Top 10 Ways to Make Your Content’s Call to Action Count

Blogs

Top 10 Ways to Make Your Content's Call to Action Count Amanda Hicken You've spent hours writing your latest and greatest piece of content.  You have a killer story, eye-catching presentation, and even a multi-channel promotion strategy to reach all the right people. But was it a waste of time and money because you forgot the one essential that makes your marketing matter? Your call to action. Every interaction you have with your audience is an opportunity to build and strengthen relationships. Because of this, every piece of content you create — be it a press release, podcast, blog post, email, website landing page, SlideShare, video or ebook – must have a call to action (CTA) that offers the relationship a next step. There's also the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy reason to include a CTA: It's the only way your content is going to collect leads and earn you money. It's not enough, though, to slap the same, tired CTA on everything. As the multimedia news release featured in our latest case study shows, your CTA must be an interactive and compelling part of your content experience to drive quality leads. Make your calls to action count by following these 10 tips. 1. Understand the action. The call to action in your media outreach is going to be very different than the CTA in your lead generation form. While an email pitch to journalists should be an ask for a conversation or coverage, your CTA encouraging readers to enter a contest or download your white paper is better phrased as a statement. Understanding whom you're targeting and what action you want them to take is the first step in determining your CTA's approach. 2. Limit the choices. The more paths you provide your audience, the less likely they will be to follow any of them. You need to make sure your audience can find their way without getting lost or confused. When writing your content, focus your audience's attention on a primary call to action. It is ok to offer a secondary CTA; however, you should limit the choices as much as possible. Although there are a few exceptions to this (blog round-ups, for instance), the majority of your content should point to a single path. 3. Highlight the value prop. If you want your audience to keep coming back to you, the path your call to action sends them down must be worth it. Consider the common CTA of downloading gated content. At minimum, you're asking someone to give you their name, email address, and other contact information in exchange for a piece of content. That content must offer something of quality that can't be found anywhere else. Furthermore, the CTA should emphasize what makes it irresistible. 4. Keep your promise. While the whole purpose of the call to action is to entice someone to do something, you can't put a CTA out there and not deliver on its promise. If you're promising an exclusive ebook, it can't be a 2-page rehash of content you previously published elsewhere. Be honest and upfront about what your audience is getting and what they have to provide in exchange for it. Fail to set expectations and you can expect your audience to be wary of any future promises you make. 5. Stress the moment's urgency. You don't want your audience to take action later. You need them to take it now. That sense of urgency is essential to your call to action's success. Your audience is presented with countless choices throughout their day. If you are lucky enough to grab a moment of their attention, you have to take immediate advantage of it. Use words like "now" in your CTA and make it simple for your audience to immediately take the next step. By the time "later" comes along, so will someone else's content. 6. Get to the point. Because you only have a few moments of your audience's time, limit your calls to action to 1-2 sentences. One sentence provides your audience a reason to take action. The other offers direction. Use active, instead of passive, verbs and avoid jargon to keep those sentences brief. 7. Enhance the experience with visuals. A visual cue such as a download button or banner will not just cut down your word count, it will also attract more attention than a text-only call to action. Don't catch your audience's eye for the wrong reason, though. Make sure the visuals you include are polished, consistent with brand guidelines, and the right size/shape for the platform they'll be published on. 8. Reinforce your message with repetition. If your call to action appears in something longer than a social media post, weave multiple mentions of it throughout your content. For instance, if you're publishing a press release or blog post, include the first CTA within the first 300 words, followed by at least one more mention in the middle or at the end. Your audience may overlook the first mention, but subsequent calls to action remind them of the next step. 9. Track, test, and optimize your technique. Not every call to action will be a home run. Use tracking links integrated with your website analytics to identify which CTAs worked better than others. Once you have a baseline, try testing different approaches. CTA format, wording, frequency, and location are just a few variables you can adjust to boost engagement. 10. Automate your follow up (when appropriate). Under no circumstances should you automate the replies to media inquiries; however, if the goal of your call to action is lead generation, make the process more efficient for your audience and yourself by connecting CTAs to your marketing automation software. For instance, hyperlink a selection of your CTA’s text to a landing page and lead generation form integrated with your marketing program. Doing this will enable you to spend more time promoting the landing page than worrying about whether or not your audience received the promised download, organizing the contact information they provided, and pushing any qualified leads through to your sales team. Make an even bigger splash by looking into whether it's possible to embed a lead generation form directly into the content. This will increase the likelihood of engagement by removing yet another step your audience must take. In PR Newswire's latest case study, we show how mobile point-of-sale developer Lavu used an embedded lead generation form and many of the above call to action best practices to surpass their lead generation goal by 200% and drive 2,000 views in net new traffic to their digital platforms. Download Lavu Generates Quality Leads & Increases Brand Awareness to see how they did it and get more tips on creating compelling content that inspires your audience to take action. Author Amanda Hicken is PR Newswire's senior manager of strategic content and managing editor of Beyond PR. Follow her on Twitter @ADHicken for tweets about marketing, the media, Cleveland, and comic books.

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March StorInt Newsletter, latest SPC-1 & -2 performance and EMC VMAX All Flash & Mainframe

Latest SPECsfs2008&SPECsfs2014 performance results and Pure Storage FlashBlade and //m10 AFA announcements

In this month's newsletter, we publish our review of the latest SPECsfs2008 & SPECsfs2014 performance results and discuss Pure Storage's FlashBlade and FlashArray//m10 announcements. StorInt™ Newsletter - Issue 143 -  March 2016 Latest SPECsfs2008 and SPECSFS2014 performance report  No new SPECsfs2014 activity so we are showing another of our seldom seen charts on SPECsfs2008 data, this one a bubble chart of throughput, ORT and capacity. Read the report to learn more.   See the Report Pure Storage announces a new FlashBlade, scale-out storage system and a new FlashArray//m10 Pure announced two new systems the FlashBlade scale-out, all flash file and object storage system and a new FlashArray//m10 for small-to-medium enterprise data centers.  FlashBlade is a new hardware implementation, which uses NAND chips and a new Elasticity OS to support up to 15 storage blades in a chassis and can connect multiple chassis together into a single storage cluster. The //m10 is a reduced version of their current FlashArray solutions.  Read the report to learn more.     See the Report  RayOnStorage top blog post(s)   A tale of two AFAs: EMC DSSD D5 & Pure Storage FlashBlade EMC and Pure both announced new AFA's within 2 weeks. Each were ground up hardware implementations using NAND chips, but they couldn't be farther apart from a performance perspective, from an architectural perspective and from a market perpsective. Read the post to learn more.   GreyBeards OnStorage    Greybeards talk car videos, storage and IT trends with Marc Farley - Marc's been our only 3rd time guest and has quite a long history in the storage business. He has recently taken a sabatical and we thought it would be good to catch up with him to discus what he is doing these days and some of his thoughts on the storage industry and IT trends impacting the data center today. Listen to the podcast to learn more...   What you may have missed last month   Latest SPC-1 & SPC-2 performance report - Lot's of activity in SPC-1 submissions and one in particular lit up our top ten charts on a number of metrics. Read the report to learn more.  EMC announces new VMAX All Flash and VMAX Mainframe   EMC released a new all flash version of VMAX3 with 3D TLC SSDs, with new software-hardware bundled solutions. Performance is pretty impressive as well. EMC  also announced a mainframe version of VMAX3 which supports FICON channels as well as iSCSI & FC.  Read the report to learn more.  Silverton Consulting, Inc. | Respond to email |1-720-221-7270 | Updated (Mar. 2016) NAS Storage Buying Guide | SilvertonConsulting.com See what's happening on our social sites:

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[New Post] Trade Show Marketing Tips for First-Time Exhibitors

 

Blogs

Trade Show Marketing Tips for First-Time Exhibitors Caterina Lui Exhibiting at your first trade show can feel a lot like the first day of high school. The bell rings, everyone else seems to know where they’re going, and you're not even sure you're in the right building. It's easy to get overwhelmed, especially if you’re a small company at a big show. As soon as you register for an event or sign a contract to exhibit, the mountain of tasks looms – from booking your travel and designing your booth to planning your marketing and sales strategies. Your palms start to sweat as you wonder if (and how) it will all get done. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help navigate the chaos. Follow these tips and you'll get everything done – all before your first class. The early bird gets much more than a worm. It's important to register as early as possible for a trade show. You’ll not just cut down on stress, you may also cut down on costs. The sooner you start planning, the more likely you can take advantage of early bird discounts. The money you save here can then be directed into other show expenses. After you've booked an event, make a note of all the deadlines you need to adhere to and set calendar reminders. Some show organizers will even provide an exhibitor checklist that recommends when different tasks should be completed. Read every email and do your homework.  After you register for a show, the emails will start rolling into your inbox. Event organizers often partner with outside vendors to provide free or discounted offers – like special hotel rates, coupons for area restaurants, free promotion opportunities, and more. Don't necessarily judge these emails by their subject line. Although some may seem like an unrelated sales pitch, they could be of value to your company.  Take a look before moving them to the trash bin and remember to check your spam folder so you don't miss any important deadline reminders. You can also contact the event organizer to ask whether they are offering any pre-show webinars for exhibitors. Larger shows with a lot of moving parts will often host informational sessions to ensure exhibitors have everything they need. Look for a webinar schedule and ask your show contact whether an archived recording will be available if you can't attend. Know your booth number and use it. Your booth number is what attendees will use to find you. Make sure that you and they know what it is. If your exhibitor packet doesn’t include your booth number, take a look at the floor plan on the trade show's website. Find your company name and the booth number listed with it. If you still can't locate your booth, contact the event organizer. Once you have your booth number, include it in all of your communications. Forgetting to include it is like inviting friends to a party without an address. Design your booth strategy for conversions. Event attendees have a lot of booths to visit. Make their lives on the show floor as easy as possible. A visually appealing and interactive booth design will set a strong foundation for success. However, don't forget your strategy for converting these visitors into qualified sales leads. Establish a system ahead of time for collecting prospective customers' information and appoint specific people to follow up on any notable conversations you have in the booth. Waiting until after the event to place these leads into your marketing program could cause you to lose out on the show's momentum. Don’t forget about pre-event marketing. Of course, all this prep will go to waste if no one shows up at your booth. While pre-show marketing may not seem very glamorous, it is essential to meeting your event goals. In her blog post Trade Show Marketing: What to Do Before the Show, Sarah Leung states that 70% of event attendees decide on which brands and booths they're going to visit before even setting foot on the trade show floor. On the other hand, only 10-15% of trade show exhibitors invest in pre-show marketing efforts. When planning out your marketing strategy, use a multi-channel approach that takes your different audiences’ preferences into consideration. For instance, if your goal is driving prospective customers to your booth, consider publishing a couple of announcements early on so attendees have time to add you to their agenda. If the goal is earned media attention, send out a media advisory to industry outlets covering the event. A combination of online press kits, content distribution, email campaigns, social media and other marketing tactics will help ensure you reach all of the audiences in attendance. Download Gain Targeted Audience Attention with PR Newswire for more marketing tips that’ll help you make an impression that lasts. Author Caterina Lui is a senior customer content specialist for Virtual Press Office, PR Newswire's trade show marketing solutions division. VPO helps global event professionals, exhibitors and trade show marketing managers reach their goals through news distribution and online press kit creation. Follow Caterina at @VPOEventZone, our Twitter channel dedicated to the trade show industry.

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[New Post] How to Transform Your Marketing with Real-Time Content

 

Blogs

How to Transform Your Marketing with Real-Time Content Danielle Ferris There's no debating content marketing's critical role in driving revenue and ROI. However, to get the most out of your investment, you can't create content for content's sake. Marketers and PR pros are called on to strategically develop content that resonates with audiences' fluctuating needs. While evergreen content is useful in establishing a strong foundation, you must balance it with real-time content that's responsive to the trends and topics currently making waves in your industry. During our recent video livestream Marketing Transformation: A Real-Time Adventure, Ken Wincko, SVP of Marketing at PR Newswire, hosted Deirdre Bigley, CMO of Bloomberg LP, to discuss how they've built real-time marketing programs that are connecting audiences with the content they crave in the moment. From how they organize their teams and strategies to the way they use reporting to prove success and inform future content, here are tips you can use for your own brand's marketing transformation. Build a Content-Centric Team To more effectively leverage their industry's expertise, progressive marketing departments are developing teams of content contributors, both internal (across their company's various departments) and external (third-party influencers and customer advocates). The diverse perspectives and areas of expertise these contributors bring to a company's marketing can be immensely valuable. However, there's also a downside. When trying to create and promote relevant content, a multi-layer approval process across many different teams can turn your once-relevant content into old news. Both Ken and Deirdre expressed the need for an efficient workflow that enables teams to collaborate and carry out their content strategies without delay. Creating real-time content without the right processes, people, and tools in place will result in only one thing: frustration. When discussing Bloomberg's early attempts at collaborating on real-time content, Deirdre said, "We had multiple departments working on projects separately. When we had something real-time to respond to, it was very hectic. Our company decided to join these teams together so they can strategize and communicate quickly and effectively." If you find your company in a similar situation, Ken recommends creating a clear vision for what your core messages are trying to achieve, and then building and enabling your team of contributors around that vision. There needs to be an overarching brand narrative and team leaders in place in order to effectively create and promote content that is in line with your overall strategy. Ken explained, "A good analogy is that your marketing team is the point guard calling the plays — in this case identifying the key messages — for the organization. Our marketing team creates the core set of topics we want to build content around for specific audiences based on monitoring and analytics. Then, we help coordinate how and when our contributors develop and promote content across channels.” Build a Real-Time Content Strategy Real-time content can help your audience connect with your brand, but only if it's tied to your overall marketing strategy. Just publishing a one-off article responding to your industry's latest trend isn't going to have the same influence on your audience as real-time content whose themes intentionally connect back to the evergreen, cornerstone content that's helped establish you as a trusted source of information. Consider how a piece of real-time content promoted across multiple channels can encourage audiences to interact further with your evergreen content. "Throw some breadcrumbs of content out there," said Deirdre, "so it sparks their interest and they come back for more." A primary goal of your strategy should be to not only capture audience attention, but also create an ongoing relationship. Ken added, "In order for us to establish long-term relationships with our clients, we created a customer lifecycle approach that defines the informational needs of our prospects and customers based on their role, organization and what stage of the journey they are in so we can provide content that is valuable and relevant to them — and ultimately helps them enhance their programs." Measure and Optimize in Real-Time Ken and Deirdre both urged gathering a core set of metrics that prove the success of your marketing strategy. As with any content you publish and promote for your brand, you need to constantly keep an eye on which pieces of real-time content worked and which didn't. Many topics wax and wane in popularity. You don't want to be caught creating content about a trend your audience has moved on from. "Through our analytics we know what is working best, which topics our audiences seem to be most attracted to and where most of our hits come from," Deirdre explained. Ken stressed the importance of what he calls “impact metrics” – how content directly contributes to pipeline and revenue — as the most informative measurement versus activity metrics such as downloads and visits. "Through impact metrics we know what type of content ultimately leads to purchases. These insights help us to prioritize our investments and demonstrate tangible outcomes from our content,” he said. These metrics will not only help you prove the success of your marketing program, they will also make it easier for you to develop and optimize content that creates a long-standing relationship with your audience and guides them to a purchasing decision. Because PR Newswire has focused on impact metrics, Ken explained, "We can tell which topics are working for specific audiences in which channel at any given time, and from this we are able to optimize our program strategy on a weekly basis." Introducing a real-time content initiative into your marketing strategy may seem like no easy feat. But with a team built on collaboration, a well-thought out strategy, and metrics to help optimize your plan, you can enrich the interaction you have with your audiences. Ken Wincko and Deirdre Bigley are two examples of marketing leaders who set out with a vision to revamp marketing organizations in well-established companies. To hear more of their expert advice, check out the on-demand recording of their conversation. Author Danielle Ferris is happiest on the beach, an avid spinner, and marketing coordinator at PR Newswire.

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[New Post] 5 Rules for Publishing High Quality Press Releases

 

Blogs

5 Rules for Publishing High Quality Press Releases Glenn Frates Producing high quality content – and delivering it to a specific audience – is difficult.  Whether your target audience is a customer, investor or journalist, you are competing against so much noise out there – from long headline queues at 8 a.m. Eastern to instant public reactions on Twitter. A few seconds is all you have to get your audience to take the next step with your press release. People will move on if your message isn't high quality right from the start. All too often, I see content that had good intentions fall flat because it was tossed out into the news cycle without much thought to execution. Don't fall victim to headlines with 200+ characters, blocks of text that are difficult to scan because they lack formatting and visuals, jargon-filled writing that causes confusion, or stale messaging that doesn't deliver relevant meaning to your audience. Follow these five rules and produce high quality press releases that don't get lost. 1. Make it insightful & relevant. This is probably the hardest rule to follow, and requires a lot of patience and preparation. Your content needs a purpose beyond filling your web site's News section or company's Twitter feed. Get started by creating an editorial calendar at least three months in advance. Coordinate with your product, sales, and other teams to produce content your target audience will care about. Do you have a new study to report on?  A new infographic with up-to-date data?  A white paper you're proud of?  An upcoming trade show you're excited about participating in? Readers and search engines will quickly know whether or not your message is relaying insightful and relevant information. Don't make the mistake in thinking you can fool them. 2. Be the authority. In SEO and website terms, achieving authority can be a nebulous challenge, a reflection of search engine algorithms’ unending evolution. But authority also means owning your content with confidence and expertise. Spot-on data, clean writing, and well-attributed quotes will never go out of style. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't have a little fun.  As we approach April 1st, PR Newswire is always a fan of the the entertaining content that April Fools’ Day inspires. Transparency is the key to success. Don't try and be overly clever or too subtle with your message; you run the risk of undermining your authority.  Make sure the audience knows your intentions early on. 3. Avoid short, unsubstantial messages. Search engines may not be looking for a minimum word count, but they are looking for high quality content. That means producing a message that isn't just a quick 50-word post with a few links to outdated product pages. You need to craft content that builds trust with your readers so that they – and search engines, in turn – don't think of you as a spammer. Don't fill your editorial calendar with short, low quality content.  Instead, ensure you are delivering substantial (insightful, relevant and authoritative) messages. 4. Engage your reader from the start. Don't lead with a dry quote from an executive as to why your product is the best or why a deal will be great for your company's future. Don't bury a link you really want the reader to click in the bottom half of your message. Engage your reader as soon as possible by focusing on why your story matters, including a call to action early on, and incorporating relevant and eye-catching photos and videos. It is proven that readers engage with visual content more than text-only. 5. Make your story easy to digest everywhere. When Google confirmed last year that more searches take place on smartphones than on tablets and desktop computers, it sent a clear message to communicators: Your content must be formatted with mobile in mind. The challenge lies in balancing style with substance. Fortunately, with the right formatting, you can have your content cake and eat it too. Shorter headlines, bullets, and bolding are all tried and true practices for making your story easy to discover and digest on any device. Follow the above five rules and your content will be off to a good start. Get more tips that will ensure your message is well-received by downloading our Quick & Easy Guide to Sharing Your Press Release with the World. Author Glenn Frates is Regional Vice President, Customer Content Services at PR Newswire.  You can follow him on Twitter @glennfrates.

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[New Post] How to Prove Your PR’s ROI with the Right Reporting

 

Blogs

How to Prove Your PR’s ROI with the Right Reporting Melissa Toso "Was it worth it?" This is the one question you must be able to answer at the end of every PR and marketing campaign. Members of the C-suite, agency clients and other stakeholders all want to know whether the money, time and energy that went into a campaign changed consumer behavior and, more importantly, generated profit. To prove your campaign's ROI, you need to report on meaningful metrics that relate directly to business goals. Follow these four steps to show the worth of your next campaign. Step 1: Define your goals across teams When planning a media campaign, it's important to first define your goals. Because PR and marketing no longer work in siloes, these goals must align across all of your teams. Traditionally, PR's goals have focused on the relationships built with journalists, influencers and online audiences, while marketers' goals revolved around creating brand awareness and filling and optimizing the sales funnel. However, for a campaign to be successful in today's media and buyer landscapes, PR and marketing must work together to meet their goals – from generating earned media coverage and increasing key message pick-up to driving content engagement and boosting revenue. Step 2: Match your metrics to your goals Once you’ve defined your goals, how exactly do you demonstrate your ROI for them? Choose the right metrics. Each team that contributes to a media campaign needs to report on metrics that measure their goals and, crucially, prove attribution. Different goals will have different metrics; it's important to make sure yours match. Consider a campaign that has the goals of educating audiences and driving engagement to a piece of content. Here are three types of reporting you could gather, along with key metrics for each. Paid Media Reporting Campaign Tactic: Social, digital or traditional ad placements promoting your content Campaign Metrics: Impressions: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed or listened to a paid media placement about your content. Clicks: The number of individuals who engaged with the paid media placement and followed through on the call to action. Press Release Reporting Campaign Tactic: Press release distributed to media networks and websites promoting your content Campaign Metrics: Distribution Reach: The number of websites your press release appeared on and the total potential audience reach. Engagement: The number of times your audience engaged with your release, including tweets, shares and clickthroughs. Earned Media Reporting Campaign Tactic: Successfully pitching journalists, bloggers, and influencers who cover your story Campaign Metrics: Potential Audience Reach: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed, or listened to a news article or broadcast. Target Audience Reach: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed or listened to a news article or broadcast from an influential media outlet. Key Message Pick-Up: The number of times the key messages in your outreach or press release were discussed in the media. Want to see which other metrics matter? Check out our list of 18 metrics that prove and inform for more tips on matching measurement and goals. Step 3: Define "success" To prove your campaign was successful, you'll need to set a baseline for each metric you report on. To set a baseline, it is best to think about the results of previous campaigns and determine your average results. If this is the first time you are measuring the results of a campaign, determine a baseline using industry standards. For example, if your first campaign garnered a potential audience reach of 50 million and your second campaign garnered 70 million, you can set your baseline at 60 million for your third campaign. If you surpass your baseline, you can dig deeper into what worked in this campaign versus previous campaigns and, ultimately, improve upon future campaigns. Our article PR's Changing Benchmarks offers 10 questions that will help you set a baseline and make the most of measurement. Step 4: Communicate your success in a comprehensive report Once your campaign is over and you have your hands on all the data, how do you cohesively demonstrate your success? Present one, comprehensive report that highlights each team's contributions and tells your campaign's story. Some best practices include: Start with an introduction that outlines the purpose of your campaign and the goals you wanted to achieve. Organize the report in sections that show how each team contributed to the campaign. For example, the PR team should take ownership of the earned media reporting, while the marketing team should explain the results of paid media placements. Conclude with lessons learned and ideas to optimize future campaigns. Keep your audience in mind. You may need to have different versions of the report prepared for each audience you are presenting to. C-Suite executives will want high-level numbers that show ROI as a dollar value. Mid-level managers in your communications department will want more insight into the quality of the campaign (e.g. was the target audience reached?) When compiling your reporting, you should also consider how the report can benefit you long after its presentation. Take the lessons learned and immediately establish a follow-up plan while the campaign’s fresh in your mind. Then, consider conducting an A/B test with your next campaign to optimize how you connect with your audience. To see how one company used reporting to optimize their press release strategy, download our case study PhRMA Increases Blog Readership & Reaches Broader Audiences with Content Syndication. The steps PhRMA took — and the results — can help you define a strategy for your own goals. Author Melissa Toso is a media analyst on PR Newswire's media analysis team (also known as 'professional services'), a group of communications and industry experts focused on monitoring and measurement.

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