Top 5 Inbound Marketing Articles to Start the Week: Improve Your Pitches

As marketers, we're all strapped for time. Unfortunately, when it comes to public relations , a rushed pitch is likely to end up in journalists' and bloggers' trash cans.

In this week's top inbound marketing article, Chris Brogan shares his best tips for improving your PR pitches and increasing their chances for survival.

1. Improve Your Pitch’s Chance of Survival

Author: Chris Brogan on ChrisBrogan.com

As a popular influencer, Chris Brogan receives his fair share of pitches. In order to help you avoid contributing to bad PR, his article highlights some great ways to improve your pitches and their effectiveness.

Some of Brogan's tips include targeting the right influencers, humanizing and personalizing your pitches, being concise, making it easy, and building relationships .

Marketing Takeaway: Crafting a good pitch takes time and effort. If you don't do the work, your pitch will end up in the trash.

2. 10 Ways to Use Technology to Enhance Marketing

Author: Matthew Stibbe on MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog

It's obvious -- the use of technology makes marketing more effective and efficient. We all have a number of go-to tech tools in our marketing tool belt , but Stibbe's article highlights a few you may be missing out on or overlooking.

His article mentions a number of great ways to use technology to increase productivity, polish your presentations , improve the quality of your content , increase concentration, and facilitate collaboration, to name a few.

Marketing Takeaway: Technology is a great asset for marketers. Use the tools it offers to your (and your marketing's) advantage.

3. The Most Influential Consumers Online are on Twitter

Author: Brian Solis on BrianSolis.com

Solis' article discusses some very interesting data gleaned from recent research by ExactTarget and CoTweet. The goal of the 1,500 consumer-survey was to identify top motivations for following brands on Twitter. Of those surveyed, the research found that 72% publish blog posts at least monthly, 70% comment on blogs, and 61% write at least one product review monthly, proving that social consumers are both vocal and connected.

In summary, the research concludes that Twitter users are the most influential social consumers online today. Solis also cites similar research that supports this conclusion and reveals that a significant percentage of Twitter users share opinions about companies/products, make recommendations, and seek guidance.

Marketing Takeaway: Your consumers are talking about you on Twitter. If you don't have a presence on Twitter , you're missing out.

4. Why Being Too Diligent About Your Facts Can Hurt Your Content

Author: Sean D’Souza on Copyblogger

D'Souza's article provides some great food for thought when considering the use of "facts" in your content . While we all want to make our content credible by supporting it with data, this article discusses the reality that research can often be tainted and explores the ways in which it can get that way.

While Sean is hardly saying you avoid using facts in your content, he does believe that your time is better off spent writing what you know and sharing your experiences, not spending hours upon hours researching data. His recommendation is to put your research on an egg timer.

Marketing Takeaway: D'Souza says it best: "Research makes things interesting, but your own case studies are just as interesting."  

5. 3 Creative Ways to Drive More Traffic to Old Blog Posts

Author: Scott Cowley on Search Engine Journal

Do you publish a blog post, promote it, and then forget it exists? It doesn't have to be that way. In fact, promoting and optimizing evergreen content can do wonders for your business months -- even years -- after it's been published!

Evergreen content can help drive traffic to your site and convert visitors into leads. In this article, Scott shares some great ways to optimize your older content to make it more functional today . Some of his suggestions include optimizing for relevant keywords already driving traffic, freshening up content by removing aging signs, and making your old post titles more boring (and thus more functional). 

Marketing Takeaway: When it comes to old blog content, don't enlist the "set it and forget it" mindset. Optimize old content and continue to reap the benefits.

Photo Credit: Steven Depolo