5 Knockout Ways to Embed Your Hub to Close The Content Distribution Gap
I’ve never been a huge fan of boxing.
The idea of two people getting into a 25 square foot box to methodically punch each other in the face always seemed a bit nuts to me.
But I have to admit, in a few weeks time I’ll be tuning into what many are calling "the fight of the century". After years of hype, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio are finally going toe-to-toe for the viewing pleasure of millions around the world.
Mayweather’s expected to take home a whopping $150 million for the fight; Pacquaio $100 million. Good work if you can get it.
But why the huge payday? Furthermore, as someone who doesn’t really like boxing, why do I even care?
The answer to both: great promotion and a killer distribution strategy.
The Power of a Great Distribution Strategy
As Gary Vaynerchuk pointed out in his awesome book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, you need a carefully orchestrated mix of jabs and knockout punches to win a fight (or close a deal). In the marketing world, that means carefully blending content, smart distribution, and great content experiences.
As any Uberflipper will tell you, a Content Hub can be that knockout ‘experience punch’. By creating an amazing content experience, a Hub can drive engagement and help convert visitors into leads. But a great content experience doesn’t count for much if no one gets to experience it.
You need to ensure that you’re driving the right traffic to your Hub, across multiple channels and customer touchpoints, to see the kind of results you expect. Even as popular as Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio are in boxing circles, there’s just no way this fight would be what it is without Mayweather Promotions turning on its vaunted hype machine and getting the word out everywhere - emails, websites, TV, social media. The list goes on.
Luckily, Uberflip Hubs come with a number of built-in distribution tools to help you promote and distribute like the kings of the ring.
Stream Embeds
Embedding a Stream of content from your Hub onto your website is a great way to add dynamic elements to static, unengaging pages. Think product or service pages, registration landing pages, Thank You pages, or the perpetually snooze-inducing ‘About’ family of pages.
As a modern marketer, you know that it’s your content that adds value and builds engagement with your audience - not copy about your products or services or the history of your company. By including a dynamic Stream of tiles from your Hub on static website pages, you can better demonstrate your expertise and thought leadership and kickstart a conversation.
Just pick a Stream, choose a tile size, specify a number of items to include, and copy the embed code that’s automatically generated for you.
Architech, a full-service digital experiences studio based in Toronto, uses Stream embeds to add a dynamic feed of their top content directly to their home page. In the screenshot below, you can see how Architech’s home page Stream embed acts as a welcoming gateway to their full Hub.
Click here to learn more about how to embed a Stream of tiles onto a website.
Individual Tile Embeds
Despite its shortcomings, email marketing is still an incredibly important distribution strategy for content marketers. And all signs indicate that it will only grow in importance over the coming years.
Using your Hub’s Tile Embed tool, it’s easy to embed your highly visual Hub tiles into your email campaigns (or into any page on your website that accepts HTML content).
Interloc, consultants who specialize in helping organizations get the most from investments in IBM technologies, have mastered the art of the jab by embedding individual Hub tiles into marketing emails. By dropping a selection of top performing content into email announcements, invitations, and newsletters, Interloc is creating a seamless user experience while driving targeted traffic to their Hub.
Click here to learn more about how to embed individual tiles into an email or website.
Animated Grids
If you’re looking for a highly visual, dynamic widget to drive traffic into your Hub, the HTML5 powered Animated Grid is a fantastic option for sidebars, footers, and home pages.
Customize the size, configure your grid, play with some amazing transition options, copy the embed code that’s automatically generated for you, and embed it where it’ll do the most good. That’s it!
Elite Alliance, an innovative provider of luxury vacations, uses an Animated Grid to drive website visitors to their full content Hub. As a highly visual brand, Elite Alliance has configured their Animated Grid to feel like a native part of their website. As you can see in the screenshot below, the Animated Grid does a killer job of highlighting the amazing destinations that Elite Alliance members can experience.
Click here to learn more about how to embed an Animated Grid into a website.
Website Embed
Using the Website Embed tool, you can drop your entire Uberflip Hub - content, branding, CTAs, and all - onto your website with just a few clicks. If you have access to your CMS and can easily create and edit new pages, embedding a full Uberflip Hub should take about 30 seconds.
Just choose a Landing Page (which Stream will display when a user lands on your Hub; usually the Latest Content feed is a great choice), configure a few display options, and copy the embed code that’s automatically generated for you. It’s that easy.
Taulia, the global leader in cloud-based invoicing, payment, and dynamic discounting management solutions, uses several embedded Uberflip Hubs across its website.
Click here to learn more about how to use a Hub’s Website Embed tool.
The “Reverse Embed”
As great as the Website Embed option is, it can put your Hub at the mercy of your content management system (CMS). If you’re using a particularly inflexible CMS, don’t have access to your CMS, or if your internal development team doesn’t have the bandwidth to make changes for you, getting your Hub embedded can be a bit like pulling teeth.
Enter the “Reverse Embed”.
A “Reverse Embed”, as you might expect from its name, turns the idea of an embed on its head. Rather than embedding your Hub onto your website, a “Reverse Embed” uses a Hub’s Custom Code feature to style your Hub to look exactly like your website. This can include your website’s header and footer, as well as almost any other element you specify. Flexibility at its finest.
Netskope, the leader in cloud app analytics and policy enforcement, has done a killer job with it’s “Reverse Embed”. They’ve succeeded in creating a seamless experience between their Hub and their website while still retaining native Hub functionality like responsive design, search, and the appearance.
Click here to learn more about how to “Reverse Embed” an Uberflip Hub.
What’s the right embed approach for your Hub?
As a B2B marketer, chances are you’re not working with the same toolbag as Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio, but that doesn’t mean your promotion and distribution strategies need to suffer. Your Uberflip Hub has a number of amazing distribution tools, including:
- Stream Embeds
- Tile Embeds
- Animated Grids
- Website Embeds
- “Reverse Embeds”
As an Uberflipper, you should have your Hub embedded into your website or use the “Reverse Embed” approach to give your users a killer destination to consume your content.
But that great content experience isn’t enough. You need to ensure you’re effectively promoting your Hub and distributing your content on all parts of your website, through email marketing, and on social media platforms.