Category: Internet Marketing

Influencer Marketing: 14 Things To Know In 2019

May 17, 2019

Have you heard of Lil Miquela? She’s a 19 year old singer and influencer from California, with 1.3 million followers on Instagram (@lilmiquela). The stunning social media star was invited by Prada to take over its Instagram account during one of its Milan shows. Time magazine named her as one of 2018’s 25 most influential people on the internet. But the only catch is; she doesn’t exist. Yeah, Miquela is a computer-generated model and brands are attracted to her! From Computer Generated Influencers (CGIs) and nano-influencers to Instagram killing accounts with fake followers – 2018 was an activity-packed year for influencers and marketers alike. Here’s a rundown on important insights & news from 2018 that will have an effect on your influencer marketing strategy this year. 1) Micro-influencers are in the highest demand  Micro-influencers, or those with less than 100,000 followers, are the most sought after influencers because marketers feel they are cost-effective and have a better connection with their audience. Brands have collaborated with micro influencers such as Steven Onoja, Yannick Merckx and Miette Dierckx because it’s been reported that micro influencers generate 6.7X more efficient per engagement than celebrities with millions of followers. Brands like Google, Nike, Starbucks, Gillette, Sephora, Coca-Cola, and Red Bull are collaborating with micro influencers who apart from being great storytellers are adept at creating authentic content. 2) More efforts towards building trust & transparency  A startling report in The New York Times uncovers the “black market” of bot followers that can be bought for just a few cents each. And these fake followers were being sold to celebs including athletes, politicians, and film stars. Marketers and social channels are proactively taking steps to address the issues of authenticity and credibility plaguing the influencer ecosystem. Last year, Twitter took major actions towards deleting suspicious accounts from the platform. The purge affected the follower count of celebs including Barack Obama, Katy Perry, and Justin Bieber. It was reported that Katy Perry, the most followed person on Twitter, lost at least 1.5 million followers! Instagram also took a major step towards cleaning the platform. It said we will begin removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity. We’ve built machine learning tools to help identify accounts that use these services and remove the inauthentic activity. At Cannes Lions 2018, Unilever’s chief marketing officer, Keith Weed said that the brand won’t work with the influencers who buy followers. He called for more transparency from influencers and urged the marketers and social media platforms to “take urgent action now to rebuild trust before it’s gone forever”. He laid out a three-thronged approach to improve the situation which involves “cleaning up the influencer ecosystem by removing misleading engagement; making brands and influencers more aware of the use of dishonest practices; improving transparency from social platforms to help brands measure impact.” 3) Clamour to grow for real-life like content  It’s an Instagram promotional content for Listerine as it’s been clearly mentioned in the post. Then, what went wrong with this post by Scarlett Dixon? Why did some users go berserk over this post? Let’s check some of the comments Listerine in bedroom… hahahah ridiculous post and constructed/fake reality A picture that provoked a thousand arguments. Personally I see the irony/humour and think it’s brilliantly staged 😉 *gets up, blows up balloons, makes the bed, puts strawberries on top of a plate of wraps, puts mouthwash on bedside table, takes photo Imagine if girls actually looked up to you and realised they could never reach this (which many girls all over the world will never experience pancakes and strawberry’s in a expensive hotel suite) especially the way suicide rates are going through the roof, you keep doing you though Someone even suggested that the campaign was a parody set up by Listerine. https://twitter.com/DaveParkinson/status/1036180435913633792 The more an influencer gives an unfiltered insight into his/her life, the better is the connection between the influencer and the users. We are seeing an emerging trend in the influencer landscape where more and more users are calling out the content creators who cram the feed with over-edited photos and carefully shot videos that border on faux reality. Amidst conversation around social media and its impact on mental health, we will see the trend to continue in today’s age of envy as noted by The Guardian. The report quotes Ethan Kross, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan as saying “envy is being taken to an extreme…We are constantly bombarded by “Photoshopped lives” …and that exerts a toll on us the likes of which we have never experienced in the history of our species. And it is not particularly pleasant.” 4) More opportunities for creators & brands There have been a host of developments last year aimed towards helping marketers and influencers collaborate with each other. We saw Snapchat rolling out “Snapchat Storytellers” pilot program that connects brands with popular content makers. Facebook also launched Brand Collabs Manager to help marketers connect with relevant social media creators so they can collaborate on sponsored-content campaigns. It also rolled out a series of features including poll and game features to Live and on-demand video for Facebook creators and new profile settings that let creators place their video content front and center. Also, there have been concerted efforts by social channels towards helping creators earn money and grow their fan base. YouTube, the world’s largest video site, rolled out channel memberships, merchandising, marketing partnerships, and “Premieres” to help YouTube creators generate revenue from their videos outside of traditional advertising. The announcement read With Channel Memberships, viewers pay a monthly recurring fee of $4.99 to get unique badges, new emoji, Members-only posts in the Community tab, and access to unique custom perks offered by creators, such as exclusive livestreams, extra videos, or shout-outs…Since launching in January, comedy creator Mike Falzone more than tripled his YouTube revenue. We want to make it easier for more creators to sell merch directly from their channel. So we’ve built a product that allows them to do just that. From shirts with a logo to phone cases with a creator’s face, we’ve joined forces with Teespring so creators can choose from over 20 merchandise items to customize and sell via a shelf on their channel…The creator of Lucas the Spider recently turned

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How to Manage Your Online Store in 2019?

November 1, 2018

With 2019 fast approaching, e-commerce businesses have begun to wonder what they need to do to manage their stores more efficiently. It is no longer enough to just focus on digital marketing or a fast-loading website. Not only has technology changed, but customer behavior and expectations have changed too. Many tools such as CRM may no longer be enough, and newer strategies may need to be employed to manage online stores successfully. While personalizing content and communication helped previously, customers have begun to expect a lot more than that. In addition, customers’ perception about your website security can have marketing and sales implications too. In this article, we take a look at 4 areas which will have a direct effect on your online store management in 2019. Implement software integration quickly 78% of business owners feel that integrating e-commerce is business critical. Integrating two or more software programs helps businesses to eliminate manual entry of data, software bottlenecks, and helps create a centralized repository of information by syncing data from integrated sources. Start with integrating front-end tools such as CMS and e-commerce software with backend programs like CRM and ERP. This helps provide a better shopping experience to customers and turbo-charges e-commerce operations by automating multiple processes such as inventory management, online store-front management, shipping, and checkouts. Tools to integrate: E-commerce platforms such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, PretaShop, etc. with ERP such as Oracle ERP Cloud, SAP ERP, Salesforce CRM, NetSuite CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, etc. Use Case A Texan grocer recently began to sell its products online, particularly on Amazon. Problem: While selling on Amazon helped the grocer to tap into newer markets and increase sales, it simply was not able to manage its orders efficiently. Its staff was over-worked, deliveries were delayed, and negative reviews on Amazon were piling up. Solution: The store was advised by an agency to integrate its Amazon Marketplace with SAP ERP, Salesforce CRM, and NetSuite Financials. The automated data exchange between these tools helped to manage its inventory better and process orders quickly. Results: The store was able to process orders quickly, manage its inventory efficiently, and ensure that shipping delays were avoided. Integrating an artificial intelligence component, aided by natural language processing (NLP) into Amazon Marketplace helped the grocer to recognize and address negative reviews quickly, with prompt and proactive alert messages delivered via push notifications. Customer interactions help you take personalization technology to the next level Personalization is the single most important strategy to enhance customer experience. Most e-commerce businesses have so far relied on personalized content, hyper-targeting customers, and bringing tailor-made experiences to customers. Unfortunately, this is just not enough. What really is required at the moment is to pay more attention to customer interactions. Customer interactions help you to look at each individual customer as a unique human being, thereby assisting you in bringing the best possible customer experience via technology. Predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are technologies that help businesses to derive behavioral insights via customer interactions. Use case Marriott Hotels is the best example of using customer interactions to enhance personalization. The company currently depends on uniquely rich insights derived from predictive analysis and artificial intelligence, to enhance customer experiences. Marriot focuses on customer interactions during searching, booking, and check-in processes to collect and redeploy insight. Insight is used to predict future behavior with the help of algorithms, and bring exactly the kind of experiences that its customers desire. Marriot uses behavioral insight derived via customer interactions to enhance customer experience during booking, checking-in, and while the guest stays. Adopt and implement a Customer Data Platform Integrated Customer Data Platforms (CDP) are at the forefront of MarTech solutions. They not only provide customer engagement and marketing automation features but also help unify customer data, so that data from various sources can be analyzed to derive personalized insights. Current CRM tools only provide insights into customer trends, but they cannot directly tie customer data with sales and marketing initiatives. CDPs have a broader potential than CRM tools of today. Forbes revealed that 44% of surveyed businesses saw a sharp growth in customer loyalty after using CDP. CDPs provide a 36- degree view of the customer by integrating data from various sources such as existing CRM, IoT sensors, online and offline customer interactions, etc. Cloud-based architecture, artificial intelligence, and modern API frameworks have all contributed to CDP’s rise as the most promising technology this year. Use case Deutsche Bahn is the most famous company to use a CDP. When its coaches are overcrowded, it offers a discounted upgrade to its first-class coaches via push notifications on its app. The app intelligently senses who want to travel where, and thanks to the CDP, contextually connects customer data with train traffic information. CDP connects contextual data (how crowded the train is) with personal data of customers (ticket information, location, whether they would be ready to spend more, etc.) to manage overcrowding and enhancing travelers’ experience. Why e-commerce stores need CDP: CDP is the perfect solution for connecting your customer database with a data warehouse or a shop system If you have both physical and online stores, the contextual insight from a CDP will be far more valuable than what a CRM can do Existing systems such as a CRM can be incorporated into a CDP Provides a 360-degree view of each customer Implement security to win customer trust Two major security-related changes affected websites all around the world in 2018. First, GDPR was rolled out by the European Union, which forced most businesses to comply with consent-related regulations and data protection requirements. In addition, Google started to penalize websites that hadn’t made the shift from HTTP to HTTPS. The e-commerce industry saw a flurry of activity, with stores quickly trying to obtain SSL certificates to be able to move to HTTPS. This resulted in a paradigm shift in customers’ thinking and behavioral approaches towards websites collecting their data. Today, data security and protection is not only about keeping

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How Technology and New Media Are Shaping the Future of Advertising

September 10, 2018

In recent years, the advertising industry has experienced often painful changes and has found it difficult to keep up with the pace of technology. What used to be dominated by TV (video format) and print, is now increasingly chaotic, and different media are used to reach the target audience. Usage of data and personalization of data to create more specific ad content has forced many agencies to get into a survival mode. The future of ad agencies and advertising as a profession lies in the ability to swim in the direction of technology while remaining creative at the same time. Of course, this is no easy task, and there are multiple ways technology is shaping the future of advertising every moment. Let us take a brief look at the future of advertising shaped by technology, and the new media you might want to consider if you are an agency looking to advertise. Here are the top trends. Location data to influence advertising Currently, location data is mostly used for marketing purposes. However, in the near future, more advertisers will look at launching campaigns specifically based on location data. GDPR may work out in favour of advertisers because many people do give permission for their location data to be used. What was earlier a grey area will now be a clear pathway to target people in specific locations and send them ads. Mobile devices will spur location-based advertising further afield and will help predict trends as well. In fact, ad strategy will begin to rely on location data more than ever before. A paradigm shift from offline to online Digital advertising has actually caught up with TV advertising. The share of advertising budget by channel is exactly equal to each other at 41% for TV and digital ads. Print comes at a distant 10% in ad budgets. What this really tells us is, there is a paradigm shift taking place in the ad industry, where campaigns are now written by default for digital channels, and TV and print are going to become after-thoughts. What we will also witness is the convergence of digital and traditional advertising, which actually has taken place if you notice the figures. In the near future, the share of TV is likely to fall further, with a potential for print to increase. Richer graphics and return to creativity offline With online advertising getting busier and more serious, creative will find more freedom to experiment in print. Online advertising has already become mainstream and is subject to decision makers’ opinions and strategy, leading to less elbow room for creative professionals. On the flip side, print will see a gradual return to creativity, and more expensive ad campaigns may actually be run via print media, simply because those who still tend to stick to print medium tend to be better educated and more affluent. In other words, digital will encourage print to become more niche, and that is not something bad. Application-based advertising Digital advertising is fueled by mobile users, and it is no surprise that the future of advertising will depend on how agencies tap into this medium. App usage has increased dramatically even in the last few months when we consider emerging economies like Brazil and China. In the US and Europe, much of advertising growth has taken place in the realm of mobile applications, and this is something that cannot be ignored. In-app ads and users’ geo-location together can transform the way we understand advertising today. Ads are going to be personalized further Much of the changes taking place in the ad industry due to technology is because of data. Data is helping ad managers to access insight that was previously impossible, and that’s leading to a greater degree of personalization. Personalization of ads is also important because digital ads rarely enter the periphery of perception of web users. Many of them have begun to use ad-blockers and to make sure that an ad reaches the intended viewer, personalizing it is very important. Without personalizing, you stand the risk of being blocked or just being ignored. Focus on content Finally, another important trend is the quality of the content. As content developed for online usage is searchable, it is very different from creating ad content for print or TV media. Advertisers will need to focus on the quality of content and ensure that they are filled with rich media in order to attract the attention of consumers. In fact, ad content will tend to become more informative and realistic than persuasive. Persuasive and creative campaigns may find better use in print media offline. Here are some new media to consider Location-based mobile technology While mobile ads are nothing new, you might want to focus more on location-based mobile ads in the future. Consumer lifestyle is defined by mobile usage, and people move from one place to another, and they are always connected via their mobile phones. This makes location-based advertising very important and crucial to ad success. Focus on developing ad campaigns that take this into consideration. Use location data to create ad campaigns that are super specific and targeted. In fact, using predictive analytics may even help you predict when the intended target audience is going to be in a particular location. In-app advertisements The most important of all the new media are the applications themselves. Mobile applications present a challenging but very lucrative medium to advertise. In-app advertisements can very well race past TV ads and they come in a number of types. However, making in-app ads attractive to consumers while also being non-intrusive depends on the ad interface designer. Make sure that in-app ads focus on user interface and intuitiveness so that consumers do not feel intruded upon. App usage tends to be a private activity and the perceived intrusiveness of your ad can seriously affect your campaign. Social media advertisement Without a doubt, social media advertising will continue to remain the most important platform for advertisers. Ad agencies will need to

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Top Reasons why video marketing should be part of your 2018 strategy

January 9, 2018

Chris Anderson in his igneous TED Talk said, “What Gutenberg’s printing press did for writing, online video did for face-to-face communication. That primal medium has now gone global; it’s like reinventing an ancient art form.” The audio-visual medium helps shed a bright light on potent ideas, thus creating an intense desire for learning and response. It is perhaps the most powerful way to communicate your brand story, explain your value proposition, and build relationships with your customers and prospects today. Digital Video Marketing has slowly become a larger piece of the content marketing pie. Tech giants and venture capitalists around the world have predicted that video marketing is the future of online content marketing and 2017 has truly been the year of video marketing. According to Forbes, “An insatiable appetite for video among users, paired with better technology for making, posting and targeting social updates, sees companies now spending more money on social and digital ads than on TV advertising.”       Looking back at the year that’s been: 43% of prospective customers want to see more video content from marketers 9% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI 85% of businesses now have in-house production teams and internal resources to shoot promotional videos 35% of businesses are using intermediate or advanced analytics to measure video performance Personalized videos retain more viewers till the very second than non personalized ones People spend on average 6x more time on pages with video than without People have always been drawn towards moving images. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% while reading the text. Even until a few years ago, we could send and receive only text messages on our mobile devices. But today, we send and receive animated GIFs and short videos on WhatsApp. Videos are; undoubtedly, much more effective than text and it is no wonder that video digital marketing has taken the world by storm. The advent and popularity of YouTube have changed the way how we watched videos. Today, with almost all the social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) having video hosting platforms and live features, video consumption has increased astronomically and has become a large share of internet traffic. A new way of looking By 2018, Cisco predicts that 82% of all consumer Internet traffic will be video. It also forecasts that Consumer Video-on-Demand (VoD) traffic will nearly double by 2021. Here are some of the evolving trends with respect to video marketing to make a splash in 2018: Live Video and Stories on Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat are set to occupy a major fraction of online video content. Trends show that video consumption is at least two times more when it comes to videos recorded live as compared to those pre-recorded. Facebook today is giving YouTube a run for its money with its new and more accessible video recording and uploading features such as Live Video and Lifestage. Video stories enable entrepreneurs to add a personal touch to their value proposition; the stories have a daylong lifespan which can also be capitalized because it helps enterprises showcase their dynamic and evolving nature, driving them to spin new stories out of their products or services every day which again affects engagement. Video can now be consumed on mute and in square aspect ratios, making video sharing, hosting and watching more flexible and novel than ever before. Around half the videos on Facebook are streamed without sound. Just like in films, messing with aspect ratios in promotional content on social media too garners special attention from the mass. 360-degree videos and Virtual Reality (VR) projects are being increasingly used by business enterprises, especially the B2C sector, to present their products in a more attractive fashion. Video mapping is also creating a visible impact when combined successfully and unobtrusively with online marketing strategies. Last October, Facebook unveiled Oculus Go, a new VR headset that is reputed to be very user-friendly and an easy option for developers to be introduced to VR. Forbes expects you to see AI and related tools play an ever more important behind-the-scenes role in sharing audio-visual messages. Advancement in technology will soon enable proprietors and entrepreneurs to test social media Ad variations in huge numbers at the same time. Analytics becomes an important part of online marketing, in determining which images and text will get the most clicks. In the near future, users will soon be able to “automate campaigns so that the best-performing posts are instantly boosted to the biggest audience”. Integrating video marketing into your business plan is no longer a luxury but a necessity to keep up with the global revolution that has been brought about by the emergence of the online video. Today, videos generate global recognition which drives huge amounts of effort and attention either indirectly through comments, ratings, word of mouth or directly by the number of views. Bandwidth has exploded a hundredfold and the intricate network of innovators, commenters, mavericks, skeptics, superspreaders, and trendspotters catalyze the process of making a video viral. Brian Halligan from Hubspot recommends that at least 50% of your content mix be video. Video platforms within apps and embedded videos within the website have managed to engage more users today. HubSpot says, 96% of B2B organizations use video in some capacity in their marketing campaigns of which 73% report positive results to their ROI. Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. If you’re worried about a massive hit to your budget, remember that your video content doesn’t have to be highly-produced. Live video is quickly becoming a tool that gives brands a high level of reach and engagement on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so take full advantage. Here are four reasons why you should include video marketing in your marketing plan and how videos can be effective for your business. Videos build trust Videos encourage social sharing Videos boost search engine

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Understanding Google’s Mobile Ad Formats for Full HTML Browsers

January 5, 2017

Google mobile ads can be displayed on various mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, or mobile phones with HTML browsers.  Mobile ads also appear within apps on smartphones and tablets. Advertisers should keep in mind that ads be designed for the right device and in the right format.When you create your ad, you have to think about where your customers are most likely to view it. Accordingly, choose the type of ad and format that best suits their needs.   Google AdWords help you to develop multiple types of ads to reach customers through smartphones and tablets search results on mobile web browsers and within mobile apps. And when you have a mobile version of your website, create ads designed specifically for people using mobile devices using the URL for the mobile version of your site.  Then, when a customer clicks your ad, they will go to the best version of your site for their device. The following blog enables you to understand different Google mobile ad formats and how you can use them for full HTML browsers.   Choosing the campaign type When you set up ad campaign, you must choose type of campaign and its sub-type. Campaign type determines where your ads show on Google’s advertising network and what format like text or video. On the other hand, campaign sub type determines how many settings and options are available to use for your campaign to achieve a specific goal. Types of ad campaigns There are three commonly used campaign types Search Network only, Display Network only, and Search Network with Display Select. In Search Network only campaign, your ads can appear throughout sites on Google Search Network. This works by linking your AdWords keywords to the words/ phrases people use to search on Google to show relevant text ads on SERPS. It is useful for advertisers who want to connect with customers right when they are searching their products/ services. In Display Network only campaign, your ads can show throughout Google Display Network by matching search terms in the form of text, image, rich media, video ads; and on websites, YouTube, and mobile apps. It can be used by advertisers who want to increase awareness about their products or related services. In Search Network with Display Select campaign, your ads show on the Google Search Network and relevant placements within the Display Network. This way your ad budget is shared across both networks. Here your ads become visible in Google search results as well as corresponding websites being viewed by visitors.   Mobile ads One can display ads in many different formats on mobiles and tablets.  Test your message with the help of multiple ad formats to understand what drives customers to your website or what gets them to download your app. Nonetheless, it is important to tailor your message to mobile customers irrespective of the format you choose. For displaying a perfect-looking ad on small screen, you need to create mobile-optimized ad with a message, display URL, and landing page specifically for mobiles and tablets. You can do so by selecting “Mobile” checkbox next to the “Device preference” setting.   Moreover, if your ad groups contain ads eligible to appear on all devices, only your mobile preferred ads will appear on mobile phones and tablets.   Types of mobile ads   Text ads     Text ads that use extensions for your location and hours or phone number can help you engage people who are already on the go, and just need to know how to get to your store.  Text ads show above and below Google search results on Search Network.  A standard text ad has three parts: headline text, display URL and description text. Because of high visibility, headline text should include words that people may have entered in their Google search.  Display URL, often shown in green, shows your website address. It gives an idea about your website address.  It may be different from the landing page URL where people land after clicking the ad.  And description text highlights details about your product or service often accompanied by call to action button. Android, iOS, and other devices with full HTML browsers that are capable of executing JavaScript, eligible text ad configuration are Mobile leaderboard (320 x 50), Small square (200 x 200), Square (250 x 250), Medium rectangle (300 x 250), and Large mobile banner (320 x 100).     Image ads     The image ads you upload in AdWords are able to serve naturally and automatically on desktop, mobile websites, and even in apps.  Image ads are visible across Google Display Network of 2 million websites and apps. Use Adwords to get multiple ways to create image ads like Ad Gallery templates, sizeless responsive ads and uploading ads. Custom-made image ads give you maximum control and customization. To fit image ads across the Display Network, you need to use responsive ads.  Responsive ads adjust their size, appearance, and format to fit available ad spaces.  This means that a single responsive ad may appear as a small text ad at one place and a large image ad in another. They can take on native formatting to match the tone and feel of the websites they show on. Typical responsive ads introduced by Google are Lightbox ads. On interaction with Lightbox ads, people can see images or videos within the ad or in an expanded canvas.  These ads incorporate advertiser assets from his YouTube channel, uploaded images or Google Maps. So, when a user hovers over the ad banner, the assets dynamically fill the publisher site, mobile app, and mobile screen.  They are designed to reduce accidental engagements facilitating a better experience for customers and better value for advertisers. Eligible image ad configurations for devices with full HTML browsers are mobile leaderboard ( 320 x 50), small square (200 X 200), square (250 X 250), medium rectangle (300 X 250)       App promotion ads     An app promotion ad is the easiest

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Why Digital Brand Engagement Scores Over Advertising

December 16, 2016

It has been discussed in recent years about the advent of digital engagement and branding. Indeed, social and digital media have helped even the smallest of companies to engage in sophisticated marketing campaigns without burning deep holes in their pockets. Yet, we continue to see smaller and medium sized businesses investing heavily on traditional advertising, without seeing the results they wish to see. Firstly, we need to understand that the market climate has changed completely. People often do not bother to look at ads, even online. Advertisements are seen as intrusive, annoying and extremely pushy, even when it is subtle and in the background. Part of the reason why customers feel so is because advertising has been over-utilized and people feel saturated to marketing messages. However, they are open to genuine marketing communication that seeks to inform about a product or service. This is probably why social and digital campaigns fare better than advertisements, at least for small and medium sized businesses. Larger corporations have the moolah and big budget to take risks with traditional advertisements but a small business might not want to do that. For this reason, it is important to understand that digital and social brand engagement can prove to be a valuable alternative to advertising, especially when one faces cash crunch. Now, let us take a look at some of the advantages that digital branding has over traditional advertising.   Helps in brand activation   Spurring engagement using digital media helps in brand activation. Brand activation can be described as the process of inspiring people to take action by weaving a brand narrative into creative media content. Traditional advertising simply does not have the freedom to do this, and comes with its set of limitations. However, digital brand engagement exercises allow you to spur interaction and inspire people to take desired action.   Positively reinforces desired consumer behavior   Digital media gives you a platform to reinforce individual consumer behaviors, when it is in your favor. For instance, those who write a great review can be suitably rewarded, and even a social post expressing happiness with your product or service can be suitably positively reinforced. Traditional advertising does not provide the flexibility, as visibility of individual consumer reaction is not possible.   Helps build brand loyalty   One of the most important things that a brand needs is lifelong loyalty. Loyalty is something that needs to be nurtured, just like relationships are nurtured. For this to happen, digital and social platforms provide the right situation. You can easily track consumer posts and nurture them individually, so that loyalty is enhanced. In traditional advertising, this is not possible. Everything is planned and individual behavior cannot be nurtured.   Reduces marketing expenditure   Digital marketing and brand engagement is infinitely cheaper than old school advertising. Even online advertising costs more than brand engagement exercises done over social or digital media. For this reason alone, a number of small and medium sized companies prefer to engage target audiences over social and digital media. This also helps them to measure the success of their investment and the ROI. Certainly, this is one of the better ways to reduce expenses.   Easy to measure and quantify   One of the best features of digital marketing exercises is that everything is measurable. There are tools that help to quantify various attributes. This data can be used to create better marketing campaigns that drive engagement. It is also easier to learn what kind of posts and campaigns drive more engagement, so that such communication is given more preference. Once you identify and quantify engagement, it serves as a more useful tool than traditional advertising which does not provide a lot of analytics.   Is future-ready and accessible   Digital brand engagement is usually done on social or digital media. Social media is not only the present but also the future of the way we will do business. This means, digital branding is future-proof and one does not need to worry about being stuck in the past or using outdated techniques. Most importantly, both the target audience and the companies can remain accessible to each other, enabling a two-way communication. This is not possible in traditional advertising as it is a one-way communication.   Makes it easy to receive feedback   One of the most important metrics of engagement is feedback. When people begin to provide feedback about your marketing communication, you will know what you are doing right and what you might be doing wrong. It provides ample opportunities for you to fix things, which is very important. On social and digital media, receiving feedback and responding to them is very easy, unlike in traditional advertising, where it is almost impossible. For SMEs, digital brand engagement is easily the more superior choice As we can see, digital branding makes use of social and digital platforms to connect with the target audience. Digital brand engagement ensures a more organic and impactful communication with the target audience, which in turn helps in building brand loyalty and reinforces desired consumer behavior. Advertising is out of reach for most small and medium sized businesses, whereas digital brand engagement can be a sustainable approach toward being heard and known. Digital brand engagement ensures interaction and reinforcement of a brand narrative, which results in brand activation. This is important to ensure that people feel inspired and not compelled to buy. Moreover, digital engagement helps in positively reinforcing desired behavior and helps in building brand loyalty. In addition, companies can also look forward toward reduced ad spend and focus on measurement and analytics. As digital branding is future-proof, we can rest easy that what we create now will not be irrelevant tomorrow, unlike in traditional advertisements. Last but not the least, digital brand engagement helps in receiving feedback immediately and assists companies to make improvements to their products and services, which is not always possible in advertisements. So, it is quite evident that traditional advertising is too expensive and

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How to Make Digital Marketing More Human

December 12, 2016

We have heard it all before, and seen it all before, how technology has eclipsed our lives. There is almost nothing that cannot be automated today, and word is spreading over that artificial intelligence will soon take over many tasks that humans previously do. While all this reduces human errors and reduces costs, the most important glue that binds society together is missing. Too much technology reduces human interaction, and the lack of human touch can be a cold and dark experience. This is the reason why certain jobs such as those of a nurse, psychotherapist, healer, religious minister or for that matter, even that of a journalist will never be automated. However, the influx of technology in other areas of life has made people weary of automation and technology. With more and more companies investing in digital media and social marketing, questions are being raised about the missing human factor. Thankfully, digital marketing does not automate everything completely. Instead, it retains a human touch while also using technology to our benefit. This is probably why digital marketing is still one of the more human technologies around. In this article, let us take a look at how you can make your digital marketing more human, so that your target audience does not feel alienated or overwhelmed by technology.   Don’t automate everything   While there is technology that helps us to automate almost everything that we do on social media, thanks to artificial intelligence and chatbots, do not do it. Automate only certain posts and hire social media executives to interact personally with audience. This is very important because if people simply keep receiving automated messages, they will lose interest and move ahead. It is important to insert human emotions and interactions in between.   Take time to engage with your audience   Once you have enough audience on social platforms, take time to engage with them. Do not just schedule posts and let the chatbots do all the work. Spend time talking to your loyal followers and recognize or appreciate when they have something positive to say about you. Digital marketing only works when there is ample communication and engagement between you and your followers. This is something that should be borne in mind.   Share posts about your work culture   People often like to see images that depict human actions. If you are having an event in your office, share those pictures. If your CEO meets another CEO, take pictures and upload them on your social profiles. Use these images tactfully so that they are part of the brand narrative. Ensure that you share content and images with respect to your work culture and employees, as that brings a human face to your company.   Customize marketing messages   Marketing messages should not be formulated in a ‘one size fits all’ template. Instead, explore buyer personas of your target audience and come up with a different marketing message for each demographic. Explore and study different demographics and psycho-graphics of your target audience. Everyone is not the same and the same marketing message will not appeal to everyone. When you customize your messages to suit individual tastes, you will come across as a more human-oriented company.   Do not try to sell constantly   While automating and technology are mostly to blame for the lack of human interactions, aggressive marketing messages can also seem too business-like, and may put off your audience. Do not try to sell all the time. Instead, share informative blog posts that help your audience to understand something unique about your product or service. Try to engage with your audience and seek personal opinions about your products and services.   Answer questions and ask questions   There is nothing that is more ego-boosting than being asked for advices or when one is asked questions. Even if you know something, try and ask questions to your followers, as long as you do not come across as misinformed. Similarly always try to answer questions that people leave online, if you feel that person may be a possible prospect. All this helps in showing that you have a human side to you and that you are not just aggressively marketing your products and services.   Invite and reward loyal customers at offline events   Another strategy to show your human face is to actually meet your target audience offline. Select people who have engaged with you online, and invite them for a retreat or an event organized offline. This will provide you with ample time and opportunity to interact with your loyal customers. Most importantly, this can prove to be an important photo-op session so that the very same photos can be shared online again, as part of your digital marketing strategy.   Remember important life events   Always remember to wish your target audience when their birthdays or marriage anniversaries arrive. Even if you do not have that data on your system, sometimes people voluntarily share these messages online. When they do, use this as an opportunity to build rapport and wish them. It does not have to be just birthdays or marriage anniversaries. You could also wish your target audience when they graduate, get a new job, give birth to a child, or when their pet’s birthday is celebrated. Stay human, start interacting and engaging It is being increasingly noticed that people are not happy with the way we are pushing technology on them. While digital marketing is a great way to drive home our marketing messages, there is an important need to keep things human. Do not try to automate everything and find time to engage your audience. Begin to share posts about your office culture and show that you have a human side to you. Also, don’t sell or market aggressively and instead, customize your marketing messages. Help people to find answers to their queries and also seek their help when you need some information. Reward your loyal customers and remember their

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Learn Marketing Tactics to Build Lifelong Loyalty

December 8, 2016

Marketing a product or service isn’t easy. It takes a lot of effort to keep the interest alive. When companies and businesses are at it, they spend a lot of money to sustain that interest among people, and also to generate curiosity and retain possible customers. Yet, many businesses often forget a crucial part of the whole marketing exercise. This usually involves ensuring that your existing customers remain loyal for a lifetime. It is difficult to build lifelong loyalty but when you manage to do this, you will have created a valuable source of word-of-mouth marketing. Loyal customers often go out of their way to promote your product or service, even without any extraneous benefits. This is mostly a psychological phenomenon. The very fact that your product or service makes them happy is enough for them to promote or recommend your services and products. What we need to remember here is the word ‘happy’. Happiness or contentment with a product or service will ensure that a person remains faithful to a product or service for a lifetime. In this article, let us take a look at how we can build lifetime loyalty and which marketing tactics help to ensure this. Get personal One of the best ways to build loyalty is by getting personal. What we really mean by this is, you should personalize your marketing message to suit your target audience. Firstly, identify buyer personas. Create content that is targeted at buyer persona and tweak it each time you send these messages out to different people. Personalizing marketing communication drastically helps in connecting with a customer emotionally. Personalizing messages also helps customers to feel valued, and they will remain customers even when a competitor targets them. Use positive reinforcements A positive reinforcement is defined as anything that is given or introduced to reinforce a desired behavior. Your loyal customers’ desired behavior is to purchase again, write great feedback or simply have a good opinion about your product or service. If you recognize someone doing this, reward them with whatever your company can afford to. This is a positive reinforcement and it makes it likely that the desired behavior happens again. Bundle your products and services In order to make sure that your customers and clients come back again, try to bundle your products and services in a personalized manner. Your customer may not need a product at a particular time but if you understand his or her needs and club a couple of products or services together, you might end up making more sales, and also build loyalty. Provide a unique experience One of the most important characteristics of a good brand that has many lifelong customers is that it provides a unique experience. In fact, identify what kind of experience you want your customers to have. Once you identify that, you will be able to provide valuable experience which your target audience will cherish. This helps to build lasting loyalty. It helps to invest both time and money in identifying personalized experience that different demographic groups might want to enjoy. Feature your customers regularly Often, businesses forget to give attention to their customers. You need to remember that sustaining and nurturing a customer for a lifetime is similar to nurturing a spousal relationship. This means, you need to provide constant attention. If you feature your loyal customers in events, blogs, or marketing communication, they will be happen with the attention they receive and chances are likely that lifelong loyalty is built. Always be available This might sound a little preposterous but in order to remain in someone’s memory, you need to be around. Human memory is quite fallible and they often forget if something is not within their sight. If you want to remain in your customer’s memory, you will have to show up often. This means, you will need to communicate with your clients and customers as often as possible, and also be available when they want to contact you. Automating your customer service and adopting chatbots or AI could be a good start too. Train your employees well Building brand loyalty is not just a marketing exercise. It also seeps into human resource departments. This is probably why you should consider training your employees to provide customer engagement. This should be part of the program right from the induction period. This ensures that your employees carry your branding’s essence along with them, and ensure that customers feel a sense of harmony in your messages and the way your employees treat them. Seek customer advice One of the ways to get attention from someone is by asking for their advice. It usually boosts their ego and they feel important. If you ask your customers for advice regarding how you can improve your product or service, they will probably feel that you are giving them the attention they deserve. This is usually a good thing because this helps them to cultivate loyalty toward your brand. Your feedback forms can have a couple of questions that explicitly seeks for your customers’ advice and suggestions. However, you will need to use these advices and suggestions to actually convert them into lifelong loyal customers. Nurturing lifelong brand evangelists As we can see, it is quite difficult to turn customers into lifelong loyal brand evangelists. However, this is possible when you combine a mix of psychological and marketing tactics. Firstly, begin to use personalized messages and target your audience individually. Use positives reinforcements to encourage desired behavior and offer products and services in a customized bundle. Focus on creating unique brand-centric experiences that cannot be replicated by competitors. Start featuring your customers in your content and be available when they have something to share or ask. Train your employees to soak in these aspects and seek advice from your customers. All this will help in nurturing the relationship your customers have with your brand, and helps in converting them into lifelong brand evangelists.

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Connect Social Media Buttons to Boost SEO and ORM

September 5, 2016

In 2016 and beyond, search engine optimization will rely heavily on social signals, a metric that is derived from social activities of web users. Earlier, web administrators and search engines depended heavily on keywords and other such metadata. In recent years, the popularity of social media has resulted in more traffic generating from these tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. With this in mind, search engine optimization strategies now heavily depend on social media strategies. Moreover, managing a company’s or individual’s reputation online also depends on social media as people are more likely to go to social channels to vent their ire. With this being the case, it only makes sense to understand social media more thoroughly, as optimizing social strategies help to improve both SEO and ORM in the short and long terms. One of the most important ways to do this is to connect social media buttons to every page or post on a website, so that social signals are generated with the help of social engagement, leading to better ranking and search results. By adding social buttons, companies can ensure that users land on the correct page of the company and engage with the content on the web page or company’s social media accounts. Before we discuss why you must connect your social media buttons to your website, let us take a look at the two important kinds of social media buttons. [php snippet=1]  Social share buttons Social share buttons help users and visitors to share content they like (or sometimes dislike) on your website. They may use the buttons to actively promote your content on social media websites, which helps you to generate traffic and increase social conversations about your company, which ultimately lead to better search rankings. These social share buttons are usually made available as sticky social menus, that move along the screen as a reader reads through the website. In other situations, social share buttons may be displayed at the beginning or end of a post, or both. Along with social share buttons, it is common to add email and print options as well, though they help much less in SEO. Social media buttons Social media buttons, on the other hand, are completely different. In this case, these buttons link to your social profiles so that visitors can reach your company pages on various social networking websites. It is common for most companies to have active Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Social media buttons should link to these profiles of yours so that visitors can reach your social profiles to contact you, be informed by you and also engage with you at a deeper level. Social media buttons are often confused with social share buttons, though both help in SEO and ORM. In this article, let us take a look at how social media buttons that connect your website to your social profiles help in SEO and ORM. Social media buttons increase traffic to your social profiles It is a well-known fact that social profiles lead to better engagement. If people first arrive at your website and you still have not connected social profiles to your website, you may lose out on a lot of traffic. With social buttons, people can easily find you in social media and arrive at your social profiles. This leads to increased online footfalls and a better traffic growth. Increased social signals lead to better SEO Search engine optimization now depends on social signals. If more people are talking about a topic, search engines assume that those topics must be important, and thus rank them higher. When you use social buttons on your website, people will begin to talk about you on social profiles and thus help you to increase your search rankings. This is not a clear cut pathway to social media success, though. You will need to have a great social strategy in place, which is, of course, a different story altogether. Visitors can raise issues and seek help on social profiles One of the best ways to boost your online image is to solve people’s problems. Tools like Twitter and Facebook are increasingly being used to offer customer support. When people come to your social profiles to seek help, they most probably leave all the comments out there in open for people to see. If you have been consistently providing great customer care on social profiles, you will gain a lot more followers, which in turn will help you to improve your online reputation. If negative comments are left, the way you deal with them will help you to boost your ORM. Your social engagement helps to boost your image It is a well-known fact that people often peer through a company’s social profiles before they make decisions related to purchasing. If you link your social buttons and people are able to find their way to your social pages, it becomes easier for them to understand the way you conduct your business. Of course, this goes with assuming that you provide great customer service which you would like to flaunt. Social buttons are expected These days, people expect to see links to your social profiles. If they do not find them, they may think you are outdated or worse, that you are not reliable. In this sense, your social buttons add to your reputation and also reliability. It is crucial to ensure that people do not start to wonder if your business is suspicious because it has no links to social profiles. Yield to customers’ expectation and you will be seen as someone who is in sync with the changes that are happening. A unique combination of SEO and ORM Social buttons help you to bring your social profiles to your audience, which is a great way to not only boost your search engine ranking, but also your online reputation. Thus, adding social buttons can be a great way to boost your online reputation and search engine rankings.

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HootSuite and Other Tools to Manage Multiple Social Media Handles

August 30, 2016

Social media marketing has a pivotal place among marketers. Consumers love to engage with marketers on social media because they are free to express their concerns and learn more about products amid entertaining and relaxed environment. However, managing all social media tools at once becomes a little difficult. There are many tools that empower a marketer to manage multiple social media handles. One among them and the most popular is Hootsuite. The following article will focus on features and usability of Hootsuite in detail and a few other tools, in short, to manage social media handles. Hootsuite Hootsuite is a comprehensive tool for managing all your social media accounts through a single dashboard.  With its ability to manage more than 80 social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn and many more applications, it becomes one of the most powerful tools to address all your social media management needs. Integration Hootsuite integrates social media platforms of your choice and manages them through a single dashboard.  You can even group social media platforms of your choice and manage them through multiple dashboards. Hootsuite can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This integration allows businesses to incorporate all social interactions of customers and track them through Hootsuite dashboard.  This facilitates user identification and lead generation. The social data collected can be added to Microsoft Dynamics CRM and get a refined view of each customer. [php snippet=1] Collaboration It swiftly operates shared social media accounts for collaboration of teams and organizations. It is proficient to assign conversation to team members. Collaboration can be enhanced through the integration of SharePoint in Hootsuite. This enables businesses to utilize social media content across teams and quickly resolve customer issues. Moreover, users can bring data from Sharepoint sites to Hootsuite dashboard & use it along social media data from Facebook, Twitter etc. Another handy tool for collaboration is Yammer.  Integration of Hootsuite with Yammer facilitates real-time collaboration among employees while engaging with customers on social media.  This enables employees from different departments to work collectively in real-time and quickly respond or act upon social interaction with their customers. Automate publishing Hootsuite dashboard has a powerful Compose Message tool that allows you to create a message and shares it with selected social media platforms. Autoschedule feature in Hootsuite allows you to publish content at a predefined time and platform.  This feature gives you more time to find and share relevant content rather than worry about time of posting. Bulk Scheduling allows you to keep your social media platforms active. It is useful when you have a lot of content to share on a regular basis.  However, this feature is more suitable for Twitter because this method only supports text and link posts. Campaigns Hootsuite is highly effective to create and launch social media campaigns like contests, user-generated galleries, sweepstakes etc across multiple platforms.  It enables you to create interactive promotions for the target audience, generate leads and engage them more with your business goings-on. This feature simplifies social media marketing and is suitable for businesses of all size. It can integrate with Facebook’s latest page features like shopping, service and call-to-action buttons.  Apart from that, users can select campaign type according to their need from its intuitive and easy-to-use interface. Analytics This feature gives you a fair idea about your social media actions and results of your social media campaigns.  Analytics act as an eye-opener and make it easier for you to do the follow-up on your efforts. It gives you deep insight about user engagement and social media activities so that you can realize and create what works best in the interest of consumers and your organization. Hootsuite Analytics enable extensive monitoring of data to generate printable reports for your business. Analytics reports compile and visualizes data from different social media platforms.  Depending upon the module selected, reports contain a specific set of data. Mobile application Hootsuite’s powerful mobile application has made it convenient for users to manage and control social media anytime and anywhere. Hootsuite app is available for both Apple and Android platforms.  It allows you to manage multiple networks, schedule posts, and track content performance. It further enables you to geo-locate your posts to share favorite places and engage with nearby followers. Social media listening  It is very important for a marketer to know what’s being said about his brand. This ability helps you to understand what customers and competitors are talking about your brand. It forms an integral part of online reputation management because you can only reform your reputation once you know where you are lacking. Furthermore, Hootsuite allows you to track key phrases and terms across teammates’ posts so that you can interfere when necessary and take stock of the situation.  This helps users to precisely respond to customers’ needs and bring in new customers. Hootlet plug-in There are multiple plug-ins for Hootsuite and one among them is Hootlet. This is a brilliant plug-in for Hootsuite that simplifies the process of sharing content with your followers.  Hootlet is easily accessible through a quick-launch button atop web browsers. The moment you come across interesting content on the web, clicking Hootlet shortens URL and inserts a small snippet of relevant text from that website into your social media message. Hootsuite securely manages your content syndication needs Hootsuite is an excellent tool to take care of your content syndication needs by publishing on multiple platforms apart from hoards of other benefits.  It is used by businesses of all sizes, agencies, and enterprises.  Security is of prime importance for Hootsuite users because reputation and assets are all at stake. Secured logins, profile protections and permission levels enable a strong security layer across the organization. Hootsuite minimizes the time you spend to manage multiple social media accounts. Post scheduling, conversation monitoring and rapid response to customer queries and comments make Hootsuite one of the most sought-after tools for social media management today. Few other noteworthy apps Buffer Buffer is another very useful tool for social

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