Another approach might involve a degree of quality in which you give users something better than what your competitors can offer.

But there’s another way to do it that loosely taps into both, and that’s by finding topics that naturally stand out on their own: controversial ones.

Why Controversy Works

There are several reasons controversy works. First, it naturally draws more attention than non-controversial items. For one reason or another, controversial topics are emotionally charged, which makes them stand out in a newsfeed that’s brimming with white noise.

They also tend to arouse more conversation, as debaters and sharers flood in to comment. This, in turn, makes the article even more popular and visible and draws more people into the fold.

It’s also true that controversial topics tend to be risky for a brand, but that risk also comes with the potential reward of a reputation boost. For example, if you take a strong stand on an issue, you might alienate some of your customers on the other side, but you should draw your main customers even closer to your brand.

Types of Controversial Topics

“Controversy” is a somewhat general term, so let’s get more specific about the types of controversial posts you can create:

• Shocking or unexpected topics. These often include charged language or taboo subjects that attract greater visibility. For example, consider the bold headline, “Is Timothy Sykes a Millionaire Douchebag?” which features a pejorative term that piques reader interest.
• Debatable topics. Debatable topics are ones that, by their nature, encourage an audience to argue (whether with you or among one another). These may be issues with a strong emotional charge or of particular contemporary relevance.
• Opinionated topics. Opinion pieces in journalism tend to be highly shared and linked to. For these posts, choose a topic and present a strong opinion about it, preferably backing up your argument with logic and supporting evidence. This could stir a debate, but it’s primarily intended to polarize an audience.
• Norm violations. You can also stir up controversy by violating some kind of norm — such as a standard in your industry — by posting about a topic that’s usually avoided.

Tips for Successful Implementation

You can employ any of these types, but when you do, bear the following in mind:

• Remain respectful. Controversial posts often demand that you take a side on a debatable issue, so feel free to debate with your followers. However, remain respectful and acknowledge that other opinions exist and are valid. Keep your language polite and professional in your content as well as your conversations.
• Offer information, not sensationalism. Your goal here may be to evoke strong emotions in your audience, but don’t let that push you into the territory of sensationalism. Feel free to tweak your headlines, but try not to pander to hotly emotional crowds or appear unprofessional by introducing a topic that’s too risky or too taboo for a healthy discussion. For example, religious and political topics are probably best avoided, unless they relate very directly to your brand.
• Follow up and engage with your users. One of the greatest advantages of a controversial piece is the discussion it generates. Keep that conversation going by getting involved yourself. Back up your points, listen to others’ opinions and keep people talking. It will make your piece ever more visible.
• Limit yourself. There’s a fine line between a well-written headline and clickbait. There’s a similarly fine line between producing posts to stir up a healthy debate and producing them merely to rack up numbers. Maintain your reputation and your brand image by limiting yourself to rare controversial posts only.

Controversial topics are practically a must for content marketing campaigns, as long as you follow the above tips for success. Stirring up controversy will make your brand seem more authoritative and reputable, it will make your headlines stand out, and perhaps most important, it should make your users more engaged and involved with your content.

The post How to Use Controversial Topics in a Content Marketing Campaign appeared first on Relevance.

Why Patient Relationships Are So Important

So, why should patient relationships be prioritized? As it turns out, they’re more important than most people think:

• Better reviews. We live in an age where online reviews matter and are easily accessible to the population. Patients who do their research may avoid you or prioritize you based on the types of reviews you receive, and cultivating better patient relationships can help you optimize these reviews.
• A better reputation. Your organization will, over time, develop a better reputation among your patients and in your area as you improve your patient relationships, which will help attract new patients and improve perceived satisfaction as well.
• Word-of-mouth referrals. Patients who have had a pleasant, positive experience will be far more likely to recommend your organization to others they know who encounter similar situations.
• Easier ongoing relationships. People who feel like they’re in an organization that prioritizes patient relationships will be easier to work with. They’ll be more communicative and more helpful. As a result, your staff will be able to work more effectively and more efficiently.

Marketing Strategies for Better Relationships

The surface level of managing better patient relationships is through face-to-face communication and more “personal” experiences. But beyond those basic best practices, you can use marketing and organization-level communications strategies to help support the development of your patient relationships.

Awareness campaigns

Your first job is to provide patients with more detailed information about your organization and their treatment options. Simple awareness campaigns, driven to help patients learn more about their specific types of care, show your patients that you care about them and help new patients develop more trust in your institution. Instituting paperless medical records systems and other forms of patient-visible stores of information can also help you increase transparency here. The more information you provide your patients up front and throughout the engagement, the happier they’re going to be.

Social engagements for current patients

Giving your current patients a way to engage with your organization will simultaneously make them feel more connected with your brand and increase the visibility of your efforts. Use contests hashtags and ongoing content marketing techniques to give your patients opportunities to engage with your brand. Maintain an active social presence, and respond to anyone who mentions you online. This will drive visibility and even more engagement, which is going to make every patient experience that much more valuable.

Outreach programs for the local community

You can also increase your organization’s visibility and perceived level of commitment to your community by getting involved in more community events. Sponsor a local event, get involved as a speaker, or host events in your own space to raise public awareness. You can use this as an opportunity to build awareness of your brand while also serving your community. Plus, you can use press releases and other forms of content to promote your involvement.

Case studies and other illustrations of care

On social media, people love to see stories of others, and healthcare organizations have ample opportunities to tell powerful stories (with patient consent, of course). When you encounter a powerful story of recovery, or if your organization has made a major improvement (such as hiring someone new or buying new equipment), announce it on social media and through your ongoing promotional work. It shows people how committed you are and builds patient trust.

These marketing strategies are all about providing information, creating a sense of belonging, and improving the average patient’s disposition. Together with a more personal disposition and friendlier in-person experience, you’ll end up with more satisfied patients, and cumulatively, all these strategies will help you forge stronger, longer-lasting relationships with your patients, and your healthcare organization will be able to thrive.

The post 4 Healthcare Marketing Strategies to Create Better Patient Relationships appeared first on Relevance.

If you want to maximize website exposure, you need to combine your traditional and digital marketing efforts and find a happy medium.

Rooted in the Past, Focused on the Future

As a marketer, you have to walk a fine line between staying grounded and adapting to the trends. While the same basic tactics of marketing that were relevant 20, 30, and 40 years ago still hold true, the ways in which brands target customers have changed.

As marketers, we’re all focused on effectively representing our brand in front of the right target market and persuading individuals to move from interest to action. How we accomplish this goal, however, can vary and is largely the result of an influx of tools and options.

In 2016, there’s a constant struggle between pre-Internet tactics and modern online techniques. Unfortunately, few marketers do an efficient job of balancing these two categories.

“Many marketers are overwhelmed and feel pressure to resist change, continuing to use traditional offline marketing tactics, while others wholeheartedly embrace online marketing, leaving offline strategies in the dust,” says marketer Rick Egan. “Neither path is truly optimal.”

3 Ways to Combine Traditional and Digital Efforts

Driving traffic to a website is challenging, and as you know, requires a concerted effort on all fronts, including offline marketing.

Let’s take a look at some blended strategies for combining traditional offline marketing with digital online marketing to increase website exposure.

1. Use Direct Mailers

When you think about direct mailers, what comes to mind? Do you think about an outdated marketing tactic that’s now overshadowed by the internet? Do you feel it’s only effective with a very specific demographic? Well, both of these assumptions would be wrong. Direct mail – when properly implemented alongside other digital solutions – is still extremely high-returning.

In 2015, Valpak – the undisputed leader in direct mail – sent out nearly 462 million envelopes to more than 37 million unique address in North America. This alone should reassure you that direct mail is still relevant.

The key to being successful with direct mailers in the digital age is using them to push traffic online. Businesses frequently use mailers to send out deals that require recipients to access the website in order to claim. For example, you could send out a deal that says, “Visit our website and enter the code SAVINGS to receive a 15 percent discount on your next online purchase.”

Direct mailers are extremely cost effective and can help you target people who may not be exposed to online marketing messages. Under the right circumstances, this can greatly increase site traffic and conversions.

2. Implement a Local SEO Strategy

Sometimes marketers want to leverage online traffic to increase offline traffic to brick and mortar locations or events. One of the preferred methods is to implement a local SEO strategy.

With local SEO, you can target very specific demographics by using highly optimized keywords, individual pages for dedicated locations, Google My Business local listings, NAP citations on various directories, and more. While it’ll take time to drive online traffic to offline destinations, a steady investment will yield strong results.

3. Invite People to Visit

Brands with large marketing and advertising budgets are known for using television commercial spots to drive website traffic. There are plenty of examples of what this looks like in practice, but the financial services company John Hancock is perhaps the best.

Over the past year, John Hancock has run commercials that tell a brief 30-second story. Just as the commercial climaxes and the viewer is about to find out what happens, the camera cuts away to a blue screen with the text, “Find out what happens at HancockNext.com.”

While most people will forget about the commercial, a small percentage will be curious enough to pull out their phones and visit the site. Once on the site, visitors are presented with three different endings – each of which speaks to a particular service offered by John Hancock. It’s a simple and clever way to merge online and offline marketing.

Find a Happy Medium

The tricky part about marketing is that there’s no right or wrong strategy. What works for one company may be totally ineffective for another organization within the same industry. Until you give a certain technique a try, it’s impossible to know what’s effective.

However, it’s not smart to narrow your focus down to a single approach until you’ve tested a variety of methods. While digital marketing gets the bulk of the attention in 2016, there are plenty of ways to incorporate traditional methods.

Think about the strategies referenced in this article and seek a happy medium between online and offline marketing.

The post Combining Traditional and Digital Marketing for Optimal Website Exposure appeared first on Relevance.

Spotting the Spam

The first thing to remember when trying to filter out spam links that lead to your website is that SEO is a numbers game. While numbers matter when it comes to content rankings, not all numbers are created equal. Good links add value, boost your rankings and create revenue. However, bad links violate Google’s rules, and these are the most important rules to follow.

Google’s 2012 Penguin algorithm update placed an emphasis on quality over quantity and began to penalize sites tied to low-quality content that is a hindrance to web users. As the official post put it, these new rules would benefit sites that practice “white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.” You need to wear a white hat.

Do Your Background Reading

Linking goes both ways. There is little you can do about other companies trying to sabotage your website by building your links into spam or porn websites. What you can do is avoid including connections to sketchy sites in your own writing.

The first thing to do, then, is to read the blacklists. There are a number of online resources that will let you know the who’s who of bad SEO practices. Check them thoroughly and eliminate any sites you find from your roster of link connections.

Check Other Problem Sources

If you’ve seen your reputation tank, but your link quality seems to hold up, then it’s time to look into other possible problems. Have you been writing duplicate content? Are your redirects not up to Google’s standards? Maybe you’ve even been hacked – it can happen to anyone. Any of these problems could be the source of your reputation problems.

When all else fails, you can even just pull the pages that have lost positive standing and start again. Then you have the opportunity to build new links that reflect a better image of your business. It can also be worth checking with Google to see what’s pulling you down so you don’t make the same mistakes again.

Know Your Score

Much like a credit score, Moz.com created a system that scores your spam link content on a range from 0 to 17. While it is still somewhat limited in function and more than a little difficult to use, the site crawler will ascribe a value to each site linked to you. Pursue those with a high spam value to remove the links and remedy your high site reputation.

Get Personal

Ditching the spam may be the first step to rebooting your content creation strategy, but that won’t be enough to demand attention from your prime audiences. No, the real key to high-quality content is getting personal. The more tailored your content approach, the more it will appeal to the reader.

Set clear goals, communicate directly yet informally, and approach with a sense of what you have to offer the recipient. Focus on the exchange and the intended outcome, and you’ll be headed for success.

It’s important to constantly watch your reputation reports and check your SEO rankings because the creation of internet backlinks can tank your position at a moment’s notice. Often it isn’t your fault, but remedying the situation is always your responsibility.

Be vigilant, check all your content and don’t be afraid to fight back when someone is dragging you down. Your reputation matters – don’t leave it to chance.

The post How To Avoid Being Seen As Spam By Viewers appeared first on Relevance.

Researchers and behavioral psychologists believe this cultural desire to be relevant is tied to a fear of missing out (FOMO). As marketers, it’s important to understand how FOMO can be leveraged for maximum results.

Understanding FOMO in the Context of the Internet

At first glance FOMO may sound like a joke, but it’s very real. And interestingly, one Brooklyn-based psychiatrist believes the addition of the acronym to the Oxford Dictionaries Online in 2013 actually heightened the severity of FOMO in American society.

“We have so many different ways to communicate through our phones and through Twitter and Facebook,” Johnny Lops says. “I have access to hear everything you’re doing on a daily basis and it can heighten my insecurities and jealous emotions because I feel like I’m not out doing as many cool things as you are.” 

Psychotherapists believe FOMO is rooted in our ancient survival instincts. When we perceive that other people are enjoying life more than we are, signals are sent to the brain that make us feel unsafe or threatened. In severe cases, we may even feel like we’re losing control over our lives. These irrational thoughts lead to irrational behaviors – including impulse purchases.

How to Capitalize on FOMO in the Marketplace

While brands do have to pay attention to a certain moral aspect to FOMO in the marketplace, there are also plenty of ways to honestly capitalize on this rampant mindset.

According to an article from Active Web Group, “Successful brands recognize this phenomenon as an opportunity and often leverage the fear of missing out in their marketing efforts.”

How can you best leverage FOMO for success? Here are some pointers:

Create Scarcity

Ecommerce businesses are able to successfully leverage FOMO by showing limited quantities on product pages. For example, instead of simply displaying the price of the green widgets your company sells, you can display the price with a flashing button that says “Only 3 Green Widgets Left!” It adds some urgency to the purchasing decision and may encourage the customer to buy now, rather than later.

You can also create scarcity by limiting the amount of time an offer is available. Limited time deals have been around for ages, but their value has been maximized with social media. Clearly announcing that a deal will only be around for a limited amount of time can help drive impulse purchases and increase perceived demand.

Encourage Social Sharing

Finding ways to motivate customers to share your products on social media is key. This brings an emotional factor into the decision and exposes your product to an entirely new segment. When people see their friends purchase something, they feel peer pressure and may decide to purchase the same item.

Leverage Exclusivity

Take a page out of Pinterest’s book to enhance your FOMO marketing efforts. When first launching, Pinterest only allowed people to access the site if a friend invited them. This made the new networking site feel exclusive and important. People wanted to be a part of the special group and would automatically sign up after being invited, even if they didn’t understand what the site was really about.

Are you placing an emphasis on FOMO marketing? If not, you’re missing out on a fantastic opportunity to leverage a captivated and motivated social media audience. Using these tips, begin to brainstorm ways your business can capitalize on the rampant fear of missing out.

The post FOMO Marketing in the Age of Social Media appeared first on Relevance.

1. Devise a Unique Title

Aside from the images you choose, your landing page title will likely be the first thing a visitor sees upon arrival. And though a title alone won’t determine the success of your page, it can easily ruin it if you aren’t careful.

The key to creating a good title is to come up with something unique, yet relatable. This means putting a new spin on a familiar topic, and typically employing a title structure that people are used to (such as “X Ways Our Product Helps You Do XYZ” or “You’ll Never Believe What Happens When…”).

Numbers are always good to include, as are bold claims, but they have to be honest and accurate. According to Joanna Wiebe of Unbounce, it’s vital to be as specific and succinct as possible; the goal is to respond to the expectations of the visitor swiftly and accurately.

“If there’s something unique about you that you know people want, that may be the best basis for your headline,” Wiebe writes.

2. Highlight Tangible Benefits

One of the biggest mistakes people make when developing a landing page is trying to sell the features of the product or solution, as opposed to its actual value. Potential customers don’t care about the features unless they understand the value first, so make sure you’re verbally satisfying their pain points.

Check out a couple of examples:

• New vacuum cleaner. Instead of saying something like “Our state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner comes with an advanced crevice tool,” opt for a statement that focuses on the value provided. That’s going to be something more like “Our state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner comes with an advanced crevice tool that reaches into small areas and cuts your overall cleaning time in half.” That’s an actionable benefit, as opposed to a mere feature description.
• Marketing automation software. Instead of saying “Buy our marketing automation software and you’ll save time,” dig into your target customer’s pain points and try to develop a more tangible and specific benefit such as, “Customers who currently use our marketing automation software claim they save an average of 45 minutes per day, and you could too.”

3. Sell Directly on the Page

Most landing pages are transitional locations that encourage (or push) users through the conversion funnel before they get to an internal website page or product listing. But some firms have been successful selling directly on the landing page itself.

By using a tool like Spaces, you can sell directly from a landing page and reduce the odds of losing the interest of your visitors before they convert. If you opt to sell directly from landing pages, make sure to accelerate the process by incorporating adequate sales copy and product descriptions that would otherwise be elsewhere on your website.

4. Keep it Brief

Whenever possible, brevity is preferable to long, drawn-out copy – no matter how brilliant. As long as your title, images and call to action are powerful and effective, this shouldn’t be an issue.

Paragraphs should be no longer than two or three sentences and bulleted points or numbered lists should be employed for best results. If your landing page can’t stand alone without paragraphs of text, there may be a larger underlying issue to address.

5. Include Customer Testimonials & Social Proof

One of the most powerful tools you have access to is social proof. In other words, if you aren’t leveraging past customer testimonials, reviews, and comments in order to gain additional customers, you should be.

According to Ed Hallen of Fast Company, “Studies show that 70 percent of consumers say they look at product reviews before making a purchase, and product reviews are 12 times more trusted than product descriptions from manufacturers.”

When it comes to social proof, you may have several options. The most popular choices include curating quotes from online reviews and testimonials, mentioning ratings on popular sites such as Amazon.com, referencing how many people have purchased your product in the past or featuring a celebrity endorsement.

6. Use Scarcity to Your Advantage

Finally, scarcity is a powerful trigger that’s been shown to have a direct correlation with an increase in landing page conversions. The classic way to introduce scarcity is to include a countdown clock to the end of the sale or mention that only a few units of the product remain in inventory.

The Value of Landing Pages

The inherent value of landing pages is that they’re extremely flexible and versatile. They can be used to gather, influence or convert users.

In other words, you can use well-crafted landing pages to collect leads, promote brand awareness or generate sales. And if you employ the six tips above, you should increase your chances of accomplishing all of these activities.

The post 6 Tips for Writing Great Landing Page Content appeared first on Relevance.

It takes more than good looking web pages; you have to attract the right traffic to those web pages, too. You have to be capable of weeding through irrelevant website traffic to find potential customers that will actually be interested in what you have to offer. Typically, you can accomplish this by focusing on five important guidelines.

1. Produce relevant content

The backbone of any successful traffic-building strategy is good, relevant content. You can’t skimp here and it’s important to take time developing the right articles, blog posts and site copy from the start. Your content is your voice on the internet and there needs to be a consistent tone that’s true to your brand identity.

While it’s certainly a viable option to outsource your writing efforts, don’t take a totally hands-off approach. Work closely with whoever is writing your content to ensure the tone is consistent with the message you’re trying to portray.

2. Invest in targeted SEO

There is some overlap when it comes to SEO and content marketing, but don’t assume that they’re the same thing. SEO is more than keyword stuffing; it’s an art form that deals with strategically structuring titles, linking to appropriate sites, using the correct anchor texts, optimizing images, and more.

When you’re looking to drive highly relevant website traffic, your best option is to invest in long-tail keywords that your niche market would search. For example, if you’re a restaurant in Colorado, you may want to use the keyword “best vegan restaurant in Colorado Springs,” as opposed to “best vegan restaurant.” The latter will end up acquiring people from all over the country – driving down your conversion rate.

3. Master the art of landing pages

The third tip is to master the art of creating compelling, high-converting landing pages that persuade visitors to take a specific action on your website. While there are hundreds of options, you don’t need to spend thousands on a web developer to get quality landing pages.

One of the easiest ways to build successful landing pages is to simply install good landing page plugins. These streamline the process and save you time.  But if there’s one thing to keep in mind when building landing pages, it should be to always narrow your aim and focus on a specific niche, as opposed to casting a wide net.

4. Utilize social media

While social media platforms are great for building communities, they’re useless unless community members take action. Include your website information in all social profiles and include direct CTAs to visit your site or landing pages in approximately 10 percent of your posts. Paid social advertisements can also be a great way to drive targeted traffic to your site and generally reaches users that aren’t already following or participating in your social media groups.

5. Participate in discussion

If you have the patience to try an extremely organic method of traffic acquisition, you can participate in regular discussions on industry blogs, forums, and social media groups. This not only allows you to establish yourself as an active thought leader but also gives you an opportunity to link back to your website in your profile or signature.  Over time, you’ll begin to develop a reputation among regular users and may become respected enough to be asked to write guest blogs or participate in podcasts where you can include a plug for your site.

Are you effectively driving the right traffic to your website? If you aren’t focusing on any of these five tactics, you’re probably missing out on some major opportunities. Next time your organization reassesses its customer acquisition traffic, consider bringing up these points and making a change.

The post Drive Better Website Traffic With These 5 Tactics appeared first on Relevance.

There are a variety of platforms, methods, tricks and approaches for getting content seen. Follow this set of best practices for the greatest chance at more sharing, more exposure, and ultimately a larger audience:

1. Choose the “right” social media platforms

There’s no “one size fits all” solution for social media, even though platforms like Facebook and Twitter might be the most widely used in the US. What if your target audience is in China where Facebook is banned and largely inaccessible? While TechCrunch points out that Instagram is the fastest growing platform globally, that might not be the case with your audience. Conduct appropriate research and know where your content is most likely to spread, then choose social media platforms accordingly.

2. One-click sharing

Today’s citizens of the internet have really short attention spans, and if they find content that they deem “worthy” of sharing, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Don’t include sharing buttons for every potential means (cap it at five) and make the sharing process easy to complete. Ideally, your audience should be able to share in one or two fast clicks.

3. Fast page loading

Nothing is more maddening than a page that’s slow to load, and Google engineers report that people won’t wait longer than the blink of an eye for a page to load. There are many things you can do to ensure a faster page speed, from cleaning up the website content (less flash, animation, ads, etc.) to making sure your web host is keeping up their end of the bargain. Page speed is an SEO factor, too.

4. Build relationships with other website owners

Link sharing is still a very effective means of growing your audience, but it doesn’t happen easily or overnight. Reach out and network with complementary experts and thought leaders in your industry, such as bloggers that may cover content that you’re publishing.

5. Stick to favored formatting

Punchy, short sentences with an active voice, a lot of white space, and in the 500-700 word range are ideal for a reason. Regardless of the type of content (text, video, images, etc.) make sure it’s of the highest quality – even if this means digging into your budget for a little more cash. It doesn’t matter how compelling the information is if it’s not dished up in the right manner.

Making content shareable begins with research to fully understand who your audience is. Once you know where and why they’re sharing content, streamline the process with easy sharing options and a highly optimized website. Leverage existing relationships and continuously foster new ones for content sharing partnerships. Most importantly, create the kind of content you’d personally like to consume.

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