Five on Friday: Effective Retargeting Strategy, Increasing Backlinks, and More

Five on Friday this week explores NYT’s use of Facebook Live, how to get external links to your site, retargeting, the importance of focus

Five on FridayAs the curator of the INSIDER Guide to New Product Development (NPD), I’m constantly keeping an eye out for bite-size information that will help you develop and scale better subscription products.  Here’s my “Five on Friday” compilation for June 10th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.  

1.  What You Can Learn From NYT’s Use of Facebook Live

This Digiday article gives an update on The New York Times and their all-in bet on Facebook Live, an effort we’ve been watching with interest the past few weeks.  The verdict? So far, so good. But more importantly, NYT is learning what the post-new-media media world looks like and how to play in it.  What can we learn?

Video, like online journalism, is a two-way communication. Be prepared to not only interview a subject but take questions from your audience in real time.

The medium (and platform) dictate the content.  NYT is leveraging video to perform walking tours of New York City.  What sort of video tour could your subscription offer?

The learning is important. The article doesn’t come right out and say it, but it doesn’t sound like NYT is getting a large number of viewers yet.  But plunging in and learning the channel, experimenting with it, is what will keep “legacy” media companies in the game for another 100 years or so.

 

2.  How to Get External Sites to Link to Yours

While getting this list from backlinko.com requires giving up your email address (and confirming), it’s worth it.  Some dig-deep ideas on how to improve the number of backlinks to your website. You may not agree with all the methods, but they are creative and educational.

Don’t want the extra emails?  Here’s tip #9 from the list: 

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3.  Planning an Effective Retargeting Strategy

Too few subscription businesses are leveraging retargeting advertising due to lack of understanding. If you fit that description, this article from the American Management Association is worth a read. No time? Here are the main points:

  • Retargeting is the marketing tactic of placing online ads to appear on the next, or next several, websites a prospect visits after yours. The idea is, if an individual was interested enough to visit your site, they may subscribe if they’re reminded of what they saw, via ads, on other sites they visit around the web.
  • You buy retargeting ads by setting up a budget and a bid for keywords searched (e.g., allow $50 per day for buying the keyword “daily news,” and bid $10 each time that keyword is searched).

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  • But: the ad doesn’t always go to the highest bidder – there is the issue of “stature” of the company bidding. Google uses a quality score, which evaluates the caliber of the advertiser’s website. Facebook has a relevance score, based on the likelihood users will interact with a particular ad.
  • Even though the playing field isn’t level, retargeting is still worthwhile; after all, you only pay when your ad is seen, so the risk is low.  But these algorithms are yet another reason to maintain a rich and expanding web presence.

4. In the Stormy Seas of Business, Watch Out for Sirens

While a good fit for the unofficial kickoff of summer, the article 5 Principles to Weather the Stormy Seas of Your Own Business from Fox News/Entrepreneur is pretty silly. However, it touches on the important topic of focus as an element of business success. The lesson? Don’t be lured onto the metaphorical rocks by chasing the wrong goal. Just as being flexible is critical to sustaining a business in a world of opportunity, so is not attacking every opportunity that comes your way. Assess new ideas through the filter of your business’s strengths, aspirations, and strategic goals.

5. Why Brand Positioning is Important to Publications

“If you try to write for everybody, you write for nobody.”
Matthew Stibbe, CEO Articulate and Turbine

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Diane

 

 

 

 

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