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Content Marketing for Beginners – DigitalMarketer

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Content Marketing for Beginners - DigitalMarketer

A simple, 2-hour-per-month content marketing framework for the content beginner. 

Content marketing is vital in developing your audience’s “know, like and trust” factor. It can overcome objections before they happen, increase the perceived value of your offers, and increase customer lifetime. This simple framework will teach you how to create compelling content and repurpose it for multiple platforms in about 2-hours per month. 

Core & Hygiene Content 

There are two categories of content that every business needs in their content marketing strategy. Core Content and Hygiene Content. 

Core Content is the core of your marketing efforts. It should deliver incredible value and include an opt-in. Creating Core Content is resource intensive, so how do you fill in the gaps in your content calendar? Hygiene Content. 

Hygiene Content serves the vital purpose of staying present and relevant to your audience. If Core Content is your 6-month intensive dental cleaning, Hygiene Content is brushing your teeth daily. Creating one type won’t guarantee dental (or content) disaster but combining both is ideal.

Core Content = Quality

Hygiene Content = Quantity

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Hygiene Content allows you to create the quantity of content you need to be present and relevant in the highly competitive content marketing world without draining your resources or becoming a full-time content marketer. 

Core Content

It’s the most important content you create and is directly related to your customers’ biggest problems and how you solve them. To create Core Content, choose 2-5 core topics or categories. These should be the topics most important to your customer and directly related to your solution. Let’s look at an example. 

Tim’s Tax Team is a small business accounting firm specializing in tax filing and corporate tax breaks. Their customers’ biggest challenges are meeting corporate tax requirements, proper record keeping, and audits. 

Tim’s Tax Team Core Content Topics

  1. Tax Filing 
  2. Audits 
  3. Corporate Bookkeeping
  4. Corporate Tax Breaks

Tim’s Tax Team Core Content Examples

  • How to save money on your corporate tax filing 
  • How to become audit-proof
  • Why your bookkeeping could cost you thousands of dollars in penalties (and how to prevent it)
  • The five most missed corporate tax breaks

Hygiene Content

Hygiene Content is the in-between content that keeps your brand in the hearts and minds of your customers without taking hours to create. It provides value and entertainment but doesn’t have the same depth as your core content. 

Hygiene Content topics are relevant to your customer but don’t necessarily have to be related to the problem you solve or your offers. To create Hygiene Content, identify 3-5 topics relevant to your ideal customer or related to your industry. Let’s look at Tim’s Tax Team again.

Tim’s Tax Team works primarily with local brick-and-mortar restaurants and retail businesses. Their clients are between the ages of 45-60, family-oriented and spend their weekends barbequing and watching the local football team. They aren’t tech-savvy and rely heavily on their accountants and bookkeepers to provide technical recommendations.

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Tim’s Tax Team Hygiene Topics 

  1. Football
  2. Software & Technical Recommendations
  3. Restaurant Finance & Tax Considerations
  4. Retail Business Finance & Tax Considerations
  5. How to use your business to build a family legacy 

Hygiene Content Examples

  • Football and Finance: How to build a rock-solid business financial foundation with football strategy.
  • The best accounting software for small restaurants 
  • The biggest money mistakes restaurants make 
  • Inventory & Taxes: How retail businesses can save money with better inventory management 
  • Family business finances: three steps to creating generational wealth with your small business

Case Studies 

Let’s look at a few REAL examples. 

HubSpot

HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform for businesses that have growing teams with growing needs and can no longer manage multiple platforms. Their customers typically have marketing, sales, operations, and service departments that are rapidly growing and collaborating and need effective strategies and tools. 

HubSpot’s Core Content Topics  

  • Marketing Strategy
  • Sales Processes and Systems
  • Customer Services

HubSpot Core Content Examples

HubSpot Hygiene Content Topics

HubSpot understands that its customers are interested in many sub-topics related to its Core Content Topics. They want to learn about the latest social media strategies, website development tips, benchmark data and industry metrics. HubSpot combines corporate humor and educational content on the sub-topics relevant to the everyday lives of their consumers–anyone working in marketing, sales, or service,  

  • Social media tips and tactics
  • Relatable office moments and experiences
  • Email humor
  • Website sub-topics

HubSpot Hygiene Content Examples

TurboTax 

TurboTax is an Online Accounting Software with a primary market of individuals and entrepreneurs with simple accounting needs who don’t want to hire an accountant but don’t want to miss out on deductions, incentives, or tax breaks. 

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TurboTax Core Content Topics

TurboTax’s Core Content Topics are directly related to solving the most common taxes and accounting problems their customers face with actionable tips and opt-ins. 

  • Tax Basics
  • Credits & Deductions
  • Income & Investments

TurboTax Core Content Examples 

TurboTax Hygiene Topics   

TurboTax’s Hygiene Content Topics provide quick tips and information on tax filing and investing sub-topics.

  • New Tax Credits 
  • Medical & Disability Tax Considerations
  • Organizing Financial & Tax Documents
  • Spending & Saving Tips 

TurboTax Hygiene Content Examples

DigitalMarketer

As the premier online community for digital marketing professionals, DigitalMarketer provides educational resources, certifications and coaching programs for digital marketing professionals, businesses, and agencies. 

DigitalMarketer’s Core Content Topics

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Marketing is rapidly changing, and finding up-to-date credible information, tools, and strategies is challenging. DigitalMarketer’s solution is to provide a one-stop shop for marketing certifications and programs that help marketing professionals stay ahead. 

  • The Marketing Professional 
  • Effective Marketing Strategy 

DigitalMarketer Core Content Examples 

DigitalMarketer Hygiene Content Topics

Marketing has many sub-topics and platforms, so DigitalMarketer provides relevant information and resources pertinent to their consumers’ everyday lives–anyone working in marketing.

  • Email
  • Social Media
  • Websites
  • Content & Copywriting 
  • Driving Traffic
  • Increasing Conversions

DigitalMarketer Hygiene Content Examples 

What type of marketer are you?

Now that you understand the two types of content and have identified your Core and Hygiene Content Topics, it’s time to create a sustainable content marketing workflow. With this simple workflow, you’ll create one long-form piece of Core Content and splinter it into up to 30+ pieces for greater reach instead of making all your content from scratch. 

The Workflow

  1. Create Long-Form Core Content 
  2. Splinter 
  3. Fill in gaps with Hygiene Content
  4. Repurpose

Step 1. Create Long-Form Core Content

Long-form content can come in many forms, including written, video and audio. Choose the format that works best for you to start this process. 

If you love writing, write a blog post. 

If you love talking, record audio or video.

If you don’t like any of that, invite a friend over and have them ask you questions while you record the audio or video. 

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Step 2. Splinter

Content Splintering is taking the parts of your long-form content to make more content for multiple platforms. You can splinter your long-form content into podcasts, YouTube videos, emails, blog posts, and social media posts.

If you are starting with long-form video or audio content, you’ll need an application that transcribes your video or audio. The program I love is Descript which transcribes your video and audio content, and as you edit the transcription, it automatically edits the video and audio. 

Splintering Formats

You can splinter your long-form content into various formats, including audiograms, short videos like TikTok’s or Reels, and social media graphics and captions. Here are a few of the most common splinter formats.

  • Long YouTube Video
  • Short YouTube Video 
  • Short TikTok’s and Reels
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Audiograms
  • Blog Posts
  • Emails
  • Quick Tip Social Media Posts
  • Quote Social Media Posts
  • Reminder Social Media Posts
  • Stats & Data Social Media Posts
  • Content Announcements
  • Summary Posts

You don’t need to be a video editor, audio expert, or writer to create great content. Practice is the fastest way to get better. Quantity, consistency, and speed are the most important things when building your content marketing engine. 

You don’t need expensive applications, fancy cameras, or high-tech equipment to create great content. Great tech can turn good content into great content, but no amount of tech can turn bad content into good content. Focus on the quality of your message and information. Your iPhone and a simple video or audio editing software like Descript or Garage Band are enough to get you started.

Workflow Example: Long-Form Video Splintering

  1. Record a long-form (10-30 min) video. You can edit or leave the video as is and post it on YouTube. 
  2. Identify 2-3 of the main points in the video and make mid-sized (3-10 min) YouTube videos. 
  3. Identify any soundbites, tips or quotes in the video and create short YouTube videos, TikTok’s, or Instagram Reels (5 sec – 3 min). 
  4. Transcribe the video and edit the transcription into a blog post with headlines and an opt-in. 
  5. Identify the main points from the blog post and create content emails. Add the emails to your automated nurture campaign and send them to your existing list.  
  6. Identify the best quotes from the transcription and create social media posts with the quote in the graphic or caption.
  7. Identify the top tips or hacks from the transcription to create social media posts with the tips or hacks as a carousel or in the caption. 
  8. Identify reminders you can share with your audience based on the tips or actions your long-form content highlights to create social media posts.   
  9. Identify any statistics, metrics, or data relevant to the content to create social media posts. 

Workflow Example: Long-Form Audio

  1. Record a long-form (10-30 min) audio clip. Edit or leave it as is and publish it as a podcast episode. 
  2. Identify any soundbites in the audio and create audiograms. Post them as short YouTube videos, TikTok’s, or Instagram Reels (5 sec – 3 min). 
  3. Transcribe the audio and edit the transcription into a blog post with headlines and an opt-in. 
  4. Identify the main points from the blog post and create content emails. Add the emails to your automated nurture campaign and send them to your existing list.  
  5. Identify the best quotes from the transcription and create social media posts with the quote in the graphic or caption.
  6. Identify the top tips or hacks from the transcription to create social media posts with the tips or hacks as a carousel or in the caption. 
  7. Identify reminders you can share with your audience based on the tips or actions your long-form content highlights to create social media posts.   
  8. Identify any statistics, metrics, or data relevant to the content to create social media posts. 

Workflow Example: Long-Form Written 

  1. Write a Blog Post.
  2. Identify 1-3 main points and create content emails to add to your automated nurture campaign and send to your existing list.  
  3. Create an announcement email that teases the long-form content and drives subscribers to watch, read or listen. 
  4. Identify the best quotes from the blog post and create social media posts with the quote in the graphic or caption.
  5. Identify the top tips or hacks from the blog post to create social media posts with the tips or hacks as a carousel or in the caption. 
  6. Identify reminders you can share with your audience based on the tips or actions your long-form content highlights to create social media posts.   
  7. Identify any statistics, metrics, or data relevant to the content to create social media posts. 

Step 3. Fill in gaps with Hygiene Content 

No matter how incredible you are at splintering your core content, there will still be a few gaps in your content calendar. You can fill those gaps with Hygiene Content. 

For the content beginner, you can write a few extra social media posts or record short videos or audio clips on your Hygiene Content Topics to fill in the gaps. For seasoned professionals, create long-form Hygiene Content and splinter it using the same workflow as your Core Content.

Repurposing Content

Just because your content has been posted doesn’t mean you can’t use it again. You must consistently remind your audience who you are and the value you provide. Don’t be afraid of being repetitive because consistency in messaging is vital when building trust with your audience. Repurpose existing content to give your older content new life and build trust with your audience.

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Ways To Repurpose Existing Content

  1. Updating
  2. Headline Swapping
  3. Format Switching
  4. Copy & Paste

Updating

Content Updating is taking existing content and updating it to be relevant and current. This can be as simple as changing the design, updating the year, or adding items to a list. 

Here’s an example:

  1. Write a Blog Post
  2. Wait for 90-days to 1 year
  3. Update the post with relevant examples
  4. Change the dates
  5. Improve the design
  6. Add any information needed to make the post more current.

Headline Swapping

Headline Swapping is reusing existing content with a fresh new headline. 

Here’s an example:

  1. Write a social media post
  2. Wait 90-days to 1 year 
  3. Repost with a new headline in the graphic and caption.

Format Switching

Format Switching is when you repurpose an existing piece of content in a new format. You can switch a long-form blog post into a checklist, change a carousel social media post into a PDF download and turn an email into a short YouTube video. Format switching is a great way to take your splintered content and get even more use. 

Here’s how it works:

  1. Write a Checklist LinkedIn Post
  2. Wait for 90-days to 1 year.  
  3. Switch that LinkedIn post into a short video clip and repost it to LinkedIn.

Copy & Paste

Copy & Paste is when you reuse existing content without changing it. This is standard practice on social media, where creators will repost their best-performing existing content without changing it after 90-days.  

Here’s how it works:

  1. Create a social media post.
  2. Wait for 90-days to 1 year.
  3. Copy & paste the social media post without making changes and repost it.

2-Hours Per Month

Creating content shouldn’t be your full-time job unless you are a content creator. By following this framework, you can create your core content, splinter it, and fill in the gaps with Hygiene Content in about 2-hours per month. 

Here’s how:

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  1. Time Limit

Most people waste hours trying to create the perfect piece of long-form core content and never end up posting or splintering it. Instead of letting perfectionism hold you back, set a time and only give yourself 1-hour each month to create your core content. That’s it, and whatever you make in that hour is posted. Get in the reps first; you’ll nail the process over time. 

  1. Focus Time

Distractions are a content creator’s worst enemy. Your phone notifications start blasting, and the creativity is gone. Block off two hours each month for content creation with no distractions, and you’ll be amazed at how much you accomplish. 

  1. Templates

One of the easiest ways to streamline this process is to use templates. Here are a few of my favorite templates that make this process a breeze. It’s as simple as doing it once and optimizing the template as you go. 

Video speaking points template

Video thumbnail

Video captions

Blog post templates

Podcast description template

Email templates

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Social media graphic templates

  1. Workflows and SOPs

Like any business operation, a checklist or standard operating procedure (SOP) will improve efficiency and quality control. Write out your step-by-step process as a checklist or SOP. It will save you time, energy, and a lot of frustration if you do it from the start. You can even use the example workflows from this article to get started! 

With a consistent flow of valuable content delivered to your audience, you will develop trust, position your brand as an authority, and remain present and relevant in your customers’ lives. Leverage the power of content marketing with this simple framework to attract, engage and retain your ideal customers. 


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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]

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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples

Introduction

With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.

Types of YouTube Ads

Video Ads

  • Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
  • Types:
    • In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
    • Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.

Display Ads

  • Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
  • Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).

Companion Banners

  • Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
  • Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.

YouTube Ad Specs by Type

Skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
    • Action: 15-20 seconds

Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
  • Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1

Bumper Ads

  • Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
  • File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 640 x 360px
    • Vertical: 480 x 360px

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
  • Headline/Description:
    • Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
    • Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line

Display Ads

  • Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
  • Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
  • File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
  • File Size: Max 150KB.
  • Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
  • Logo Specs:
    • Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
    • File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
    • Max Size: 200KB.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
  • Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
  • File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).

Conclusion

YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!

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Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists

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Why We Are Always 'Clicking to Buy', According to Psychologists

Amazon pillows.

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.

To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.

Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots

Salesforce’s evolving architecture

It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?

“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”

Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”

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That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.

“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.

Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”

Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot

“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.

For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”

Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”

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It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”

What’s new about Einstein Personalization

Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?

“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”

Finally, trust

One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.

“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”

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