Dramatically Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy in 4 steps
Don’t let your content get the best of you, work with a content marketing agency to take a load off and increase your overall performance. There’s no doubt that content marketing is a critically important differentiator for businesses. The industry is experiencing explosive growth, and top content marketing agencies are busier than ever. Yet many organizations remain dissatisfied with the results their strategies are generating. They watch competitors gain traction, yet can’t replicate their success. Other agencies find initial success, but have difficulty creating a sustainable pipeline of fresh, interesting content. And that’s understandable — the ideation and execution processes aren’t easy, and most content marketing plans require a continuous stream of new material. That’s a stiff — and time sensitive — challenge. Fortunately, jumpstarting a tired or ineffective content process doesn’t typically require a massive overhaul. In many cases, a few relatively minor tweaks can dramatically improve the reach and engagement of your content. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at a few tactics businesses can use to significantly improve results. 1.Explore new content mediums Content diversity is an important part of an overall content marketing agencies strategy. This doesn’t merely apply to idea generation, however; it’s also important to offer audiences a variety of different mediums through which to consume content. Incorporating more videos, infographics, scripted animations, etc. can help break up monotony and engage audiences on a deeper level. You don’t need to be Steven Spielberg or a design wizard to get started, either. Something as simple as a “behind the scenes” video featuring members of your organization can help audiences connect with you and build a stronger bond. 2.Audit existing SEO practices The best practices in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) realm change at a dizzying rate. It’s imperative to stay current, however, as SEO is absolutely critical to any distribution strategy. If you develop the most interesting content in the industry — but nobody sees it — what have you really accomplished? In order to ensure that your content is widely accessible, it’s a smart idea to audit your SEO practices on a rolling basis. While most companies can do simple keyword research and content optimization, it’s necessary to partner with a digital agency with specialized skill and expertise in order to get the most out of your SEO efforts. 3.Target niche audiences Taking an overly broad approach is one of the single biggest mistakes businesses make when it comes to content strategy. When you try to speak to everyone, you often end up speaking to no one. Your content simply isn’t relevant enough to engage and sustain interest. Smart content marketing agencies understand the value of niche audiences. They tend to be highly engaged and motivated, always searching for new and relevant content that falls within their niche. Find out where these audiences live online, create interesting content that’s optimized for their interest — and you’ll be amazed by the reception. 4.Take a more data-driven approach At this point, we’re all aware of the value of data — many of today’s most valuable companies are dedicated to collecting, analyzing, and selling out information. Surprisingly, however, many small to mid-sized businesses fail to adequately leverage data in their content marketing strategies. Evaluating key performance indicators (such as traffic, conversions, engagement rates, etc.) can help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your approach. To maximize the value of a data-driven approach, however, you may need to expand beyond basic indicators by partnering with a top audience segmentation expert — one that specializes in data-driven audience analysis. The takeaway At BIGEYE, we love helping brands create exciting new content marketing strategies that drive real world results. For more information about how we can help improve your content marketing efforts, please contact us today.
Why Building a Fence Is the Best Recipe for Restaurant Success
Marketers and advertisers have always sought new and better ways to understand and target their audience. If you can do this well, your odds of success increase exponentially. Technological tools have revolutionized this process, giving us unprecedented insight into who our audiences are, and ultimately lead to how we can best identify and reach them. And for restaurants, few of these techniques are more relevant than geofencing. Build the fence, and the customers will come. Geofencing explained The premise behind geofencing is simple: Businesses can specifically advertise to people who are within a specific geographical area. By using certain technologies, a boundary is created, and everyone within that boundary serves as the target audience. So how does it work? Geofencing uses well-established location-based technologies, including GPS and Bluetooth, to identify people within a certain area and communicate with them. While the technology isn’t new, it has come to play an important role in marketing and advertising because of another invention — the smartphone. The technology is particularly useful for businesses such as restaurants. Your typical example of restaurant geofencing would feature an eating establishment creating marketing material (for instance, a limited-time coupon) and sending it to everyone within a specified geographical boundary via their mobile device. As soon as someone enters the specified virtual boundary, the coupon is transmitted via push notification. Let’s take a look at how this works in closer detail. A restaurant proprietor wants to generate more walk-in foot traffic. Instead of relying on signage or offsite advertising, she employs restaurant geofencing to create a virtual boundary around the establishment. When people carrying smartphones enter the boundary, they automatically receive a coupon for a free appetizer that expires in sixty minutes. Because the recipients are already in close proximity to the restaurant (and because people are biologically programmed to respond to feelings of urgency), they are much more likely to redeem the limited time offer. Restaurants can also choose to switch up the offers on a daily (or even hourly) basis, responding to changing conditions inside the establishment. If a restaurant has a shipment of pricey and fast-perishing bluefin tuna to sell, it’s a simple task to create a special offer and send out a new push notification within the geofence. It’s also a great idea to be flexible and use geofencing to capitalize on changing conditions outside the restaurant. If the weather is gorgeous, send out a push notification and remind everyone about your beautiful outdoor seating area. The benefits of restaurant geofencing We’ve discussed the positive effect restaurant geofencing can have on sales through location-based targeting. Yet geofencing provides a few other benefits, including the ability to collect more data. When customers redeem geofenced coupons or offers, restaurants can track other metrics, including the amount of time spent inside the restaurant, the level of repeat business and the type of food and drinks ordered. Restaurants can also use data gathered to create more highly targeted and personalized promotions, something that should improve the diner experience and lead to lots of repeat business. The takeaway Ultimately, restaurant geofencing can be a highly useful tool that helps establishments better understand the demographics of the area and the preferences and behavior of those inside. While that’s a recipe for success, it’s also important that you lay the proper groundwork for your geofencing campaign. That means encouraging people to download your smartphone app (geofencing works via app, after all) and setting a reasonable boundary. You can experiment with distances, but it’s generally recommended to stay within a mile or two for maximum foot traffic. Want to learn more about how geofencing can integrate with your brand and benefit your overall company ROI? Contact our digital marketing team today!