2021 is finally over! While it was definitely better than its predecessor, I don’t suppose it met too many people’s hopes or expectations. I hope that some who read this were amongst the success stories. Please leave a comment if that describes you. We all love to hear good news! My prediction, for what it’s worth, is that 2022 will finally get back to some real version of normal, as opposed to simply going about business as if it is due to COVID-fatigue.

Every year, we thank our authors, who we deeply appreciate. Curatti is a conduit. We couldn’t exist without our writers or readers. So thank you, dear readers!

This year, we also want to add a very special extra note. Sharlene Sones of Brandstoria never wrote an article for us. But she was with us every step of the way in our early days. Thank you, Sharlene, now and always!

Our 2021 Authors

This year, we cut back our schedule, publishing fewer than 100 articles. As always, some written by old friends, and others by new friends. Plus, there were a lot of guest authors!

As always,  we are publishing a snippet of one article by every author who contributed 2 or more original articles. We’ll top it off with a thank you mention for every one of our one-time and guest authors.

Here they are, in alphabetical order. Each is hyperlinked to take you to the article we’ve selected for them:

Jordan Bishop    9 Actionable Tips To Get A Million Views On Quora

Yash Chawlani    Is GPT-3 Ready For Prime Time? A Content Marketer’s Opinion On Today’s Writing Tech

(Editor’s license re. Yash. He submitted two articles but the second is being published next month/year)

Ashwini Dave   Knowledge Bases Are The Next Big Thing: Here’s Why

Nahla Davies    3 Ways You Can Utilize AI To Scale Customer Acquisition And Retention

Paolo Fabrizio    5 Questions That Will Improve Your Customer Service

Anna Fox    5 Ways to Find New Customers Online Without Breaking the Bank

Susan Gilbert   12 Social Media Networking, LinkedIn for Business, and eCommerce Sales Tools

Travis Jamieson    5 Tips on Boosting Your Business’ Average Order Value

Haley Lucas    Are Chatbots Replacing Email Marketing?

Jake Rheude    So, You Want to Add eCommerce? A Guide

Robin Singh   AI and Content Marketing: How Machine Learning Is Impacting SEO

Ron Stefanski   8 Examples of Explainer Videos and Best Practices to Make Your Own

Jordan Bishop

9 Actionable Tips To Get A Million Views On Quora

 

 

 

Whether you’re looking to promote your latest product or gain traffic for your site, Quora can be a powerful lever in your marketing strategy. But how exactly can you use Quora to your advantage and leverage its enormous reach to get millions of views?

Over the past 12 months, my Quora answers have received about 4 million views. In this post, I’ll explain why Quora can be valuable for your business and how you can get a million views of your own on the question-and-answer platform.

Why Is Quora Important?

If you haven’t used Quora as a means of building traffic before, it might seem like the primary benefits of getting a million views would be a bit of fame, recognition, and bragging rights. In reality, though, nothing could be further from the truth.

Quora traffic is incredibly powerful for one major reason: it represents the long tail. Just about every iteration of every question you can think of has already been asked on Quora. And because the site has such a strong SEO presence, it very frequently appears in the top results on Google when we search for a highly specific question.

When readers are sifting through answers on Quora looking for the best solution to their problem, where do you think they go next? Many of them continue seeking more information wherever the most helpful answer directs them. If they were reading your answer, then, that next destination could be your site.

This is why Quora is such an incredible tool for building traffic. By specifically targeting questions relevant to your product or service, you can direct potential customers to your site en masse.

Here are my top nine strategies for doing exactly that. (Well, here’s the link to the full article!)

Yash Chawlani

Is GPT-3 Ready For Prime Time? A Content Marketer’s Opinion On Today’s Writing Tech

 

 

 

OpenAI has released yet another evolutionary variant of its AI, billed as ‘too dangerous for public release.’

But now, after over 6 months of  GPT-3 AI being in our lives and with millions of words written, has the manual copywriting world taken a fatal hit? Or, on the contrary, has GPT-3 become the helping hand we’ve been looking for?

At least you can be sure this creative and self-deprecating introduction was written by a human, can’t you?

What Is GPT-3?

GPT-3 is the third generation of ‘generative pre-trained transformer’ neural network made by OpenAI, the company founded by Elon Musk with a mission to make the future possibility of general artificial intelligence – well, one that still has humans in the picture.

So, what is it again? It’s like a chatbot, which can write natural-sounding text, all from a couple of prompts. It mimics the style of the prompt, whether it’s dialogue, code, or even a formal encyclopedia article.

A general artificial intelligence, by the way, is what many people think of as AI. Think Skynet, Sonny, HAL 9000, The Cylons, Cortana, take your pick.

AI isn’t anywhere near general intelligence levels yet, but we can all agree that it’ll be one for the books when the day comes. For now, generative pre-trained transformers still have some pretty impressive capabilities.

To read the entire article, click here

Ashwini Dave

Knowledge Bases Are The Next Big Thing: Here’s Why

Almost every organization out there has databases brimming with data dedicated to some project or application. And for some reason, some companies still shy away from it, sticking with the good old spreadsheets. While there’s nothing wrong with it fundamentally, oftentimes, some of this siloed information is restricted or simply not accessible to other parts of the organization, for whatever reason. And there’s information that’s hidden away from your customers — information that they will need access to either for troubleshooting or for simply starting up.

A test conducted by BBC in the UK back in 2009 showed that customers had to wait up to 24 minutes to access customer service of some kind. These situations drastically differ from the original use cases of databases, and hence, the need arises for knowledge bases.

A knowledge base is a form of digital storage or encyclopedia of information that serves as a self-service help desk. It may include training resources for your employees, guides for customers, etc., and is a perfect solution for scaling up your customer support program.

A seemingly 5% growth in retention can increase your profits by up to 95%. On the same note, developing and maintaining a knowledge base can prove to be highly beneficial for both customer retention and improving employee efficiency. Here’s how:

Click here to read the full article

Nahla Davies

3 Ways You Can Utilize AI To Scale Customer Acquisition And Retention

There are only so many insights businesses can gather by mining their sales data. In the best-case scenario, marketing-wise, data mining tools make it easier to understand which products and services customer groups want to purchase the most. But all of the data mining tools in the world put together are still too clunky and time-consuming to personalize the customer experience and convert more customers.

Digital marketers can, fortunately, convert their sales data into a retention and acquisition strategy that uses artificial intelligence (AI)-driven personalization to better connect with customers. With AI, businesses can take advantage of the more than two hours that social media users spend daily on social channels to personalize their real-time customer interactions. The best methods to use AI to scale the customer acquisition and retention process, however, can often be difficult to determine.

To that end, let’s take a look at the three best ways businesses can use AI to improve their personal messaging and more effectively connect with and convert a greater number of online customers.

To read the full article, click here

Paolo Fabrizio

5 Questions That Will Improve Your Customer Service

Nowadays, we’re all in the business of conversations. In fact, owning the best products or services is not enough to win customers if they don’t perceive value. Furthermore, as the volume of online conversations has boomed and is bound to keep growing, that’s the new battleground where you may win, maintain, or lose customers. Are you fully equipped? These 5 laser-focused questions will help you take action where necessary to build and maintain conversations that sell. They will help you improve your Customer Service from the bottom up.

To Improve Your Customer Service, Listen, Learn, Improve. Then Start Over Again

Regardless of the industry, you’re in, the toughest competitor is your pride. get beyond it to acknowledge when others deliver better customer experiences than you. Accept it and learn from them to improve related customer relation key nerves / areas. Just as an example you may need to review at least one of the following.

Actually, to read the 5 important questions, you’ll need to click here

Anna Fox

5 Ways to Find New Customers Online Without Breaking the Bank

By now, you’re probably sick of reading that social media is a boon for businesses. This ‘chorus’ is served on pretty much every business marketing blog out there.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good chorus. Social media IS the best platform for promotion in history because of the sheer number of users and affordability.

But this sheer number can also overwhelm small business owners, many of whom find themselves at loss as to what to do to find and reach the right customers.

Good news. I’ve got you covered with this post. You will find five ideas that work well. They just require a small investment in time every day but will help you find new customers

1. Lay the Foundation

This one is a fundamental step. It won’t bring you clients right away but it is important to do that as early as you can:

Set up your own (portfolio) site.

As you are building your online presence, you want people (clients and employers) to easily find you.

Setting up a website is easy, and if you need to find a cool domain, check out Namify, a domain and business name generator that helps you pick a brandable name and even provides some help with brand identity:

Your website is where you want to curate and publicize your customer reviews, describe your expertise and experience as well as provide all the necessary information for your customers to get in touch with you.

Think about your site as an ultimate sales funnel: What would persuade your site visitors to contact you and ask about your services? Think about your wording, your CTAs, and your forms. Craft the way your copy talks to your target customers’ needs and questions. Use Text Optimizer to build your content around answering your customers’ questions:

[Here are excellent questions to answer if you are looking to coach beginner copywriters.]

It is also a good idea to give your readers various ways to get in touch, for example:

• Allow them to email you right away
• Invite them to book an appointment by setting up a client booking form
• Create click-to-call buttons, etc.

To read the other 4 ways, click here

Susan Gilbert

12 Social Media Networking, LinkedIn for Business, and eCommerce Sales Tools

The following is made up of 3 “Business Tips” articles, each of which talks about 4 helpful tools and resources around a specific area of your business. Today, the subjects are:

• Social Media Networking
• LinkedIn for Business
• eCommerce Sales

Improve Your Networking on Social Media with These 4 Tools

1) Get Focused on the Right Audience – Audiense

Want to know what your audience likes the most? Find out with Audiense, which provides analytics and even ways to monetize your marketing. Use this resource to identify relevant users, create specific segments, and engage in meaningful conversations.

2) Gather Actionable Intent Insights – LeadSift

Easily locate potential leads in the midst of the buyer’s journey. With LeadSift your business can prioritize the hottest leads as well as nurture those who are interested in making a purchase. Find out what people are saying about the competition so that your brand can have the right context before reaching out to them.

3) Collect Valuable Feedback – Tracx

Find out what’s working and not working for your customers online. Tracx provides real-time data on what others are saying about your brand. Improve customer experience and communication with this great tool. Features include mobile-friendly landing pages, data measurement, and surveys.

4) Instantly Find Relevant Content – ContentGems

Would you like a team working for you to discover the best content to share on social media? Well you don’t have to hire anyone with this powerful resource, ContentGems. Just choose your topics with daily alerts, and watch your content marketing reach more readers. Millions of articles are indexed each week — just enter the search term to get the process started.

To read about the other 8 tips, click here

Travis Jamieson

5 Tips on Boosting Your Business’ Average Order Value

Average order value (AOV) is an often-overlooked metric in the digital business world.

Marketers tend to focus on promoting frictionless conversions (CR) and customer loyalty (CLV) while forgetting about the enormous impact a 15% bump in AOV can have on a company’s bottom line.

And the strange thing is, boosting AOV doesn’t call for a degree in nuclear physics. The tips we’ll be discussing in this article are straightforward and easy to implement.

Let’s take a look at how your business can see a generous spike in profits by increasing the average number of dollars each of your customers spend.

Simplify Order Customization

If it’s difficult for customers to configure their orders or see how an order tweak impacts the price, you might be missing out on higher-order values.

Many online retailers allow customers to fine-tune their orders to a very low level of detail. This process often adds to the order value since choosing a higher quality material or a specific design has a higher price.

However, if your website’s order customization process is cumbersome, you may find that customers are reluctant to add the extras that would increase the order value.

Let’s take a look at an e-commerce website that absolutely nails order customization. Mixam’s quote feature is a thing of beauty.

Not only does the printing specialist offer more customization options than you can shake a stick at, but the functionality that enables shoppers to add extra features (and extra dollars) to their order is incredibly easy, and even fun, to use.

This approach is an excellent way to encourage shoppers to tweak their orders and add optional, higher-cost extras.

To read the rest of the article, click here

Haley Lucas

Are Chatbots Replacing Email Marketing?

To run a successful business, you only have one job to do. 

And that’s to show your target audience that you have a solution to their problems (or aspirations).

That means you must establish an effective and efficient way of communicating with them. In the digital age we’re living in, chatbots are fast becoming one of the main ways brands communicate with their customers. 

But does this meteoric rise in popularity mean chatbots are replacing email as the favored marketing channel?

Let’s compare the two and find out.

Chatbots vs. Email in Marketing

The chatbots vs. email marketing debate is an interesting one. That’s because it’s a battle between one of the oldest electronic means of communication and one of the latest. 

With all the rave about chatbots, could it be that the “email is dead” prophecy is finally coming to pass?

To answer that question, let’s look at the effectiveness of each in some of the most important facets of marketing. 

To read the answer, and more, click here!

Jake Rheude

So, You Want to Add eCommerce? A Guide

While some entrepreneurs start with an idea for a product, some just start with an idea. Whether it’s a need for knowledge in your community niche, a passion to create and share your art, or just a place to post things that you think are funny, there are millions of people creating content every day without monetizing it in the form of selling a product. So, what happens when they want to add eCommerce to their website?

For some content creators, it’s easier than others. Hopefully, this will serve as a helpful guide for how to add eCommerce to your existing brand. Let’s get into it.

Your Audience

First, you already have an audience. Congratulations! You get to skip the first step in the entrepreneurial handbook affectionately referred to as “screaming into the void.” Instead of starting from scratch and trying to convince a lot of people that you have a good idea, you’ve already built an audience – maybe it’s a Facebook group, maybe it’s an email newsletter. You just need to expand on your original idea and leverage the existing follower base you have.

The next step depends on whether or not you have a clear idea of what products to offer. If you’ve already had a great idea, you can start polling your subscribers to see how they feel about it. It is not an advisable move to just charge ahead without your audience’s input. Having an existing audience won’t mean anything if they aren’t interested in what you’re selling.

Where your audience is located will affect how you get their input. If you create art and post it on social media, for example, making prints is a pretty clear path. And you can poll your audience on which pieces they are most interested in purchasing as prints.

Your Product

To read about your product and more, click here

Robin Singh

AI and Content Marketing: How Machine Learning Is Impacting SEO

 

 

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have become very prominent as a subject of discussion in tech circles. Their popularity has to do with the fantastic application potential these two technologies have for various industries, businesses, and even civic services.

Google and other search engines already use machine learning and AI to formulate their search engine rankings and provide the best possible results to their users. This means that understanding machine learning can help us create better content, optimize our websites better, and ultimately get better rankings.

Let’s see how Machine Learning is impacting SEO and how SEO will further change as Artificial Intelligence continues to change our world.

To find out what Robin spoke about, click here

Ron Stefanski

8 Examples of Explainer Videos and Best Practices to Make Your Own

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to studies, 85% of people are more likely to purchase a product after they have seen an accompanying overview, which is where explainer videos come in handy.

If you have a product, service, or business concept that you need to introduce in a succinct way that your customers will fully understand, an explainer video is what you need.

It’s a faster and more effective way to communicate value to potential customers and it provides you with an easy point of entry for those in your audience who don’t know about your product or service.

Explainer videos can be especially useful for startups and brands in highly competitive niches. They are also great for use in products that require additional context for customers to gain a full understanding of the product, service, or business model.

Read the rest of this article to discover more about explainer videos, including examples of some of the best ones from popular brands. We’ll also take a look at some best practices for how you can create your own killer explainer videos.

If you’re ready, let’s get started! (Click here to actually get started!)

Our One-Time Authors

Here’s the lengthy list of one-time contributors for the year. It includes some returning friends, who I’ve marked with an asterisk, and Moss Clement, a long-time supporter:

Rafaella Aguiar

Joydeep Bhattacharya *

Jocelyn Burns

Shane Barker **

Adela Belin

Burkhard Berger *

Shyam Bhardwaj

Sudhir Bhashan

Tuhin Bhatt

Will Cannon

Andy Capaloff **

Wesley Cherisien

Moss Clement *

Simki Dutta *

Alice Elliott **

Laurent Gibb

Steve Hawky

Lyuthar Jacob *

Evelyn Johnson

Jason Khoo

Denise Langenegger

Lucy Manole

Chris Makara *

George Mathew

Dhruv Mehta *

Emma Miller

Petra Odack

Andre Oentoro

Margo Ovsiienko

Dipti Parmar

Jason Parms

Shaheryar Sadiq

Will Sarto

Srushti Shah *

Gaurav Sharma

Dan Smink

Helvis Smoteks *

Bhahik Soni

Paul Staten

Neal Taparia

Tim Waldenback

And Ann Smarty updated a couple of her old articles.

Thank You!

We truly appreciate all of our writers, and all of you are welcome to write again.

To anybody contacting us to contribute for the first time, please accept this advance apology. We have little time and simply don’t get to all of the emails. And then, with so few discretionary articles left in any given month, we must apply really high standards for the few we are able to publish.

Before you email us though, please read the guidelines you see in the top menu.

Last, but never least, if not for our readers, nobody would want to write for us! So the biggest thank you goes to you.

Happy New Year! Roll on 2022! You’ve been a long time coming!

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