As we slide towards another year, now is a good time to start evaluating your 2019 content marketing strategy.


Content marketing is about creating and sharing content that is engaging, relevant and valuable to your target audience. Your future content marketing successes will be a result of reviewing your current strategies.


Three simple benefits of reviewing your content marketing strategy are:
To increase engagement across your social media platforms
To increase brand awareness among your audience
To increase the size of your sales funnel

So, which of these content marketing trends did your business utilize in 2019––what were the results?

1. Influencers
Over 70% of American teens say they turn to Instagram for advice on purchasing decisions regarding new products or promotions, and nearly 40% of Twitter users made a purchase based on the endorsement of a social media influencer. What are the benefits that an Instagram Influencer can add to your marketing mix?

2. Mobility
As mobile device usage continues to surge, with 81% of Americans owning smartphones, people want to find content quickly and easily. The user experience must be stress-free with simple functionality and clear messaging that generates engagement, as a massive 96% of Americans users between 18-29 are mobile browsing.

3. Visuals
Research clearly shows visual content performs much better than just words on a screen. Twitter tweets with photos average a 35% boost in retweets and videos get a 28% pump. A massive 62% of Instagram users say they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories.

4. Targeting
To engage users businesses can no longer be everything-to-everyone across multiple platforms. With a massive amount of content being published hourly across numerous platforms, businesses need to be more targeted with the content they create. 
 
5. Testing
Through A/B testing (split-run testing) of marketing content and social media platforms, your business will be able to better measure audience interaction and platform preference. The results of A/B testing should influence the targeting of future marketing content.

Find Content Marketing Ideas Here: Instagram Tips and Tricks to Increase Exposure

Scopic Creative works with businesses to create, test and measure social media marketing content that better attracts audiences, contact us to find out more.

As the end of 2018 quickly rolls around, it is now time to start proactively planning your 2019 marketing spend and activities. Guaranteeing marketing success in the year ahead will require you to reflect, focus and plan ahead.
 
Use these five simple steps to create a marketing plan to boost your business and brand in 2019.
 
1. Create a Marketing Schedule Calendar
Get a 2019 calendar and mark each day/week you want to launch marketing activities for your business. Consider days/weeks that are key sales periods, of course this will depend on your business and key markets. Remember, to make sure you firstly take the time to reflect on your 2018 marketing activities and identify what provided the best ROI.
 
2. Identify Marketing Deadlines
After you have identified your key dates for 2019 on your Marketing Schedule Calendar, count back four weeks and mark it as “Marketing Deadline”. This is when you should have your marketing activity finalized and ready to go. Too often important marketing activities are rushed and this greatly impacts on the creative process being compromised.
 
3. Make Strategy Time
For every day/week marked “Marketing Deadline” schedule at least two weeks before as “Strategy Time”. This is when you need to make time to review the overall marketing strategy to make sure it is inline with current objectives and will provide a real ROI.  Marketing KPIs you need to be measuring to better understand your ROI may include: website traffic and engagement, social media reach and engagement, marketing qualified leads (MQL), sales qualified leads (SQL), and of course sales growth relevant to the marketing activities.
 
4. Consider Production Time
Effective marketing involves creating, drafting, revising and delivering. Identifying creative partners and briefing them on your business takes time. Producing marketing materials, booking quality advertising space or media spots also takes time. By leaving this all too late will limit your potential ROI. This is why it is extremely important to focus and plan ahead for 2019.
 
5. Build Professional Relationships
Finally, now is a great time to start reviewing or building new relationships with designers, agencies and media outlets in preparation of launching your 2019 marketing activities. By reaching out now you will be able to start to develop relationships with key partners. Like effective marketing, creative business relationships take time to build.
 
Scopic works with you to plan ahead and maximize marketing returns, contact us to find out more.

Now we are in the last month of the year, it’s still not too late to start shaping your 2018 content marketing strategy. For B2C and B2B social media marketing to really engage in 2018, businesses must publish relevant, authentic and targeted content across selected platforms. To make this happen—you need to know and understand future audience trends.
 
But before we look at 2018, it’s probably a good idea to take a minute to review your social media content marketing wins and losses of 2017—where, when, what and how your target audience consumed your content—what were the results?
 
Okay, now you know what worked, and what didn’t work, let’s focus on the trends for the year ahead.
 
1. Be Visual
Research shows that video will play a greater role in the content marketing mix in 2018.  It may take time to plan, capture and edit video content, but your audience is more likely to engage with video than just text or images. In 2017 90% of all content shared on social media was video, but remember, to make this happen, you need to catch your audience's attention in the first 3 seconds.
 
More Ideas: 7 Ways to Create a Killer Marketing Video
 
2. Be Influential
People will want more authentic and credible sources of information prior to making purchasing decisions in 2018. For this reason, building audience relationships and partnering with a quality social media influencer could really boost your sales. In 2017 74% of people turned to their social media network for advice on purchasing decisions, and 40% of Instagram and Twitter users made a purchase based on the endorsement of a social media influencer.
 
More Ideas: The State of Influencer Marketing
 
Final Thoughts
Using video and influencers may seem like a solution to the lack of social media traction your business made in 2017, but it’s important that you don’t forget key marketing fundamentals.
 
1. Be Targeted
With an explosive amount of content being published across multiple platforms, you will need to be more targeted with the content you create, and where you publish it in 2018. This requires you to even better understand your target audience's social media habits. Take the time to identify, what content and which platforms have your target audience’s attention. Once you understand where the attention is, you can then better create targeted content that snatches your audience's attention from the competition.
 
2. Be Ready
In 2018 businesses with the highest and most effective consumption rate of social media content will be those businesses that conduct A/B testing (split-run testing) of the content they create, and the platforms they publish it on. Through A/B testing you will start to better identify/understand your audience's habits and this knowledge will then shape the content created and the distribution platforms used.

Finally, social media content marketing winners in 2018 will be those that grab and hold the audience’s attention in the first 3 seconds—it's that simple.
 
Scopic works with businesses to create content that grabs attention and builds engagement, contact us to find out more.

You already know, to connect and engage with your audience on social media—it takes much more than just a few random minutes across the day—you must consistently produce relevant and targeted content.
 
Here are four key components of an effective social media strategy:

• Define your objective -- increase likes/followers, increase website traffic, promote products/services or create sales leads.
• Identify your audience -- sex, age, background, interests, location, preferred platform, preferred device (mobile or desktop) and social media habits.
• Plan your guidelines -- how many posts per day, what time, content type (text, image, video, audio, live), content length (300 word post, 15 second advertisement or 10 minute video blog) and importantly who will manage and monitor the platform/s. 
• Find your influencer -- an influencer will allow your business to communicate in a manner that is more relevant and targeted to your audience. The right influencer has already built an existing relationship through content that is liked and shared. This will allow your business to quickly connect with a wider audience.​

As we hit the tail end of this year, it is nearly time to start evaluating your 2017 content marketing strategy.

​We know—you already know, to really connect and engage with your audience—it takes much more than just a few random minutes across the day—you must produce relevant, targeted, valuable and consistent content.

 So, which of these 2017 content marketing trends did your business embrace?

1. Going mobile
As mobile device users surge and speeds accelerate, people want more than just text-based content. Mobile users want to find mobile compatible content quickly and easily, so make the user experience stress-free with clear headings, bullet points and quality visuals that engage users.
 
2. Going visual
Research shows images/videos perform much better than just words on a screen, but don’t compromise loading time. An easy way to increase loading speed, is to compress/reduce images and videos to ensure audience attention is not lost while waiting around.

3. Going live
With live content marketing becoming more achievable on mobile devices via FacebookLive, SnapChat, PeriscopeTV and Instagram Stories live streaming continues to explode. Both large and small businesses will easily be able to share product launches, new campaigns and branded events.

4. Targeting content
To truly connect and hold audience attention businesses can no longer be everything-to-everyone across multiple channels of communication. With a massive amount of content being published across numerous channels, businesses need to be more targeted with the content they create. 

5. Test driving
Through testing engagement, businesses will start to better identify audience behaviors that will influence the content created and the distribution channels used. Winners in the race of content consumption will be those businesses that conduct A/B testing (split-run testing) of content/channels - measure engagement, analyze results then create content that is personalized.
 
How did your business measure up!
​
Scopic works with businesses to create quality content that grabs attention and delivers a positive user experience, contact us to find out more.

With 1.94 billion monthly active users as of March 31, 2017 Facebook continues to strip away advertising dollars from traditional platforms like television, print and radio.

Boost your Facebook marketing spend for free with these 5 simple tips!

1. Timing is everything 
Research the best times and days to post for your specific target audience and global region. For many businesses, this may be Monday to Friday between traditional trading hours of 9am - 5pm. However, if your audience is working at this time they may not be connected, so this is where researching and A/B testing the social media habits of your target audience will be truly beneficial. 

2. Use more than just words
As mobile device usage grows and speeds continue to take off in 2017 people are wanting more than just words in their feed. Research shows images and videos perform much better than just words on a screen. Remember, if you do use images and videos make sure they add value to the message and are always of a high quality.

3. Provide value for your audience
Take the time to create quality Facebook content that provides value to your specific audience. We are all time poor, so remember, content such as product advice or tips will provide value for your customers. Your target audience will keep coming back to you and potentially share it with “friends” if they discover something interesting, informative, useful and engaging.

4. Take creative risks
Playing it too safe could leave your business coming off as uninteresting, so your Facebook content needs be creative and intriguing. As social media platforms continue to evolve and grow, businesses need to look and think outside the box. If a creatively risky post generates positive engagement and increased exposure, do it again!

5. Make use of an influencer
An influencer will allow your business to communicate in a manner that is more relevant and targeted to a specific audience or demographic. Influencers also have already built an existing relationship through quality content creation that is — liked and shared — this will allow your brand/business to quickly connect with a wider audience.

Scopic works with your business to create effective social media strategies designed to increase your exposure, contact us to find out more.

As you have no doubt heard by now, online content marketing is the new currency of our digital age, and if done correctly, offers one of the most effective ways to communicate with your target audience.
 
But don’t let this shift in how we communicate and share information have you think that the old school Press Release or Media Release has had its day. Media releases should still be an essential element of your public relations strategy. They are an extremely effective way to share business achievements, product releases and event announcements with a wider audience via credible media outlets. 

Here are five tips to writing an effective media release for free.
 
1. Get picked up
The very first thing seen of your media release — just like your brochure content, magazine advertisement or online banner — must grab attention. Your media release headline and first paragraph need to be engaging, and attract the attention of the editor or journalist. Basically, make sure you cover who, what, where, when and most importantly why your media release should make news in the first paragraph. Remember to write in an inverted pyramid style — most important to least important, just like in the newspapers.
 
2. Keep things simple
Write in short sentences, short paragraphs and keep the information clear and concise. As a basic rule, limit your media release to one A4 page in content. This will have you focus of producing concise, compelling content — something time-poor editors and journalists are always looking for. If your media release is picked up, you will most likely get the chance to add more detail later if required.
 
3. Quote an influencer
People like to hear news from credible sources or experts in a specific field, so make sure to always include quotes. Using quotes from someone in your business, an industry leader, a local celebrity or a social media influencer will help make sure that your story is "newsworthy" and newsworthiness plays a central role in whether your story makes it to the presses or online.
 
4. Save your story
A media release is all about building positive public relations — trust — with your audience/consumer, so focus on the news first and keep a short "about the brand" to the end. A strong, trustworthy relationship between your business and media outlets is always mutually beneficial. 
 
5. Look the part
Make sure to have Media Release or Story Idea in the subject line of your email with an enticing headline. Editors and journalists will spend just a second or two deciding whether something looks interesting and should be opened up. Also, add an image or short video (30-60 seconds) that helps tell the story.

​Finally, editors and journalists will need to have your contact details in the media release to follow-up and ask questions, or to arrange an interview if required — for convenience, use the standard media release format below.
 
Head your media release with the following:
Media Release
For Immediate Release – (Date)
 
Close your media release with the following:
Media Contact:
Email:
Phone:
Media Release Ends
 
Scopic connects businesses and people through creative communications, contact us to find out more.

As we hit the last weeks of this year before the New Year break, it is not too late to review your 2017 content marketing strategy. As you already know, to really connect and engage with your audience – it takes much more than just a few random minutes across the day – you must produce relevant, targeted, valuable and consistent content.
 
To grow your business over the coming year, you should consider these 2017 content marketing trends before you start planning, creating and publishing content.
 
1. Go mobile
As mobile device users surge and speeds accelerate, people want more than just text-based content. Mobile users want to find mobile compatible content quickly and easily, so make the user experience stress-free with clear headings, bullet points and quality visuals that engage users.
Trend Snapshot:

• 80% of users (6.4 billion people) will consume content on a mobile device by 2020  

2. Go visual
Research shows images/videos perform much better than just words on a screen, but don’t compromise loading time. An easy way to increase loading speed, is to compress/reduce images and videos to ensure audience attention is not lost while waiting around.
Trend Snapshot:

• 75%+ of marketers used video in 2016 - video content is predicted to grow 2017  

3. Go live
With live content marketing becoming more achievable on mobile devices via FacebookLive, SnapChat, PeriscopeTV and Instagram Stories live streaming will grow in popularity in 2017. Both large and small businesses will easily be able to share product launches, new campaigns and branded events.
Trend Snapshot:

•  59% B2C and 68% B2B marketers used live events in 2016 - live content is predicted to grow 2017

​
4. Target content
To truly connect and hold audience attention businesses can no longer be everything-to-everyone across multiple channels of communication. With a massive amount of content being published across numerous channels, businesses need to be more targeted with the content they create.
 
In 2017 businesses must firstly take the time to identify which channels have their target audience’s attention. Once they understand where the attention is they can then better create targeted - personalized - content that snatches audience attention from competitors.

All in all, successful businesses in 2017 will know where, when, what and how their audiences are consuming content - they will have nurtured a personal connection!
​
Scopic works with businesses to create targeted content that snatches attention and increases engagement, contact us to find out more.

Content marketing is the new currency of our digital age, and if done correctly offers the most effective way to connect and engage with your target audience. To get real results, it takes much more than just a few minutes a day and random articles about your products or services.

Here are five content marketing business basics for free.
 
1. Make sure your content is engaging
Your headline and first sentence must grab the attention of your target audience. Make sure your heading is engaging and is what your audience needs to read.
 
Good headlines include:
What is it about?
Who should read it?
Why it should be read?
 
Also, as mobile device usage grows and speeds reach new levels, people are wanting more than just words. Statistics compiled by HubSpot show images and videos perform much better than just text-based content on a screen.

1. 40% of people respond better to visual information than just text-based content
2. Facebook posts with images generated the most likes, comments and shares
3. Video posts attract 3 times more inbound links than just text-based content

See all the statistics here: 19 Reasons You Should Include Visual Content in Your Marketing 
 
2. Choose the best platform for your content
There are plenty of media platforms to publish/post your content other than your website, so take the time to check out which platforms your target audience is engaging with on a regular and genuine basis. Unless your business is a major global brand, you are probably safe with choosing just a few from the more common platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter or YouTube.
 
3. Maximize your time, money and energy
Content marketing is all about quality and not quantity. In a saturated environment businesses need to look and think outside the box to create attention grabbing content. Take the time to research, create and schedule quality content.  Remember, content such as product/service advice or tips are a value add for your customers. Your target audience will keep coming back to you if they discover something interesting, informative, useful and engaging. 

4. Create a content calendar and guidelines
Create a content calendar and guidelines to manage/monitor your content marketing. These content planning tools will keep your content focused, fresh and visible in the right place at the right time. Having clear content marketing guidelines will provide consistency for your business across various media platforms. Keeping your content consistent will ensure your audience develops a connection and relationship with your business. 
 
5. Monitor your content
Track your posts to learn what content, platform and timing is most popular to your target audience. Google Analytics gives you important information on page visitors, page impressions, and geographical tracking. Being able to accurately measure the success of your content marketing is a fundamental element of any business. Over time you will start to identify trends that will influence the content you create - results drive decisions!
 
Scopic works with your business to build creative content designed to increase your exposure, contact us to find out more.