Marketers are doubling down on content marketing and leveraging native advertising to achieve scale as visual content marketing tactics evolve and the arms race rages to reach consumer engagement.
In a recent post, I described steps brands are taking to get the most out of their content efforts via Content Marketing Fracking and Closing the Social Loop . Native advertising is being used to capture the consumer’s attention and reach the holy grail of viral sharing.
However, it is not without controversy and brands are in a FOMO (fear of missing out) moment because fickle customers will start engaging with your competitors and then you are on your way out.
Promoting content is key to achieving reach but just buying ads, posting on Facebook and Twitter, social media optimization, and SEO is not good enough.
The bar has been raised high and brands must step up quickly with smarter placement, packaging techniques, tools, and partnerships.
The market is pouring $44 billion into content marketing and native advertising is looking to push past the $5 billion mark by 2017 with no signs of stopping.
There is a sea of companies providing tools and services galore engineered to milk and create meaningful customer engagement. What you chose and how you use it will your determine success.
Going Native
What’s native advertising?
Native advertising is a big buzzword in the marketing circle. It’s an attempt by advertisers to garner engagement through contextual experiences in an ad structure that acts less like an ad and more like editorial content.
The goal is to create a great user experience to induce sharing, clicks, and comments, which drives greater feed interaction and amplified reach.
Native advertising has been embraced by the majority of publishers and major social network even with the measurement issues . Most are offering some form of basic native advertising. If done well, it generates the discovery of entertaining, informative, educational, or down right funny content that may have not surfaced otherwise.
Problematic Content
With the tsunami of click fraud at an all time high, botnets are now acting like humans and programmatic buying is creating a race to the bottom.
Is there any hope for brand advertisers?
In the world of content marketing, robust engagement is alive and well. Brands are placing content as their top priority and using it as the key enabler for education, lead generation, and sales. John Battelle made a great point in a recent post and in some ways is a catalysts for native advertising:
“We buy audiences, but we aren’t buying the show they’re watching—we’re ignoring where that impression is served. This is nuts.”
Sadly, the native advertising we’re seeing is lots of smoke and mirrors and with magician tactics like “Top 100 Influencers”, “Top People”, “Top Sites” (social ego stroking) infographics, shocking images, over-manipulated viral videos, shocking headlines, and gamed wording, all in an attempt to make you think this is high quality, valuable content when it is just another attempt to drive you to look, engage, and share.
The FTC has cracked down on blogger product endorsements when they don’t disclose they are getting paid to distribute links, and Google has really gone after bloggers’ on the paid link side – so be careful on your content placement. Accepting payment for the rise of contextual content marketing in the form of native advertising will stay fairly lawless for now. BuzzFeed might not have invent native advertising, but they did sensationalized it.
The Native Matrix
A very cool matrix was created by Felix Salmon in an attempt to define the difference between PR, native advertising, brand journalism, content marketing, marketing, and blogging.
A major intersection between content marketing/native advertising is where editorial, PR, and content teams have to collaborate in a major way. Brands are creating “native” content (very similar to the content already on the pages where it’s placed), rather than having it be an obvious ad unit. Brands are surfacing and routing their best content intelligently, enabling visual HyperDiscovery similar to the way content recommendations do. HyperDiscovery bridges the disconnection between most digital silos creating the insertions within blog posts, publications, eCom, web, etc. providing timely and fresh content in a real-time format. Gone are the days of static images!
Consumers want many visual choices like Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter provide, and brands have to step up to those levels of content interaction. The more sophisticated a brand’s competition and customers become, the greater the amount of support required.
Agencies are very creative and have mastered the viral video like no other. Well paid and well placed content that’s highly scripted and heavily produced is entertaining. Its designed to maximize reach and increase shares with no regard to perpetual value.
Ongoing engagement and these highly radioactive content items have a very short half life. Brands have to think sustainability versus one off pops. Dove has done a great job of this with their real beauty campaign but who has that kind of budget? Most SMB’s struggle to get out posts and mid size brands staff only one or two people. So how can they make native advertising work for them?
7 Lead Generation Strategies to Invest In
We have rounded up the most effective lead generation channels you should invest in. You should use these channels to reach potential prospects and keep your lead bucket full.
Get Started with Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate leads. About 91% of B2B marketers spread the word about their companies through content marketing. However, this is a time-taking process that requires effort on your part.
You’ll need quality content that your prospects need and love to read. This includes publishing articles written by subject specialists and experts on hot topics. You can also publish blogs to address the pain points of your potential clients. Most marketers post detailed guides or share tips and tricks to educate their prospects.
But keep in mind that there’s no use in creating content if your clients cannot find it. So, you’ll have to market it using online marketing methods. This includes optimizing your content for search engines and sharing it on social platforms.
Search engine optimization (SEO) can help you generate high-quality leads online. So, don’t forget to optimize your content and website pages.
Optimize for Local SEO
For small agencies, no strategy is as effective as local SEO. This is a digital agency lead generation approach that you can use to target local clients. Many marketers find it an effective tactic for finding potential prospects in the surrounding community.
Local SEO not only adds authenticity to your business but also offers a higher ROI. The best part is that you’ll be able to show your digital agency when people will be searching for services like yours. As a result, you’ll be able to generate high-quality leads.
This includes creating a Google Business Profile and positioning your digital agency on Google Maps. People prefer to hire an agency which is closer to their location and has good reviews. So, don’t forget to ask your previous clients to leave reviews on your profile.
Think Beyond the Ad Unit to Meaningful Content
Lets face it, even marketers want to read something engaging or that invokes a true emotion.
The best ads have their foundation anchored in content. Harness the storytelling side of being a great marketer and your brand will benefit. Regardless of being native or not, the goal of ads or content is to make you:
- Feel Something
- Invoke a Response
- Tap Into an Additive Behavior (not disruptive)
- Help Connect You with the Brand
Marketers are great storytellers, and the arrival of new platforms simply provides more tools for telling great stories. You are responsible for creating an experience that draws your customer through a process of education to purchase and ultimately an advocate.
Run PPC Ads
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are one of the most effective ways to generate leads for digital services. This is a strategy where you pay search engines like Google and Bing to display ads. In return, you get to reach new prospects who are looking for similar services.
If you are considering options, we recommend you go with Google Ads. The platform allows businesses to promote their services in a cost-effective way. You can narrow down the targeted audience based on their previous searches and demography to show your ads.
However, there are some factors that you must consider before running PPC ads. You should spend time on keyword research and your ad copy. Select keywords that fulfil the search intent and craft a compelling copy to engage the right prospects.
Above all, make sure your landing/services page is optimized for running a campaign. PPC ads cost every click, and you’ll end up burning money if you don’t have a planned strategy.
Create Quality Lead Magnets
In case you don’t know, a lead magnet is a marketing term. It is used for items (sometimes services) that businesses give away for free to collect contact details. Some of the most popular lead magnets that marketers use are:
- Webinars
- Ebooks
- White Papers / Research papers
- Templates
- Training videos
According to Statista , webinars are the most effective lead magnets.
However, you should use lead magnets after considering your target audience. You should offer valuable assets to your audience that either offer them something or solve their problems. And don’t forget to link your offer with the lead generation form.
Make sure the lead generation form that you are using is user-friendly. Also, keep it short and try to get essential information like names, email addresses, and company names or industries.
Automate Your Lead Generation Process
There isn’t a marketer who is not familiar with the terms artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. And when we talk about marketing automation, we mean a system that can work on its own.
There are software and AI tools available in the market that one can use for lead generation. Such software can build prospect lists on its own once the variables are set. The best part is that you can synchronize these automated marketing tools with your CRM. They also have the ability to pitch services to these potential clients.
Don’t Ignore Influencers and Referrals
Influencer marketing is considered exceptionally good for B2C marketing but it can also offer great results for B2B marketing. However, the trick is to find the right influencer for your digital marketing agency.
Industry experts such as social media experts, SEO specialists, and content marketers are ideal picks. These are the persons that can help you with digital agency lead generation. All you have to do is identify individuals who are considered experts and have strong followership.
Referral marketing is another great way to generate leads for your digital agency. We recommend you set up a referral program and clearly mention your policy. Offer free add-ons, limited-time services, or discounts to promote your referral program.
We’re Just Getting Started
The burden is on the native advertiser to make amazing content beyond the flashy headline. Most often, link bait is being used and we see it rampant on Facebook with sponsored posts containing regurgitated YouTube videos or other “shocking” content in an attempt to suck people into a site shows us more paid or sponsored content.
The main issue with native advertising is the deception, making it hard for unwitting visitors to tell the difference between editorial versus ads. Native content is not new, but how you integrate and package it can differentiate your brands and create an evergreen content opportunity that keeps giving over time.
Your brand now has multiple personality disorder—and social is the more exciting personality—and your website is becoming boring. Why shouldn’t your website be as interesting as social? Having a boring website is like having your sysadmin do your sales.
Prepare for change and embrace new technologies that can improve your ability to generate a new data set used to higher engagement rates. Your social and content may be in the 21st century, but your website is stuck in the 20th century.
