Course Content
eCommerce Marketing Case Study: How a 100+ Year Old Brand Adapted to the Digital Age
Do you remember your dad ever carrying a green, steel bottle on the way to work or a camping trip? That’s a Stanley brand thermos. And they’re still as popular (if not more popular) today.
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Introduction
Who is Stanley-PMI?
How the Stanley-PMI site has changed
Traffic sources Stanley-PMI uses to drive targeted users
How Stanley-PMI’s valuable blog content fuels SEO
Why Stanley’s social media strategy is crushing the competition
Conclusion
Product Return Strategies: How to Turn Returned Items into New Sales
Returns — or in industry lingo, “reverse logistics” — are just a cost of doing business. There are always going to be customers who want to return an item, regardless of how good your product and delivery service may be.
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Introduction
[Tip #1] Write a crystal clear returns policy
[Tip #2] Make returns a breeze
[Tip #3] Make it a learning opportunity
[Tip #4] Make it a sale
A returned item is an opportunity
7 Takeaways From Campaign Monitor’s 2018 Email Marketing Report to Jumpstart Your Strategy
There is no doubt that email marketing efforts drive a large amount of revenue for brands. It is reported that email delivers an average Return of Investment (ROI) of 3,800%. It is also one of the most measurable and trackable marketing tactics we have. However, what is the true state of email marketing? Is the future still bright for all your email marketing efforts? How do other marketing tactics compare?
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Introduction
[Takeaway #1] Go beyond acquiring new customers
Start your email marketing campaign now
[Takeaway #3] Add a human touch to your emails
[Takeaway #4] Group your email list through segmentation
[Takeaway #5] Send two versions of your campaign
Always measure your campaign
[Takeaway #7] Master the basics before using AI
Wrap up
Is SEO Dead? The Answer Is Yes, And No
Every few years a few, voices from distant corners of the marketing world whisper that SEO is dying. But with an estimated value of over $70 billion dollars, SEO isn’t going anywhere soon.
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Introduction
5 dead SEO strategies
6 SEO tactics still alive and kicking
Live long and prosper, SEO
Live long and prosper, SEO
14 Advanced Tips on Increasing Your eCommerce Conversion Rate (with Examples)
The average eCommerce store typically sees its conversion rate hover around the 2-3% mark. But your goal isn’t to be average, right?
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Introduction
How to increase your eCommerce conversion rate
Determine — and fix — your conversion killer
eCommerce Product Videos: 7 Ways to Use Video Content On Your Product Pages
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? Video content has become a powerful form of content marketing: more so than product specs, copywriting or even photos.
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Introduction
Can product videos increase conversion rates?
Does video content affect SEO?
Video content and social media
7 eCommerce product videos that will boost your conversions (plus best practices for each)
3 tips towards effective eCommerce video content
How to Take Your First Steps Towards Outsourcing your Marketing
With the growing complexity of digital marketing, we’re often tasked with having to wear multiple hats across a wide variety of disciplines. Having to understand and manage SEO, SEM, Social, Content, Affiliates and now increasingly UX, Data and the Web, means that there will come a point where certain aspects of our work will need to be offloaded to somebody else, whether internally or externally.
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How to Take Your First Steps Towards Outsourcing your Marketing
10 B2B eCommerce Pricing Strategies (With Mistakes To Avoid)
For B2B companies, pricing can be especially tricky because B2B buyers have different requirements. There are more decision-makers, the sales cycles are longer, and in many cases, the items tend to be high-ticket, meaning that you can’t merely copy the pricing strategies utilized in the B2C world.
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Introduction
How pricing is impacted by your business model
10 B2B eCommerce pricing strategies you can copy
How to determine what pricing works for your products
15 eCommerce pricing mistakes you’re probably making
Choose an eCommerce platform that makes setting up different pricing strategies easy
The Metrics That Matter Most For Different Marketing Campaigns
44% of B2B marketers rate the effectiveness of their strategy as a three out of five.
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Introduction
Why you should start at the end
White Walker cold traffic
Daenerys Targaryen lukewarm traffic
Dragon’s breath hot traffic
eCommerce Quizzes: How to Drive Sales & Engagement
If you’re selling your product online then chances are you’re constantly looking for innovative ways to drive sales and engagement. It can be tough to implement fresh ideas into your marketing plan, especially if you’ve been selling the same product for a while.
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Introduction
Replace a sales rep with a quiz
Use data from your quiz to inform your content strategy
Grow your community & email list with a quiz
Repurpose content from a quiz
Make your quiz relatable to boost sales
Re-engage idle shoppers with a quiz
Use quiz data to remarket at a later stage
That’s a wrap
This is How You Can Use Predictive Analytics to Sell Smarter Through Email
As the manager of an eCommerce business, one of your main goals is, quite simply, to grow your business and make as many sales as possible. More specifically, it’s to continue making an increased amount of sales while investing less and less time, money and energy into the process of doing so.
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Introduction
What is predictive analytics?
But, why email marketing?
Using predictive analytics to sell smarter via email
Using predictive analytics to sell more to current customers
Keeping customers on board via predictive analytics
Wrapping up
Here’s Why Your Marketing Tech Stack Is (Probably) Letting You Down
Have you ever taken the time to count up the cost of all the different SaaS solutions your business uses?
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Introduction
Your tools don’t talk to each other
Your money could be better spent elsewhere
There’s too much overlap between services
WHY choosing the right tech stack matters
HOW to choose the right tech stack for you and your business
Some the tech stack WE use
What is Cart Abandonment? 10 Strategies For Dealing With Abandoned Cart
The purpose of owning an eCommerce store is to sell merchandise. Unfortunately, many users abandon the idea of purchasing your products at the bottom of the funnel. However, there are strategies that can help you recover these lost shoppers.
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Introduction
What is cart abandonment (and how it can impact your eCommerce business)?
5 key reasons consumers abandon their shopping carts (and what you can do about it)
10 strategies for dealing with cart abandonment
Ascertain the problem; then solve it
Word-of-Mouth Marketing: How To Turn Your Customers Into Your Best Marketing Team
Word of mouth marketing is increasingly important as more and more people are becoming wary of advertisements. People turn to their friends and family for recommendations.
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Introduction
What is word-of-mouth (and word-of-mouth marketing)?
What drives word-of-mouth and enables it to spread?
Caveats and blockers of word-of-mouth marketing
The importance of customer retention
5 effective ways to implement word-of-mouth marketing
How to email your customers asking for referrals
How to set up the right referral structure
How to motivate customers to generate brand-related content
Social media contest case study: McCormick’s online cookoff
How to set up your own online contests
It’s time to turn customers into brand ambassadors
4 eCommerce Website Elements You Should Personalize ASAP
You walk in your favorite store, the salesperson smiles warmly at you and leads you to the product you need. You choose the product, pay at the counter, and head out happy with the package dangling in your hand. And, the salesperson celebrates as he closed another sale successfully.
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Introduction
Add oomph to your product catalogues
Woo your customers by recommending products perfect for them.
Instill FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in your customers through effective email campaigns
Educate and engage them through stimulating content
eCommerce Live Chat: To Live Chat or Not to Live Chat?
More and more online shops have that little speech bubble in the bottom right corner that pops up and allows you to have a chat with customer service, ask questions and opinions without having to leave the page you are currently browsing. Is this a good thing? Should you include it on your site?
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Introduction
Good #1: Live chat can increase conversions
Good #2: Live chat typically cuts support costs
Good #3: Live chat satisfies customer expectations
Good #4: Live chat answers complex questions in the depth we want
Bad #1: Waiting for an immediate response
Bad #2: Unhelpful live chat scripts make us go crazy
Bad #3: You tricked me
Bad #4: Live chat can get creepy
Is live chat the right channel for you?
87 Open-Ended Sales Questions Digital Agencies Should Ask
As an event marketer, raise your hand if this pattern sounds familiar: Attract traffic to event website Wrap up event Watch Repeat above process
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Introduction
The 3 biggest problems in event marketing
3 strategies to solve your event marketing problems
12 tactics to market your event
Over to you
87 Open-Ended Sales Questions Every Digital Agency Should Ask in Every Buying Cycle
Capturing leads is easy; qualifying and nurturing them until they turn into buyers is hard. Consider this: in the B2B software industry, the conversion rate from visitor to lead is 7%, but from visitor to close is a measly 0.68%.
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Introduction
Open-ended vs. closed-ended sales questions
What are open-ended sales questions?
When to ask open-ended sales questions?
What are closed-ended sales questions?
When to use closed-ended questions
Beware of “False” open-ended questions
What NOT to do when asking open-ended sales questions
What you should do instead
Open-ended sales questions to ask
Get-them-to-talk-more questions
Finding the significance of your solution questions
Qualifying questions
Inventory Management Strategies: Using Smart Pricing To Get Rid of Excess Stock
Any eCommerce business will flourish with an inventory that is well managed. Having too many items in your inventory will increase your running costs. On the other hand, a limited amount of stock could potentially make you miss out on sales and discount seasons. If customers can’t find their desired product from your business, you lose out — and that’s all there is to it.
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Introduction
Get competitive for your over-stocked products
Track your competitors’ prices
Make use of psychological pricing strategy
Poor inventory can be resolved through smart-pricing
Growth Hack Like a Startup
2010 was really not so long ago but it really feels like Prehistoric times for social media. We’re talking years before Snapchat, Periscope and Meerkat took live streaming to the next level and it was in 2010 that Pinterest and Instagram really made visuals on social media matter. It was also an important year for online education, with Udemy, Skillshare and Quora all launched.
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Introduction
Restricted access
Platform hacking
Feed the dopamine
Liquidity hacking
3 Simple Ways To Validate Your Content Ideas
Over the last year, the message of bigger and better content has really taken off. It’s traveled around via a variety of monikers, such as Brian Dean’s “skyscraper content” or Rand Fishkin’s “10x content”, but at the end of the day, the message is the same: if you want to command attention, your content needs to be significantly better than what everyone else is doing.
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Introduction
Validate content idea tip #1: Focus on what’s already popular
Validate content idea tip #2: Ask, ask, ask and research what’s already been asked
Validate content idea tip #3: Match your content to your distribution
Parting thoughts….
Enter the Full-Stack Marketer
According to Garter Research “81% of enterprises have the equivalent of a chief marketing technologist looking after a rapidly growing marketing technology stack.” Marketing has become very much a technology game. Enter the full-stack marketer.
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Introduction
What is a full-stack Marketer?
Marketing-Stack
Storytelling in eCommerce: 6 Simple Strategies & Tips
Storytelling has become the marketer’s weapon of choice over the last few years, mainly because — get ready for it — humans love stories. From the moment we’re born, society supplies us with stories of old, new and the future. They inspire us, give us confidence and help us to learn. When it comes to making a purchase, a good story can be the difference between us falling in love with a product, and ignoring it altogether.
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Introduction
eCommerce storytelling: What is storytelling for an eCommerce company?
#1. Focus on how people feel using your products
#2. Sell the idea of what your product does
#3. Show customers you care and that you’ve spent some time to solve their problems
#4. Have customers like you (or feel like you)
#5. Keep messages simple and shareable
#6. Show you can serve a new market
Omnichannel eCommerce Marketing Strategies: 8 Ideas To Create The Perfect Customer Journey
Omnichannel marketing sounds like a buzzword A clever growth hack to growth hack. But in reality, it’s anything but. It’s an evolution of consumer behavior. A seamless experience no matter how or where someone is when they’re always-on.
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Introduction
What is an omnichannel marketing strategy?
Why omnichannel eCommerce is important essential
How does omnichannel retail impact your business?
[Omnichannel marketing strategy #1] Be global, but act local with localized content (marketing) strategy
[Omnichannel marketing strategy #2] Don’t let your mobile site be the Achilles heel
[Omnichannel marketing strategy#3] Shoppable, user-generated feeds
[Omnichannel marketing strategy #4] Discounts aren’t dead, either (Use them effectively)
[Omnichannel marketing strategy #5] Incentive MOAR UGC with contests
[Omnichannel marketing strategy #6] Craft a recognizable brand voice
[Omnichannel marketing strategy #7] Create a movement by standing up for something
[Omnichannel marketing strategy #8] Create product category-level buying guides
Conclusion
eCommerce Facebook Ads: How MVMT Grew From Zero to $90 Million in Under 5 Years With Facebook Ads
Zero to $90 million in under 5 years — That is the definition of scaling fast.
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Introduction
A snapshot of MVMT’s digital success story
Facebook and Instagram ads at scale
10 things eCommerce businesses can learn from MVMT’s
Conclusion
I’m in B2B. You Want Me To Do What With Snapchat?!
You’ve heard of Snapchat. It’s for sexting right? That would have been a fair assessment 12-18 months ago, but it’s quickly earning respect as an essential brand marketing tool.
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Introduction
Why Snapchat for Business to Business (B2B)?
Practical B2B Snapchat Examples to Explore
How to Make Snapchat Work for B2B
In Conclusion
11 Biggest Content Marketing Mistakes People Make (Yes, Even You!)
“Content marketing is all the marketing that’s left” – Seth Godin You’ve read downloaded a cornucopia of checklists, a gaggle of eBooks, went to a few conferences, and subscribed to plenty of pithy podcasts on the subject.
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Introduction
Content marketing mistake #1: Lots of action, but no master plan (or vice versa)
Content marketing mistake #2: Content equals blog posts
Content marketing mistake #3: Purely hypothetical buyer personas
Content marketing mistake #4: You don’t understand your audience (see mistake #3) so your content is not helpful to them
Content marketing mistake #5: Content Published = Content Marketing
Content marketing mistake #6: Focusing solely on SEO
Content Marketing Mistake #7: Crappy content
Content marketing mistake #8: Expecting instant results
Content marketing mistake #9: Trying to do too much
Content marketing mistake #10: Content that sells too hard
Content marketing mistake #11: Slavish devotion to best practices
Digital Transformation: A Buzzword or a Necessary Evil?
If you’re ready to embark on your digital transformation journey, but wondering what digital transformation means for you, then look no further.
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Introduction
What is digital transformation?
Common digital transformation mistakes
How to get people on board with digital transformation
Technology’s role in digital transformation
4 diverse digital transformation examples
Adaptable technology paves the way for adaptable digital experiences
Influencer Marketing Strategies You Need To Stop Using (And Ones You Should be Doing Instead)
Influencer marketing can either be an ingenious way to break through the noise or a complete waste of time and money. It all depends on your execution.
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Introduction
5 bad influencer marketing tactics that need to die
Why reciprocity is the key to a successful influencer marketing campaign
7 influencer marketing examples you should be doing instead
Conclusion
$0 Content Marketing Guide (Part 1): How To Find Proven Content Ideas
Those who succeed at doing content marketing tend to have a couple of things in common: They have a large audience already; these guys do the heavy lifting in amplifying their content.
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Introduction
How to find content topic ideas that fly……
[How to find content marketing idea #1] Top-ranked podcasts on iTunes
[How to find content marketing idea #2] Amazon search suggestions
[How to find content idea #3]: Real Twitter conversations
[How to find content marketing idea #4] Wikipedia table of contents
[How to find content marketing idea #5] YouTube search
[How to find content marketing idea #6] Facebook groups
[How to find content marketing idea #7] Relevant forums
[How to find content marketing idea #8] Quora questions
[How to find content marketing idea #9] reddit
[How to find content marketing idea #10] Pinterest search
[How to find content marketing idea #11] Udemy courses
Over to you
The Frugal Guide to Content Marketing (Part 2): How To ‘Frame’ Your Content For Maximum Traffic
In the first part of our Frugal Guide to Content Marketing, we outlined the best ways for you to source content topics; without spending a dime on customer research. In this next installment, we’re going to spell out how to create content that achieves your desired business outcomes, rather than just sitting in a corner of your blog looking pretty.
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Introduction
[Content type #1] Curation – Be the BuzzFeed of…
[Content type #2] Indulge their eyes with visuals – Infographics or Gifographics
[Content type #3] Multiply your ‘share triggers’ with quizzes
[Content type #4] User Generated Content (UGC)
[Content type #5] Repurpose your content into SlideShare
Conclusion
Marketing Budget Cuts: 6 Ways CMOs Can Do More For Less
Gartner has reported that marketing budgets are being slashed going into 2018. “Growth in marketing budgets has stalled after continued increases over recent years. The survey found that marketing budgets hit a plateau in 2017 after three years of growth, with budgets falling from 12.1 percent of company revenue in 2016 to 11.3 percent in 2017, representing a return to 2015 levels,”
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Introduction
6 ways to double down on digital (with fewer dollars)
How Frank Body Used Content Marketing to Make $20 Million in Sales
Does content marketing work for eCommerce businesses? It’s an interesting debate and one that many online entrepreneurs struggle to grasp. Selling products online is, for the most part, a very metric driven endeavor.
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Introduction
Frank Body’s undeniable success with content marketing
[Tip #1] Penetrate a hyper-competitive market by being known for “one thing” first
[Tip #2] Persuade people to care about your product by showing that you relate to their lifestyle
[Tip #3] Create a movement that aligns with your customers values and desires
[Tip #4] Find and collaborate with people who have established trust with your ideal customers
[Tip #5] Turn customers into ambassadors with incentives and prizes
Let’s be frank…
So You Want to Be a Content Marketing Unicorn and Build a Team?
Did you know that roughly half of your customer interactions are multi-devices or multi-channel?
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Introduction
The T-Shaped Marketer (As a Framework)
How to Build T-Shaped Marketers
Conclusion
Growth Hacking eCommerce: 18 Underrated Hacks To Convert More Visitors
Amazingly enough, before “growth hacking” was a thing, companies managed to grow and increase revenue and profitability all the time!
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Introduction
Create buyer FOMO with live customers metrics
Use a solution-focused SEO title
Offer live chat functionality to boost visitor trust
Hook new customers with “Loss leaders”
Turn visitors into customers via social posts
Turn visitors into customers via social posts
Answer FAQs on category pages
Ensure your website loads in under 3 seconds
Include comparison guides for similar products
Focus effort into generating customer reviews, case studies & testimonials
Get the reviews you want by suggesting specific topics you’d like them to address
See your homepage as a digital dashboard for your site
Negotiate “Advertiser access” to influencer’s Facebook page
Underpromise your customers but ALWAYS strive to over-deliver
Turn influencers into your money-making affiliates
Drive repeat orders through targeted, genuine loyalty schemes that are focused on users’ behavior
Take the stress out of submitting forms – Reduce the input fields 
Show visitors the TRUE discount value (Or offer a price match guarantee)
Partner up with other brands to do “Giveaway loops”
Conclusions
The Anatomy of an Internet Troll (And How To Turn Negative Feedback Into Positive)
Social media enables audience participation from far and wide. Philosophically, that’s a great thing for our democracy. Historically, business has taken advantage of closed communication systems where they can easily control the message, squashing any potential backlash before it gathers momentum and threatens to erupt.
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Introduction
The Rise of the Internet Troll
Why Not All Negative Feedback is Inherently Bad
How to handle negative feedback
How to Turn Negativity into Positive Business Outcomes
Conclusion
Your BIGGEST Content Marketing Challenges, Solved
You already know there are over two million pieces of content published daily. But everywhere you turn, the numbers get worse. 60% of marketers are creating something daily. Trillions of emails are being sent annually. Hell – there’s already “billions of content pieces shared daily” on Snapchat.
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Introduction
Content Marketing Challenge #1: Your company hasn’t adapted the content marketing culture
Content Marketing Challenge #2: ‘Ticking Boxes’
Content Marketing Challenge #3: Time (Or Lack Thereof)
Conclusion
Multi-Channel Selling: How To 19x Your eCommerce Site Revenue With Multi-Channel Selling
75% of shoppers browse for items online while shopping in stores. Why? They’re price checking. They’re looking to see if they can get it online within a few hours or days at the most. They’re usually not looking at the brand’s website, though. They’re looking at Amazon or Otto or Etsy or Wayfair.
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Introduction
Why go multi-channel with marketplaces
How to maximize your multi-channel strategy
Conclusion
How To Create Long-form Content (Backed by Science)
“No one reads online!” How many times have you heard this statement? Judging by our shortening attention spans and social media addictions, you might even be tempted to believe it.
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Introduction
What is Long-form Content & Why Does it Matter?
How to Create Long-Form Content
11 Key Ingredients of Successful Long-Form Content
Short vs. Long-Form Content: Which To Use, When, and Why
Over to You
Multi-Channel Marketing Vs Omnichannel Marketing Explained In Five Minutes
After already discussing multi-channel and omnichannel marketing strategies in depth, it’s time to dive into the differences between the two. Our main reason for doing so is the surprisingly large number of online publications that are mistakenly using the terms multi-channel marketing and omnichannel marketing interchangeably.
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Introduction
Multi-channel vs omnichannel: What’s the difference?
The 3 key differences between multi-channel and omnichannel
The multi-channel and omnichannel customer experience
The pitfalls of multi-channel marketing and omnichannel marketing
10 Proven Ways to Increase Audience Engagement on Your eCommerce Website
Imagine you’re a potential customer for a moment. You go to your website, search for products, add items to your cart, and even make a purchase. The process is simple and straightforward, right? But what if it wasn’t?
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Introduction
What is website engagement and why it matters?
10 simple ways to make your eCommerce website more engaging for users
Keep visitors engaged and boost online sales, fast
How We Drove a 6% CTR For Two Up-and-Coming eCommerce Startups
Influencer marketing has continued to prove itself as a fantastic marketing method for our eCommerce clients.
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Introduction
How to find influencers who fit a niche
It’s not influencer content if it’s scripted
Customize the consumer journey to increase clicks
Who do you choose when everyone eats snacks?
Tailor the offering for each viewer to improve conversions
4 key takeaways eCommerce brands should know before doing their next influencer campaign
How to Create Evergreen Content that Dominates SERPs
Would you like to write a blog post today and receive traffic from it for years? How about a lead magnet or video or infographic that keeps getting you leads 2 years after launch? Of course you would.
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Introduction
What Exactly is “Evergreen Content”?
6 Evergreen Content Ideas You Need To Try
How to Create Evergreen Content
How to create evergreen content – Step #1: Brainstorm evergreen content ideas
How to create evergreen content – Step #2: Figure out the best content format for the topic
How to create evergreen content – Step #3: Create the content
Over to You
How To Become a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO): 26 Must-Have Traits
As the spearhead of the marketing team, a CMO can make or break a company. But as we edge towards 2021, the position of CMO is becoming an increasingly vulnerable one. In fact, according to The Wall Street Journal, the median tenure of a CMO in 2016 was only 26.5 months — a smidgen more than two years.
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Introduction
Playing it safe is a dangerous game
Here are the Must-Have Traits
Be the super CMO
How to Awesome-ify Your Visual Content
Content, content, content. It’s all about creating content, which is why we’re all pretty much drowning in it right now. Over the last decade or so, we’ve experienced an explosion of online content unlike anything the world has ever seen. It’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that billions of pieces of content are published on a daily basis, with a large proportion coming from social media.
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Introduction
Why Visual Content?
Visual content type #1: Photos
Visual content type #2: ‘Drawn’ Images (Graphics)
Visual content type #3: Videos
Visual content type #4: Memes
Visual content type #5: Animated GIFs
Visual content type #6: Infographics
Visual content type #7: Calls-To-Action
Visual content type #8: Screenshots
Where to Distribute Your Visual Content
Conclusion
D2C Marketing: Lessons From Quill’s $1 Billion DTC Strategy
If you haven’t noticed, the world of commerce has changed drastically over the past few decades – and even the past few years.
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Introduction
What (exactly) is direct-to-consumer marketing?
Quill.com: A case study in direct-to-consumer marketing
[D2C marketing tip #1] Customer feedback “leaderboard”
[D2C marketing tip #2] Champion a cause your customers care about
[D2C marketing tip #3] Provide robust product search and suggestion functionality
[D2C marketing tip #4] Built-in “pin your coupons”
[D2C marketing tip #5] Reverse product placement
The customer is the key to D2C success
25 Biggest Content Marketing Trends that Will Dominate
Content marketing in 2021 was characterized by swift changes in strategy and how quickly brands could adapt. In 2022 and more coming years, that adaptability could prove to be just as relevant.
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Introduction
Topical authority will replace keyword research
Value-driven content will rise to the top
Original research and studies will be popular
Content will become more interactive, engaging, and (hopefully) fun
Increased adoption of AI
User experience will be the differentiator
Content templates will thrive
Machine-generated content will be a thing
The advent of content atomization
The arrival of Google’s Core Web Vitals
Write for aspirations not needs, what they want to be and where they want to go
Do one thing great
One key audience one mission for the content
One thing consistently everyday
Fill a need or want
Consistency is key
Be human, find your voice
Have a point of view, emotion and bluntness
No sales speak
Be best of breed content
Use mixed Content types
Grow one audience on one channel and then expand
Create top quality audio and video-based production
Consistent Bi monthly newsletters
Free writing for emotion and experience
Nail Your Social Media Advertising
So you are looking to drive targeted traffic to your website and generate high-quality leads for your sales team to work with. You’ve been battling away on your SEO and becoming a consistent blogging machine but these things take time. And you need traffic and leads NOW right? Meanwhile, the Facebook community you worked hard to build, is no longer seeing most of your brand posts due to recent algorithm changes and your other social media channels are following suit.
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Introduction
From Beginner to Advanced Facebook Advertising Hacks
Drive Leads and Sales with Twitter Ads
Speak To a Highly Targeted B2B Professional Via LinkedIn
How to Create Engaging Instagram Ads
Promoted and Buyable Pins. Fashion, Food or eCommerce on Pinterest
How To Create Irresistible Headlines
(Part 3): How To Promote Your Content With ZERO Budget
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Introduction
Pitch your content for round-up link building
Get listed as a “Best-of” in your niche
Quora-ing
Answering questions on relevant forums
Contribute to online communities in your niche
Monitor alerts and offer your content
Email your sources to help amplify content promotion
Schedule and share ‘snippets’ on social media
Mention your sources when you’re sharing
Value-adding blog comment
Repurpose content. Submit to Medium, Slideshare, Vimeo, etc.
eCommerce Content Marketing Specialist Course

Content marketing mistake #10: Content that sells too hard

“Behind every piece of bad content is an executive who asked for it” ~ Michael Brenner

Hard-selling rarely works in content marketing.

How often has your boss asked you to create content that “promotes our business a bit more obvious”? 

They want to see results (fast) and believe that using content with a more immediate acquisition hook is the way to get some short term ROI. 

But, that’s not what your audience came to your blog for. 

They wanted to see content that helps them to do their job, makes them a better person, and solves their problems.

It’s easy to blame your boss. Understandable that you want to keep your job so you’ve done what you’re told. But as a content marketer, it’s actually your job to educate them on what works and what doesn’t. And over-selling your business’ products or services in a piece of informational, top of the funnel content, doesn’t work.

There are a lot of great posts on how to convince your boss to invest in ‘real’ content marketing (there’s even a website dedicated to it), but the summary is this:

1. Personalize your pitch: Find some common ground topics that your boss is interested in, and relate them back to content marketing

2. Educate them: No one’s going to buy something that they don’t understand. Cover the basics, make sure you are both on the same page, and talk about the ‘philosophy’ of content marketing (helping, educating, teaching, and entertaining)

3. Explain why it makes sense for the business: Talk about how your customers (and potential customers) can benefit from the content you create and how the content can help achieve the business goals.

4. Understand why they say “no”: List all the common objections (i.e. content marketing is too expensive, our industry is ‘boring’, etc.) and be prepared to tackle these objections by giving them some alternatives/solutions.

5. Start with a pilot program: Get some quick wins via a small budget, short term trial to get off the ground. Build up from there. Senior Executives are much more inclined to give a little test project a go rather than signing on to a long-term strategic commitment.

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