How to Create Winning Headlines in 9 Simple Steps + MORE

Few things are more confusing to business owners and marketers than the idea of marketing strategy.
photo credit: HikingArtist.com via photopin ccI think that’s due in part to simple misunderstanding by many who try to apply the concept, but it’s also due to the fact that strategy is very malleable – that is to say, it can be many things…

Professional stand-up comedians are known to practice their routines with smaller audiences in preparation for their big shows and HBO specials. They do this in order to find out what works and what doesn’t and to hone all the elements of their routine: timing, delivery, wording and so on….

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We are biased inbound marketers at HubSpot, and normally I ignore many of the stats I see about display ads because I know their engagement rate is incredibly low: The average banner ad has a 0.1% clickthrough rate (CTR), and the standard 468×60 banner has a 0.04% CTR.
But recently, a few really shocking stats caught my eye, and I thought it would be fun to share them all with you…

Inbound, content, social, mobile, converged, omni-channel, transmedia. The list of marketing channels and strategies vying for our budgetary attention goes on and on.
Where should companies invest to attract more attention and engage those that would influence or act on buying?
To answer that question, we could consider the promotional advantages of each discipline:

Inbound Marketing – Inbound drives 54% more leads than outbound
Content Marketing – 61% of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content and they are more likely to buy because of that
Social Media –  74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions
Mobile – 41% of smartphone owners have made a purchase from their mobile phones & US m-commerce sales will reach $31 billion by 2015

But of course there are advantages to each…

  

“Content matters!” “Comp with real copy!” “Have a plan!” By now, you’ve probably heard the refrain: making mobile work is hard if you don’t consider your content. But content knowledge isn’t just about ditching lorem ipsum in a couple of comps.
Countless organizations now have a decade or two’s worth of Web content — content that’s shoved somewhere underneath their redesigned-nine-times home page…

Is it possible to monetize your blog, website or digital presence without advertising? Certainly it is, but only in certain contexts. Consultants or businesses can focus their energies on providing thought leadership and educational posts with the thought that interested parties will reach out to them to hire if and when they need the help…

Social search is changing the game for business owners who blog and create content. Thankfully, it’s changing things in our favour and that’s what today’s post is all about.
Even the best search engine is flawed
Whilst regarded by many as the best search engine available, even Google search is extremely easy to fool and still often rewards frequently updated content, over high quality content…

Last week the big news was the Associated Press’ Twitter account getting hacked and the stock market taking a 150 point dip on the ‘news’ of the bombing that injured the president.
The markets recovered quickly but I know my first thoughts were:

Someone has shown just how fragile the markets are to any kind of news whether it’s real or not
Someone just got very rich on this deal
This won’t be the last time something like this happens

Well, the investigations are underway as to who might have profited from this scenario and if there was a connection between the incident and the any profits taken as a result of what’s known as “high frequency trading”…

Imagine a newspaper or magazine with no headlines. Imagine a print ad with no headlines. Imagine a long-form sales page with no headlines.
It would be confusing and tedious.
In a newspaper, headlines steer the reader from story to story. And it’s pretty much the same with magazines.
In copywriting, the headline is the advertisement for the advertisement and must compel the reader to read your copy…

Last year, we compiled 75 Must Read Marketing Blogs that cover conversion, content, email, paid search, SEO, analytics, blogging, and social media marketing. Of course, there are many more awesome blogs out there. So today, we’re going to expand that list and add 75 MORE must read blogs for you to consume that cover marketing and business inspiration!
All-in-One Marketing Blogs
Now this is all-in-one…

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When it comes to how color design affects a site’s performance, simple changes can produce a significant lift.
So, in today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’re going to look at how the MECLABS research team used a background color test on a landing page to increase account sign-ups 10%…