Digital Marketing is Fickle – So How Do We Make it Work?

1. Make sure your content is built for mobile consumption, be it through adaptive, responsive, or mobile web design.

Effective marketing delivers customized content that serves the needs of the people. Marketers need to ensure that content is optimized for mobile devices, both in form and function.

2. Recognize that design isn’t one size fits all.

Different design solutions all carry with them various pros and cons—the trick is choosing the one that suits your website, your specific message, and your target audience best.

3. Keep in mind that it’s our job to figure out how we can improve our audiences’ information acquisition.

We have to constantly ask ourselves: what can we do on mobile to reach people who don’t know we exist, but whom we know we could help?

4. Resistance is futile.

Ultimately, marketers can’t pretend these changes don’t have an effect on our work. We should evolve and adapt our strategies to keep up with these changes—it’s the smart, sustainable thing to do.

Content Marketing 

“Ads are short-term thinking, and you’re paying for all the value you get. As soon as you stop throwing dollars at ads, their value is gone. Content marketing assets, on the other hand, have long-term value that grows over time. Focus your efforts on a digital destination and answering customer problems with authority and expertise frequently.”

– Michael Brenner: Content Marketing is a Commitment, Not a Campaign, technologyadvice.com

How we do it:

1. We make it all about the audience.

The only marketing that resonates with audiences is the kind that serves their personal interests. And that’s what content marketing is all about: having a deep understanding of your customer’s mindset and needs, and delivering to them a personalized, engaging experience.

2. We are consistent.

You know it’s good content when it’s not only creatively put together and useful to your audience, but it’s consistently creative and useful to them. This is our edge over traditional marketing—we’re around our consumers long enough to establish a rapport based on the assumption that we’ll always deliver. (And we do.)

3. We stimulate conversation and engagement.

The rule of thumb is: consumers want you to scratch their backs first, then they’ll let you talk. So we get to know them to know exactly how best to scratch their backs.

For more info, there’s SEJ’s upcoming webinar “Content Marketing: A 360 Degree Approach,” live on November 9th: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/360-degree-approach-content-marketing-webinar/176784/

I think we can all agree that 2017 will be a better year if publishers and content marketers become more honest about their headlines. We can only take so much of reading content that “will change our life.”a

Virtual Reality

“When you put on the Rift, you’ll be able to experience immersive virtual environments that create the feeling of ‘presence’—like you’re actually there,” Facebook, Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote.

– Here’s How Mark Zuckerberg Explains Virtual Reality, time.com

Why we’re excited: The keyword here is experiential—what makes VR tech so powerful is the possibilities it opens up for creating truly immersive content. Immersion is valuable, because it’s one way to unlock empathy in audiences. We’re all becoming smarter about how we spend our time and money: we need firm assurances that any concept we’re about to subscribe to—may it be in travel, real estate, news—is something worthwhile. How would digital marketing address that need in a way that innovates on current practices? VR proposes: “Make your audience live in an idea so well-crafted, they wouldn’t be able to shake it even after the tech comes off. Then show them how they can have it for real.”