Explore the Content Editor Cosmos to Produce Out-of-This-World Writing [Infographic]

“Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe.” – The Beatles, “Across the Universe”

 So, who’s responsible for taming wild words and presenting them in a straightforward format that’s engaging and educational? 

Content editors, of course. 

 A content editor aids in the effortless comprehension of a writer’s message, and in today’s infographic, we’ll explore the content editor’s universe to discover key takeaways you can use the next time you review and refine a piece of writing. 


 

Like this infographic? Get more from Copyblogger in our new, free WORD ebook that features our best advice for writers.

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25 Ideas to Transform Ho-Hum Infographics into Something Extraordinary

A few weeks ago here on Copyblogger, Demian Farnworth presented the infographic as the Salvador Dalí of content marketing — the most interesting person at the cocktail party.
More than just a superficial presence, an infographic is a significant asset pillar with diverse possibilities that help you grow your media empire.
Today, let’s equate the Internet to the world of pop music. In this case, infographics are The Beatles.
They’re irresistible. They create massive hits. At their best, they balance style and substance.
They can be relentlessly imaginative. And like John, Paul, George, and Ringo, they can communicate sophisticated ideas to a mass audience.
Yep, they’re lovable. How lovable?
The factoid below comes from a 2012 infographic by NeoMam Studios.



Even stories about infographics sizzle. I wrote “The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About Infographics” and it climbed to the number one spot on my chart last year.
Before we brainstorm infographic ideas, let’s discuss why infographics work.

Why do we love infographics?

Here are 15 reasons I’ve assessed:

1. They’re so webable. First, I must offer my theory and ask you to live with my funny new word. Although data visualizations exist in traditional media, they’ve exploded in the digital age because they perfectly suit new media and the devices we use to consume information.
2. We’re visual creatures. The fun, interactive infographic, “13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics,” makes this case with powerful data points.

3. They simplify complex ideas. Infographics aid comprehension by pairing text with straightforward pictures.
4. They’re easy to share. We love to share information we find valuable. It feeds our appetites for being conduits of wisdom. Creators and publishers of infographics encourage you to share their content and often simplify the process by providing code you can embed on your website.
5. They’re familiar. The general recipe for infographics features ingredients we’re comfortable with: illustrations, icons, charts, diagrams, and captions. The familiarity speaks to us and obliterates any objections.
6. They travel well. Infographics are multi-screen portable. They translate nicely to slides and also tend to work on paper.
7. They’re fast. Up above, in Number Two, you see an interesting data point about how fast we’re able to process visual information. The process of reading takes time. Given our short attention spans, the speed with which we can absorb visual information makes infographics attractive.
8. They’re less taxing. A related, but slightly different idea than the one above about speed is we give ourselves a little break when we digest information aided by visuals. We encounter a lot of information daily. We can only read so much. The data below comes from:
   • Welcome to the information age — 174 newspapers a day, The Telegraph.
   • Measuring Consumer Information, International Journal of Communication, Vol 6.
   • How Little Do Users Read?


9. People thrive on data. We’re drawn to data and proof points. I like this presentation from Juice, Inc. that explains how data drives exploration, understanding, presentation, discovery, motivation, learning, and above all, “doing.”
10. They tell stories. A lot of infographics use storytelling tactics including characters, conflicts, problems, and resolutions. Stories hold our attention as we relate to characters and go on journeys with them.
11. They promote branding. When infographics are republished, a brand travels with the image, which usually includes a logo and URL.
12. People search for them. Because they’re so useful (and often entertaining), people search for infographics, as evidenced in the statistic presented above. Since search engines can’t index the content within an image, headlines often appear with the explicit label “Infographic”.
13. People collect them. Do you do this? I sure do. I stash infographics for safekeeping on Pinterest and in my swipe files if I suspect I’ll want to reference them (or use them) again in the future.
14. They dominate the page. I believe one of the many factors that make infographics appealing is they tend to dominate a webpage.
15. They’re generally large and colorful. Unlike plain text, infographics defeat distractions and help us focus on the content.

Ready to create your own infographic?

Here are 25 infographic types, themes, and concepts:

1. Process. Create an infographic to explain a process. They’re ideal for breaking down and simplifying a multi-step process that may otherwise appear intimidating.
2. Comparison. These images may include sections such as: before and after, this vs. that, old way vs. new way, us and them, etc.
3. Timeline. Infographics help illustrate the evolution of a subject matter.
4. Roundup. Various types of roundups, such as quotes, reviews, favorites, etc. can be presented as a collection.
5. Components. Just as it’s useful to break down a process into steps, you can decouple the components of just about anything to aid understanding, i.e., an engine, recipe, or team.
6. Instructions. Use an infographic to simplify complex tutorials or communicate how to complete a task.
7. Charts and tables. Simple charts or tables featuring icons or images representing a topic create visual interest.
8. Categories. Take any category of interest to your audience and tell a story with an infographic. Check out one of my favorites, “The Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music”. Amazing.
9. Study of a “universe.” Produce massive visual collections on: beers, bands, books, bikes, beaches, etc. Here’s The Ultimate Infographic on Infographics from Curata.
10. Warnings. This popular article style tends to be irresistible. A list of dangers, myths, or mistakes is a powerhouse for infographics, too.
11. Metaphor. I love it when an interesting metaphor presents a concept. I bet you do too.
12. Résumé. Job hunting? The résumé as an infographic is such an engaging idea, services such as vizualize.me and kinzaa.com have sprung forth.
13. Report. Research and survey results offer great value in traditional report formats, but the same information, or highlights from it, make compelling infographics.
14. Product or service. You may not score a viral hit with an infographic that showcases what you sell, but you’re likely to have an engaging tool that presents your goods to potential buyers.
15. Trend. Showcasing a trend in an infographic makes a newsworthy story even more fun.
16. Past to present. This is another timeline idea that displays the history of a topic.
17. Place or event. Any place (from a nation to a campground) or any event (from a war to a conference) can be summarized in an infographic.
18. Guide. A rather obvious theme, I know, but any “how to” begs to be transformed into an infographic.
19. Family tree. These can be downright intoxicating. You can use a tree, flow chart, or similar symbols to explain relationships.
20. Cause and effect. You probably see a “this caused that” form of presentation more than you realize. It’s simple and smart.
21. Biography. Perform a search for “biography of Steve Jobs infographic” and you’ll discover some amazingly creative graphics. Study them for inspiration.
22. Story. Simple one here. Tell a story, like a picture book.
23. Manifesto. This approach can be a stellar branding tool. Write a manifesto that defines what you stand for and have a great designer create an infographic that makes you proud.
24. List. Don’t ignore this age-old, can’t-miss tactic for communicating fascinating, useful content.
25. Acronym. Spell out an acronym or abbreviation, with pictures, of course, and you’ll have a double-whammy simplification of a robust idea.

Grow your audience with infographics

Which type of infographic will you make to reach and educate a larger audience?


Flickr Creative Commons Image via Saad Faruque.
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19 Tools to Create Social Media Content

Are you looking for new ways to create content?
Interested in tools that can help you?
In this article, you’ll discover 19 tools to create and share content on social media.

#1: Convert Long Form Content to Slides

Presentations are great for readers who need a little more time to digest bigger pieces of content. They also let you introduce your business in a more visually appealing way. Break your content into slides and share your professional presentations with these tools.
SlideShare

LinkedIn’s SlideShare gives you a platform to build, upload, and edit presentation decks and share them on social media. The list of sharing sites includes Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and of course LinkedIn. Email, links, WordPress shortcodes, and iframe embedding are also available to share your work.
Cost: Free

SlideBoom
SlideBoom can convert your PowerPoint presentations to Flash so you can share them with colleagues, prospects, and customers. As private or public, SlideBoom lets you share your presentations with just the right audience.
Cost: Free and paid versions

Convert your PowerPoint presentations to Flash with SlideBoom.

Prezi
Prezi is available for your desktop or as an online editor. It makes creating an effective presentation a snap. Browse the knowledge base or upload your own presentations. You can add animations and share your content on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Cost: Public accounts are free and will be viewable, searchable, and reusable. Pro accounts run from $5-$20 per month.

Create dynamic presentations with Prezi.

SlideSnack
SlideSnack is a presentation-sharing tool that lets you easily upload presentation slides accompanied by voice overlays. You can share them with Blogger, Facebook, WordPress, My Webs, Weebly, Jimdo, Tumblr, Hi5, Orkut, and YouTube.
Cost: Free

Upload slides and add voice overlays with SlideSnack.

#2: Present Your Business on Video

Video is perhaps the most important medium for sharing and presenting content online. YouTube is the top dog with over 1 billion unique users each month, but other top video-sharing services look to take some of the market share.
Could your bustling business benefit from these top online video tools?

PowToon
PowToon features a user-friendly presentation interface and minimalist design. You can use it to create branded video and share it with prospects and customers.
Cost: Free and paid versions available

PowToon lets you create branded video that you can share on
your social channels.

Magisto
Magisto lets you synchronize audio and visual aspects to make an emotional connection with the viewer. Share your videos on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, or your own blog.
Cost: Free and paid versions available

Magisto lets you turn images and video into short movies.

WeVideo
With WeVideo, you get worry-free cloud access to your media, Ken Burns-style animations, voiceover capabilities, and a library of licensed music to make video editing stress-free. Sharing capabilities include Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and YouTube.
Cost: Free and paid versions available

WeVideo is a cloud-based video editor.

Wideo
Wideo works in tandem with your marketing strategy to create videos in minutes. You can create professional videos online and share them on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. If you prefer to have Wideo create your video, graphic designers are on hand to assist with your marketing needs.
Cost: Free and paid versions available

You can create video in minutes with Wideo.

Share Your Video Content
Once you create your video, here are some places to upload and share it:
YouTube
Just about everyone is familiar with YouTube for its public and private video upload freedom, customizable thumbnails, and monetization capabilities. An incredible 300 hours of videos are uploaded every minute, and according to a recent report from Digiday, there is something for everyone.
Cost: Free and paid versions available
Vimeo
Vimeo’s platform is similar to YouTube and is ideal for video sharing, discovery, and sparking creativity. You can get inspired by individuals and businesses that are passionate about video.
Cost: Free and paid versions available
Dailymotion
Live and on demand, Dailymotion is the place to watch videos of sporting events, hilarious bloopers, fashion shows, and more.
Cost: Free
Metacafe
With a youthful tone and appearance, Metacafe showcases short-form videos, gaming, television, and music.
Cost: Free

#3: Show Your Story With Infographics

Give your content a huge boost with infographics, which encourage engagement. According to Content Desk, an infographic is 30 times more likely to be read than a purely text article.
In fact, the state of visual content has grown in importance from key marketing decision-makers worldwide, supported by a recent report from eMarketer and the communications firm Lewis. They report that 94% of marketing decision-makers produce visual content.
The reasons behind the popularity of visual content may come as a surprise. According to the study, the top reasons for visual content production are not its aesthetic appeal, but its ability to encourage engagement, the social media requirements, and the customer’s reduced attention.
There are easy and affordable ways to stand out visually on social media. With minimal training, these top infographic websites let you create and share craveworthy content.

Easel.ly
Easel.ly lets you easily edit and customize infographic templates. You can share your new canvas immediately on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Cost: Free

Easel.ly lets you edit and customize a variety of
infographic templates.

Piktochart
Piktochart lets you create innovative, design-intricate infographics complete with icons, images, charts, and interactive maps. Once finished, save and publish your newly minted content directly to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube, and even convert long-form infographics to multi-slide presentations on SlideShare.
Cost: Free and paid versions available

Design innovative infographics with Piktochart.

Canva
With Canva, you can quickly create infographics, along with presentation covers, social media images, online advertisements, flyers, and more. Canva lets you share your work on Facebook and Twitter.
Cost: Free and paid versions available

Choose from Canva’s library of design sizes and styles.

Visme
With Visme, you can easily create beautiful presentations, infographics, reports, web content, and wireframes all in one place. Share your content online as a URL or on social media, embed it on your website, or download it for offline use.
Cost: Free and paid versions available

Visme lets you create presentations, infographics, reports, 
web content, and more.

Share Infographic Content
Here are some platforms where you can share your infographics:
Cool Infographics
Cool Infographics is free to marketers in the design community who want to submit their work to a forum for review. In addition, the service lets you self-publish, connect, and discover visual content. It’s a way to drive more traffic to your business.
Cost: Free
Submit Infographics
Do you have an infographic you’re proud of and want to submit it for review? On Submit Infographics, you can publish and share branded designs to be stored in the site’s visual content library, which is available for the viewing pleasure of the site’s large audience.
Cost: Free and paid versions available

#4: Build Buzz With Quizzes

Want to gain interaction? Try a quiz!
Personality quizzes are fun for readers and informative to marketers. Marketers should expect to see an 80% completion percentage, so set your sights high. If your results drop below the 80% mark, consider shortening or reworking your message.
Pro tip: If you want to build your email list, remember to give your readers the option to have their results sent directly to their inbox. Quizzes give readers an incentive to share information such as email addresses, and give marketers another way to collect audience data.
Start building and sharing your own quizzes with these five sites.

BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is one of the most popular quiz-sharing websites to date. The site’s editorial style makes it easy to create, view, and share quizzes. You can share your content on practically every device and network.
Cost: Free

BuzzFeed lets you create, view, and share your own quizzes.

Playbuzz
Playbuzz is a digital publishing platform where you can create content and embed quizzes directly on your website. The goal is to share stories that people love, and it seems to be working. Playbuzz is one of BuzzFeed’s biggest competitors. Just as with BuzzFeed, Playbuzz lets you share your content on practically every device and network.
Cost: Free

Playbuzz lets you choose from a number of quiz formats.

Quizworks
With Quizworks, you can choose from multiple question types, view statistics, and get access to sharing tools that allow you to engage with your audience in a highly shareable way on Facebook and Twitter.
Cost: Free and paid options

Quizworks lets you create an online quiz in minutes.

Qzzr
Qzzr is an exciting tool that lets you create personalized quizzes based on your website’s look, feel, and language. Qzzr’s sharing capabilities include Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can also embed code directly to your blog or website.
Cost: Free and paid options

Qzzr lets you customize your quizzes to fit your website’s 
look and feel.

4screens
4screens is a responsive platform that lets you create quizzes, polls, and surveys. You can engage with readers and track leads in real time on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or from the embedded quizzes on your website.
Cost: Free and paid options

4screens lets you track leads in real time.

#5: Share Your Voice With a Podcast

Podcasting is bigger than ever. With the rise of smartphones and tablets, podcasts have become a required accessory for any long road trip or gym session. In fact, the podcast audience is now close to 60 million people in the United States, and according to Edison Research, podcast listening grew an impressive 23% between 2015 and 2016.
Podcasting will continue to grow and become easier for marketers to create, edit, and share. Try these top tools and make your podcasting dreams a reality.

Audacity
Audacity is open-source audio software that lets you record audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, and add your own audio effects to cut, copy, and mix your own podcasts.
Cost: Free

Audacity makes it easy to record audio for your podcast.

Podbean
Podbean lets you create and share professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. You can publish directly to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, or Instagram accounts. You can also listen for free, or upload, publish, manage, and promote your podcasts with one of Podbean’s paid plans.
Download availability: iOS and Android
Cost: Free and paid options

Podbean makes it easy to create, manage, and 
promote your podcast.

Share Podcasting Content
Here are some places where you can upload and share your podcast:
SoundCloud
You can record and upload audio content to SoundCloud. You can share your work privately or publicly to blogs, sites, and social networks such as Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Foursquare.
Download availability: iOS and Android
Cost: Free
Podomatic
Podomatic lets you create and discover thought-provoking podcasts and share your favorites with your friends on Facebook.
Download availability: iOS and Android
Cost: Free
Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of free books, movies, software, music, websites, images, concerts, and podcasts. You can upload content, donate, watch, and listen.
Download availability: Web only
Cost: Free
Stitcher
Stitcher boasts the ability to stream the latest in news, sports, talk, and entertainment radio anywhere, on demand. Stitcher is the easiest way to discover the best of over 65,000+ radio shows, live radio stations, and podcasts. You can “stitch” together your favorite shows into customized station playlists and save them for easy access later.
Download availability: iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire
Cost: Free

Conclusion
Achieving higher reader engagement is all about knowing your audience. After you get a better grasp of your readers’ habits and online routines, you can begin to target them properly in ways they want to interact.
Consider this: According to Salesforce, almost a quarter of all adults online are on at least two social media networks. It’s no surprise that each social networking site is unique in its audience and content, making it crucial to diversify your marketing strategy to interact with your customers where they are in the medium that best fits the network.
Whether you’re looking to convert outdated or overused content, or think a complex piece of content would be best served in bite-sized pieces, don’t miss out on an opportunity to reach a larger audience by presenting content in a new way.

What do you think? Can you use these five content formats and multiple tools to reach your audience and improve engagement? Please let us know in the comments below!

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3 Simple Ways to Bust Stereotypes and Craft a Remarkable Message

 On the snowy, northeastern Christmas of my 11th year, our parents gathered all five kids around the kitchen table to deliver the news.

We were moving to San Antonio, Texas.

I was devastated. Texas? I imagined what our new home would look like.

We’d be miles from any neighbors — who would all look like they walked straight off the “Hee Haw” set — with a dusty, rock-filled front yard punctuated by the occasional tumbleweed rolling by.

If only I had access to online content back in those days, I wouldn’t have been terrified at all by the silly stereotypes I believed to be true.

Here’s the thing — our customers are terrified, too. They’re operating based on stereotypes, fears, and misconceptions.

But every day, the internet makes it easier to inform and educate them so we can bust through stereotypes and really connect.

Their false assumptions don’t stand a chance when you use the three techniques below to create a remarkable message that engages your prospects.

1. Showcase your product

Video is ideal for showing exactly how your product works and why it’s the best on the market.

One company that does this well is OtterBox, whose YouTube channel features lighthearted product demos and user-submitted stories that show customers putting OtterBox technology cases to the test.

Your video doesn’t have to be fancy. It’s more important to:

• Take the time to develop a compelling story
• Write a script; don’t wing it
• Edit carefully so your video comes in under three minutes — bonus points if it’s under two

If you sell a service, video can also make your offerings come to life. Interview customers who’ve gotten good results. Show all the benefits of your service by filming before and after videos. And build interest by aiming your camera at the end result, showing prospects what they can expect.

2. Share your reality

People enjoy doing business with actual people, not faceless corporations.

Show prospects you’re just like them by sharing a little about yourself on social media (once you discover where your customers are hanging out), on your blog, and in your email newsletter.

Keep it light, tie it in with a topic you know your audience is interested in, and include them in the conversation the first chance you get.

If your business is large, you can make your company more approachable by allowing employees to share personal details on your website or company blog.

Let them post photos, share their hobbies, or post short videos that show them outside of work.

Any time you share some of your own reality, your two-dimensional internet presence becomes more three dimensional, and that makes your company — and its offerings — more appealing to prospects.

3. Shatter your stereotypes

You may be in a business that people tend to stereotype:

• All graphic designers are flaky, artsy types who can’t meet their deadlines.
• All engineers are nerdy and use pocket protectors.
• All web developers spend long days in windowless rooms and don’t know how to hold up their end of a conversation.
• All writers are broke and have no business sense.
• All accountants think about numbers all day.

Of course, none of these clichés are true.

If your business is typecast a certain way, accept it and set the record straight online.

• If you’re a graphic designer, post an infographic showing how often you meet or exceed your clients’ deadlines.
• If you own an engineering firm, post photos of the cool hobbies your employees spend time on outside of work.
• If you’re a web developer, host a pool party and invite your best clients, then post a video on your website.
• If you’re a writer, write an article about how you make money with your keyboard and smart business sense.
• If you’re an accountant, post your music playlist on your favorite social media profile.

Showing your prospects how those tired clichés don’t work for you and your company is an excellent way to make your business memorable.

Push boundaries and get more customers

It turns out I loved living in Texas — especially after my ears got used to the accent — and I made many friends I’m still in contact with.

The experience made me who I am today, and I’m grateful for it.

When we ask our prospects to go beyond their ingrained stereotypes, we encourage them to grow and stretch as human beings.

That’s good for them, and it turns out it’s good for business, too.

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The Surprisingly Best Times to Send Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Long-standing advice amongst email marketers when asked, “When is the best time to send email?” has always been, “Tuesday through Thursday morning, between 8 and 10am.” Sure, it’s common knowledge throughout the industry that people tend to open their email in the mornings, but “the times, they are a-changin’,” as Bob Dylan would say. Let’s visit some current email marketing trends that are creating shifts in open rates, and how they’ll impact your next email send.

AdWeek Infographic based on Experian study

A 2012 Experian email marketing benchmark study across all industries found that recipients are surprisingly active late at night. Unique open rates averaged 21.7% from 8pm to 11:59pm and 17.6% for 12am to 4am. Moreover, this late night group was more likely to click-through, with open rates of 4.2% and 3.2%, respectively. These night owls also had the highest click through rates for all times of day. Revenue per email was also the highest in the 8pm to 11:59pm group.

Additionally, in 2015, Experian’s quarterly email marketing benchmark release showed that 54% of emails are now opened on a mobile device, and a 2014 ExactTarget mobile behavior report found mobile activity peaks between 9pm to 12am. With consumers becoming more and more active on their mobile devices, especially outside of standard nine to five working hours spent at an office desktop, testing sends outside the traditional morning hours is essential.

As for which day of the week performed best, emails sent on Mondays had the highest ROI, but emails sent on Friday had a higher click through rate. Ironically, Saturday and Sunday had the lowest volume rates, but the highest open and click through rates in the study. So even though the weekend was not the most popular time to send emails, those who opened were much more likely to engage with it and click through or purchase.

Based on these findings, you might want to experiment with sending your emails at unconventional times – such as 11pm or 6pm and on the weekend– to see if it yields better results.

Weekend Warriors

Fewer promotional emails are sent on the weekends. This has created an opportunity for some businesses to scoop up some email love when there is less competition.

Experian’s email marketing study found that recipients responded more to promotional emails they received on the weekends – when the send volume was the lowest. The unique open rate for Saturday and Sunday was 17.8% for both days, the highest percentages of the week.

Email data from Harland Clarke also supported this finding in their recent study. Although 26.9% of emails were sent on Wednesdays, recipients viewed only 15.6% of those emails, whereas Saturday (a day when only 5.5% of emails were sent), they viewed 32.5%.

Before you change all your email launches to Saturday and Sunday, we recommend you test it first. (Remember that open rates on these days are still lower.) Try splitting your list in half and send the same email to group A on Sunday then group B on Monday or Tuesday. Repeat this a few times to see where you get better results.

Mobile Matters

The same study by Experian we touched upon earlier found that not only are 54% of all emails viewed on a mobile device, but this percentage is on the rise, growing two percent between June and September 2015. Because mobile click through rates are lower, you want to be sure your call to action is clear and direct, and that your links are easy to spot and click (no matter what time of day you’re sending).

Harland Clarke’s study also found that the email open rates depended on the device the recipient is using. They found that tablet users, for example, were more like to open emails outside of business hours (from 5pm to 8am), while desktop users were more likely to open during business hours. Tablet users were the most active from 8 to 9pm, while desktop users and smartphone users were most active between 3 and 4pm.

Finally, when considering the importance of mobile in your email sends, remember that if your customers can’t read your emails, they’re not likely to continue to interact with them, affecting your future campaigns. Litmus found that by testing a non-responsive versus responsive email design, they were able to increase click-throughs by 130%.

So consider your audience in your email marketing. Try sending a split test to half of your list in the morning during work hours and the other half at 7 or 8pm and note any differences. Be sure your emails (and landing pages) are mobile-friendly.

Timing Isn’t Everything

If you’re noticing a dip in your open rates, maybe other factors are contributing to the decline. Here are some additional email marketing tips to help with your open and click through rates:

1.    Test your email to make sure it’s rendering properly in multiple browsers and email service providers (Email on Acid offers an easy way to do this if you want to save some time.)

2.    Review your email list. How old is it? Are there emails that should be removed? How can you grow your email list effectively? Here are some tips for good organic email list growth: 10 Steps to Build Your Email List the Right Way

3.    Are you effectively rocking your subject line? The subject line is your one brief opportunity to get someone to open your email. Be sure you know the best practices when creating this magic line. Check out these helpful tips on creating your subject line.

4.    Frequency. Are you sending too often? Be sure to play it cool and segment your lists so you aren’t bombarding your recipients with unwanted email (or, dare we say spam!)

So when is the best time to send email? As you can see, there is no one right answer. If you’re ready to see some improvements, start by doing some simple email split tests and see which times your recipients respond to best.


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The ABCs of Landing Pages That Work [Infographic]

Landing pages are bread and butter. Landing pages never stutter.

Landing pages are rhyme and reason. Landing pages stay in season.

See what I did there? Rhymes help make learning fun and easy.

And when you want to make a living as a blogger, learning how to create landing pages that convert is a smart way to help you build your career online.

So, what’s even more fun than a list of rhymes that help you learn the fundamentals of effective landing pages?

An infographic that visually depicts each rhyme!

Landing page rhyme time

The ultra-creative Lauren Mancke designed this handy guide to help you remember landing page elements that make sales.

Since you want your readers to act because your products and services assist them with something they lack, this infographic will keep you on track.

Let’s jump right in to the ABCs of landing pages that work!

 
Like this infographic? Get landing page advice that works from Copyblogger.

 Want to publish this infographic on your own site?

Copy and paste this code into your blog post or web page:

<a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/landing-pages-that-work/"><img src="http://copyblogger.com/cdn-origin/images/650/copyblogger-infographic-abcs-of-landing-pages.png" alt="The ABCs of Landing Pages That Work [Infographic]" title="The ABCs of Landing Pages That Work [Infographic]" width="650" /></a><p><small>Like this infographic? Get <a href='http://www.copyblogger.com/landing-pages/'>landing page advice</a> that works from <a href='http://www.copyblogger.com/'>Copyblogger</a>.</small></p>

You can also click here to download a PDF of the infographic (133.6 MB), which is suitable for printing and hanging near your workspace when you need to see it most.

Over to you …

Can you think of a rhyme to help you remember your favorite landing page tip?

Which rhyme in the infographic will be your first priority the next time you create a landing page?

Head over to Google+ and let us know!

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Attraction Content: The Foundation of a Smart Content Marketing Strategy

This article is part of our series on the 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs. Make sure to get your special free bonus at the end of the article.

Let’s start at the beginning: you need to attract people to your content.
Creating Attraction content is the first step in a successful content marketing strategy and the focus of our first lesson.
Here’s a working definition of Attraction content:

Attraction content is freely available on the web for social sharing and for search engines to index. Your goal for this content is for people to consume it and spread it.

In other words, this is the content that drives traffic — ideally, a lot of traffic. Let’s look at a few examples of Attraction content.

List articles

Some like to call these articles “listicles.” Others like to call ’em “rubbish.”
Call them what you will, but creating a high-quality article around a numbered list like the 109 Ways to Make Your Business Irresistible to the Media simply works.
And, yes, you will typically see better results from higher numbers (as long as you make each point a beefy, satisfying item).
But Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well or The 7 Things Writers Need to Make a Living prove that short list articles can also be popular.

Infographics

The most-shared piece of content on Copyblogger is an infographic called 15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly.
We’ll dig into why it works so well — and why it doesn’t — below.
In the meantime, here are two more examples of successful infographics:

• 11 Essential Ingredients Every Blog Post Needs
• The ABCs of Landing Pages That Work

Both of these infographics were large drivers of traffic and social shares the year they were published (2014).
And check out these articles if you are interested in learning how to make winning infographics without risk or transforming your ho-hum infographic into something extraordinary.

Downloadable assets

Give people resources to make their lives easier and they will be happy to share them with others. That’s the purpose behind downloadable assets like worksheets, checklists, and inspirational posters.
Definitive guides and content libraries fall into this category, too.
Definitive guides are resources like QuickSprout’s The Complete Guide to Building Your Personal Branding or Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO.
These are monster resources that pile up the inbound links, generate thousands of social shares, and dominate the top rankings in search engines.
Content libraries like My.Copyblogger accomplish the same result, but instead of focusing on one topic, we offer 15 different ebooks on topics ranging from copywriting to content marketing to landing pages.
And yes, in exchange for one email address we give you access to all 15 ebooks. If you are interested, you can read up on the results of this approach in a report published by MarketingSherpa (spoiler alert: the experiment was a smashing success, in more ways than we imagined).

SlideShares

Another method for attracting new people to your content is creating slide presentations and publishing them on SlideShare. On Copyblogger, we publish a new post with a SlideShare presentation embedded in it, like we did with 10 Rules for Creating Content People Can Trust.
By doing it this way, we drive our Copyblogger audience to view the SlideShare, which then (we hope) raises the number of views to a point that it gets featured on the SlideShare home page.
Since all of our slide presentations point back to Copyblogger, this additional exposure potentially introduces us to new audience members.

Surveys and stats

Sometimes you don’t have to create all the content by yourself. You can ask your audience to provide the raw material for you. That’s the idea behind surveys.
A survey is also a great way to establish yourself as an authority in your industry by becoming the go-to source for the latest research on a particular topic. In fact, we used a survey to launch our native advertising series, and that survey attracted a number of links.
The SEO software company Moz elevates its authority and visibility in the market by releasing its annual search ranking factors report. Surveys are a reliable way to attract links.
Stats are another way to reuse content (whether they are yours or someone else’s) to drive traffic to your site and attract links. For example, take a look at NewsCred’s 50 Stats You Need to Know about Content Marketing downloadable report, which is also a SlideShare.

Attraction content mashups

As you can see, and as you will continue to see over the course of this week-long series, Attraction content can embody a number of different formats and mediums.
You can also transform one piece of content into different formats and mediums. Almost two years after we published Stefanie Flaxman’s 30 Quick Editing Tips Every Content Creator Needs to Know, we updated it and turned it into a SlideShare presentation.
In another case, an infographic became a series of podcasts and then eventually became a series of articles. And don’t forget, you can always republish old blockbuster articles to expose them to a new audience.
Now let’s discuss a common problem with Attraction content.

The problem with Attraction content

As I mentioned above, a great example of Attraction content is our 15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly. This is easily our most popular post. It’s generated a ton of links and social shares.
In addition, it’s driven a lot of traffic to our site. But there is one problem with the traffic. And it involves delivering the right value to the right type of person.
Unfortunately, many of those people who find Copyblogger through Grammar Goofs are not part of our target audience, so they tend to drift away. They care about grammar, but not content marketing.
This is not always an entirely bad thing. Traffic surges can lead to surges of free publicity. Let me explain.

When bad traffic can be good

In their early stages, Buffer published hugely popular posts on body language and happiness. They were great posts, but I always thought it was strange for a social media app company to write about these topics.
Until I understood what they were doing.
See, those popular posts were getting picked up by big-name media sites like TIME and The Huffington Post, which drove a ton of traffic back to Buffer via the links embedded in the articles.
As expected, the conversion rates were low, but Buffer got publicity from these articles.
This is (sometimes) the beauty of content syndication.
Eventually, though, Buffer narrowed its content focus to attract the right audience. Once they reached a critical mass of visibility and traffic, it was time to focus on conversion.
The same was true for Copyblogger. Attraction content is now typically part of our content mix about once or twice a month.

When to use Attraction content

Let’s close with a couple of thoughts about when you should use Attraction content.

1. New websites. Your new website will need a heavy dose of Attraction content to get attention and links. If you publish twice a week, for instance, you could publish Attraction content once a week. This ratio is a good starting place because it’s not easy to predict which piece of content will become a stellar performer.
2. Mature websites. In general, it will take you anywhere from six months to two years to start seeing your content rise in the search engines, regularly get shared, and routinely pick up links. Once you reach that point, you may want to publish Attraction content about once or twice a month.

It’s comforting to remember that it’s quite easy to blend your Attraction content with other content types, like Authority and Affinity. This way, you not only drive a lot of traffic to your site, you also attract the right type of traffic.

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Over to you …

Do you have any questions about Attraction content? Drop us a line in the comments section below.

And let us know about your favorite piece of Attraction content (whether you or someone else created it).

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