the benefits of storytelling, too.

Last but not least, writing is a major part of storytelling. Where writing is concerned, it’s always helpful to have great models. We offered writing best practices just a couple of month ago in the form of 10 writing tips along with examples of the best content marketing writing to be found on the web today.

 

We hope you’ll be able to use these content marketing best practices to shore up your strategies as you move into 2017. Please share key learnings from your year in the comments section below.

Wishing you a happy and productive holiday season!

Learn more about Filament and how we can help you reach more customers with your content marketing.

14 Dec 2016
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SEO Year in Review

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While we’re getting ready for the coming year it’s always good to look back at the passing year and use it to predict future SEO best practices. This is our SEO Year in Review.

 

SEO and Mobile

At Filament, we started the year predicting that 2016 was going to begin with a carryover from mobilgeddon 2015. Ideally your mobile SEO plan should have begun in 2015 or sooner but honing it and focusing on it was essential in 2016. Remember that mobile searches often include voice search. Knowing how to optimize for voice is going to be a vital part of mobile search in the future. Throughout the year, we touched on these subjects. We will likely see mobile pulling search just as heavily, and in some sectors more heavily, than traditional organic search for the foreseeable future.

 

SEO and the Customer

Customized markets, relationship marketing and brand building all sort of came together and fell into the laps of SEO specialists. In the past search engine optimization was about letting people know who you are and what you do through keywords, link sharing, a good content plan, etc. As the web becomes more intuitive and personalized, each company must narrow-cast to their specific target audience. SEO is now about targeting that perfect customer and reaching out to them specifically. We’ve watched as simple keywords or short keyword phrases have evolved into specific long tail keywords and brands gain prominence.

 

Analytics and Automation

Pulling analytics and automation together is a little foreshadowing from Filament as we predict these two fields will likely merge in many ways. We have briefly touched on automation for SEO in 2016 but definitely see this area growing rapidly. Analytics has always been a part of SEO best practices but these two areas actually seem to have a future together. New technology automates your marketing plan and puts your website visitors into predefined buckets. Visitors can then be reached with SEO and marketing efforts geared to them specifically. Analytics help categorize visitors and adapt marketing efforts. This is a fascinating new world for SEO and we are interested in seeing how this marriage will unfold.

 

Technology Trends and SEO

And finally, we’ve given you some tips on SEO best practices for 2017 that include technology driven changes. Schema, RankBrain, Automation, AMP, etc. SEO analysts have begun looking past the human to see how speed, code, artificial intelligence and other factors can affect a search result. While this is a new realm it’s also an extension of SEO best practices falling into every aspect of your website.

 

At Filament, we’ve always said that content is king. Search engine optimization plays extremely well with content, pulling in that customer and keeping them. This still holds true and we honestly never expect this to change but the focus has shifted. We’re now looking at the customer differently. Now, there are several customers we should be marketing to: the AI customer, the mobile customer, the loyal brand advocate, the “just browsing” customer, etc. This does not mean less SEO in content, it actually means much more. Content will be customized in 2017 to reach each predefined customer and Filament is ready to help you create optimized content to help you reach your ROI goals in 2017.

 

07 Dec 2016
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2017 Email Trends You Should Start Now

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2017 is right around the corner. Why not get a head start by putting some of the top 2017 email trends into practice now? For this post, we’ve honed in on three trends that can help make a big impact on your bottom line.

 

Automation

Automation makes your emails more relevant because it lets you deliver emails to your subscribers at the most influential times based on behavioral triggers. By collecting valuable customer behavioral data and applying that to your emails, you get better segmentation and better personalization. In 2017, we expect to see new behavioral triggers that will help us deliver highly targeted messaging. Plan to create emails that have been optimized for each individual based on their actions and interactions with websites and emails.

 

Integration

In 2017, integration needs to occur across three levels: integrating sales and content, integrating data and content, and integrating content across channels. Salespeople need to be integrated into your email marketing. At the same time, we need to have data alignment too. Then you can track actions the customer takes across devices. Lastly, email needs to be integrated with other campaigns across channels in order to better support those campaigns.

 

Mobile

Mobile isn’t static. The extent to which people use mobile devices continues to grow, and new mobile devices are released on a regular basis. It’s more important than ever to produce and distribute email content that fits the format, the channel, the time and the place that current and target customers access that content. We’re still getting emails in our inboxes that aren’t mobile optimized. We know it seems impossible, but it’s true. So, first things first, make sure your emails are responsive. After that, make sure to find out the other mobile devices your customers are using. Then optimize your emails for those devices, whether they’re wearables or tablets or new smartphones.

 

It’s never too soon to work on your email strategy. In reality, you’re never really done with it. The best email strategies change with our subscribers and with technology. If you need to focus your resources on a few areas of improvement, pick these three top trends to get the biggest bang for your buck.

 

Get in touch with Filament today to find out how we can help you create relevant and compelling emails for your target audience.

05 Dec 2016
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2017 Content Trends That Will Kick-Start Your Content

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Content marketing strategies must constantly adapt to new expectations and new technologies. To help you stay in the know and on point, we’ve put together our list of the 3 top 2017 content trends along with brief tips for making them work for your brand.

 

Video

Video content marketing is a key trend to prep for in 2017. It includes both recorded video and live streaming. You can start by creating a video strategy that speaks to your business goals and your customers. Be sure that strategy outlines your customers’ journey and focuses on creating video content that will help move them from one stage to the next.

As far as live video is concerned, be sure it fits with your goals. If you’re clear that it does, consider starting with one of the following options for live streaming:

  • Live events (presentations, talks, conferences, press conferences, performances, concerts, tours, and demos)
  • Behind-the-scenes coverage
  • New product announcements
  • Interviews with influencers

 

Storytelling

Storytelling is already a big part of content marketing. Its influence will continue to grow in 2017. A well-told story hooks and holds your audience’s attention. Because our brains are hard-wired to connect with stories, this trend offers an effective method of building strong relationships with customers.

Storytelling goes hand in hand with video. If you’re new to storytelling, a smart place to start is with a video that tells the story of your company or the story of one of your signature products.

 

Interactive Content

Interactive content keeps visitors on your site longer and encourages more sharing. It includes quizzes, animated infographics, selfie contests, and slow-motion lookbooks.

Opt for professionally designed and developed content that lets your audience choose different paths within the content. When site visitors can click on sections that are of interest to them it’s more engaging than the standard text-heavy content they see on most sites.

 

Your 2017 content marketing will be off to a great start if you begin putting these trends into play now. Video, storytelling, and interactive content all go hand in hand, so they’re easy to work into your strategy simultaneously.

Learn more about Filament and how we can help light up your brand’s online presence.

02 Dec 2016
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2017 Social Media Trends to Get a Head Start On

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We’ve defined what’s on the horizon for social media trends in 2017 but why wait that long to implement?  Step up your social game this holiday season by getting a head start on emerging social media trends.  Take the time to turn these trends into actions by testing strategies that align with your business goals so you are able to hit the ground running come January.

 

Create a Social Advertising Strategy

We’ve established that organic traffic is unfortunately a thing of the past.  A dedicated social budget is now considered a necessity to support your content strategy on social.  The perfect time to drive more customers to your business is during the holiday season when everyone is online.

 

Utilize the intuitive ad interface on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest to quickly and easily create ads that will support your goals – whether it is to drive brand awareness, traffic to your site or conversions.  Define your goal, then define your audience.  Who are you marketing to?  Past customers, potential customers or fans?  Segment your audience, write compelling copy with a clear call to action and align with engaging creative to create a successful first ad campaign.  Remember to test not only copy but creative to identify what is resonating with your target audience.  Need ideas?  Identify past posts that performed well and use that copy and creative combination to begin.

 

Try Snapchat

New social channels are always intimating.  Is it worth your time?  Yes. If your customer is there, you need to be there.  With expiring content lasting anywhere from 10 seconds to 24 hours it’s important to create messaging that has a sense of urgency.  Try launching your platform with a promotion where the first 25 followers receive a promo code.  Promote this offer on Instagram and Twitter.  Then once you’ve established a presence, offer enticing content that makes your followers want to stop and view immediately.  Give sneak peeks of new product or first looks at what your design team is working on.  Offer promo codes or exclusive offers only for your Snapchat followers.  Be authentic and nurturing to these first followers and they will return the favor.

 

Live Stream

Everybody’s doing it.   Facebook, Periscope and now Instagram.  With the release of live video on more channels it shows no signs of slowing down.  Start small.  Create a live video to answer your customer’s most pressing questions during the holiday season.  Show top products or soon to launch products to your Instagram followers.  Keep it short, keep it simple and see what resonates with your audience.

 

Video, Video and More Video

2017 is already being proclaimed the year of video.  Now is the time to identify the impact video will have on your social strategy in 2017 and ensure that you have a solid strategy in place to create and leverage video content in the new year.

 

And remember less is more. The shorter the video the easier for your customers to consume, engage and share.  Keep it to 30 seconds or less.

 

Next help figuring out how to implement these trends in your 2017 social strategy?  Contact Filament today to create a social media strategy that converts.

22 Nov 2016
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2017 SEO Trends to Start Now

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It’s never too early to work on your SEO strategy. Truth is, you’re never really “done” with it. A good SEO strategy is a living, breathing tool that adjusts with new trends and technology. Whether you’re starting from scratch or tweaking an existing plan, focus on the following SEO trends to fine-tune your strategy for 2017.

 

Google Quick Answer Box

Have you noticed that if you ask a simple question you get a boxed answer at the top of Google? The box gives you the information you want without having to scroll through different results and/or head deeper in to a webpage. This is a huge SEO trend for 2017 and beyond. You’re going to want to get in that box for your industry. To do so, make sure you are an authority in your field. A great way to do that is by creating content that responds to the most-asked questions in your industry.

 

App Indexing

In 2016 Google began to include apps in search results. What does that mean?  Your website could be losing out to an app if they’re providing better optimized SEO results. Some statistics suggest that apps are the preferred result for a significant number of searchers. If you don’t have an app, this might be the time to consider getting one. If you have one, boost your optimization plan and capture more eyes.

 

Deep Linking

Deep linking is really a subcategory under app indexing but it’s important for people who want to boost their app. Sharing a link in an app, in the past, was basically impossible because each app had specific ways of sharing that were incompatible. But by deep linking in your app you can share the data and boost your app as well as your regular website. Please note, currently there is no deep link standard, so you’ll have to research which method will work best for your website.

 

Mobile and Voice

More and more searches are being done on mobile devices with voice queries. They’re actually even starting to be done on laptops with voice searches. The take away from this is that people type a query into their computer in a different way than they vocalize it. Voice queries typically tend to be more complete. For example, the typed query “Denver Mexican restaurants” may become “Find Mexican restaurants in Denver, Colorado”. For this reason there has been a major shift in keyword focus from singular keywords to long tail keyphrases. A great place to start your 2017 SEO plan is to review your keyword analytics and do some rewriting of your website.

 

Hire an SEO Content Writer

Speaking of writing, you should take the previous tip a step further. It’s important to make sure everything on your website is original and speaks to your audience in an informative and authoritative way. Give them what they want with optimized content written by professionals. You should constantly put forth optimized content designed to reach your target audience and boost your ROI.

 

2017 SEO trends are clearly moving away from the stationary computer and toward the mobile world. This is probably going to play out for several years with many adaptations and changes ahead. In addition to implementing the above search engine optimization techniques, it’s vital that your brand prepare for a mobile takeover and embrace these changes. Filament specializes in SEO content, strategy and web writing and can help you keep your website on top of its game. Contact us today to learn how.

18 Nov 2016
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What’s Ahead for Email Marketing in 2017

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A great way to start preparing your email marketing for 2017 is to look ahead to see what email trends are on the horizon. To help, we’ve put together a list of six current and continuing trends. Keep these email trends in mind as you’re preparing your budget and planning your strategies for 2017 and you’ll be well on your way to success.

 

Improved Automation

More and more companies will use emerging technologies to better automate the creation, distribution, and management of email content. Email automation will help save your business time and money. Plus, it offers unparalleled opportunities for better timing and targeting. Need ideas? Check out our recent post “Strategies for Successful Automated Email Campaigns.”

 

Machine Learning

With machine learning, marketers can mine data more effectively than ever in order to improve results and drive profits. These tools learn as they interact with your subscribers. They’re key for everything from email automation to better personalization and targeting.

 

Mobile Optimization

According to the Forrester Research Email Marketing Forecast, by 2017 78% of active email users in the U.S will access their email via mobile devices. Chances are that your target audience will be among them. What does this mean for you? Your emails need to be easily readable on a mobile device.

 

Visual

Yes, visual content is super important on social media. However, it’s super important in email marketing, too. When you’re planning your strategies for 2017, be sure to document a well-researched visual storytelling strategy that includes a process and organization around the ongoing delivery of valuable information through visual media.

 

Integration

Integrate your email campaigns with other campaigns across channels. Email is a great tool for supporting campaigns on social channels since you have more room to describe the campaign with relevant details. Remember that REI email we shared in our recent storytelling post a little over a week ago? In it, REI used email to spread the word about their #OptOutside social media campaign.

 

Compelling Writing

From the subject line to the body copy, high-quality email text is as important as ever. We’re talking about compelling, creative content that tells a story about your brand and your products and services. That story ought to create an experience for your audience that they want to share with others. Get some great tips for writing stellar email copy here.

 

Across demographics and devices, email is still the most effective way to build brand awareness, convert customers, and build lasting relationships with customers. You can ensure your email marketing is on point by staying on top of email trends and continuing to evolve your email program for 2017 and beyond.

Need help kicking your email marketing into high gear? Learn more about Filament today!

14 Nov 2016
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7 Content Trends for Success in 2017

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By now, you’ve probably started putting together your content marketing strategy for 2017. To help you round out your strategies, we’ve put together a list of the top content trends you’ll want to act on in the year to come. You’ll notice that many of these trends aren’t new. Rather, they mark a continuation that we see stretching into the future. As a result, you may already be practicing some of these strategies, in which case it’s time to look at your tactics to see how you can update them for 2017.

 

In-Store Mobile

More and more consumers are signing up for location-based mobile alerts that send them notifications of deals when they’re walking the aisles of a store and in close proximity to a store. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, consider Beacon technology and whether it’s right for your customers. Mobile coupon programs can help get more Millennials engaged, too.

 

Omni-Channel / Omni-Device

Mobile users and desktop users are the same people. Instead of thinking of theme as discrete audiences, we need to think of them as moving fluidly between channels and between devices, and then create content that flows with that movement. Our tracking also needs to follow that fluidity. In 2017, this fluid mindset needs to shape our tracking and content creation practices.

 

Experience Marketing

Millennials are more interested in buying experiences than things. If Millennials are part of your target audience, we can cater to this preference by creating novel experiences via storytelling, visual media, and in-person events. We can also frame our brand, products and services as experiences. Episodic content is another great way to create experiences that keep your audience coming back for more.

 

Influencer Marketing

Relationships have always been important in marketing—and every other industry. Thus, it’s no surprise that influencer marketing will continue to play an important role in content marketing. Take the time to create an influencer strategy that makes sense for your goals and your target audience.

 

Visual/Video

From Snapchat to Facebook, video is as important as ever. If you’re not leveraging this tactic, it’s time to start. Put together a visual storytelling strategy that includes a process and organization around the ongoing delivery of valuable information through visual media.

 

Data

Good data is going to be as important as ever in 2017—for everything from content automation to better personalization and targeting. It will continue to be important to collect data from social media channels and to align data across devices and channels. We’ll also see bigger companies employing artificial intelligence for analyzing data and creating, publishing, and managing content.

 

Get in touch with Filament today for help putting these content trends into play with your content marketing strategy.

 

11 Nov 2016
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Top 5 Social Media Trends for 2017

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The landscape of social media trends is ever changing. It’s getting harder for your message to be seen and heard by your customer (or potential customers). That’s why it’s important to have a rock solid, up-to-date social strategy across all channels. This helps ensure you are building upon a clear and consistent message that resonates.

Social media has become a mainstay in a solid marketing plan alongside more traditional digital forms of marketing like search, SEO, email and display. Social media is poised to grow to 24% of marketing budgets in the next five years, up from 10% today. And each social media channel only continues to grow on a daily basis. This allows your brand to put more content in front of customers on a daily basis.

So what’s next for social media in 2017?  Follow these top 5 social media trends to ensure your brand is at the forefront of your customers feed.

 

Pay-to-Play

In the beginning all content on social media was organic.You could court followers and grow your audience organically by posting high-quality, shareable and engaging content. Those days are over. With the influx of brands and users producing more content than ever it’s getting increasingly difficult for brands to get their content seen.

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter are all capitalizing on this trend. They are creating robust advertising features that allow brands to target fans, past customers or lookalike audiences across all platforms with promoted posts. In order to grow your following and ensure your message is seen you must have a dedicated social budget to support that.

 

Expiring Content

With it’s surge of popularity in 2016, Snapchat’s success is hard to deny. The defining feature that makes the platform stand out is the sense of urgency it creates by limiting the availability of each post.

By creating content that expires within 10 seconds to 24 hours, Snapchat is establishing a new behavior amongst users. More content is being consumed at a more immediate speed than previously seen. This model has since been incorporated to Instagram and shows promise of being rolled out to more platforms in the future.

 

Live Video

The impact of video is undeniable. Four times as many consumers preferring to watch a video about a product over having to read about it.

There is no question that Facebook Live dominated this election season. Everyone from news outlets to magazines was producing daily live interviews and Q&A’s. Whether pre-produced or live, video is here to stay. It’s important to define a strategy for how your brand can use video in 2017 to easily reach and convert customers.

 

Social Commerce

Directly correlating sales from social has been a struggle since the beginning of social media. Instagram’s recent announcement of making images shoppable shows promise of bridging the gap between ecommerce and social. In the past this has been an impossible metric to track.

Pinterest has also been making strides with ecommerce investments. Specifically, their buyable pins that allow users to purchase products within pins so there is no need to actually leave the app. Establishing a more seamless user experience between social and ecommerce helps to ensure that brands continue to invest on each channel with a direct ROI.

 

Personalization

Utilized across all marketing tools from email to websites — personalization is dominating social media through dynamic ads. Look at a shoe on Nordstrom and that shoe is sure to follow you to Facebook and possibly Pinterest. Retargeting customers who visited your website and serving them relevant ads of product they just viewed allows for higher conversions and engagements.

 

Staying ahead of the social curve in 2017 will ensure that your message is relevant and appealing to your customers.  Need help creating a social media strategy that converts?  Contact Filament today.

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