Monday Morning Memo: Why Retailers Are Basking in Record Sales, the La

The digital news of the week begins with a hot start for online sales before quickly turning to content. Learn what the latest in SEO research has revealed about content marketing and how social conversations about a brand are actually often more social than online. The customer journey requires great content throughout - read how AI can be a great sidekick to that customer journey!

Black Friday, Thanksgiving online sales climb to record high – Reuters

To preempt a decline in visits to brick and mortar stores, retailers invested heavily in improving their websites leading up to this year’s Black Friday frenzy, the famous day-after-Thanksgiving event when retailers give steep discounts to mark the beginning of the holiday shopping season. This year, compared to the last, online sales were up 17.9 percent with almost $8 billion in online sales!

6 Things New SEO Research Reveals About Content Marketing – Forbes

Organic search is still the leading online traffic driver and great content is how to move up the SEO rankings. SEO sounds like an intimidating term to marketers without the technical expertise, but keeping up with the trends and producing relevant content are the first steps to SEO success.

Brands Heed Social Media. They’re Advised Not to Forget Word of Mouth. – NY Times

19 percent of a brand’s sales are driven by social conversations, but those conversations are often taken offline and what you see isn’t always what you get. What people post online doesn’t always reflect their true feelings toward a brand, which means that a deeper look into social engagement beyond what’s online is necessary for a true reflection of consumer sentiment.

Understanding the Intelligent Content Journey – CMS Wire

We can either embrace machine learning or suffer the consequences. This piece walks through how a content marketer can utilize technology to work through the entire content process, from inception through to personalization and delivery.

How to Produce Content That Doubles Your Sales Funnel Conversion Rate – Entrepreneur

Speaking of the content journey, this article explains how to produce content for every stage of the sales funnel. A recent Forrester study concluded that 82 percent of buyers view at least five pieces of content from a vendor before becoming a customer, which validates Ian Truscott’s argument that marketers are now publishers. Producing great content to move prospects from the awareness stage to the buying stage, and delivering it at the right time, is tantamount to delivering a steady inbound pipeline to your sales team.