Are you thinking about throwing in the Twitter towel? Changing algorithms, fake news, rogue bots, trolls and reports of users closing accounts means there’s a perception the platform is losing its relevance and shine. Dig a little deeper though and user statistics show that there are still 326 million people using the network each month. … Read More
It’s not news that earned media outflanks paid media as an effective marketing tactic. It’s what 81% of marketers think too. While CMOs still rate owned media as a priority investment, brands are also quickly figuring out how earned media fits into their integrated marketing strategy. Businesses know how to run marketing campaigns on the … Read More
As an ecommerce business, how do you vie with Amazon, the world’s most valuable brand? Before we get onto this, let’s take a quick at how Amazon got to put its flag at the top of the summit. It wasn’t because of its products or its technology even. It got there, and is staying there, … Read More
Are you hesitating to invest energy and money into content marketing? Well, consider this: no one ever won a game of Monopoly by cautiously navigating around the board without buying Pall Mall, Park Lane, or a station or two. As a business owner, you may be playing a delicate financial balancing game. But if you … Read More
Creating the right content for the right people at the right time is the holy grail of content marketing. Understanding this bit is easy. But, when it comes to social media, how well do you understand what your target audience wants, so the content you produce earns its keep? How do you cut through the … Read More
There is a lot of talk out there about how writing more blog posts will get you to the blogging promise land where your blog generates a ton of new visitors and leads every week. You’ve seen the data — you know that if you publish more, you’ll start to see more and more results. … Read More
Creating content for your blog is one of the core elements of any good digital marketing strategy. Blogs play a role in several different digital marketing channels, from search engine optimisation, email and newsletters, social media and even word-of-mouth. But how do you leverage the content that sits on your blog to drive more conversions? … Read More
Just because insurance is essential, it doesn’t mean that anyone wants to spend more time thinking about it than they absolutely have to. And although ignorance can be bliss, this isn’t the case with insurance. How can insurance companies use content marketing to engage with policyholders and prospective customers? Well, if truth be told it … Read More
Across the globe, more than 3 billion people are using social networks. No business can afford to miss out on that scale of opportunity. But how do you get people to engage with your business on social media? There are lots of tips out there to help your business grow a social media following. To … Read More
Around the globe, 3 billion people use social media. A whopping 17% of the world’s population log onto Facebook every day. For businesses large and small, it’s a relatively cheap and quick way to develop your brand with existing customers and reach out to new ones. If you’re not using social media, your business is … Read More
In the spirit of effective content curation, we’ve trawled the net to bring you our list of the best resources out there to help you curate content more effectively. What is content curation? First, do you understand the differences between content creation and curation? If not, here’s a great intro from Hootsuite. https://blog.hootsuite.com/beginners-guide-to-content-curation/ Pulling together … Read More
If your content marketing strategy isn’t going exactly to plan, you may be looking at ways to improve your content’s performance. Here, we take a look at what steps you can take to ensure that your strategy has the desired impact. Make sure you’re measuring the right things An effective content marketing strategy will make … Read More
Content marketing analytics are absolutely key to establishing the financial value of your content and whether it’s doing the job you intended. By looking at the data generated by your website, you can tell a great deal about the way in which users are interacting with your content. However, you need to know what to … Read More
When content marketing is done well, it can have wondrous effects on both your sales figures and brand reach. However, it’s not the easiest of marketing techniques to get right. If you’re struggling to improve your content marketing results, here are our top 9 tips to help you do so. Ensure it is goal orientated … Read More
Business to business (B2B) content marketing typically requires a different approach from business to customer (B2C) content marketing. However, you don’t need to change everything about the way you create, publish, distribute, and share your content to appeal to business clients. Here, we take a look at a few of the ways you can make … Read More
Everyone knows that backlinks are the key to better ranking. (You didn’t know that? Read our article on domain authority and backlink building). And because everyone knows their value, quality backlinks (the only ones that matter) are also damnably hard to achieve. Internal linking, on the other hand, is easy to implement, completely flexible and … Read More
When considering what makes a quality domain, search engines takes multiple ‘trust indicators’ into account. The result is a ‘TrustRank’ score which helps Google et al decide, amongst other factors, how to rank your site. If you’ve received one of Big Star’s free content marketing audits, you’ll have received a score based on the ‘MozTrust’ … Read More
Read all the guides about on-page SEO but not seen any changes? Invested time and money in web content that no-one’s reading? Still being beaten in search results by your competitors? Here’s newsflash no.1 about modern SEO: it’s hard. And no.2? Gone are the days when a well-researched, correctly placed keyword could give you the edge … Read More
Before we get to the content marketing fails, let’s look at the big picture. Typically, inbound marketing costs around 61% less per acquisition than traditional outbound marketing and advertising methods such as cold calling and direct mail advertising. That’s a big difference. Weirdly, although content marketing can work out cheaper than more traditional methods only around 9% of … Read More
Blogging provides the fashion industry with the perfect medium with which to communicate with consumers. It provides labels and retailers with the chance to talk about the current trends and get valuable feedback. An independent fashion blog writer can also increase a product’s virality and get conversations started on new lines. The fashion industry has been slow … Read More
Ok, so it’s become a huge cliché. But we need good clichés, especially when they’re true. “The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.” ― Terry Pratchett Thanks, Terry. We miss you. Content is king. It’s also the kingdom and the essential means of … Read More
A strong digital presence across all channels encourages communication, drives up responses and boosts sales. A study by Sagence reported that customers who engage with brands across all channels spend 4% more than those that don’t. A large part of this approach is down to publishing content with consistency and regularity – so that you … Read More
As a professional writer, it’s easy to feel daunted by writing content marketing blog posts – especially when you have a lot to do. Even if you are given a specific brief, you might still have questions in your mind, such as “will anyone really care about this blog?” or “how am I going to … Read More
A lot of content marketing campaigns falter because they don’t resonate with their target audience, and are either too generic or impersonal. Creating content just for the sake of it (it’ll almost certainly be boring) is a sure-fire way to alienate your audience and can even create a sense of mistrust. Being personal and human … Read More
When most of us are looking for a particular product we’ll most likely end up with one of a few “favourite” options. If we know what we want, Google gives us a few clues and we go with a balance of what we think is the best product, at the best price, from the most … Read More
Whole sit-com episodes, movies, books and other franchises have been dedicated to women and shopping, none (or at least very few) to men and shopping. However, do the stereotypes hold true nowadays? Data from Shoppercentric reveals that 18- to 24-year-olds do not conform to most male shopping clichés. And while today’s youth are leading the … Read More
In the many years that we’ve been producing web content, our copywriters have seen the medium change dramatically. This year is no different, and even though it’s only May, we’re already seeing considerable movement. Here we present five key ways that content writing is changing in 2016. Businesses are producing more content According to research … Read More
Ebooks increase email sign-up According to research by Marketing Cloud in 2015, 73% of marketers say that email marketing is integral to their business while 60% say that it is a ‘critical enabler’ of their products and services. Email newsletters can be a highly effective way of driving engagement with your clients or customers. They … Read More
By now you’re undoubtedly well aware of the fact that duplicate content is strictly a no no, both in terms of search engine optimisation and user experience.
Email marketing can be an incredibly powerful tool in your business’ communications arsenal. But there’s that word – ‘can’. If you just set up an email marketing campaign, tick it off your never-ending to do list and forget about it, it’s unlikely you’ll ever get anywhere close to fulfilling its potential. As the months go by and you see little in the way of results, it may be easy to say, “oh well, email marketing wasn’t for us,” and leave it there.
Guest author Ashley Hastings discusses different types of marketing communications and how to write them.
Google’s on a mission to eliminate thin content. What is thin content and how do you avoid being penalised for it?
