Established 1996
Internet & Digital Marketing
2016 State of Marketing: High performing Marketing teams 4.2X more likely to use Analytics
A study has confirmed that high performing marketing teams tend to use business analytics more to the tune of four times the others. This study was conducted across the world with marketers in Australia, Canada, Germany, Brazil, UK, France, USA and the Nordic region. By the year 2021, digital marketing will account for three fourths of total marketing spend. In fact over the next two years itself, more than seventy percent of companies will ramp up online ad spending. Customer data is now tracked by about five sixths of organizations especially in the B2C segment. Nearly eighty percent of the top performing marketing teams are already using predictive science. Mobile application use has nearly doubled in few years. But the statistic which most proves the disparity is that these high performing teams are nearly fourteen times more likely to possess an integrated business solutions suite. Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/03/30/2016-state-of-marketing-high-performing-marketing-teams-4-2x-more-likely-to-use-analytics/#480c3cf675dd
Don’t make Social Media your Company’s mouth- Make it your Eyes and Ears
Social media is being increasingly used up by companies to broadcast information about its products to aid in the process of digital marketing. However, this aspect ignores the fact that instead of using social media as the mouthpiece of the organization, it must instead be used more so as the eyes and ears. This implies that social media can be used as a tool for extensive scanning of the market place though listening devices. Real time customer interactions can be recorded and analyzed. Market research can be carried out about the demographics to be targeted. Competitor reports can be generated. News and information related to the broader industry can also be chronicled using various social media platforms. It is an ideal place to conduct experiments on products and observe the goings on.
How to make Customer Experience the center of your Content Marketing Strategy
Digital marketing has come of age. It is no longer dominated by sleazy campaigns involving stuffing as many keywords as possible. It now seeks to make sure valuable customer experience is the focus of the content. For this it is important for marketers to understand what exactly target audience requires as content. The communication must be clear and consistent across all platforms. Valuable content must be shared with customers. Tracking conversation on social media outlets is a must as this will provide the organization with a treasure trove of business intelligence. Finally it is crucial to develop sound relationships with existing customers. Periodic engagement with them using social media is desirable.
Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-dodds/how-to-make-customer-expe_b_9455552.html?section=india
Can SEO alone be a successful Lead Generation and Online Marketing Effort?
It has often been mooted that SEO on its own is enough to conduct digital marketing for companies. Studies however have proven otherwise. Leads get generated but conversion depends a lot on the convergence effect of a multi-pronged approach. That is where the website must be aligned in such a way as to handle customers. This could be through a blog or news page. Social media platforms especially Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are perfect to capture wide audience and engage millennials as they are already hooked to the same. Email marketing while a relatively older form continues to be extremely reliable a source of lead conversion. Social networks and Google AdWords also provide advertising space which can prove to be essential touch points to engage with the customer base. Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-seo-alone-successful-lead-gen-online-marketing-effort-thimothy
Social Media vs. SEO: Which is Better
Marketers are undecided whether to adopt greater digital marketing resources towards social media or SEO. For startups, it is not financially viable to go whole-heartedly at both so a bit of prioritization is needed. There are some instances where both complement each other, while there are others where one can backfire for the other. Social media requires catchy headlines to attract page views. SEO though requires the usage of keywords so as to reflect on users’ search options. Fake accounts are often used by unscrupulous competitors on social media to wreck marketing campaigns of others. On searches, it is highly likely that social media pages from top platforms such as Twitter or Facebook will reflect on the first page immediately below the website. Thus care needs to be taken to maintain the same. The website needs to include links to company social media pages. Also shareable content needs to be created so that both SEO as well as social media platforms can leverage the same.
Source: http://www.business2community.com/seo/social-media-vs-seo-which-is-better-01280575
Why Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest have embraced the Buy Button
Social media brands such as Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter are now going deep at their attempts to directly monetize the digital marketing they themselves generate. For that to happen, the ‘buy’ button in various avatars has been added to these various platforms. Even Google’s search ads now include a buy option. Today’s version is different from the ‘gift’ option Facebook had couple of years back as that reflected excessive commercial intentions. The sales platform Shopify, payment processors such as Stripe or even Apple Pay are enabling mobile phone payments. In fact legions of fans are showing interest at purchasing brands such as Michael Kors and Nordstrom endorsed by their favourite stars over Instagram. This is how social commerce is progressing from simple content creation for brands to the final sales.
Source:- http://www.fastcompany.com/3048652/app-economy/buy-buy-buy
15 best Digital Marketing Stats from this Week
Some of the best digital marketing statistics have been rounded off for this week. Not surprisingly advertising on Facebook has risen by more than double. Ad viewership overall though has reduced as a trend. Six out of every seven marketers now claim they understand customer better than before. Decision making is now influenced by business analytics in two-fifths of organizations. The data thus analyzed particularly pays attention to CRM. Journalists have now become quite reliant on social media. This is particularly so in the English speaking world of the UK, USA and Australia. A positive piece of news from the continent of Africa comprises that half the mobile internet user base there uses the same for ordering of food. Peculiarly, 15% of millennial smartphone users are yet to use their devices for purpose of shopping. But nearly half the respondents have bought clothes from third party sellers such as Amazon. Trend also suggests that inspirational videos are most likely to be shared with others users.
Source: https://econsultancy.com/blog/66743-15-best-digital-marketing-stats-from-this-week/
Understand your Customer for Free
Marketers are making enormous effort and investments to garner information about customers. However, substantial bits of the same can be collected for free or from existing investments. Google, Facebook, Quantcast and The Trade Desk are examples of such. Google provides us with Analytics, and AdWords. We use these tools to get business analytics on user demographics, interests, engagement levels, content consumption, devices being used and the conversion ratio. Facebook usage by customers gives us indication on social life and attributes. Quantcast is a tool that adds on to the work done by Google by providing predictive analytics on expected outcomes. It takes care of demographics, cross-platform behaviour, shopping interests and political affiliation. The Trade Desk and User-Report are similarly two other free information sources which must be garnered.
Source:http://marketingland.com/understand-customer-free-162483
Embracing the Customer Experience in Marketing
The major reason why customers flock to big corporations is the consistency they provide irrespective of geographic location or demographic segmentation. The modern customer wants personalized content and that is something that reluctantly these large firms are now integrating into their process. Business analytics captures specific information about individual buyers and that data can be used to conduct targeted marketing for specific person or segment. Usually the kind of information that marketers display is of the positive kind about their product. While this is natural, if exhaustive information is not provided the customer may move on citing lack of authenticity. This is especially true for services such as room rentals or holiday packages. On the other end of the spectrum, there are products such as chocolates which will not require such extensive research on the part of the customer so less but vital information needs to be provided.
Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2015/12/22/embracing-the-customer-experience-in-marketing/
Want to be successful with Content Marketing? Teach, don’t Sell
A number of organizations are gaining credibility as well as business share thanks to content marketing efforts. The marketing part of the content however must be extremely subtle as people do not want to be told what to buy, but instead want to be informed. Thus the “teach, don’t sell” principle works perfectly well with content marketing. Unfortunately, business analysis produced in the State of Small Business Report claims that while nearly half of the respondent organizations use content marketing, a majority of those push information on sales, discounts or promotions. No CTA (Call-to-Action) button must be inserted with the content which asks readers to buy something. Genuinely generous intentions on informing the public will ways be appreciated by the market. It is also important to inform them about aspects which they want to know rather than force-feeding them stuff that the marketers want to broadcast.
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