Curating content is the process of collecting, organizing and displaying information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest. Services or people that implement content curation are called curators. Curation services can be used by businesses as well as end users.

Curating a content customized to your audience interests and rewriting it based on your own point of view is not an easy task, but it`s a mandatory one nowadays.

This Guide will enable you to curate articles for your business, that will support you in fulfilling your customer needs on time when needed and will not harm your SEO.

Let`s start a scenario where you have no idea about the content you will write about except that you need to write about Topic ...X..., you need to keep in mind these questions as your guide lines before writing any article.

1) What my content value?

2) This value is targeting whom?

3) Is it my target audience?

Now to curate articles, you need 2 levels only

1) Searching

2) Writing

1) Searching,

At this point you need to look first for trusted resources for your info, what is out there to know about your topic? who provide the accurate info, history of it, who started this and how it`s done.

Basically you need to read quickly an overview about your selected topic

Second, You now know a lot of info about your topic that can be discussed, the tricky part is to choose the right info you will write about

Choosing process can be determined with internal and external analysis, Internal based on your customers directions, questions, clickable call to actions and even what your customers search on your website regarding this topic, While external can be completed after checking external tools like Google Keyword planner to understand search quantity for this info and Google Trends for right timing and geographic targeting.

2) Writing.

You now know info about the Topic you will write about, putting this info in order will save you a lot of time and ease up your writing process, try to  visualize the article main points

Visualize level can be done more accurately in the form of bullets, questions, or drawing the main ideas, but over all, this sums what your article will be about.

Questions and bullets could be

- What is (your topic name)

- Who started it?

- How it's done?

- Mistakes of doing it or how to avoid it`s mistakes?

- Whom to ask, if you need info about it?

You are now ready to write your article, you only need to make your content customized with

- your audience type, Beginners, intermediate, or experts

- your customer needs, remember you are writing this article based on a need from customer and as a result you need to fulfill it.

And your article content need to be, Focused on fulfilling customers need, Clear in its objectives, uses Attractive techniques for writing and a Value provider

After you finish curating your article you need to ask these questions before you post it,

1) Is there enough call to actions in the content?

2) Is my content Searchable?

3) Is my content Snackable?

4) Is my content Shareable?

5) Did it fill the need of my customers?

If all is yes then go a head and post it, if not you need to alter it before posting.

and finally my last recommendation, is to choose an engaging title

source

Conclusion,

To curate articles from your point of view and understanding. you need to read about the topic you will write about, visualize the main points of your topic and how it will look like and your last step is writing based on the value provided in the content, approach technique and your targeted audience type.

Now tell us about your experience in writing articles?

Inbound-Marketing

One of the inbound marketing remarkable case studies was Barack Obama Re Election, his team used techniques and approaches that guaranteed him achieving his goal

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was called by The Guardian the holy grail of digital campaigning.

Let`s find out how Barack's Obama team did it?

First They started their campaign by setting up a dashboard so if you want to be a volunteer of his campaign you need to add your address, Zip Code and email.

At this point it was noticed that Barack Team was trying to collect every piece of infor about his advocates.

Once you sign in the dashboard you can access very valuable content, news, political events and discussion forums.

After his team collected every piece of info about the advocates they started the process of catching the leads or people who will most likely keep the campaign going, simultaneously  calling the people who made donates and encourage them to keep supporting, they did everything from analyzing people online and offline performance to calling them on the phone.

Conclusion

Barack’s team attracted the volunteers to a dashboard where they offered them value with the content provided and asked them for their contact details.

Converting them into potential leads, and then closing the deal by filtering those leads to the real advocates of the cause.

What to learn?
Inbound marketing can support your goal whatever it was.

Now you tell us how you used inbound marketing in your business?

Inbound-Marketing

Here you are going out for a fresh air, visiting your uncle or even travelling with your friends, can you tell us the last billboard you saw and still remember it,

We wanna hear this answer, “just a minute..

Your thinking, thinking and here it`s, it was this ad for…. No wait it was for…”

Admit it, even if you can remember it, still it didn't stuck with you, and the whole industry of marketing is based on awareness and generate advocates for your brand which will finally lead to achieving your campaign goals.

The marketing world has evolved, in the early days you had to haunt the customer and follow him everywhere while now the customer can easily find and locate your business online.

The concept has changed from, selling to customers to earning customers.

Customers are your first and only valuable source in the marketing industry.

Comparing Outbound marketing to inbound marketing, can open a whole new definition of marketing for your business

To understand the difference between outbound and inbound marketing, check this

Infographic source

Outbound marketing is the traditional form of marketing where a company initiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience.

Outbound marketing examples: Trade Shows, TV commercials, radio commercials, print advertisements (newspaper ads, magazine ads, flyers, brochures, catalogs, etc.), cold calls, and email blasts.

While inbound marketing is, is promoting a company through blogs, podcasts, video, eBooks, newsletters, whitepapers, SEO, social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing which serve to bring customers in closer to the brand

In other words, applying the outbound marketing is considered interruption marketing, you give information to customers about your products and services even if they are not looking for it.

And the most important value inbound marketing offers, is the ability to engage with your audience, collect their feedback, the value you provide via your services can be easily digested by your fans, and finally easily analyze your campaign or performance results.

Whatever your business is, introducing the value of your services and learning them how to make it part of their life, can and with time will beat the usual marketing methods in any business type.

Now tell us, how you will use inbound marketing for your business?

Inbound-Marketing

Inbound Methodology

The best way to turn strangers into customers and promoters of your business

The proven methodology for the digital age

Since 2006 inbound marketing has been the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Instead of the old outbound marketing methods of buying ads, buying email lists, and praying for leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time.

How to interpret the graphic

Along the top are the four actions (Attract, Convert, Close, Delight) inbound companies must take in order to obtain visitors, leads, and customers. Along the bottom are the tools companies use to accomplish these actions. (Note the tools are listed under the action where they first come into play, but that’s not the only place they’re applicable! Several tools, like email, can be essential in several stages of the methodology.)

What is Inbound?

Sharing is caring and inbound is about creating and sharing content with the world. By creating content specifically designed to appeal to your dream customers, inbound attracts qualified prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more.

Major themes:

• Content Creation- You create targeted content that answers your customer's basic questions and needs, and you share that content far and wide.
• Lifecycle Marketing- You recognize that people go through stages as they interact with your company, and that each stage requires different marketing actions.
• Personalization- As you learn more about your leads over time, you can better personalize your messages to their specific needs.
• Multi-channel- Inbound marketing is multi-channel by nature because it approaches people where they are, in the channel where they want to interact with you.
• Integration- Your publishing and analytic tools all work together like a well-oiled machine, allowing you to focus on publishing the right content in the right place at the right time.

Make marketing people love.

By publishing the right content in the right place at the right time, your marketing becomes relevant and helpful to your customers, not interruptive. Now that’s marketing people can love.

The Four Marketing Actions

Attract

We don’t want just any traffic to our site, we want the right traffic. We want the people who are most likely to become leads, and, ultimately, happy customers. Who are the “right” people? Our ideal customers, also known as our buyer personas. Buyer personas are holistic ideals of what your customers are really like, inside and out. Personas encompass the goals, challenges, pain points, common objections to products and services, as well as personal and demographic information shared among all members of that particular customer type. Your personas are the people around whom your whole business is built.

Some of the most important tools to attract the right users to your site are:

• Blogging- Inbound marketing starts with blogging. A blog is the single best way to attract new visitors to your website. In order to get found by the right prospective customers, you must create educational content that speaks to them and answers their questions.
• Social Media- You must share remarkable content and valuable information on the social web, engage with your prospects, and put a human face on your brand. Interact on the networks where your ideal buyers spend their time.
• Keywords- Your customers begin their buying process online, usually by using a search engine to find something they have questions about. So you need to make sure you’re appearing prominently when they search. To get there, you need to carefully, analytically pick keywords, optimize your pages, create content, and build links around the terms your ideal buyers are searching for.
• Pages- You must optimize your website to appeal to and speak with your ideal buyers. Transform your website into a beacon of helpful content to entice the right strangers to visit your pages.

Convert

Once you’ve got visitors to your site, the next step is to convert those visitors into leads by gathering their contact information. At the very least, you’ll need their email addresses. Contact information is the most valuable currency there is to the online marketer. In order for your visitors to offer up that currency willingly, you need to offer them something in return. That “payment” comes in the form of content, like ebooks, whitepapers, or tip sheets -- whatever information would be interesting and valuable to each of your personas.

Some of the most important tools in converting visitors to leads include:

• Calls-to-Action- Calls-to-action are buttons or links that encourage your visitors to take action, like “Download a Whitepaper” or “Attend a Webinar.” If you don’t have enough calls-to-action or your calls-to-action aren’t enticing enough, you won’t generate any leads.
• Landing Pages- When a website visitor clicks on a call-to-action, they should then be sent to a landing page. A landing page is where the offer in the call-to-action is fulfilled, and where the prospect submits information that your sales team can use to begin a conversation with them. When website visitors fill out forms on landing pages, they typically become leads.
• Forms- In order for visitors to become leads, they must fill out a form and submit their information. Optimize your form to make this step of the conversion process as easy as possible.
• Contacts- Keep track of the leads you're converting in a centralized marketing database. Having all your data in one place helps you make sense out of every interaction you’ve had with your contacts -- be it through email, a landing page, social media, or otherwise -- and how to optimize your future interactions to more effectively attract, convert, close, and delight your buyer personas.

Close

You’re on the right track. You’ve attracted the right visitors and converted the right leads, but now you need to transform those leads into customers. How can you most effectively accomplish this feat? Certain marketing tools can be used at this stage to make sure you’re closing the right leads at the right times.

Closing tools include:

• Lead Scoring- You’ve got contacts in your system, but how do you know which ones are ready to speak to your sales team? Using a numerical representation of the sales-readiness of a lead takes the guesswork out of the process.
• Email- What do you do if a visitor clicks on your call to action, fills out a landing page, or downloads your whitepaper, but still isn’t ready to become a customer? A series of emails focused on useful, relevant content can build trust with a prospect and help them become more ready to buy.
• Marketing Automation- This process involves creating email marketing and lead nurturing tailored to the needs and lifecycle stage of each lead. For example, if a visitor downloaded a whitepaper on a certain topic from you in the past, you might want to send that lead a series of related emails. But if they follow you on Twitter and visited certain pages on your website, you might want to change the messaging to reflect those different interests.
• Closed-loop Reporting- How do you know which marketing efforts are bringing in the best leads? Is your sales team effectively closing those best leads into customers? Integration with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system allows you to analyze just how well your marketing and sales teams are playing together.

Delight

The Inbound way is all about providing remarkable content to our users, whether they be visitors, leads, or existing customers. Just because someone has already written you a check doesn’t mean you can forget about them. Inbound marketers continue to engage with, delight, and (hopefully) upsell their current customer base into happy promoters of the companies and products they love.

Tools used to delight customers include:

• Smart Calls-to-Action- These present different users with offers that change based on buyer persona and lifecycle stage.
• Social Media- Using various social platforms gives you the opportunity to provide real-time customer service.
• Email and Marketing Automation- Providing your existing customers with remarkable content can help them achieve their own goals, as well as introduce new products and features that might be of interest to them.

A New Methodology

The new Inbound Methodology covers each and every step taken, tool used, and lifecycle stage traveled through on the road from stranger to customer. It empowers marketers to attract visitors, convert leads, close customers, and delight promoters. The new methodology acknowledges that inbound marketing doesn’t just happen, you do it. And you do it using tools and applications that help you create and deliver content that will appeal to precisely the right people (your buyer personas) in the right places (channels) at just the right times (lifecycle stages).

Inbound-Marketing