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Digital Marketing 11
Does Your Marketing Strategy Enable Customers to Have an Experience?
The fast changing technology which allows us to be connected perpetually with our “social” world through mobile is completely changing the way in which we behave and how we live our life. This has serious implications for organizations including its marketers and leaders.Now the marketing communication cycle cannot be seen as a hierarchy of steps in sequence. Today, technology enables the consumer to take couple of steps like awareness, interest and evaluation almost simultaneously and even move through the cycle towards trial at unimaginable speed. Word-of-mouth is now instantaneous with a just a click on “thumbs down” button. It now important to understand the speed with which a consumer now wants to try your product and be ready for it at every point of interaction with the customer.Trial has become important for consumers. If they cannot physically try, they expect to be able to experience value themselves before making a decision. This is true for not only start-ups but also for established products. Perception is overshadowing reality. Our corporate strategy needs to enhance belief by delivering experience value at every consumer interaction point by bringing the physical and digital worlds together for customer engagement and satisfaction.
The 10 best Digital Marketing Stats we’ve seen this Week
Extremely interesting digital marketing statistical figures have been assembled. On e-commerce websites, cart abandonment rates have risen to a high of over 76%. Half the e-commerce websites’ problems have as yet remained unidentified. The UK in particular has ramped up efforts with record spends on advertisements in the first half of 2015. John Lewis retail’s mobile traffic share has increased by 60%. Around three-fifths of marketers are active on social media channels, yet those at board level usually aren’t. Just 3% of news feed of Facebook is sponsored. Microsoft meanwhile remains the top brand across social media platforms. Within the health and beauty retail segment, it is Beauty-Bay that leads the pecking order. Around four-fifths of consumers are seeking increased customization. The searches for Aston Martin have increased on e-Bay by more than a third within just a week.
What Customers Want from Social Commerce
The future of social commerce,that is, buying and selling on different social media platforms is more than just promising. With numerous available tools, brands can convert their social media presence into an effective sales channel or a mall. However, customers would need a reason to get involved in social commerce.
For those brands which want to take advantage of social commerce, Jay Chang briefly discusses the major players including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest as well as how they work.
Social commerce consumers want an authentic experience, that is, “soft sell” and “engagement” as compared to “hard sell” and “sales pitch.” Use of user-generated content is recommended because people trust other people. Also, customers want shopping to be hassle-free, that is, a simple transaction process. Social commerce has potential to save time and effort of consumers by eliminating the frustrating internet search process. Lastly, brands need to make differentiated promotions to motivate buyers to buy on social media.
Every social network and every brand is different. What works for one may not work for another. So experiment, review and change your selling and marketing strategy and tactics continuously
10 Ways to Turn Online Marketing Into In-Store Sales
New research suggests that the best method to enhance your in-store sales is to improve your online messaging. Actionable shopper-specific content based on the overall marketing strategy delivered using technology is key to increasing in-store sales. Apart from messages that build brand awareness, targeted and personalized messaging which is personal, local and contextually meaningful will be required to push up in-store sales. Local means more than just location and includes who, what and when. For instance, it may help to get the consumer inside the in-store to purchase when he is near the in-store with a actionable shopper-specific message. Another critical action required is that different teams working mobile, web, e-commerce and social media marketing should be working under a unified marketing strategy in a coordinated manner instead of in silos. This is because customers want and should logically be approached with the same actionable shopper-specific message at each touch point. According to Chad Brooks, if you want to establish an effective digital marketing strategy so as to increase in-store sales, all you have to do is read and follow the 10 steps that he discusses in this article.
A Deep Dive into Marketing Technology: Which Tools Should Manufacturers Use
Every year, as part of its budgeting process, every company has to decide it’s budget for sales and marketing including what marketing tools and technologies to invest in especially for manufacturers. It is important that the marketing tools and technologies acquired by the manufacturers do not end up wasting budget by complicating the technology strategy of the company with different platforms, disconnected data and toolsets. Also, one needs to make sure it fits with the technology selected under the corporate strategy.
Jenni makes a great effort to assist manufacturing marketers to navigate through the complicated world of available marketing technologies which have the ability to be plugged into the existing CRM or ERP system of the company. Here she discusses marketing automation platforms like Marketo and Pardot, Google Analytics, AdRoll- the paid advertising tool, Call tracking technology system of Marchex and DialogTech, Crazy Egg- the conversion rate optimization tool and Tableau- the reporting tool. So before you decide on which marketing tools and technologies to invest in, you may save time and money by considering Jenni’s recommendations.
The Top 7 Online Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2016
The online marketing industry not only complicated, global and volatile, but is fast changing and exciting. Keeping up with the latest trends or adopting them is not only expensive but also not easy. Early adopters can be a step ahead of the competition while laggards can miss out on the available highly profitable opportunities.
Jayson feels that 2016 will be an exciting year for online and digital marketing based on the seven trends that he discusses in the article. He predicts that Video ads will offer limitless opportunitiesbecause now Google owns YouTube and has also decided to adopt thein-SERP video advertising . Also, dedicated apps business will grow exponentially and mobiles, as expected, will continue to dominate over desktops as already mobile traffic as overtaken desktop traffic in ten countries. Other trends like increasing use of digital assistants, virtual reality, wearable “smart” devices and technology and Internet of things are gaining traction and need to watched and tracked. Just read this interesting article for more details about these trends of 2016.
Twitter makes a pitch to be the ‘world’s ‘Biggest Social Marketplace’
An interesting development in the ecommerce world. After testing a Buy button on its platform for nearly a year, Twitter is aiming to become the “world’s biggest social marketplace” by permitting Best Buy Co., adidas AG and Pacific Sunwear of California and other US retailers to sell through it’s “Buy Now” button. This opens up tremendous opportunities for retailers to easily sell through Twitter’s platform especially smart phone users as now there would be no need for shoppers to click on retailer’s site. Twitter has been making steady moves to become a significant player in the ecommerce business. For instance, it allowed it customers to browse and shop for goods without exiting the Twitter. Similarly, othersocial networks like Pinterest and Facebook are also showing keen interest in adding e-commerce facilities on their platforms like the “Buy it” buttons. Competition is heating up to make social networks into effective marketing platforms. Find out how you can take advantage of this marketing opportunity and include selling through social network part of yourmarketing strategy.
Digital Skills A Priority for all Employees, Not Just Millennials
One always hears employers complaining that the incoming new employees do not have necessary skills including digital skills while older employees are not willing to learn new skills. Karen’s article discusses the findings of a study which basically rubbishes the claims of the employer on both counts.
The study reveals that acquiring digital skills is a priority for all employees and they not only understand its importance for their career but also understand its benefits to the organization they work for. One of the three surprising findings of the study was that older employees also actively enhance their technical digital skills and contribute to digitally transforming the workplace. The other that the barriers to effectively using the digital skills of employees were primarily management related. The most surprising of all, that younger employees thought that the senior management lacked understanding of business technology.
The study suggests that organization should bring the multi-generational workforce together to remove the perception that there is a disconnect between the younger employees and senior management. A excellent read for ideas on talent management.
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11 Ways to drive sales with Content Marketing
Content marketing has emerged as a very powerful tool to drive sales. Certain techniques have been identified by an online management consulting publication which can help out in this matter. The first of them is to experiment with niche ads. Testimonials must be included in advertising campaigns. Successful posts must further be expanded onto. Businesses in order to grow can interchange content with one another. Modern marketing has also tried to bridge its gap with sales by being more holistic in approach. Industry experts may also be leveraged for driving direct sales. Live chat is another powerful tool that has emerged in recent years. Lost leads must be retargeted and not be given up easily. Follow up however must be strong and with conviction about the product. Email remains among the most effective ways to conduct digital marketing. CTAs or Calls To Action is another thing that must be liberally applied.
The Destiny of Brand is in your Hand
The mobile phone has made such inroads to life that increasingly this is being perceived as the only means of internet usage for many. Smartphone connectivity has spiked and people are using them extensively to access the internet. To give an example, British singer Adele recently released a new song, which the next day after release had been viewed more than twenty seven million times. This is creating numerous opportunities to marketers who are now able to access vast quantities of data. Starbucks is one such organization which realized that people want minimal wastage of time and thus they created an app using which consumers could pre book their morning coffee at the nearest Starbucks store. Budweiser in Ireland gave an offer by which beer prices reduced on warmer days and in order to counter this, another beer brand Murphy’s used the medium of digital marketing to advertise their free beers on rainy days. Mobile brand advertising is set for a period of robust growth.
5 Key Challenges every Marketer faces Today
Marketers face certain challenges that are unique to present conditions. One of them is how to target content at a time when attention spans are getting shorter, and all are promising certain solutions. Also with too many players in every industry, there is the challenge of product differentiation. A number of players are playing the price war, and this provides others a challenge to convince customers to buy their products without providing discounts. Market research conducted by Gartner shows certain buzzwords which dominated the marketing world in the year 2015 such as – predictive analytics, growth hacking, responsive design, social media etc. The challenge for marketers is to steer clear of buzzwords and still delivering value without falling into the shiny object trap. Finally, it has been understood that purchase decisions are based around emotions and that is what marketers must fully comprehend to target content accordingly.
Age of the Customer & Social Selling
A number of firms have emerged as leaders on social media outlets such as Facebook and Instagram, promoting than brand more aggressively than ever before. However, these firms ought not to be exceptions, but rather the norm, as others must also tap into digital marketing techniques. This can even massively improve customer servicing. For example, airlines can prompt passengers regarding flight delays before they reach the airports. Or pharmaceutical firms can preempt customer needs by offering vaccines before diseases reach epidemic levels. These trends can be easily tracked on social media. In fact market research conducted by CEB, tells us that around 57% of pre-purchase study is conducted by customer before meeting the first salesperson. It is at that stage of the buying process that marketers must find a place. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 is one such tool launched to keep track of all social media updates helpful for the firm’s business analysis. Sales professionals need to be able to match customers’ involvement with social media.
9 Tools Marketers need to help accurately measure Digital ROI
Some tools have been identified which practitioners of digital marketing must make use of to best be able to measure the ROI of their work. For web analytics, Google Universal Analytics and Adobe Analytics have been found to be the best. Bid management platforms such as Kenshoo and DoubleClick help increase effective investments in search marketing operations. Salesforce.com and Base CRM have been identified as being the best in the business of CRM delivery. DialogTech enables call attribution. Marketing automation is essential and HubSpot is the leader in this act. KnowledgeTree enables best predictive intelligence. Social media marketing meanwhile can best be performed by Hootsuite and Sprout Social. Google provides an in-house tool to conduct A/B Testing. Finally, the most crucial business intelligence can best be served by a tool named Tableau.
The best Social Media Analytics Tools of 2015
A number of SMBs are struggling hard to cope with ways to maximize benefits out of social media while at the same time working on digital marketing. Thus some of the best tools in various applications have been identified. As social conversations’ listening tools, ideal platforms are Hootsuite Pro and Sprout Social Premium. They even provide us business analysis on trending sentiments. Mention is the ideal tool to gauge influencers. Search analytics tools use Boolean algebra consisting of characters AND, OR & NOT. LinkedIn Boolean Search Primer and Brandwatch Analytics Pro are best identified for this work. Each of these tools mentioned provide certain advantages and they must be used within the market learning curve as and when deemed appropriate.
8 New(ish) Digital Marketing terms to Know
While digital marketing is so much entrenched into the minds of modern marketers, there still remain some terms which are relatively unheard of. There is cross-channel marketing which enables branding across multiple social platforms. Then there is employee advocacy which is a concept where employees of the organization use their own Facebook or Twitter links to publicize their organization’s achievements. Micro-moments is a term coined by Google which refers to real time incidents which trigger a sudden impulse to check for updates on social media or search on the web further news on the respective event. Something related is real-time marketing which pushes content at the right time when people are hooked towards a particular piece of news or event. Personalization is the concept of customizing content for individual users, usually belonging to niche segment. The process of following up with leads already engaged with is called remarketing. Cookies enable websites to tag users, and those users are more specifically targeted after business intelligence is extracted on them. This concept is known as retargeting. Finally there exists the concept of social intelligence where social media conversations are tracked using massive chunks of data and this is processed to analyze top brands and pain points.
7 Skills a CMO needs in the Digital Marketing Era
The CMO’s job profile has undergone a world of change in the era of digital marketing. There are seven skills that one must possess at that level. The CMO must be able to do agile management. He / she must be comfortable with big data and business intelligence thus derived. Branded content must be gauged for sentiment, awareness and SEO. The person must be able to generate and further implement business innovations when needed. Programmatic buying is something that must be integrated with the digital as well as conventional marketing plans. The CMO must be able to handle the marketing agencies and juggle the fields such as PR, advertising and email marketing. Finally, the person must be able to understand the customer journeys and buyer personas.
5 Digital Marketing Superstars share secrets for Brand Success
Digital marketingexperts spoke about brand success secrets at a conference recently in San Francisco. Jessica Sweeney of 1000watt spoke about integrity and how the customer must be made to care. She also spoke about how the company must be clear about its focus areas and be precise in the pitch. Finally she said the campaign must be more focused towards the client and not the vendor. Management consulting guru Katie Lance advised us all to keep handy an editorial calendar as time needs to be kept aside for planning. She then went to comment that the right person armed with the right content must be recruited for the position. The Paperless Agent’s Chris Scott spoke about how there must be clarity during corporate strategy formulation. The campaign must be tested before launching and no opportunities must be missed. Audie Chamberlain of Lion & Orb focuses on using the right PR technique to get the message across. Seth Price concluded this event by suggesting that the age old technique of focusing on keywords remains sacrosanct.
How Unilever became a Pioneer in Social Analytics
Unilever VP- Global Marketing & Analytics, Mr. Shawn O’Neal has described how his organization is leveraging Twitter in order to maximize marketing gains post thorough business analysis. Just as a sample, the ice cream brand Ben and Jerry’s was put to the test and using social media analytics it was understood that the same sold best on Saturdays. But for this to happen, Twitter conversations mentioning the brand were critical on Thursdays and Fridays just prior. People Data Centres (PDCs) have been established to track tweets. Because of the vast amount of data generated, it is best if the established PDCs do the work rather than the main company itself as this is not core functional area.
Why making Inbound Sales should be part of your 2016 Strategy
Story-Teller is a digital marketing agency which has tied up with Hub-Spot to provide inbound strategy to various clients. Social media has revolutionized the market in such a way that inbound leads’ conversion rates are much better than other forms. Sales deals close quicker and staff turnover is reduced as this involves less of activities such as cold calling. The quality of traffic generated is of higher level and the buyers usually get the sense of being helped rather than being sold to.
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How to improve the ROI of your Content Marketing
Business research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute has identified best ways to improve the ROI on its field of specialization. First of all the entire strategy must be put in writing. This will include the target audience as well as key metrics to be tracked. Each piece of content must have attached a Call to Action (CTA). The content to be marketed must align well with the company’s brand image. Costs must be minimized in any case by initially keeping focus towards the basics. The digital marketing efforts must be targeted using social media platforms best suited between options such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Google Plus. The data analytics which will be generated will give the marketers an idea on products or services that are working best. Depending on such analysis, efforts must be made to maintain leadership positions in categories firm is doing well. The content marketing team must meet up frequently to discuss matters. Also instead of creating new content each time, one can regurgitate successful ones at periodic intervals.
Social Media matters: 8 ways social media can help launch new Products
Social media has emerged as one of the strongest tools to generate effective digital marketing. A study just concluded has earmarked some ways in which the same can aid the launch of new products. Clues must be released from time to time using video based teasers. Live video streaming must be employed especially as they draw out eyeballs on Periscope or Facebook. Time bound offers must be released on Snapchat to establish connect with younger users. Brand advocates must be identified across the social media landscape as such people can become genuine cheerleaders for the brand. To do this social media can also be used to establish connect with influential bloggers. Their followers can be reached out then. All key social media pages or handles across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn etc. must mention exact product launch dates. A specific hasthtag must be created specifically for the launch event. And finally all this effort at reaching out to potential customers over social media must not be a one off for the launch, but must instead translate to long term benefits by crowd sourcing the idea for the next thing to be developed by the organization.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2016/04/08/social-media-matters-8-ways-social-media-can-help.html
How B2B Marketers can get started with Social Media
Social media is usually considered to be a potent tool for marketers dealing with the B2C segment. However, studies have uncovered the truth that it even does well with B2B sales. The study conducted by McKinsey points out that social media is an ideal tool for companies to uncover business intelligence on competitors. When social media chats are tracked, it is clearly understood that organizations ‘talk’ about brands. Also peer and user reviews are so commonplace on social media, that positive vibe is always created for firms one way or the other. International container shipping giant Maersk Line is one such industrial player that has made great use of social media to channel digital marketing. They are using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Learning from Maersk, the correct audience needs to be identified and connected with. Direct sales pitch must never be adopted. Also social media marketing can best communicate to the wider audience regarding the concerns and objectives of the firm. And analytics must be made appropriate use of.
Firms moving to integrate Social Media Marketing
A CMO Survey was conducted by Duke University according to which firms are increasingly looking at integrating their digital marketing operations with the mainstream one. Social media currently occupies just a tenth of the marketing pie, but is expected to soar to around a fourth over the next four years. Majority of marketers rated their organizations at 4.2 on a scale of 7 for social media marketing preparedness. However, only a sixth confirmed that they will be able to give exact quantitative correlation between advertising spend and returns on digital side. Mobile advertising is another field where budgets are expected to more than double in just the next three years. Crucially the percentage of marketing spend on gathering of data and business analytics of the same is expected to increase by another two-thirds in three years.
Social Media works for B2B Sales, Too
Social media is proving to be an extremely useful tool for finalizing B2B sales. A studyorganized by Bain & Co. clearly demonstrates that customers are progressing in very different direction to sales processes. Instead digital marketing campaigns are providing better returns even though several organizations surveyed do not feel confident of their own capacities in the same. Thus one way to ensure this is to get associated with fellow businesses which in turn will cater to the final customers. Adobe had a similar evolution as it used to be lumped as simply a desktop publishing company. But post its acquisition of Omniture which is into business analytics, theperception has shifted towards being a content leader.
People based Marketing is key to humanizing the Consumer Experience
Till a few years back, a powerful weapon for marketers was the digital cookie. The cookie would track user patterns on the browser and would target advertisements accordingly. This worked well till the advent of smartphones which has meant that now most of us spread our digital footprint across various browsers across devices. Thus a more human centric approach is required. Market research conducted by eMarketer publication tells us that by the year 2018, nearly three-fourths of digital marketing sped will be on smartphones. The Facebook Atlas provides us with an alternative way of conducting the same. The Facebook ID is tracked and using that the person’s usage habits are tracked across devices and platforms. Customers must be urged to somehow inform marketers regarding preferences and choices.
The customer journey to online purchase- 10 predictions for 2016
With the online shopping footprint ever increasing, certain predictions have been made in this regard for the new year. Whether the journey lasts from awareness to final purchase will largely depend on emotional connect and not the price tag alone. Certain marketing channels will get found out and phased out by customers. Customer decisions will get fortified by influencers promoting certain brands over others. Advertisements will get more interactive to get better results from digital marketing campaigns. Social media will aid corporations in this regard. Time lag between choosing a product and its delivery will reduce due to emergence of pick-up option from stores. Sales teams will utilize business analytics to conduct locations tracking of potential customers using mobile phones and trigger action. Mobile phone searches will be driven by the three pillars of speed, trust and convenience. The sales decision online will however be dependent on the quality of smart phone visuals. Finally, the level and type of online purchase will depend on the learning styles of individuals namely whether they prefer visual, auditory or kinaesthetic modes.
10 Stunning Marketing Predictions for 2016
Marketers made certain predictions for their field before the start of 2015. Now with 2016 set to begin, certain predictions have been made for the upcoming year. User experience will get paramount importance as marketers will try to hook customers using samplers. Majority of top brands will adopt local customs to emerge winners in micro-markets. The proper use of business analytics will start co-relating to marketing efficiency. More number of markets and segments will get explored in upcoming times. Networking will continue to remain important and fruitful connections will be sought. For digital marketing, the smartphone will reign supreme replacing laptops and desktop computers. Corporate strategy will get influenced by digital assistants. Search engines such as Google will now provide instant social media content as well. Likewise, social SEO will further influence brand visibility. Finally, local search engines will expand to the extent that local sellers will be able to track customers and notify accordingly.
6 Ways Social Media can be a game-changer in 2016
Social media has proven to an integral cog for digital marketing in the year 2015. Going on to 2016, social media can actually prove to be a game changer in certain ways that have been identified. Videos will continue to rule the roost and more of that is needed across social media platforms. With increasing importance of the social media, cyber security will attain top importance to prevent leakage of data which would facilitate competitors’ business intelligence grasping abilities. Advertisements will now be powered by branded content. Customization for individual users will gain traction. Till now social media was more of a branding tool, but now it will actually start generating the final sales. Crucially the Internet of Things (IoT) will enable increased level of social intelligence allowing smart devices to extract further data and even analyze on its own market trends.
Values of Traditional Marketing that Digital should not Ignore
Marketing remains the proverbial backbone of businesses. In spite of the new found popularity of digital marketing, traditional methods need to be equally respected and learnt from. Traditional methods laid the foundation for the modern growth story. The methods sought to achieve consistency across its branding towards customers. While certain markets are ideal for digital methods, other demographics are better suited to the traditional approach. In this way separate business channels may be aligned towards common company goal. Quality must never be left to deteriorate. Business innovation must never be carried for the sake of it, instead one musts tick towards what the brand really stands for. A perfect example would be Coca Cola’s innovation with the drink which left customers frustrated and seeking the old taste they were habituated with. The original product created a lasting impact, which is what marketing approaches ultimately must aim at.
Digital Marketing 8
What the hell is the difference between Ad Tech and Marketing Tech?
The difference or the lack of between ad tech and mark tech has never been clear cut. Business consulting provided by a senior Gartner representative has outlined that ad tech focuses on the entire market without differentiating while mark tech is targeted at segmented audience. This definition though has some irregularities caused mainly by the fact that a lot of advertising technology firms were gobbled up by IT giants such as Adobe and Oracle to create aligned marketing solutions services. The use of ad tech applications then ran into mark tech territory and this created major overlap between the two. The ownership of data is another important aspect. The same piece of data can have different uses under the leadership of CTOs, CMOs or CIOs depending on their respective approaches. Thus at present these two fields have converged and the differences are still unclear.
Digital Customer Service is becoming a fully realized Marketing Channel
Customer servicing has historically been a reactive process. The customer approaches the service representatives about the problem which is then addressed by the executives. Now marketing technologies are providing us with data warehousing capabilities which can store enormous amounts of data on customers thus enabling marketers to predict their exact needs. In depth customer knowledge using analytics has now become a critical component of the CRM process. Various marketing channels such as emails, mobile apps, social media and websites facilitate the capture of this vital data. This also allows personalized services to be offered to customers.
The Numbers tell all: The future of e-commerce Marketing is visual, user-generated Content
In the upcoming future, marketing of e-commerce will be generated by visuals and user generated content (UGC). Social media has managed to encourage individual users to get themselves photographed next to experiences they value and share with the wide world. Instagram and Facebook have lent themselves perfectly well to this model. Due to lowered barriers to entry, everyone is today a critic and posting blogs, comments and videos. Marketing research conducted by Forrester, clearly shows that less than a tenth of respondents consider direct ads from companies or banners to be authentic. However, 70% of that same audience considers peer recommendations very highly. Online reviews by other customers are also trusted by about half the market. This trend is giving credence to UGC’s rise as a serious means of marketing.
1 in 4 Consumers open to making purchases via Social Media
It has long been understood that social media forms an important cog in digital marketing. However, now these channels have moved beyond the awareness and brand building part to direct final sales. Facebook has experimented with certain businesses on financial transactions directly via its Messenger app. More than one out of every four respondents in a recent survey confirmed that they are open to making payments via social media channels. So while a larger number of users are currently active in engaging with retailers, the buy button on Facebook is set to transform the industry itself.
Why distinctive Customer Targeting is a smart Strategy
A one-size-fits-all corporate strategy for business may have worked in the past but now is the era of personalized targeting. When former basketball great Magic Johnson was once opening TGIF and Starbucks stores in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, he deviated from norms and innovated based on neighbourhood segmentation. Specialty wines got introduced at some stores for chains unheard of before. Amazon Web Services survived business challenges from industry giants such as Oracle, Google, IBM and Microsoft only because it had found its niche marker. Ford is one of the pioneering organizations for this concept of finding a space for oneself. Starbucks has faced several challenges over the years, not least when fast food chains started exposing its high coffee prices. But Starbucks went back to its core product and emerged stronger from the financial crisis of 2008.
How Internet of Things will change Digital Marketing
The Internet of Things (IoT) is already impacting several business processes across industries but it is set to alter digital marketing in a big way. IoT will enable respective products to move away from being a platform only to actually being able to conduct two-way interactions. A direct communication will be built between customers, sellers and vendors. IoT also enables products to shift ecosystems and thus allowing isolated items to move towards data centres or apps where customer reach is highest. The entire gamut of products can now be personalized to provide service to the consumers. Brand interaction can now be automated without need for third parties.
How Social Media is shaping Financial Services
It is a well known aspect that social media is an integral part of modern day digital marketing efforts. What is less well known however is the fact that social media is also influencing financial services. Online peer to peer lenders such as Lending Club and Prosper are leveraging this tool to reach maximum audience. A study byAccenture has also confirmed that this helps in segmentation and real time marketing while also the acquisition costs reduce. Customer servicing gets a boost as well. Enormous amount of data is generated which fuels research into new product development. Overall costs reduce for marketers as well as final customers. And then this is also spawning several new business models. Some challenges though still exist in this mode. For one, banks remain mired in traditional ways of business. Regulations are still crippling efforts are making this process more inclusive. Social media giants themselves are leveraging their wide reach by entering banking and financial services themselves in process cutting out the traditional players.
How Social Media is going to change your Business Strategies
Social media has been increasingly wedded as a crucial cog in digital marketing efforts. It is now actually changing business strategies in remarkable ways. Due to social media giants such as Facebook, the market scope for individual organizations is global. Desired market can be filtered easily clicking a few buttons only. It enables improved user engagement. Social media also elicits creativity at workplace to get ahead of competitors. Interestingly even competitors can be known of better as they too would have launched social media campaigns that are open for all to view unlike traditional marketing models. Social media creates a sense of convergence where brand appears everywhere increasing awareness among target audience. The right social media strategy can boost business margins eventually realizing substantial revenues.
There’s no Customer Experience without Customer Engagement
Customer experience, engagement and management have been found to be working in triangular formations. The abbreviations CEX, CEM and CRM are incomplete without one another in the present context. Data based business analytics is used by organizations for decision making purposes. Click behaviour of individual users is measured over years. Loyalty programmes are similarly pitched. Social media tools are also geared to gauge this usage pattern. Even GPS is used to enable location tracking that helps retail chains. Predictive algorithm is being increasingly used by organizations. However, all of this is still at relative stage of infancy. This is due to several reasons, one of them being the fear of loss of privacy. Also there aren’t enough sensors around. Crucially while organizations tend to possess treasure troves of data, they aren’t yet aware in which all ways the same may be used. Customer engagement is a continuous process aided by a series of steps. It requires the coordinated integration of various touch points.
Emotional Connection in the Digital Age: How Brands can act Human
In this day and age of digital marketing, brands can leverage online social networks with a more human touch. Companies or brands can be befriended or liked online by the clicking of a single button. Brands then share the same space as authentic friends whose actions and pictures we may like from time to time. Thus brands are occupying a very emotional space and it is thus that it becomes imperative that they display the warmth of human friends. Using Twitter for example, friends can communicate over 140 odd characters even though we may not actually meet that friend for months. It is this gap that brands can bridge by fulfilling such emotional needs of people. Too much exposure though is not desired as it may backfire. This is because social media platforms also become tools for human envy to develop from and this needs to be avoided.
The 4 As of Marketing: What every Marketing leader should Know
A studyconducted has provided us with 4 As which marketers must know of. The first one is Accountability. Just as customers demand transparency from the firm, the organization would expect internal accountability from the marketing team. Then there is Agility which dictates that marketers must be able to seamlessly move between brands, marketing channels and approaches. The marketing objectives must Align with the long term corporate strategy of the organization. Finally there is the Acumen part which involved proficiency in the various marketing strategies of the present times. The marketer must be able to gauge customer insights, evaluate all kinds of analytics, manage customer data and Plan for innovations.
Customer Loyalty in the Digital Age
In earlier times, there were fewer brands and resulting fewer choices for the customers. Thus customers choose the same product repeatedly and this inertia has often been mistaken for loyalty. Presently, there exist plethora of options and customers aren’t sure which one to ignore thus creating a different conundrum. Thus to engage customers, top brands such as Apple, Starbucks, Zara and Forever 21 launch new products much before anticipated time. Starbucks for example allows customers to pre-order before collecting their coffee from the nearest store. Amazon has now moved to bricks-and-mortar store in order to capitalize on their immense digital marketing presence through online stores. Online retailers have realized the importance of physical stores and the overall shopping experience.
Out with the old Email Marketing and in with the new Marketing Automation
The traditional email as a means of digital marketing is not longer clicking. Instead marketing automation is what is giving good results these days. This entails personal engagement and content customization as per needs of present day customers. Automation also enables the entire communications by the firm to be integrated using tools such as Hootsuite or Salesforce. Though the number of leads generated is fewer, they are superior in quality than that thrown up using the older method of mass emailing. Automation even allows marketers to track revenue using data enabled business analytics.
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2016- The year of connected Customer
The connected customer is very much going to dictate terms with marketers in 2016. Certain transformational ideas business must consider to leverage this trend. Marketing research conducted by Forrester has pointed out that self customer service is now more popular than all other such forms including phone. Thus customer service agencies must consider such methods in-fitted with video based instructions. Instead of large corporations, majority of customer facing mobile apps will be developed by individual developers. Marketers will increasingly invest in e-commerce platforms. IT firms will get more aligned with business needs by developing capabilities in cloud computing, social analytics and Big Data. HR departments must encourage employees to improve health and engagement by using wearable technologies. Chief Marketing officers will invest more in automation by developing buyer personas and buyer process maps. CEOs on the other hand will focus more on innovations. Finally, data driven sales organizations will do better than others in the market.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vala-afshar/2016-the-year-of-connecte_b_8833496.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in
The Missing link in Marketing Technology
There seems to be a plethora of software tools to help professionals with sales, manufacturing, finance, engineering and customer support yet almost none for marketing. Even the handful of tools that are available are mainly targeted at advertising. This is what makes the job of the CMO really challenging and as a result usually short lived. Marketers are instead using business analytics to measure click-through-rates and recording customer views using traditional spreadsheets. For this a marketing mix has been developed to yield best results over digital media. It follows the chain of ideas then work resulting in results. There is this need to develop marketing technology which can store memory or customer data, sales and trends. http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelyork/2015/12/01/the-missing-link-in-marketing-technology/
16 Thought provoking Digital Marketing Stats
Some truly compelling statistics on digital marketing have been found that are quite thought provoking. As per survey conducted, 98% of respondents feel that leaders must possess digital skills but very few are actually good at it. Surprisingly SMS delivers six to eight times greater level of audience engagement than does email. Over the Christmas weekend, searches via mobile phones increase by a whopping 500%. This in spite of half the shoppers in UK feeling fearful of getting ripped off during the Christmas period. This was also a period when searches on eBay rose by 50%. Unfortunately for some of the stand alone retailers, their stores get overlooked during this festive season. Several companies’ websites though have bombed due to their under-preparedness to handle such large traffic on Fridays. Business intelligence gathered by Capgemini confirms that sales finalized using smartphones has increased exponentially recently. A negative trend of retailers though is the failure to allow smooth checkouts. Also more than two-fifths of shoppers in the UK are using their mobile phones to find beast deals while present at the concerned store. Instagram has been found out to be the most engaging social media for the B2C segment. In terms of user experience though, it is non-profit firms that are lagging behind.
Source: https://econsultancy.com/blog/67352-16-thought-provoking-digital-marketing-stats-from-the-past-week/
16 Marketing Goals for your Business in 2016
An online publication has provided is a list of marketing goals that must be targeted for this year. There must be an increased focus on the quality of content not its quantity. A content marketing plan must be well in place. This content must be dispersed in innovative patterns. While Facebook has to be the anchor social media, others such as Pinterest or Twitter have also proven to be ideal channels for digital marketing initiatives. Beyond online modes, companies must renew their efforts at face-to-face sales pitches. It is also important for organizations to find strategic partners who share a similar philosophy. Goals set must be realistic to align with trends. Some firms have even started doling out freebies since it attracts attention but also lets potential customers sample the products on offer. Organizations must themselves execute only such activities that they are really good at, while outsourcing the non-core business operations. Marketers must be proactive to seize opportunities but also be prepared to face unforeseen challenges. Business innovations must be experimented with periodically. It is important to find right mentors in the industry but one can start by being a mentor towards some others as well. Data must be utilized to track market movements. Most importantly, marketers must have fun as there is no point without the element of enjoyment.
The Social Media spend- impact Disconnect
There seems to be a disconnect between the investment on social media by businesses and its impact. Certain factors are responsible for this divide. A large number of organizations are guilty of not aligning their social media campaigns across various channels. This generates a disjointed digital marketing footprint. This also reflects the lack of clear goals regarding social media. Customer use of social media needs to be better captured using relevant data. Only about a tenth of respondents on marketing research anchored by CMO confirmed they were satisfied by the marketing impact of social media. A set of marketers are not leveraging the potential of their business partners or outsiders to brand their products on social media. Marketing leaders need to possess cross-functional abilities in order to best leverage platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. Also as social media is a relatively new phenomena, number of marketers are struggling to develop competencies for the same. Similarly a lot of marketers struggle to attune the social media marketing with the financial side of the organization, using the platforms for only branding where final sales must also eventually generate.
Keeping Customer Experience simple in the Digital Age
There is so much talk regarding digitization in business, yet the customer experience needs to be kept simple. Digital technologies must seamlessly merge with daily chores. Business intelligence gathered by Salesforce points out two important trends which are creating a balance between the physical and digital spaces. The first one was the integration of mobile phones in the buyer journey. Then there is the increased use of CRM. Wearables are also adding to the list of technologies making lives easier. This way technologies as well as its vendors remain agile and adaptable to circumstances.
10 Marketing Strategies your Company needs in 2016
The highly respected Forbes publication has detailed a list of tactics every firm must add to its marketing campaigns this year. Several companies these days are good with attracting viewers to their website but fail to convert due to lack of relevant content on the site itself. Increased usage of data backed business analytics needs to be done. Such analytics will also enable real time marketing where promotions are pushed at the right time to the concerned audience using such metrics from captured data. Customer experience needs to be paid top priority on. Videos are amongst the best ways to catch young audiences and they must be made liberal use of. Buyer personas need to be tagged and segmented targeting needs to executed accordingly. Instead of going all out individually, it will always be beneficial to attach the firm’s social media pages with others groups so that influence based marketing can take place automatically. In current circumstances the mobile phone remains among most potent sales cum branding tools and thus no digital marketing will be complete without a mobile friendly interface in addition to the web. Content must also be well dispersed to the maximum population using a combination of paid and organic methods. A number of firms these days are guilty of working relentlessly yet without proper direction. This needs to be rectified using proper thought leadership from the very top.
Keeping Customer Experience simple in the Digital Age
There is so much talk regarding digitization in business, yet the customer experience needs to be kept simple. Digital technologies must seamlessly merge with daily chores. Business intelligence gathered by Salesforce points out two important trends which are creating a balance between the physical and digital spaces. The first one was the integration of mobile phones in the buyer journey. Then there is the increased use of CRM. Wearables are also adding to the list of technologies making lives easier. This way technologies as well as its vendors remain agile and adaptable to circumstances.
Effective Marketing teams use one rule on Facebook
Big or small firms, all are active these days on Facebook. It has been proven to be the most effective as well as efficient method of conducting digital marketing. However, many players are unable to crack the code of how to really excel at marketing via Facebook. One firm that has succeeded is UK based Lancaster Insurance that provides insurance to vintage cars. The entire Facebook page is full of classic pictures of such cars that instantly attracts the niche audience. Similarly Nike has a page that that showcases all engineering and product test designs. March of Dimes caters to health of babies and their deep knowledge as well as sense of care reflects from the company Facebook page.
4 Technological advances taking Ecommerce to the next Level
Certain technologies are powering the growth of ecommerce. Online transactions in the USA have risen from a mere 2.8% of the total volume in 2006 to 7% presently. Innovative retailers are now aligning their online and in-person strategies in such a way that customers get sense of brand convergence. The mobile phone is progressively being targeted more using features such as geo-fencing which enables location tracking. Specific geography based notifications can then be pushed to the potential customers. Instead of small retailers marketing individually, platforms such as ‘Garmentory’ let boutiques display their wares at one place. Several customers are worried about cyber security and that is where Blockchain technology is so useful as it is the most powerful tool to secure information. This has helped spike rise in online payments. Retailers are now considering holistic customer experience across the chain. Sustainability is the buzzword. Technology is enabling vast data warehousing operations to take place where information gets tracked before analysis can take place.
It’s time to Digitize your Marketing
Conventional marketing is getting exposed for being extremely costly and difficult to measure its effectiveness. The method of gauging business intelligence using customer insights is a painfully long process. Digitizing the marketing process on the other hands provides instant real time analysis of marketing spend vis-à-vis its returns. This has even led to cost reduction over marketing fairs and promotional events. Marketing research conducted by Nielsen has confirmed that 59% of such forums fail to break-even these days as vendors are turning away from them. Digitization affords firms to quickly respond to market demands. Data driven marketing is increasingly being used by competitive organizations according to a study by the Winterberry Group.
Getting a sharper picture of Social Media’s Influence
A study was commissioned to understand the influence social media exerts on buying decisions of prospective customers. This study is likely to help digital marketing agencies to better position their efforts over platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. More than a quarter of respondents across Europe confirmed that they are likely to be influenced strongly on their purchase decision by social media. However this figure varied per product category. The percentage was barely 15% for utilities but around 40% for travel. What was also understood is that social media itself is less powerful unless backed by strong influencers. Most successful marketers though needed a mix of digital and traditional modes of marketing to reach the final customer. Offline recommendations still exert substantial influence on prospects.
How to Transform your Website into a Marketing Powerhouse for a Mobile World
A study has been concluded on how best a company website can be leveraged as a marketing hub for mobile based business environment. A genuine strategy must be developed for how the website must be used including specific actions to achieve objectives, audiences to be targeted, implementation schedule and maintenance plans. The website must be designed in a way that it is receptive to customer insights from which responses may be directed accordingly. Content is key, so the customer must get valuable and timely matter. The approach will not succeed unless the plans are scalable and abide by budgeted actions. Business analytics must be leveraged to get relevant data from which appropriate action may be undertaken. Nowadays brands get massive amount of visibility on social media so the company website must be linked with specific pages on these platforms. Websites must always include CTAs (Call to Action) so that beyond relevant content, business conversion can also take place.
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.
Internet & Digital Marketing
18 Awesome tips to Revolutionize your Email Marketing Campaign
Emailing remains a critical component of digital marketing and thus needs to be executed with utmost care. Some steps have been recognized which are sure to lift the email marketing campaign. Marketers need to take care of timing for mailing and its periodicity. Mailing must aim at generating long term relationships with content having similar long term value. The content must be tailored according to customer base. Videos, pictures and graphics must be included in it. The subscriber base must be provided an option to update their email IDs by themselves. Similarly, they must have full freedom to unsubscribe in case needed. The content must be educational rather than outright promotional. Language used must be simple and focus must be on own brand rather than others. The content must be curated in such a fashion using standard template that it can be used for mobile devices as well. The CMS must be well integrated with the email marketing. Frequent analysismust be conducted to gauge effectiveness of campaign. Social media handles must be attached to the mails. Business intelligence can be gauged using online surveys with the subscriber base. Both manual as well as automated emailing must be tried as they give different sets of benefits.
10 Ways to increase your Social Media engagement like never before
Social media engagement being an integral part of digital marketing, companies are seeking different ways to ensure it is executed as best as possible. Ten ways have been identified which are sure to do so. First of all the marketers must be aware of the reasons for potential or existing customers to be on social media. In addition, organization must develop a sense of bonhomie with the customer to understand what they do when not engaged with social media. Content must be reasonably funny. Emojis are a good way of inspiring reactions among users. Facebook’s reaction buttons are extremely useful as people can express exactly as they feel about any post. Customers must frequently be prompted to review products or services. From time to time engaging data must be shared with them. New products’ release must be planned in coordination with the social media handles so that followers may be first to know of the same. Token freebies doled out periodically are appreciated by the customer base. Live streaming is becoming increasingly popular and must be used often as a means to connect.
Source: http://marketingland.com/10-ways-increase-social-media-engagement-like-never-180901
How Digital is empowering customers and other Customer- centric Strategies
Digitization has crept in to every walk of business. It has also democratized the market place allowing consumers to voice their needs more effectively. Heads of several big corporates are conscious of this trend and thus betting heavily on the results of digital marketing. CMOs are now emerging as the most valued and important members of the C- Suite. Customers are increasingly buying using their mobile phones. The pattern of targeting customers from companies’ point of view has shifted radically. It is now customers who are invoking corporates to market products as per their needs and requirements.
99 Online Marketing Tools you won’t be able to live Without
Ninety nine tools have been identified without which digital marketing is unthinkable. These tools have been divided into categories which are PPC, SEO, social media, content marketing and business analytics plus conversion rate optimization. PPC tools identified are – AdWords Editor, Keyword Planner, Bing-Ads Editor, AdWords Scripts, AdWords Performance Grader, Bing-Ads Intelligence, Bing-Ads Grader, Keywords Wrapper, Google Trends, Phrase Builder, Toolpak for Excel, Soovle, Convertable, Uber-Suggest, Split-Tester, Word Stream Landing Page Grader, Keyword Competitor, iSpionage, SEM-rush, Spy-Fu, Keyword-Spy, What-Runs-Where, The Search-Monitor, Ad-Gooroo, Typo-Generator and finally Keyword Niche Finder. SEO tools identified are- Google Suggest, Ahrefs, Majestic, Compete, Deep-Crawl, Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool, SEO Title Tag 3.0, Domain Hunter Plus, Keyword-Map, Moz-Local, Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool, Internet Marketing Ninjas SEO Tools, Linkstant, Moz-Cast, Rank-Checker for Firefox, Schema Creator, Seer SEO Toolbox, SEO Tools for Excel, SEO gadget Tools, Similar Page Checker, URI Valet, Xenu’s Link Sleuth, Moz-Bar, Alexa-Toolbar for Chrome, Mozscape API, Open Site Explorer and Screaming Frog SEO Spider. Social media tools are- Hoot suite, Tweet Deck, Buffer, IFTTT, Buzz Sumo, Social Oomph, Tweepi, Save Publishing, Social Flow, Like Alyzer, Sprout Social, Social Bro, Crowd booster, Happy Cyborg, Openr, Bitly, Media Toolkit, Every post and Discover.ly. Content marketing tools are- Prezi, Powtoon, Blog Topic Generator, Trello, Content Idea Generator, Feedly, Co-Schedule, After the Deadline, Polar, Slide-Share, Placelt, Canva, Share as Image, Piktochart, Tableau Public, The Readability Test Tool, Quora, Omm-Writer and Evernote. Optimization tool include- Google Analytics, Crazy-Egg, Click-Tale, Subject-Line, Mix-Panel, Formisimo, Visual Website Optimizer and Five-Second-Test.
Your Brand needs a Fitbit
The overall equity or value of a brand is extremely difficult to measure. Though marketing research giants such as IPSOS and Millward Brown have come up with some indices to measure the same, it is ultimately an extremely complicated calculation based on several separate parameters. That is where the former head of Advertising Research Foundation, Joel Rubinson tells is that it is the sum total of valuable experience that matters most. And here marketing techniques play a big role. Millennials do not care for product attributes alone but the total value of experiences shared. Thus a Facebook or Netflix or Starbucks have great brand value. Even retail chains score well at that. But the challenge exists for consumer goods items with short shelf life to remain relevant. In order to build connectivity, perhaps some emotional tags need to be created somewhere. That is where Unilever’s Dove created their Sketches campaign which worked wonders. Digital marketing is creating storylines, citizen- generated content, and mobile applications that are boosting up learning potential of users.
Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickhanlon/2015/08/21/your-brand-needs-a-fitbit/
10 Essential steps to revenue growth in 2016 for Brands with an indirect sales Method
Certain businesses are such that they pitch their sales directly to the customer. For others, perhaps due to the nature of the product or the personality of the founders have an indirect, relatively subtle way to pitch sales. For the latter types, certain methods have been collated which will help their revenues grow this year. First of all hyper-local marketing methods need to be applied as majority of customers belong to the same area, thus already shopping from some place. Each time a customer has bought or used the services, aggressive remarketing techniques must be applied. Digital marketing using location tracking on smartphones, laptops or tablets may be an ideal method. The content delivered must be detailed and deliver precise message, but for the target audience this will open up plenty of options. These messages must be delivered using triggered method where time and date are decided depending on importance and opportunity. Strategic partnerships must be developed with cooperative stores and enterprises and they enable localized targeting. In this field, having a top brand partner can be crucial. Due to the primary local efforts, monitoring of the marketing will also be easier. Sometimes, showing off is not bad, as such firms will need to broadcast their achievements. Source:http://m.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/29044/10-essential-steps-to-revenue-growth-in-2016-for-brands-with-an-indirect-sales-model
How Digital tools influence Marketing Concept
The concept and growth of digital marketing has broken through country barriers. It is now much easier for companies to target across borders using online marketing tools. Some tools have been identified which are most helpful to such marketers. In order to promote a product or service over social network, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Google + and LinkedIn are the obvious platforms. They have diverse uses as Twitter being more of a virtual phone while Instagram or Pinterest are ideal for developing product narratives. Facebook in addition is also well suited to mobile phone based marketing. Foursquare is another tool well suited to leveraging mobile technologies like GPS or AdWords. Retargeting is a method of tracking existing users and remarketing to them so that customer loyalty is built and they become repeat customers. Community building is another important way of engaging customers as succeeded in this quest by West Jet. Content marketing is one of the most critical steps where a story is promoted using language that is unique and shareable. Intelligent customers can make out the difference between genuine quality content simple sales pitch. The content must be adaptable to various situations depending on type of target market.
Source:http://thetechnews.com/2016/04/09/how-digital-tools-influence-marketing-concept/me
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