Source: http://www.groundreport.com/role-technology-marketing-2016-beyond/

Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/facebook-inc-fb-wants-take-big-bite-out-googles-online-advertising-ecosystem-2375050 

The Cleveland Clinic has become one of the best visited health care destinations in the city leveraging the art of content marketing. For this, its founder Amanda Toporovich has used several techniques which have been shared. The content to be delivered must be planned before hand. Its strategizing involves a clear cut demarcation on who will run this and whether it needs to be specific or broader in content. Some blog posts do especially well for digital marketing and thus they are rehashed in newer formats with updated information. Experts must be used for specific content; in this case several physicians have contributed towards Cleveland Clinic. Blog or other content needs to be constantly tested on the market. Only then will be established the ideal character count, whether pictures work, what kind of pictures or segmentation of audience. Social media needs to be leveraged for constant engagement with the audience. Periodic reviews need to be held on matters of strategic importance such as quantity of traffic, contributions of individual pieces and standout moments on social media.

Source: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/07/cleveland-clinic-visited-destinations/

Business consulting giant Bain says that customers spend between twenty and forty percent more on companies that provide good end to end service on social media. These are the companies that fruitfully engage with customers over the same. However, few companies realize that social media gives multiple benefits and thus must be handled jointly by marketing, sales and product support teams. Ion most companies marketers solely handle this stream as it is believed to be a part of digital marketing. Yet these same marketers often fail when customers post servicing related queries as they may not understand the intricacies of all products. Thus other departments must be empowered to handle social media as this will lead to greater business values. Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2016/07/26/how-to-move-to-cross-functional-social-media-for-higher-customer-satisfaction/#62601b7b4d9c

Content has been identified as one of the top tools to master digital marketing. Some startups have used this technique to the hilt, leveraging the same to gain business value. First of them is Game Theory which is a YouTube channel. The founder of this channel uses business analytics to study video games and analyze them in detail for viewers. Then there is Lead Pages which helps build custom landing pages for brands. Its blog and newsletter are highly informative. Sumome uses influential case studies to drag users to web pages. Glossier is an online retailer for beauty products but its blog is so informative that its founder has been able to create a separate business out of that itself. Fuse is sort of a closed social media between designers and developers to create apps and websites. It provides great information on industry best practices from various sources. Thus audience engagement is where content marketing really works well at.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279122

The likes of Airbnb, Etsy and Uber have disrupted their respective industries through their far reaching business innovations. Yet even they once struggled to get their first set of a thousand customers. Only a multi pronged strategy worked to get this undergoing. Also the chicken-egg problem persisted as these companies were confused whether to first go all out marketing and get customers or to first get their house in order by having top class service. They chose the second option. And, they started thinking like a customer. This brought Airbnb to Craigslist’s list of property owners who were now targeted to advertise for lending their rooms for holidays. This gave them the database, but now the problem of aesthetics arose as most house owners clicked sub-par pictures good enough for the rental business but nor for tourism purpose. Thus professional photographers were now hired. The next challenge that arose was scaling up. Proper business research was done by team Uber to deduce that in which cities the existing cab services were not delivering adequate value. These cities were targeted and similar analysis was conducted by Airbnb and Etsy. These companies took advantages of situations and conditions fertile for such a new player to emerge. Eventually from the first thousand, they rose to a million users within a matter of a few years.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2016/07/13/how-uber-airbnb-and-etsy-attracted-their-first-1000-customers/#656040732851

Ten types of customers have been identified along with ways of winning them over. The first type is the pioneer. They are early adopters and trend setters. Digital marketing works perfectly with them as they can be posted on latest developments using social media. In order to engage with the next set, the practical purchasers, it is essential to have an online shopping portal that loads quickly and has a user friendly payment gateway. There are social media addicts who need to be constantly engaged with using games and contests on platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. Then there is the researcher type which analyzes each offering thoroughly and compares before making any purchase decision. Such people must be engages using detailed FAQs, how-to-videos and images must focus on product attributes in detail. For smartphone addicts, it is necessary to have a mobile friendly website. Business analysis conducted by Google has confirmed that more than forty percent of in-store visitors check for information online. There are wish-list-ers who keep making plans but end up delaying and instead prepare bucket lists. Pinterest is where most of these are posted and that is where marketers must nudge them for the final decision to be taken in their favour. There are discerning shoppers who compare thoroughly rivals for each purchase and for such people loyalty schemes work very well. Bargain hunters forever look for good deals and for such offers must be run each time competitors do. The must be promoted on social media and ecommerce sites. Cautious consumers wish to buy but are not sure of the brand’s credibility. Payment security commitments are very much needed to convince them. Finally, there is the online butterfly who keep moving from one platform to another, often forgetting the very purpose of these visits. An optimized SEO can help catch them before they decide to abandon their online baskets.  

Source: http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/marketing-strategy/retail/ten-customer-types-and-how-to-win-them-over