Google AdWords has introduced new IF functions to search ads which allow ad text to be customized based on whether or not specific parameters are met.
Ads can be customized in a number of ways using IF functions, here are just a few examples:
IF it’s a new customer, then show ads for introductory promotions.
IF it’s a returning customer, then show ads emphasizing your loyalty program.
IF the customer is using a mobile device, then show ads emphasizing quick and easy mobile checkout.
Anyone who has ever used IFTTT (If This Then That), or has a background in computer programming, will get the basic idea behind IF functions. If X parameter is met, then perform Y action… and so forth.
IF functions can be used to display custom text if any of the following parameters are met: device, time, audience, gender, or age. IF functions can be applied in any field of an expanded text ad, except for the URL itself.
In the example which Google provides below, IF functions are used in both the second headline field and description field.
Headline 2 will promote “Fast Mobile Booking” if the user is searching on a mobile device. In the description field, “Save 15% at checkout” will be added if the searcher is in the LoyaltyMembers audience.
In the event that parameters aren’t met, advertisers can now select default values to be displayed instead, which means you’ll never have to have an ad without customizers in your ad group.
Of course Snapchat has come up with a weird way to browse the web. And of course that way involves snapping a photo.
On Tuesday Snapchat added a feature to its mobile app for people to turn links into “Snapcodes” (its version of the QR code) that can be used to open web pages within Snapchat’s in-app browser. For now the feature is only available to iPhone users.
To create a Snapcode, open Snapchat’s in-app settings, select “Snapcodes” and then select “Create Snapcode.” Then paste the URL of the chosen web page and add an image that will appear within the Snapcode; Snapchat will automatically pull images from the web page as options. The completed Snapcode will be saved to your phone’s camera roll and can be inserted anywhere you can insert a photo, like embedded on a website; posted to Facebook, Instagram or Twitter; painted on a billboard; tattooed on your body; etc.
To open a link from a Snapcode, you take a picture of the Snapcode using Snapchat’s in-app camera, and then a prompt will ask if you want to open the link. As a security measure, URL-laden Snapcodes will include the domain of the site being linked to.
While publishers and brands can add parameters to a URL to track when people are visiting a link from Snapchat, Snapchat will also provide in-app analytics for Snapcodes that have been scanned at least 100 times, according to a Snapchat spokesperson. For eligible links, the person who created the Snapcode will be able to see the total number of scans over the past three months as well as the percentage of people who opened the link after scanning it.
About The Author
Tim Peterson, Third Door Media’s Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat’s ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar’s attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon’s ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube’s programming strategy, Facebook’s ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking’s rise; and documented digital video’s biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed’s branded video production process and Snapchat Discover’s ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands’ early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo’s and Google’s search designs and examine the NFL’s YouTube and Facebook video strategies.
We all know the creative process is challenging. Its non-linear nature often causes frustration, delays, unplanned expenses, and burnt out creative teams.
Join brand expert Lesya Lysyj and Hightail’s Chief Operating Officer Mike Trigg as they explore the hidden costs of a broken creative process, and provide best practices for better creative collaboration. You’ll learn:
How to meet deadlines without sacrificing creative quality.
Simple ways to keep disparate teams on the same page.
Common causes of miscommunication between brands and agencies.
Digital Marketing Depot is a resource center for digital marketing strategies and tactics. We feature hosted white papers and E-Books, original research, and webcasts on digital marketing topics — from advertising to analytics, SEO and PPC campaign management tools to social media management software, e-commerce to e-mail marketing, and much more about internet marketing. Digital Marketing Depot is a division of Third Door Media, publisher of Search Engine Land and Marketing Land, and producer of the conference series Search Marketing Expo and MarTech. Visit us at http://digitalmarketingdepot.com.
With the brouhaha about fake news and the significant impacts it’s making, Facebook has come out with two algorithm updates, one of which is focused on timely signals to improve prominence of news stories and the other to better rank authentic content. In a joint announcement made by members on its engineering and research science teams, new signals will determine how visible Facebook updates are going to be in the News Feed.
According to Facebook, authenticity is based on a number of factors, including categorizing Pages to identify whether they’ve solicited likes or posted spam in the past. If you run a Page that has tried to game the Facebook feed, consider yourself unlucky. Asking for likes, comments, or shares is a no-no and this update will likely penalize you whether or not the content you share is authentic. They also leverage user behavior; if posts are hidden by the user, Facebook considers the Page’s contents to be unauthentic.
Facebook also looks at real time signals to amplify visibility of posts. These signals include recent comments from friends or post Likes. If there’s “a lot of engagement … about a topic or a Page is getting a lot of engagement,” Facebook’s algorithm will consider that topic important and improve its visibility on the feed.
Facebook says that this might minimally impact Pages–but it subtly suggests that marketers not encourage suspicious activity to improve post visibility. It might have worked once in the past, but it looks like they’ve caught on.
After three consecutive quarters of year-over-year sales declines, Apple announced its biggest quarter ever. The company beat revenue and earnings expectations, selling more than 78 million iPhones.
Apple reported revenue of $78.4 billion vs. an expectation of $77.25 billion. It sold 78.2 million iPhones vs. 76 million expected. Indeed all product lines posted increases except “other.”
Here are numbers:
iPhones: 78.3 million units, $54.4 billion in revenue
iPad: 13.1 million units, $5.5 billion in revenue
Macs: 5.4 million units, $7.2 billion in revenue
Services (including Apple Pay, Apple Care): $7.2 billion in revenue.
Other (including Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products): $4 billion in revenue.
The end end of the December quarter, Apple had $103.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents. International sales were roughly 59 percent of total revenue. The company said it had net profit of $18.4 billion. The Americas, Europe and Greater China were the company’s top markets, in that order.
Stay tuned for notes from the earnings call.
About The Author
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.
Facebook is changing the way it ranks stories in the News Feed. The social network is adding and updating signals to its ranking algorithm.
The goal is to start showing users more authentic content by cutting down on posts that are “misleading, sensational or spammy.” In other words, cutting down on the Facebook’s fake news problem.
Authentic posts may start appearing higher in your Facebook News Feed. Sounds great, but what exactly is an authentic post?
Well, to figure this out, Facebook started by categorizing pages to identify any pages that were posting spam or encouraging users to like, comment, and share posts. Facebook then used posts from those pages to “train a model that continuously identifies whether posts from other Pages are likely to be authentic.”
As one example, Facebook said that it looks at how often users who read posts end up hiding them.
Facebook Updates Real-Time Signals
Timey posts or topics that get a lot of engagement (likes, shares, comments) during a short period could also appear higher in your News Feed.
For example, if your favorite sports team wins a game and lots of people are posting about the game or the team, then those posts will get a temporary boost.
Facebook promises these update will result in little change to News Feed visibility for most pages – though some Pages may notice small increases or decreases in referral traffic and clicks.
Here’s our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.
From Marketing Land:
Let’s make 2017 the year of honest reviews!
Jan 31, 2017 by Greg Gifford
Reviews can be an important part of a local SEO strategy, but columnist Greg Gifford warns that overdoing it can make your business look shady.
Walmart targets Amazon Prime with free two-day shipping
Jan 31, 2017 by Matt McGee
Battle between retail giants continues as Walmart goes after Amazon Prime’s free shipping by offering it with no membership fee required.
How martech has made ABM-at-scale possible
Jan 31, 2017 by Barry Levine
Account-based marketing uses spears instead of marketing’s traditional wide nets to get new customers, and now tech is enabling armies of spears.
The 3 challenges all social CMI professionals face (and how to overcome them)
Jan 31, 2017 by Will McInnes
As the role of the social consumer market insights professional becomes ever more vital to organizations, contributor Will McInnes takes a look at the hurdles they face and how to successfully deal with them.
5 storytelling triggers that spur your readers to take action
Jan 31, 2017 by Jennifer Spencer
How do you write content that encourages engagement? Contributor Jennifer Spencer shares five tips to keep in mind when creating a story for your readers.
Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.
As Google continues to invest in machine learning technology to help it better understand and parse user queries, columnist Eric Enge emphasizes the need for marketers to continuously improve content quality and user satisfaction.
Following a recent executive order suspending US admissions for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries on Friday, columnist Frederick Vallaeys explains how such a policy would have hindered the growth of the search industry as we know it today.
Using the new API Google released, developers can now build their own tools around the mobile-friendly testing tool to see if pages are mobile-friendly.
The “Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide,” from our sister site, MarTech Today, examines the market for enterprise SEO software platforms and the considerations involved in implementing this software into your business. If you are considering licensing an SEO software tool, this report will help you decide whether you need to. The report has been […]
Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
New Google Mobile-Friendly Test API
Google has announced they finally released the mobile-friendly test API, something webmasters have been asking for since the test has came out in November 2014. Google said “the Mobile-Friendly Test API lets you test URLs using automated tools…
Google AdWords Updates IF Functions & Default Values
Google quietly announced on Google+ that they made some changes to the IF functions and default values used for ad customizations. Google said “we’re making it even easier to customize these ads with IF functions and default values…
Google: Tell Us About Your HTTPS Migrations Again
Gary Illyes from Google wants to hear feedback on success, failure or other issues during your HTTPS migration and how Google handled picking up and reindexing those HTTPS URLs and any traffic changes…
Google Releases New Content For Hacked Site Support
Google’s Nathan Johns announced on Twitter that Google has released “new support content around help for hacked websites.” The new content can be found at developers.google.com/webmasters/hacked…
Google Campus Protests Hit 2 Million Googlers #GooglersUnite
There are tons of pictures on social media of the Google campus protest last night at the Mountain View, GooglePlex headquarters. Reports say there were about 2 million Googlers there. Here is a phot
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
Go to Source
Author: barry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)
Compete head-to-head with Amazon in the e-commerce arena? It might be crazy, but that’s not stopping Walmart.
Today, Walmart announced its latest attempt at evening the playing field, and it looks like it came straight out of Amazon’s playbook: free, two-day shipping on more than two million products.
It looks like Amazon Prime, but there are a few twists:
Walmart isn’t charging a membership fee. Amazon Prime is $99 per year, or $10.99 per month.
Walmart requires a minimum $35 purchase to get free, two-day shipping. Amazon Prime has no minimum purchase level.
Walmart’s offer covers about two million items. Amazon Prime reportedly includes 40 million items.
Of course, Amazon offers Prime members several other benefits beyond free, two-day shipping: free same-day delivery in certain areas, free two-hour delivery in some areas via its Prime Now product, unlimited media streaming via Prime Video and Prime Music, Amazon Dash button ordering and more.
Prime has been a huge success for Amazon. Analysts estimate that Prime has 65 million members in the U.S. who spend $1,200 per year with Amazon — about double what non-Prime customers spend. One recent survey revealed that 30 percent of Prime members place at least one order per week from Amazon.
Marc Lore, Walmart’s head of U.S. e-commerce, says today’s shipping announcement “is the first of many moves we will be making to enhance the customer experience and accelerate growth.” He also called free, two-day shipping “table stakes” in today’s e-commerce landscape. Lore is the co-founder of Jet.com, the e-commerce startup that Walmart bought last year.
About The Author
Matt McGee is the Editor-In-Chief of Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. After leaving traditional media in the mid-1990s, he began developing and marketing websites and continued to provide consulting services for more than 15 years. His SEO and social media clients ranged from mom-and-pop small businesses to one of the Top 5 online retailers. Matt is a longtime speaker at marketing events around the U.S., including keynote and panelist roles. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee. You can read Matt’s disclosures on his personal blog. You can reach Matt via email using our Contact page.
Snapchat is launching a new Facebook-inspired ad platform, reports AdAge. While it has had an API since early 2016, today marks its opening of the platform with partnerships already in play to a wider user-base, including brands and agencies, allowing them to buy directly on the social network.
Evidently, Snapchat is taking cues from Facebook. An anonymous source told AdAge that “Snapchat is totally copying what Facebook did. They now have all the right tech partners to build the platform for them and bring in revenue.” It’s not surprising to see Snapchat take a stab at Facebook–Facebook is certainly doing the same with its product enhancements that aim to kill the service as a whole.
Many of these the partners who have been part of this ad technology overhaul, including Kenshoo, Kinetic, HyFn and Videology, have already worked with Facebook. Omnicom-owned agency Resolution Media will be licensing the API as well, allowing brands to bid on inventory through a self-serve model just like other services such as Google and Facebook.
Snapchat has also forged partnerships with Merkle, Kochava, LiveRamp and others who will work as “audience match” partners, which facilitates lookalike campaigns–data like customer lists can be uploaded to target similar users.
It has also introduced a video feature via a “creative API” to allow companies like Celtra, Vidmob and Spredfst to manage video content, helping with production and editing of videos for to achieve certain marketing objectives.
We have reached out to Snapchat for comment and will update this story when further information is made available.
Google has been slowly building out the new AdWords interface, first introduced last March. More accounts have been granted alpha access, and on Tuesday, Google’s head of search ads, Jerry Dischler, said it is rolling out to even more AdWords accounts in the next few months.
When you first get access, you may be taken right to the new interface, or you may see a notification in the top right corner or at the bottom of the screen like the one below.
Don’t worry about clicking it and never being able to get back to the land you know. You can toggle back and forth between the new and old interfaces, which you’ll want to do because functionality like being able to download data is still not available. A guided tour will launch the first time the new UI loads in an account.
Google continues to add more features to the new UI, so even if you don’t find yourself working in it extensively at first, it’s worth continuing to check out and get used to the navigation. Here’s a look at an Overview screen today. The Advanced bid adjustment menu option on the left nav is relatively new, for example.
Google says accounts are selected based on a number of factors such as the features used.
About The Author
As Third Door Media’s paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.
Budweiser has released the 60-second spot it will air during the Super Bowl, an ad that tells the story of how its founder Adolphus Busch emigrated from Germany to America in pursuit of his dream to brew beer.
The Budweiser spot is reminiscent of a Miramax period film, with dark lighting and award-level character costumes and makeup. The ad, titled “Born the Hard Way,” opens with the line, “You don’t look like you’re from around here.”
In light of today’s political climate, it would appear Budweiser is using its 60-seconds during the Super Bowl to make a statement — putting a spotlight on how its founder came to St. Louis, Missouri, as an immigrant, “… in pursuit of the American dream.”
Created by the Budweiser’s agency, Anomaly, this will be the brand’s 101st Super Bowl commercial. Anheuser-Busch InBev, Budweiser’s parent company, says it has bought at least three full minutes of Super Bowl ad time this year to be shared among four of its brands: Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob ULTRA and Busch.
In a release announcing its Super Bowl plans for all four brands, Anheuser-Busch’s VP of marketing, Marcel Marcondes, said it’s using the Super Bowl ads to launch year-long campaigns for the brands.
“For Super Bowl 51, we are not just creating ads for the game, but kicking off strategic creative campaigns for the year,” says Marcondes, “For that reason, we’re debuting new work that we believe will resonate before, during and long after game day.”
Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.
Automation is nothing new in AdWords, but this month, Google launched a pilot this month that adds new text ads to advertisers’ accounts. Dubbed Ads Added by AdWords, the program started on January 26.
Not surprisingly, this news has set off alarm bells among paid search managers that worry about Google usurping control over the ad creation and testing process. Here is what we know so far about this test.
The initial set of advertisers were notified of the pilot on January 12. For those that chose to participate, ads were added to ad groups two weeks later, on January 26, at which time a second wave of advertisers were notified about the pilot. Currently 2,000 accounts have been selected for the test. Each has a two-week opt-out window via a form. If you do not receive an email, you haven’t been selected for the pilot.
What accounts were considered for this program? Google looked at campaigns with ad rotation settings of either “Optimize for clicks” or “Optimize for conversions” that have ad groups with few ads in them.
If you’ve opted out of automated extensions or are in a vertical with privacy sensitivities such as pharma, your account was not selected for this program.
How are the ads generated? We’re told that, for the test, the ads were generated by people (as opposed to auto-generated) based on the existing ads in the account and the landing page content. The ads went through review by the product team, among others, for quality assurance. The sales teams were also involved in creative review and account selection for the pilot.
From the Help Center page on this new program, we also know that any ads generated for the pilot will be labeled “Added by AdWords”. In the example below (yes, all of the ads are terrible, but try to look past that for now), Google has added two test ads in an ad group that had just one ad. Notice that the headlines, description and paths are all being tested.
Google says on that Help Center page, “We believe that adding more ads to the affected ad groups can improve these ad groups’ performance by 5 to 15%.” The new ads are set to run indefinitely, and Google recommends pilot participants not pause the ads. Theoretically, if they perform worse (based on conversion or click-through rates), the ads will be shown less. But, certainly review the ads if you’re participating in the test, as Google also advises.
This program obviously raises more questions about advertiser control and the role of machine learning in ad creation. If Google deems the pilot successful and roles Ads Added by AdWords out more broadly, it’s hard to see how the current ad creation and vetting process can scale without automation. One can assume that the machines will be learning from this pilot.
About The Author
As Third Door Media’s paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.
The idea that B2B salespeople target a few key corporate accounts — using spears instead of marketing’s widely-cast nets, as some have metaphorized — has been around for a while.
What is relatively new is the ability to do this at scale, intelligently and automatically. When the definitive history of marketing technology is written, the creation of this army of spears will be one of its most important consequences.
Major marketing platform Marketo, for instance, added ABM to its resume in 2013 when it bought Insightera. From Marketo’s website:
“Because ABM requires more account-level personalization than traditional marketing it has historically cost more to implement. However, advances in marketing technology have enabled marketers to employ ABM for much less than previously possible and at much greater scale.”
In part because of the tech tools available, ABM is now common. A 2016 report from SiriusDecisions on the “State of ABM,” for instance, found that over 70 percent of B2B firms have now completely or partially adopted ABM as a strategy.
In a way, the adoption of ABM is a counter-movement to two other marketing and sales strategies: inbound marketing, which uses content and other means to drive leads to sales, and the age-old technique of marketing based on customer personas, which has largely been based on demographic assumptions about customer types.
Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.
We’re creating a lot of content these days. It’s everywhere. Everyone is writing; everyone has a blog. I’m truly waiting for the day when my mom asks me how she can start a blog to impart her wisdom about how to behave properly in a restaurant.
With the nonstop stream of content being created, it sometimes seems like not everyone is really thinking about how to make their content stand out. I remember that a few years ago, a friend asked me why I hadn’t written a piece about some SEO topic that everyone else was writing about. I explained that I didn’t think I had anything to add to what was out there. If everyone else is saying it, why would you? Wouldn’t you rather say something else, or something better?
For example, around Halloween I was searching for lists of the scariest movies ever made. I kept finding great lists full of movies I’d never even heard of, but one big thing was missing: none that I found showed you where you could stream the films or rent/buy them.
All these articles had some unique perspectives to them, too. Some listed the trailers for the films. Some were filled with recommendations from famous actors and directors. However, for me, as a big fan of streaming services, I was quite disappointed to not see any that told me where to find them and linked to those sources. This definitely stood out as something that I’d have added myself.
It’s even about Netflix, but instead of giving you a link to the movie on that site, they show you the trailers. I mean I’m certainly capable of searching for a movie on Netflix (in fact, I’m pretty close to an expert on it) but as a link builder all I think is, “This is a wasted chance to link.” You see the section about the movie “Creep?” Wouldn’t it be nice if they’d linked to it on Netflix?
So they do tell you where to get the film, but they don’t link to it! Why not? And in the “Honorable Mentions” sections, they list other films but leave it up to you to go search for them. If I had a horror movie site, and someone approached me with an alternative piece that linked to where to find these films, I’d favor that over this one any day.
We can do better
The beauty of a tool like BuzzSumo or Ahrefs Content Explorer is that you can easily see what content is performing well on what platforms. If you see several articles getting a lot of traction on Twitter, and you have a very similar piece in the works, look at what they don’t have and add it to your own.
To give you an example of how someone could use this idea and go above and beyond, here’s a great content opportunity for a site that sells dog collars to do a nice blog post on that same topic, linking to the parks themselves. Maybe they ask for visitors to send in photos of their dogs in these parks, wearing the collars they sell. That would be a nice way to get some great social shares, wouldn’t it?
Let’s go forward with that more specific niche and find one more example of something that could be made better.
They do include some nice info, though. They provide a list of free admission dates for the year (the article was from 2016, so it’s for that year), and they have summarized the pet policies for each park, which is pretty nice. They don’t have a photo of each park, though, and since a national park is such a visual experience, all I’m thinking is, “Why not?”
It has 212 total shares according to BuzzSumo, but I think it would have had more if it had contained outbound links and more photos.
Now, even if you’re not trying to create new content, you could surely look at all of this and see that other articles about dog-friendly national parks did contain links and photos, and you could thus update your piece and re-socialize it. Maybe you could add videos of drone footage of the parks or give tips on the best times to visit each one. What about linking to camping options or other accommodations for each park?
For one thing, if you have content that doesn’t stand out for having all it could have, you’re opening yourself up to potentially losing that link to someone else. It’s like broken link building, really. “We noticed you have a link to X piece, but our Y piece actually gives more information — so would you think about replacing the old link with ours?”
I recently received an email asking me if I’d consider updating an old article where I linked to a tool review. The person reaching out said that on her blog, they had recently reviewed this tool and wondered if I could change my link to their review instead, as it was much more comprehensive and reviewed several new features. If I weren’t such a lazy person, I might be tempted.
So, what can you add to make your content better?
And last, but not least… outbound links! Don’t ever be afraid to link out if it helps your audience.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
Julie Joyce owns the link development firm Link Fish Media and is one of the founding members of the SEO Chicks blog. Julie began working in search marketing in 2002 and soon became head of search for a small IT firm. Eventually, she started Link Fish Media, where she now serves as Director Of Operations, focusing on working with clients in ultra-competitive niches all over the world.
Every day, countless numbers of potential customers are walking away from buying, clicking, opting in and so on because the content creator wasted an attempt to win over their minds.
When you miss an opportunity to capture someone’s mind with your content, chances are, turning that new viewer into a return visitor are slim to none — much less trying to get them to buy something. We are creatures chained to psychological triggers. Marketing is a mind game.
So how do you win at marketing? You win at marketing by capturing someone’s mind. How is this done? The simplest way is through the use of storytelling.
I’m going to show you five things you should always remember in order to write actionable content every time.
1. Explain why
Explaining why something is what it is or does what it does appeals to the mind. Psychological studies have noted we are always looking for answers to different questions.
So this poses the question for you: What does your audience want to know about? Storytelling is a great way to perform this action because when you pose an intriguing question about a pain point in your title, you’re reeling them in, since they automatically want to know the answer to the question. We enjoy being puzzled, but we also enjoy learning.
The brain finds pleasure in looking at things that confuse it. It wants to figure it out. That’s why article titles with Who, What, When, Where and Why in them draw people in. They want to know!
I’ve read a lot of articles in my day, and I’ve felt shortchanged at times when I left empty-handed. The story didn’t wrap up, it was confusing, or it missed the point. But mainly because it didn’t answer my question.
Make sure your article covers your main points. Also, be sure that it answers the question you posed at the beginning of the article. This is crucial, because when you answer the question, you have an opportunity to encourage the reader to perform some type of action on your content.
2. Emotion is a big seller
When you tell a story, you activate different senses in your reader’s mind. Sight, sound and smell — these take a step forward when your story leaps off the page at people. In psychology, emotion is often defined as a “complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behavior.”
Bingo. What you want your reader to do depends on what your content does to the reader. So, essentially, it’s up to you to determine the action they take on your content, because your audience will perform based on the emotional qualities your story brings.
The James-Lange theory suggests that emotions occur as a direct result of reactions. So, how do we create emotion in our story? Remember the classic movie, “The Princess Bride?”
Inigo Montoya: “You seem like a decent fellow. I hate to kill you.” The Man in Black: “You seem like a decent fellow. I hate to die.”
Right now, your mind is going through some of your favorite scenes from “The Princess Bride.” That’s OK. I’ll give you a minute… This is called RECALL.
Recall is directly affected by the main emotional trigger in our brain. Recall stores everything we know about anything and is a powerful motivator.
So, let me talk in generalities here: Perhaps you have a business online, and you know you could make it better. But for some reason, you’re stuck. You’re not making headway like other people around you. You’re doing all the right things — well, at least, you’re trying to. You’re definitely doing the best you can. But there’s one thing missing, and you can’t quite put your finger on it.
Sound familiar? It’s OK. Building an online brand is tough sometimes. But when you create content that speaks to people, you begin to activate their recall.
You understood what I was just talking about. You’ve been there, and there’s a good chance that while you were reading the above sentence, you began to have anxiety and to be nervous because you know you’re doing the best you know how with your business.
Relevancy is the key. Relevancy means recall. Recall means action. Recall remembers the hard times; it remembers your goals in life and the desires you have to get there.
When you create perfect recall in your audience, you build trust because you have just shown them a scenario they can relate to. You’ve been there. You know about them. You are them.
Emotional recall is a powerful motivator, and when you include this in your storytelling, you capture not only the mind of your reader, but the heart as well.
3. Make it simple
Remember K.I.S.S.? Keep It Simple, Stupid. Kinda rude, but you get the point. Nobel prize-winning author Daniel Kahneman says a general law of least effort can apply to your readers. Why? Because we converge on the easiest method to achieve our goals.
Stephen Covey wrote “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People,” and it became an immediate bestseller — partly because everyone wants to be successful, and no one will buy a book that says it takes 100 habits to be successful. Seven sounds simpler.
Write an easy-to-follow story so your audience can see where you’re going with it. Show them the best and quickest possible way to achieve something, and watch the story create action after action.
If you want to get someone to opt in through your content, share a simple solution, perhaps an e-book that will offer some answers. Once they are subscribed, then you have the opportunity to teach them even more later. But focus on the simplicity of the solution right away.
4. Create anticipation
Wouldn’t it be great to have someone so wrapped up in what you were saying that you just knew they were only waiting for the green light to do something for you? That’s the psychological trigger called anticipation.
Scientific studies show that happy people anticipate positive events in their future, and the stimulation of dopamine in their brain shows what happens when they experience those things. How do you create anticipation in your storytelling? Create a relevant article that allows people to agree with what you’re telling them.
You have to build a bridge between your experience and their need which allows relevancy to be able to walk across and meet the reader. What is a common bond you have with your reader? See what I did there? Relevancy = recall = action.
Secondly, you should have an environment that also agrees with the positive dopamine running to the brain. You can do this by using positive and warm colors throughout your site. Working together, although your readers may not be aware of this effect, it helps them feel the anticipation needed to create a certain action through your storytelling.
5. Use the Information Gap Theory
George Loewenstein came up with the Information Gap Theory, which pinpoints the effects of curiosity in the brain. To ensure your reader stays glued to your story, you should have the effects of curiosity bouncing around in their brain somewhere.
Curiosity gives them a reason to keep reading. Loewenstein said in the study, “People feel a gap between what they know and what they want to know.” When they find something that bridges that gap, they will immediately take action on whatever that “thing” is.
Curiosity is the mind-state that is triggered when people feel there is a gap between what they know and what they want to know. So how do you inspire curiosity? Ask questions!
I’m reminded of something my dad said to me one day. (He was a master salesman.) He explained that a great salesman doesn’t “tell” about the product, but will ask questions to the potential customer. If you were talking to a potential client, you might ask:
“What would you do if I had something to make more sales for your business on social media?”
Questions are the key to building curiosity. Be creative in your headlines as well! As mentioned above, anything posing a question will spark a reader’s interest and bring them to your content.
One great way to understand which questions to ask is to research your audience:
What do they want?
What are they trying to achieve?
What are their goals?
A great content writer will also go the extra mile and dig into social accounts and blog posts to get more familiar with the person. It’s all for curiosity’s sake.
In conclusion
With these tips I have just shown you, you will be able to create a better, more actionable story for your readers. Do me a favor and begin applying some of these principles to the article you are working on right now.
People come to your content because you attracted them, but will they leave satisfied? That will be determined when you put these psychological triggers to work for your content. Have a great storytelling tip for the rest of us? I would love to hear about some of your successes! Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or our LinkedIn Group.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
Jennifer Spencer is the founder of JS PR Services, a company which boasts of it’s podcast public relations through revealing your brand on popular podcasts across the country. Jennifer’s creative flair began at an early age and stuck with her after realizing she had what it took to promote businesses online. If you want your story told in a way it has never been told before, Jennifer can take your business to the next level by doing just that. JS PR Services has a knack for understanding your company’s vision and making it their own.
Every day, countless numbers of potential customers are walking away from buying, clicking, opting in and so on because the content creator wasted an attempt to win over their minds.