About three years ago, business for the sustainable fashion brand, Reformation, was booming. But their physical stores were so jam-packed with product that the customer experience was, in short, not good. Founder Yael Aflalo began to think about how to minimize the available merchandise, but at the same time have enough for the increased foot traffic. She settled on a model similar to Tesla showrooms that are conspicuously missing a parking lot of cars, or Apple stores with very limited inventory in the front of the store. Soon, Reformation stores only displayed one of each of the most popular items. However, all merchandise options are viewable on touchscreens. Around the store, there are touchscreen monitors that allow customers to scan through outfits. When they find one they like, they can click on the size and it will appear in the dressing room, as if by magic, explains Fast Company. Behind the scenes, sales associates pull all of the garments selected by the shopper and organize them in a dedicated fitting room. On the touchscreen, customer options only include what is in inventory with near perfect accuracy. And in the background, Reformation is able to collect data about the outfits and sizes that are most popular and how long customers spend trying on clothes. It's a huge success - Reformation runs more efficiently, and the customer feedback is overwhelmingly positive as they are able to move seamlessly from touchscreen to dressing room. If there is a question, sales associates are trained to help shoppers effectively interact with the touchscreen and they also support the dressing room experience. Yael is already planning additional improvements, such as being able to send purchases directly to a customer's home after an in-store touchscreen purchase, or having a dressing room ready with selections the customer made while shopping online from another location. Creating Fluidity - and Fluid Experiences Designing fluid experiences enables retailers to create and manage omnichannel experiences across all touchpoints - including in-store associate apps, social media platforms, physical signage, IoT devices, and smart screens. Content that is centrally managed and optimized, along with the ability to automatically edit and resize images and copy based on the channel are two technologies that help you create fluid experiences at scale. Fluid experiences also help retailers maximize the unique capabilities of any platform without the added legwork. For example, a department store promoting its semiannual runway event may promote a new collection to its customers via email. The same campaign content could then automatically be positioned for Facebook, web content, or Twitter with just 140 characters, and provide detailed personal and relevant information about the promotion - including event timing, accessible locations, and specific offers. Granted, the level of fluid experience varies by vertical. As I explained to the New York Times, If it's high-touch retail, you want to provide great experiences and entertainment. But if it's grocers or big-box stores, the technology needs to make that experience more seamless and efficient. What unifies these moments, however, is that they're consistent across platforms and create powerful experiences that keep customers engaged in a delightful and personal way, and keep them coming back for more. Personalizing experiences when there's no single path-to-purchase - and when those paths involve both physical and digital touchpoints - requires leveraging data to deliver cohesive experiences at the highest level. Do Personalization Right For example, there is a particular retailer that I love, but I'm ready to sever ties because even though they know I'm male, they consistently show me female-focused products, services, and content. For example, I've never given an indication that I want or need a slimming swimsuit, but I regularly receive personalized messages encouraging me to invest in one. When mistargeting mistakes like that happen, your customers will quickly move on to the next retailer - a retailer who will deliver a more relevant experience. Additionally, if you deliver an experience that's not personalized to the platform or device your customer is using, you'll sink more than you swim. Desktop ads viewed on mobile devices lose 50 percent of their effectiveness - they're just not the right experience for the small screen. And 50 percent of consumers under 50 take it a step further, saying they prefer ads personalized to their specific interests, traits, and preferences - and another 30 percent under 50 say even that's not good enough. Driven By the Customer - and YOU It's a clear departure from the traditional funnel and from omnichannel marketing even a year or two ago - and that's good for everyone. Data empowers digital marketers everywhere to deliver more effective and more efficient promotions and experiences across all channels, provided companies are willing to tear down the silos and flesh out 360-degree views of their customers. This, at the end of the day, is the Holy Grail when it comes to producing and delivering highly-relevant and incredibly timely content at scale - in other words, personalization done well. Learn more more about how your organization can create and manage fluid experiences across all touchpoints and platforms. It's a simple process that will take your campaigns to the next level - syncing your messaging, and enabling truly great customer experiences you can manage without long, drawn-out system overhauls or massive investments. It's a win-win - fluid for customers and fluid for your business. The post Make It Fluid - Creating a Seamless Experience from the Shopper's Perspective appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.
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The content marketing industry is flooded with rock stars, and this has led many to think a content marketing strategy is about individual prowess. But this couldn't be further from the truth. Peek behind great content marketing efforts and you'll nearly always find a driven, well-organized team. Jolie Miller, content strategy and acquisitions leader at LinkedIn, has spent much of her career leading the quiet, disciplined work of high-performance content teams. Here are her practical tips for what it takes to build, manage, and drive them. CCO: Can you paint a picture of your personal content journey? When did you first take the creation of content seriously, and what about the process did you find (and do you still find) interesting?Miller: I started in the content business over 10 years ago in the publishing world, where our product was educational content. One of the things I was most excited about then and have only grown more passionate about now at LinkedIn is the idea of over-delivering on value with the content you share. It's content that truly exceeds users' expectations that creates those moments of delight with a brand. What I love about content is it has the power to change people's lives for a second or for a day or forever. Great content creates space for people to pause and reflect, and that space is where transformation happens. Great #content creates space to pause & reflect, & that is where transformation happens. @joliemiller CCO: Not all teams are high-performance teams. In your mind, what's the difference?Miller: A high-performance team has members that show up for each other because everyone wants to work together to deliver value. People do the small, little extra thing and the big, hard, amazing thing, and obsess about the details because they're creating relationships and outcomes they're willing to own. I've been fortunate to be on many teams like this. In my experience, a team that's not high-performing is a team that's in it for the transaction one project or one piece of content or one interaction, not the longer play of strong, healthy relationships, open communication, trust, and creating a better company together. It's more about how quickly can I cross this off my list or get through that conversation and back into my day; it's not about building something together with and for people. Needless to say, these teams quickly get toxic for people and can benefit from a fresh start and some turnaround leadership. CCO: You've built high-performance content teams at all stages of a company's growth. Can you walk us through the crucial first steps a leader of any company size should take to begin building a world-class content team?Miller: It really starts with knowing what markets you want to win and what kind of content, delivered in the right way, will help you win those markets. What the business is aiming to do and do well is at the heart of starting your team. Then you've got to find people who want to join the cause with you. I often tell candidates that this isn't a job, it's a calling, and we're looking for people who want to own and share that vision with us people for whom it's not going to feel like work. Creating good content is about passion. Creating good content is about passion, says @joliemiller. I also often tell candidates that it comes through in the content you make if you had fun making it the company's culture bleeds through, and it has to be solid. So you've got to find folks who want to have fun growing a business with you. Look for the people who you know will challenge what exists and what could be, and always seek out folks who will want your job. They'll drive hard toward company wins with you. CCO: Once the core team is in place, what are some simple project management strategies that will help the team keep driving forward?Miller: The first project management strategy for any team is communication. Notice people. Notice things that are going right. Say something about those things, often. Have the tough conversations with candor and empathy, and have them earlier than you think you need to. I'm also a big fan of documentation and detail to stay on top of projects over-document if you need to get in the habit. You don't need a fancy CMS or tool to do this; it can be done in Google Sheets if that's what you've got. But keep track of all the little niggling things. Next, it matters what you measure so keep detailed records and monitor performance. I like to monitor the daily stuff: engagement and viewership, but also hunt for wild-card information that might start with a random question, take you down a rabbit hole, and then kick you back out with some new insights. Finally, have review meetings or postmortems on a frequency that works for you. Stop to ask yourself: What's going well? What have we learned? What do we want to do next? This is key. CCO: Where do you see most content marketing strategies faltering?Miller: Content that misses the mark usually does so first by failing to know its audience, and second by failing to connect meaningfully with that audience, either with the wrong tone or wrong type of content or a combination. The miss often occurs long before the content is made. Content that misses the mark is usually done so by failing to connect meaningfully w/ audience. @joliemiller The other mistake I see is applying a one-size-fits-all approach to all of your content without stopping to consider audience differences, such as: This two-minute clip worked well over here for this audience so we should obviously only do this for everyone going forward. Not so! CCO: When do you know it's the right time to hire, and can you give us a glimpse into how you recruit the best-fit talent?Miller: In my experience, the right time to hire is when you're in over your head with too much on your plate but still have the energy and passion to do it all it's still early enough that you're not burned out but it's late enough that you hopefully have traction and cash flow to attract the kind of people to help you get to the next level. Hire when you have too much on your plate but still have energy and passion to do it all, says @joliemiller. Then, and this is the key thing, you have to fire yourself from your old job of doing it all. Hire someone who's amazing, train them really well and thoroughly, and then let them run, coach them, and remove all the roadblocks they need cleared out of their way. If you give me $100 to spend on hiring, I'm going to spend half of it finding the right person and the other half making sure my training documentation iscompelling and setting the person up for success. Without both of these, neither one will work. Practical hiring adviceJolie explains why these five steps are essential to creating a high-performance team. 1. Seek out passive job candidatesI'm a big fan of passive candidate recruiting going out and finding the voices that should be shaping the content of tomorrow. See what's new and fresh on social and who's doing unique and game-changing things, the people who are thought highly of. Talk to those people. Network. Find the best and go to them, even if they're not looking and wouldn't consider leaving where they are. Start talking to these people before you have roles open so you can quickly hire when it's time. 2. Let interviewees lead the conversationI've often interviewed people by letting them ask me questions rather than throwing a bunch of questions at them. This lets me see how their mind works, how curious they are, if they're prepared, and the way they'd think about working with me and the team. Their approach also lets me observe their analytical and emotional-intelligence skills up close and personal how are they reading what I'm asking, and are they catching how I'm responding to their answers and adjusting on the fly? It also ensures that candidates are getting the full scoop on the job they have ample opportunities to learn everything they want to know, and in the best circumstances, and also sell me on their big ideas that would let them hit the ground running. Of course, I do throw in some questions of my own, but the goal is to get to know the candidates are they nervous to fill the time with questions and their own thoughts, or are they eager to take charge? Do they use the time to try to get ideas for how to answer the next interviewer's questions or do they use the time as a blank canvas to brand themselves? 3. Don't hide from the tough stuffExplain the job in real talk, the good and the bad. Remember, you want people for whom this is a calling and a purpose, not just a paycheck. Let them know the obstacles and the upside. For example, I'll say things like, This is a very intra-preneurial role where you're going to be able to write the rules, but with that comes a lot of question marks you're going to have to be comfortable playing with. If you see question marks as a challenge and like figuring out what they'll turn into, you'll love it; if they frustrate you, it's going to frustrate you. Explain a job in real talk, the good & bad, to get people who want more than a paycheck. @joliemiller 4. Hire people who delight youWhether it's their humor, their brilliance, their grasp of numbers, or whatever it might be, you want a delight factor that they can bring to the team and the business. This is a daily relationship you're committing to, and it needs to work well and be able to drive results. 5. Document the hiring processSet up clear onboarding plans for the first 60 days, including goals for the quarter or the year, and documentation on how to do what. No one remembers what they do in their first week, so have a document they can peruse at their leisure any time to refresh their memory. HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:
A version of this article originally appeared in the April issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our bimonthly, print magazine. Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute The post LinkedIn Leader Shares How to Build a High-Performance Content Marketing Team appeared first on Content Marketing Institute. The landscape of the modern workplace has changed a lot in the past ten years. Once upon a time you had to find shady crafting companies or secret shopping positions if you wanted to work flexibly and from home. Now we've seen a powerful trend emerging. In 2015 the number of US workers who had moved to remote (or telecommuting) jobs had climbed to an unprecedented 37%. That is a number that continues to grow as more startups and even large scale companies open their workforce up to those who act as office vagabonds, putting in hours from home, coffee shops, and even while traveling. Content marketing is being impacted by this trend most. You no longer need to find and move talent to your office: You can work effectively with content writers from all over the world. 1. Use a good task management platformThere are so many task managing apps out there that it would be hard to find a single one that works best. You will want platforms that deal with business management (so your team can stay on board at all times), and communication (so you can always keep in touch, no matter where you all are. Flow, Trello, and Asana are three solid examples you may want to look into. From personal experience, managing a productivity tool still takes plenty of time. So unless you have a reliable project manager in-house, it makes sense to rely on a project management company. It may actually save you money and minimize your headache with dealing with multiple to-do lists and processes. Distributed is a good example of a company that actually specializes in managing distributed teams all over the world. Hiring a virtual assistant is another option. 2. Use a reliable editorial calendar toolI am a big proponent of using a year-long editorial calendar that lets you and your content marketing team get properly prepared for big holidays, seasonal trends and even fun days that can be turned into solid promotional material. By preparing your content in advance, you'll be always ahead of the game. It's exceedingly important if you deal with an international teams when not everyone is aware of your local trends and holidays. My all-time favorite editorial calendar management platform has been Coschedule that's also perfectly set-up for distributed teams: You add your team members and watch everyone do their own thing: If you are looking for a higher-level solution, take a look at NewsCred. It gives you a nice color-coded dashboard of your content marketing plans: 3. Invest into solid writing toolsYour writing team is as effective as the tools you provide them with. You want them to brainstorm, research and write productively. Different workflows may require different writing tools. I always encourage writers to use the following tools: 1. Google Docs to create content. It's easy for editing and it's real time, so teams can work on content assets while discussing it on Skype or in a Slack group. 2. HARO and MyBlogU to collect useful quotes from niche experts and influencers. 3. Plagiarism Check to quickly check for any instances of copied content. This is especially important if you have new writers. Believe it or not, but many writers would just copy some parts of content (these could be too long quotes) without realizing it's not an advisable digital content marketing tactic. 4. Use an effective social media sharing solutionIt's very important to engage your content writing team into the marketing routine. It's obvious that they will be much more excited at seeing their articles succeed (after doing their brainstorming, research and writing tasks) than the social media team who may see the completed content assets for the first time. Thus it's essential to have a unified multi-user cross-channel social media sharing and scheduling solution that would enable cross team marketing incentives. I use DrumUp to scale my social media marketing tasks. It has all the features I need:
5. Use a marketing dashboard to monitor statsCyfe is a great customizable all in one business management software that allows you to create your own widgets to handle any aspect of your business, all for $19 per month. For higher-level content marketing stats monitoring I use the following boards:
6. Use productive communication tools that spur creativityProperly set-up communication between your remote employees helps creativity, experience exchange and marketing collaboration. It also helps your brand consistency because your team can properly discuss every content asset before they start working on it. Slack is an awesome communication tool that lets you create channels and speak to different groups, or on different topics. Think of it as a more professional version of Discord. There's one reason I prefer Slack over emailing: It gives a centralized platform for your team communication but unlike a project management solution, Slack fosters a more relaxed environment which is so important for creative teams. Slack helps creativity and gives writers a place to brainstorm freely without being accused of cluttering the board. Create your super team!Don't let your workforce get limited by borders. These days we have tools in place that empower you to build the content marketing team of your dream without investing time and money into moving everyone into a single office. How are you managing your remote content marketing employees? About three years ago, business for the sustainable fashion brand, Reformation, was booming. But their physical stores were so jam-packed with product that the customer experience was, in short, not good. Founder Yael Aflalo began to think about how to minimize the available merchandise, but at the same time have enough for the increased foot traffic. She settled on a model similar to Tesla showrooms that are conspicuously missing a parking lot of cars, or Apple stores with very limited inventory in the front of the store. Soon, Reformation stores only displayed one of each of the most popular items. However, all merchandise options are viewable on touchscreens. Around the store, there are touchscreen monitors that allow customers to scan through outfits. When they find one they like, they can click on the size and it will appear in the dressing room, as if by magic, explains Fast Company. Behind the scenes, sales associates pull all of the garments selected by the shopper and organize them in a dedicated fitting room. On the touchscreen, customer options only include what is in inventory with near perfect accuracy. And in the background, Reformation is able to collect data about the outfits and sizes that are most popular and how long customers spend trying on clothes. It's a huge success - Reformation runs more efficiently, and the customer feedback is overwhelmingly positive as they are able to move seamlessly from touchscreen to dressing room. If there is a question, sales associates are trained to help shoppers effectively interact with the touchscreen and they also support the dressing room experience. Yael is already planning additional improvements, such as being able to send purchases directly to a customer's home after an in-store touchscreen purchase, or having a dressing room ready with selections the customer made while shopping online from another location. Creating Fluidity - and Fluid Experiences Designing fluid experiences enables retailers to create and manage omnichannel experiences across all touchpoints - including in-store associate apps, social media platforms, physical signage, IoT devices, and smart screens. Content that is centrally managed and optimized, along with the ability to automatically edit and resize images and copy based on the channel are two technologies that help you create fluid experiences at scale. Fluid experiences also help retailers maximize the unique capabilities of any platform without the added legwork. For example, a department store promoting its semiannual runway event may promote a new collection to its customers via email. The same campaign content could then automatically be positioned for Facebook, web content, or Twitter with just 140 characters, and provide detailed personal and relevant information about the promotion - including event timing, accessible locations, and specific offers. Granted, the level of fluid experience varies by vertical. As I explained to the New York Times, If it's high-touch retail, you want to provide great experiences and entertainment. But if it's grocers or big-box stores, the technology needs to make that experience more seamless and efficient. What unifies these moments, however, is that they're consistent across platforms and create powerful experiences that keep customers engaged in a delightful and personal way, and keep them coming back for more. Personalizing experiences when there's no single path-to-purchase - and when those paths involve both physical and digital touchpoints - requires leveraging data to deliver cohesive experiences at the highest level. Do Personalization Right For example, there is a particular retailer that I love, but I'm ready to sever ties because even though they know I'm male, they consistently show me female-focused products, services, and content. For example, I've never given an indication that I want or need a slimming swimsuit, but I regularly receive personalized messages encouraging me to invest in one. When mistargeting mistakes like that happen, your customers will quickly move on to the next retailer - a retailer who will deliver a more relevant experience. Additionally, if you deliver an experience that's not personalized to the platform or device your customer is using, you'll sink more than you swim. Desktop ads viewed on mobile devices lose 50 percent of their effectiveness - they're just not the right experience for the small screen. And 50 percent of consumers under 50 take it a step further, saying they prefer ads personalized to their specific interests, traits, and preferences - and another 30 percent under 50 say even that's not good enough. Driven By the Customer - and YOU It's a clear departure from the traditional funnel and from omnichannel marketing even a year or two ago - and that's good for everyone. Data empowers digital marketers everywhere to deliver more effective and more efficient promotions and experiences across all channels, provided companies are willing to tear down the silos and flesh out 360-degree views of their customers. This, at the end of the day, is the Holy Grail when it comes to producing and delivering highly-relevant and incredibly timely content at scale - in other words, personalization done well. Learn more more about how your organization can create and manage fluid experiences across all touchpoints and platforms. It's a simple process that will take your campaigns to the next level - syncing your messaging, and enabling truly great customer experiences you can manage without long, drawn-out system overhauls or massive investments. It's a win-win - fluid for customers and fluid for your business. The post Make It Fluid - Creating a Seamless Experience from the Shopper's Perspective appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe. The content marketing industry is flooded with rock stars, and this has led many to think a content marketing strategy is about individual prowess. But this couldn't be further from the truth. Peek behind great content marketing efforts and you'll nearly always find a driven, well-organized team. Jolie Miller, content strategy and acquisitions leader at LinkedIn, has spent much of her career leading the quiet, disciplined work of high-performance content teams. Here are her practical tips for what it takes to build, manage, and drive them. CCO: Can you paint a picture of your personal content journey? When did you first take the creation of content seriously, and what about the process did you find (and do you still find) interesting?Miller: I started in the content business over 10 years ago in the publishing world, where our product was educational content. One of the things I was most excited about then and have only grown more passionate about now at LinkedIn is the idea of over-delivering on value with the content you share. It's content that truly exceeds users' expectations that creates those moments of delight with a brand. What I love about content is it has the power to change people's lives for a second or for a day or forever. Great content creates space for people to pause and reflect, and that space is where transformation happens. Great #content creates space to pause & reflect, & that is where transformation happens. @joliemiller CCO: Not all teams are high-performance teams. In your mind, what's the difference?Miller: A high-performance team has members that show up for each other because everyone wants to work together to deliver value. People do the small, little extra thing and the big, hard, amazing thing, and obsess about the details because they're creating relationships and outcomes they're willing to own. I've been fortunate to be on many teams like this. In my experience, a team that's not high-performing is a team that's in it for the transaction one project or one piece of content or one interaction, not the longer play of strong, healthy relationships, open communication, trust, and creating a better company together. It's more about how quickly can I cross this off my list or get through that conversation and back into my day; it's not about building something together with and for people. Needless to say, these teams quickly get toxic for people and can benefit from a fresh start and some turnaround leadership. CCO: You've built high-performance content teams at all stages of a company's growth. Can you walk us through the crucial first steps a leader of any company size should take to begin building a world-class content team?Miller: It really starts with knowing what markets you want to win and what kind of content, delivered in the right way, will help you win those markets. What the business is aiming to do and do well is at the heart of starting your team. Then you've got to find people who want to join the cause with you. I often tell candidates that this isn't a job, it's a calling, and we're looking for people who want to own and share that vision with us people for whom it's not going to feel like work. Creating good content is about passion. Creating good content is about passion, says @joliemiller. I also often tell candidates that it comes through in the content you make if you had fun making it the company's culture bleeds through, and it has to be solid. So you've got to find folks who want to have fun growing a business with you. Look for the people who you know will challenge what exists and what could be, and always seek out folks who will want your job. They'll drive hard toward company wins with you. CCO: Once the core team is in place, what are some simple project management strategies that will help the team keep driving forward?Miller: The first project management strategy for any team is communication. Notice people. Notice things that are going right. Say something about those things, often. Have the tough conversations with candor and empathy, and have them earlier than you think you need to. I'm also a big fan of documentation and detail to stay on top of projects over-document if you need to get in the habit. You don't need a fancy CMS or tool to do this; it can be done in Google Sheets if that's what you've got. But keep track of all the little niggling things. Next, it matters what you measure so keep detailed records and monitor performance. I like to monitor the daily stuff: engagement and viewership, but also hunt for wild-card information that might start with a random question, take you down a rabbit hole, and then kick you back out with some new insights. Finally, have review meetings or postmortems on a frequency that works for you. Stop to ask yourself: What's going well? What have we learned? What do we want to do next? This is key. CCO: Where do you see most content marketing strategies faltering?Miller: Content that misses the mark usually does so first by failing to know its audience, and second by failing to connect meaningfully with that audience, either with the wrong tone or wrong type of content or a combination. The miss often occurs long before the content is made. Content that misses the mark is usually done so by failing to connect meaningfully w/ audience. @joliemiller The other mistake I see is applying a one-size-fits-all approach to all of your content without stopping to consider audience differences, such as: This two-minute clip worked well over here for this audience so we should obviously only do this for everyone going forward. Not so! CCO: When do you know it's the right time to hire, and can you give us a glimpse into how you recruit the best-fit talent?Miller: In my experience, the right time to hire is when you're in over your head with too much on your plate but still have the energy and passion to do it all it's still early enough that you're not burned out but it's late enough that you hopefully have traction and cash flow to attract the kind of people to help you get to the next level. Hire when you have too much on your plate but still have energy and passion to do it all, says @joliemiller. Then, and this is the key thing, you have to fire yourself from your old job of doing it all. Hire someone who's amazing, train them really well and thoroughly, and then let them run, coach them, and remove all the roadblocks they need cleared out of their way. If you give me $100 to spend on hiring, I'm going to spend half of it finding the right person and the other half making sure my training documentation iscompelling and setting the person up for success. Without both of these, neither one will work. Practical hiring adviceJolie explains why these five steps are essential to creating a high-performance team. 1. Seek out passive job candidatesI'm a big fan of passive candidate recruiting going out and finding the voices that should be shaping the content of tomorrow. See what's new and fresh on social and who's doing unique and game-changing things, the people who are thought highly of. Talk to those people. Network. Find the best and go to them, even if they're not looking and wouldn't consider leaving where they are. Start talking to these people before you have roles open so you can quickly hire when it's time. 2. Let interviewees lead the conversationI've often interviewed people by letting them ask me questions rather than throwing a bunch of questions at them. This lets me see how their mind works, how curious they are, if they're prepared, and the way they'd think about working with me and the team. Their approach also lets me observe their analytical and emotional-intelligence skills up close and personal how are they reading what I'm asking, and are they catching how I'm responding to their answers and adjusting on the fly? It also ensures that candidates are getting the full scoop on the job they have ample opportunities to learn everything they want to know, and in the best circumstances, and also sell me on their big ideas that would let them hit the ground running. Of course, I do throw in some questions of my own, but the goal is to get to know the candidates are they nervous to fill the time with questions and their own thoughts, or are they eager to take charge? Do they use the time to try to get ideas for how to answer the next interviewer's questions or do they use the time as a blank canvas to brand themselves? 3. Don't hide from the tough stuffExplain the job in real talk, the good and the bad. Remember, you want people for whom this is a calling and a purpose, not just a paycheck. Let them know the obstacles and the upside. For example, I'll say things like, This is a very intra-preneurial role where you're going to be able to write the rules, but with that comes a lot of question marks you're going to have to be comfortable playing with. If you see question marks as a challenge and like figuring out what they'll turn into, you'll love it; if they frustrate you, it's going to frustrate you. Explain a job in real talk, the good & bad, to get people who want more than a paycheck. @joliemiller 4. Hire people who delight youWhether it's their humor, their brilliance, their grasp of numbers, or whatever it might be, you want a delight factor that they can bring to the team and the business. This is a daily relationship you're committing to, and it needs to work well and be able to drive results. 5. Document the hiring processSet up clear onboarding plans for the first 60 days, including goals for the quarter or the year, and documentation on how to do what. No one remembers what they do in their first week, so have a document they can peruse at their leisure any time to refresh their memory. HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:
A version of this article originally appeared in the April issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our bimonthly, print magazine. Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute The post LinkedIn Leader Shares How to Build a High-Performance Content Marketing Team appeared first on Content Marketing Institute. Posted by jrridley It's almost certain that you've encountered AngularJS on the web somewhere, even if you weren't aware of it at the time. Here's a list of just a few sites using Angular:
Any of those look familiar? If so, it's because AngularJS is taking over the Internet. There's a good reason for that: Angular- and other React-style frameworks make for a better user and developer experience on a site. For background, AngularJS and ReactJS are part of a web design movement called single-page applications, or SPAs. While a traditional website loads each individual page as the user navigates the site, including calls to the server and cache, loading resources, and rendering the page, SPAs cut out much of the back-end activity by loading the entire site when a user first lands on a page. Instead of loading a new page each time you click on a link, the site dynamically updates a single HTML page as the user interacts with the site. Why is this movement taking over the Internet? With SPAs, users are treated to a screaming fast site through which they can navigate almost instantaneously, while developers have a template that allows them to customize, test, and optimize pages seamlessly and efficiently. AngularJS and ReactJS use advanced Javascript templates to render the site, which means the HTML/CSS page speed overhead is almost nothing. All site activity runs behind the scenes, out of view of the user. Unfortunately, anyone who's tried performing SEO on an Angular or React site knows that the site activity is hidden from more than just site visitors: it's also hidden from web crawlers. Crawlers like Googlebot rely heavily on HTML/CSS data to render and interpret the content on a site. When that HTML content is hidden behind website scripts, crawlers have no website content to index and serve in search results. Of course, Google claims they can crawl Javascript (and SEOs have tested and supported this claim), but even if that is true, Googlebot still struggles to crawl sites built on a SPA framework. One of the first issues we encountered when a client first approached us with an Angular site was that nothing beyond the homepage was appearing in the SERPs. ScreamingFrog crawls uncovered the homepage and a handful of other Javascript resources, and that was it. Another common issue is recording Google Analytics data. Think about it: Analytics data is tracked by recording pageviews every time a user navigates to a page. How can you track site analytics when there's no HTML response to trigger a pageview? After working with several clients on their SPA websites, we've developed a process for performing SEO on those sites. By using this process, we've not only enabled SPA sites to be indexed by search engines, but even to rank on the first page for keywords. 5-step solution to SEO for AngularJS
1) Make a list of all pages on your siteIf this sounds like a long and tedious process, that's because it definitely can be. For some sites, this will be as easy as exporting the XML sitemap for the site. For other sites, especially those with hundreds or thousands of pages, creating a comprehensive list of all the pages on the site can take hours or days. However, I cannot emphasize enough how helpful this step has been for us. Having an index of all pages on the site gives you a guide to reference and consult as you work on getting your site indexed. It's almost impossible to predict every issue that you're going to encounter with an SPA, and if you don't have an all-inclusive list of content to reference throughout your SEO optimization, it's highly likely you'll leave some part of the site un-indexed by search engines inadvertently. One solution that might enable you to streamline this process is to divide content into directories instead of individual pages. For example, if you know that you have a list of storeroom pages, include your /storeroom/ directory and make a note of how many pages that includes. Or if you have an e-commerce site, make a note of how many products you have in each shopping category and compile your list that way (though if you have an e-commerce site, I hope for your own sake you have a master list of products somewhere). Regardless of what you do to make this step less time-consuming, make sure you have a full list before continuing to step 2. 2) Install PrerenderPrerender is going to be your best friend when performing SEO for SPAs. Prerender is a service that will render your website in a virtual browser, then serve the static HTML content to web crawlers. From an SEO standpoint, this is as good of a solution as you can hope for: users still get the fast, dynamic SPA experience while search engine crawlers can identify indexable content for search results. Prerender's pricing varies based on the size of your site and the freshness of the cache served to Google. Smaller sites (up to 250 pages) can use Prerender for free, while larger sites (or sites that update constantly) may need to pay as much as $200+/month. However, having an indexable version of your site that enables you to attract customers through organic search is invaluable. This is where that list you compiled in step 1 comes into play: if you can prioritize what sections of your site need to be served to search engines, or with what frequency, you may be able to save a little bit of money each month while still achieving SEO progress. 3) "Fetch as Google"Within Google Search Console is an incredibly useful feature called Fetch as Google. Fetch as Google allows you to enter a URL from your site and fetch it as Googlebot would during a crawl. Fetch returns the HTTP response from the page, which includes a full download of the page source code as Googlebot sees it. Fetch and Render will return the HTTP response and will also provide a screenshot of the page as Googlebot saw it and as a site visitor would see it. This has powerful applications for AngularJS sites. Even with Prerender installed, you may find that Google is still only partially displaying your website, or it may be omitting key features of your site that are helpful to users. Plugging the URL into Fetch as Google will let you review how your site appears to search engines and what further steps you may need to take to optimize your keyword rankings. Additionally, after requesting a Fetch or Fetch and Render, you have the option to Request Indexing for that page, which can be handy catalyst for getting your site to appear in search results. 4) Configure Google Analytics (or Google Tag Manager)As I mentioned above, SPAs can have serious trouble with recording Google Analytics data since they don't track pageviews the way a standard website does. Instead of the traditional Google Analytics tracking code, you'll need to install Analytics through some kind of alternative method. One method that works well is to use the Angulartics plugin. Angulartics replaces standard pageview events with virtual pageview tracking, which tracks the entire user navigation across your application. Since SPAs dynamically load HTML content, these virtual pageviews are recorded based on user interactions with the site, which ultimately tracks the same user behavior as you would through traditional Analytics. Other people have found success using Google Tag Manager History Change triggers or other innovative methods, which are perfectly acceptable implementations. As long as your Google Analytics tracking records user interactions instead of conventional pageviews, your Analytics configuration should suffice. 5) Recrawl the siteAfter working through steps 14, you're going to want to crawl the site yourself to find those errors that not even Googlebot was anticipating. One issue we discovered early with a client was that after installing Prerender, our crawlers were still running into a spider trap: As you can probably tell, there were not actually 150,000 pages on that particular site. Our crawlers just found a recursive loop that kept generating longer and longer URL strings for the site content. This is something we would not have found in Google Search Console or Analytics. SPAs are notorious for causing tedious, inexplicable issues that you'll only uncover by crawling the site yourself. Even if you follow the steps above and take as many precautions as possible, I can still almost guarantee you will come across a unique issue that can only be diagnosed through a crawl. If you've come across any of these unique issues, let me know in the comments! I'd love to hear what other issues people have encountered with SPAs. ResultsAs I mentioned earlier in the article, the process outlined above has enabled us to not only get client sites indexed, but even to get those sites ranking on first page for various keywords. Here's an example of the keyword progress we made for one client with an AngularJS site: Also, the organic traffic growth for that client over the course of seven months: All of this goes to show that although SEO for SPAs can be tedious, laborious, and troublesome, it is not impossible. Follow the steps above, and you can have SEO success with your single-page app website. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The landscape of the modern workplace has changed a lot in the past ten years. Once upon a time you had to find shady crafting companies or secret shopping positions if you wanted to work flexibly and from home. Now we've seen a powerful trend emerging. In 2015 the number of US workers who had moved to remote (or telecommuting) jobs had climbed to an unprecedented 37%. That is a number that continues to grow as more startups and even large scale companies open their workforce up to those who act as office vagabonds, putting in hours from home, coffee shops, and even while traveling. Content marketing is being impacted by this trend most. You no longer need to find and move talent to your office: You can work effectively with content writers from all over the world. 1. Use a good task management platformThere are so many task managing apps out there that it would be hard to find a single one that works best. You will want platforms that deal with business management (so your team can stay on board at all times), and communication (so you can always keep in touch, no matter where you all are. Flow, Trello, and Asana are three solid examples you may want to look into. From personal experience, managing a productivity tool still takes plenty of time. So unless you have a reliable project manager in-house, it makes sense to rely on a project management company. It may actually save you money and minimize your headache with dealing with multiple to-do lists and processes. Distributed is a good example of a company that actually specializes in managing distributed teams all over the world. Hiring a virtual assistant is another option. 2. Use a reliable editorial calendar toolI am a big proponent of using a year-long editorial calendar that lets you and your content marketing team get properly prepared for big holidays, seasonal trends and even fun days that can be turned into solid promotional material. By preparing your content in advance, you'll be always ahead of the game. It's exceedingly important if you deal with an international teams when not everyone is aware of your local trends and holidays. My all-time favorite editorial calendar management platform has been Coschedule that's also perfectly set-up for distributed teams: You add your team members and watch everyone do their own thing: If you are looking for a higher-level solution, take a look at NewsCred. It gives you a nice color-coded dashboard of your content marketing plans: 3. Invest into solid writing toolsYour writing team is as effective as the tools you provide them with. You want them to brainstorm, research and write productively. Different workflows may require different writing tools. I always encourage writers to use the following tools: 1. Google Docs to create content. It's easy for editing and it's real time, so teams can work on content assets while discussing it on Skype or in a Slack group. 2. HARO and MyBlogU to collect useful quotes from niche experts and influencers. 3. Plagiarism Check to quickly check for any instances of copied content. This is especially important if you have new writers. Believe it or not, but many writers would just copy some parts of content (these could be too long quotes) without realizing it's not an advisable digital content marketing tactic. 4. Use an effective social media sharing solutionIt's very important to engage your content writing team into the marketing routine. It's obvious that they will be much more excited at seeing their articles succeed (after doing their brainstorming, research and writing tasks) than the social media team who may see the completed content assets for the first time. Thus it's essential to have a unified multi-user cross-channel social media sharing and scheduling solution that would enable cross team marketing incentives. I use DrumUp to scale my social media marketing tasks. It has all the features I need:
5. Use a marketing dashboard to monitor statsCyfe is a great customizable all in one business management software that allows you to create your own widgets to handle any aspect of your business, all for $19 per month. For higher-level content marketing stats monitoring I use the following boards:
6. Use productive communication tools that spur creativityProperly set-up communication between your remote employees helps creativity, experience exchange and marketing collaboration. It also helps your brand consistency because your team can properly discuss every content asset before they start working on it. Slack is an awesome communication tool that lets you create channels and speak to different groups, or on different topics. Think of it as a more professional version of Discord. There's one reason I prefer Slack over emailing: It gives a centralized platform for your team communication but unlike a project management solution, Slack fosters a more relaxed environment which is so important for creative teams. Slack helps creativity and gives writers a place to brainstorm freely without being accused of cluttering the board. Create your super team!Don't let your workforce get limited by borders. These days we have tools in place that empower you to build the content marketing team of your dream without investing time and money into moving everyone into a single office. How are you managing your remote content marketing employees? Adobe Advertising Cloud named a leader in Forrester's Omnichannel Demand-Side Platforms report
5/31/2017
More and more often, we hear marketers who work with multiple advertising-technology vendors, complaining about how difficult it is for them to reconcile disparate platforms and efficiently manage their ad-spend across channels. According to the latest Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) Digital Advertising Report 2017, 41 percent of marketers work with three or more media-buying platforms, three or more media-planning platforms, and three or more analytics platforms. All these platforms make it operationally challenging for advertisers to manage their audiences' reaches, de-duplicate conversions in reporting, and efficiently plan their ad budgets across channels and devices. Many advertisers are realizing that they need fully integrated, cross-channel, media-buying platforms as part of their ad-tech stacks - one platform to rule them all, with unparalleled access to all paid advertising channels. Adobe Advertising Cloud - One Platform to Rule Them All. Combining the capabilities of Adobe Media Optimizer with those of recently acquired TubeMogul - a leader in The Forrester Wave: Video Advertising Demand-Side Platforms, Q4 2015 Report - Adobe Advertising Cloud was named a leader in The Forrester Wave: Omnichannel Demand-Side Platforms, Q2 2017 Report, achieving the highest score possible in product strategy (5 out of 5) and the top score in digital-ecosystem footprint (4 out of 5) criteria. The TubeMogul acquisition was pivotal in fulfilling Adobe's vision for being the industry's first omnichannel media-buying platform, as the report notes that Adobe Advertising Cloud is the only vendor that has gained access to all paid advertising channels. Complete Integrated Stack for Delivering Ad Experiences Across Channels. We are excited to see Adobe Advertising Cloud designated as a leader, and we believe this recognition further validates our position as the industry's only end-to-end platform for full-funnel ad-buying. The post Adobe Advertising Cloud named a leader in Forrester's Omnichannel Demand-Side Platforms report appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe. Do you feel like you and your boss are on the same page most days of the week? If you nodded "yes" emphatically, that's fantastic. But many readers might have a different opinion. In fact, a recent HubSpot survey revealed that while 70% of executives might reflect positively on their team's marketing strategy, only 50% of individual contributors agree. As a marketer, it's imperative to communicate effectively with your boss to avoid this executive divide. I wanted to create communication rules that all marketers can follow, so I went straight to the source for some answers and talked to my own boss. I interviewed Rick Kranz about effective communication with his marketing team. He has more than 30 years of business management experience and was more than willing to share his opinions with us. Read on for his thoughts and key takeaways about communication strategies between managers and employees. 8 Rules for Communicating With Your Boss1) Start with the bottom line.I asked Kranz what he thinks is the most effective way for your marketing team to talk to you.
What does this mean?Don't beat around the bush. Your boss is a busy person and you need to respect that. Give her the point of your discussion first, then go backward if questions are proposed. This will keep your communication streamlined and focused. 2) Speak in numbers.I asked Kranz if he prefers the bottom line to be in numerical or qualitative data, and if he prefers to hear about the bottom line or have a document or graph to guide the information.
What does this mean?Numbers are powerful because they can communicate success (or problems) at a glance. Use them to your advantage when communicating with your boss -- numerical data speaks for itself. 3) Schedule when you communicate with your boss.Next, I asked Kranz if he prefers discussions with his marketing team to be scheduled in advance.
What does this mean?We all can attest to the fact that writing back and forth via email can get messy, so try not to fill your boss's inbox with email after email from you. Instead, schedule meetings with your boss to avoid messy lines of email communication and walk-in office interruptions. This will help streamline your communications and save valuable time. 4) Establish the that you have certain "rights" to communication.I asked Kranz if he limits the number of employees that he communicates with directly.
What does this mean?Do you have the right to speak with your boss? Of course -- we all have that right. But that doesn't always make for effective communication. If you have concerns you want to address with your boss, but you're not the main point of contact with her, you should bring your concerns to your direct supervisor. This person will address your concerns with you, or take it up the food chain to your boss. 5) Communicate the anticipated results and next steps of your plans to your boss.Next, we chatted about how Kranz wants to discuss future plans and goals with employees.
What does this mean?Communicate your plans effectively by addressing what the plan is, what the results will be and what the next steps are. If you bring these talking points to the table, you'll be organized, and your plan will be well spoken for. 6) Bring problems to your boss's attention right away.If a problem emerges, Kranz wants his team to bring it to him right away.
What does this mean?Don't skulk away when a problem pops up or a mistake occurs. Respond to it proactively, and don't keep your boss in the dark. Communicate your own proposed solutions when you present the problem so you and your boss have a basis to start a problem-solving conversation. 7) There's a right time and place to promote your achievements.I asked Kranz how he prefers achievements and success be brought to his attention by direct reports.
What does this mean?We all love to brag about what we do well, but there's a time and place to do it. Your work will speak for itself if you're bringing in the type of results your boss is looking for. Then, you can get on your podium and share your achievements when you present reports to your boss or allocate time for success stories at the end of a meeting. 8) All business-related topics are noteworthy.Kranz doesn't believe there are any topics that would hinder effective communication between an employee and his or her boss.
What does this mean:Speak to your boss about business topics that concern you, or any particular success-related stories. Communicating feedback on what is going on in your business environment is an effective way for your boss to see a full picture of the company from someone else's perspective, so don't hold back. Communication Is a Two-Way StreetEffective communication with your boss starts with you. You need to approach it a certain way for the conversation to be as productive as possible, so you can minimize the divide between executive and individual contributor perceptions across companies. To learn more about the global state of marketing and sales industries, download the 2017 State of Inbound report today. What are your strategies for communication effectively with your boss at work? Share with us in the comments below. Editor's Note: This post was originally published in June 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness. Posted by PPCKirk I have been chewing on a keyword vs. audience targeting post for roughly two years now. In that time we have seen audience targeting grow in popularity (as expected) and depth. Popularity is somewhat of an understatement here. I would go so far as to say that I've heard it lauded in messianic-like thy kingdom come, thy will be done reverential awe by some paid search marketers. as if paid search were lacking a heartbeat before the life-giving audience targeting had arrived and 1-2-3-clear'ed it into relevance. However, I would argue that despite audience targeting's popularity (and understandable success), we have also seen the revelation of some weaknesses as well. It turns out it's not quite the heroic, rescue-the-captives targeting method paid searchers had hoped it would be. The purpose of this post is to argue against the notion that audience targeting can replace the keyword in paid search. Now, before we get into the throes of keyword philosophy, I'd like to reduce the number of angry comments this post receives by acknowledging a crucial point. It is not my intention in any way to set up a false dichotomy. Yes, I believe the keyword is still the most valuable form of targeting for a paid search marketer, but I also believe that audience targeting can play a valuable complementary role in search bidding. In fact, as I think about it, I would argue that I am writing this post in response to what I have heard become a false dichotomy. That is, that audience targeting is better than keyword targeting and will eventually replace it. I disagree with this idea vehemently, as I will demonstrate in the rest of this article. One seasoned (age, not steak) traditional marketer's point of viewThe best illustration I've heard on the core weakness of audience targeting was from an older traditional marketer who has probably never accessed the Keyword Planner in his life. I have two teenage daughters. He revealed, with no small amount of pride. They are within 18 months of each other, so in age demographic targeting they are the same person. They are both young women, so in gender demographic targeting they are the same person. They are both my daughters in my care, so in income demographic targeting they are the same person. They are both living in my house, so in geographical targeting they are the same person. They share the same friends, so in social targeting they are the same person. However, in terms of personality, they couldn't be more different. One is artistic and enjoys heels and dresses and makeup. The other loves the outdoors and sports, and spends her time in blue jeans and sneakers. If an audience-targeting marketer selling spring dresses saw them in his marketing list, he would (1) see two older high school girls with the same income in the same geographical area, (2) assume they are both interested in what he has to sell, and (3) only make one sale. The problem isn't with his targeting, the problem is that not all those forced into an audience persona box will fit. In September of 2015, Aaron Levy (a brilliant marketing mind; go follow him) wrote a fabulously under-shared post revealing these weaknesses in another way: What You Think You Know About Your Customers' Persona is Wrong In this article, Aaron first bravely broaches the subject of audience targeting by describing how it is far from the exact science we all have hoped it to be. He noted a few ways that audience targeting can be erroneous, and even *gasp* used data to formulate his conclusions. It's OK to question audience targeting - really!Let me be clear: I believe audience targeting is popular because there genuinely is value in it (it's amazing data to have when it's accurate!). The insights we can get about personas, which we can then use to power our ads, are quite amazing and powerful. So, why the heck am I droning on about audience targeting weaknesses? Well, I'm trying to set you up for something. I'm trying to get us to admit that audience targeting itself has some weaknesses, and isn't the savior of all digital marketing that some make it out to be, and that there is a tried-and-true solution that fits well with demographic targeting, but is not replaced by it. It is a targeting that we paid searchers have used joyfully and successfully for years now. It is the keyword. Whereas audience targeting chafes under the law of averages (i.e., at some point, someone in my demographic targeted list has to actually be interested in what I am selling), keyword targeting shines in individual-revealing user intent. Keyword targeting does something an audience can never, ever, ever do... Keywords: Personal intent powerhousesA keyword is still my favorite form of targeting in paid search because it reveals individual, personal, and temporal intent. Those aren't just three buzzwords I pulled out of the air because I needed to stretch this already obesely-long post out further. They are intentional, and worth exploring. IndividualA keyword is such a powerful targeting method because it is written (or spoken!) by a single person. I mean, let's be honest, it's rare to have more than one person huddled around the computer shouting at it. Keywords are generally from the mind of one individual, and because of that they have frightening potential. Remember, audience targeting is based off of assumptions. That is, you're taking a group of people who probably think the same way in a certain area, but does that mean they cannot have unique tastes? For instance, one person preferring to buy sneakers with another preferring to buy heels? Keyword targeting is demographic-blind. It doesn't care who you are, where you're from, what you did, as long as you love me err, I mean, it doesn't care about your demographic, just about what you're individually interested in. PersonalThe next aspect of keywords powering their targeting awesomeness is that they reveal personal intent. Whereas the individual aspect of keyword targeting narrows our targeting from a group of people to a single person, the personal aspect of keyword targeting goes into the very mind of that individual. Don't you wish there was a way to market to people in which you could truly discern the intentions of their hearts? Wouldn't that be a powerful method of targeting? Well, yes - and that is keyword targeting! Think about it: a keyword is a form of communication. It is a person typing or telling you what is on their mind. For a split second, in their search, you and they are as connected through communication as Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson on the first phone call. That person is revealing to you what's on her mind, and that's a power which cannot be underestimated. When a person tells Google they want to know how does someone earn a black belt, that is telling your client - the Jumping Judo Janes of Jordan - this person genuinely wants to learn more about their services and they can display an ad that matches that intent (Ready for that Black Belt? It's Not Hard, Let Us Help!). Paid search keywords officiate the wedding of personal intent with advertising in a way that previous marketers could only dream of. We aren't finding random people we think might be interested based upon where they live. We are responding to a person telling us they are interested. TemporalThe final note of keyword targeting that cannot be underestimated, is the temporal aspect. Anyone worth their salt in marketing can tell you timing is everything. With keyword targeting, the timing is inseparable from the intent. When is this person interested in learning about your Judo classes? At the time they are searching, NOW! You are not blasting your ads into your users lives, interrupting them as they go about their business or family time hoping to jumpstart their interest by distracting them from their activities. You are responding to their query, at the very time they are interested in learning more. Timing. Is. Everything. The situation settles into stickinessThus, to summarize: a search is done when an individual reveals his/her personal intent with communication (keywords/queries) at a specific time. Because of that, I maintain that keyword targeting trumps audience targeting in paid search. Paid search is an evolving industry, but it is still search, which requires communication, which requires words (until that time when the emoji takes over the English language, but that's okay because the rioting in the streets will have gotten us first). Of course, we would be remiss in ignoring some legitimate questions which inevitably arise. As ideal as the outline I've laid out before you sounds, you're probably beginning to formulate something like the following four questions.
We'll close by discussing each of these four questions. Low search volume terms (LSVs)Low search volume keywords stink like poo (excuse the rather strong language there). I'm not sure if there is any data on this out there (if so, please share it below), but I have run into low search volume terms far more in the past year than when I first started managing PPC campaigns in 2010. I don't know all the reasons for this; perhaps it's worth another blog post, but the reality is it's getting harder to be creative and target high-value long-tail keywords when so many are getting shut off due to low search volume. This seems like a fairly smooth way being paved for Google/Bing to eventually take over (i.e., automate for our good) keyword targeting, at the very least for SMBs (small-medium businesses) where LSVs can be a significant problem. In this instance, the keyword would still be around, it just wouldn't be managed by us PPCers directly. Boo. Search engine decreesI've already addressed the power search engines have here, but I will be the first to admit that, as much as I like keyword targeting and as much as I have hopefully proven how valuable it is, it still would be a fairly easy thing for Google or Bing to kill off completely. Major boo. Since paid search relies on keywords and queries and language to work, I imagine this would look more like an automated solution (think DSAs and shopping), in which they make keyword targeting into a dynamic system that works in conjunction with audience targeting. While this was about a year and a half ago, it is worth noting that at Hero Conference in London, Bing Ads' ebullient Tor Crockett did make the public statement that Bing at the time had no plans to sunset the keyword as a bidding option. We can only hope this sentiment remains, and transfers over to Google as well. But Internet of Things (IoT) Frankenstein devices!Finally, it could be that search engines won't be around forever. Perhaps this will look like IoT devices such as Alexa that incorporate some level of search into them, but pull traffic away from using Google/Bing search bars. As an example of this in real life, you don't need to ask Google where to find (queries, keywords, communication, search) the best price on laundry detergent if you can just push the Dash button, or your smart washing machine can just order you more without a search effort. On the other hand, I still believe we're a long way off from this in the same way that the freak-out over mobile devices killing personal computers has slowed down. That is, we still utilize our computers for education & work (even if personal usage revolves around tablets and mobile devices and IoT freaks-of-nature smart toasters anyone?) and our mobile devices for queries on the go. Computers are still a primary source of search in terms of work and education as well as more intensive personal activities (vacation planning, for instance), and thus computers still rely heavily on search. Mobile devices are still heavily query-centered for various tasks, especially as voice search (still query-centered!) kicks in harder. The social effectSocial is its own animal in a way, and why I believe it is already and will continue to have an effect on search and keywords (though not in a terribly worrisome way). Social definitely pulls a level of traffic from search, specifically in product queries. Who has used this dishwasher before, any other recommendations? Social ads are exploding in popularity as well, and in large part because they are working. People are purchasing more than they ever have from social ads and marketers are rushing to be there for them. The flip side of this: a social and paid search comparison is apples-to-oranges. There are different motivations and purposes for using search engines and querying your friends. Audience targeting works great in a social setting since that social network has phenomenally accurate and specific targeting for individuals, but it is the rare individual curious about the ideal condom to purchase who queries his family and friends on Facebook. There will always be elements of social and search that are unique and valuable in their own way, and audience targeting for social and keyword targeting for search complement those unique elements of each. Idealism incarnateThus, it is my belief that as long as we have search, we will still have keywords and keyword targeting will be the best way to target - as long as costs remain low enough to be realistic for budgets and the search engines don't kill keyword bidding for an automated solution. Don't give up, the keyword is not dead. Stay focused, and carry on with your match types! I want to close by re-acknowledging the crucial point I opened with. It has not been my intention in any way to set up a false dichotomy. In fact, as I think about it, I would argue that I am writing this in response to what I have heard become a false dichotomy. That is, that audience targeting is better than keyword targeting and will eventually replace it I believe the keyword is still the most valuable form of targeting for a paid search marketer, but I also believe that audience demographics can play a valuable complementary role in bidding. A prime example that we already use is remarketing lists for search ads, in which we can layer on remarketing audiences in both Google and Bing into our search queries. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could someday do this with massive amounts of audience data? I've said this before, but were Bing Ads to use its LinkedIn acquisition to allow us to layer on LinkedIn audiences into our current keyword framework, the B2B angels would surely rejoice over us (Bing has responded, by the way, that something is in the works!). Either way, I hope I've demonstrated that far from being on its deathbed, the keyword is still the most essential tool in the paid search marketer's toolbox. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |