Last week, the Digital Summit Conference came to Atlanta! Marketers of various roles and departments attended to network and gain knowledge from experts about current marketing industry trends. 

There were countless presentations highlighting how marketers could better optimize their content strategy that left us inspired and ready to take action.

Here are five key takeaways that marketers need to implement in order to unlock engaging content. 

Content Tip #1 - The best kept email marketing secret is that the “From” name matters!

Jen Capstraw is an expert on the art of email marketing and is the Co-Founder and President of Women of Email. At the conference, she led an insightful discussion about the hottest tips and tricks in email marketing to add to your marketing strategy.

The most shocking tidbit from Capstraw’s presentation was that the most important component of email marketing is the “from” name and not the subject line. The subject line is still crucial, but there’s something about knowing the brand or individual sending a message that makes you more likely to open it.

Other tactics to drive open rates include adding humor to make a subject line more cheeky or adding emojis to appear more relatable or personable. Phrasee conducted research on the emoji strategy in subject lines, and, of the emails with emojis in the subject lines versus the ones that didn’t include them, the open rate increased 60%.

Building a connection with the audience is also extremely important if a brand wants their customers to consider opening their emails. Don’t be afraid to take a stand on a topic that your target audience would be interested in. Capstraw explained that this creates a sense of solidarity between the brand and the consumer.

TLDR: Don’t be afraid to break the rules of traditional email marketing. Build trust and play around with messaging and imagery, and constantly use A/B tests to see if there are any analytical improvements. 

Content Tip #2 - Blogs are still important to a content marketing strategy!

Rachel Hernandez, Director of Brand Strategy at The Hoth, led a session on how to experience “Quick SEO Wins.” The goal of her discussion was to explain little-known, yet actionable SEO strategies that yield quick results.

Hernandez explained that websites that include blogs have 55% more traffic than websites that don’t, and the benchmark that brands should aim for is 16 blog posts per month. They found that web traffic triples when brands stick to 16 posts.

In order to create successful blogs, there needs to be a SEO strategy. Quick SEO wins include:

SEO Win #1: Conducting Keyword research and creating content related to them. 

• Doing this could help increase your pages' authority on the subject.

SEO Win #2: Reviving old blogs with current information.

• Always republish old blogs with a new date – don’t just save or update the blog.

SEO Win #3: Creating linkable assets like backlinks.

• Moz explained, “Backlinks are especially valuable for SEO because they represent a ‘vote of confidence’ from one site to another.”

Content Tip #3 - Salespeople are tools for content!

Samantha Kermode is the VP of Strategic Growth at Investis Digital, and her session was titled “Killer Content that Drives Leads.” 

Your brand’s content should come from your company’s internal experts. Salespeople deserve to be heard and have a say in content strategy because they are a reflection of the ideal customer since they are the ones at the front lines interacting with clients. Salespeople are extremely knowledgeable about the pain points of the audience and can relay that information back to the marketing team.

Action Item: Collaborate with your sales team by holding a brainstorming session with them or having them contribute to a piece of content.

Content Tip #4 - Maximizing keywords is a game changer for brand visibility and informing the audience!

Paxton Gray is the CEO of 97th Floor, a marketing agency based in Utah. He spoke about content specifically for B2B marketers.

Rachel Hernandez shared that “80%+ of Google searches are informational and navigational.” Meaning, the more keywords added, the more it captures the many angles of a topic. He explained that content should not just be lengthy – it should also be comprehensive. Finding where your keywords are authoritative and relevant and adding them to a blog can help turn a 500 word blog to 2000 words while also answering a wider audience’s questions. 

Content Tip #5 - Treat your brand like a club!

Director of Brand Strategy and Content for Edgar Allen, Kendra Rainey, shared her tips about seeing your brand as a club. Marketers need to do this because, like clubs, brands help connect people based on similar interests while being agile and ever-changing. Acting as a club also shifts the perspective to the “members,” or the audience. She explained that brands can easily do this by conducting research on the audience through interviews or researching what competitors are doing.

Conferences like Digital Summit ATL offer marketers an opportunity to network and learn new ways of thinking in addition to successful marketing strategies.

Utilizing these five insights in your content planning should help your content level up and increase engagement and viewership.