A common Thanksgiving tradition in my house is for everyone to go around the table and have each person share one thing that they are most thankful for. While we didn’t go around the lunch table here at Aztek, all the teams agreed we have much to be thankful for professionally.
First, of course, are our great partners who give us their complete trust and allow us the freedom to be innovative in the way we implement strategies to help achieve their business objectives. As part of the web marketing team, I am thankful for a number of resources which keep us up-to-date on new techniques and trends along with providing tools that keep us effective and efficient.
Instead of keeping these for ourselves, we thought we would share some of these great tools we use. After all, content is all about sharing valuable information! So grab a turkey leg and dig in!
- Evernote:
This handy application gives you a place to collect and manage project to-do lists, notes and any other piece of information you need to keep handy. You can access it via tablet, mobile, website or on your desktop. When an idea hits (like it did for this blog post) I can jot down a few notes, sync it with my accounts and develop the concept later when I have time to think. Notes can be tagged, making them easy to categorize and browse.
- Copyblogger:
A one-stop-shop for news, tools, tips and training for an effective content marketing strategy. The people at Copyblogger are "eating their own dog food" when it comes to content marketing; continually giving out useful information on executing a results-driven inbound web strategy. They cover tons of topics from writing, to email and keyword research. If you are looking ramp up your website's content strategy, create your account and start digging into their many great resources.
- Buyer Personas:
In order for us to help a partner establish an effective content strategy, it is critical that we clearly define who we are speaking to. We use buyer personas to identify common demographic characteristics, needs, pain points, goals and buying habits. This exercise helps us develop content that is interesting, engaging and useful to each group that might be interested in buying from you.
- Moz Analytics:
A marketing analytics tool which helps analyze opportunities to help our partners generate more revenue through their websites. It has a range of tools which help evaluate pages for good content, identify keyword opportunities and alert us to any mentions of your brand-good or bad.
- Google Analytics:
With Google limiting the amount of organic data it provides, this tool has undergone some changes in the last few months. However, there is still useful information on how visitors are interacting and engaging with the site. This data helps us determine what content is valuable and helpful in conversions, or where there is room from improvement.
- Content Marketing World:
The content marketing industry's biggest event, hosted by Content Marketing Institute (another great resource-its the .5 of this list). The best way to describe this event is that is like Disneyland for marketers, with a touch of rock 'n roll excitement (the opening session was at the Rock Hall this past year and I met Rick Springfield the year before...pretty cool.) It brings together all the great strategists, practitioners and latest techniques for learning of epic proportions (did I mention William Shatner was there this year?!). The best part is that you can actually USE the information the speakers share at this conference. With various tracks to cater to a variety of marketers-agencies, small companies, large brands, B2B, B2C, beginner, intermediate and advanced, everyone can leave with an entire Evernote notebook of ideas you can immediately implement to improve the way your company connects with customers.
- Hummingbird:
Wait, what? I admit this one may seem a little unorthodox considering the amount of challenges it has created to marketers this year. Companies now have to truly offer useful, engaging information to visitors as Hummingbird uses content and context together for a better user search experience. Those which simply stuff their websites with meaningless keywords will end up as leftovers to those who add content as the main ingredient in their marketing strategy.
I invite you to explore all of these great resources and try them for yourself. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn about each of our partners businesses and develop programs which establish them as the leaders in their industries. Comment below and let us know what helps you reach your business objectives or what things just make your life a little easier!
Image Credit:
Creative commons image: Wikimedia Commons
