Our answer is the same: WordPress.

And here’s why. We could call John’s article: “The reasons to ditch whatever else you are using.”

This material  originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com.

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25 Reasons Your Business Should Switch to WordPress

by John Rampton

Originally launched in 2003, WordPress has become perhaps the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world. Today, WordPress is used by more than 74 million sites that publish new posts every second. No matter the size of the blog that is using WordPress. This widely used CMS has become a favorite among businesses because of how powerful of a tool it is. Just how powerful is WordPress exactly? Check out the following 25 reasons why your business should switch to WordPress and you’ll see why.

1. It’s free.

Whether you’re a blogger or just launching a new online business, the fact that WordPress is 100 percent free is extremely beneficial. Best of all, you never have to worry about hidden charges if your site becomes more popular than expected. WordPress will always be free for you to use.

On top of that, WordPress is also open source. This means that you can improve or alter the source code to create the right site for your needs.

2. Powerful right out of the box.

Unlike other content management systems, WordPress is ready to use immediately after installation. This means that you don’t have to “hunt down, install, and configure a long-list of add-ons just to get many of the features WordPress considers core (comments, RSS feeds, revisions, etc.).”

3. Flexible.

The flexibility of WordPress is another feature that can’t be topped. No matter what you’re using WordPress for – whether as a personal blog or to a popular ecommerce site, WordPress is versatile enough to meet any and all of your needs through its extensive features and extensions.

4. Search engine friendly.

The most popular search engines actually prefer sites that are powered by WordPress because its framework is easy to crawl. In fact, Google’s Matt Cutts actually endorsed WordPress during WordCamp San Francisco 2009. His personal blog is on WordPress.

5. Safe and secure.

Since WordPress is such a popular CMS, it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s a target for hackers. However, WordPress takes the security of its users very seriously. While you can practice some basic security measures, such as not downloading a theme or plugin from an untrusted site, WordPress constantly updates its software to prevent attacks. In fact, WordPress has an automatic update feature ever since the release of version 3.7.

Related: The 7 WordPress Plugins Your Site Needs to Succeed

6. Customizable.

Because of the thousands of plugins and themes that WordPress has offer, with just one click of a button you can customize your site to appear and function as you would like. Furthermore, because of the seemingly endless number of features that WordPress has to offer, you can create the website or blog that you’ve always wanted.

7. Easy to use.

Another great perk of using WordPress is how easy it is to use. The platform is user-friendly, intuitive and easy to learn. In fact, you can learn how to use WordPress in a matter of minutes. No wonder WordPress is known for its famous “5-Minute Install.”

8. Lots of support.

WordPress also comes with unprecedented support. This is in part to the extensive WordPress community where you can troubleshoot any question or concern through the WordPress Forums.

9. Hosts multimedia.

The addition of images, video or audio files is a great way to enhance the experience of your users. Thankfully, WordPress makes it easy for you to insert multimedia files into a page or post. Not only is it easy for you to upload multimedia files, you can also edit files, like images, while in the Media Library Screen.

10. Mobile friendly.

It’s more important than ever for a website to be mobile friendly to accommodate smartphones and tablets. With WordPress, however, you don’t have to be concerned over that. It’s already mobile friendly, thanks to many of the themes being responsive.

11. Integration.

WordPress integrates with some of the most powerful platforms available to give your business that additional boost. Need to launch an email campaign? You can use a service like Aweber or MailChimp. Want to get paid for a product or service? WordPress can work with some of the most popular payment gateways in the world.

12. Easy to manage.

As mentioned earlier, WordPress is equipped with a built-in updater for security purposes. However, WordPress also notifies you whenever there are updates for your themes and plugins. This makes managing your WordPress site a breeze, since you’ll always be current on the latest updates. That will keep your site safe and fresh.

13. More than just a blog.

While WordPress earned its reputation as a great blogging platform that can be inserted into an existing website, WordPress itself can be used as a website. Because WordPress contains a post and page structure, you can have daily blog posts, as well as static pages – such as your Contact or About pages.

14. Establishes a community.

Whether it’s by sharing your blog posts on social media networks or by communicating with visitors in the comments section, WordPress has the features and plugins to make the establishment of a community convenient and easy.

15. Saves you money.

Remember, WordPress is a free software. However, that’s not the only area where you’ll save money. Because WordPress is open source and user-friendly, you won’t have to hire web designers or technicians to launch or maintain your WordPress site.

16. Numerous ecommerce solutions.

Since you’re using WordPress for your business, then you will be happy to know that there are a number of ecommerce solutions that will convert your site into an all-out digital store. By using plugins like WooCommerce, WP eCommerce or Shopp you can easily begin to make money online.

Related: More Than 100,000 WordPress Websites Reportedly Infected by Russian Malware

17. You’re not committed to one hosting provider.

If you need to switch a provider or host, either because they can’t handle traffic or you’re just frustrated with them, you can do it without experiencing much downtown. This is because WordPress works with pretty much every server. If you need to make the switch, I recommend that you review the following article from WPBeginner. There are several free WordPress hosting options as well.

18. Keeps your site looking fresh.

Whether you need to update your theme because you’ve had it for too long or you’re looking to take advantage of something like the holiday season, there are thousands of free themes to choose from. By doing this you’re keeping the appearance of your WordPress site fresh for your customers.

19. Can be used as a membership service.

If you want to continue to grow a loyal fan base, and maybe even make some additional income, then you can convert WordPress into a full-fledged membership site. When you create an exclusive membership site you’re providing members exclusive content they will find useful. If you want to create a membership site, you should look over this article by Nina Cross on DIYthemes.

20. Schedule posts.

Running a business is an extremely time-consuming task. However, WordPress can free up some additional time by giving you the ability to schedule posts in advance. This means that whenever you complete a post, you can schedule it during whatever time best suits you and your customers. For example, if you have discovered that the most traffic comes to your site between 12pm to 1pm on weekdays, then you could schedule posts around that time.

21. Multi-user capability.

There’s a very good possibility that you’ll have to rely on multiple people to keep your site up and running. WordPress is aware of this and has made it easy for you to assign different roles for different individuals. Here is a summary of these roles from WordPress Codex:

• Super Admin – somebody with access to the site network administration features and all other features. See the Create a Network article.
• Administrator – somebody who has access to all the administration features within a single site.
• Editor – somebody who can publish and manage posts including the posts of other users.
• Author – somebody who can publish and manage their own posts.
• Contributor – somebody who can write and manage their own posts but cannot publish them.
• Subscriber – somebody who can only manage their profile.

22. Add testimonials.

Assure potential customers that your products or services are worth the investment by including testimonials on your site. You can add this effective technique by installing a plugin like Easy Testimonials or the Testimonials Widget.

23. Publish content with one-click.

Have you just written an article or blog post that you need to publish immediately? No problem. After creating your amazing content, you can publish it with just the click of one-button. Furthermore, there are even a number of mobile apps that allow you to publish your WordPress content no matter where you are.

24. Universal platform.

WordPress features a universal platform. The WordPress dashboard always looks the same – no matter what you’re using WordPress for. You don’t need to hire experts or spend an excessive amount of time trying to figure out how to use WordPress. In fact, anyone with some sort of general PHP and MySQL experience can use WordPress immediately.

25. WordPress keeps getting better.

Because WordPress hires top-notch developers, you can be certain that WordPress is only going to get better as time goes on. Also, because WordPress is open source, any developer can enhance the user experience so that it can become the best CMS available.

WordPress can be one of the best platforms for your business.  Ever since I switch my personal and business sites to WordPress a couple years ago I have found out how powerful it can be. You can do literally everything with WordPress. I highly recommend that you switch today!

Much has been written about the importance of brands embracing storytelling — or, at the very least, becoming better at creating more dynamic audience-facing narratives. The goal of advanced content marketing is to enhance a brand’s ability to influence behavior through sustained content creation, fundamentally changing how audiences perceive that brand.

This progressive approach to operationalizing editorial content has driven many marketing teams to start evolving into newsrooms.

But while some businesses are modernizing their approaches to content, many more are struggling to get meaningful start-up investments to market. The marketing innovation investments being made today are heavily focused on the digital channel — in programmatic ad buying processes and big data in particular. But this may be shortsighted, as even a limited investment in content marketing can yield critical big-data insights that can enhance marketers’ overall efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, it’s my assertion that any serious investment in data-based ad buying should be coupled with some investment in content as well — it’s a classic case of how the tide of content can raise all boats.

Content is the new ad unit 

The idea of distributing an article that contains no commercial messaging is still very foreign to many marketers. For brand marketers in particular, it’s difficult to believe that an editorial article (containing no commercial features or benefit messaging) can achieve the same reach and influence as a display ad, for instance. However, content can provide the reach they seek, thanks to the development of content discovery “engines” such as Outbrain and Taboola (among others). And, a real opportunity for marketers now exists to drive business impact using this modern distribution network more appropriately, and in tandem with “traditional” digital advertising instruments.

Consider the pros and cons for display ads: 

• Display ads have proven themselves to be effective brand awareness vehicles.
• Yet, engagement and communication capacity are limited and are typically measured in seconds — and usually in the low single digits at that.
• Display ads work more effectively with some context (e.g., marketing’s huge push toward programmatic, or data-based ad serving).
• They can be a costly direct-response mechanism, as click-through rates are low — less than 0.1 percent on average (according to research from DoubleClick).
• The distribution infrastructure is quite developed and fairly sophisticated. (Over 5 trillion ad impressions were served in 2012, according to research fromcomScore.)
• While display ads and rich media are relatively inexpensive to produce, compared to other forms of dynamic media, producing multiple iterations with diverse communications is typically cost-prohibitive for many businesses.
• Consequently, display ads are usually relatively static over the course of a multi-week or multi-month campaign.

Now, consider the case for an editorial article:

• An editorial article is one of the most cost-efficient forms of content to create.
• This low cost allows for a broader range of messaging options or topics that can be covered (so you get more assets for a given campaign).
• The time spent viewing/reading and interacting with articles is glacial compared to display — 20 percent of all time spent on the web is devoted to reading content.
• Article distribution scale has hit critical mass — for example, Outbrain alone is now number three (behind Yahoo and ShareThis and ahead of Google and Facebook) in ad-focused-reach; and, it is now seventh on comScore’s unique visitor audience rankings.

Sources: comScoreDataMine.com, Nielsen.com, PewInternet.org, and TNSDigitalLife.com. Image via Go-Gulf.com.

Display ads are poor at audience interaction and distribution but are solid awareness vehicles. However, they require context to optimize their effectiveness. Articles, on the other hand, are far more effective and efficient in generating interaction and distribution — critical to fast data generation; thus, they make for better contextual data gatherers. Yet, articles need support in their efforts to convey an overt brand benefit or call-to-action (i.e., asking for the sale).

So the conclusion here is that content and display are like yin and yang… the chocolate and peanut butter of the digital world. Any brand looking to optimize its investment in programmatic buying should first establish operational proficiency with content syndication and/or discovery. This combine-and-conquer effort is critical to maintaining the left and right brain balance that’s essential to any successful digital marketing plan.

Data is the fuel for a winning marketing vehicle 

Programmatic display campaigns require consumer behavior data to optimize its effectiveness. For that matter, paid and organic search techniques also require data insights to be optimized. Distributing editorial content yields more (and higher-quality) data, because this content is what audiences inherently and predominantly interact with online.

We won’t spend time here on the subject of mining data to use in story development (a topic that’s been covered extensively on the Content Marketing Institute website). Rather, we’ll focus on the role data plays after editorial content has been published and distributed.

Paid syndication of article (and video) headlines across content discovery engines, such as Outbrain and Taboola, can yield a vast array of behavioral data that can help marketers tailor subsequent engagement messaging. For example, a click on a compelling headline is likely to be a more accurate indication of a user’s interests and intentions than a click on a display ad — according to an eMarketer report, only 15 percent of consumers trust display ads completely or even partially. Additionally, article interaction can play a critical role in optimizing the context in which display ads are served, resulting in better receptivity and more efficient performance.

Combining the data from the initial click on a headline with the behavioral data downstream of the click, on a brand’s website for instance, enables a marketer to assemble a more complete profile of a consumer that can be utilized to inform engagements even further downstream — such as in a display ad.

A case in point

Here’s an illustration involving LasikPlus, a leading LASIK surgery provider. LasikPlus has a well-informed editorial strategy based on a number of behavioral data sources. However, informed editorial strategy in and of itself isn’t necessarily an accurate predictor of article interest or performance.

Take the following two article examples:

Both articles follow the same editorial strategy, in that they’re focused on addressing an insight that audiences need more information around — the efficacy of the procedure. However, the article on the bottom dramatically outperformed the article on top in generating audience interest, click-through and, most importantly, traffic to LasikPlus‘s site. This media performance data can be leveraged to optimize the syndication spend, maximizing LasikPlus‘s investment in assets that yield traffic most efficiently.

When analyzing click-through data further in conjunction with web analytics data, each article reveals a slightly different user behavior path — which might signal the need to create a different post-engagement messaging strategy.

As the report in Figure 1 illustrates, visitors enticed by the benefits of LASIK beyond treating nearsightedness also clicked over to the “How Long Does LASIK Last?” article, as well as to another article about additional benefits of the procedure. Visitors stemming from this entry point were also clearly interested in investigating the costs associated with the procedure, albeit in a lesser volume.

As the report in Figure 2 illustrates, visitors initially clicking through on the How Long Does LASIK Last? headline spent a little less time on LasikPlus‘s site. This is particularly revealing: While one article did a better job of driving traffic to the brand’s site, the other article was better at churning this traffic and sustaining on-site engagement. The data also indicates that visitors in this pool were interested in reading about additional benefits of LASIK, as well as cost information (although to lesser degrees).

Collectively, both user paths reveal powerful insights and important data points with which to target and re-target users with varying display ad messages. As the figures above illustrate, depending on what content a user has engaged with — and in what sequence — specific messaging on the LASIK procedure’s benefits, efficacy, or pricing may be more appropriate at a future engagement point.

Over time, this data is valuable in shaping buyer personas and determining at what point prospective customers are in their purchasing process. LasikPlus understands that consumers often spend many months researching and considering a LASIK procedure before seeing a doctor. Behavioral data stemming from interaction with content can help reveal insights around communication opportunities to sharpen commercial messaging, or in other words, what message to serve up and when.

The case for getting started with content

As many brands are escalating their investments in content marketing, many more are struggling to justify a meaningful initial investment. Article distribution, or treating content as an ad unit, can be the perfect tactical approach with which to get started. Further, the data gathered from this initial foray into the content marketing space can provide valuable insight into how to craft a meaningful, long-term editorial mission — setting the strategic stage for a more sustained content marketing investment down the line.

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David Germano has been working with EBT to develop courses in digital marketing.  David is the VP of Content Marketing for Magnetic Content Studios, anEmpower Group company focused on sustained content marketing. For more than 13 years, David has been helping brands develop and operationalize content marketing strategies that build audience. David joined Empower in 2011 from his most recent role as the General Manager of ManoftheHouse.com, a joint venture between BBDO’s Proximity and Procter & Gamble Entertainment.

Other essays by David Germano

David Moth shared six shining examples on the Econsultancy blog.

HubSpot

HubSpot has attracted a whopping 284,200 followers, which is an impressive figure for a marketing software firm.

The main reason for its success is the massive amount of content it produces, ranging from blog posts to white papers, so digital marketing folk see HubSpot as a valuable source of information.

But it also gives its social media team freedom to tweet random questions and engage in conversations with people, giving the feed an injection of personality rather than just being a one-way marketing tool.

Yesterday it gave over control of the feed to CEO Brian Halligan, which is a good way of giving customers access to the person at the top of the organisation and again makes the feed different to the usual corporate social account.

One of the things I’m not so keen on is the fairly frequent retweets of compliments from other users, which may be a good way of gaining social proof for its products but personally I find it a bit self-congratulatory.

General Electric

General Electric’s main feed has just over 125,000 followers and focuses on technology and innovation rather than just pushing out sales messages, turning what could easily be a dull, corporate Facebook page into something genuinely interesting.

Also, the social team do a good job of responding to other users and recently rewarded people who complimented the brand’s new Agent Smith advert by sending them a Matrix-style photo of their avatar.

And obviously a company with GE’s expertise in social has also produced other noteworthy campaigns.

For example, on national inventors’ day in February it invited users to tweet their invention ideas using the #IWantToInvent hashtag then had a team of designers standing by to create blueprint sketches of the tweeted inventions in real time.

It produced more than 70 images in under seven hours, including solar powered wings and a doorbell ID, which can all be viewed in a Facebook photo album.

The campaign was supported with promoted tweets in timelines and search targeted to users interested in science and technology. According to Twitter, #IWantToInvent took a month to plan and increased brand conversations over 4x the daily average.

GE has also been a prolific user of Vine, creating more than 20 clips in the past few months. A number of the Vine’s use stop motion, including this excellent clip that celebrates Pi Day – it’s an endless pie.

Adobe

Adobe’s Twitter feed remains incredibly focused on its own products and company news, with nearly every tweet managing to crowbar in a brand mention, no matter how tenuous the link.

For example, it took advantage of Earth Day to tout the company’s own green credentials.

However, it also manages to avoid being tedious by tweeting a broad range of content, such as promotions, live updates from events, company news, and links to its other social platforms and forums.

Furthermore, the social team do a good job of responding to other users, answering product queries or questions about the website and engaging in general conversation.

And like General Electric, Adobe has been quick to begin experimenting with Vine to share content from its various events, including this clip of The Black Keys. As a result it’s managed to attract 168,148 followers.

Intel

Intel has an interesting, entertaining Twitter feed that shares a mix of company information, competitions, jokes, memes, articles and quotes.

Even so, I’m quite surprised that it’s managed to attract more than 1.3 million followers.

The social team very rarely respond to other users and the feed is mainly used as a broadcast tool, which rather undermines its social credentials.

So regardless of how entertaining it is I think it’s a case of the brand name attracting the followers rather than the content.

That said, it’s still a good example of how to bring some personality to a B2B Twitter feed and 1.3 million followers is not to be sniffed at.

Dell

Dell is well known for being brave with its social strategy, which is evidenced by the huge number of popular B2B Twitter feeds it operates.

Some of them simply deal with company news and announcements, but others are dedicated to answering customer service queries.

For example, there’s Dell Cares PRO which provides 24×7 global support and Dell for Business which answers questions from small and medium size businesses.

The different feeds also communicate with one another to make sure that customer queries are dealt with through the correct channel.

Providing round-the-clock support is no mean feat and obviously requires a great deal of commitment and investment in social throughout the business’ hierarchy.

To make sure it stays on top of things Dell has a social media command centre that aggregates customer conversations around the web, allowing the company to identify issues, address complaints, gather feedback on products, and quickly react to customer needs.

Obviously a vast majority of B2B companies are nowhere near having this type of capability and are unlikely to get near it any time soon, but it’s definitely a god model to aim for.

Econsultancy

It might seem breathtakingly arrogant to include ourselves on this list, but we’ve previously made an infographic shouting about how good we are so why stop now?

Through the hard work of Econsultancy head of social Matt Owen we’ve managed to clock up more than 130,000 followers and Twitter is now one of our main sources of traffic.

As well as automatically tweeting out our blog posts Matt uses Twitter to monitor conversations about the brand, deal with queries, ask questions about relevant topics, promote our reports and events, and talk about what’s going on in the Econsultancy office.

Ultimately the idea is to use Twitter to both promote our products and interact with our subscribers and other digital marketing folk, which helps to build the brand and raise our profile.

Between 2009 and 2012 our revenue from Twitter increased by 4,091%, albeit from a low base, which shows that we’ve certainly been effective in using Twitter for B2B marketing.

Plus Obama and MC Hammer follow us, which is a ringing endorsement in anyone’s book.

by David Germano

Fast, dramatic changes in the digital space have given brand marketers new opportunities to earn and sustain the consumer’s attention without paid media. Social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, to name just three, empower brands to communicate directly with an audience.

While many brands rush to leverage these direct to consumer channels, few have altered their brand narratives and their approach to content creation as they move from paying others to broadcast their brand content to leveraging it themselves for direct consumer engagement.

Despite the existing opportunities, it would seem that few brands — and only a few more of their agencies — have the content, process, and methodologies in place to fully benefit from direct distribution to the audience. The current brand-agency paradigm has been effective in leveraging search and social algorithms for more efficient distribution of “brand” assets, but the efforts stemming from this approach have failed to deliver some critical elements:engagement, efficiency, and scale.

Brands looking to achieve this “holy trinity” of digital effectiveness need to shift their content creation approach even further.

Owned media, redefined

Strategist Jim Cuene recently proposed a state of constant content to help marketers behave as publishers. And the Altimeter Group’s Content: The New Marketing Equation does a great job of illustrating a “path” for brands to follow in rebalancing their marketing efforts, shifting “from push to pull.” In fact, Cuene and Altimeter both reference the need for this shift in their content creation. But what characterizes this shift, and how can CMOs get started when looking to alter the manner in which their organizations influence consumers?

The shift they both reference is to a state of “owned media” — not the narrow, “brand-controlled” definition that seems to be pervasive across many media strategy blogs. Rather, it’s to a state of “media ownership” — a more progressive definition of owned media. By simply flipping the words and adjusting the grammar, we add clarity around the model. Jim Cuene is right. Brands need look no further than many online publishing properties for a model on how to create content using an operational discipline that ultimately leads to better results.

Do you own media?

Does your brand stand to benefit from media ownership? Answer the following questions to assess your brand’s state of media ownership:

• Always-on: Are you publishing content for an audience on a daily basis?
• Editorial: Are you publishing content that an audience needs and shares?
• Independent: Do you own the technology or the platform delivering the content? Do you have the final say in all aspects of the user’s experience?
• Networked: Is the content on your platform optimized for distribution?
• Measured: Are you evaluating how efficiently you are producing media, or the consumption of your content?
• Monetizable: Could your content platform be someone else’s paid media?

If you answered yes to all of the questions above, then congratulations, your content marketing initiative is optimized for better business-building results. If you answered no, then the next step is to assess where your organization is in its journey to operating as a publisher.

Ownership makes for better content

This assessment of owned media is important because it instills a level of accountability with content creation.

Online publishers operate by exacting principles because they need their audiences to consume, engage, and share the content they produce. Operationally, these publishers need to ensure that their editorial efforts are efficient and yielding high-quality content that resonates with their most important critics — the audience. Their very businesses depend on it.

Brands want their audience to consume, engage, and share content, as well. By applying the same business acumen in planning and evaluating your audience engagement as any publisher would, brands can effectively achieve the three goals of engagement, efficiency, and scale. Not employing this methodology, in my opinion, is the single biggest reason brands are finding underwhelming results in their current search and social efforts.

Discovering the path

With some brands, asset creation evolves into a content strategy, wherein incremental success can be achieved by delivering the same old brand narrative but doing so with a slightly broader focus on types of content, and through innovative channels such as Facebook and Twitter. But the issues of reach and engagement are not addressed by this approach.

I’ve had brands with significant search and social programs in place confess to me “We’re not getting enough traffic to the website,” and “We have 1 million Facebook fans, but very little engagement.” And, these brands are sustaining the same paid media spend to maintain the necessary share of voice in their respective categories. This is not the kind of efficiency brands are looking for when executing content marketing strategies.

The good news for brand marketers is that their preliminary efforts in content marketing put them squarely on the path to owned media. It’s within these initial phases of content marketing that brands soon discover how important some level of editorial process is in generating quality content at a faster rate, and at higher volumes. By editorial, I mean the constant process of determining what the audience needs. It’s also at this stage where brands discover how important the investment in a centralized platform is in helping them manage to and optimize content marketing across multiple digital channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

There are several successful, brand-owned media programs that can help guide other brands.Home Made Simple, Nutrition Possible, and The Responsibility Project are all examples of how brands can take an editorial approach to engage the entire audience — not just limited segments of it, which is where most brand marketers seem to focus. This audience-centric approach is paying dividends for these respective brands while amplifying their earned and paid efforts, as well.   This shift to true “always-on” editorial is the biggest challenge most brands will face on the path, but it is critical to creating quality content that audiences prefer, and realizing the full potential of owned media.

Editorial shift

So how do marketers go from content that represents their messages to consumers to content that audiences themselves are looking for? It first requires thinking beyond the brand’s target segments and focusing on understanding the needs of the entire audience in much greater detail. This can be particularly challenging, as marketing operations are almost exclusively geared toward distilling layers of consumer research into one-size-fits-all insights and, consequently, focused messaging. And for good reason — brands don’t have the resources to talk to the entire audience through traditional paid means. But they can accomplish this through the right owned media strategy.

For most brand marketers, becoming more informed editorially simply requires organizing all of the available data around audience behavior to define and understand consumer’s content needs. For example, Man of the House publishes dozens of articles that present unique perspectives on personal grooming — from the best grooming gifts for dad to rationales for getting a manicure. This content might fall outside the focus of brands like Gillette or Art of Shaving, but Man of the House content is informed by extensive consumer research. And by interpolating this existing audience data, Procter & Gamble knows its articles are falling in line with what interests the site’s primary audience (dads), which is likely much larger than the consumer segments Gillette advertises to.

Once this audience editorial analysis is complete, it will continue to guide your brand’s editorial strategy development and help you determine the right level of owned media investment.

Having worked with a multitude of consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers, I’ve always been somewhat amazed with the sheer depth of consumer knowledge each organization possesses — and equally amazed at how little of this knowledge actually factors into its content creation. When brands take a deeper look at their broader audience, there is always a more detailed set of topical categories to map, and brands should follow this map in creating the content they deliver to this broader audience. The appropriate level of data analysis can help brands chart this map.

Editorial mapping

Beyond existing consumer data, analytics should be used to inform the editorial on an ongoing basis. The resources required to develop and sustain an owned media strategy can usually come from the brand’s existing investment in analytics. But even free resources, such as Google or Compete, can provide a wealth of information — especially if they are used in conjunction with more robust paid tools.

The process for mapping an editorial approach should rely on at least four key data channels:

As the chart illustrates, this process is well informed by analytics and can yield a detailed editorial map of topics that are based on the audience’s preferences. Revisiting our example around Man of the House, these various data sets are advising the editorial focus for the entire grooming channel:

• Google Analytics data is being used to identify the most popular articles, which are then served up at the top of the page to drive further content consumption.
• Google Trends helps to advise on topics that are trending throughout social media,
• Google Adwords is being used to track topic popularity by reviewing search query volume across a host of long-tail keyword phrases related to grooming.

Lastly, it’s critical that publishers keep track of the competitive space for topics. This article in particular is a great example of observing what is being talked about and joining in the discussion. This editorial map is the foundation of an iterative process that’s always on, and optimized for producing content that gets consumed, creates engagement, and gets distributed.

And, not or

To be clear, the editorial shift required to create owned media impact is not an “or” that could replace another approach. It’s an “and” that supports a brand’s broader marketing strategy. Advertising and other paid media still work, but technology has now made direct distribution to an audience an affordable strategy (with the proper approach).

Regardless of where a brand might be in its use of owned media, it should consider developing an editorial voice that guides sustained content creation to address the needs of its audience that aren’t being met through that brand’s other marketing efforts.

David Germano has been working with EBT to develop courses in digital marketing.  David is the VP of Content Marketing for Magnetic Content Studios, anEmpower Group company focused on sustained content marketing. For more than 13 years, David has been helping brands develop and operationalize content marketing strategies that build audience. David joined Empower in 2011 from his most recent role as the General Manager of ManoftheHouse.com, a joint venture between BBDO’s Proximity and Procter & Gamble Entertainment.

Other essays by David Germano

You don’t want to broadcast a one-to-many sales drumbeat in such places. Everyone will tune you out. Get into the many-to-many. And what better way thant to create your own interest group?

LinkedIn is the probably best social medium for connecting with specific networks of decision-makers. That’s why it often looms large in the social marketing of B2B.

So how do you connect with networks of potential clients? Provide a service.

Provide the value of a well hones and moderated LinkedIn Group. Embed yourself at the center of a rich many-to-many discussion,focused on issue you care about, and attracting others who care about them too. The article first appeared on PR 20/20.

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This is an interview Laurel Miltner conducted with Matt Bertuzzi, marketing manager for The Bridge Group, Inc. Matt skillfully grew his 6,700+ member Inside Sales Experts group on LinkedIn… so he knows this topic from inside side.

What exactly is the Inside Sales Experts group?

We launched Inside Sales Experts in early 2008 as a way for Inside Sales practitioners (both individual reps and managers/directors/etc.) to share ideas, seek advice and learn best practices.

To give you some rough numbers, the group more than doubled in membership in 2010. We are adding about 15-30 new members a day and growing 5-8% monthly.

How did you decide on the group’s topic/niche?

I’d like to think our group fills a needed niche for LinkedIn users: a place for like professionals to talk shop, brainstorm and network with others in the Inside Sales community.

Even three years ago, there were already “Sales” and “Marketing” groups formed, but we struggled to find a forum that was targeted to the Inside Sales audience. Rather than try to make do in an existing space, we decided to build our own.

How did you initially gain members?

In the beginning, we invited active and past clients, colleagues, our personal networks, etc. to join.

I have to say that our tactics weren’t what has driven our success. The group has flourished, in my view, because of our approach:

• Building an open, spam-free place to talk shop — first
• Networking and job searching — second
• Self-promotion and spam removed with extreme prejudice

The strategy and tactics just flow naturally from there.

You’re now at more than 6,700 members. How have you continued to grow the group over time?

Tip #1: Leverage members joining and adding the badge to their profile. It is the single best marketing a LinkedIn group needs. Make sure your group badge is about the group, not about your company (e.g. the words “Whizzbang Fans” and not the logo for your company “AcmeCo”). Similarly, make sure that your group description is about the audience, not you (e.g. “for people who really love Whizzbangs” & not “AcmeCo.is leading provider of services to the Whizzbang industry”).

Tip #2: I highly recommend using “thank-you pages” and “thank-you emails” from your corporate website to promote groups. If you already know that a prospect is interested in your space, since they’ve downloaded a piece of your content, why wouldn’t they want access to a community of like professionals? Promote your LinkedIn groups once you’ve established some order of trust and build your LinkedIn group as a corporate asset.

How does your group use the different tabs and functionality LinkedIn offers (Discussions, Promotions, Manager’s Choice, etc.)?

We use the tabs religiously.

• Jobs go in Jobs
• Promotions go in Promotions
• Discussions go in Discussions

Open networking, linking to your webinar and asking for feedback on your blog post is not a discussion — it is promotion. “Discussions” is the heart of our group, and I take its integrity quite seriously.

I believe that this approach delivers the most value to group members. They can be confident that if they have a question, they can post it in discussions and will not be buried under an avalanche of blog posts, open networking, webinar invites and other non-discussion content.

By way of metrics:

• More than 60% of our discussions receive multiple responses.
• We are adding roughly 30 new discussions a month.
• We have two threads that perpetually receive attention (with 73 and 155 comments to date).

What kind of time commitment does it take to effectively manage the group?

We have two people managing the group. Our commitment is to administer 2-3 times daily, between the two of us.

I know that might seem like overkill, but I don’t ever want someone to join and/or log in and find the discussions areas covered in spam and other low-value content. As I said earlier, I take this stuff very seriously. Besides, a few five-minute (max) sessions a day are hardly onerous.

How has your management changed over time?

In the early days, we certainly participated in discussions more actively. We never planted “canned discussions” to fill space, but we would be the first (and sometimes only) responder to member questions.

I am happy to say this is 100% no longer the case. The community serves the community, and we are proud to sit back and jump in only when we can add significant value.

How do you handle off-topic or negative posts within the group?

This too has changed over time. LinkedIn, itself, is constantly changing group functionality. So this requires rethinking and communicating about where people can post the self-promotional material.

In the past, we would email offending members and let them know that the discussion area wasn’t for webinar promotions, job postings, etc. As the group has grown, that has become impossible. Over time we’ve found that 95% of off-topic material is posted by 5% of users.LinkedIn has a magical solution called “Block & Delete,” and it is a group manager’s dream.

Anything else you want to share about LinkedIn group management?

My final comment is a lesson we learned along the way: no one is above the rules. If you know a group member personally and they post something self-promotional, sorry, it has to be moved too.

The ultimate test for how serious any group owner takes this is how they police themselves.Yes, your group is a fantastic corporate asset, but no it isn’t ok to play “do as I say, not as I do.”

Add value at every possible turn and hold yourself to the highest standard and, in my opinion, your group will really stand out on LinkedIn.

Thanks to Matt Bertuzzi for sharing his experience and insight. 

Quick review by Eric Brandt

42 Rules for Applying Google Analytics by Rob Sanders (downloadable pdf)

It is becoming obvious that the goal is not simply more traffic (which is fairly easy to generate) — but more traffic of a particular kind. And that particular kind is your targeted audience that can be drawn by skillfully crafted content to convert.

How do we know if that is happening? In the Mad Men days, the effectiveness was judged by anecdote, by hunch, by gut, by word of mouth. Here in his latest book, Rob Sanders offers a basic approach to understanding the effectiveness of the user jouney you have created for potential customers.

Rob Sanders has been collaborating with me for the last eight months. We are developing  a series of courses on Google Analytics aimed specifically at B2B marketing success.

So I’m eagerto offer Rob’s book “42 Rules for Applying Google Analytics” here (in pdf format).

If you prefer ro read in professionally bound paperback or Google e-book format, you can do that too.

This will help you understand your users’ journeys — and then guide you in applying that data to systematically improve website performance.

This includes:

• Learning where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site,
• Measuring key drivers and conversions (such as which web pages encourage people to react by calling, emailing or purchasing a product).

The goal (and hopefully result) is to present higher-converting web pages, and far more effective campaigns that drive toward those web pages.

About the Author: Rob Sanders

Rob Sanders brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the world of online marketing. He currently works with a diverse group of companies providing creative and technical solutions for online growth including overseeing their search engine marketing, social networking, blogs & video. Prior to moving to San Francisco, Rob was an Interactive Project Manager chosen to lead multi-million dollar online initiatives for Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan. Rob started his online career as a Web Producer for USA Today Online in 1994 before moving to Philadelphia to help launch an online media service at The Sports Network. Before receiving his undergraduate degree, Rob was honorably discharged from the U.S. military after serving four years abroad. He also earned a Masters of Business Administration from the University of San Francisco. He volunteers his time for a number of organizations including Junior Achievement, Ama Foundation and the San Francisco Aids Foundation, to name a few.

In some places QRCs have thrived — Starbucks is the foremost example. Some people show their tickets with QRCodes on their phone. But the system has revealed problems. Often advertising is too far away for smartphones to capture their QRCodes. Somes photo angles don’t capture the information correctly and you don’t know until you get home.

Here is a series of Do’s and Don’ts developed by Uriel Peled on the MarketingProfs blog.

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Improper Ways to Use QR Codes for Marketing

Perhaps the relative novelty of QR codes has some companies a little confused about which best-practices to adopt. Subway—the international sandwich maker—created shirts with massive codes on the back of the T-shirts. The question arises: When are those QRs going to be scanned, considering that we communicate face to face?

Often, companies are so excited about using QR codes as part of their marketing campaigns that they forget the basic rules of the game.

These codes were designed expressly to simplify the marketing message, not to complicate it. Convoluted marketing messages detract from the effectiveness of using the QR code in the first place. Rambling lists of instructions and bullet points to get your message across are a definite no-go. Simplicity and appeal trump instruction-laden advertisements.

Companies that don’t understand the true marketing potential of this resource run the risk of losing out on its potential for getting their messages across to customers. Many marketing departments are loath to embrace this technology and hope that it will simply go away.

QR codes are here to stay, and the sooner their untapped potential is understood, the better for everyone.

10 of the Worst Real-World Examples of QR Codes in Action

1. QR codes in subway tunnels around the world may appear to be a good idea, but if they are too far away, or trains are moving too quickly, their message is lost on passengers who don’t have time to scan them properly. Moreover, passengers may not have cell signals in subways.
2. QR codes should be placed in an easy-to-scan location. If they are too high up (on buildings, for example), their message is lost on passers-by.
3. Improper use of QR codes occurs at airports, where lists of prohibited items are associated with codes for the purported benefit of passengers. It almost seems as if people are so eager to use QR codes that they use them merely for the sake of using them.
4. Some sports companies are attaching QR codes to bikinis, in the hopes that more people will see their marketing message. This may well prove to be an effective marketing mechanism, but it’s not the QR codes that people are really interested in, is it?
5. Redundancy is yet another trap that many companies may fall into when adopting QR codes in their marketing campaigns. For example, Bank of America attached a QR code that links directly to its website—from its Facebook page…
6. There was even an instance of a dog owner posting a picture of his lost Dalmatian with a QR code juxtaposed over the Dalmatian. This failed for two reasons: the spots on the Dalmatian confused the QR code message, and it is ineffectual for the purposes of finding the dog: A simple telephone number would suffice.
7. Believe it or not, certain grocery stores use QR codes to replace barcodes on individual items, such as bananas.
8. Though it might seem like a good idea, it is probably not in good taste to put a QR code on your loved one’s tombstone.
9. Barcodes tattooed onto your body… Enough said!
10. Moroccanoil Inc. included a QR code on its product, but there was one problem: The QR code was one-eighth the size of a US quarter.

The Proper Use of QR Codes

QR codes are most effective when they form an integral part of a marketing message that is appealing, engaging, interactive, and unique. There is also a movement toward making the visual appeal of the QR code more enticing so that users, passers-by, and potential customers are more likely to stop, scan, and enjoy the multimedia message that the QR code has in store for them.

QR code success stories abound, in categories from lifestyle to leisure, entertainment, food and drink, promotions, events, information, and beyond.

10 Great Ways to Correctly Use QR Codes

1. Lifestyle companies such as Macy’s, JC Penney, and Tesco are some of the most notable success in QR codes marketing. These companies find inventive ways of incorporating QRs into their marketing messages to entice customers to scan and enjoy the benefits.Tesco’s for example, became the second biggest retail grocery chain in South Korea (changed its name to Home Plus)—not by expanding the number of stores, but by including codes on posters in subway stations, train stations, and sidewalks, allowing people to order groceries, on the spot.
2. Restaurants are cashing in on QR codes too—just ask The Melt, famous for its grilled cheese sandwiches. Customers can easily scan QRs that will then automatically get their food on the grill while they are being seated.
3. Universally popular names such as Taco Bell and Mountain Dew used QR code campaigns on their drink cups, with many free music downloads available to those who scanned them. In total, some 200,000 downloads resulted from this successful campaign.
4. THQ Homefront is a videogame that uses QR codes throughout the game for players to unlock exclusive, never-before-seen content. Within two days, some 30,000 codes were scanned.
5. Leonardo DiCaprio’s film Inception also made use of QR codes to ramp up the sense of mystery and hype around the movie. Flyers, T-shirts, and posters promoting Inception contained codes that led to a fake website named What Is Dream Share?
6. Google’s Favorite Places marketing campaign earmarked 100,000 places to visit in the USA. Those top businesses each got a window decal with their QR code on it. Passers-by could then scan the code for a wealth of information on the business.
7. The Florida State Law Library uses QR codes in its books to help link them to other electronic resources.
8. A restaurant in Washington DC named Policy uses QR codes in its window, by the menu box. Patrons and passers-by can scan the QR codes, taking them to the online menu or allowing them to make reservations.
9. vCard electronic business cards are great way to use QR codes to add rich multimedia content to traditional business cards.
10. Scandinavian Airlines put together one of the most exciting promotions ever; the ad campaign required two smartphones (side-by-side) to scan the QR code to receive the deal. This campaign boosted revenue and got more people to fly together.

Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/24499/proper-and-improper-use-of-qr-codes-10-great-examples-of-each#ixzz3V3anehjc