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History of Viral Marketing

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History of Viral Marketing

We’ve all seen those advertisements or images on Facebook that seem to reach thousands, if not millions, of people and result in hundreds of comments, likes, and shares. Your friend shares the post, then you do, and then your friends do. Those posts that spread like wildfire across social media networks are part of viral promotion, a form of content marketing that can be extremely successful for brands of all sizes. How did viral marketing come about? How exactly does it work? And what are some of its common aspects?

What Does It Mean to “Go Viral”?

Consider this: There are 2.5 billion people worldwide using social media opens in new window, according to Statista, and an article in Forbes by Robert Wynne reports about 5 billion pieces of content are posted to Facebook and more than 500,000 tweets are sent on a daily basis.

Even though the chances of a tweet going viral are about one in a million, another Forbes article by Jason DeMers says that sharable content is key to successful content marketing opens in new window. Of course, it depends on how and when the content is shared in order to increase its chances of becoming viral. Sometimes, a post can gain traction significantly, but only for a few days before losing momentum. The content needs to be something that the audience would want to share with their friends.

According to Entrepreneur opens in new window, you should “think of virality as an exponential curve. If two people directly related to the brand share a piece of content, and if that number doubles 30 times, it means that over a billion people will have shared the content.”

The more shares a promotion gets, the greater the opportunity that it “snowballs into something huge opens in new window.” A company needs to share its content in as many ways and in as many places as possible. If the company makes it easy for its audience to share content — through tagging, embedding, or downloading — then the chance of it going viral increases opens in new window, according to Hubspot

However, content that appears to have gone viral may not produce the brand’s desired results. Much of the time, consumers barely read the content after clicking on it. In fact, 55 percent of readers actively spend less than 15 seconds on a page, according to Forbes.

Where Did Viral Marketing Originate?

Viral marketing’s roots date back to 1996 opens in new window, when a small startup company called Hotline needed a budget-friendly way to promote its new email service, Hotmail. Hotline’s team decided to insert the line “Get your own free Hotmail at www.hotmail.com” in all emails. The result? The number of Hotmail users grew from 20,000 to 1 million within a year. By 2001, Hotmail had 30 percent of the email market with 86 million active users. This is an example of one of the most important aspects of viral marketing: every customer involuntarily promotes a service just by using it.

However, it’s unclear where the exact phrase originated. In 1996, Jeffrey Rayport, a Harvard Business School professor, authored an article for Fast Company titled “The Virus of Marketing,” in which the term “viral marketing” appeared. However, venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson claims that it coined the term in a 1997 Netscape newsletter, using inspiration from Hotmail’s marketing strategy. In 2000, Fast Company published “Unleash Your Ideavirus,” an article focusing on the idea economy and how the “ideas that spread the fastest win.”

Regardless of its exact origin, there is no doubt that viral marketing could not survive without social networking today. During the 2000s, the major social networks launched. Facebook came to existence in 2000, and YouTube and Twitter launched in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

What Makes Viral Promotion Ideal?

As viral promotion is one of the most effective marketing tactics today, it offers many benefits for both small businesses and large corporations. One of the major advantages is that viral marketing doesn’t require a large budget. In fact, Hubspot reported that some of the most successful viral content was created with a very low budget, especially given the ability to shoot high-quality photos and videos with a smartphone.

Another considerable benefit is that when a viral marketing campaign is successful, a brand’s product or service is put in front of a new, larger audience. As the content reaches thousands of people, not only does the brand have the potential to make more money, but it can also gain a large amount of new followers, referral traffic, and even permanent links to help with its website’s search engine rankings.

A genuine viral promotion can also create loyal customer relationships. Through all the shares, likes, and tags on various social media networks, viral marketing campaigns are not considered as invasive. It’s the consumers and fans who decide to share the content, and the perception of the brand ends up being better than it would via other marketing tactics opens in new window.

On the other hand, sometimes content going viral doesn’t lead to more loyal followers. The most important thing for a business’ success is loyalty, not how viral content becomes. A brand must work to build authentic connections with its audience, as loyal customers are the ones who want to stay updated on the brand’s latest news.

Successful Viral Marketing Examples

In November 2017, filmmaker Max Lanman created a commercial to advertise his girlfriend’s 1996 Honda Accord. The ad, which showed Lanman’s girlfriend drinking coffee and holding her cat in the car while driving, included some witty fine print such as “Cat and coffee pot not included” and “0% APR for qualified buyers with eBay accounts in good standing.” The video promptly went viral and has since achieved more than 6.8 million views on YouTube. While the video advertised the car for a sale price of $499 opens in new window, the car’s eBay auction quickly went up to $150,000 before being pulled off the site. Later, CarMax created a response video, offering the couple $20,000 for the Honda, which the couple accepted. CarMax’s own video topped 400,000 views, performing better than any of its other videos.

Another example of viral marketing is BlendTec’s “Will It Blend” campaign. In 2006, the blender company had very low brand awareness, and it created a series of videos showing the company’s CEO placing random objects into one if its blenders opens in new window. Items such as an iPhone, a rake handle, a video game, and credit cards were destroyed in the blender. Within five days of being posted on YouTube, the videos had more than 6 million views, and BlendTec went from being an unknown brand to world renowned. Additionally, their sales increased by eight times after the campaign launched.

What Many Viral Marketing Campaigns Have in Common

While there’s no guaranteed formula to make a marketing campaign go viral, there are some traits that the most successful campaigns have in common. They’re relatable to their target audience, making them feel strongly enough about the content to share it. The content may evoke emotion, be entertaining or inspirational, provide an element of surprise, or contain information that is deemed helpful. Hubspot also suggests viral marketing campaigns also have good visual strategies that tell a story and are innovative.

Content that is easy for the audience to digest also increases the chances of it becoming viral. Even though they tend to earn fewer links, the article in Forbes by Jayson DeMers opens in new windowmentioned earlier states, “Videos, quizzes, and list-based articles tend to get more shares than other types of content, possibly because they’re relatively quick and easy to digest.” Meanwhile, as 85 percent of content has 1,000 words or less, the remaining 15 percent, which contains more than 1,000 words, seems to earn more shares and links.

Interested in Digital Marketing Trends?

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Republished by permission. Original here.

Photo via Rivier University Online

This article, “History of Viral Marketing” was first published on Small Business Trends



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How to Advocate for — and Implement — a ‘Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day’

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Parent advocate Sarah Johal outlines the steps for making your company truly ‘child-friendly.’


7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


Today, April 25, is national Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day for 2109. Created 26 years ago by the Ms. Foundation, the event (slightly retooled from its former name Take Our Children to Work Day) is designed for girls and boys ages 8 to 18 to learn new lessons about the workplace, then take those lessons back to school the following day.

The observance “focuses on expanding future opportunities for all our children, in both their work and family lives,” according to the website.

But what if your particular company dismisses the whole idea of welcoming kids into the workplace to observe what Mom and Dad or some other adult in their lives actually does all day? For answers, I turned to Sarah Johal.

Related: Bring Your Child to Work Day Is Too Valuable to Limit to Once a Year

Johal is a mother and marketing professional with experience advocating for parent-friendly programs and activities at high-profile organizations. She’s built brand experiences for Pandora Radio, Lyft and Workday and is the current editor of the weekly newsletter exploring parenthood in media and tech, Underbelly.

In our conversation, Johal recalled her experience three years ago as a marketing manager at Lyft, and the rideshare company’s lack at that time of a parenting employee resource group.

“I had a pretty toxic experience when I returned to work after maternity leave,” Johal began, referring to a previous job. “A few months later, I decided to join Lyft, which seemed to provide a way healthier support system for all workers.”

Even though some women within that organization were pregnant, Johal said, she saw signs that Lyft hadn’t created an inclusive culture for working parents.

Evidence for that statement? “All-hands meetings started at 5:30 pm.,” Johal remembered. “I’d see other parents get ‘stink eyes’ when they had to bring their kids in for the day, but no one batted an eye when a colleague brought in their dog.”

Ever the workplace volunteer, Johal decided to turn her pain into progress and voluntarily formed an employee resource group, or ERG, for parents and caregivers within the company.

Related: To Raise Exceptional Children, Teach Them These 7 Values

She’d assumed the organization would be concerned enough to at least listen to the needs and perspectives of caregiver employees. But working parents at Lyft at the time had no ERG to call home.

One reason might have been Lyft’s then still-recent startup status. (It was founded in 2012.). But support for working parents was one goal that needed to be accommodated, Johal told me. She cited the value for both the organization and the employees who join ERGs, illustrated in a study by the Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion.

“I also wanted to ensure no one else experienced biases — conscious or unconscious — simply because of their parent identity and ways of working,” Johal said. Under the branding #UpLyft, Lyft had already adopted a framework for creating ERGs, she said. At the time, the company also had other diversity and inclusion resource groups such as #UpLyftWomen for women in tech.

Sarah Johal and her daughter

Image Credit: Courtesy of Sarah Johal

So Johal made her move; she founded #UpLyftParents in February 2016, and under her leadership, the company hosted its first “Take Our Kids to Work Day” across all domestic Lyft offices and changed its paid leave policy for all employees. Johal transitioned from Lyft to the marketing company Workday early last year, but Lyft still benefited from the effects of her hard work after her departure.

Just two months later, Lyft ranked 12th on Father.ly’s “Best Places for Dads” to work. Though Johal and her ERG corrected the course of operations at Lyft, the group never would have happened had she not striven for incremental, quick wins. “Take Our Kids to Work Day” (Lyft’s name for the event) was one of those wins.

Google, Facebook and Visa are just a few of the organizations that have received praise from their employees and the media for their Take Your Child To Work Day activities. Unfortunately, however, due to a lack of proper event planning, budget or liability fears, many companies don’t encourage employees to bring their children into the workplace n– even just for one day.

This year ‘s observance has the theme “Workforce Development for All.” And in this regard, Johal offers advice to organizations on how they can explore launching a local observance of their own in just under three weeks and develop inspiration and skill sets for tomorrow’s leaders. The tips she offers include:

Communication is key.

“Regardless if your company only has two parents or 2,000, it’s worth expressing how your company embraces working families,” Johal says.

For companies, communicating that employees can bring their children in for the day is key. Employees, meanwhile, should remember to express their interest in that event to their company’s human resources department or employee resource group, as one or both may already have programming plans. If not, employees can volunteer to serve as consultants, volunteer for various tasks and provide additional programming.

Assess the landscape.

“Audit [whether] it makes sense to celebrate the actual national holiday in April, or if it’s easier to execute in summer when more kids can likely visit on a weekday,” Johal advises, noting some parents’ reluctance to take their children out of school.

Also, if the first year’s celebration is limited just to a communique to employees, assess participation levels and feedback, determining if a larger, grander event would be well received.

Money isn’t everything.

“Zero-budget ideas are endless,” Johal says. One could be launching your organization’s first official parents’ ERG to mark the date, she says. Another could be a parent-buddy mentorship program to foster relationships between non-caregivers and parents. A third could involve posting a group selfie with leadership on your social handles.

Simply participate and share your authentic stories (internally and externally)! Just remember to use release forms for families to approve the use of their likeness and especially that of their minor-age children for any captured content.

Consider what innovative programming looks like for all ages.

“If you have the budget, have a variety of programming that expresses your core values,” Johal says. “At Lyft, we created career development and time-management panels for parents with newborns, led by executive sponsors. For older kids, we hosted themed Lego engineering workshops where families could design and build their visions of ‘future cities’ and autonomous car designs. 

“We also ensured temporary onsite child care was available in case parents needed to step away for an important meeting or phone call, and still enjoy the celebration.”

Related: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Explaining Your Job to Your Kids

As to what benefits might result through steps like those Johal advises, worker satisfaction might be one, and increased productivity, another. Then, increased employee retention might be a third — geared to giving the phrase “child-friendly” new meaning.

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5 Things Businesses of All Sizes Can Learn from Marie Kondo

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5 Things Businesses of All Sizes Can Learn from Marie Kondo Tips

Marie Kondo’s name is on everyone’s lips these days. Thanks to her book The Lifechanging Art of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and popular show on Netflix, Goodwill centers all over the country are overflowing with donations as housecleaning becomes a national phenomenon. But although my pantry now looks spectacular, Kondo’s wisdom isn’t just for spring cleaning the home; there’s much we can take from her Konmari method of tidying up to help us run businesses of all sizes better.

Start with gratitude

Before she starts tidying, Kondo begins by thanking every new house for providing a home and shelter to its inhabitants. This is a moment of silence in which she “communes” with a house. This action sets a tone that establishes the value of even the messiest house and resets the relationship its inhabitants have with it. For small businesses, it’s also important to take time to reset. Frustration with coworkers? Take time to think of some reasons you’re thankful they’re on your team. Gratitude is an easy way to bring things back into perspective. While some work relationships require a full-scale reboot, others are fixable if you look deep enough for new ideas and inspiration.

Focus on what’s “important”

The premise of the Konmari method is that we should keep only that possessions that “spark joy.” For your business, it’s important to have the same level of focus; but instead of keeping the things that spark joy, you keep the things (or activities) that drive business results. At small businesses, where every minute counts and every project can be a make-or-break deal, focus is especially important. Kondo followers understand that it’s important to not allow yourself to be pulled in a million directions or to fill your calendar with clutter. Retain focus on what’s important — what sparks “business joy” — and you will be primed to reach your goals.

Simplify and streamline

Kondo believes the best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t. This advice works great in your closet, but its metaphorical lesson is a great one to apply at work too. Are there items in your office you’re holding onto for no reason? Employees who aren’t bought into the vision? Systems that overlap? Streamline your business to help it run more efficiently, identify areas that need improvement, and set up your business for growth.

Thoughtfully organize

One of the things Marie Kondo is best known for is the way she folds and organizes t-shirts. This level of organizational rigor works well for businesses too. It’s easy for a company — especially a small one where everyone wears lots of hats — to get overwhelmed by “stuff,” whether it’s physical files, sales leads, or customer data. Simple things like file structures and common naming conventions make a huge difference. You’ll also want to use a  CRM like Salesforce Essentials to manage your customer information and connect all your systems on one platform.

Do what’s right for you

One piece of advice for which Kondo has received negative feedback was her suggestion that you should get rid of books that you aren’t going to read or reread. For most book lovers that’s blasphemy! Many of us love a cozy room full of books, and the feeling of being transported back in time when we can pull our copy of The Great Gatsby off of the shelf and see notes from high school in the margins. However, when Kondo was pushed by journalists for a comment, she suggested that everyone should just “do what’s right for you.” And that’s always great advice. While leaders are right to examine their business from all angles, there’s no need to fix something that’s not broken. Do what’s right for the business.

Marie Kondo has inspired me in so many ways. Not only is my pantry neat and organized, but her wisdom sparks joy for me at the office too. I hope these Konmari lessons will also inspire businesses of all sizes to find ways to learn from her.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Photo via Salesforce

This article, “5 Things Businesses of All Sizes Can Learn from Marie Kondo” was first published on Small Business Trends



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Apple CEO Tim Cook Made One Simple Change to Help Him Avoid iPhone Addiction

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He says he doesn’t want people to use their phones so much.


4 min read


This story originally appeared on Business Insider

Phone addiction has become such a worldwide problem that even the Pope weighed in this month.

Pope Francis warned a group of high schoolers about it during a meeting at their school in Rome, reports the Catholic magazine America. He told the teens to “please, free yourselves from your phone addiction,” explaining that “when the phone is a drug,” there’s a danger of “communication being reduced to simple ‘contacts.'”

On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook agreed.

Cook was asked about how ordinary people are touching their phones thousands of time a day during an on-stage interview at the Time 100 Summit.

He agreed that many kids may be using their phones too much, and that this was the impetus for Apple’s Screen Time reports, whichrolled out in early 2018.

“It’s also the parents that are using it too much. We all are, or many of us are,” Cook said.

When asked about one study that found people, on average, touch their cell phones 2,617 times per day, he joked, “Ah, well you shouldn’t be doing that.”

He explained that the folks at Apple “don’t want people using their phones all the time. This is never been an objective for us,” and said constant phone usage is not Apple’s business model.

That’s a subtle dig at the ad-supported apps of the world — like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat — that try to keep people coming back for more interaction with their apps, which helps them sell more ads.

“It is clear that there are certain apps that people can get in the mindset of just scrolling through mindlessly and continuously picking up their phones and looking to see what is happening this second,” Cook said.

He also echoed the Pope’s assessment about how phones hurt communication, too.

He said one change people should make is this: stop paying attention to your phone instead of the people in the room with you.

“Every time you pick up the phone, it means you are taking your eyes off the person you are dealing with. If you are looking at your phone more than you are looking at someone’s eyes? You are doing the wrong thing!” Cook said.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Gutting your notifications

Cook said he learned that lesson personally by reading his own Apple Screen Time reports, which lead him to make another simple change that keeps him from being distracted by his phone thousands of times of day: He turned off app notifications.

“What’s it’s done for me personally? I’ve gone and gutted the number of notifications, because I really asked myself, do I really need to be getting thousands of notifications a day?” Cook said. “It is not something that is adding value to my life or making me a better person. So I went in and chopped that.”

“I recommend you do this if you haven’t already,” he added.

There are multiple ways to limit app notifications on an iPhone while still letting the device alert you to anything important. These include disabling notifications on each app through the “Notifications” tab in “Settings”; using “Do Not Disturb” both manually (while at dinner or the movies) and setting it up automatically (like at bedtime); and selectively earmarking contacts or email strings as VIPs, so you are alerted to their emails and don’t need to constantly check your phone for them.

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76% of Customers Choose Loyalty Programs that Collect ONLY Name and Phone Number

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Customer Loyalty Programs and Privacy

More businesses are adopting customer loyalty programs because it is much easier to deploy. But a new report has revealed Americans are more cautious when it comes to joining a loyalty program.

A survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Wilbur says 76% of Americans are more likely to join a program which collects only their name and phone number. An almost equal number (71%) said they would be less likely to join a rewards program which collects personal information. This includes address, account information, and other sensitive data.

These two data points highlight the growing concern Americans have about their personal information. As increasing number of organizations report data security breaches, consumers are leerier about who they hand out their information to.

In the press release for the report, President and CEO of Wilbur and Smart Transaction Systems, Ray Clopton, addressed the issue of privacy.

Clopton said, “These survey results prove that U.S. consumers are becoming much more selective about the loyalty programs they join and, I believe, are ultimately more loyal to brands that respect their personal privacy.

Adding, “It is really important for businesses to pay attention to what their customers want—especially when developing a loyalty program.”

For small business owners looking to develop a loyalty program, paying attention and knowing their customers is especially important. Clopton went on to say business should get to know their customers—but as people. And not as, “A slice of a database or a spreadsheet column.”

Loyalty Programs

The best example of loyalty programs comes from grocery stores. And in the past, they only required a name and phone number for customers to take advantage of promotional items. But with the evolution of digital technology, eCommerce, and social media, they now want more information. This goes for other industries who are using loyalty programs.

Everyone from gas stations to fast food restaurants, movie theaters, and others now have their own programs. And more of them are asking for an increased amount of personal information to deliver the personalized experiences consumers want.

The personalized experiences consumers want comes at the cost of providing the personal information the value so much. Delivering a personalized experience requires a considerable amount of personal data. Finding balance consumers and businesses can live with is the key.

Customer Loyalty Programs and Privacy

Collecting personal information is at the crux of the problem. In this survey, fewer personal data translates to more receptive consumers.

If a program only asks a name and phone number 76% are more likely to join a program. But there is still a group which doesn’t want to give even this information. Sixteen percent said they are somewhat less likely to join, while another 8% said they are much less likely.

When asked about providing address and account information, 71% said they are much/somewhat less likely to join a program. A larger number at 27% said they are much less likely to join, and 22% said they were somewhat more likely to join.

In addition to collecting data, the survey also asked about downloading an app to get the loyalty program benefits.

More than half or 58%  are less likely to join if they have to download an app. Considering how much data some apps require, it is the same problem as asking for more information. More than a quarter or 26% are much less likely to join.

The Harris Poll conducted the survey in the U.S. on behalf of Wilbur online from April 4-8, 2019. It was carried out with the participation of 2,003 adults ages 18 and older.

Wilbur is a loyalty program operator based in Boulder, Colorado.

Creating a Loyalty Program Today

The good news is there are many tools for creating a loyalty program in the marketplace.  This requires crafting a loyalty program with a clear strategy and understanding of data protection.

A program with best practices, strong governance, and transparency can go a long way into easing the anxiety consumers feel today.

If your customers are willing to share their information, you have to make them feel at ease by saying and doing everything you can to protect it.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “76% of Customers Choose Loyalty Programs that Collect ONLY Name and Phone Number” was first published on Small Business Trends



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How Will Big Data and AI Transform the B2B World?

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Big data and artificial intelligence, or AI, make it possible for industry leaders to make numerous decisions quickly in real time. Used together, these technologies offer actionable insights into customer behavior. Further, these insights allow companies to deliver customized products to consumers in optimized ways.

The Role of
Big Data and AI in B2B Marketing

Customer happiness is crucial for the success of any business. If you want to provide high-quality service to your buyers, you must learn your clients’ pain points. Thereafter, you must offer the proper solutions. For this reason, businesses collect large volumes of customer data. This frequently includes browsing history, likes, clicks, buying patterns, and so on.

RELATED ARTICLE: BIG DATA: 6 WAYS LEARNING TO USE IT WILL HELP YOUR BUSINESS

As many as 80% of marketing experts believe that AI will transform digital marketing for B2C and B2B spaces in the next five years. What’s more, information from big data can be conjoined with the magic of AI.

These data collections reveal powerful insights into customer behavior, insights that are incredibly helpful for B2B lead generation. Moreover, using this information, marketers can flawlessly predict the correct action to take with any consumer at any moment.

How Smart Business Owners Use Big Data and AI

Big Data and AI

The chart above is from a study by Econsultancy and IBM. The study revealed that 35% of elite marketers agree that they need to have the right technologies for data collection. Moreover, they also stressed that they needed proper analysis in order to understand the data they collected.

AI Improves the Lead Generation Process

The partnership between big data and AI offers enormous benefits. However, it will only be useful to managers who understand how to properly execute the information they receive. For example, rich client insight can guide marketing managers to generate sales-ready quality leads. But this is true only if they have the right data and intelligent analysis at hand.

With quality leads, you’ll be able to focus only on interested prospects. This will reduce the number of hours your team will need to spend on mundane tasks. Instead, they will be able to concentrate on high-value tasks while electronic tools take care of routine functions.

AI Predicts Sales Quickly

Today’s AI tools can produce sales forecasts based on data you provide. Then, you can plan upcoming projects using these predictions. This will help you to efficiently manage your resources and your team’s efforts.

Wise Business Owners Call on Discerning New Marketers

Within this exciting new space, multiple B2B marketing vendors such as Blue Mail Media have begun to emerge. These companies are now implementing new marketing skills in order to leverage new opportunities. Using big data and AI, they target only the right customers. They aid with personalized campaigns and forecast sales. In short, these savvy marketers use big data and AI to bring you a competitive advantage.

AI and big data will continue to push the boundaries of creativity and interactive user experience, and companies that avail themselves of these possibilities will reap rich revenues. So be a part of this trend. Get your business ready for the partnership between big data and AI now!

About the Author

Emily Johnson is a marketing analyst and chief content writer at a leading marketing company in Irving, Texas. Emily specializes in entrepreneurship, small business, technology, social media, and content marketing strategies. Connect with Emily on Facebook and Twitter.



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Digital Marketing Agency Tips for a Content Marketing Campaign

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Content marketing was around even before the digital age began. Business owners in those days created written materials to promote their businesses through newsletters, magazines, and other materials.

Nowadays, however, content marketing more often takes digital forms. For example, content creators use videos, blogs, or social media posts. There are other forms of digital marketing, too. To get more information about other digital marketing strategies, click here.

What’s more, if you’re setting up a content marketing campaign for your business, the following tips will help.

1. Determine the Purpose of Your Content Marketing Campaign

Put first things first. That is, figure out the purpose of your campaign. Obviously, you want it to help your business. However, what type of content will you be creating? Will you use your campaign for brand awareness? Or do you want it to increase sales? Each form of content marketing you choose will require a different tone and form of material.

2. Make Sure You Know Your Audience

Once you’ve figured out the purpose of your campaign, you then need to understand the audience whose attention you’d like to catch. For example, the content of a blog for an older generation is far different from that of a blog that aims to reach a younger audience.

3. Pay Attention to Your Content Structure

Any audience will be more receptive to well-thought-out content that is free of grammatical and typographical errors. Also, use simple and catchy phrases in your title. And maintain a consistent structure throughout your article. To that end, make sure to consider these three things:

  • Tone – Keep the tone light and friendly. Readers will stop reading content that sounds overbearing and stuffy.
  • Flow – Make sure your ideas aren’t all over the place. Craft smooth transitions from one idea to the next.
  • Format – Maintain a balance in your content somewhere between formal and casual. Moreover, it must match the taste of your target audience.

Above all, be conversational. Just talk to your audience. Present whatever it is that you want them to know without trying to force them to believe you.

content marketing

4. Enable Social Media Sharing
Buttons

If people like your content, they are more likely to share it on their social media accounts. Therefore, make it easy for them to do so by enabling social media buttons on your post’s page. Without these, they may resort to copying and pasting. And when they do that, the link will not be attributed to your page.

5. Be SEO Conscious

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a big deal, as you probably already know. SEO-friendly content can go a long way in making your marketing campaign count. Therefore, be aware of how to use the keywords that can help the Google crawl bots discover your posts.

In addition, here are a few of the many factors that can help with SEO for your content:

  • Substance – As we mentioned earlier, you need to produce content with high quality. That’s because this plays a decisive role in improving SEO.
  • Authority – You need to be viewed by search engine crawl bots as an authority to get a better ranking on search page results. You can achieve this by guest posting on authority websites. Alternatively, you can have authority page posts mention your content in their posts. This is where linking and backlinking take place.

RELATED ARTICLE: HOW CAN I GET MY BUSINESS TO RANK HIGHER IN THE SEARCH ENGINES?

6. Tap Social Media Influencers

As you build your followers by posting quality content, also take advantage of the followers of social media influencers in your industry. To do that:

  • Reach out to the social media influencers who are in the same niche as you are.
  • Ask if you can quote them in your posts.
  • Be one of their sponsors in exchange for them sharing your content. Or work with them in some other way to get your content published on their social media page or website.

If you’re quoting social media influencers in your articles, they will be more likely to share your content free of charge. That’s because you will have promoted them first.

7. Make Different Versions of Your
Content

This is what is commonly called “repurposing your content.” For example, let’s say you create a video and post it on YouTube. Then you create a podcast version for your blog. This way, you get to reach more people through different channels using the same content.

8. Don’t Forget Your Call to Action

Creating educational content is your marketing strategy. Whether the primary goal is for brand awareness or to gather leads for sales, you’d want to gather those that you reached through your digital marketing campaign. Therefore, make sure to include a powerful call to action in each post.

Give Your Content the Royal Treatment

Content is king, so give your content the royal treatment it deserves. Use these tips from a digital marketing agency to jump start your marketing campaign. You’ll never know how effective a strategy can be if you haven’t at least tried it.

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What is a Freakshake and How Can It Be Used to Market Your Small Restaurant?

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Should You Add a Freakshake to Your Restaurant Menu?

Have you heard of the Freakshake trend? Freakshakes refer to huge milkshakes loaded with ice-cream, cream and flavored sauces. But they also include unlikely ingredients. Think donuts, cake, biscuits, brownies and other sweet delights. Freakshakes have become huge in the food service industry.

Small restaurateurs should consider capitalizing on the freakshake trend. Put this deliciously popular type of milkshake or dessert on your menu?

What is a Freakshake?

Want to create a Freakshake for your small restaurant? Fill a large glass jug with a luxury milkshake. Make this with ice cream and chocolate, strawberry or another flavored sauce. Then pile up goodies that look as delicious, striking and ‘sinful’ as possible.

These goodies include cake, donuts, waffles, marshmallows, fruit, chocolate and more. Then throw a handful of sweets on top for good measure.

Want to know how far the freakshake phenomenon has gone. Well, some restaurants even offer savory freakshakes. And they include ingredients like cheese and pulled pork replacing donuts and waffles.

Where Did Freakshakes Originate?

This high calorific dessert supposedly originated in Australia in 2015. A café in Canberra seems the likely creator of the drink.

The savvy café owners in Canberra designed the freakshake for a very specific purpose. They were created to be “so ridiculous and over-the-top that people just had to take a photo of it before they ate it.”

Thanks to the sharing power of social media, these oversized, ultra-sweet milkshakes quickly became a global sensation, with cafes, restaurants and customers delighting in sharing their freakshakes to followers, and the more flamboyant, striking and gastronomically sinful, the better.

Freakshakes and Instagram

These brightly-colored edible creations are made to be photographed and shared around the world on social media, with the photo-sharing portal Instagram being a favorite channel for restaurants and freakshake-happy customers to share their freakshake images.

View this post on Instagram

Fridays are for #freakshakes Cheers to the weekend @ree7amsterdam ? #amsterdamfancyfood

A post shared by Amsterdam Fancy Food (@amsterdamfancyfood) on Apr 5, 2019 at 5:32am PDT

A mere search of #freakshake on Instagram brings up more than 50,000 posts, each trying to outdo each other on the flamboyant stakes.

View this post on Instagram

SMORELICIOUS vs COOKIE MONSTER ???? if you HAD to choose, which one would you go for?! ?

A post shared by Snowopolis (@snowopolisco) on Apr 16, 2019 at 10:30am PDT

Rather than being pictured toasting with a glass of bubbly or a pint of beer, social media users are posting pictures of themselves raising their freakshake glasses, accompanied with their location in the world and often the name of the establishment that has served them the delicious freakshake.

The Opportunities of Freakshake Marketing

It’s not uncommon for the biggest, boldest and most daring of freakshake posts to go viral. The trend to share images of outstanding freakshakes on social media presents a wealth of marketing opportunities for restauranteurs, cafes and ice-cream shops.

Serving over-the-top freakshakes to your customers will encourage them to share the mouth-watering milkshake/dessert that lies before them on social media, meaning your creation is shared around the world and could event go viral.

Boost Your Restaurant’s SEO

Research shows that around 126,000 Googles searches are made for ‘freakshake’, meaning if your website, online menu, social media profiles and other digital entities includes the word ‘freakshake’, your rankings on search engines like Google could significantly improve, helping you pull in more customers as a result of your freakshake marketing.

As well as being a powerful marketing force for ice-cream businesses, cafes, restaurants and bars around the world, the great thing about freakshakes is they’re not difficult, too timely or expensive to make.

All you need is plenty of ice-cream, cream, sweet sauce, sticky sweet treats, sugar, sweets and whatever other deliciously sinful treats tickle your fancy, thrown in with some creativity and daringness and you’ll have a masterful culinary creation your customers will love you for.

Given the popularity, trendiness and potent promotional potential of freakshakes, ask yourself – is a freakshake something your business can afford to ignore?

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “What is a Freakshake and How Can It Be Used to Market Your Small Restaurant?” was first published on Small Business Trends



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How a Million-Dollar Deal Helped These Coffee Entrepreneur Brothers Partner With Walmart

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The Barrow brothers, owners of Denver-based Boyer’s Coffee, recently launched an exclusive line for the retail giant.


3 min read


When Walmart wanted to launch its own version of packaged third-wave coffee, it sought out the Denver-based Boyer’s Coffee, run by brothers Douglass and Jason Barrow. The brothers traced this win back to a success it had more than 10 years prior that laid the groundwork for the partnership.

In 2005, both brothers worked for corporations — Jason for General Electric and Douglass for ING — and then got the entrepreneurial itch. With their mutual love of coffee, they purchased a roastery called Luna. Their first big success would come soon, but it wasn’t under their brand’s name — rather, they got a deal for a private label with Schwan’s, the frozen food giant.

Related: The Story Behind the Coffee Company That Fuels Google, Microsoft and Facebook

“We basically took our brand story of ethically sourced, socially responsible, roast order coffees and we applied it to a Schwan’s private label,” Jason said. “What that ended up doing for us was it brought our first million dollars of revenue in very early. Our strategy has always been to get into the C suite and influence top down.”

With that infusion, the Barrows were able to invest significantly into their business.

“We literally built upon that deal every day of the week, because that big deal required us to get certifications that only Starbucks and Folgers would hold, like USDA organic certifications and safety and handling certifications,” Jason said. “It required us to get investors to put in millions of dollars into infrastructure that we needed.”

Image Credit: Courtesy of Boyer’s Coffee

The brothers would expand their coffee empire, purchasing Boyer’s as well as Boulder Organic Coffee and online retailer Boca Java. Before the Walmart deal, their coffees had been sold in about 700 stores. Its footprint is now around 1,300 stores with the addition of Walmart.

“Having a strong brand as a small producer lets big companies look at you and say, ‘What you can do for me?'” Jason said. “It was incredibly important to think at the C-suite level in this case,” adding that they created the Walmart exclusive Mash-Up Coffee based on how the retailer would market a third-wave coffee to its consumer.

Related: How This Coffee Startup Rocketed to National Retail Within a Few Months of Its Launch

Mash-Up Coffee blends coffee beans from two countries, such as Colombia and Sumatra. Each bag features a QR code that customers can scan to learn ideal food pairings and preparation methods. That’s part of an effort, Douglass said, to make quality coffee more approachable for the average consumer. The brothers also want to educate customers about the origins of their cup of joe.

“The U.S. coffee consumer doesn’t really understand the plight of the farmer,” he said. “One of our big challenges is trying to tell that story and connect the dots between the people that spend a lifetime growing the beans and the people that grind it and brew a pot at home.”

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