Week 16 - MKTG 348 - Content Marketing

First of all, what is content marketing and how do you start a campaign? Content marketing comes from creating some valuable free content in hopes of attracting consumers and turning them into repeat buyers. The content you create should be closely related to what you sell. Content marketing can deal with blogs, videos, and social media. Content marketing is used by many firms today. However, it has to be effective. Something important to think of when creating content is to not make it seem like an ad. Consumers are smart. They want valuable information or something to take away from the content, not a traditional advertisement clogging up their time.

Arguably the best company to look at in terms of content marketing is Red Bull. They created content to differentiate themselves from the competition. They sponsor and create events that supports why the brand exists. In the case of Red Bull, it is literally "to give you wings." From sponsoring extreme sports and athletes to creating their own crazy events, they know how to attract people to their brand.

Week 16 - MKTG 348 - Facebook Likes

Last fall I created my own Facebook page for digital marketing. This was done for one of my classes as I used the page to try to drive viewership to my blog. After the course, I pretty much forgot about it. However, in the past week or so, I have been getting more and more likes on my page and it led me to do some research.

Recent Insight

Gain in Likes

Somehow, without me doing any additional promotion or advertising, I have been gaining a substantial amount of likes. One theory I have is perhaps people are trying to network within digital marketing. Another thought is that these individuals think my page is a real company that they want to be in contact with. Since I set it up to seem like it is an actual company, that is my best guess as to why I'm getting these likes. It'll be interesting to see where this goes the next few weeks.

Week 16 - MKTG 348 - Tips For Passing Hubspot

As we know, Hubspot can aid your inbound marketing. This is a way for marketers to draw consumers to their product or service with content marketing, social media marketing, and SEO. In order to become certified, you have to be able to pass the test. There are 11 sections of the Hubspot Inbound Certification program. Each section contains about 45 minutes of video. Some are even broken down into smaller segments.

Here are some of my tips:

Do not binge watch the videos - it is important to take your time with each section. Even though all sections tie in together, each concept must be closely watched. Also, watch them at your easiest convenience. These videos are made for you to watch on your own time, so make sure they have your full attention

Download the study guide - for individuals who are not visual learners and prefer to read the material, there is a study guide for you! Additionally, this study guide provides certification seekers the ability to study wherever they want. The study guide can be found here: Hubspot Study Guide

Stay calm! - the exam closely follows the format of the videos. The test contains 60 true/false and multiple choice questions which you have 75 minutes to complete. Once the test is over, you will have access to see how you did in each section. This is beneficial because if you do not pass the test, you will know what sections you need to focus on more.

Week 16 - MKTG 348 - YouTube Tagging

During the last couple of months, my band has written and recorded our debut EP that will release in June of this year. Along with that, we recently had a lyric video made to support our first single off the EP. This video really got us thinking. We previously released 2 other songs on YouTube and we gained a decent amount of views on those videos. However, we thought it was more important than ever to try to get as many views as we can on our first single. This is because if people like our first single, they will be more likely to listen to our full EP when it releases and the even purchase our music. One way we tried to generate views was by using tags on our video. We are a hard-rock band based out of Chicago so we wanted to build viewership in that area. To target rock fans, we used some tags such as "new rock," "top 40 rock," and "top 40 metal" since our music can cater to those fans as well. To reach the Chicago area audience, we use tags such as "Chicago rock," "local rock," and "local music." We even used tags to try to gain notice from record labels and those fans by using "unsigned bands," and "Rise Records."

This video was released on April 27th and we have already generated over 3,000 views and 26 likes on the video. When it comes to YouTube tagging, I would recommend to not only look at what you are trying to achieve with your video, but think about what viewers are searching for to find content like yours. 

Week 15 - MKTG 348 - Value of Hubspot

First of all, what is Hubspot? Hubspot is a tool that marketers can use to help with inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a strategy for drawing consumers to products and services via content marketing, social media marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO). Hubspot offers many tools that can aid your campaigns. Some of the tools are email marketing, form submissions, landing page generator, reporting and statistics. 

What is Hubspot?

Hubspot also has smart CTAs. These can adapt and change to fit a consumer's interests. Basically, if someone downloads an ebook on content marketing, future CTAs can be set up to offer other books on that topic to that consumer. Over time, website CTAs and content will become more personalized for this type of lead to stay relevant. This strategy has increased conversion rates up to 70% compared to traditional strategies. 

Week 13 - MKTG 348 - Is AI Good For Us?

All information and articles taken from Dr. Todd Kelsey’s LinkedIn blog: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-delay-one-can-say-how-soon-ai-take-away-jobs-todd-kelsey

Artificial intelligence will not only change the job structure in the United States, but the world as well. We all know that driverless cars are on the verge of entering the market within the next decade or so. But as the articles suggest, has anyone began thinking of what this can do to the postal and shipping industry? Several millions of drivers may be out of work due to the implementation of driverless cars. Technology can make tasks easier, but at what cost? Who is paying for these advancements? I’m not sure about you, but as of right now, I’d rather trust a trained surgeon to operate on me rather than a robot. Put it this way, if something goes wrong with the robot, who is liable? Good luck getting through all that red tape. Scenarios like that entitle a deep sense of trust, and right now, I would not trust a robot to complete that task.

There is an article that brings up what jobs will not be as affected by AI. These are jobs in education, health care, and social work. Jon Andrews is quoted saying that “Creative and critical thinking will be highly valued, as will emotional intelligence.” Really? Tell me something I don’t know. A computer does not have emotion. A computer cannot be taught emotion. In 10 seconds think of different types of emotions we have as humans. Then weigh the positives and negatives of each emotion. Think about how this specific emotion has helped you through a tough time or helped you solve a problem. A computer does not learn through emotions. It operates on odds and percentages. A computer does not care because it cannot feel.

There may be jobs out there at risk of being taken over by robots, but there are some jobs that should be left to human beings. We must recognize that we need jobs. What will the world come to if 30, 40, 50 percent of jobs were taken over by robots? Will riots break out? Will the loss of human jobs at a point influence the world population? How will we supplement the jobs lost to AI? These are all questions we need to think about before we are quick to jump on the AI bandwagon. 

Week 10 - MKTG 348 - SEO Audit

For the audit, I chose to look at the National Tiger Sanctuary. This organization is a non-profit, rescue organization that provides permanent homes to both exotic and domestic animals. I ran some AdWord campaigns with this site so I thought it would be beneficial to conduct a site audit. The first thing I looked at was the indexing status. I searched site:nationaltigersanctuary.org in Google.

Here are those results:

I am not sure how many pages are on the website, but the result can be a good or bad thing. The page results found can be fine if 252 is about how many pages are on the site. However, if the site has a couple thousand pages but only 252 show up, then there is a duplicate content problem.

The next thing to do was to run a crawler on the website. I looked at the crawl depth which shows how many clicks it took for a crawler to reach a page from the home page. Any number over 4 is considered a problem. Of the 100 pages scanned by the crawler, the highest crawl depth was just 2. There are some issues concerning Robots.txt files. Issues with this can lead to pages on the website being blocked by search engine crawlers. Whoever is running the site should go into those files manually and make sure they are not restricting access to important sections of the website.

There are also some pages that contain duplicate content. Upon looking at them, I believe it is not a huge deal considering that the pages are just tagged with “National Tiger Sanctuary” at the end.

Here is the overview section of the audit for the National Tiger Sanctuary:

Week 7 - MKTG 348 - Exploring Search Console

Google's Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools), can help evaluate a website's performance, identify issues, and view search query results. For a specific topic, I am going to discuss the 'search analytics' section of the 'search traffic' tab. Here, a user can choose one of their properties and see how it is doing. Clicks, impressions, CTR, and position are the data this page provides. I was able to work with the website www.rgbexchange.org to see how that website is doing.

(RGB Website)

"The RGB Exchange is a stock exchange for non-profit organizations, where a user can invest in a non-profit organization, obtain virtual shares,and receive a social return on investment. The shares become an ongoing connection between the investor and their chosen organizations." For this website, I looked at the data collected based on clicks and position. Position is all about how the website ranks next to the competition. For example, the first search query is 'rgb idea group.' Here, the website came in at 40.3. This result may vary, but someone who searches that keyword can expect to find a link to the RGB website around the 40th position. Considering the RGB Exchange is a non-profit organization, that rating is not terrible, even though the ads are supported by a Google Grant. However, upon searching the keyword, I learned that many of the links that showed up before the RGB website were not even websites in English. Unfortunately, there is no real way to weed out these search results so the RGB website can rank higher.

Week 5 - MKTG 348 - Content to Add to the Benedictine Marketing Major Website

In my last blog, I selected some keywords that potential students of Benedictine University may use to either learn about Benedictine or more specifically, what marketing has to offer them. These keywords include:

Benedictine Marketing Major

Benedictine Majors

Colleges Near Naperville, IL

Requirements to Transfer to Benedictine

Colleges Near Chicago

The overview page on the website fulfills the need of having a general  overview of what marketing  is. This page can serve as a general information sheet to students that may be interested in marketing. This page also has charts for specific job growths in marketing, as well as job titles and the number of those jobs offered. 

Where I think the website can improve is within the program requirements and concentrations pages. There are many courses a student may take in order to graduate at Benedictine with a bachelors in marketing, but there are only four specific courses for marketing. If a potential student is interested in marketing, they would want to know as much information as possible on these courses to make sure it is for them. The four classes are consumer behavior, promotional strategy, marketing research, and marketing strategy. Even though these classes have to do with marketing, they differ in the content to be learned. Each course is specific to an aspect in marketing. A paragraph of what the class is all about and what students can gain from the course could be beneficial to potential students. Students would know that in promotional strategy they can create their own unique product and then go about making an IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) campaign for that product. Here, they will explore specific target markets, decide on distribution strategies, and allocate a budget for a media plan. This is a massive project that students can include in their portfolio when searching for jobs. That is just a small example of what can be added to the program requirements.

For the concentrations page, I would like to see the benefits of having these concentrations. Students can select a concentration, but which one should they choose? The title of the concentration and courses to take is not enough information. It would be beneficial if there was added content on this page. Each concentration should have a brief overview of what it is and what students can gain from them. There could also be a list of fields that coincide with this concentration. These suggested changes may be small, but they will affect student's decisions and their decision to attend Benedictine University.

Week 4 - MKTG 348 - Keywords Potential Students May Use to Learn About Benedictine University

Keywords to consider:

• Benedictine Marketing Major
• Benedictine Majors
• Colleges Near Naperville, IL
• Requirements to Transfer to Benedictine
• Colleges Near Chicago

If potential students are interested in marketing, how may they find out about Benedictine University? They may get online and search Google. What would they search? How can Benedictine show up in the top results? If a student knew about Benedictine, they could use a brand search with “Benedictine marketing major.” The undergraduate marketing website was the first result after a few ads. This link would take the searcher directly to the page where they can learn about the courses required for the major and concentrations they can pursue. For a student who knows about Benedictine but does not know the majors offered, they could search “Benedictine majors.” With that keyword, the degree programs page is the first link to show up.

Another keyword someone might use to find Benedictine University is by searching for colleges near them. I tried “colleges near Naperville, IL.” The first one to show up was North Central College. This did not surprise me because NCC is located in Naperville. However, Benedictine showed up in the 5th spot. This could change too based on the city chosen. The city would still have to be close to Benedictine for it to show up, so its rank may vary based on distance.

If a potential transfer student knew of Benedictine, they might search “requirements to transfer to Benedictine.” The second link to show up will give transfer students all the information they would need to know what they have to do to transfer. This would be good for students changing schools, or looking to continue working on their bachelors after completing community college. The last keyword may be used by someone looking for a top college. They may enter “to colleges near Chicago.” at the top of the page, there is a rolling list of the top colleges. If you click the arrow going to the right one time, Benedictine University shows up in the middle of the next page. Clicking on it will change the search box to ‘Benedictine University’ and the page will give links to the university homepage and athletic site.

Week 4 - MKTG 348 - Updating Benedictine University Marketing Major Website

In terms of the Benedictine Marketing Major website, there are some things that look good. However, there are areas where improvements can be made. I believe the overview of the site does a good job at explaining what marketing is and what it is used for. It is a good start to generate student interest in the major at Benedictine.

One way the website can be improved is in the ‘program requirements’ tab. Here, only the classes needed to graduate with a bachelors in marketing is listed. I would like to see some course descriptions. All courses do not necessarily need this, but explaining the major specialization requirements would benefit potential students and the university. A continuing or new college student would want to know what they are getting themselves into, especially if they think they may be interested in marketing. 

MKTG 310 (consumer behavior), MKTG 330 (promotional strategy), MKTG 360 (marketing research) and MKTG 380 (marketing strategy) are the four major specialization requirements. If more information was given on those classes, students would know what each course is all about. The university would also benefit because if they included more information, potential customers (students) would have an idea of what these classes offer and what they can get out of the course. The more information people have when choosing a university, the better the chance that they’ll apply to that college.

The second way the website can be updated is within ‘concentrations’ section. There are many different concentrations that Benedictine University offers within the marketing segment. Some may be similar, and others are vastly different. Concentrations give students the option to focus their study on a specific area other than marketing.

What I would like to see is more information about these concentrations. Students want to know more specifically what these concentrations are about and what type of jobs are available in those areas. These concentrations are not required by the university, but they can give students an edge when looking for jobs. If I knew more about the concentrations offered, I would have completed the digital marketing concentration. However, I am only able to take three of the required four courses before I graduate. Even though I will not get the concentration, I have still required certain skills I can use to network and earned certifications I can put on my resume and LinkedIn profile.