Hashtags: Grouping Content to Increase Brand Awareness

We all hear about the power of hashtags, and we’re seeing them all over social media. It turns any word or group of words that directly follow it into a searchable link. The best way to think about hashtags is that they’re a grouping mechanism. Let’s say I post a blog, identify a keyword phrase, content marketing, and include a hashtag, #content marketing. Anyone who keys #contentmarketing into a search field is now more likely to pull up my blog. If you understand the purpose of hashtags and learn how to use them, they become a powerful tool that will help you reach and engage your target audience and increase brand awareness.

Using hashtags in your social media posts makes them visible to basically anyone who shares your interest. No longer are your posts limited to just your followers; your content now becomes accessible to all other users who are interested in similar topics. Choosing good hashtags can significantly broaden the reach of your social media posts.

Creating an Effective Hashtag

Hashtags can appear anywhere in your posts: front, middle or end. Positioning isn’t as important as their relevance and judicious application. Users are turned off by a post that’s cluttered with excessive or lengthy hashtags, e.g. #thisLongHashtagIsSoPointless. Brevity is critical on social media so a short, declarative post with a few well-chosen hashtags should be your goal.

Limiting the number of hashtags

In general, keep your hashtags to two-three on Twitter; Instagram’s ideal number of hashtags is five. Use hashtags on Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest. An article about hashtags on Facebook showed that engagement fell off significantly as the number of hashtags grew.

A few other things to keep in mind:

• A hashtag must be written as a single word, without any spaces
• You can include numbers in a hashtag, but punctuation and special characters ($ and %) won’t work
• Search for a hashtag using the search bar at the top of any browser window–it’s a searchable link
• Add context. A message, link, message or call to action
• Stay relevant. Don’t use a trending hashtag to draw users—even though it has nothing to do with your post. It happens.
• If you’re just getting started, use hashtags that directly relate to your brand, product or service until you’re comfortable with their use. Start noticing how others are using hashtags creatively and effectively.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts. 

12 Ways To Dramatically Improve Email Open Rates

Email marketing never gets any easier

The competition is fierce, and your subject line needs to be clever and attention-getting, yet sincere and compelling. Mobile has made it even harder as we struggle to constrain subject lines to 50 characters. I recently drafted up a few potential subject lines for a client and asked for her feedback. Her response? “Does it matter?” Are you kidding? A subject line is everything! 33% of email recipients decide whether or not to open an email based on subject line alone, and frankly, I’m surprised that the number isn’t higher.

Here are some subject line tips:

1. Short and sweet. A whopping 40% of emails are being opened on mobile first, so 50 characters is now the rule. Editing is a skill. Write your blog and subject line, then come back later and you may have new clarity. Take out those words which are nonessential and see if you’ve altered the meaning.
2. Use a familiar sender name—people are afraid of viruses and they have little interest in spam. If they see an email from info@something.com, they’re less inclined to open it than if it is coming from a real person or someone they recognize.
3. Personalize. This is a list thing. Include the first name of your contacts so you can address them in your emails. Who doesn’t want to get a personal email rather than Dear Friend?
4. List segmentation. This may/not be relevant for your audience, but if it is, spend the time to do this. Your clients will thank you for tailoring information just for them.
5. Be truthful. Do not make a cheesy promise in your subject line to encourage open rates, then not deliver on that promise. When there’s a total disconnect between the subject line and the subject, you have deceived your audience.
6. If you’re offering something special in your email, use your subject line tell your audience.
7. There are a gazillion schools of thought on this one. It used to be 10am on Tues or Wed, but now that everyone’s online 24/7, the rules have changed. Some recommend sending when people are likely to have time to read it—Sunday afternoon or evening, for instance, when many of us settle in to do some work to get ready for the week ahead. If you’re sending out an email about a new bar’s happy hour, the best time to send it is might be 4:30 or 5:00.
8. Concise language. You only have 50 characters. Put them to work. Use action verbs; try to create an image for your audience.
9. Make them feel special. Who doesn’t want this one? “A special offer just for you”, etc.
10. Create a sense of urgency. Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity can give a 22% higher open rate. Using deadlines like “today only” or “24-hour giveaway”.
11. Use a question. Make it compelling—it can be thoughtful and make people think.
12. NEVER use all caps. Enough on that one. It’s difficult to read and is perceived as shouting.

One more thing . . . 

Rather than just deleting all those blasts you get from others, start paying attention to them, including the subject lines. I end up reading a fair number of marketing emails because I’m always interested in potential blog topics. You may be surprised what you will learn.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts. 

Create a sense of urgency. Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity can give a 22% higher open rate. Using deadlines like “today only” or “24-hour giveaway”.

1. Use a question. Make it compelling—it can be thoughtful and make people think.
2. NEVER use all caps. Enough on that one. It’s difficult to read and is perceived as shouting.

One more thing . . . 

Rather than just deleting all those blasts you get from others, start paying attention to them, including the subject lines. I end up reading a fair number of marketing emails because I’m always interested in potential blog topics. You may be surprised what you will learn.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We're content marketing experts. 

Time to Dump Your HTML Email in Favor of Plain Text?

When it comes to email marketing, you’ve probably tried a number of applications, from Constant Contact to MailChimp. You kill yourself coming up with snappy, attention-getting subject lines. You add clever graphics, agonize over content, how to making it relevant and accessible. You’re constantly tweaking subject lines, calls-to-action, images, headers, layout, link positioning, copy, length, tone, content. The list is endless. Yet your open and click-through rates remain stagnant. What are you doing wrong?

Probably nothing. There's one hard truth: nothing boosts opens and clicks as well as an old school, plain-text email. What? Yes. Forget fancy layouts and graphics. Forget the HTML emails you’ve been slaving over for years. Remember that mobile has altered the landscape dramatically. Everything these days calls for simpler and more accessible.

People say they prefer HTML emails

In a 2014 survey, HubSpot asked more 1,000 professionals whether they preferred HTML-based or text-based emails, and whether they preferred emails that consisted of mostly text or mostly images. Nearly two thirds of the respondents said they preferred HTML and image-based emails.

HubSpot experimented with varying degrees of HTML-richness -- plain HTML templates, snazzy and sleek HTML templates, beautiful headers, different sized and positioned images, various call-to-action buttons, and GIFs -- to see which would have the best result. The result? They Actually Prefer Plain-Text.

In every single A/B test, the more simply designed email won

The emails with fewer HTML elements won with statistical significance. Go figure. This doesn’t make sense, does it? Every other marketing channel is moving towards incorporating visuals and seemingly getting positive results. Think the overwhelmingly greater response to your Facebook posts that include an image, the trend toward videos, surge of social media sites that are image-centric, including Instagram, Snapchat, etc. People NEED to be entertained these days. Why, then, were emails performing worse when HubSpot attempted to make them more visual appealing?

The results confirmed original assumption: HTML emails decreased open rates

One thing that HubSpot noticed was that HTML and plain-text emails were both receiving the same deliverability rate. So if they were getting delivered at the same rate, how were HTML emails underperforming? To understand the full scope of what happened, HubSpot A/B tested their email sends. They tested various segments of their database in multiple regions to get a better picture of HTML vs. plain-text emails.

What was interesting, however, was that not only were HTML emails receiving lower open rates than their plain-text counterparts, the more HTML-rich an email was, the lower its open rate. Simpler HTML emails had better open rates than HTML-rich emails and plain-text emails performed best of all.

HubSpot’s conclusion: It’s all about deliverability

Just because something says it's been delivered doesn't mean it's actually in a noticeable place of someone's inbox. Email services are increasingly filtering emails (especially commercial ones) to provide a better experience for the user. We all know about Gmail's promotions folder--it automatically filters what it deems "commercial" emails out of the main inbox unless the user changes the settings—and no one in his/her right mind does that.

The simple explanation is that image tags and HTML-rich templates seem to be getting flagged by email providers as commercial email, which means they get filtered out of a recipient's main inbox--and people can't open them. They’re delivered all right, but they’re not getting opened.

We’ve come full circle . . .

We’ve all spent years and considerable effort making our HTML emails more graphically enhanced, clever and enticing. We’ve come full circle. The message is still important, but it may be time to get back to the basics, focusing on making them simpler and more accessible.

Are you ready to outsource your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts. 

10 Easy Ways to Become a Better Writer

These days, everyone’s a marketer. You’re writing blogs, posting to social media, writing web content and producing your newsletter. It’s great if you’re a good writer. If not, you’re setting yourself up in a potentially unflattering light. But with a little effort, anyone can become a better writer.

A few global tips:

• Keep it simple. Stick with clear, concise sentences and vocabulary.
• The first sentence of every paragraph should set the stage; with successive sentences supporting it.
• Frontload information—don’t flatter yourself to think that everyone’s going to read everything through to the end. Make that first paragraph count.

Here are a few grammatical pitfalls

Chances are you’re making these common mistakes. Correct these and you’re on your way to becoming a much better writer.

1. Who versus that. That refers to things; who is used for people. This is easy. If you’re referencing a person, rather than using that, substitute who. Jane, the person who cuts her hair, not that cuts my hair.
2. Less versus fewer. These are words you use for comparing something. User fewer when it’s a commodity that you can count. If you can’t count or quantify it, use less.
3. Sorry. This isn’t a word. Drop this from your vocabulary.
4. Where is it at? For grammarians, this is fingernails on a blackboard. Don’t end sentences with a preposition, and at is a preposition. It also goes back to our simplicity rule. Where is it is all you need to say.
5. At this point in time. This one drives me crazy. Eliminating nonessential words makes you a better writer or speaker. At this point in time is redundant. At this point is sufficient.
6. Single spacing after end punctuation. Using two spaces makes you look like a dinosaur. This is what you learned in your typing class a gazillion years ago. Language and customs evolve and you need to change with them.
7. I, me and myself. Something I’m seeing a lot of these days is people saying He gave it to myself. Yuck. Where did this come from? He gave it to me. But it gets tricky and even people who really should know better screw up when there’s another person involved—when they insert another person or pronoun, all hell breaks loose. He gave the ball to Jim and me. Not Jim and I. The way to test this is to mentally remove the other person. You wouldn’t say He gave the ball to I, would you? Of course not—and that’s your little test.
8. e. versus e.g. i.e. means basically. e.g. means for example.
9. Its vs it’s. This is an easy one and I can’t figure out why people screw this one up so badly because they’re really not even closely related. It’s is a contraction that means it is. Its shows possession. Its owner, its alignment, etc. This is one of the worse. It’s so lame.
10. Here’s one that trips up a lot of people who think they’re so smart. Words like neither, either and none are singular, which means they get singular verbs. What makes them tricky is that there’s often a prepositional phrase thrown in there to complicate things. Neither of them is safe. Mentally take out the prepositional phrase, of them, and you end up with Neither is.

Becoming a better writer: become a better reader

Someone asked me one time how to be a better writer. My answer was to be a better reader. Start noticing good writing and sentence structure. Pay attention to those whose writing you admire, the way it gets your attention and keeps it—because that’s what it’s all about. It doesn’t have to be anything stuffy—what are your favorite bloggers or sports columnists writing about? I’m a huge sports fan and I never miss Scott Ostler’s or Ann Killian’s columns. They’re savvy, smart and write with humor and heart. Best of all, they have opinions. Don’t be afraid to share your own. Those who agree with you will love you even more.

Need help with your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

P&G’s #LikeAGirl campaign: Marketing That Tells a Story

Everyone’s panning advertising. Millions of cellphone users have installed adblockers. PPC conversion stats are dismal. The old model is falling from favor. These days, it’s all about connecting and building relationships. Good marketing tells a story—a superb way to connect with an audience.

You have to hand it to Procter & Gamble . . .

They’ve done a brilliant job of harnessing the Olympic momentum and celebrating women athletes with their #LikeAGirl campaign. It’s a sad fact that, while many young girls participate in a wide variety of sports—softball, basketball, soccer, swimming and gymnastics-- confidence for many plummets at puberty and half of them drop out of these sports programs. This is a tragedy on many levels. Kids who are involved in sports form strong relationships that can last for a lifetime. They learn important life skills—how to be part a team, how to compete, how to win and lose. And of course, as P&G points out, sports helps instill confidence in these young female athletes—something they’re going to desperately need as they get older and deal with the world we’re leaving them.

A video of young girls playing nontraditional women’s sports

The video interviews young girls playing sports—particularly those sports that have been traditionally considered suitable for men—weightlifting, boxing and rugby. These young girls clearly think that girls should not only be able to play rugby—a very rough sport—but also be captain of the team!  

P&G calls for Olympic athletes and organizing committees to inspire a world where “every girl truly feels that she can play sports and will Keep Playing #LikeAGirl.” Of course this is a plug for Always feminine products, but the message is heartfelt and timely, and it’s never been more relevant.

A new tagline for Always: Rewrite the Rules

While this is an excellent example of marketing as a story, it also shows a big brand’s stepping up to support—or create a cause. One final note—for this campaign, Always has added a new tagline: “Rewrite the Rules”. I’d love to see P&G turning this into a real cause—not just a one-off ad campaign.

Do you need help with your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts.

Should You Be Outsourcing Your Content Marketing Program?

Outsourcing is a growing trend across industries, for companies of all sizes. It makes sense on a number of levels.

1. A cyclical economy. Regardless of industry, there are always going to be dips when staff layoffs become necessary. Severing a relationship becomes much easier when there isn’t the long-term investment that accompanies full-time employment.
2. A cost-effective solution. According to a survey conducted by Northwest Staffing Resources, an employee can cost approximately 57% more than the stated wage due to the cost of benefits and the amount of time they’re actually focused and on-task. A $50K employee could actually cost the company almost $78,500/year. An outsourced contractor, on the other hand, can often provide a higher level of expertise for a much lower cost—an estimated $36,000 per year, for example.
3. A higher level of expertise and efficiency. For the monthly fee, the client receives a higher level of expertise since the contractor brings experience from a variety of client situations. The work is done in much less time because there aren’t the normal distractions of an internal employee, such as routine staff meetings and vacations.
4. Access to skilled resources. Recruiting and training are significant workforce investments. It can take months before an employee is really producing at a high level. But when your highly trained employees leave after intensive training, your ROI plummets. With contractors, you get those same skilled workers performing at a high level, but someone else has put in the time and expense to train them.

Business owners may be the experts, but that doesn’t mean they can write about it

When it comes to a company’s content marketing program—blogs, website content, email blasts and social media posts—many business owners are reluctant to outsource these efforts because they believe that they’re the experts. They’re the ones who know their business. And they’re absolutely right. But that doesn’t mean they can write about it.

As a writer and content marketing expert, one of the best examples I run into is developing website content. Business owners become adamant about writing their own content. The problem is that they’re often poor writers and they have their day jobs. Writing content for websites is a skill. It requires being able to organize information and a writing technique that’s different from other writing formats. When companies insist that they’ll provide the content, these web projects often completely stall. When they work with a writer, the projects stay on track and meet deliverable dates.

Other business owners worry that if they outsource their content, they’ll lose control

They’re concerned that with an outsourced solution, a professional writer won’t be able to match their voice and brand. But that’s nonsense—a professional writer is trained to be able to work with a wide range of brands. We’re intuitive and smart. We work hard to understand the nuances of the businesses about which we’re writing. We get it right the first time. We save time by coming up with good content that needs just a quick review and approval—not massive edits and rewrites.

Good marketing—and good content–isn’t just about marketing, it tells a story

It captures the audience’s attention, relating with them on some level, and transferring knowledge or compelling action. We work hard to follow industry news and people, making blogs and other posts relevant for our audiences. We look at the big picture, creating editorial calendars to identify important holidays, dates and events that we should be leveraging in our blogs and social media posts. Chances are that your internal team, especially if it’s not a dedicated content marketing team but a haphazardly appointed group that deals with content marketing when they can, is not doing this. The result: the entire effort often falls apart. Content marketing, to be effective, needs to be steady and consistent; it should inform and entertain, help people do their jobs.

To keep in mind: Outsourced content providers don’t work in a vacuum. We’re careful about review and approval cycles, keeping our editorial calendars updated, making sure that we’re checking in regularly with our business unit partners. Best of all, we prepare reports to show that what we’re doing is working.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts. 

Piktochart: Great New Tool for Creating Infographics

I moved to St. Helena a few months ago and I love the serenity of this little village in the heart of the California wine country. Moving to a new town can be lonely, so I joined the Chamber of Commerce. I was motivated by a workshop that was jointly produced with the Calistoga Chamber. I figured this would be a great chance to make new business connections. The format consisted of a series of speakers, divided into four categories, with presentations from local companies.

Their goal was to provide information about what you’d need to know if you were doing business here. I assumed this would be a huge snooze, but boy, was I wrong! Each presenter had a PowerPoint and exactly 5 minutes. The slides were timed, so believe me, it kept the presenters on the move. This was information delivery in a speed-dating format. The team who worked on this event did a superb job—I’d lost faith in Chambers of Commerce, but this program was relevant and expertly produced.

The St. Helena Chamber President, Pam Simpson, used her five minutes to talk about some of the great tools she and her team had been using to streamline their communications and upgrade the quality of their presentations and web postings. She named five applications, and I hadn’t heard of any of them. Let’s face it—we’re all busy, doing more with less. There are approximately a gazillion social media applications that all do the same thing and more standalone apps than we know what to do with. When I hear about fabulous new applications I groan and think about the time it takes to identify and ramp up to using them. I don’t care how easy they are to use—there’s ALWAYS a learning curve!

But Pam assured us that these were both easy to use and had become terrific productivity enhancers for her team. I went home and tried one of these, Piktochart. Happily, Pam was right.

Piktochart: Infographics made ridiculously easy

If you’ve been paying attention, infographics have become an important part of information delivery for social media and other forms of electronic delivery. They’re clever, fun, colorful and provide easy assimilation of key facts. But if you’re not a graphics whiz kid, or if you don’t have a graphics program, creating an infographic can be laborious. I’ve had some good ideas, but I knew I’d be using Apple’s Pages to create my high-res image, and this application is cumbersome, and it would require a significant time investment. The result? My infographic has been on hold for a long, long time.

Piktochart’s self-contained library makes this a breeze

Just as Pam promised, all you do is create a login and this app opens up a world of easy possibilities. There are some very workable free templates, drag-and-drop technology, images and fonts. You can import your own logo and images to customize this, of course—you’re not stuck with what they give you as a default. You can change the color palette, and something I really like—as you work, Piktochart autosaves so you don’t lose track of time and end up losing your work if your browser craps out.

Piktochart: more functionality available

There are also templates for presentations, posters and flyers. Since statistics are the heartbeat of infographics, many of these templates come with readymade stats that I’m going to assume are correct. I googled a few of these to doublecheck, and they were spot on, but would always want to confirm them before using in any product.

• The free version has 13 templates that are fully customizable.
• If you want more options, you can pay $15/month and access more than 400 templates and more features.
• If you want even more functionality, you can opt for the Pro version, at $29/month.
• What may make these advanced options attractive for some users: turnkey infographics. I searched the comprehensive library of 400 templates for content marketing and came up with an infographic that was excellent. If I were a pro user, I might be tempted to use this as-is, or make only minor adjustments.

Infographics have become an important medium for information delivery. I’m delighted to have discovered Piktochart and can’t wait to try out the other applications that Pam recommended at the Chamber of Commerce event.

Are you interested in creating infographics for your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and marketing strategists.