2019 - Page 3 of 11 - Outsource Digital Marketing With Tempesta Media

Managed Services vs Marketplaces – Which Content Marketing Solution Is Better?

Posted on May 29, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

In today’s digital age, creating content is essential for businesses in all industries to attract and retain customers.

Often times a business does not have the time or resources to continually produce high-quality content so they look to outsource.

Still, once a business decides to outsource their content needs, they quickly face another crucial decision: whether to use a content marketplace or managed content service (read about the pros and cons to both options). When determining what outsourcing method is best for your business, it is important to keep a few things in mind:

Defined turnaround times

When working with a content marketplace, agencies and enterprises are often not provided with specific turnaround times for their content. Without a specific timeline, it may become difficult for businesses to track and maintain a content schedule. This lack of transparency simply adds another hassle to a business’s end goal of creating consistent, quality content.

Managed services, on the other hand, work directly with their clients to adhere to established turnaround times. Tempesta Media not only provides customers with topic suggestions and editorial calendars but also guarantees that all pieces under 1,000 words are delivered to the customer within five business days.

Scale and quality for B2B content marketing

While both methods of outsourcing allow agencies and enterprises to receive content at scale, the true difference between a content marketplace and a managed service is found in the quality of the content delivered.

When using a content marketplace, customers are confined to a set list of categories for desired tones and styles of their content, ranging from “conversational” to “academic research” and “reporting.” Such broad categories often fail to truly capture the voice and brand of a business’s customers, leading to multiple revisions and unsatisfied customers.

At Tempesta Media, content strategists work directly with customers to create a unique “Voice Profile,” which ensures the content’s tone and style consistently align with a business’s brand. The personalized Voice Profile is a unique and unrivaled step that allows Tempesta Media’s expert team of writers to consistently create high-quality tailored content.

Managed services compared to doing it yourself: Return on time

A managed content service provides agencies and enterprises the best of both worlds – the ability to produce scaled content written by industry experts, while focusing on what they do best: delivering high-quality products and services to their customers.

Don’t fall behind in the digital world by placing unnecessary burdens on your marketing team. It’s time to outsource your content needs to the experts. Contact Tempesta Media today and allow us to be your trusted content provider.

Quality Editing Saves Time and Increases Quality for Valued Customers

Posted on May 28, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

Immaculate grammar still matters in content marketing today. Now more than ever, no grammatical error is too small to ignore if you are using content to build your brand.

That is why it’s important to turn to the experts whose quality editing process can hit two birds – form and substance – with one stone.

Industry expert writers create custom content

Tempesta Media leaves no stone unturned to make sure that only the most qualified people will handle its partners’ content.

A stringent vetting process ensures that only professional writers who have real industry experience and know the rules of grammar, punctuation, usage and composition by heart can write content for Tempesta Media customers. Editors need to pass an even stricter recruitment and onboarding process. For starters, they have to achieve an exemplary score above the passing standard in one of the country’s most difficult tests for professional editors.

Editing that goes the extra mile

What kind of editing can Tempesta Media’s partners expect for the custom content that the company provides?

Once the piece of content that is ordered is submitted to a Tempesta Media editor, the customer receives full editing for their content. This includes general proofreading and deep-dive editing. Editors will look for three things: technical proficiency, research and insights.

General proofreading

The editing that Tempesta Media provides begins with the most basic level – proofreading. Editors will fix small to glaring grammatical errors, typos and formatting inconsistencies to ensure overall copy cleanliness. This involves making sure the verb agrees with the subject, words are spelled correctly and punctuation marks are properly used, among other things.

Delivering error-free content is crucial because even the smallest of mistakes can diminish the quality and credibility of a content piece and the associated brand. In content marketing, forgetting to dot the i’s and cross the t’s can mean not only earning the ire of pedants but also losing the trust of a discerning audience.

Plagiarism screening

Tempesta Media regularly updates its proprietary content marketing platform, Article Document, to stay ahead of the curve. This means the company’s writers and editors have access to tools and resources that help make them efficient and successful.

The platform has an advanced, built-in plagiarism detector that prevents writers from submitting duplicate content. Editors make the most of available resources and provide a second layer of screening for everyone’s peace of mind.

Deep-dive editing

Tempesta Media stays miles ahead of the competition when it comes to deep-dive editing thanks to its proprietary Voice Profile solution. Each customer is asked to fill out a Voice Profile® questionnaire, which describes their brand. With this Voice Profile®, their Tempesta Media account manager, writing team and editors will ensure that their content accurately aligns with their organization’s culture and business objectives.

Each piece of content will be edited for grammatical correctness; clarity, organization and flow of ideas; compliance with the assignment instructions; and components such as tone, style and overall message.

Tempesta Media is committed to providing expertly written and professionally edited custom content that meets its partners’ content marketing needs. The company builds trust with its partners from the very beginning of the relationship, and the fastidious editing process that goes into content creation demonstrates how much it values the partnership.

How to Update Old Blog Posts for Better SEO

Posted on May 28, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

Getting the most out of your SEO program is all about creating new content on a consistent basis. Or is it?

Creating new content is necessary, and as you know, it takes a great deal of time. That’s why it’s also important that you take care of quicker tasks that will reap significant rewards over time. One of those key tasks involve updating old blog posts for better SEO.

It’s OK if you don’t like living in the past. But in this case, a trip down memory lane can open up a superhighway of new traffic. Sometimes, a few minor adjustments to the copy, adding an image or video and doing a quick scan of links are all you need to make an old blog post new again.

Why you should update old posts

Updating old posts will improve your credibility. Nothing screams, “I don’t pay attention,” like a broken or outdated link in a blog post. Keeping up with those resources and updating when appropriate is good for your credibility, and will ensure search engines don’t overlook your content.
You can focus efforts on higher-performing articles. Before you groan about having to update every blog post you wrote in 2018, never fear. Pick your top-performing posts and reinforce them with solid updates.
You don’t need a ton of resources. Updating old blog posts doesn’t take as much time as a full rewrite, so you don’t have to throw a lot of manpower behind the job.

How to update old content for SEO success

Make sure all links are up to date. Nothing old or broken, please.
Evaluate your sources for relevance. First, make sure they still exist. Then, determine whether they’re evergreen, or they should be replaced with something more recent.
“Thicken” your content. Thicken means provide more recent examples or go into greater depth on certain points to enrich the post and make your keywords more attractive to search engines.

Make functional SEO changes

Pay attention to your formatting. Make sure your text uses the right styles for headings, body copy, bullets, etc.
Rethink your link text. Get rid of nondescript language, such “click here,” or “read this.” Instead, place links with text that properly describes what people will get when they click.
Add and update headings. Break up your text with relevant headings to help search engines pick up keywords.
Check meta descriptions. Ensure that meta descriptions of your webpages contain appropriate keywords and titles.

Consider visual improvements

Nothing but text on the page? It may be some of the best copy ever written, but even fantastic copy needs a little boost. These tactics can help:

Add a video. Can the story you’re trying to tell be enhanced by video? If so, it’s worth the extra effort.
Add an image. Make sure the image is relevant. Whenever possible, use authentic images featuring real people and things. If you must use stock photography, make sure the image assists visually in describing what’s going on in the post. Images should be appropriately named with descriptive language and tagged. For example: instead of calling your image IMG_043.jpg, call it “mom-and-child-playing-in-park.jpg.”
Create an infographic. A more-descriptive visual interpretation of what you’re trying to say will punch up your post and play well on social media.

Redistribute old content

Speaking of social media, here are some ways to reignite interest in your old blog posts:

Repost old content on social media to remind your target audiences of it.
Include it in a targeted email.
Add it to your social media channel rotation so that it pops back up over the course of the quarter.

Technical methods for updating old content

It’s important that you establish a good methodology for regularly updating old posts to ensure you’re getting the most out of them. Sometimes, a post that didn’t do as well as you thought six months ago might get a new lease on life with a quick update. Here are some technical pointers to help you stay on top of the refreshing schedule:

Consider a website plugin. WordPress (bad link) that will automatically show you the date the post was modified.
Manually include update language. If you can’t use a plugin, manually note at the top of the post the date of modification.
Mark your calendar. Include space in your content calendar to indicate when posts were updated. Set up reminders in Outlook or whatever calendar you use to evaluate certain posts.

We can help you make old blog posts new again

If you still think you may need some assistance with updating old blog posts, Tempesta Media can help. Our editing solution automatically evaluates blog posts based on the parameters above, and our team of writing experts get to work on making your content shine no matter its age. For more, contact us.

What Are the Time Expectations When Working With Tempesta Media?

Posted on May 24, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

As your content marketing vendor, we understand that you are looking to save time and wish to receive high quality blog article and content marketing assets. We feel the exact same way.

Great content doesn’t happen without a bit of work. The partnership requires your input and feedback, especially at the beginning. Here is some insight into how much time you should expect to spend when working with us.

Participation in the onboarding process

When you begin working with us the first thing we ask you to do is complete an online Voice Profile Questionnaire. Your answers are used as the starting point for your Voice Profile style guide. The questionnaire includes four pages and should take no more than 30 minutes to complete.

Once the questionnaire is completed, we will ask you to schedule a kick off call. The kick off call dives deeper into your target audience, combs through topics you’d like to discuss within your content marketing, and walks through how our partnership will operate. The kick off call will take one hour.

Key components of the onboarding process include development of your editorial calendar and your writer audition.

The writer audition allows you to analyze multiple different versions of the same article. Your feedback is imperative to fully optimizing your writer team. The better your feedback is, the better we will be able to optimize your writers. The feedback will take you no more than 30 minutes to provide. Keep in mind, each article will be relatively short.

How to provide feedback for your writer audition

Once you receive the editorial calendar, we ask for your approval so that we can begin scheduling out your content. Your calendar will include ten topics and outlines for you to review. Most people spend no more than 30 minutes reviewing and providing feedback on your editorial calendar.

The total amount of time during the onboarding process can be estimated at two and half hours. Hang tight, because the amount of time you will invest will continue to decrease dramatically.

Your first content orders

The magical moment arrives when you receive your first article. The article is typically ready about two weeks after your kick off call.

Keep in mind that it is very normal to request revisions for your first handful of articles with us. Your revisions help us optimize both your Voice Profile and your writing team. We learn what you like and don’t like about the content to improve the writing moving forward.

The time you invest at this point will involve reviewing the content (assume between 15-30 minutes per article).

Ongoing content marketing partnership

The partnership will continue to optimize as we write more articles on your behalf. You should expect to spend at least 15 minutes reviewing every article. When an article is ready for you to review, you will have seven days. After seven days, the article is auto-completed and you will be unable to request any revisions.

It is helpful to hop on a call with your account manager at least every 90 days to keep them informed about your content marketing goals and strategy. During this time we can provide recommendations to improve your content marketing. These calls typically last around 30 minutes.

Considering an outsourced content marketing company to scale high quality articles? Learn how to effectively outsource content creation.

Common Mistakes Companies Make When Redoing Their Website

Posted on May 24, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

There are a bunch of mistakes that companies make when redesigning their website.

Hopefully this post will caution our readers here not to repeat.

Not defining a strategy before the redesign

First mistake that I constantly see is that companies fail to define their strategy before a website overhaul. The strategy must answer:

Goal
Business objectives
Metrics used to measure success

Keep your executive team involved when redoing a website

The second mistake is not having an executive sponsor during the project. The website touches so many different parts of a company, which requires some exposed to the entire business.

Having someone who can make these yes or no decisions makes the process go more smoothly.

There can be competing interests, so a tight plan, and a point person to end any disputes can be really helpful. An executive officer assigned to the redesign makes sure that those decisions are elevated and resolved accordingly.

Integrations should help your website operate better

If you use different marketing technologies at the core of your business, make sure that they can function on your new website. This is especially important for:

Chat bots
Lead forms
Ecommerce
Payment processes
and more

Have a content strategy and content development plan in place

Don’t develop a new website without a content marketing strategy incorporated into the architecture. The content design and technology all have to work together in order for a website launch to be successful.

Sometimes companies think that they can update the website and add content later.

This is a major mistake because what happens is that when the content is being developed, new ideas appear about how the content should be presented on the website. If the website has just be redesigned, the ideas are either ignored or if implemented, require double the investment.

Sometimes, when that content is being developed, the people creating the new content will decide that a portion of the new website might not be necessary. If you don’t have an integrated content marketing strategy incorporated with the website design, you’re likely to run into these issues.

Timeline and cost aren’t always predictable with new websites

Any good project needs a timeline and budget in order to stay focused. Have a defined budget, schedule, and set of individual owners assigned to each area of the project. If there aren’t owners, the project could inevitably run over budget and be late.

Without a plan, we’ve seen companies spend at least 200 to 300 percent more on their web design than those who do put these types of controls in place. Time is just as important to costs.

Having a strategy and ownership in place makes your website redesign much more likely to be successful. Your new website should accurately reflects who you are today and your aspiration of where you want your company to be tomorrow.

The Story of Tempesta Media, Transforming the Content Marketing Industry

Posted on May 23, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

We were founded in 2011 by our CEO, Michael Marchese. . Since 2011 we have grown tremendously, doubling our staff in the past year and continue to grow at an aggressive pace.

Every company has a beginning, including us. Tempesta Media’s would have never existed if it had not been for Marchese’s prior company, Pareto Media Networks. It was there that it was discovered that expertly-crafted content could drive better results for a website than the domain name or other on-site SEO. That data led to Tempesta Media’s founding in January 2011.

Changes in media consumption created content marketing

In the mid-2000s, Marchese saw that the digital media industry was experiencing a monumental media upheaval. Content creation and consumption had shifted dramatically from large and consolidated print and broadcast media to a highly decentralized, new media channel – the Internet. Through the Internet, marketers began to realize they could talk directly to their potential customers outside of the framework (and cost) of traditional media advertising.

As these businesses moved their marketing dollars to the Web, a funny thing happened. To get the attention of those customers, they needed content—original, expert content—that would engage and inform their audiences.

Data drives an epiphany

At around the same time, Marchese had started Pareto Media Networks. Pareto Media networks was created to better monetize premium domain names that were parked at domain parking providers. The company developed sophisticated advertising tracking and attribution capabilities, in order to optimize advertising on parked domains.

One day, Marchese had an idea, “Why not apply that technology to try and measure the value of original content?” With a little work, the company began a series of tests.

The data revealed that original content, written by industry experts, was inherently more valuable than a domain’s name (e.g. newdeutchemark.com) in attracting visitors to a website. It was the content that was driving revenue for Pareto Media Networks and not the domain name!

Content marketing platform, Tempesta Media, is born

To capitalize on this revolutionary finding, Marchese and his wife, Elena, launched Tempesta Media in January 2011 and folded Pareto Media Network’s core technology into it. Tempesta Media’s goal has always been to provide enterprises with a viable, effective and scale-able content marketing solution that can drive results.

Content writers flock to the company

Within a month of launching Tempesta Media, the team rolled out the writer-facing portion of the platform. It launched with the 14 freelance writers, who had been working with the team at Pareto Media Networks. Over the course of the year, the company obtained valuable feedback and rolled out more features, culminating with a beta launch of the writer-facing portion of the platform in December 2011.

Word of what Tempesta Media was doing started to get out. By the time the beta was released, more than 1,000 writers had found the website through word-of-mouth and signed up. Immediately, Marchese knew that the company was on to something big!

Explosive growth drives further innovation

In August 2012, with more than 5,000 vetted writers, Tempesta Media began reaching out to businesses, offering them an easy-to-use and cost-effective way to acquire expert content.

In 2014, we added capabilities for digital marketing and PR agencies. Agencies found our turnkey solution to be particularly effective.

2015 proved to be the first of several breakout years for the company. Tempesta Media further grew its vetted writer network (11,000 in ’15) and began to produce an increasing array of content for customers. Customer growth came almost exclusively from word-of-mouth referrals.

By the end of 2015 and with a growing cadre of customers, the company began to create a formal sales & marketing function. Tempesta Media hired its first full-time member of the team in the summer of 2016 and launched its first marketing programs (including content marketing) that year.

Today, Tempesta Media continues to be an innovation leader, helping customers drive performance through expert content and sophisticated content marketing technology. We are proud to have over 23,000 vetted writers on our platform and customers across the country using our award-winning content marketing platform.

If our past is any indication of the future, the sky is the limit for our customers, writers and employees.

Best Ways to Format Content for SEO

Posted on May 23, 2019November 26, 2024 by Anastasiia Lavrinenko

In the Game of SEO Thrones, you can’t afford to lose because of improper formatting. That was our attempt at a play on words with the new popular HBO show “Game of Thrones”!

Writing for search engine optimization in 2019 means your blog articles, thought leadership pieces and other website content should still incorporate the winning formula. Keep in mind – the winning formula is always changing.

What SEO writing strategy works for today’s content marketers?

It’s important that copywriters, freelance writers, bloggers and content creators are all on the same page.
Here’s how to format your content and take your SEO game to the next level, one blog article at a time.

H1 tag for headlines are imperative for SEO

First things first. Use the proper HTML heading tag, H1, for the title of your blog article. On this page, that’s “Best ways to format content for SEO.”

Next, you need to craft a killer, reader-friendly headline. Only in the SEO realm can using the adjectives “killer” and “friendly” in the same sentence sound perfectly normal.

Choose a reader-friendly headline style. Choose between headline style (“Best Ways to Format Content for SEO”) and sentence style (“How to format content for SEO”). Tempesta Media writers follow either the AP style (sentence style) or our customer’s title style preference.

Avoid using all capital letters (“HOW TO FORMAT CONTENT FOR SEO”) or capping initial letters in every word (“How To Format Content For SEO”). The former makes the text hard to read while the latter makes conjunctions, prepositions and articles of three letters or fewer look awkward.

Always use the numeral instead of spelling out a number in headlines (“6 common writer mistakes to avoid“). It’s easy on the eyes, and it helps boost engagement rates.
Follow the ideal length. Different articles suggest the perfect headline length is about 7-8 words or 64-70 characters. Article Document allows writers to use a lengthier title as long as it is catchy, relevant to the topic and does not contain special characters (e.g., @#:;*&%^).

Meanwhile, a killer headline, in SEO terms, has these elements:

Long-tail keyword or keyword phrase that answers a real user query.
Emotional marketing value that is achieved through the use of context words or emotionally charged words.

H3 tag for subheadings make the content easier to read

Content presentation matters. Considering the limited attention span of humans, it makes sense to use subheads to break up chunks of text and make the article easier to read.

Tempesta Media advises its writers to use H3 tags to organize their content and include at least two subheaders in a 500-word assignment.

The subheaders should be 5-8 words long, descriptive, compelling, parallel in structure and consistent in tone.

To boost SEO, it is best to include the keyword phrase in the first subheader of the article. On this page, that’s “Format content for SEO – H1 tag for headlines.”

Bulleted lists to easily scan content and capture information

Make use of bullet points to keep readers that prefer to skim articles on your page. Numbered lists work just as well.

Readers love lists because they make important points easier to digest.
These tactics also increase the chances of your content getting a featured snippet in the Google SERPs.

Links for SEO success

In a recent blog article, we discussed how proper linking helps SEO.

Internal/external links enable your content to rank and are helpful for your readers.
Use the right anchor text, which is the clickable text that readers see. Make sure it looks natural and the sentence in which the link is embedded provides meaningful context.

For a 500-word blog article, strive to include at least two internal links. Remember to follow best practices for linking to internal/external sources within an article.

Today, you have access to numerous tools that help you format content for SEO. The right content marketing partner can do the heavy lifting while you focus on improving the efficiency of your day-to-day business. Contact Tempesta Media to work with a best in class content marketing service.

Allocate Your Marketing Budget Between Direct Response and Branding

Posted on May 22, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

Every marketer is struggling to determine what is the optimal mix within their marketing program. The optimal mix includes content marketing, advertising, email, pay per click, social, and other forms of marketing.

How do you create your content budget?

You need to first define what kind of company you have and the types of products and services that you offer. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on B2B companies. Additionally, we will also be focusing on companies that sell their products primarily off line but are still high ticket purchases. In this instance, the way that sales occur is primarily offline. However, the leads and research are conducted online.

So in trying to determine how to create that budget you have to measure the difference between your branding budget and your direct response budget. So the first way to allocate your marketing budget is the split between those two.

Success metrics for branding and direct response

Branding often gets maligned within the industry as being unaccountable when in fact, branding is quite accountable if it’s structured correctly. Structure your branding budget around the metrics used So in setting up to measure success.

Examples of branding success measures include website visitors, number of people who reviewed articles, and more awareness metrics like that. The direct response budget is measured much more clearly – the number of leads that are generated.

Email registrations and ultimately sales that result from a marketing channel are the core to qualifying a successful budget.

“Best practices include allocating approximately one third of your budget towards branding (or top of funnel activities) and two thirds of your budget between mid to bottom funnel activities for for direct response marketing,” says Michael Marchese, Tempesta Media’s Founder & CEO.

Start by determining where content marketing fits within your marketing budget.

Content marketing is actually a very robust and flexible tool. It can be used both within your branding budget as well as your direct response budget. How content varies depends on the type of content that’s created.

What Happens if We Don’t Like the Content That We Order?

Posted on May 21, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

Our goal is to ensure that you are satisfied with the content that we create for you.

We strive to make the sure the writing style, level of depth, insight, personality, and all the nuances of your brand are captured within the messaging.
If you’d like to request a revision, you are more than welcome to do so.

Everything you need to know about revisions

We always offer unlimited revisions to ensure that you are happy with the content that you order.
All revisions are revised by your writing team and editing again by our in-house editors.
There is no additional cost for revisions.
Revisions can easily be submitted by uploading a red lined Microsoft Word document or commenting within a text box inside your account on our content marketing platform.
You will have 7 days to review submitted content for revision. After 7 days, the content is auto-approved and can no longer be revised.

Multiple Phases of Approving Content Slows Down Companies – Part 1

Posted on May 21, 2019September 3, 2023 by Michael Marchese

Most companies are challenged with meeting objectives that might be diametrically opposed.

For example, how to scale up content marketing while not sacrificing quality, is a challenge that many companies are facing today.

One of the keys to scaling content while still ensuring that the messaging is clear, is to have an effective internal approval process. An internal approval process is necessary for content marketing, regardless of whether you’re creating content in-house, outsourcing your content production, or using a hybrid of the two.

There process needs to be streamlined, because if it isn’t, people will avoid the process, making it useless all together.

Smaller businesses face different challenges than larger businesses when it comes to quality assurance for content. Larger businesses have more complexity and more approvals that are generally required before content can go onto the Web site or be used for the purposes of this article. This article focuses on specifically on smaller businesses.

Approving content could be your bottleneck

So let’s talk about how the approval process goes.

Generally, the first thing that happens is that someone comes up with a topic idea to write about.
Then the topic idea is sent over to a content creator. And it’s that person’s job to create that content.
Once that content has been created it needs to be edited initially for spelling and grammar. Nothing removes credibility from your brand than a typo!
After the initial proofreading edit, the content should be checked for any inadvertent plagiarism.
After a plagiarism screen, the article has to go to the appropriate business people within a company. These people will make sure that what is being covered within the content is aligned with the company’s business objectives.

All the parties involved are capable of editing for spelling and grammar. They are able to utilize a separate software to conduct any plagiarism screening. They may even have internal resources to create the content.

The problems often happen with getting approval. Oftentimes approvals have to be done at an executive level. As everyone knows, most executives never seem to have enough time to handle the myriad of tasks that are put in front of them… approving blog articles being one of them.

Learn more by reading our second series to this post: How to speed up content marketing approval when multiple people are involved.

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