Let me ask you this: why did you think your service/product would be a viable idea for a business? I’m willing to bet it’s because you identified your ideal customer’s pain point and validated that your product and/or service could solve this problem. That’s how most successful businesses start out. They see a customer’s pain point, and they find and then offer a solution to it.

So why doesn’t our content marketing work in the same way?

In Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he tells us of an anecdote of researchers who conducted a study where they sent two different ads to homeowners in the same neighborhood. 

One ad said, “if you insulate your home fully, you’ll save 50 cents every day.” The other said, “if you don’t insulate your home fully, you’ll lose 50 cents every day.”

When the study was completed it showed that the people who received the ad that focused on “loss language” were 150% more likely to insulate their house than the other group.

What this study shows us is that people are more often motivated by fear of loss than hope of gain. As humans, we’re wired in a way that avoiding pain is much more important to our survival than gaining pleasure is (most of the time, anyways!).  

If you want to find more customers, then focus on creating content that provides them with a solution to their pain points.

There are a lot of questions that come to mind when we talk about keywords. How should we use them? Where should they be placed? What’s too much and/or too little? Are long-tail keywords or short term ones more effective? Does Google even take them into consideration anymore?

If you’re new to the content marketing world, or just trying to keep up with the latest updates, you’re probably going to want to get the skinny on keywords and, as is natural, query some of those questions. What you’ll find is a whole bunch of conflicting advice. Some will tell you that keywords are obsolete, while others will tell you that they’re still as important as ever.

And, with Google constantly updating their algorithms, most of these results are undoubtedly outdated too.

It’s a little frustrating, to say the least.

What’s more frustrating is that keywords aren’t all that complicated. In fact, keywords make more sense now than they ever have before.

Here’s the 5 things you need to know about keywords.

Every day, without fail, you’re writing.

This could be because it’s part of, or the entirety of, your job description. Or maybe it’s because you’re a business owner and content marketing is the lifeline of your business’s success.  

Whatever the reason, you find yourself producing and writing content on a daily basis.

But, lately things haven’t been going so well. Sure, you’re putting out the content that you’ve been asked to, you’re finishing up the posts that you’ve been assigned and you’re always hitting your word count target every day. It’s paying the bills, you’re checking the boxes, and on the surface, everything’s going just fine. You’re doing what you love as a career, how can you complain?

When you go home, you’re tired. But that’s normal, right? You’d love to work on those personal writing projects that you enjoy, but you just can’t write anymore today. You’re finding yourself more often than not sitting brainlessly in front of the television.

Then, you start to notice that even your content writing at work isn’t going too well.

It’s taking you longer to finish writing projects, and the content just isn’t that deep or exciting anymore. Your editor can tell, your readers can tell, heck if you’re being totally honest with yourself, even you can tell. Your writing has become formulaic, basic and low-quality. You’re not proud of it, and you begin to resent the restraints on your creative mind that are holding you back from writing something truly remarkable.

This, my friends, is writer’s burnout.

It’s seems like every month there’s some new marketing strategy emerging online. Some fad or trend that business owners clamber to look at with a mixture of caution and awe as they ask themselves, will this be the next big thing, or a complete waste of time?

Inbound marketing is an ever-growing topic and it seems like every year it becomes more complicated, more intricate, more… well, more. 

And sometimes it can feel overwhelming. 

But not to worry – there are people out there committed to keeping up to date with all the latest updates, trends, news, research and data. People so committed to keeping up to date with all of this information that they maintain wonderful blogs that then help us to stay on top of this fast-paced industry. 

Last year, we brought you the top 7 content marketing blogs to read in 2014. Each and every one of those blogs is still going strong, so check them out if you get a chance! This year we wanted to top that number and bring you 8 more that are sure to help you stay at the top of your game. 

Here are the top 8 content marketing blogs to read in 2015 to get more customers and boost your sales online.    

Ah, hashtags. Once simply a button on my telephone that I was often prompted to press while using automated telephone systems, the hashtag now claims a spot in the Oxford Dictionary (along with “selfie” and “totes”), with the accompanying definition:

“A word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media sites such as Twitter to identify messages on a specific topic”

It wasn’t until 2007 the idea of using hashtags on social media came to be, thanks to one Chris Messina, a social technology expert, who first posted the hashtag #barcamp in August 2007. The whole tweet appeared like this:

“how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?”

Nowadays, it’s hard to go a day without hearing/reading/saying/using the word “hashtag” – even if you aren’t a social media marketing guru like moi! (I use term “guru” very lightly).

But, as we know all too well, just because something in prevalent in our day-to-day lives (such as beards, dadbods, and the colors blue, black, white & gold) doesn’t mean we really understand it very much at all.

Inbound marketing is a cost effective, time efficient, long-term strategy that has allowed plenty of businesses to grow and develop online. But, because it’s so inexpensive and effective, it’s also a strategy that has saved businesses from total ruin.

Here are 8 examples of businesses that were saved by inbound marketing.

Welcome to Spokal’s Startup Spotlight Series – A series that features brilliant startups from all around the world and takes an inside look at the wins, the loses, the ups and downs, the struggles and the successes of what it takes to be part of a startup.

This week we’re meeting a French startup called Mention and talking with their head of marketing, Guillaume Cabane and CEO, Matthieu Vaxelaire.

Welcome to Spokal’s Startup Spotlight Series – A series that features brilliant startups from all around the world and takes an inside look at the wins, the loses, the ups and downs, the struggles and the successes of what it takes to be part of a startup.

This week we have the co-founder and entrepreneur behind Gleam, Stuart Mckeown, to talk with us!