Creating content is great, but it needs to have a purpose for your audience.

Is it going to provide them with something useful?

If you want conversion and leads, the content has to be right.

Want to know how to make content that drives conversions and leads?

Let’s dive in!

What's working?

Understanding the Persona

A representation of your ideal client or target audience.

With a clear picture of who you're marketing to, it's much easier to develop effective, targeted content that speaks to your ideal buyer's goals and challenges.

What is their demographic profile?

What does a day in their life look like?

What are their pain points?

What do they value most?

What shopping experience are they looking for?

What Topics Lead to Sales?

Once you’ve decided which prospects you want to target, you have to give them a compelling reason to download your Lead Magnet.

Instead of trying to create something you think they could want, figure out what they already need and deliver that.

Find a common problem that your buyer persona faces and provide a quick solution to that problem.

Leads: From Cold to Hot

Turning the heat up with cold leads is critical to moving them along your sales pipeline.

Here are a few ways you can go from a cold to hot lead through email marketing and nurture them:

Remind them of their prior interest.

Promote new products and offerings

Personalize your interactions 

Provide something valuable 

Examples of Lead Magnets

Creating content that drives conversions means that you have to stand out from your competition, build relationships, and be of value to your desired audience.

How do we do this?

Offer informative and engaging pieces of content that helps your customers in their purchase and decision making journey. 

Ebook for First Time Homeowners 

Ebooks are one of the best lead magnets you can offer - provided they give true value.

They give your leads something more valuable and informative than just a simple checklist or infographic.

Ebooks can be used all over the web to grow your email subscriber list and generate brand awareness.

About Ebook for First Time Homeowners

Buying a home can be a difficult and emotional experience especially when it’s the first time purchasing.

It is essential to establish what you need versus what you want before you begin your home buying journey.

The Guide to First Time Homeowners helps in making your home buying experience simple and smooth.

Guide for Retirement Planning

The key with all Lead Magnets, but especially guides, is specificity!

A guide shows your audience what can be done to achieve a certain goal.

Your lead magnet guide should be able to provide the user with more knowledge and ways they can better themselves.

About Guide for Retirement Planning

Planning for retirement is no easy task and most people are thinking about it.

The pain point here is not having enough money for retirement.

This guide provides the user with ways they can begin their financial journey to a comfortable retirement.

Checklist for Event Planning

Everyone can benefit from a checklist, no matter the industry or area of concern. They are easy to digest, practical and straightforward.

Reasons people enjoy checklists:

Solves problems

Helps accomplish goals

Provides value with little effort

Knock knock. 

Who's there? 

Honeydew. 

Honeydew who? 

Honeydew, you wanna dance?

OK, so it's not the BEST joke in the world, but we bet you got a SMILE on your face or possibly a good eye roll or two.

Laughter truly is the best medicine, and it's also one way you can drive engagement on your social media content.

It helps pull your users in by breaking through the feed and makes your brand more relatable and more.

What's working?

The right kind of humour can easily make or break your video content.

Let’s break down humour in video and where/when to best use it.

The Importance of Humour in Video

Humour isn’t specific to just one type of business; everyone can benefit from using it in their video.

It brings joy to many people and allows you to create a more relatable and happy space with your consumers.

Not all videos need to be funny; there’s a time and place.

Constructing Videos Across Multiple Platforms 

Here’s how you can create compelling video content:

* Choose a video purpose

* Choose your tone

* Choose a video topic that’s guaranteed to get traction 

Blog Content

Customer Questions

Hacks, Tips and Tricks

Write a script and rehearse

Relate

Rile

Reveal

Release

Choose the correct format 

Portrait or Landscape

Identify the social media channel 

Example 1 - Robb Nash

The Robb Nash Project is a team dedicated to spreading hope through music and storytelling, providing a voice to the voiceless.

Why does this work?

Robb is genuine when he talks and has animated body language.

It has a great storytelling flow.

The audience feels connected; becomes a part of the experience.

Perfect for social media; only a minute long.

Example 2 - Vidyard

Vidyard is an online video platform for businesses that allows you to increase leads, accelerate your pipeline and delight your customers.

Why does this work?

Vidyard used humour in this video to bring more attention to their blog post.

Not only does it provide some useful advice, but it shines a light on the company’s culture, creating a more welcoming environment.

Example 3 - Dollar Shave Club

With Dollar Shave Club, everything you need in the bathroom – from razor blades to grooming products – is automatically delivered to your door. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

 

Why does this work?

Utilizes humour through shocking dialogue.

Keeps you engaged in a product that may not be interesting to some.

Quick transitions that keep you focused on the speaker.

Example 4 - Sales Feed

Sales are highly competitive, mentally exhausting, and what works today may not work tomorrow.

You’ve worked hard to create your website, investing time and energy in keeping the content up-to-date and relevant for your audience.

If you’ve chosen WordPress as a platform, awesome!

It can be a secure platform and is one of the most popular CMS options in the world.

You'll need to put in place additional essential security features in place to keep your hard work, customer data and other sensitive information from "bad actors" with malicious intent.

Let's dive in

3 Things in Password Management to Protect Yourself

Password authentications consist of three things:

* Something that you KNOW

* Something that you ARE

* Something that you HAVE

Any combination of two of the above three will make a good, strong password!

Don't Gloss over Security; Stay Protected!

Keep in mind that everything is cloud-connected, which is why it is important that you NEVER EVER send the password via email or chat of any kind.

Although it takes milliseconds, when you share passwords via email, it hops through different severs and may leave traces and get captured.

 

Moreover, it is necessary to have end-to-end encryption and keep it at the top of mind.

While Working from Home, Use a Password Storage System

Instead of writing down your passwords on a Google Sheet or a Notepad, use a password storage system to secure your passwords.

Some of the Passwords Storage systems are:

* Passpack

* 1Password

* Lastpass

 

Supply Chain Attacks; What is it?

Supply chain attacks are an emerging threat that targets software developers and suppliers.

The risks associated with a supply chain attack have never been higher due to new types of attacks,

To prevent such attacks here's what you can do: Not use FREE Wifi.

If you are a small business or working from home, do not connect with any unknown free wifi network to get internet.

Let's talk about WordPress

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) used for all sites because of its flexibility.

This flexibility, unfortunately, also attracts cybercriminals to exploit the platform’s vulnerabilities.

Here's how you can prevent your WordPress website from getting hacked:

Cheap Webhosting: Be Cautious

To secure your WordPress website and business, you must have a reliable web hosting server.

Especially if you are hosting the website yourself.

Make sure your server has anti-virus and is updated to the latest version of PHP.

Keep your WordPress Server Up to Date

If you have a website with updated features but your server is outdated, it does not matter.

Your website and your server are both at risk without even you knowing about it.

This is why it is necessary to layer up your website with security features and minimize the risk gap.

Shared Hosting: Let's Avoid It

Shared hosting carries a certain amount of security risks that could lead to a hacked site.

If this happens, hackers can use your website to spam your customers, display unwanted content, and redirect your visitors to unknown sites.

How to prevent cyber attacks in shared hosting: While the most straightforward option might be to never go for shared hosting, if you do, you can layer up your website with security features.

The Cost Does Not Outweigh The Loss of Being Hacked; Secure Yourself

While selecting the web hosting server, you mustn't look at the cost to save a few dollars.

Grabbing the top position in Google is a world of struggle.

No matter your field of business, you need an advanced tool to monitor your SEO through every step.

This is where SEMRush comes into the picture.

SEMRush is a robust platform that allows you to look into your competitors and help you stay on top of the rankings.

But how exactly can you do that?

Let’s dive into some valuable tricks you can start using today!

 

1. Finding low competition, high-value queries with the Keyword Magic Tool

Start with your seed keyword

Set Match Modifiers

Filter for Question Words

Total Volume and Average Difficulty

Intent (Information, Navigational, Commercial, Transactional)

Filters (Exact Match / Broad Match)

Find SERP Features Opportunities

Related Keywords

Broaden Scope of Keyword List

Uncover New Profitable Keyword Ideas for Content

 

2. Finding your competitors most highly-trafficked pages (and how to identify your opportunities)

* Click Traffic Analytics

Choose the Top Pages tab

This feature will show you a list of pages that received the most traffic on a competitor's domain.

 

3. Using keyword gap to find high-value search queries

Comparing Your Domain's Keywords to Competitors

Keyword Type: Organic, Paid, PLA

Find Top Keyword Opportunities

Keyword Overlap

Keyword Table: 5 Main Intersection Types

Filters: Position, Intent, KD, and Advanced

 

4. Finding organic search rankings you've lost and how to get them back

Verify your market’s recent traffic trend and compare it to your website

Check how many keywords you were ranking for historically

Audit your content to see if it’s engaging enough

Analyze the technical health of your website

Discover new niche competitors you were not aware of

 

5. Finding your competitors ads and landing pages and how to beat them

Search your competitors in the dashboard and export their rankings.

You can see the landing page that it goes to.

Use the research tab to find out what ads your competitors use.

 

6. Managing and disavowing toxic backlinks to keep your backlink profile squeaky clean

Set up weekly reports on new links to quickly spot and remove toxic backlinks.

Use the Backlink Report Tool to get a list of all of the potentially toxic backlinks.

Export them to the Backlink Audit Tool’s disavow list.

Blacklist the specific URLs or the entire domain before exporting into Google’s disavow tool.

Wrapping it up

SEMRush is an all-in-one tool suite for improving online visibility and discovering marketing insights.

Tools and reports to help marketers with:

SEO, PPC, SMM, Keyword Research, Competitive Research, PR, Content Marketing, Marketing Insights, Campaign Management.

 

We hope you enjoyed knowing about 6 Cool SEMRush “Tricks” To Unlock Your Marketing Potential.

If you’re looking for more great content, check out some of our other reads below:

14 Incredible Free Apps that will Unleash Your Content Creation Superpowers

Using Canva to Streamline Creative Production Workflows

Are you looking to step up your content creation game? 

Thankfully, there are now a bunch of tools out there to make these jobs easier for us all. 

But how do you choose the best apps to meet your marketing efforts?

Truth be told, there are a few elements to consider: features, prices, and purpose.

From choosing the perfect image to representing your point of view to creating the perfect content for blogs to making a video for TikTok, we'll look at some of the best tools used for content creation. 

What's Working?

 

1. Jarvis

Highest quality AI copywriting tool.

Jarvis makes it fast & easy to create content for your blog, social media, website, and more!

 

2. Photopea

Photopea is a FREE web-based graphic editor that is an alternative to Photoshop.

The editor runs without plugins and lets you edit images, make illustrations and even design web pages.

The editor supports PSD, AI and Sketch files.

 

3. PlaceIt

PlaceIt is a powerful online mockup, video and design template generator.

Create digital branding and marketing assets directly from your browser.

A subscription gives access to all of PlaceIt's mockups, design templates, videos, logos and unlimited downloads.

Offers several tutorials on their website that covers each category.

4. Wave.Video

Easily create and edit videos.

200M stock videos, images and audio clips.

Customize templates, style your videos, add captions, embed on your blog, look into video analytics and more.

5. Adobe Premiere Rush

The free mobile and desktop video editing app for creativity on the go. 

Easily shoot, edit, and export videos from any device.

Tailor transitions

Customize titles

Share anywhere

Get colourful

Adjust speed

Add audio

 

6. OpenShot

Simple drag and drop video, audio, and image files into Openshot to get started.

Openshot can read and write most image and video formats.

You can render 3D animations powered by Blender inside Openshot.

You can also trim your videos, add effects, and titles with ease.

It's a quick and easy tool that is completely free and open-source.

7. DaVinci Resolve

It's an all-in-one software tool for editing, colour correction, visual effects, motion graphics, and audio post-production!

You can work with camera original quality images throughout the entire process.

It's like having your post-production studio in a single app.

High-end professionals working on feature films and television shows use DaVinci Resolve more than any other solution!

8. SnapTik

Download TikTok's easily!

Snaptik is an application that allows you to download videos from TikTok without the watermark.

With Snaptik you can backup your videos outside TikTok and repost your TikTok video to other social networks.

9. Mojo

Offers hundreds of animated templates to create eye-catching stories.

You can add photos and videos to any template.

Share directly from the app to any social platform.

The app is free to install and does not require an account to use it.

Mojo Pro gives you access to all the designs and advanced features in the app.

10. MixedCaption

Automatically transcribe your videos and get accurate video captions.

Most people will view your content on mute,

Is it just us, or did 2021 go by really fast?

We are excited to share new digital trends that alter how we market our products and services each year.

That excitement didn't stop because 2021 was no exception to just how quickly the industry could evolve.

With 2022 right around the corner, we will count down new trends to help businesses build competitive strategies.

We will also look back at 2021 and the trends that occurred.

Let's get started!

2021 Predictions

Here's what we predicted for 2021:

Shoppable Social Media

Lead Generation

Bootcamps

Calculators

Brand Awareness (Snackable Video)

Email

Facebook Groups for Engagement

Chatbots & Messaging

Gamification

Voice Search

 

What Trends Occurred?

The effects of the pandemic will continue to impact marketers in 2022.

Pandemic-Based Shift in Consumer Behavior

Continued Digital Transformation

More Live Videos and Webinars

Digital Ad Spend Spike Continues

Doubling Down on SEO

 

What's in store for 2022!

Augmented Reality

AR uses digital technology to overlay information in video, text or image format onto everyday objects in the real world. 

Benefits of AR for Digital Marketing

Brand Awareness

Rise in Engagement

Improved Customer Experience

Bringing Digital into Real World

Headless Commerce

Headless commerce separates the back-end infrastructure from the front-end of an e-commerce application.

You can build new selling opportunities anywhere; all managed from a central location.

Benefits include: 

* Helps build better customer experiences

* Saves time on user interface changes

* Offers simplicity to access and updates

* React to marketing trends quicker

Hybrid Events  

Hybrid events will be the new normal. 

Such hybrid events are also handy solutions when many of your attendees typically attend in person can’t.

Benefits of Hybrid Events:

* Increased Attendance

* Enhanced Content Engagement

* Increased Sponsorship Value

Rise of Short-Form Content

Short-form content is often more shareable. It stands out from long-form content because it promises value with a smaller investment in time. That’s appealing to readers.

Benefits of Short-form content -

Increased Shareability

Mobile friendly

Improved readability

Better engagement

Growth of First-Party Data 

First-party data is at the top of the agenda for marketers in 2021 and 2022.

Marketers know that first-party data garner the highest return on investment of any data type.

Benefits of First-Party Data

* Improve performance/ROI

* Accuracy and data quality

* Lends to more precise targeting

* Improved measurement and attribution

Visual Search

Google Lens & Pinterest lets users recognize objects and landmarks through a camera app.

Here’s what you can do when you take a photo of the following items:

Apparel and home goods: Find similar products and where to buy them.

QR Code: Use a barcode to find info about a product, like where to buy it.

Business card: Save the phone number or address to a contact.

Event flyer or billboard: Add the event to your calendar.

The holiday sales season is here!

It’s time for that generic holiday post that we see every year.

Let’s steer clear of that and take a look at some fun and engaging ideas you can do to spice up the holidays.

1. Feature New Products

You can give your audience an insightful experience through Facebook and Instagram Stories by giving them a behind-the-scenes look at your products.

This is an opportunity to: 

Showcase products in action

Demonstrate “how it’s made”

Display the benefits of your product

2. Offer Express Shipping Benefits

The holidays are stressful enough - so alleviating some of the hassles of last-minute shopping will significantly help your customers.

Offer express shipping so that:

Customers receive orders before holidays

Generate more sales

Clear your shop’s inventory

Increase customer satisfaction

3. Consider Charitable Giving

By supporting a local charity, you show your support for your community and help you build a strong social presence.

Campaign Idea: Post that you’ll match every dollar donated from your community. Reinforcing your support and that you care about the welfare of others. 

4. Be Accessible with Live Chat

You want customers to shop with you 24/7 while providing excellent customer service around the clock.

Offer live chat support for customers inquiring about questions, recommendations, or anything else they need assistance with. 

Being accessible throughout these stressful times will set you apart from competitors.

5. Host a Contest or Giveaway

Engage and excite your followers with an opportunity to win some exclusive new products or services before the holidays!

Run UGC contests with existing customers such as:

Photo / Video contests

Hashtag contests

“Enter to win” contests

Product review contests

6. Run a Flash Sale

Create a sense of urgency - let your customers know about your exclusive holiday deals and when they will expire!

12 Days of Christmas Giveaways

Bundle Campaigns - Overstock/older products paired with core products 

Collaborate with aligned brands

7. Create a Virtual Advent Calendar

This is a unique way to increase engagement and have your audience interact with your page daily!

These advent calendars can:

Unlock prizes

Reveal exclusive deals

Incorporate games (puzzles, quizzes)

Release secret promo codes

8. Run a “This or That” Story Post

This is a great way to have your audience interact with you while promoting your business through their page.

Users must repost the blank template you create on their story with their answers circled. 

Increases page traffic

Increases engagement 

9. Post Story Polls

Polls are another fun way to engage and interact with your audience. Not only are they fun to participate in, but it’s interesting to see which answers gain the most votes. 

Polls are great for casual questions and product-related questions to gain some insight into what your potential customers prefer.

10. Share Your Holiday Gift Guide

Gift guide infographics or snackable videos are great ways to promote your products while helping customers find perfect ideas for their loved ones.

They can include:

New product promotions

Favourite products from small businesses

Partnerships: Teaming with local businesses to c...

Did you know that there's a difference between graphic design and production design?

The production design is when you develop an effective creative workflow that streamlines building and editing graphics and video for social media. 

Seem impossible? It's easier than you may think!

Marketers have long loved Canva because it is fast and easy!

With Canva, agencies of all sizes can efficiently streamline the creative process. 

When it comes to getting ahead of workflow inefficiencies, removing roadblocks and scaling your output, Canva may be the right fit for agencies.

What's working?

Collaboration is a wonderful thing, but it's not always easy. 

Things can get a little hectic (not to mention time-consuming) when you have various people weighing in on the same project. 

How do you ensure that quality work standards are met while saving time, energy and resources?

Let’s talk about it.

Work Smarter!

(Not harder)

Canva is a great tool to ensure your team is on the same page when producing content.

Canva can help with:

Creating cohesive content

Team collaboration

Comments

Proof Sharing

Last-minute revisions

Create Your Brand Kit

Ensure your designs are cohesive and avoid confusion by developing your brand kit.

You can add design rules such as: 

Official fonts

Official colours and palettes

Company logos

Explore Templates 

Canva is a great platform to get your creativity flowing.

It offers a collection of thousands of free templates to choose from that are ready-to-use for your projects.

Whether you need a design for social media, video, presentations, or printing, Canva has a wide selection of templates for each platform.

Personalizing Templates

Personalize your template to suit your business by giving it flair and personality. You can use Canva to create your own custom branded template for future use.

You can upload your own elements into Canva’s templates and publish them for other users.

One-Stop-Shop

You never have to leave Canva! They make it easy to:

Create designs for any occasion

Edit photos, remove backgrounds, etc.

Store your assets

Everything from fonts to stock photography and videos can be found on Canva!

Storing & Sharing Assets

Canva is great for collaboration for various reasons: 

You can share designs via email, links and folders

Folders are a great way to stay organized

Retain control over who can view and edit designs 

Work From Anywhere

Assets get stored in the cloud which is great for many reasons: 

No need to waste time sending large files to your team

Work from anywhere, anytime

Easily start a project at work and pick up right where you left off at home

Edits & Tweaks

Aside from a stress-free design process, Canva is also great for those needing last-minute edits.

No need to hunt down your design team when a minor revision is needed

Edits can be made in the blink of an eye

Allows various members of your team to have access and be able to collaborate or update as needed

Time Saving Tools & Plugins

Common Production Design Tasks include:

Background Removal

Basic Image Retouching

Image Enhancements

Mock-Ups

Canva Effects and Plugins enable a Production Design team to edi...

Did you know that 97% of people learn more about a local company online than anywhere else?

The sweet, simple days of yellow pages and phonebooks are long behind us!

For small businesses, it's no longer a nice perk to have your business in an online directory; it's a must-have!

Unfortunately, many companies overlook one of the most potent tools to achieve this and other core business objectives: Google My Business Profile. 

Google My Business is like a virtual phonebook!

Not only does Google My Business make your business easier to find on Google, but it also helps you to reach potential customers that would otherwise not know how to find your business.

So whether you're considering creating a listing for your business or looking for the best ways to boost your local presence, Google My Business is well worth your time!

What's Working?

Google My Business is a valuable tool to help businesses gain exposure.

But you may not be using GMB to its full potential.

Here are ten things that you can do to make your profile more effective.

Let's go!

1. Why is a Google My Business Profile Important?

Google My Business has replaced Yellow Pages has become the must-have online directory.

The users are highly motivated in their searches. As a result, we get a considerable search intent.

There are thousands of keywords you could optimize for using Google My Business, and various tools come along with it.

2. What Makes a GMB Profile Successful?

Google My Business is one stop where you can provide quality information to reach your audience.

By Optimizing your Google My Business Profile, you are sending Google signals which will help you rank higher in the searches and increase visibility among your audience.

3. MetaData - What is that?

Your Google My Business Listing is an important ranking signal to Google's local algorithm when it comes to being found in the Google map pack, Google maps, and localized search results.

As a result, you must give as much information using Google My Business Profile metadata to rank higher in Google.

Metadata can be an image description of the photo you uploaded on Google My Business, Or the camera you took pictures with!

4. Understanding Your Local Rank Using Local Falcon

It is fine having a Google My Business profile, but unless it ranks in the Google Map 3-pack, you have zero visibility in local search.

Appearing in Google Maps drives an insane volume of enquiries online.

Local Falcon understands the importance of ranking higher in Google Maps search.

Local Falcon is a local rank tracking tool for local SEO Analytics and delivers live organic results.

5. Optimize Images for Local Search

It's an SEO fact that photos create more engagement, reach and click-throughs for you Google My Business.

When consumers are looking through your business profile on Google, it is essential to optimize your business photos.

Invest in high-quality photos that can set your business apart from your competition and help entice consumers to visit your business.

Also, don't forget to update the image's alt tags!

6. Adding Products to your GMB profile

Optimize your listing using the products feature.

Google My Business features products now and product collections complete with images, details, pricing, and related products.

This feature is an awesome way to keep customers engaged without leaving your GMB profile.

It lets users view more information about your products and services.

Have you ever aimlessly scrolled through Twitter, Instagram or Facebook and gotten sucked into watching someone's video?

We've sure been there before!

Moreover, when it's a video from a brand, you have to wonder how they made such an eye-catching engaging video?

Creating video for social media isn't an exact science!

You can use some tried and tested best practices to elevate your videos across all social channels.

With Black Friday just around the corner, now is the time to use creative ideas that will get your audience to stop the scroll and look at your content.

But before that, let discuss

What's new?

What's new in Marketing?

Instagram will shut down its companion app Threads by year-end - Existing Threads users with an in-app notice, which will direct them to return to Instagram to message their friends going forward.

Google signs a 5-year deal to pay for news from AFP - Google will begin paying Agence France-Presse for its news content as part of the broad five-year partnership.

Introducing More Control for People and Brands in News Feed - Instagram announced plans to collaborate with third-party partners to develop a brand suitability verification tool.

Facebook tests tool to allow users to manage the content they see - Facebook is testing a feature allowing users to control how much content they view from friends, groups and public figures.

Snapchat Launches Multi-Format Ad Placements to Help Maximize Reach and Engagement - Snapchat will enable advertisers to incorporate multiple video ad formats within a single ad set, with its new 'Multiple Formats' delivery option launching this week.

Gemini Raises $400 Million To Build A Metaverse Outside Facebook's Walled Garden - After seven years of funding their Gemini cryptocurrency empire out of pocket, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are in the process of signing the last documents on their first round of capital...