Top Resources for Content Marketing

What an amazing week this has been!

As many of you know, Content Marketing Institute hosted our annual Content Marketing World event in Cleveland, Ohio this week. While we expected to gain insight on many storytelling and content marketing strategy topics (which we certainly did), a number of surprising themes emerged throughout the discussions that took place at the conference - in sessions, in workshops, and in hallway conversations, as well as behind the scenes.

Though far too many lessons were learned to list them all here in detail, here are a few of the powerful content ideas and trends that stood out in the minds of the CMI team - and the participants who shared their thoughts with us. Continue Reading

We are social and content accelerators.

We are not an agency.

We help you get better at social media and content marketing through audits, strategic planning and ongoing advice and counsel.

We work with leading companies and agencies to take their social media and content marketing prowess from good to great. In the past year, we've completed projects for Wal-Mart, BMC Software, Caterpillar, Columbia Sportswear, Billabong, Visit California, Wyoming Office of Tourism, Petco and many more.

In addition to our consulting services, we also produce the award-winning blog you're reading right now, a daily email newsletter called " One Thing", and the weekly " Social Pros" podcast for social and content professionals. We also produce several eBooks each year.

We're just like you. We drink tequila. We're foodies. We're wanderers. We hang out with our kids. We fish. Or bike. Or take pictures.

We don't take ourselves too seriously, and you won't find a more responsive, easier to work with consultancy.

How can we help?

Here's the Who's Who at Convince & Convert:

JAY BAER / PRESIDENT

Jay Baer is a hype-free digital marketing strategist, speaker, and author. He founded Convince & Convert in 2008. This is the fifth marketing services firm he's started or managed.

Jay has consulted with more than 700 companies on digital marketing since 1994, including Caterpillar, Nike, Visit California, Billabong, and 30 of the Fortune 500. He was named one of America's top social media consultants by Fast Company magazine, and the Convince and Convert blog is ranked as the world's #1 content marketing resource.

His new book about making marketing useful is called Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype and is a New York Times best seller.

An active angel investor, he's also involved in an advisory capacity with several social media and content marketing start-up companies.

At Convince & Convert, he oversees big picture ideas for corporate clients, helps agency customers understand and profit from social and digital services, and spreads the gospel of social and content acceleration with dozens of speaking engagements annually. He also buys all the drinks.

Daniel has more than a decade's experience leveraging emerging media to produce tangible business, marketing and PR results for some of the world's largest and most innovative companies.

Previously, he was director of social engagement at PainePR in Los Angeles where he established social media and channel innovation programs for General Motors, Pampers, Old Spice, Iams and Sony Electronics, among other brands.

He was a key member of the international communications team at Google, where he managed global corporate communications and public affairs for the company's rapidly expanding suite of consumer and advertiser products and services. He holds an MA in communication from Gonzaga University and is an instructor at UC Irvine Extension. He serves on advisory boards for both that program's social media curriculum, and the department of computer science at Santa Monica College.

At Convince & Convert, Daniel leads the social media strategic planning process and oversees creation of detailed success metrics dashboards for corporate clients.

Chris has more than 10 years of digital marketing experience across social media, email, SEO, Web analytics, online advertising, conversion rate optimization, and content marketing.

He has previously served as head of operations for two major digital agencies, and also managed email marketing for a Fortune 500 homebuilding company.

An expert in social media and digital marketing integration, he can answer (or find the answer) for almost any online question, and is a seasoned and effective public speaker and trainer.

At Convince & Convert, Chris leads the social media and content audit team, dedicated to optimizing the online results of corporate clients. He also provides agencies and retainer clients with real-time advice and counsel.

Lisa has more than 15 years experience in marketing and public relations for corporate, real estate, retail management, nonprofit, retail, travel, publishing, political, government environments and other industries.

She got her start in social media by launching the first-ever social initiative for Northern Arizona University, and has extensive expertise in
social media and content marketing for higher education.

At Convince and Convert, her work revolves around preparingdigital and social media audits and other research deliverables for clients. She helps
manage client digital marketing programs, including providing counsel and training around online marketing and community management
initiatives, and technology and tools.

Lisa also assists with C&C's internal marketing, PR and public speaking and event programming.

Using her NYU marketing degree and concentration in entrepreneurship, Jess started an agency of virtual assistants called Don't Panic Management, which exists to help social media, PR, and digital marketing professionals execute their ideas so they can grow their businesses.

Living what some may call the "digital nomad" lifestyle, Jess enjoys traveling to different cities for a few months at a time trying to figure out where she wants to settle down (if ever).

The "original" Convince & Convert team member, Jess has had several roles including research, data analysis, client management, and has established many of the firm's operating processes. Now, she's the managing editor, overseeing the company's considerable content marketing program including blogs, daily email updates, weekly podcast, and ebooks.

Kimberly has more than 15 years of experience in digital marketing methodologies and technologies including online advertising, email marketing, search engine marketing (paid and natural/organic), social media, analytics, website strategy and project management.

Prior, she led the digital marketing for a Southern California municipality focused on travel and tourism and served as the head of marketing and PR for an award winning digital agency.

At Convince & Convert, she oversees Special Projects and focuses on research, writing, project management, event planning and the firm's philanthropic efforts.

Kimberly also provides digital consulting to a variety of agency, corporate and non-profit clients within the Phoenix and Palm Springs areas including pro bono and volunteer engagements for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Broadmor Elementary School PTA and Phoenix Children's Hospital, among others.

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Nowadays, we have a few more options. I have collected some lorem ipsum variants for you to use the next time you need some placeholder text.

Choose your weapon wisely! And be warned, some of these tools are a little sweary, or non-PC, so if you're easily offended I suggest you stick to using Latin.

Enjoy!

They can present a particular problem on mobile especially if shoppers have forgotten login details from previous purchases.

To illustrate this point, here's an example from the M&S mobile site, one which must be causing a number of abandoned purchases.

Stats include social, bot traffic, mobile marketing, online privacy, web forms and digital adspend among online publishers.

For more digital marketing stats, check out our Internet Statistics Compendium.

Hence content only accessible via infinite scroll simply won't be seen and therefore won't make it into the respective search engine results listings.

The good news is there are easy solutions so that infinite scroll poses no problem for search, and in fact can also provide an opportunity to maximise user experience and maximise SEO value in tandem.

Many retailers are understandably worried about shoppers using their mobiles to compare prices and the threat posed by online-only retailers, which can often beat offline prices.

However, there is much to be learned about the motivation of mobile shoppers. It seems some intend to buy online no matter what but there is potential for shops to turn others around with great in-store experiences, discounts and rewards.

Columbia Business School and Aimia have just produced a report on showrooming, which contains some useful stats.

Here's a selection from the report, along with a few of our suggestions for retailers to deal with the 'threat' of showrooming.

This is an easy enough task for simple product such as DVDs, books and some clothing items, but electronics and other technical products require a great deal more information.

The challenge is then to try and present all the relevant information in a clear and concise manner that doesn't cause the reader to lose interest and go elsewhere.

A case in point is the Samsung 3D 51" plasma TV which retails at around £1,800. It's not the sort of purchase that most people will make on a whim, so retailers have to provide detailed information to ensure customers are happy to part with their cash.

With this in mind, I browsed a number of ecommerce sites to see how they deal with product descriptions for this particular TV.

Here's a whole buncha stuff that made us shoot milk out of our noses, including tweetfails, the internet of things and the long awaited return of Batman...

Of course, such things should be tested for effectiveness, but there are some good examples of their use on ecommerce sites.

Here are ten examples, please suggest any other good ones you have seen...

As you might expect, online played a big part, with Next Directory sales growing by 8.3% to £597.6m, while profits were 13.4% higher at £156.1m.

I've been looking at the Next website to pick out some of the reasons for its success online, and some areas where it could still improve.

However under new ownership as Game Retail Ltd and with a renewed focus on omnichannel retailing the company expected to make £20m profit in the year ending July 31 2013.

To find out more about the business' omnichannel strategy and plans for future growth I spoke to insight and reward director Fred Prego, who will also be speaking at Econsultancy's JUMP event on October 9.

JUMP is all about creating seamless multichannel customer experiences. Now in its fourth year, the event will be attended by more than 1,200 senior client-side marketers. This year it forms part of our week-long Festival of Marketing extravaganza.

It's time to take up the torch-time to make content matter. Preparing for a future where content is no longer stuck in websites, but orbits around users. A checklist for content work. Strategic content management. Testing content. Content modelling. Content templates to the rescue! Web governance-becoming an agent of change. Communications strategy in a crisis: what to do when your site or service fails.

• In 2014, W3C turns 20. In web years that's something like 200. We last redesigned the W3C homepage and other top pages in 2008 to provide more content, clearer navigation, and other conventions of site design. But a lot has changed in five years, and we want to revamp the site in time for our twentieth birthday.

• You have five minutes while waiting for a friend to meet you for lunch, so you find yourself shopping for a new pair of shoes. When your friend arrives, you put the phone away, but leave the web page open to help you remember what you found when you get home.