The PR 20/20 Blog

Editor's note: This article was originally written by Loraine Burger, published on Simplilearn, and has been reprinted with permission. Burger is a content marketing specialist with more than ten years of experience in technical writing, content management, social media strategy and analytics.

The most astounding takeaway from Paul Roetzer’s presentation at INBOUND was the amount of misinformation and false hype around the reality of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Roetzer, who’s the CEO and founder of PR 20/20 and Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute, unleashed a slew of examples of what AI is and what it isn’t, leading to an informative discussion about what digital marketers can be doing right now to prepare for future innovations.

Editor's note: This article was originally written by Amanda Zantal-Wiener (@amanda_zw) published on HubSpot, and has been reprinted with permission. Zantal-Wiener covers tech news for the HubSpot Marketing Blog. 

Earlier this year, a handful of my extremely bright and capable colleagues compiled a report on topic clusters. Now first, what the heck is a topic cluster?

A topic cluster is a method that uses a single "pillar page" as the main hub of content for a given topic. All of your content assets related to that topic link back to the pillar page— and the pillar links out to each asset.

Here's why it's critical to your content strategy.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on HubSpot and has been reprinted with permission.

There's nothing quite like a sudden Google algorithm update to leave marketers feeling equal parts confused and concerned. It seems like they wait for you to get all of your ducks in a row and then unleash an update that makes your efforts instantly obsolete.

Sure, they're pretty open about that fact that they're doing this for everyone's own good -- each algorithm tweak brings us one step closer to more relevant search results, after all. However, there is still some secrecy behind exactly how Google evaluates a website and ultimately determines which sites to show for which search queries.

That said, there are a number of tools out there -- some free, some paid -- that help you to look at your own site the way that Google sees it.

>>>Related resource: Stop wasting time on SEO strategies that don't work with the help of this free PDF guide 

These tools are critical to your organic search strategy because they allow you to focus on the elements of your site that Google deems important. In this post, we'll walk through 12 such tools that all help you run a site analysis like a marketer ... and a Google bot!

The following is a guest post submitted by Matt Cayless (@matt_cayless). Cayless is a cofounder and SEO expert at Bubblegum Search, a SEO & content marketing agency. He has a passion for helping businesses optimise their content experiences online. By night he can be found training for his next marathon while remaining fearful of carbohydrates.

What would we do if it weren't for Google? Sometimes it's easy to forget what life looked like before search engines offered us endless information with just a few clicks of a mouse or taps of a smartphone screen. Our team of SEO experts at Bubblegum Search have created a fun and interactive infographic, which outlines some surprising facts about our search engine history and reminds us just how far technology has come.

This following is a guest post submitted by Kim Courvoisier. Kim is the director of content marketing and social media at Campaign Monitor. She loves all things marketing and good puns. Follow her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

Email marketing is rated as the most effective digital marketing strategy. But, that doesn’t mean email marketing works all the time. Marketers know that email marketing only yields results if your subscriber list is on point.

Building an engaged subscriber list is an ongoing process that involves finding the right audience at the right time and then sending them the right messages. To help ensure you see the astounding ROI you can get from email marketing, it’s vital to participate in list building best practices.

This infographic will present 7 tips to help you build and grow an ideal subscriber list.

This post was written by PR 20/20 intern Sammie Fisher (@sammiefisher3). Sammie is majoring in strategic communication at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

Do you need more blog subscribers? Of course you do.

Subscribers are loyal contacts that raised their hands saying they want to read your content. They help gauge what the industry wants to read and determine if your content is getting readership ROI. Plus, since subscribers have already opted in, they serve as the contacts you can market to in different ways when new campaigns are activated. 

If you aim to increase your subscriber base, publishing quality content (and more of it) is the first step toward understanding what resonates and what doesn’t.

The problem is that it takes time. You might be able to design a campaign or change your content marketing strategy by the end of this year, but what do you do if you need subscribers by the end of the month? 

You need some quick wins. This post will help you increase your subscribers using tactics that are easy to implement in a short period of time for fast results. 

Below is an excerpt from the new book, Killing Marketing: How Innovative Businesses Are Turning Marketing Cost Into Profit, written by Joe Pulizzi (@JoePulizzi) and Robert Rose (@Robert_Rose). The following introduction was written by Pulizzi. 

Robert Rose and I just launched our combined sixth book, Killing Marketing: How Innovative Businesses Are Turning Marketing Cost into Profit, at Content Marketing World this September. The book’s key idea makes a case that the majority of businesses approach marketing entirely the wrong way … and that we need to kill the marketing we know and replace it with a new approach: marketing as a profit center.

Below is an excerpt from the introduction of the book. Robert and I truly believe that tomorrow’s businesses are in the process of transforming marketing into something completely new and different, and that building audiences and monetizing those audiences are the future of our practice. Enjoy!

This post was written by PR 20/20 intern Emily Dann (@EmilyRDann). Emily is a dual major studying Public Relations at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications as well as Marketing Management in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University.

Today’s consumers have a digital-first attitude, relying more on their social media inbox for news than old-school snail mail. That means we as marketers must accept that traditional tactics like direct mail and cold calling are no longer viable options to reach our digitally savvy audience. Luckily for us, rapid advancements in marketing automation technology present new opportunities to revamp our marketing efforts. And, in an era of widespread adoption, there’s no surprise that 58% of B2B companies plan to explore marketing automation if they haven’t already. 

According to PR 20/20’s marketing assessment tool and intelligence engine, Marketing Score, those who have adopted marketing automation report high performance. In fact, marketing automation high performers have an average lead to sales conversion rate of 6.1, which is 1.6 times the average rate of all others. These high performers rate cost of customer acquisition (COCA) 1.4 times stronger, and have an average overall Marketing Score of 61%, 1.5 times all others. 

If I asked you to close your eyes and picture the two people you trust most in the whole world, who would you see? I see my wife and my mother. Years of offering wise counsel, challenging me to grow, and teaching me something new have fostered an incredible bond of trust and respect between us.

The following is a guest post from Bill Widmer (@TheBillWidmer). Widmer is a content marketing expert and freelance writer. He’s also the author of The Proven 7-Step Method to Landing Guest Posts, a free step-by-step guide to help business owners get guest post spots on top sites.

Content marketing isn’t a sprint—it’s a marathon. You can’t expect to release a few good pieces and see immediate results. Even if you do consistently release a piece a month, a piece a week or even a piece a day, results aren’t guaranteed.

Why?

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Why are you writing? If you’re just putting content out there for the sake of putting it out there, it’s highly unlikely you’ll see a high level of success.

I don’t mean “why” in some ethereal sense of doing a greater good (although I will talk about that), but why in a sense of strategic goals and purpose.