Content Marketing Blog

A Look at the Oscars 2012—Thumbs Up for the Screenplay Writers!

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 21:26:00 GMT

A Look at the Oscars 2012—Thumbs Up for the Screenplay Writers!

Once again, it was the biggest night in Hollywood and people everywhere sat glued to watch the 84th Academy Awards last night. The usual red carpet action and accompanied oohing and aahing over designer costumes started off the evening. Billy Crystal, yet again, got the audience to sit up and take notice of his stage entry and subsequent song-and-dance performance. The man is funny...and with a straight face! A brilliant sequence by Cirque Du Soleil mid-way through the evening added even more pizzazz to this glitz and glamour affair.

Then of course, you had the actual awards ceremony with some pleasant surprises like a silent film (The Artist) winning the Best Motion Picture award and some not so surprising awards like Meryl Streep winning Best Actress in a Leading Role for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

Chris Rock, the voice of Marty the zebra in the animated film(s), Madagascar, in his own, hilarious way, busted the myth about animation films being difficult for an actor. Watch the clip here.

The words that really caught our interest though, was Angelina Jolie’s comment about the screenplay writers who “make everything look so easy” with the way they write. Our team of writers here at MintCopy could not help but feel happy at the compliments being paid to writers, even though we are nowhere close to Hollywood nor do we write screenplays.

It can be hard for an audience to look behind the “curtain” of a website or a blog and appreciate all the hard work that goes into producing content that is so easy to read. We know we’ll never win an Oscar-like award, but we love it when the writers’ community gets noticed. Cheers Angie (and we won’t comment on your right leg that the whole world is tweeting about right now)!

How A Skilled SEO Writer Can Make a Difference

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:24:00 GMT

How A Skilled SEO Writer Can Make a Difference

Did you know that when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) the words and content on each page of your corporate website are as vital as the stuff on the back end? That’s right. Search engines rank content not just based on the meta data coded into each page, but also by the copy and content that’s sitting right on the actual page. Content that visitors see is vital to your on-page SEO effectiveness.

Getting the right balance between your front end and your back end content can boost your SEO. Getting a keyword analysis should be the first step you take before developing any copy on your blog or website. Once the analysis is complete and you have a list, one of the most effective ways to check your SEO writer’s work is to do so against this list.

Say that you’re the owner of a sporting goods store. You may sell running shoes, soccer equipment, golf clubs, and kayaks. You have a professional firm conduct a keyword analysis and you find out that although these items are among your highest selling items, people are searching and finding your website based upon searches for yoga mats and racquetball equipment. To drive more of this traffic to your site and to continue to rank high among search engines, you’ll want to fine-tune the copy that is on website for your highest ranked keywords. In this instance, it would be beneficial to get the SEO writer to not only tailor the website copy to the keyword list, but also to write a few blog entries and perhaps the copy for an e-newsletter on the most popular terms.

Remember: a good SEO writer will know the correct ratio of keywords to have in your content. More importantly, the most desired (i.e. traffic generating) keywords will be included in the copy in a relevant and reader-friendly manner. Stuffing copy with keywords makes it meaningless to the readers and suspicious to search engine spiders!

Why it Makes Sense to Have a Content Marketing Consultant

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:30:00 GMT

Why it Makes Sense to Have a Content Marketing Consultant

We hope you’re a firm believer in the value of content marketing. If you are, you know how important it is to deliver relevant and valuable content to your most important current and prospective customers. Good content marketing makes a person stop… read… think… behave… differently.

Do you have good answers to some of these questions?

• Do you have a clearly-defined content marketing strategy in place?
• Do you know what search engine optimization is and how to do it?
• Do you know how to leverage social media for business?
• Do you know how blogging can benefit your company?
• Do you have the ability to generate, produce, and market content such as videos, blogs, podcasts, and webinars?
• Do you know how to engage your audience via email marketing? Do you know how to do a split-test broadcast? What’s the trick to avoid being caught by spam filters?
• Do you understand web analytics? Know how to analyze the data for website optimization purposes?

If not, you need to use the services of a good content marketing consultant help you take advantage of the massive shifts that have occurred in business, marketing, and technology.

From blogging to articles to press releases, a Content Marketing consultant can help plan, create and promote digital content to better reach new and existing customers on the search and social web.

A qualified and experienced Content Marketing Consultant can help your company:

• Increase visibility across major search engines
• Improve the reach of your content and its distribution
• Connect content with customer-centric needs resulting in heightened engagement and sales
• Coordinate editorial schedules with topical keyword research and ensure that the content created is what customers are actually interested in.
• Monitor performance of search and social media centric content for ongoing refinement.
• Provide insights from analytics that will throw light on editorial interests, enhance promotion and increase engagement.
• Content curation - blending a mix of new content with the filtering and management of useful information streams from blogs and other RSS resources.

Save yourself the time and effort involved in reading, reviewing, researching, writing and trying to market your own content. Leave that to a trained Content Marketing Consultant who can deliver great results through strategic planning, skilful implementation and regular monitoring. You can focus instead on managing your business and improving performance overall.

R.I.P. Traditional Media; Get Ready for the Content Media Revolution

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 22:29:00 GMT

R.I.P. Traditional Media; Get Ready for the Content Media Revolution

Smarter than ever, consumers are more interested in your message than the shock and awe marketing tactics from years gone by. Consider how the majority of your audience retrieves information. In the past newspaper and T.V. ads were king and most consumers discovered retailers and companies leafing through the morning paper or while watching their favorite sitcom.

Today, this couldn’t be further from the case. The modern-day consumer hardly notices newspaper and T.V. ads but doesn’t have time to sit through a two minute ad or thumb through a paper newspaper. Unless you are the Old Spice man sitting backwards on a horse, it’s going to be difficult to cut through the clutter.

However, thanks to the Internet, consumers want their information delivered directly, clearly and as quickly as possible. Your audience seeks to glean everything they need to know from a concisely written, highly informative website or online news source. Fancy advertising with lots of flash and graphics are in the past. Busy lives going at break neck speed is what the majority of consumers are dealing with and they require their information to accommodate their lifestyle.

Consider these online media trends:

Social media is currently the most powerful way to reach and cultivate consumers
Mobile content solutions are emerging into the marketing forefront
Paper news sources are out and most people obtain their news and information through e-newsletters or online newspapers
Blogs, containing useful and educational material rank as highly as e-newsletters or online newspapers
While in-person appearances and events are still vital, online content marketing outranks one-on-one contact in terms of marketing
Print magazines and print newsletters rank lowest on the food chain of effective marketing strategies

The public is screaming for a tidal wave of ongoing, intelligent online content and companies are struggling to keep up with consumers’ thirst. In many cases, supplying daily content will quench your target audience’s desire for information and capture their attention; however being able to supply crisp, sharp content poses an extreme challenge for many companies.

Understanding the psychology and structure of content marketing takes more than stringing a few sentences together to discuss your product, service or topic. Content marketing requires that the writer has the right training (like a degree in journalism), coupled with experience in SEO (search engine optimization) strategies and online marketing in order to be successful.

In amateur hands, the damage can be irreversible. Too often, companies still deplete their marketing budget on other vehicles, leaving content as a last minute after thought. The result is a confusing, poorly communicated message which leaves the consumer in the dark and often turned off about the product.

With the shift in importance, entrepreneurial marketers are turning to professional content marketers to help them herald their message. Using informative, interesting and creative content, content marketers are able to pull the reader into their world - spark the consumer’s curiosity and heighten their attraction to the product, service or message.

Don’t get left in the dark ages of marketing — let your old marketing strategies rest in peace.

Instead, generate excitement about your business with a professional content marketer like MintCopy, Inc. Our team of highly educated marketers and writers know how to effectively position your brand in order to attain the highest return on investment.

Contact the leader in social media and online writing. Call MintCopy, Inc. at 888-646-8003 or send an email to results@mintcopy.com.

Have a comment to share about your experience with content media marketing? We’d love to hear from you on our blog.

Content Marketing Dominates 2010 Marketing Budgets

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:02:00 GMT

Welcome to the MintCopy Blog. Your online resource for trends, insights and the latest news in the world of content marketing!

According to the “2010 Content Marketing Spending Survey” by content marketing research agency, Junta42; marketers are clearly intending to dedicate more of their marketing budget to content marketing than ever.

For three years in a row, the slice of the marketing budget pie has gotten bigger and bigger. In 2008, marketers reported dedicating 42% of their marketing budget to content marketing. This figure rose in 2009 to 56% and today to 59%.* Obviously, something is going on in the world of marketing to prompt more and more marketers to focus on content marketing.

With the global population constantly “on the go,” how is a marketer going to reach someone who is moving at the speed of light? Content marketing appears to be the answer. Social and mobile media are on the rise as consumers have less and less time to sit in one place to listen to messages. The average consumer is absorbing information 24 hours a day, from multiple sources. However a powerful message, exposed through online content media is what will stick with the consumer for the longest amount of time.

Knowing this, marketing professionals are re-allocating their resources accordingly. From a recent survey, Junta42 gathered candid information from several large, medium and smaller companies and learned:

• Today, content marketing is consuming up to 33% of their total budget, up 4% from last year
• Smaller companies are dedicating more money toward content marketing than large companies—small companies (less than 99 employees) are spending 40% of their total budget whereas large companies (more than 100 employees) have allocated an average of 18% of their budget
• 75% of all marketer survey participants said that social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter is where they plan to dedicate most of their efforts
• 6 out of 10 of the marketers had both blogs and e-newsletters
• 10% of the marketers are leveraging their content through mobile applications

Marketers felt that they were well educated in many of the content marketing areas, with the exception of mobile content solutions, which increased 63% from 2009 to 2010.

As with any marketing effort, using your dollars wisely is the best way to reap a high return on your investment. Although marketing through social and mobile media channels is rewarding, maintaining a constant, information flow of copy and interest can be challenging.

Because of our fast-paced lifestyles, many consumers check social media and online resources several times a day, searching for updates and needing the newest and latest information at their disposal. Stale content is one that lingers for more than one day in many cases, so populating your status, blog, newsletter or website can prove to be an almost impossible task.

That’s where professional content marketing and online writing houses can help. These highly trained professional writers can keep the snappy, crisp content flowing and help you attract and retain your audience. You can stay ahead of the game using a company like MintCopy, Inc. for example. From blogs to social media posts, the professionals at MintCopy have the education, experience and resources to position your brand to be a leader in your industry.

We would love to hear from you so please post comments on our blog.

* Junta42 surveyed 259 companies throughout North America from a variety of industries, fields and disciplines.