Chances are, if you read this blog regularly, you’re at least dipping your toes into the content marketing pool. I just want to let you know that the water is fine! If you need some more encouragement to dive right in take a look at this interesting infographic that lays out the importance of improving your content marketing game and tells you how your peers are working at building it into their marketing approach.

Let’s have a look at what the infographic has to say.

1. Content marketing isn’t just for B2C.

B2B companies can benefit from content marketing just as much as B2C companies – just look at brands like Adobe and Microsoft. That being said, there are some variations between B2B content marketing and B2C content marketing, including the subject matter, content formats, distribution channels, promotion, and objectives.

2. The majority of B2B marketers use content marketing.

Last year, the number of B2B marketers using content marketing was 86%. This year, it’s risen to 88%. You could say that content marketing is a popular strategy! But why have so many marketers started using it? It produces sustainable value, helps them to communicate with their clients, and is a great way to exchange information in a meaningful way.

3. Most B2B marketers use at least 13 content marketing tactics.

There are a LOT of different content marketing tactics out there, including blogs, newsletters, infographics, webinars, white papers, newsletters, case studies, social media content, videos – the list goes on. Why stick to just one, when you can use a number of different formats to reach different segments of your audience? You can even re-use the same information in multiple formats to extend your reach.

4. LinkedIn is the top choice to distribute content.

For B2B marketers, LinkedIn is the place to post – it’s been rated the most used and effective tool for content marketing. LinkedIn is a great way to build relationships and brand recognition, establish thought leadership, run extremely targeted advertising, boost traffic to your website, and research your prospects.

5. The most effective B2B content marketing tactic is in-person events.

Some of the best content marketing can actually take place offline, through in-person events that allow for engagement between a brand and its audience. Many marketers consider in-person events to be one of their most effective tactics. In-person content can offer the same information as written content, but also provide a personal experience for an audience. Strengthen relationships by following up after the event and use audience feedback to improve your future online content.

6. Lead generation and sales are the two most important goals.

Lead generation is actually rated as more important to B2B marketers than sales, at 85% v 84%. Finding qualified leads is a great long-term goal which can lead to sales in the future as well as support and investments for upcoming projects.

7. Creating engaging content is the top priority.

72% of content creators are driven by the goal of creating compelling content for the audiences. What can be considered engaging varies from audience to audience – B2B audiences tend to respond to information that is more data-driven and focuses on benefits in terms of ROI. B2B audiences want educational, detailed, high-quality content that helps them make decisions for their business.

8. B2B marketing can be broken down into five maturity levels.

First steps: Beginning to experiment with creating content, but have not begun to put together a strategy.

Young: Experiencing growing pains, working on building a strategy and measurement plan.

Adolescent: Have developed a business case and starting to see a bit of success. Gaining experience with measurement and scaling.

Mature: Finding success and beginning to work on integrating the strategy across the organization.

Sophisticated: Able to accurately measure the impact on the business and can scale the strategy across the organization.

32% of B2B marketers would rate their contenting marketing maturity level as Mature or Sophisticated. Where does your company fit in? Share your answer in the comments!

The post 8 Facts You Need to Know About B2B Content Marketing [Infographic] appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

Influencer marketing really does pack a big punch when compared to traditional marketing. The study found that influencer marketing created $285 incremental sales per 1000 impressions – that’s 11x the annual ROI of traditional marketing! Your ROI continues to grow over time, since original influencer content will stay online forever, versus the limited exposure you get via a paid digital ad. Through influencer content, you can double your impressions even after the campaign has ended. Best of all, you get this ongoing exposure with zero extra investment.

So how do you figure out who your influencers are? If you’re just starting to get into the influencer strategy, there are technological solutions out there that can connect your business with networks of influencers, and provide you with ways to measure your results.

This study has the potential to completely change the way that businesses budget for their digital marketing. Read the full report to learn more.

Are you leveraging influencer marketing? Has this infographic inspired you to find out more about it? Let me know in the comments.

The post Interesting Infographics: Influencer Marketing Drives 11x more ROI appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

First, let’s take a look at the numbers. LinkedIn has:

• 259,000,000 users and 2,100,000 groups
• 184,000,000 unique visitors per month
• 172,000 new signups per day
• 200 conversations in groups and 7610 searches per minute

37.6% of businesses have used the site to build new relationships with customers, and 37.2% have used it to increase their branding presence. It’s actually been shown that 50% of LinkedIn members are more likely to purchase from companies that they engage with on the site! So, how do you make sure that you’re grabbing their attention?

1. When: Post your content in the morning, Monday through Friday. This will help you attract the highest number of eyes on your updates.
2. How Often: You can reach 60% of your unique audience by posting 20 status updates per month. Schedule your LinkedIn update into your workday.
3. What: Shape your content to match what people want. 60% of LinkedIn members prefer content related to industry insights. Including a link will double your engagement, and adding an image will net you a nearly 98% higher comment rate. You can expect 75% more shares if your content includes a video.

An important part of LinkedIn is making the right connections. QuickSprout suggests 3 main strategies for tracking down new customers on the site.

1. Use the advanced search feature, and specify the parameters for your target group. LinkedIn actually offers a pretty comprehensive list of criteria, including industry, title, location, years of experience, and many others.
2. Research your immediate network. The perfect customer may actually be just one or two degrees of separation away.
3. Use the Saved Searches feature to receive daily, weekly, or monthly alerts for potential leads.

The post Increase LinkedIn Engagement by 386% appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

What about blogging?

Content marketing, which includes things like blogging and infographics, is a hot trend in digital marketing and with good reason: it costs 62% less than traditional marketing and can generate up to 3x as many leads. Most marketing agencies (84%) predict content marketing will be even more important in the future. This infographic from CopyPress is based on interviews with 300 content creators, including in-house marketers, agencies, and freelancers. So what do they think about this rapidly growing industry? Let’s take a look and see!

While marketers may recognize this growing trend, that doesn’t mean that their clients do.

• 58% of agency employees didn’t think that their clients knew about content marketing
• Only 5% saw their clients as very knowledgeable about it
• 82% created 1-10 pieces of content per month – only 10% created over 50 pieces per month

When asked to break down the types of content created for clients, agencies reported creating:

• blog posts (92%)
• web copy (70%)
• static infographics (30%)
• interactive media or videos (45%)
• illustrations (16%)

33% of agencies reported that their biggest challenge in content creation was understanding and matching client expectations and 15% cited scaling production to be their biggest obstacle to overcome.

When it comes to in-house marketers, we see roughly the same trends:

• 74% said their companies had 1-4 content marketers on staff; only 17% had over 10
• 39% didn’t think that the company’s efforts were very effective
• 20% of companies spend less on $5000 on content marketing annually and 22% spent between $5000-$15000
• 60% said content marketing was smaller than other channels
• Only 13% published content multiple times per day (43% did it weekly and 35% daily)
• 65% of the respondents wanted to publish more and only 22% were satisfied with how often they posted

While companies aren’t investing in content marketing, they do crave the results it brings:

• 35% wanted better search rankings and visibility
• 43% wanted to increase their revenue and sales
• 13% wanted higher volumes of repeat traffic and to build a loyal community

91% of these companies created their blog posts in-house and 50% created their own product descriptions.

So what about freelancers? Where do they fit in?

• 64% of freelancers work full-time
• 40% work between 21-40 hours per week and 14% work over 40 hours per week
• 67% made under $20,000 as a freelancer last year and 6% earned more than $90,000
• 23% have been in the field for 3-5 years and 24% have over 10 years of experience
• 13% have a high-school diploma or GED, 78% have a college degree, and 28% have at least a master’s degree
• 60% of respondents have a personal blog or website

Freelancers on average tend to be a little more limited in the types of content they create: 94% produce written content (only 4% create infographics or other visual content.)

Hopefully, this infographic gave you a little motivation to put content marketing on your radar for 2017 – or to think about increasing your budget if you’re already onboard!

What do you think is the biggest opportunity in content marketing today? Let me know in the comments!

The post What We Learned from 300 Content Marketers appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

For all of the amazing new technologies that have popped up to help marketers reach their customers, there are also new technologies that have been invented to hide ads from viewers. Not only that, but marketers have to reckon with the fact that many customers aren’t especially trusting when it comes to brand advertising.

Don’t worry – there is hot new marketing trend that actually addresses both of these points: influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing taps into the power of writers and vloggers who are already well-known by your audience and uses their influence to spread the word about your business. This infographic from The Word Pro lays out some pretty compelling statistics about the power of influencer marketing – why it works, who is using it, and how it is growing. Let’s check it out!

A few stats:

• 92% of people trust personal recommendations over brands – even if they don’t know the individual making the recommendation
• 81% of people are influenced by their friends’ social media posts
• 71% of customers report having an improved perception of a brand when they read positive reviews on social media

With the rise of ad-blocking software, it’s become harder to reach customers through online advertising – 47% of people who shop online use ad blockers. What does this mean for your brand? It means that the best way to reach these customers is through content posted by people that they trust: 81% of customers make purchasing decisions based on information that their friends share and 77% of people refer to online reviews. 50% of customers made a purchase based on a general recommendation that they found on social media, regardless of who posted it (friend or non-friend.) In contrast, only 38% cite low pricing as influencing their decision and only 35% rely on smartphone comparison shopping.

Smart marketers are paying attention:

• 81% of marketers consider influencer marketing to be effective
• 78% of brands have boosted their content output over the past two years
• 59% plan to increase their budget for influencer marketing next year
• 51% believe that they capture better customers through influencer marketing

Facebook is a particularly powerful tool for marketers – in 2015, the platform influenced 52% of online and offline purchasers, a big jump up from 36% in 2014.

So how do you reach out to these influencers? First, figure out who you want to reach (key bloggers, vloggers, or social media personalities well-known by your target market.) Then, invite them to experience your product or service – for example, you could send them a special promotional package. Of course, there is always the possibility that they will share negative feedback, but that can give you the opportunity to display your amazing customer service and put things right!

How are you leveraging influencers in your B2B lead generation and marketing campaigns? Let me know in the comments!

The post The Importance of Influencer Marketing appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

This infographic from Headway Capital includes a quiz that will let you know what type of leader you are. Not only that, but it also talks about when each of those styles is the best fit, when it is the worst fit, and how you can improve.  After all, if you want your business to be as successful and productive as it can possibly be, you need to be able to properly motivate, guide, and support your team. With that in mind, check out the infographic, take the quiz, and figure out your leadership style.

The 6 Leadership Styles

Pace-Setting Leader

The Pace-Setting Leader expects their team to live up to the standards that they set not only for the team but also for themselves. They show the team what is expected through their own behavior.

This style of leadership works well when you have a highly motivated and skilled team behind you, but doesn’t work well with every type of employee. It can lead to micromanaging, which can cause low morale.

How to improve: Work on building up your people-centered leadership skills. Ask questions, listen to answers, and give people more autonomy when it comes to choices regarding their long-term growth.

Commanding Leader

You say “jump”, you expect them to say “how high?”

This style of leadership can work well in a crisis situation or with very problematic employees, but in all other situations it can lead to high staff turnover – and that’s no good.

How to improve: Save this style for crisis situations only. In the meantime, work on developing a different style of leadership, like Coach or Visionary.

Visionary Leader

The Visionary Leader is patient and lets their team find their own way of doing things, based on a clear vision communicated to them. Visionary leaders get results through inspiring their team.

This style of leadership can work well when steering a company in a brand new direction. It can help boost productivity by helping employees to see themselves as parts of a bigger picture. If the vision doesn’t match reality, however, that boost can quickly grind to a halt.

How to improve: Make sure that your vision is easy to understand. Use stories and metaphors to share it, and make sure that the benefits are made clear.

Democratic Leader

Democratic Leaders work closely with their teams and often bring them into the decision-making process. They value results but understand that they can take time.

This style of leadership can work well in that sharing decision-making with your team can get them better engaged in both the results and the process. This style of leadership is less effective if team members aren’t informed enough to make the best decisions.

How to improve: Hire and coach an effective decision-making team. Ensure that you and your team develop effective speaking and listening skills, and value honesty and commitment.

Affiliative Leader

Affiliative Leaders work closely with their teams, and support and nurture them. They provide positive reinforcement and value loyal relationships.

This style of leadership can work well when organizations are undergoing a negative change or a team is suffering low morale. Affiliative leadership at these points can help to build team bonds and reinforce loyalty. Using only positive reinforcement, however, can demotivate employees to work on actively improving their performance.

How to improve: Affiliative Leaders need to be a little more Visionary – their friendly style pairs very well with a clear vision that drives outcomes.

Coaching Leader

Coaching Leaders challenge their employees to continually improve, supporting their efforts and often using structured development plans.

This style of leadership encourages employees to improve themselves and take responsibility for their professional development, which is great. But if your project requires quick results, coaching isn’t the best style to use.

How to improve: If you need fast results or an employee isn’t committed, then you need to try another style.

Your Results:

What’s your leadership style? Do you think that it reflects the way that you lead your team?  Let me know in the comments!

The post What Type of Leader Are You? appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

Here’s the thing: by 2018, nearly 80% of internet usage will be mobile. Currently, over half (52.7%) of global internet users access the internet using mobile devices.

Estimated global mobile traffic is expected to sharply increase over the next four years:

• 2017: 9.9 exabytes per month
• 2018: 14.9 exabytes per month
• 2019: 21.7 exabytes per month
• 2020: 30.6 exabytes per month

In October 2016, global mobile and tablet internet usage flew past desktop internet usage for the first time – it rose to 51.3% of the usage worldwide v. 48.7% for desktop. Now, mobile devices account for 65% of all digital media time with desktop lagging behind at 35%.

Different content types attract different users on different platforms, though. Let’s take a look at the time spent on various content types broken down into mobile v. desktop:

• Portal: 69% on mobile and 31% on desktop
• Business/finance: 58% on mobile and 42% on desktop
• Entertainment/news: 51% on mobile and 49% on desktop
• Health information: 46% on mobile and 54% on desktop
• News/information: 44% on mobile and 56% on desktop
• Sports: 39% on mobile and 61% on desktop
• Retail: 38% on mobile and 62% on desktop
• Lifestyle: 36% on mobile and 64% on desktop
• Personals: 23% on mobile and 77% on desktop
• Social networking: 21% on mobile and 79% on desktop
• Online gaming: 12% on mobile and 88% on desktop
• Photos: 8% on mobile and 92% on desktop
• Maps: 6% on mobile and 94% on desktop

While desktop internet usage still clearly has some fight left in it, marketers have already begun looking to the future – by 2019, mobile advertising is predicted to jump up to 72.2% of all digital advertising spend.

With the move to mobile, we need to be aware and move forward with mobile-first strategies. How are you changing your lead generation strategies and tactics to be mobile first? Let me know in the comments!

The post Who will come out on top in 2017? Mobile or Desktop? appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

Unfortunately, too many companies aren’t taking advantage of that power the way that they could be, as illustrated by the infographic below from the CMO Council.

While today’s marketers are expected to help drive growth, they aren’t getting the support they need to fill that role. While 68% of senior managers see CMOs as being responsible for growth, only 31% say that line-of-business leaders offer them real support.

CMOs know that there are tasks that they need to focus on to build growth. 48% list crafting growth strategies as an important focus, 44% consider defining and shaping the brand to be a priority, and 42% say that they should be spending time executing campaigns.

The thing is, CMOs are often stuck doing things that aren’t really adding to their growth-driving goals:

• 42% are spending their time reviewing budgets, plans, content and campaign elements
• 42% are spending their time attending meetings
• 37% are spending their time evolving brand narrative

With all their time being taken up by those tasks, they’re unable to pay attention to things that would actually help to drive growth!

• Only 8% are able to find ways to recover, reactivate, and re-engage customers
• Only 10% are embracing new monetization programs
• Only 15% are modifying marketing practices to boost performance

That’s a lot of wasted opportunity! So what can CMOs do to get back on track? In order to claim their rightful place as growth-drivers in a business, CMOs must:

• Regain control and shape customer experience
• Use technology as an innovation driver
• Shift to a revenue-centric vision

Shifting the focus of marketing to a more revenue-centred approach is a great way to grow the business but marketers need organizational support to reach these goals. How do you implement revenue-centric marketing from your playbook? Let me know in the comments.

The post Interesting Infographics: The Evolution of the Strategic CMO appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

This week, I want to take a bit of a psychological perspective and look at the way that our brains react to content. After all, content marketing is all about grabbing audience attention – but the type of content you should create depends on the type of response you want from them once you have it! This infographic from MainPath Marketing examines the ways that the brain responds to different types of content. Let’s check it out.

First things first – different ways of presenting content are processed by the brain in different ways. This changes the impact that your content can have, so it’s important to know what your goal is first – and then figure out how to present your information.

So, what are the different content types, and how can you use them to get your messaging across?

Written Content

Examples:

• Blog posts
• Website content
• Case studies
• e-Books
• Whitepapers

Written content is great for building the relationship between a brand and a customer. When people read written content, they tend to identify with what they are reading. When you read a book, you put yourself in the shoes of the narrator or hero, right? Written content is also great for emotional resonance because our brains react the same way to the things we read about as they do to the things we see in real life.

Written content is great for:

Growing trust in your customers, highlighting your experiences and expertise, sharing positive customer experiences with your product, and discussing the value of your offerings.

Graphic Content

Examples:

• Infographics
• Slideshows
• e-Books

Graphic content helps people to understand and remember information, including complex ideas. Why is that? Well, our brains are incredibly good at dealing with visual input. That’s no surprise, considering up to 50% of our brains are set up to process it. It only takes about 1/10^th of a second to understand a visual scene and 250 milliseconds to attach meaning to a symbol. Plus, images store very well in long-term memory, which works out pretty well for your message!

Graphic content is great for:

Making your content memorable, sharing complex ideas and data, making a persuasive argument, attracting attention.

Interactive Content

Examples:

• Quizzes
• Interactive graphics

Interactive content gets people directly involved with your information, which makes it easier for them to remember the key points. Since interactive content combines visuals, stories, and participation, it gets more parts of the brain involved than most other kinds of content.

Quizzes are an especially effective type of interactive content, in terms of sharing and engagement. Quizzes and quiz results are the most shared type of media on Facebook!

Interactive content is great for:

Creating shareable content, engaging with an audience, developing a memorable interactive experience.

Video Content

Examples:

• Video blogs
• Facebook Live
• Brand/culture videos
• Webinars
• Instructional videos or demos

Video content is the best way to build an emotional connection with your audience because you can use body language, tone of voice, expressions, and other behaviors in combination to shape your message. Video is also processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text, and it doesn’t require as much energy to process.

Video content is great for:

Sharing personal stories about your brand, building an emotional connection, demonstrating how to do something or explaining how something works.

Hopefully, this helped to shed some light on why certain types of content are better for certain messages. Does your business experiment with different content delivery methods? Have you ever created quizzes or other interactive content that made a big splash with your audience? I’d like to hear about it in the comments.

The post Interesting Infographics: How the Brain Processes Content appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.

The 8 Critical Elements Every Awesome Email Needs to Have:

1. Attention-grabbing subject line. This one seems like a no-brainer but it can be hard to define what makes a great subject line. The subject line should be personal, relevant, and timely, and it should clearly explain the benefit to the customer. Experiment with different subject lines to see what works best for your customers.
2. Recognizable from-name. Customers don’t want to open spam or potentially malicious emails, so you have to make sure that they know that your note is from a trusted source. Make sure that your return address and from-name are easily recognizable, or chances are your email won’t get a second glance.
3. Customized pre-header text. This is the text that is viewable in your customer’s inbox even before they open your email, so make sure that it communicates valuable information about what your email contains (and why your customer should be interested.)
4. A beautiful image. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a well-shot, attractive, relevant image is a great way to draw your reader into your email.
5. Compelling content. Once you’ve gotten their attention, you need to deliver the goods! Make sure that your content is interesting and relevant to the reader – you can segment your database and use dynamic content to make sure that your emails are well-targeted and make sense for your different customers. Make sure to show your brand’s personality and try to sound sincere.
6. A powerful Call-To-Action. This element is the key to driving engagement and conversions, so make sure that it’s clear, compelling, and easy to do. Also, make sure that your CTA button or link is highly visible – if people are skimming, you don’t want them to miss it!
7. Sender details. Don’t fall afoul of the Spam Act! Most countries require that sender details such as the name and address of an organization are included in emails. You should also make sure that your reply-to address is working and read the responses sent.
8. Unsubscribe link. Hopefully, none of your customers will ever want to use it, but you need to make sure to include one according to anti-spam laws. Don’t worry – if you follow the rest of the tips, you may not have to worry as much about losing readers!

Does your company have a best practices policy when it comes to email marketing? Does it contain any insights that weren’t included on the list? Let me know in the comments!

The post 8 Critical Elements for Awesome Emails appeared first on LEADership by Louis Foong, CEO The ALEA Group.