Category: Content Marketing

The 7 Best Healthcare Marketing Agencies in 2024

Posted on by Daniel Lofaso

Reaching target audiences, patient privacy, a fragmented media landscape… getting your healthcare company to stand out from the competition has become more challenging than ever. As healthcare marketing continues to evolve, so should your marketing strategy, making the agency you partner with integral to your success.

At Digital Elevator, we’ve been providing healthcare marketing since 2010 and have a significant track record in which 44% of our clients raise funds, exit, or get acquired. That said, we know other healthcare marketing companies bring unique expertise to the industry, and we want to highlight them here. 

Here’s a hand-selected list of some of the best healthcare marketing agencies that specialize in the health and medical industries. 

Note: I’ll define the ideal client by the typical client type the agency works with. A “small business” is defined as a company that makes under $38.5 million annually, and has less than 1,500 employees. “Mid-market enterprise” is $38.5 million to $1 billion in annual revenue, and has 1,500 to 2,000 employees. “Large enterprise” is over $1 billion in revenue with over 2,000 employees.

1. Digital Elevator

With a specialization in B2B healthcare marketing, Digital Elevator is an ideal partner for emerging brands with goals to scale quickly, raise funds, or get acquired. They have a proven track record with SEO-driven content marketing campaigns, paid lead generation, and highly intuitive web design projects with healthcare companies of all sizes. 

Digital Elevator has a reputation for being considerably more budget-friendly than bigger healthcare marketing agencies that target mid-market and enterprise clients and top off the list due to their longevity within the industry at nearly 15 years. Their team has been integral in the scaling and selling of a division of McKesson and other Fortune 500 clients but tends to focus on emerging healthcare brands with aggressive growth goals.

Specialization:

B2B, healthcare website design, lead generation via SEO and PPC, and content marketing

Ideal client:

Small business to mid-market enterprise

Client examples:

McKesson, Halo Labs, Ventra Health

2. IPG Health

Comprised of over 20 full-service agencies and 18+ specialized agencies, IPG’s team of over 6,500 provides services across digital marketing, communications, data and analytics, and creatives. For innovative and high touchpoint marketing campaigns on a national or international scale, one of IPGs marketing or specialty companies can likely assist in creating something memorable. 

Specialization:

Full-service agency of record (AOR), public relations, market research, healthcare policy

Ideal client:

Large enterprise

Client examples:

Cologuard, AstraZeneca, Lilly

3. Ogilvy Health

Ogilvy Health is a global network that operates in the healthcare marketing and business solutions sector. The organization works with various clients, including pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, medical centers, insurance providers, government health policy makers, and consumer health and wellness brands. 

Their approach combines local market knowledge with global capabilities, allowing them to address diverse healthcare communication needs. Ogilvy Health’s scope extends beyond traditional health and wellness brands, as they aim to assist various businesses in integrating health-conscious messaging into their branding. The company adapts to different market conditions and project timelines, drawing on their experience across the healthcare industry landscape to develop marketing strategies and business solutions.

Specialization:

Branding, data and analytics, public relations

Ideal client:

Large enterprise

Client examples:

Bristol Myers Squibb, abbvie, Johnson & Johnson

4. Healthcare Success

Healthcare Success is a specialized marketing and advertising agency that focuses exclusively on the healthcare sector. The company offers a comprehensive range of services designed to assist healthcare organizations in patient acquisition, brand enhancement, and professional outreach. 

Their client base is diverse within the healthcare industry, encompassing hospitals and health systems, multi-location medical practices, addiction treatment centers, long-term care facilities, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, medical device manufacturers and private equity firms in the healthcare space. By concentrating solely on healthcare, Healthcare Success aims to provide targeted marketing solutions that address the unique challenges and regulatory environment of the medical field.

Specialization:

Patient acquisition, digital marketing, marketing AOR

Ideal client:

Small business

Client examples:

Texas Endovascular, SynergenX, Pomona Valley Health Centers

5. Cardinal Digital Marketing

Cardinal Digital Marketing is a healthcare-focused digital marketing agency with over ten years of experience in the field. The company specializes in developing marketing solutions for multi-site healthcare groups, with an emphasis on HIPAA compliance to address the privacy concerns inherent in healthcare marketing. Their services encompass patient acquisition strategies, digital transformation initiatives, and brand creative development.

Cardinal Digital Marketing’s strategies are designed to be highly targeted and measurable, aligning with the specific performance metrics and parameters set by their healthcare clients. The company positions itself as a partner for healthcare organizations seeking growth through digital marketing channels while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Specialization:

Multi-site healthcare groups, patient acquisition, digital transformation

Ideal client:

Small business to mid-market enterprise

Client examples:

ATI Physical Therapy, greater good health, Southern Veterinary Partners

6. Intrepy

Intrepy is a healthcare marketing agency that has been focusing exclusively on mid to large-sized specialty medical practices for over a decade. The company offers growth strategies developed by a team of marketing professionals who have undergone HIPAA training, emphasizing their commitment to maintaining patient privacy standards in their marketing approaches. 

Intrepy’s services combine various digital marketing techniques, aiming to adapt to changing patient behaviors in seeking and connecting with healthcare providers. Their specialized focus on specialty practices allows them to tailor their strategies to the specific needs and challenges of this healthcare sector.

Specialization:

Medical practice marketing, web design, social media

Ideal client:

Small business

Client examples:

Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics, Carolina Orthopaedic and Neurosurgical Associates, Ageless Remedies Medical Spa

7. PatientGain

PatientGain helps healthcare and medical practices acquire new patients. Unlike other providers on this list, their services are packaged-based, allowing their customers to choose the level of service that suits their requirements and budget.

Using a mix of online and offline marketing strategies, PatientGain offers a price-friendly service that commoditizes the marketing experience. From prepackaged services to individualized services, medical groups can order digital marketing, chatbots, social posts, marketing emails, SMS alerts and more from this budget provider.

Specialization:

A la carte and pre-packaged digital marketing services

Ideal client:

Small business

Client examples:

None listed

 

Healthcare Marketing with Digital Elevator

Healthcare marketing success is accomplished by understanding customer journeys, buying cycles, and consumer psychology and meeting these prospects during the various stages of discovery.

At Digital Elevator, we create marketing strategies specialized for B2B healthcare brands that require multichannel touchpoints accomplished from search engines, paid ads, social platforms, and amazing websites. To discuss how we can help you, contact us today.

5 Actionable Ecommerce Content Marketing Tips That Win Customers

Posted on by Daniel E. Lofaso

Ecommerce Content Marketing That Wins Customers

Did you know that 71 percent of consumers use search engines to find products, and an even higher percentage uses search to make informed purchasing decisions by researching and comparing products?

The importance of content marketing in ecommerce is something that can not be ignored.

To be successful with content marketing, however, you must stand out from the crowd. Today, we will be looking at five types of ecommerce content marketing that will win customers and help you stay ahead of your competitors.

1. Target Different Stages In The Buyer Journey

Hubspot

Most customers don’t purchase from you the first time around. It’s important to map out the buyer journey process, from when they first see your ad or land on your website to when they finally make a purchase – and beyond.

Remember that the buyer journey doesn’t end with a purchase; instead, it continues as the customer comes back to make a second purchase or renew their subscription.

You should be creating content that targets every step in the buyer journey. To do that, you first have to map out that journey.

Here’s a simplified example of different steps you can be targeting:

 
  • Research: During this phase, the customer has a problem and is looking for a solution. They may not know what kind of product is available to help them. Your job is to show them, in your blog posts, how your product or service can help them solve this problem.
  • Purchasing Decision: During this phase, the customer already knows that there is a product or service that can offer relief. However, they are still undecided as to which company they will purchase from or whether or not it is worth their money.
  • Unsatisfied Consumer: These are consumers who have purchased the product from somewhere else but were not satisfied. You can step in and show them how you will do better.
  • Your Existing Customers: You can create blog posts explaining to your customers how they can make the most out of the product they purchased, how they can get help if they need it, and so on. This can help drive repeat sales.

If you only target the research phase, for example, you may be losing out on sales. Customers who are in the purchasing decision phase are easier to convert, as they are already further along in the journey.

Hubspot has many templates and customer journey examples you can use to map out your own customer journey.

2. Product Information And How-To Posts

Another type of blog post that can bring in sales are those that go over specific product information. For example, you can write reviews of your products so that consumers can find out its details, what it does, and how it can help them.

Make sure to include all the details in an easy-to-read manner. One way is to include visual charts or graphs, such as size charts if you are selling clothing.

You can create video guides and how-to posts using a video editor online that shows users how to solve common problems. Make sure to include the use of one of your products as one of the steps in the guide and include a link to the product page.

Video guides and product reviews, both on your website and YouTube, are also very effective.

Salesforce does this on its YouTube channel – here is an example of a short, engaging video that explains how one of their features can help small businesses.

3. Live Content

Live content helps you build a personal relationship with consumers. It’s easy to start – you can use Facebook Live or Youtube to stream live videos with Q&A sessions, upcoming product launch announcements, industry news, inside-the-company sneak peeks, and more.

Your audience can ask questions and comment, and you can reply to them in real time.

You can hold webinars for more in-depth discussions or for bigger launches. WordStream holds regular webinars and then posts the recordings to an online library so customers can access a wide selection of recordings on different topics.

4. Podcasts

Many consumers won’t have time to watch webinars or tune into live streams. Some may not even have the time to read blog posts.

This is why podcasts are so important. Your audience can listen to podcasts on-the-go, during their daily run, or while commuting to work.

Podcasts give you an opportunity to interview influential figures in your industry, which adds to your authority and credibility. It also exposes you to those influencers’ fans. For example, as a beauty influencer, you could interview a top makeup artist, which not only enhances your credibility but also introduces your brand to their dedicated followers.

Another reason podcasts are so important is because they drive more repeat visits. If you release an interesting, fun, and informative podcast on a regular basis, people will keep coming back to hear more.

The more traffic you have visiting your site, and the more repeat visitors you have in particular, the more sales you can expect. Remember what we said about the buyer’s journey – people don’t usually make a purchase the first time around.

Neil Patel releases podcasts in his online “Marketing School.” These are daily, 5-10 minute podcasts, but you can also release longer-form podcasts once a week, for example.

5. User-Generated Content

User-generated content can be effective as it gives you social proof. It’s not just you talking about your product and how great it is – it’s others doing it as well.

Did you know that 84 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from family and friends? This is why social proof is so important.

Reviews and testimonials are one form of user generated content. Encourage customers to leave reviews on your products by sending followup emails after their purchase. It’s always a good idea to keep customers engaged. Upselling becomes easier as a result.

Manage your online reputation by posting guest posts on other blogs so that those posts appear when someone does a Google search about you.

Post testimonials, including video testimonials, on your site and YouTube channel. Video testimonials from real customers add a more personal touch – stories are important in appealing to consumers’ emotions and influencing their opinions.

However, user generated content goes beyond that. You can create a page on your website or a series on your YouTube channel that is dedicated to answering real questions from real users.

On your social media channels, you can ask users to submit content such as pictures of creative ways they are using your product or how they are using your product in their daily lives. Offer discounts or sweepstakes to encourage submissions.

Twitter and Instagram are great places to do that. Instagram is very visual in nature, making it easy for people to post selfies, and both platforms let people contribute to your campaigns using hashtags.

Starbucks shows the perfect example of how to do this. Every year, they hold a Red Cup Contest, where users submit pictures of themselves drinking Starbucks coffee for a chance to win a gift card.

This particular contest also directly drives up sales by encouraging consumers to buy more coffee so they can post more pictures.

BMW takes advantage of user generated content as well by encouraging users to post pictures of their beloved BMWs with the hashtag BMWRepost, which has generated more than 1.5 million posts.

Wrapping It Up

Content marketing, when done correctly, has the power to explode your sales.

Start creating the five types of content mentioned in this article to see new visitors flow in and your profits go up.

26 Best Content Marketing Tips of 2024

Posted on by Daniel E. Lofaso

You’d probably agree that content marketing can help build trust and credibility within your industry.

However, this only happens when your content strategy is aligned with what your target audience wants to hear.

To gain more insight into what other content marketers are doing to engage with their audience effectively, I’ve asked a slew of professionals from different industries what their best content marketing tips for 2022 are. 

Check out the wealth of information below and see if you can incorporate some of these ideas into your next piece of content.

Promote user-generated content

Not all of the content in your content marketing strategy, in my opinion, has to come from you. For various reasons, user-generated content is an effective marketing strategy. For starters, it provides social proof to new learners who are discovering the topic, letting them know that they aren’t the only ones who are interested in what you’re teaching, and it allows them to evaluate the outcomes of previous classes. Second, it’s much easier to share. The person who developed their material is more likely to promote and share your article highlighting them with their online connections, who are also more likely to like, comment, and repost it, resulting in far higher organic results than if you had created it yourself.

Ryan Dalal
CEO & Founder 
Word to PDF

Dan’s Take
To get user-generated content try an outlet like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) where you can create queries in which relevant parties can respond. You can then use this information to create meaningful content that comes from the perspective of other credible sources (hint: sort of like the piece you are reading now!)

Understand search intent

It is 2022 and Google is getting more sophisticated with every update so the demands on content increase. One of the most common mistakes I see is that writers and content marketers don’t understand the searcher intent. This may result in 2 issues – you focus on wrong KWs (that drive you traffic and not sales), or badly written content that cannot rank.

A lot of people are looking for a magical formula on how to write content that ranks. But they often forget that people are just looking for information for their queries. So before you start writing, ask yourself a few questions.

 
  • Who is my content for? What is the search intent?
  • What do I want to share?
  • How does it benefit the reader?
  • Is it helpful?
  • Is it well researched?
  • Do I engage the reader’s emotions?

Every word of your content should add value. People are not interested in fluffy sentences with little to no info. Add value = Answer questions, solve problems.

Ing. Petr Minarik
Cyclists Hub

Google wants the user to find the answer to the query right away, at the beginning of the introduction. The days of content marketers weaving a story into the introduction to hook readers are over. Google’s Core Update of June 2021 focuses on user experience. Marketers need also not worry about bounce rate. The focus today is on getting the user the answer to the

search query right away. This is in stark contrast to trying to keep users on the blog post longer in order to improve bounce rate. Marketers need to update their posts with fresh content and content that answers the user’s query at the beginning of the introduction.

Janice Wald
Blogger, Blogging Coach, Freelance Writer
Mostly Blogging

Rely on data

Many content creators ignore their own data because they don’t know how to quantify it or set a benchmark for what is good and what is terrible. It’s easier to understand the outcomes if your content approach is results-oriented. The first step is to get to know your audience and personalize your material to their preferences. The topic matter and the structure, the platform you choose to promote the content, and the relevancy of your final objective are all factors to consider. 

The first step toward success is to get the basics right, and delving deep into who your learners are and how to effectively reach them can help your overall content marketing approach succeed.

Jake Smith
Managing Director
Absolute Reg

Keep track of your success against your goals as you implement these content marketing ideas and produce content on your site. Although it’s easy to feel accomplished by merely looking at the number of pages you’ve published, it’s critical to examine whether or not those pages are truly creating results. Make it a habit to check Google Analytics (or another analytics application) regularly, and keep track of the parameters that show overall performance. If things are going well, keep doing what you’re doing; if they aren’t, utilize the data to improve your plan.

Naomi Bishop
Chief Insurance Officer
Surfky

The biggest shift we’ve made is from a focus on quantitative data to qualitative data when it comes to content strategy. The truth about quantitative data is that (1) we’re all using the same tools (2) to pull suspect data (3) on micro-conversions like links and shares—not leads and revenue.

So we can’t expect quantitative data to rescue our strategies—to reveal the compelling angles on topics and help us stand out in a crowded landscape.

Qualitative data, however, has tons of insights. You can gather this by cataloging and coding comment threads on posts or—my favorite—comment streams on upvoting sites (e.g., Hacker News, Reddit). You can also run user surveys to get this same data.

Instead of staring at a laundry list of content that earned likes and shares, you’ll get real user commentary about *why* certain articles or opinions within them resonated. Those are the crucial insights you need in 2022, when everything has already been 10x’d and skyscraper’d to death.

Derek Gleason
Lead Analyst 
Workshop Digital

 

Build tools

By far, one of our most effective content marketing strategies has been building calculators. With so many people’s problems online, sometimes there’s no better answer than by giving them solid numbers. There’s some fantastic plugins which make creating content like this easy (I recommend the Calculated Fields Form plugin on WordPress). You can create calculators on almost anything, like:

 
  • Finance calculators
  • Material calculators
  • Product recommendation calculators
  • Cost-to-run calculators

The real beauty is in the ease of marketing these content pieces. Simply find websites that discuss the issue that your calculator solves, and mention how you’ve got a purpose-built calculator to help their readers. More often than not, they’ll thank you for it.

Craig Anderson
Owner
Appliance Analysts

Dan’s Take
We love building tools for site visitors as well as our clients. In fact, we’ve built an SEO ROI Calculator and a PPC ROI Calculator that we use for internal purposes, but also as a means to naturally acquire links. You don’t need to be a developer to build calculator tools, either. Run on over to Code Canyon and type in a specific search for the type of calculator you want to build; you may find that it already exists and you can simply update it a little bit to match your branding.

 

Make your content more voice search-friendly

Voice search is becoming a more frequent way for individuals to access and consume web material as smart devices become more prevalent. Voice search is used by 41% of individuals on a daily basis to accomplish everything from checking the weather to making purchases. 

When generating the content, keep voice search in mind to ensure that your site and products are available to the biggest possible audience. People omit extraneous words and focus only on the most crucial terms, making search engine queries shorter and shorter.

Amber Morland
CEO & Founder 
WinCope

 

Establish your authority

Your goal with each item should be to improve your authority as an instructor in your industry, regardless of how you offer it. Select a strategy that allows you to demonstrate your expertise and teaching techniques. 

When it comes to ranking websites, Google’s algorithm prioritizes Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT), so it’s critical to establish oneself as a credible figure before your site rises to the top of the SERPs. Start by making sure your credentials are visible on your website and social media pages. To show learners and search engines that you are a respectable figure in your industry, use your professional title, if you have one, or establish social proof.

Adam Fard
Founder & Head Of Design 
Adam Fard UX Agency

 

Know your audience

You must first understand your target audience before you can develop any type of marketing strategy (online or otherwise). However, unlike most traditional tactics, content marketing necessitates a deeper understanding of your target group. You must write articles, blog posts, and visuals that engage your audience as part of content marketing. To accomplish so, you must first comprehend your potential clients’ desires, know about their passions, know areas they need your assistance in, know the words and phrases they use to search for answers on the internet.

Here’s an example of how to use this content marketing tip. Even though they both work in the healthcare area, a pharmaceutical digital marketing strategy and a dental digital marketing strategy may target two different audiences. While the pharmaceutical industry caters to doctors, the dental industry caters to patients, resulting in a wide range of materials. Your content marketing efforts will be considerably more successful if you have a thorough understanding of your audience. If you’ve never done any kind of research before, developing personas is a good place to start.

Daniel Foley
Founder 
Daniel Foley SEO

To better understand the buyer’s journey for my customers and clientele, I like to browse online forums for industry-specific topics to note what kinds of questions they’re asking. With more people than ever on the internet in 2022, my company plans to work double-time in 2022 to ensure that our content goes further by utilizing the internet to identify information related to our buyer personas.

Leticia Romney 
Owner and Editor 
The Write Hand, LLC

Use an empathy map and take a comprehensive approach to gain a better understanding of your target audience’s point of view to allow you to take a step back and better tailor their experience based on what they think, feel, see, or hear. Empathy is the value that opens the door to have more meaningful interactions with our customers, which is extremely important during these changing times.

Matthew Paxton
Founder
Hypernia

 

Stay relevant with evergreen content

When it comes to content, the Internet is incredibly saturated with articles, videos, webpages, and media being produced on an unbelievable scale every second, and ensuring that your content remains visible and relevant is a daily challenge. One effective way to stand out is to skillfully edit videos, making them engaging and polished to capture and retain your audience’s attention.

As a result, evergreen content – content that remains relevant for an extended period of time – is crucial. Evergreen content will not go out of style in the near future, will always be timely and relevant, and will engage and attract users.

News stories, statistical trends, and seasonal topics are not allowed in evergreen content since they become associated with a specific date and lose their relevance. Evergreen content is regarded as a critical success factor for a business’s marketing strategy, particularly because it drives more traffic, has lower maintenance costs (because it doesn’t need to be updated or replaced on a regular basis), maintains high SEO rankings, and can be shared on social media for extended periods of time.

Tanner Arnold
President & CEO
Revelation Machinery

 

Prioritize quality over quantity

Don’t try to do everything at once. 

Many edupreneurs will adopt broad content marketing plans in 2022, which will rapidly become unmanageable in practise. Be honest with yourself about what you can accomplish. It’s simply not possible to write a blog post every day, start a podcast, and eventually get around to forming a Facebook group, let alone teach two courses and write a book. Instead, concentrate on what you can do relatively well. 

Frequency is less crucial than consistency. If you can only write one good blog post per month, adhere to that schedule and publish it on the same day each month. As a result, your fans will know when to expect your next post and will eagerly await it.

Dr. Pooneh Ramezani
CEO, Co-Founder
Dr. Brite

Dan’s Take
There is something of a debate in the SEO community about whether you should publish regularly or focus on quality and publish less frequently. My take is on the quality side of course, but I usually analyze other factors as well when it comes to content production frequency. When it comes to content, you want it to rank. Period. To get your content to rank you are likely to need a link building strategy to accompany it, so you have to budget accordingly. While you may be able to scale your content production to four blogs a month, not having a budget or resources to promote your content will likely not provide the same benefit of publishing one blog  per month, building enough links so that it ranks, and driving traffic.

 

Create comparison content

One of our favorite content strategies this year has been creating comparison articles. We sell live bugs to reptile owners. And each bug has a variety of nutritional differences. Our articles on crickets vs worms, and worms vs roaches, and roaches vs crickets have been some of the most read articles on our site.

Those articles yield the greatest AdSense return and time on site compared to our other articles.

Jeff Neal
The Critter Depot

Dan’s Take
I really like comparison content as well, especially when comparing lesser-known or new brands as well as SaaS companies. For these types of clients, a comparison piece would want to look into the keyword volume around comparing well-known brands. For example, if you were in the CRM space, you would do Salesforce vs HubSpot vs [Your Brand]. The major competitors would drive the keyword volume necessary to make it meaningful and adding your business to the comparison list draws attention to the fact that you provide the same services. Ideally, you showcase why you are better here as objectively as possible.

 

Create unique content

My best content marketing tip for 2022 is to stop rehashing old content! Instead, if you want to grow your website or blog, you should be creating unique, original content that your audience won’t be able to find anywhere else. 

You can do this by commissioning your own research on a subject, creating original infographics, and interviewing experts in your niche. Unique content is far more likely to attract high-quality backlinks, which in turn will help your blog rank and be found by a wider audience.

Emily Brookes
EmilyBrookes.com

 

Stay on top of trends

My top tips for content marketing in 2022 include staying on top of trends, looking at what other people are posting and consequently, what people are reacting most to. This then allows you to cater your content to something you know people will react most to. Another tip would be to make sure your content is straight to the point within the first couple of sentences. In this day and age, people don’t have the time to read a full article so they want to digest shorter pieces that get straight to the point.

Hannah Barden
Digital Marketing Apprentice
Bite Digital

 

Conduct competitor content audits

Given that content marketing is used by 48 percent of B2B marketers and 77 percent of B2C marketers, you’re probably not the only company in your field aiming to acquire clients with content. While this implies that you will face competition, it also implies that you will have the opportunity to see what others are working on. 

Examine what your industry’s top competitors are doing with their content initiatives. Understand the formats they use. Understand the themes on which they will be debating. Find out what the general population thinks about it and what they have to say about it.

Kate Libby
Founder
Best Kids

Dan’s Take
To get user-generated content try an outlet like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) where you can create queries in which relevant parties can respond. You can then use this information to create meaningful content that comes from the perspective of other credible sources (hint: sort of like the piece you are reading now!)

 

Narrow your focus

You may find yourself coming up with broad, generic subjects when you choose the topics you wish to write about. However, unless you’re willing to devote the time to creating thorough long-form material, you should restrict each issue to the point where you can fully cover it. This will not only make article creation more manageable, but it will also assist you in developing more effective subjects. It’s preferable to have ten pages that completely answer a single question rather than one page that answers ten questions with minimal explanation—especially if each question is about a different subject.

Stephanie Young
CEO & Founder 
Best Camping

 

Use internal links properly

If you want your content to rank highly in 2022, you need to use internal links correctly. One of the best ways to interlink your on-site content is by creating content clusters in a hub and spoke model. This is where you create a master page on a topic, which then links out to all relevant articles, which will naturally interlink with one another and of course, back up to the master page. This allows authority to flow around your content cluster, establishing credibility in Google’s eyes and serving users with all the information they need. 

Ashton Hudson
Marketing Manager 
Roofing Megastore

 

Use memes

Memes are undoubtedly the best performing content type in 2022 and every business must use them to their advantage. Laughter is an instant vacation and people love those who make them laugh. 

Creating a fun image of your brand helps you increase the interaction with your content. People will like it, share it, and comment on their views that will naturally increase its reach.

All you need to do is to keep yourself updated with the latest trends and create content around that. But you must also be careful not to overdo the same and balance it with educational/informational content.

Madhav Goenka
Co-founder and CMO
Frazile

 

Leverage live streaming technology

A big trend in content marketing for 2022 will be the continued rise of live streaming. The pandemic introduced us to the idea of events online, with seminars being held on Zoom, and talks/community interactions being a popular feature with instagram live.

Even with things now getting back to normal, audiences have been introduced to a much more accessible access to events they never had before, and that demand to keep this type of accessibility is clear to see on social media. Whatever your business is, working out how to incorporate these digital live events is something you should definitely be discussing.

Alex Magnin
CEO & Founder
Alex Magnin

 

Repurpose your content across all mediums

As companies become used to new features online being used in order to engage wider audiences, the next big trend will be about taking this a step further and learning how to repurpose this content in order to again share further and wider. 

For instance, live online events were extremely popular in 2020, so the next stage for that content will be saving, editing and sharing through other platforms in order to get your message further and to engage new audiences. Live will still have that excitement, especially with the idea of interaction, but having it available at a later date can still engage new people.

Alex Mastin 
Founder & CEO 
Homegrounds

 

Invest in long-form content

It may seem paradoxical, but despite the fact that our attention spans are shortening and we are hopping from page to page, website to website, people are still ready to put in the time to read a detailed and well-written piece.

Just keep in mind that we’re not discussing words for the sake of using them. Consumers are looking for quality. They want postings that are thorough, topical, and valuable. They are also not scared to spend time with them. More words equal more success, but only if they’re relevant words. 

Alex Claro
VPN Analyst
Credit Donkey

 

Showcase your brand’s personality in your content

My best piece of advice in regards to content marketing is to be authentic.

Too often, businesses seem to think they need to put out professional-looking content all the time. The best pieces of content are ones that showcase your personality. I am a firm believer that people want to do business with people they actually like. If you can make your audience feel like they know the people behind the company logo you will see a tremendous response to your content marketing efforts. 

You don’t need the best camera or the best video editing software. Sometimes, the best content happens when you spontaneously turn your phone around and do a quick video message speaking directly on something that will help your audience.

Alex Carter
Director of Product Development
MaxExposure Business Solutions

 

When starting a new small business, it’s ok to take on content marketing and strategizing yourself, but eventually you’re going to find it difficult to juggle everything, especially if you don’t know best practices. 

Hire a content marketing manager

A professional content marketing manager will work with you to learn about and understand your audience, make sure your content has a clear goal, and maintain your brand voice across all platforms and promotional avenues. If you’re not doing it right, you could actually be hurting your business.

Jennifer Berube
Content Strategist
Jennifer Berube

 

Content Marketing Tips Takeaways

Thanks to all the content marketers out there that made this post possible. What is interesting about this roundup is that content marketers come in many shapes and sizes — CEOs, Founders, Analysts, and even Apprentices. 

The takeaway here is that anyone can do content marketing with the proper plan, strategies, and execution. We look forward to checking out the best content marketing tips for 2022 next year.

Biotech Content Marketing Strategy: 5 Novel Tips for Traffic Domination

Posted on by Daniel E. Lofaso

Every CEO or marketing team I speak to understands the need for a content marketing strategy but always has a lot of confusion with how to go about it. As they say, “failure to plan is planning to fail” – Ben Franklin. 

Having a strategy in place means that you have a roadmap to success, are not wasting time, money, or resources on marketing that does not work, and from an SEO perspective, are not simply “writing for the sake of writing.”

I wanted to develop this content marketing strategy guide for biotech brands that focuses on traffic, leads, and brand awareness because these are often the goals of the CEOs and marketing teams we are talking to and because, ultimately, that is what content marketing is for.

Daniel Lofaso, Digital Elevator CEO

To put things in perspective, Digital Elevator has been creating biotech content marketing strategies for over a decade for Fortune 500 companies as well as emerging biotechs. Historically, blogs have been the best driver of traffic and leads, although I certainly won’t discount the role of other types of content – white papers, eBooks, podcasts, etc. – in the life science content marketing sphere.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

  1. The ROI of Content Marketing
  2. Content Marketing Buyer Personas and Understanding Your Reader
  3. Why Content Marketing Strategy is All About the Competition
  4. Content Marketing Best Practices
  5. Badass Content Marketing Examples

Why Develop a Content Marketing Strategy? Answering the ROI Question

Let’s face it. You have a lot of marketing options to invest in. But why am I telling you that content marketing could quite possibly be the best?

Content marketing is often the marketing channel that provides the lowest cost per acquisition

The TLDR version, based on my experience, is that it is often the channel that provides the lowest cost per acquisition. More bang. Less buck.

Content Marketing ROI Stats

  • Annual growth in unique site traffic is 7.8x higher for content marketing leaders than followers (19.7% vs. 2.5%). Aberdeen
  • Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing yet generates 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing. Demand Metric
  • Companies that adopt content marketing have conversion rates that are 6 times higher than those that don’t. Aberdeen
  • Marketers who say they blog boast an 82% positive ROI. HubSpot 

What’s the good news in all of this? The same Aberdeen reference above also cites that 56% (the majority of content marketers) don’t have a content marketing strategy. They don’t know who they are writing for, what to write about, or how the hell content marketing works. 

But you will… if you read on.

Biotech Buyer Personas and Understanding Your Reader

Perhaps the biggest train wreck we run into with biotech companies that want to begin content marketing is their lack of understanding of who their customer is and why they should care about their product or service.

From a content marketing perspective, it is fundamental to understand who you are writing for and what the takeaways need to be. This is the point of buyer personas, but they do have their flaws.

The issue with buyer personas is that you can pay big bucks to research firms like Gartner or Forrester to define them or use quick and easy tools like HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool. The problem with the former is that the price is out of reach for even some of the biggest organizations.

On the other hand, free buyer persona tools are fantastic for companies who need something to start with. Still, the way they are presented usually only creates more confusion about how the hell to use the information in a meaningful way.

For example, good ol’ “Marketing Mary” and the traditional basic takeaways regarding her age, college education, and publications she reads don’t really tell you how to write to her, now does it? 

Instead of trying to write for demographic data points, dissect what stage in the decision-making process your persona is in and craft accordingly.

As it relates to content marketing strategy, these personas are also aligned with the various stages of the buying cycle. While a more advanced definition would isolate five stages in the buying cycle, let’s keep things simple with three buying cycles and align directly with our buyer persona:

Buyer Personas, Content Marketing, and Sales Funnels

  1. Top of the funnel: Top of the funnel content is often used as brand awareness content and covers high search volume content. Top of the funnel content is great for driving a lot of traffic, but it rarely, if ever, converts traffic to leads (initially).
    • Top of funnel content example: what is NMN (Nicotinamide Mononucleotide)? (authored by a company that sells anti-aging supplements).
    • Buyer persona example: A middle-aged woman who is learning about anti-aging supplements.
  2. Middle of the funnel: Middle of the funnel is steeped in low to moderate search volume topics and provides feedback to something that your company offers a specific solution for, yet without directly pushing sales content down the reader’s throat.
    • Middle of funnel content example: can MNM slow down aging? (authored by a company that sells anti-aging supplements).
    • Buyer persona example: A middle-aged woman who is learning the options for anti-aging supplements on the market.
  3. Bottom of the funnel: Bottom of the funnel content is generally very low search volume but very high intent. It converts the best out of all three content types.
    • Bottom of funnel content example: the best anti-aging supplements (authored by a company that sells anti-aging supplements)
    • Buyer persona example: A middle-aged woman who is ready to make an anti-aging purchase but is in the final stages of decision-making based on previous research.

As you may have drawn from the above explanations, there are pros and cons to each of the segments of the sales funnel. These have to do with the ability to drive traffic and brand awareness (top of the funnel), help convince during buying decisions (middle of the funnel), and ultimately decide on a partner (bottom of funnel).

The above is certainly not a deep dive into buyer persona creation for biotechs, but here is a really good resource on the topic.

Takeaways

  • Understand that decision-makers have different searches and desires in your content marketing funnel
  • Combine content types that serve all levels of the funnel to reach prospects at all stages
  • Quantify your buyer personas to understand their willingness to pay

Ok, so now you know why it is important to invest in content marketing, the importance of using buyer personas to create content for your reader, and how to mix up your content to appeal to various stages of the sales cycle. 

Now it’s time to hone in on what topics you should or shouldn’t cover and why.

Why Content Marketing Strategy is All About the Competition

At Digital Elevator, we spend a lot of time doing SEO competitive analyses for our clients. An SEO competitive analysis reveals, in part, the types of content marketing strategies that your competitors are leveraging to be successful, what their weaknesses are, and how you can create a roadmap of your own to crush them.

There are a lot of factors we look into when doing a competitive analysis, but as it concerns content marketing, this is what you need to know:

  • Who your competitors are from an SEO and content marketing perspective
  • How to identify keyword gaps
  • How to find competitors’ top pages (and beat them at their own game)
  • Knowing which topics not to go after

Who your competitors are from an SEO and content marketing perspective

The best way to understand what I mean when I say “understand competitors from an SEO and content marketing perspective” is best served up with an example. The short of it is that competitors can compete with you on a keyword level but not necessarily on a product or service level.

I’ll use an example from the software space as it is one of the most competitive industries there is in terms of content marketing.

For the site, Monday.com, a quick software search reveals that there are several other sites that are the primary organic competitors (SEMRush: Competitive domains are displayed depending on competition level, which is based on the number of keywords of each domain, and the number of the domains’ common keywords).

With this information, I can now go into each of these competitors’ sites, reverse engineer their best-performing content, and strategize ways for my client to outperform them. This strategy is and should always be fundamental in any sound content marketing strategy.

However, the competitive analysis should not end there. We also need to understand the most important keywords to our client and perform a competitive analysis on the search engine rankings page (SERPs) to determine if these competitors are different from what was revealed on a domain-level basis. 

For example, the Monday.com site has a top blog targeting  “project management software” that reveals different competitors from what the initial software analysis revealed (shown by Ahrefs):

Here, I can see that there are some other sites that don’t compete with Monday.com on a product or service level (as in the Main Organic Competitors result above), but on a keyword level. For example, PCMag is not a project management software.

Now, this is a simplified example of a content marketing competitive analysis, but reveals some key takeaways:

Takeaways

  • It is essential to know who offers similar products or services — and how and why they rank.
  • It is also important to know competitors who may fall outside what you may define as a direct competitor as they may be potentially taking market share due to their rankings above you.

How to identify keyword gaps

A Content Gap analysis is important to a content marketing strategy because it reveals keywords your competitors rank for, but you don’t. 

Content Gaps can be performed on a domain-level or on a URL level, meaning you can evaluate competitors’ content as a whole or segment one of their blogs against yours (on the same topic).

For example, this Content Gap on a domain level (using Ahrefs) reveals 17,983 keywords that monday.com doesn’t rank for. With this insight, I can choose to reverse engineer the content pieces and add them to the content calendar, strategically formulating a plan to go after their best-performing content.

How to find competitors’ top pages (and beat them at their own game)

SEO software also allows us to reverse engineer our competitors’ best content, the estimated traffic, and other important metrics that help determine if we want to beef up our content on similar topics or create rival content.

In this example, I can see one of Monday.com’s biggest competitors’ best-performing content, see the keywords they rank for, how much traffic they get, and then determine if that same content makes sense for our client’s site.

Knowing which topics not to go after (keyword difficulty)

You may be thinking, “Great, I’ll just go after the 20 best pages on my competitor’s sites, and I’ll dominate market share.” While this sounds good in theory, the reality is not all keywords are as easy to rank for as others.

Let’s take a look at Monday.com’s competitor The Digital Project Manager, and their 7th most popular resource, Best GRC Tools (Government, Risk, Compliance), as an example:

Aside from the contextual irrelevancy this particular topic has to Monday.com, lies the challenge of actually competing for this resource and the primary keyword “GRC software.” Let’s assume for this exercise that we were interested in competing.

The metric called “KD,” or Keyword Difficulty, is a scale of 0-100 that establishes how difficult it would be to rank for this keyword (with 100 being the most difficult). The KD of this keyword is 31, meaning it is really competitive. In fact, Ahrefs estimates that you’d need 38 links to rank for this keyword.

Without getting into the ins and outs of link building and algorithm factors, the primary takeaway here is the following:

Takeaways

  • Knowing what content you can compete for easily is important to your overall content marketing strategy.
  • Knowing that content is really difficult to rank for, and why, will help you determine if you want to dedicate the resources to going after that type of content and keywords. 

Content Marketing Best Practices

Ok, let’s say you now have buy-in and want to get started on content marketing. You should know some content marketing best practices to ensure you are moving things in the right direction.

Have Realistic Time Expectations

If you think content marketing will be a quick win, you may want to consider other marketing strategies. To provide some context, Ahrefs did a study to determine how long it takes to rank a page. Needless to say, their results were startling:

ahrefs age of pages ranking in google

Only 22% of pages that rank in the top 10 of the search results were less than a year old. 

Content marketing takes time. If you are going to commit to this strategy, make sure your team understands it is a long-term play, not a quick win. That said, you should set up some metrics to measure your success.

Establish Some OKRs 

OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, is a goal-setting strategy for defining and tracking your efforts and their outcomes. For your content marketing efforts, some examples of OKRs could be the following:

Objective: 

  • Improve inbound lead generation by 10% in one year.

Key Results: 

  • Allocate 10% of marketing spend to content marketing efforts
  • Increase organic website traffic by 50%

Content Production is Only Half of the Strategy

We know that the following needs to happen to create effective content marketing strategies:

  1. We understand who our readers are and why they want our products or services
  2. We understand that competitors are the biggest hindrance between us ranking and driving traffic and leads
  3. We understand that we have to be strategic about what we write so that it works to accomplish our business goals of brand awareness, lead generation, and ultimately, sales

With all this knowledge (which, by the way, takes a lot of effort to extrapolate), you may think you have all your bases covered. If you write it they will come, right?

Unfortunately, there is a whole other element to content marketing outside the content itself, and that is promotion. The main drivers of helping get eyeballs on your content are the following:

  • Email marketing: One of the most effective ways to get instant eyeballs on your content is to share it with your existing email network. 
  • Social media: Like email marketing, social media is a way to push out content to your existing network. However, many social media sites make organic content discovery very difficult, meaning you’ll likely have to pay to promote your content if you want to get a meaningful amount of eyeballs on it. In fact, a recent study revealed that the median engagement rate of Facebook posts across all industries was less than 1%.
facebook engagement stats
  • Link building: Most SEOS agree that links are one of the most highly correlated aspects of ranking. I personally agree, and lean on studies that strongly support the claim that Google leans heavily on link building as a ranking factor. Bottom line: you need a link building strategy in place alongside your content marketing strategy.

Understand Resource Allocation vs Outsourcing Models

There are several ways to approach content marketing, including an in-house team, an outsourced team, or a combination of the two.

An in-house team is likely to be the most familiar with a company, its products or services, the ideal customer, and the company’s voice. On the flip side, they tend to be the least savvy in data-driven content marketing.

Outsourced teams provide an extremely high level of expertise, having the software, tools, and human resources at their disposal to roll out tried and tested content marketing strategies. On the downside, they lack that total familiarity with a company because they are on the outside.

A hybrid strategy combining in-house marketing teams and outsourced vendors may provide the best solution for content marketing. You get the complete buy-in from internal employees who work wholeheartedly with outsourced partners to ensure company goals are met.

There are cost considerations here too. Employees often cost 120% of their salaries when you include benefits and taxes. In this post-pandemic era where companies want to be more nimble with their expenditures and their ability to hire/fire, contractors are often a sound choice. Many agencies are cheaper than a salaried employee with the added benefit of several experts working on a campaign versus one employee.

Badass Content Marketing Examples

Here are some great examples of content marketing from some of our favorite technology companies. Note that some highlight entire content strategies while other examples hone in on one particular content type.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs, an SEO software that I have alluded to several times above and use daily, is one of the best content marketing examples of a tech company. Using no outside funding whatsoever, they managed to grow to over $40m in ARR, in part because of their badass content marketing.

Note this:

  • Ahrefs does no paid spending on Google Ads
  • They don’t attend conferences
  • All their blogs feature their products

Yet, they make about $800k in revenue per employee. Facebook has similar metrics.

If you take a look at Ahref’s blog, you’ll notice that each post does the following:

  1. Provides an SEO problem and solution
  2. Is founded on keyword research
  3. Features their software as part of the solution
ahrefs content marketing example

ProfitWell

The ProfitWell blog is a wealth of information for SaaS companies that want to improve subscription businesses, but it is their Pricing Page Teardowns that I really love.

profitwell content marketing example

This is an example of some outside-of-the-box content marketing as it uses well-known brands and tears down their pricing strategy to see what they could do better. The site itself does a great job of bringing in traffic (Ahrefs says it ranks for over 55,500 keywords), so this unique content angle provides a lot of value and is likely to get the attention of the companies they feature, potentially converting them into customers.

dacast 

OTT software company dacast is a content juggernaut in the somewhat new OTT space. According to Ahrefs, their site ranks for over 106,000 keywords and ranks well for high volume searches such as “streaming platforms” and “streaming software.”

dacast content marketing example

What is interesting about the dacast content marketing strategy is that they are not afraid to mention their competitors directly in their content. For example, on their top ranking blog on live streaming platforms, they use a mix of content marketing best practices — keyword research-infused sections — as well as a 20 company roundup post that showcases all of their pros and cons.

While many companies would be reluctant to introduce competitors within their blog posts, presumably, dacast does this to provide a side-by-side comparison that ensures they look like the best option.

HotJar

HotJar, a top name in heat mapping software and recording, shows a great example of pillar and cluster (or hub and spoke) content with their heatmaps content.

dacast content marketing example

The pillar and cluster format that HotJar used is really effective when it comes to trying to rank for a difficult keyword with a lot of related sub-topics (clusters). The page ranks #1 for “heatmaps,” and the supplemental content accessible on the sidebar provides a great user experience for visitors who want to learn more about heatmaps.

It hits the mark for keyword research as well, but the navigation on the sidebar (which is visible on all of the links on the sidebar) is the real winner for internal linking.

Kickstart Your Content Marketing Strategy

If you made it this far, you deserve an award. If you need a quick takeaway summary, here it is:

  1. Get company buy-in for content marketing. Share ROI metrics to ensure everyone understands the potential of a long-term campaign.
  2. Understand the competitive landscape, so you know how difficult it is to rank and compete on a keyword level.
  3. Plan your strategy around OKRs, so you have meaningful goals in place to center your efforts around.
  4. Find examples from around the web to fuel some of your efforts.
  5. Hire a badass biotech content marketing agency like Digital Elevator if you want some help

How to Find Non-Copyrighted Music for Your YouTube Videos (2022 update)

Posted on by Daniel E. Lofaso

So, you’ve established an idea for a YouTube video – a concept, visuals, script. You’ve been busy writing, planning, projecting, and casting. But what about background music?

You weren’t planning on a silent movie, were you? Surely your video needs sound to be complete.

Your next thought is okay, I just have to surf through my playlists and grab some great tunes. Not so fast.

Unfortunately, there is a caveat.

Videographers beware of copyright infringement.

YouTube has rules, and you’d better follow them or your debut will never hit the box office.

Shedding Light on Copyright Laws

It would be helpful to understand music copyright laws so you can stay out of trouble. Although it’s true that music is protected once “maestro” sets his or her notes to paper or recording, it would require something more concrete than that to win a battle in the judicial system. Know the following steps to complete the beautiful cycle of your video production process:

To really establish full protection, the composer must register his or her piece with the U.S. Copyright Office. Courts don’t like grey areas. This fills in the blanks with a black ink pen.

And forget the old “Poor Man’s Copyright.” This is the method where you mail yourself a copy of the work and keep it in a sealed envelope. Not happening with modern copyright laws.

A piece of music officially copyrighted through the proper channels offers airtight protection, so YouTube creators, don’t let your guard down. 

Copyright Laws Restrict You From:

 
  • Reproducing the work
  • Adapting or arranging the work
  • Performing the work
  • Displaying, distributing, and/or selling copies of the work

What Will Happen If You Don’t Play by The Rules

The content police at YouTube are on the alert. Did you know that YouTube developed a Content ID system that can detect the illegal use of copyrighted music? You can’t fool YouTube. If they find that there is a misuse of content, your video can be taken down or blocked. The copyright owners can even track the video’s viewership statistics to determine if you monetized the video and should consider coming after you for funds.

How in the world would YouTube ever know if a music selection you plucked from the depths of the web is legal to use, you ask? They will more than likely find out.

Here’s the process:

 
  • YouTube created a Content ID system, essentially a database of copyrighted content
  • Copyright owners can use a system called Content ID to maintain their musical content on YouTube.
  • <span”>Videos uploaded to YouTube are matched against a collection of files that are stored in an internal database.</span”>

YouTube catches you red-handed. What happens next?

 
  • Your fate is in the hands of the copyright owners. On a good day, you may get a slap on the wrist. Or, the owner can initiate a Content ID claim.
  • They can force you to take your video down.
  • YouTube will slap you with a Copyright infringement strike on your profile. This may prohibit you from certain privileges as a user.

No Need for The Magical Mystery Tour

Not to burst your creative bubble, but now there is an extra step in the artistic process you may not have counted on. Content creators and film makers are faced with the daunting task of searching for non-copyrighted music for their project.

Or maybe not.

Music to Your Ears: Where to find Non-copyrighted Music

Fortunately, there’s a treasure trove of non-copyrighted music out there. I’ve done the research, and there’s a pretty robust list of musicians and entities offering their music free of copyright restrictions.

Here’s what I’ve found:

 
 

Creative Commons Music

 
  • This is a global effort to share music legitimately. They’ve built platforms that make it easy to navigate royalty-free, non-copyrighted music works, with the intention of collaboration and creative cooperation. You may have to properly attribute the work according to the agreement executed by the creator. But it’s pretty easy to explore; you simply search for the genre or style of music you’re looking for and you will be directed to a host of options. The individual piece you are interested in will have its usage parameters posted clearly.

Royalty Free Music by Bensound

 
  • I really like this anthology because of its simplicity and streamlined catalog. Visually it’s very easy to maneuver through collections. There’s a generous amount of music to choose from, covering jazz, rock, cinematic, acoustic, and more. The covers are finished with artsy images, making sifting through the selections an engaging, fun experience.

Purple Planet

 
  • With a cool and funky vibe, users are invited into a surreal universe of tracks with virtually infinite musical compositions. Although they house the usual contenders like dance and retro, their approach is slightly off-beat offering titles in the creepy, sneaky, and tense domains as well.
 

 

If none of these options suit your fancy, here is a short list of other places to find copyright-free music:

 

I also spoke to Tim Stockman, CEO of Blue Dog Video, to get his take on where video production companies are getting their music. He said he uses a combination of Audio Blocks and Audio Jungle. “Sometimes to find the perfect audio clip,” he says, “you have to pay. But you’ll find the music much more original.”

If you venture out on your own to hunt down other sources for non-copyrighted music, just be careful to read the fine print. Some websites charge hidden fees for usage, don’t adhere to restrictions in their entirety, or prohibit use in certain situations. Hell, even this list is subject to change. If you see any that are no longer free or have suggestions to this list, please let me know in the comments.

When it comes to your YouTube video you worked so hard to create and publish, better to be safe than sorry. Be sure the music you choose abides by the copyright rules set forth by YouTube.

Non-copyright Music FAQ

How to know if a song is copyrighted on YouTube?

If you are unsure whether a song is copywritten on YouTube you can do a number of things to check:

  • Check the Public Domain Info site for the track in question. This site will tell you if it is ok to use the song on your videos.
  • Look up the song on YouTube. If you find the original artist, the track should provide copyright information in the description under the “Music in this video” section. You can also do this if you hear a song in a different video and want to get song information.
  • Upload your video as private and allow YouTube’s Content ID system to check for you. If your song is copywritten, you’ll get a warning.
  • Hire a company that helps with copyright law.

How to legally use copyrighted music on YouTube?

The most basic answer to this question is that you have to get a license from the copyright owner. For more specifics on using copyrighted music on YouTube, check out this resource.

What are some popular songs that aren’t copyrighted?

Need a familiar tune to complement your video? Good news, there are some songs available in the public domain that you can use. Check out these resources for some detailed lists:

Can I just use part of a song? 30 or 60 seconds?

Unfortunately no, even parts of songs are protected from copyright restrictions.

NEED HELP WITH YOUR VLOGS?

Digital Elevator has partnerships up with high-quality, affordable, video production companies that work produce commercial-grade content as well as biotech animation companies that complement our biotech web design services.

Best AI Content Generator: Bard vs Bing vs ChatGPT vs Jasper

Posted on by Daniel E. Lofaso

Just how good is AI content from the lens of a professional writer/content marketer?

How does AI content compare to human-written content?

And which AI content generator is the best?

In this blog, I’ll start with a comparison of the most popular players in the AI content world, then get deeper into explaining what AI content means and how it works. I’ll also run each sample through a AI content detection tool to see how human-like the writing is.

Why should you trust me?

Because I’m smart and good looking. Not enough for you? How about because I’m the Content Marketing Director at Digital Elevator and have been a content marketer and writer for the last 15+ years. 

Feel free to jump ahead:

Best AI Content Generators Compared

Best AI content generator

So, what is my experience with the leading AI content generators and which one is best? Let’s dive in.

Jasper vs Bard vs Bing vs ChatGPT: Which Is Best?

I’ve tested all four of these options. Which ended up the best? 

I tested many, many prompts, topics and requests on each one for my final opinions and pros and cons. But as a fair test to show you examples of, I asked each service the following prompt, exactly the same way: 

“Write a 1000 word blog with the title ‘How To Make Money Online’”. I then pasted the results into a document and I’ve included links to see the exact outputs from each. 

Note that I kept all formatting exactly as is – which includes the background after copying/pasting, any headlines, and bullet points exactly as they paste into a document.

So, without further ado, here’s what happened with each, and the pros and cons I gathered from multiple test uses.

Jasper

Jasper, formally known as Jarvis, was actually the first I tested out, as it was up and coming before the others made their big entrances. This means they’ve also had plenty of time to perfect, recently adding in a Chat feature similar to the others.

Jasper does cost money, but there are a ton of features you won’t find on other AI sites, like being able to select what it is you’re doing with a template. Examples of these include blog posts, emails, social media posts, conclusion paragraphs, ecommerce listings, and more.

Here was my test output.

Pros:

  • Templates: As previously mentioned, the templates to choose from were plentiful, and I loved being able to tailor it to my needs without having to explain it. 
  • Formatting: If it gave you an H2 and you copied it into a document, the H2 stays. All formatting copies over, giving you less work.
  • Output: Everything seemed to be smoothly written and accurate.
  • Surfer SEO Integration: While many AI softwares can write up things it finds scouring the web, Jasper also integrates with SEO engines that can make sure you’re not only writing factually, but you’re writing in a way that helps you rank.
  • Built for content creation: The others we tried have different uses. For example, Bing prides itself on being able to answer questions. Like, “where’s the best place near me for a haircut?”, rather than write content on your behalf.

Cons:

  • Cost: It has a cost behind it, but with the exhaustive features and productibility, may be worth it for a user, depending on budget and needs.

Bard

Google’s Bard content generator was initially a research project from Google that was aimed to generate original, high-quality poetry. Still in its early stages, it has since transitioned to be used for all types of written creative work.

Bard gives you three drafts to choose from, so here are the three outputs with the test topic here:

When I used Bard to write the sample content piece, here’s what I liked and didn’t like about it:

Pros:

  • Great content quality: The paragraphs were not choppy and everything seemed to flow in a human-like way.
  • Multiple options: Bard provides you with a few different options for your draft that you can choose between, rather than having to ask again for a different response.
  • Speed: Most AI generators use a live-typing display where you essentially watch the AI compose your piece word for word. While it takes a few seconds to pause after your query, Google’s Bard option displays everything immediately on the screen as one finished piece.
  • Cost: This one’s free, at the current moment.

Cons:

  • Google Rankings: While we can’t say for sure, because Google keeps algorithms and ranking determiners pretty hush-hush, there is always the question in the back of our heads: Will rankings be docked because Google clearly knows you’re using AI content (considering they wrote it)?
  • Can be buggy: To be fair, they do say they’re still in an experimental phase, so we can’t weigh this con too heavily. But when first trying to run this test with Bard, I was getting errors like, “Sorry, I’m not programmed to assist with that” – but if I’d try the same exact request a few more times and it would finally give me the output.
  • Formatting: Being a Google product, you would expect better formatting with H2s and H3 tags already built into the output for a blog (and that paste well into a Google Document)

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a state-of-the-art language model developed by OpenAI that uses artificial intelligence to understand and respond to natural language queries. There were a lot of great things about this one.

To see the output of the request, click here.

Pros:

  • Versatility: ChatGPT understands a wide range of natural language queries and allows you to select your tone and writing style from a multitude of options, from friendly to clinical, or even sarcastic.
  • Learns How You Work: According to OpenAI, ChatGPT is constantly learning and improving based on its interactions with users. The more you use ChatGPT, the better it becomes at understanding your specific needs and interests.
  • Prompt Options: I liked that there were different user-created prompts that are already customized to solve a specific problem. If it’s SEO content you want, or just something rewritten, there are many existing prompts to choose from if you don’t want to do your own.
  • Great output: The output for this option was very professional and, at first glance, sounded very human-like. There are also limited if any, grammatical errors.

Cons:

  • Availability: Unless you pay for the premium service, if ChatGPT is overloaded, you get a screen saying you can’t use it. This brings us to…
  • Cost: If you want to be sure you can use the service (and all of the tones, prompts, and conversation styles), you’ll need to pay a premium. Currently, this cost is about $20 per month. It’s also the only way to get access to the newest versions of ChatGPT.
  • Pasting Into Documents: When pasting your content into a document, it includes a gray background. If you want to lose the gray background, you have to paste the text unformatted, which means you lose any bullet points, bold wording, and subheadings as well.

Bing

Microsoft’s Bing AI generation is newer to release than the others, which I expected could potentially mean they have a leg up in making theirs bigger and better (spoiler alert: not the case). According to Microsoft, Bing AI shares licensing with OpenAI of GPT software, which you’d think might mean they have similar outputs, but I didn’t find this to be the case.

See the output here.

Pros:

  • [Crickets] … I didn’t find a lot of things to praise this one about in comparison to the others. At least not at this stage of the game. Sorry, Microsoft.

Cons:

  • The browser: While there is nothing wrong with the Microsoft Edge browser (I’m just being nice, do people actually use it?), they force you to use it in order to take advantage of the browser-based Bing AI generator. They do integrate with things like Skype chat, where you can chat with the AI bot right in your conversations, but unless you prefer to do it this way, it’s not helpful when you have a browser of choice.
  • The output: Imagine waking a toddler up from a dead sleep and asking them to explain to you how one might boil an egg. It’s a simple question. But the answer might take 32 left turns before it arrives at anything worthwhile. That’s the output I seemed to get with every question.
  • Errors: Not only was the output almost as if they weren’t even “listening” to my question, I often received an error that said, “Sorry, I am out of ideas right now” with a sad face and an error ID code.

AI Content Detectors: Testing How Human-Like The AI Content Is

In addition to the initial tests, I also tested a couple of other random blog topics specifically to see how “human-like” each AI wrote. The blog titles I tested were:

  1. The Importance of Self-Care: Simple Ways to Prioritize Your Well-Being
  2. The Benefits of Meditation: How It Can Improve Your Mental Health
  3. Maximizing Your Savings: Smart Tips for Building Your Wealth

I ran each through a content-checker that analyzes the text and determines how “human-like” it sounds, or if it appears to have come from AI. From the three topics, I averaged the results, and here’s what I found for each:

detectors scores for Jasper, Bard, ChatGPT, and Bing
  • Jasper
    • 1. 94% original / 6% AI
    • 2. 97% original / 3% AI
    • 3. 91% original / 9% AI
    • Average: 94% human-like
  • Bard:
    • 1. 0% original / 100% AI
    • 2. 0% original / 100% AI
    • 3. 0% original / 100% AI
    • Average: 0% human-like
  • ChatGPT:
    • 1. 0% original / 100% AI
    • 2. 0% original / 100% AI
    • 3. 0% original / 100% AI
    • Average: 0% human-like
  • Bing:
    • I wasn’t able to run the content through the detector, as Bing didn’t output actual blogs, but rather answered the question it pulled from the title and sourced where to find information on it. 

Keep in mind, each AI content detector could analyze differently, and there are many options out there. But for this test, I chose originality.ai. 

Note: Don’t get the originality scores confused with plagiarism – a low originality score does not mean the content is plagiarized – all content tested perfectly for plagiarism from every source – it just means it could be detected as being AI-written by a third party. 

The Overall Winner

Jasper seemed to be the most original and unique content that didn’t get detected as being AI. 

Besides the AI detection scores, ChatGPT is up there on my ranks for being quality content, and Bard is third. While the outputs appeared pretty on the outside, both ChatGPT and Bard’s results of the originality test were a huge turn-off – and a shock – especially since Bard is Google, and who hates unoriginality more than Google does? 

Jasper had excellent outputs that sound very human-like and professional. I didn’t find any of them to give any inaccurate information, either.

Both of my top two picks (Jasper and ChatGPT) were also great at creating outlines for topics – so even if you don’t want to use AI to create the actual piece, they can provide an outline that steers you in the right direction and sparks some creativity.

That all being said, when it comes to writing actual blogs, not one of the four paid attention to word count. For example, if I said, “write a 1500 word blog on bumble bees”, it might give me back 400-800 words. So no matter which you choose to go with, I found it to be most beneficial when asking specific questions to generate responses to or to elaborate on subtopics I already knew I wanted.

If I were to choose just one to continue to use, it would be Jasper, with ChatGPT coming in a close second. Both come with a premium that seems well worth it for the increased functionality, content quality, reliability, and features. You get what you pay for, right?

What Is AI Content Generation And How Does It Work?

AI-generated content refers to any text, image, video, or audio content that has been created either entirely or partially by artificial intelligence algorithms. Yes, we’ve finally made it there.

These algorithms use natural language processing (NLP) techniques to understand and generate human-like language, allowing them to produce a wide range of content, such as news articles, blog posts, product descriptions, and social media updates.

AI-generated content can be created in different ways. One method involves providing the AI software with a specific topic or keyword and then allowing it to generate a complete piece of content based on its understanding of the topic and relevant data sources. Another approach involves using AI to assist human writers by suggesting ideas, phrasing, or correcting grammar errors in their writing.

Where Does AI Get Its Information?

AI content generators have a range of sources from which they can gather information. Some rely on structured data sources like databases, news feeds, or social media platforms, while others use machine learning to analyze unstructured data like text documents. The sources used can depend on the type of content being generated and the specific algorithm being used.

For example, if an AI content generator is creating a news article, it might gather information from reputable news outlets or wire services. If it’s generating product descriptions, it could use data feeds from e-commerce sites or product catalogs. Some AI content generators may even take inspiration from pre-existing content, using it as a starting point to generate something new and original (which is something we, as marketers and content creators, need to be cognizant of – I will get to that later in this blog)

Of course, as with any content creation process, the quality of the information used can have a significant impact on the quality of the output. That’s why it’s important to carefully evaluate the sources used by AI content generators to ensure that the information is accurate, reliable, and relevant.

Pros and Cons of AI-Created Content In General

AI-generated content has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are some of the pros and cons to consider:

Pros:

  • Efficiency: AI-generated content can be created quickly and efficiently, allowing businesses and individuals to create a large amount of content in a short amount of time.
  • Consistency: AI algorithms can ensure that the tone and style of the content remain consistent across a large volume of output, which can help to establish a brand or voice.
  • Cost-effective: By automating the content creation process, AI-generated content can save businesses and individuals money on content creation costs.
  • Scalability: With the ability to generate content at a rapid pace, AI-generated content can scale to meet the needs of even the largest content marketing campaigns.

Cons:

  • Lack of Creativity: AI-generated content may lack the creativity and personal touch that human writers can bring to their work, which can result in content that feels generic or bland.
  • Limited Understanding: AI algorithms may struggle to understand complex or nuanced topics, leading to inaccuracies or errors in the content produced.
  • Quality Concerns: Without proper oversight, AI-generated content may contain errors or inaccuracies that can harm a business’s reputation or credibility.
  • Ethical Concerns: There are ethical concerns surrounding the use of AI-generated content, particularly in cases where it is used to generate fake news or misleading information.
  • Search Engine Rankings: Because its so new, we have yet to see the longer term impact using AI-content might have on search rankings. To put it into perspective – if AI is writing your content, other AI (like Google spiders) could soon be able to tell what came from AI, and the consequence of that is a future mystery.

Overall, AI-generated content can be a valuable tool for businesses and individuals looking to create a large amount of content quickly and efficiently. However, it should be used as just that. A complement to your human-written work, not a replacement for it.

What do marketers think of AI-written vs Human-written content?

According to fresh data from a recent industry survey, 65.8% of people believe AI content to be equal to or better than human-written content.

The Future Of AI Content Generation

The future of AI-generated content is exciting and full of possibilities! As AI algorithms continue to evolve and improve, we can expect to see even more advanced and sophisticated forms of content generation.

One of the key areas of development is natural language processing, which will allow AI algorithms to understand and interpret language in a more accurate way. This will enable them to generate content that is more creative, engaging, and personalized to the needs of individual users.

Another area of growth is in the use of AI-generated content for immersive experiences, such as virtual reality and augmented reality. AI algorithms can help to create rich and interactive content that responds to user input and adapts to changing environments, creating a truly immersive and personalized experience.

There are also exciting opportunities for AI-generated content in the field of education and training, where it can be used to create interactive and engaging learning materials that adapt to the needs of individual learners.

Of course, as with any technology, there are also potential risks and challenges associated with AI-generated content. It will be important to ensure that AI-generated content is used responsibly and ethically and that proper oversight and quality control measures are in place to ensure accuracy and reliability.

Overall, the future of AI-generated content is full of potential, and we can expect to see even more innovative and exciting developments in the years to come that can help assist with your content creation.

Content Marketing Cost in 2023: A Data-Driven Answer

Posted on by Daniel E. Lofaso

Creating and sharing valuable content can help businesses attract and retain clearly-defined audiences. It’s no wonder that as many as 73% of B2B marketers use content marketing as a part of their overall marketing plan. 

However, there is a significant cost component to high-quality content. The actual cost depends on the type of content created – with the most popular content being blogs, graphics, and videos – the quality, and the quantity. Whether you are a small business owner or a marketing executive, understanding these costs of the process correctly is crucial for developing effective and sustainable content marketing strategies.

Content Marketing Costs by Company Size

Small Business $4,000 to $10,000 a month
Medium-sized Business $10,000 to $40,000 a month
Enterprise $40,000 to $60,000 a month

In this article, we will explore the various costs associated with B2B content marketing, including content strategy, content creation, and promotion. We will also discuss how you can optimize content marketing costs and maximize your return on investment (ROI). 

How much does B2B content marketing cost? 

​​The cost of B2B content marketing can range from a few thousand dollars per month for small businesses to hundreds of thousands of dollars for larger companies. This may include the costs to utilize outside vendors, working with an agency on content marketing, or hiring an in-house content marketing team.

However, these costs can be justified because the ROI on B2B content marketing can be significant. One study found that prioritizing content marketing helps companies experience up to 7.8 times higher website traffic than those without an effective content marketing strategy.

Here are a few more compelling statistics to reinforce the point that content marketing remains the primary vehicle for increasing marketing ROI:

In other words, the cost of content marketing is more than justified by its benefits. 

When it comes to the actual nitty-gritty, B2B content marketing costs depend on several factors, including the type of content being created and the level of promotion and distribution required. The recent Content Marketing Trends & Insights report compiled by Siege Media and Clearscope gives us a fair understanding of content marketing costs in 2023. 

Here are some of the report’s findings: 

  • The vast majority of content creators (over 44% ) surveyed reported spending less than $500 on a piece of content. Another 29% spent between $500 and $1,000 for the same purpose, while almost 16% spent between $1,000 and $2,000. A tiny minority (3.8%) spent over $4,000 on a single piece of content. 
  • Most of those surveyed (48%) had up to $5,000 earmarked in content marketing budget per month. Around 24% spent between $5,000 and $15,000, while 12% spent between $15,000 to $25,000. Just over 7% of respondents reported having a budget over $45,000 per month for content creation. 
  • Another major insight of the report was about content outsourcing. 35% of those surveyed outsourced up to a quarter of their content requirement, while about 15% outsourced between a quarter and a half. Likewise, around 10% of respondents depended on third-party providers for 75% to 100% of their content. Only 30% said they managed all their content in-house.

Cost of blogs, custom graphics, and videos

The cost of content is actually a misnomer when you consider that businesses don’t shell out money for the content per se, but rather the results they help accomplish. As a result, these costs may vary widely depending on the level of experience and competence that goes into each piece of content. 

Let’s drill down into the costs of three content types that are fundamental to content marketing. 

What Do Blogs Cost?

It is important to recognize that there are really four different tiers of blog costs (these can fluctuate based on length and technicality so these are general figures of an average 1,000 word post):

Blogs written by a blog writing service $40 to $100 each
Blogs written by a freelance writer $100 to $400 each
Blogs optimized for SEO (agency) $400 to $800 each
Blogs optimized for SEO with editors (agency) $800 to $1,500 each

If you seek a subject matter expert for the freelance or agency tiers, expect to add an additional 10 to 20% to the cost.

According to SiegeMedia, an outcome-driven blog post can cost anywhere between $1,500 to $6,000 on average. These costs are readily offset when the post generates, let’s say, upwards of $2,000 per month. 

Note that these costs don’t include design or development costs.

What does custom graphic design cost?

The element that often adds the most value to a blog is a customized graphic or infographic. A good infographic combines equal measures of research and design to give consumers quick and easy-to-relate insights into the topic of a blog post. 

Graphics can be simple visual representations of data such as the above Dental Implant Place comparison graphic that is used to accompany traditional written text, or more visually-stunning infographics. An example like the above can be anywhere from $100 to $400, depending on the complexity of the data visualization and whether you use a freelancer or agency.

A well-designed, well-researched infographic can take a few days to create and easily cost between $3,000 to $4,000. An animated infographic, on the other hand, can take a lot longer to create and also cost substantially more – in the neighborhood of $7,000.   

Videos

The cost of video production can vary widely depending on the complexity of the shoot. The average ballpark cost is $3,500 per minute of video, or $7,000 for a two-minute video. 

However, this price range is indicative only since each video comes with its own challenges in terms of the shoot, casting, videography, and script. Moreover, videos that require fresh footage can cost significantly higher than those that can be accomplished with stock footage. A one-off video done from scratch can reasonably set you back by $6,000 to $8,000. 

How much do different elements of content marketing cost? 

Let’s now break down the overall content marketing cost into its components, assuming either agency costs or in-house costs. 

Content strategy costs $4,000 to $20,000 per project
Content creation costs $5,000 to $15,000 per month
Content distribution costs $4,000 to $20,000 per post

They include:

Content strategy costs

  • $4,000 to $20,000 for a project with an agency
  • in-house content strategists draw an average salary of over $70,470 per year

Content strategy is a critical component of content marketing and plays an essential role in helping businesses develop and execute successful campaigns. At its core, content strategy involves the creation, planning, and management of content in a way that aligns with a business’s broader marketing objectives. A content strategy, or strategist, performs the following tasks: 

  • Customer research 
  • Keyword research
  • Competitive analysis
  • Audit of current content 
  • Creating content plan

A content strategist helps businesses develop different types of content that are effective in reaching and engaging audiences. 

One of the most effective ways of defining your ideal target audiences is by creating buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional personification of your ideal customer. Creating accurate buyer personas can be a game changer for B2B companies that need to target an extremely small cross-section of prospective buyers.  

Once you have your buyer personas ready, the next step is to perform keyword research around the topics that best-resonate with your target audience, as well as look at competitor content and audit existing content.

Depending on the complexity of your content strategy, costs can vary from $4,000 to $20,000 for a project, taking into account whether you need a content audit, the size of your website, and the total addressable market in terms of content topics.

In comparison, in-house content strategists draw an average salary of over $70,470 per year. Most brands would likely benefit from an outsourced agency partner unless they were creating 100s of pieces of content a month, but even enterprise brands bring in outside agencies for specialised content marketing strategies.

Content creation costs

  • $5,000 to $15,000 per month with full-service agencies
  • In-house teams require full time staff of writers, editors, graphic designers, and developers, each making in excess of $50,000 a year (plus taxes and benefits)

Content creation costs can vary widely based on the type of content being produced, the length of content, and the level of expertise required. At the agency level for example, expect an SEO to be involved to ensure content optimization best practices are met (the content being produced has ample search volume, at minimum).

Content can also be classified into several types, including:

  • Blog posts
  • Graphics
  • Photographs
  • Social media content 
  • Video content 

Depending on whether you hire an in-house content creator or opt to outsource the work to a freelancer, a 2000-word article can cost anywhere between $100-$2,000. For example, if you use a freelancer marketplace like Fiverr to hire a writer, you can expect to pay anywhere between $220 and $1,800, depending on the experience of the writer. The median pay for full-time writers is over $69,500 per year. 

Similarly, the median charge billed by freelance video producers and directors stands at $38 per hour, while the same for photographers is $19. Videographers charged on a per-project basis can charge as much as $3,500 per video minute. 

The median hourly pay for freelance graphic designers is just over $24, while a high-quality infographic by an experienced designer can set you back by as much as $3,000-$4,000. 

Costs can be even higher if you’re working with a content marketing agency that charges a monthly retainer. The advantage is that agencies typically have a full team of content creators who can handle large volumes of content with ease.

Content optimization costs

Content optimization involves analyzing and improving content to ensure that it is high-quality, relevant, and optimized for search engines and user engagement. Optimization involves conducting keyword research to identify the words and phrases target audiences search for. An SEO expert optimizes content by making changes to its title, meta description, header tags, and other on-page SEO elements to improve its ranking in search engine results.

Content optimization can be addressed at a relatively low cost, both in-house or through freelancers, when you’re dealing with a limited amount of content. Freelancers typically charge over $1,300 per month on average for content optimization. 

Larger enterprises with a significant amount of content may need to hire a content marketing agency to handle their content optimization. On average, SEO marketing agencies charge just over $3,200 in monthly retainer fees. 

Content distribution costs

  • $4,000 to $20,000 per post, depending on competitiveness

Simply creating great content is not enough. Businesses also need to distribute their content to ensure it reaches the right target audience. The strategist also develops a plan for content distribution and promotion. 

This might involve leveraging media outreach, link building, social media channels, email marketing campaigns, or other tactics to get content in front of the right people and on the right platforms.

Link building outreach or promotion can be as little as $500 a month for small, dedicated link building services to as much as $15,000 a month for services with substantial media outreach or relationships.

Social media promotion from agencies generally involves a paid promotion component, and these agencies charge $1,500 to $7,000 per month for ongoing promotion (which can often include the post graphics themselves).

How much is a full content marketing campaign?

Small Business $4,000 to $10,000 a month
Medium-sized Business $10,000 to $40,000 a month
Enterprise $40,000 to $60,000+ a month

A full content marketing campaign that includes strategy, content creation, and content distribution varies depending on the scale and competitiveness of the market and overall business goals.

Small businesses going after viable keyword topics can expect to spend $4,000 to $10,000 partnering with full service agencies that provide strategy, graphic design, development and distribution services.

Medium-sized businesses in competitive verticals can expect to pay $10,000 to $40,000 a month on content marketing services to help differentiate their content and get it noticed.

Enterprise content marketing services in highly competitive verticals are up against household brands that have millions of dollars in marketing budgets each year. To stand out in these areas, expect to pay $40,000 to over $60,000 for the creative minds that will help you create, promote and generate a positive ROI from these types of content marketing initiatives.

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Whether you need content marketing strategy, execution, or distribution, our team of SEOs, content writers, graphic designers and developers have got you covered.

Redefine your content marketing experience with The Digital Elevator! 

6 Must Use eCommerce Emails for Maximum Customer Engagement [with examples]

Posted on by Daniel E. Lofaso

In a day and age where Google is making organic search engine customer acquisition harder than ever and social media is being divided into more than a handful of popular networks email has remained a constant strategy that, to this day, is unwavering. In fact, research from the Direct Marketing Association has proven that email marketing has a ROI of around 4,300% and roughly 80% of people say they receive marketing emails right alongside their personal emails. Better still, around 40% of these people said that they enjoy getting marketing emails from their favorite brands every week.

While many of us whine about being on the receiving end of spam emails, if you’re anything like me you fully expect and welcome them from companies you’ve done business with. Emails from online retailers provide me with confirmations, updates, reassurances and special offers not always found in my general day-to-day perusal of the web.

Above I said that email strategies for retailers is unwavering when in fact, I lied. It is wavering but not in the downward way that you might think. According to data by Experian conducted during their most recent 2013 Q3 Email Benchmark Report:

 
  • Email volume rose by 12.7 percent in Q3 2013 compared to Q3 2012.
  • Unique open rates were up year-over-year by 6 percent.

If the writing is not already on the wall about email marketing for online retailers it will be very shortly (on my wall, I call it a “blog”). Below I have compiled six eCommerce-based emails that your brand must use to make your customers feel all warm and fuzzy when they get your emails. Three of the below are transactional and the other two help lead to the transaction. Let’s start with the transactional ones first.

3 Types of Transactional Emails

1. Order Confirmation Email

This email confirms to your customers that you have in fact received their order and that it is being processed and prepared for shipment. Generally, the order confirmation provides a summary of the purchase, the name and address of the recipient, shipping speed, and any other order-related information.

The order confirmation is fully expected immediately after the purchase and customers have grown accustomed to this email transaction after making purchases online. Viewed as the digital version of the purchase receipt, the order confirmation is a must-do for any brand who wants to instill confidence in their company and start the email communication between brand and customer.

2. Shipping Confirmation Email

The shipping confirmation email is a reassurance that the order placed by the customer is on its way. While some companies only provide the order confirmation and neglect to send the shipping confirmation, this email brings the customer into the light and keeps them aware of when they can expect the package. Like the Amazon.com screen shot below (can you tell I like mountain biking yet?), a well-crafted shipping confirmation email informs the customer that any changes to their order can no longer be made and directs them towards a link on the website where they can find out about returns or managing their other orders.

A bonus piece of information that Amazon.com provides is a link to track your package. With this link I know that I can log onto the UPS or FedEx website and determine where my package is. This is important to know if I shipped my package to a place that requires a signature or that may not be left if there is no one at the door.

While Amazon does provide customers additional ways to connect with the brand via their three social media links they don’t do a great job of incentivizing future orders. A good way to do this is by providing a “Recommended Products” or “Customers Who Purchased This Item Also Purchased” section below the shipping info. This additional information can encourage repeat sales and can easily be implanted into the email.

3. Order Follow-up/Review Email

Getting an email from a brand that thanks you for your order and checks in to see if you enjoy the product is like getting a phone call from your dentist on your birthday. Not only is it nice, but it makes me, the consumer, feel like a valuable customer.

When sending order follow-up emails take it a step further and ask satisfied customers to leave a product review or to share their experience on social media. Direct customers who may be unsatisfied to a separate email or customer service phone number to avoid negative online reviews.

3 Emails that Lead to the Transaction

1. Opt-In Email

I mentioned above that 40% of consumers enjoy getting emails from brands and particularly ones with specials delivered to their inboxes each week. The opt-in email is catered specifically for the website user who is interested in your products or services but may not be ready to check-out just yet. These emails generally come in the form of pop-ups that tell the customer what they will receive in the email in exchange for their email address. These emails help to place interested consumers on the right path so that when they are ready to make a purchase your email will remind them that your company is the one they want to go with.

Opt-In Email

2. Abandoned Shopping Cart Email

Most of us have clicked-through an online item only to abandon right before we are required to put in our credit card info. Personally, this is a process I have gone through when the shipping and handling costs are unknown. Whatever the reasons we as consumers don’t complete a transaction it presents the eCommerce brand an opportunity to re-engage a potential customer. When a customer makes it right to the point of the checkout and goes incognito brands have information on what that customer is interested in. The ensuing email, appropriately obtained before the credit card processing page to inform the customer the manner in which they will obtain their receipt, addresses the cart abandonment and tries to re-engage the customer with a form of direct response email directly related to the original incomplete purchase.

The below example was taken from a Shopify blog on a bunch of abandoned shopping cart emails. 

3. Account Confirmation Email

Keep your prospects happy even before they have made a purchase with an account confirmation email. Customers create accounts because they want their purchase and viewing history to be remembered. When customers don’t make purchases from your site yet start an account you can assume that they plan to do so in the future or that they are interested in what you have to offer. Keep this customer in the sales cycle by sending them a confirmation of their account so that they are reminded why they signed up in the first place.

Get Help Setting up Your Email

The aforementioned emails should be implemented automatically into every eCommerce website. Automation software is available to help you streamline these responses so that the appropriate emails go out at the right time and you don’t have to manually send them as the customers enter your sales cycle. For help with the graphic design, text and account setup of automated emails, contact Digital Elevator today.

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