The Wax Blog

27 Oct Emotional Marketing for Our Emotional Times

Posted at 14:33h in Content Marketing, IMC, Integrated Marketing, Social Media by Bonnie Harris

Welcome to the first in a four-part series in which we'll be exploring major trends in communications for 2022. In this initial installment, we're examining the concept of emotional marketing, its traditional definition, and its current state. People have been appealing to emotions to motivate others for millennia. Aristotle himself established techniques for emotional appeals that were quite persuasive. While appealing to emotions may seem manipulative, it's usually not nefarious. Emotional marketing connects people with the things they want and need on a deeply personal level. True, some marketing and advertising campaigns play on negative feelings of fear or greed. Here, however, we're looking at how emotional marketing can elicit positive results, and why it's a major trend in communications with tremendous staying power.

What is emotional marketing?

Emotional marketing identifies and builds on an audience's emotions to market to them more successfully. Rooted in current best practices in research and behavioral psychology, today's emotional marketing requires a deep understanding of the feelings a specific audience has toward a product or service and its competitors. To work, emotional marketing has to get a good handle on an audience's vibe, and how it affects their view of the entire product genre. A very simple example is marketing campaigns for online talk therapy providers where emotional marketing is essential to conversion. The target audience naturally includes anyone who's experiencing distressing emotions and could benefit from online mental health counseling. You don't have to look far on Twitter to see people tweeting about their struggles with mental wellbeing - and you also don't have to look far to see ads for these therapy providers in the same places.

Is it ethical?

30 May WriteSonic vs Jasper – Which AI Writing Tool Tops the Chart?

Posted at 09:21h in Marketing Technology by Bonnie Harris

I prefer ChatGPT to get me started on many things like outlines and briefs and to do SEO tasks. But WriteSonic and Jasper are both great tools for content creators who need to do many of the same types of content and who want to take advantage of tons of templates and other assets that can jumpstart the effort.

WriteSonic Pros

WriteSonic offers numerous templates for blog posts, emails, ad copies, and more.
WriteSonic has the advantage of language versatility, supporting several different languages.
WriteSonic has great customer support and is pretty cheap, at $19/month to start.

Cons

WriteSonic doesn't do a great job of infusing personality into the text. (Although none of them do that really well.)
The tool has so many features it can be slightly confusing at first.

Jasper Pros

I thought Jasper was easier to learn how to navigate and use, but then I'm not a manual person. (And I hate instructions.)
Jasper has a little more room for infusing personal style. Again, I think that's something the creator needs to really do, not the AI tool.

Cons

Unlike WriteSonic, Jasper has a limited number of templates, which can restrict the writing process for some users.
Jasper mainly supports English.
Jasper starts at $39/month for its basic subscription.

7 Things to Consider When Choosing an AI Writing Tool

WriteSonic vs Jasper

It's easy to compare, but if you're looking for an AI tool here are the primary ways to evaluate them, and why WriteSonic came out the winner in my evaluation (just by a slim margin though.)

Multilingual Support - If you're targeting a multilingual audience, WriteSonic's multiple language support is the winner.
User Interface - If you value an intuitive user interface, Jasper's ease of navigation makes it a better choice.
Templates - If you need diverse templates for different content types, WriteSonic is the clear winner.
Personalization - If you want to try to mirror your unique writing style, Jasper's customization feature is better. But then, I don't either does a good job of this.
Customer Support - WriteSonic is better.
Cost - WriteSonic is cheaper to start with, especially if you're new to this type of tool.
Content Diversity: If you create a wide range of content types, WriteSonic's extensive template selection gives it an edge.

Seriously, these things are coming out every day, but I think these two are the definite frontrunners. Your thoughts?

PS: WriteSonic has an affiliate program, so I'll make a few bucks if you buy their solution. But this is an honest comparison.

04 Apr Top Tools for Voice Search Optimization

Posted at 11:10h in B2B, Marketing Technology by Bonnie Harris

Voice search is gaining in popularity and you can't afford to ignore it. It's part of SEO that marketers don't often think about, although we were writing about it at Wax several years ago. (Here's a link to that post...some interesting stuff on where it came from if you like that kind of thing.) Every business needs to optimize its websites and content for this trend.

What is Voice Search Optimization?

Voice search optimization is optimizing your website and content to make it more accessible to voice search users. This includes optimizing your website for voice search queries, ensuring that your content is easily accessible via voice search, and making sure your website is mobile-friendly and optimized for fast loading times.

Why is Voice Search Optimization Important?

Voice search is becoming more popular as people look for more hands-free ways to access information. According to Google, 55% of teenagers and 41% of adults use voice search daily. By 2023, 8 billion digital voice assistants will be in use worldwide. You HAVE to optimize your website and content for voice search to remain competitive and relevant to your target audience.

Top 5 Tools for Voice Search Optimization

28 Jan 4 Marketing Books to Buy Now

Posted at 14:53h in Content Marketing, Marketing Books to Read by Bonnie Harris

People ask me all the time for "great marketing books to buy now." Because my clients are either business owners or lead marketers in a fast-growing company, great means: An easy, quick read. Actionable advice to implement now. Up to date on the latest communications...

04 Dec Position Zero – The Featured Snippet

Posted at 09:38h in Digital Marketing by Bonnie Harris

Once upon a time if a search result was at the top, it was considered the best. Now, a search result is superior if it has placement as the featured snippet, also known as position zero. This Google update populates snippets of information and positions them at the very top of search results for a quick and easy answer without ever needing to click on the website. In the SEO world, it is prime real estate to have your content featured. How can marketers optimize their content for position zero?

Use Imagery for Position Zero

Often the snippet at position zero will include an image or most recently a video. Including relevant images or videos in your content will provide a visual element for the keywords you are targeting. In addition to imagery and videos benefiting your rank, it also enhances the user experience. For example, if you are searching “How to use on-SERP SEO?” a video explaining the process would enhance your content and also increase your rank for achieving that superior placement. Position zero makes RRR content even more important because those added benefits like photos, videos, tables, etc. will help in ranking content. Try turning your normal blog into a video or an audio blog. If you do a monthly podcast, turn that conversation into a blog.

Stand Out with Lists and Tables

Sometimes position zero snippets are formatted like bulleted lists and tables.

22 Feb How to Optimize WordPress Website’s UX for Success

Posted at 14:05h in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Integrated Marketing, SEO, Social Media by Bonnie Harris

WordPress is the best content management system for most website owners these days. It has a huge community with great plugins and themes. There are also tons of WordPress migration services on the market for those who are eager to move to the well-known CMS. So, you can use them to move to WordPress and then proceed to build an effective site. In this article, we will show you the step-by-step guide on how to optimize your WordPress website, which includes choosing a theme, creating a site map, structuring your pages for optimal search engine visibility, and more.

1. Simple design

Optimizing a website is about a lot more than just picking a theme and a few plugins. If you're going to be building a website for yourself or a client, it's imperative that the site loads quickly and that there are no barriers to accessing it.

21 Feb Invite Your Audience in with Interactive Content

Posted at 13:37h in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Integrated Marketing by Bonnie Harris

In this next installment of our series on major trends in communications for 2022, we're talking about interactive content as part of a strategy that works in tandem with emotional marketing and ephemeral content. As we discussed in our piece on ephemeral content, one of the top tips to ensuring your content has impact is to involve the viewer's input in some way. Whether it's taking a quiz or a survey, or playing a game that supports what you're sharing, allowing your audience to interact with your content creates an immersive and memorable experience. Interactive content is the next level in content consumption and engagement that lets viewers interact with the content instead of passively view it. Previously the engagement tactic for most social media, e-mail marketing, blog posts and multimedia content was to encourage viewers to like, reply or share to engage and spread the word. Interactive content is a more rewarding, real-time way for your audience to feel engaged and connected to your brand.

02 Feb NEWS: New Service for Selling and Buying FBA Businesses

Posted at 08:45h in News by Bonnie Harris

NOTE: We get a lot of marketing news releases. We thought posting the most recent, relevant, and otherwise noteworthy might be of interest to our readers and subscribers. Follow the category "news" for these posts. Fulfillment by Amazon businesses (or FBA businesses) are now a billion-dollar...

20 Jan 7 Ways to Make Ephemeral Content Better

Posted at 08:25h in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, IMC, Integrated Marketing by Bonnie Harris

Continuing our series on major trends in communications in 2022, in this installment we're discussing ephemeral content and how to harness it for effective marketing.

What is Ephemeral Content?

Traditionally in marketing and communications emphasis has been on evergreen content - something that will stay visible and relevant for years. Evergreen content is still important and forms the backbone of many websites, including blog posts, white papers or case studies, and complementary media like videos or podcasts. However, over the past few years there have been more and more opportunities to experiment with ephemeral content, which is any content that disappears quickly - usually after 24 hours - and can't be found again. Ephemeral content is mostly based on video and social media platforms. Snapchat introduced the world to the concept, but virtually all major social media platforms now have ways of posting something that is designed to be seen for only a short time.

How Is It Used?

Celebrities frequently use this kind of content to showcase personal videos, and in general ephemeral content is very popular as a way to share something personal people don't necessarily want on the internet forever. In some ways, it could be considered the evolution of "felt cute, might delete later" culture, but with a mechanic in place to make it easy and acceptable.

23 Dec 2021

Posted at 10:31h in Personal by Bonnie Harris

The other day I read this quote in Anne Lamott’s new book Dusk, Night, Dawn: “…the movement of grace in our lives so often begins with desperation and blurt.” After I stopped laughing I realized it was a perfect way to recap 2021. Grace continues to...