Friday, 27 February 2015

The Impact of Visuals & Digital Customer Service!

Remember those comic books we were crazy about when we were kids? Even today those comic books may draw us more than regular books. Marketing through effective visuals has always been the most important tactic of digital marketing. 

A recent study shows that the social media site, Instagram, with over 300 million users (430 million estimated by the end of 2015) could be worth US $35 billion, outpacing Twitter. 


 In this 4th and final installment of the series, I'll briefly discuss how to market your product and services through effective visuals and how to provide customer service through digital media. These tactics are good for ambitious marketers who want to reach beyond the traditional segment of customers.

A picture is worth 1000 bucks:
If you are following the latest print adverts, you'll see that they are using a technique which enables them to attract most of the customers. The cute kitty photo gets many clicks whereas the less emotional quote of a wise man as text really has to fight for attention. 

Today there is even a trend to incorporate attractive images with nice quotes – making them better visible in online communities. When it comes to grabbing the attention of today's busy social media consumer, visual content is the cat's meow. 

A study by ROI Research revealed that fans and followers are 40 percent more likely to engage with brands that post pictures than any other type of media. Content containing images reap 94 percent more total views that content without.

 Finally if you are a start-up business owner or just a fresher in the digital marketing arena, you need to start using designed infographics as your digital marketing tactic which will eventually attract the attention of your consumer. Just wrap your info and campaign as little artworks and offer detailed information in compact form.

Digital customer service:
Do you know that Airtel is providing customer service virtually through “Online Airtel Experience Center”? Do you know most of the telecom service providers are offering customer service through apps?

Having a digital customer service function doesn't just mean setting up a company Twitter account so that customers can tweet complaints to you. 

Done right, an effective strategy is a complex and gradual process, which integrates the delivery of customer service and support via the web and the social networks into the very fabric of your organisation. Think about this for just a minute as it relates to your own behaviour.

 Think about how will you go and buy a new SIM for using internet. If you are like me, then you'll definitely go for a prior research to figure out what will be the best package for you. You'll ask questions related to usage to the customer service agent @ the telco store. Then you'll choose the best option for you as per their suggestion.

 Now what if I tell you that you won't need to go to any store for all these and you can get a SIM shipped to your place just like that? Airtel Virtual Store is offering customer service through online portal. 

You just need to log in, browse, enter info in regards to your daily usage, and the store will tell you which package would suite you best. Then you pay and get the SIM shipped to you.

 Now think about what systems you have in place to serve your customers – across multiple channels.

Monday, 23 February 2015

Targeted Marketing: Hit The Bull’s-Eye With Advertising That Works!

There is nothing more wasteful than having a marketing campaign that doesn’t receive the exposure it deserves. Targeted marketing enables you to get up close and personal with your perfect audience in multiple ways.


It begins by truly understanding your target audience. Knowing where they will look, what search engines they use and what social media platforms would suit them best. In a discussion with our team we will help you refine the criteria of your target audience and where we will expect to find them skulking.

Your bow and quiver

MediaHeads Top Tip: Don’t be greedy. Being vague on the audience you want to reach doesn’t mean you’ll earn more money because you’re reaching more people.

You’re just throwing money away for little return. Make your advert matter to the audience it should. Put money into the design. Some of the typical demographics you will be asked to choose from include;
•Age
•Location
•Gender
•Their job (job title)

The information we need for each platform will vary greatly, that’s why we like to take a detailed sketch of your audience at the beginning in case you want to expand the campaign onto more platforms later.

Facebook Targeting
Facebook Targeting works in a similar way to other targeting methods but with a Pay Per Click twist. The demographics stretch out a little differently to the other targeting methods, with new aspects like;
•Behaviours
•Relationship status
•Interests

Facebook targeting is a thorough-bred pet. Not only does it want more information about the audience you want to catch so it can close the net in the millions of Facebook users, but all of its campaigns are optimised for all devices.

http://mediaheads.agency/targeted-marketing

Friday, 20 February 2015

The Importance Of Social Validation In Online Marketing!

Online marketing comprises many factors, strategies, and tactics, but all of them share a common end goal: to get more people to buy your products or services. To get there, you have to step past the competition, increase the traffic to your site, and build better relationships with your customers.


The onset of social media has given brands a new means of achieving all three at the same time, at once improving the reputation of their brand and gaining more visibility and traction.

Online marketing is about more than raw visibility, however. Since the dawn of social media and the overabundance of traditional, sales-driven advertising, consumers have become more discerning, more skeptical, and less easily swayed.

In order to win their business, you have to win their trust, and there’s one key strategy that can help you do it: social validation.

What Is Social Validation?

In its traditional definition, social validation is a psychological phenomenon where one or more passive individuals follow or conform to the actions of others within a group.

In a psychological context, one or more people set an example of behavior, and their experience leads a second group of one or more people to follow suit.

Social validation in marketing is slightly different, but it still represents a kind of social “chain reaction” that leads others to similar behaviors.

In a marketing context, if a user leaves a positive review for a product or a positive rating for a business, other, even non-affiliated users will be more likely to buy that product or work with that business. Because one person went on a limb and confirms that the experience is positive, others are likely to take a similar action.

Why Is Social Validation Important to Marketers?
The idea of social validation is important because self-propagating strategies are no longer as effective as they once were.

People have grown to distrust brands, especially large corporations, and instead look to peer reviews and peer actions above any other means of justification.

Cultivating social validation in a broad group can sharply increase the trust people have in your brand, and can make them far more comfortable doing business with you.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/02/19/the-importance-of-social-validation-in-online-marketing/

Monday, 16 February 2015

Do Google Adwords Really Work?

For three months Elisha Casagrande tried Google AdWords to launch her new fashion website, Repeat Offender.


She hired a search engine marketing agency that specialised in Google Adwords to help her with a campaign and budgeted $1500 a month, plus agency fees.

The result? Not one sale.

"Initially, I was told that Google AdWords would guarantee the required amount of clicks needed to our site to generate traffic and convert that traffic to sales," Casagrande says. "In the online retail industry, a conversion rate of 1% is recommended, therefore we needed quite a lot of visitors, or clicks to the site, to be able to reach our sales goals. 

Google AdWords advises that if you spend a certain amount per month you are guaranteed the amount of clicks needed to convert to sales.

"After a few months of launching the site, I decided to conduct my own research regarding Google Adwords. I asked staff, friends, family, potential customers and existing customers if they had ever clicked on the ads that appeared first under a Google search, or perhaps on a blog and/or website.

"Everybody I asked said that they have never clicked on those ads, as they were considered quite 'spammy' and instead they usually click on the first few search results in Google. After hearing this, I decided to pull the pin on Google AdWords and continue with our alternative marketing strategies."

Casagrande is now using an SEO campaign, along with Facebook ads, Facebook-boosted posts, Rich Pins through Pinterest and Instagress through Instagram. These forms of advertising are proving the most effective.

"We also utilise email campaigns, PR, blogger outreach programs, retargeting and competitions, which are all gaining momentum at a steady pace," she adds.

When Dean Salakas started The Party People, the first thing he did was invest in Google AdWords.

"For two reasons, targeting and tracking," he says. "Today, when people need something, they often turn to Google and parties are no exception. AdWords advertising puts our advertising right in front of people when they are looking. 

With AdWords the advertising is extremely relevant. I mean, if someone searches 'birthday party supplies' there is a good chance I have something they want."

Salakas has spent "hundreds of thousands of dollars" on Google AdWords and was one of the first to join when it launched.

"The reason I liked it was because for one or two cents I could acquire a customer and that sounded pretty good to me. Mind you, this was back in 2003 and today those sort of cost per clicks are not around. I didn't receive any advice, I just learnt as I went."

Salakas is also a big fan because he can track the return on investment of every action.

"I know that I spend x on advertising each month and it gets me y orders. I can then drill down and see which ads work better and which are not doing so well and adjust accordingly. 

When I went to university to study marketing they would say '50 per cent of advertising works, we just don't know which 50 per cent'. This is an old concept today, as with AdWords I know exactly what is working and what is not."

Two businesses: one with no Google AdWords success, the other with plenty. What is the reasoning behind such different results?

"For industries in which Google AdWords is suitable, the real key to success is in how you set up and structure your account from the start," Ilana Wechsler, founder and director of Green Arrow Digital, a full-service digital marketing agency, says.

"If you get this wrong, you will not succeed. Often I hear prospects say to me that Google AdWords hasn't or doesn't work for their business, and nine times out 10 their account just hasn't been structured properly. Strangely, Google doesn't really tell you this and it ends up costing businesses a lot of money.

"It is affectionately known in the industry as the Google Idiot Tax and applies to people who have set up their own account and don't know what they are doing. Google is doing itself a disservice in this regard, as those who experience such failure are often then skeptical about the value of utilising AdWords."

Wechsler says generally people go to the Google Search website to make a decision, but they go to the Google Display Network (for example, The Sydney Morning Herald website) or on to Facebook with no intention of making a decision. Advertisements on those platforms are an interruption to browsing behaviour and therefore need to be crafted differently.

"For example, no one goes on to to Facebook when looking to buy a new car," she says.

"Most of the time, AdWords on the Search Network is the perfect starting point for many businesses. This is primarily because it is the perfect testing ground for people who are actively searching. 

You can test different headlines and marketing messaging in the ads by observing the click-through rates on different ads.

"Once people click on the ads, you can then see how well your website performs in converting visitors into leads/buyers through analytics and heat mapping.

"Once this process has been refined and optimised, we pursue other online marketing strategies, such as Facebook advertising, remarketing, as well as content marketing, which feeds in perfectly with SEO."

This point is perhaps a key: small businesses shouldn't rely on just one aspect of the marketing mix to promote their business. Too many small businesses are not using all the marketing tools available to them.


http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-marketing/do-google-adwords-really-work-20150216-130jnm.html

Friday, 13 February 2015

6 Ideas To Shake Up Your Digital Marketing!

For some reason I have the number 6 on my brain this week. Not quite sure why. Yesterday it was 6 Ways To Take Advantage Of Negative Reviews and today it’s 6 Ideas To Shake Up Your Digital Marketing. Maybe I have been watching too many reruns of The Brady Bunch lately.


1. Consider starting a Podcast. Don’t start a Podcast about your product or service but around an interest your type of customer has that uses your product or service. Podcasts rank very well in Google and it also gives you a chance as the business owner to build a solid virtual relationship with your listeners. 

People do business with people they recognize, like and trust. Chris Rowe, CEO of Jet Digital Marketing, raves that “When my team has used podcasts as part of our marketing strategy, we have seen amazing successes in increased traffic and higher conversion rates.”

2. Consider publishing a book. Business flows offline and online to the authority leaders in the industry. Publishing a book can make you an authority and with using Amazon Publishing it’s extremely easy to do. 

It can get you press attention and can help you build amazing relationships with your readers that your competitors aren’t doing. Even easy, and more accessible to millennials, is offering a free ebook online.

3. Single does not always mean mingle. Remember that viewers of single product pages on your site will not click the buy now button immediately, and offer them other options such as email alerts if you drop the price or add new styles or other similar products to your site. 

Also, with the popularity of sharing products via Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, add a pop-up thank you message to shoppers who share and ask if they’d like to leave their email for similar price and option alerts. 

Oliver Cookson, the CEO of Gonutrition.com, is convinced that his customers appreciate the chance to look around the website: “Our customers like our low-pressure but persistent online presentations.”

4. Don’t be afraid to show off your philanthropic side. A brand’s main focus has almost always been revenue, marketing to consumers to get them to buy more. 

As consumers become increasingly aware of the world around them, they start noticing a desire to help in some way. In 2015, e-commerce marketers who show their clients what they are doing to make the world a better place while improving the bottom line will be rewarded with loyalty.

E-commerce really lends itself to campaigns on web and mobile that highlight corporate social responsibility as well as ways to help the consumer through the products that are sold. E-Newsletters can be used to build momentum toward a brand’s cause, as well as traditional in-site displays.

5. Mine your data like you would mine for gold. Kristian Nielsen is the CEO at Honolulu Hi 5, and he promises increased revenue from the smart use of sales statistics and patterns: “There’s nothing nerdy about mining for data when dealing with customer patterns – it’s a great money maker!”

It is a commonly observed online shopping behavior that customers switch between mobile, social, and web channels for just one purchase. This cross-channel activity reveals huge amounts of information about their preferences. 

So it’s essential for companies to follow that thread of interactions and customize display in a manner that would increase the chances of conversion.

“Since more and more high fashion e-commerce store owners are already adopting the strategy of omni-channel presence, personalization will be on a high wave in 2015” says Michael DeLuca, Internet Retail Manager of Rissy Roo’s. 

6. Don’t overlook email and keep them fresh. Kent Speedy, Chief Sales Officer of Direct Liquidation, an electronics refurbishing and resale corporation, believes that emails are an overlooked source of both new customers and customer retention. 

Changing a few basic elements in emails to give it a more customized feel takes only ten extra seconds but can push conversions to new heights. 

All you have to do is try to add value in emails – a product to enhance the look (upsell), a magazine subscription to stay on track of fitness (cross-sell), or just a tip to use the purchased product in a unique manner (to show that you care).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2015/02/12/6-ideas-to-shake-up-your-digital-marketing/2/


Monday, 9 February 2015

Social Media Transforms Marketing!

The Internet has changed most everything, and that includes the advertising industry. Companies have shifted dollars from print to the web. Ads once created for television now are available forever on YouTube, and maybe never were even broadcast anywhere but online.


The advent of social media has also blurred the boundaries between advertising and public relations. Companies can share their message directly with customers or those whom they identify as potential customers.

How do businesses know what to use and how to use it? Many rely on communication firms as their partners.

“We help our clients in using social media,” said Dan Smith of Flightpath Creative in Traverse City. “It’s not to close business, but to expand your brand and build relationships.”

Justin Mortier, the general manager of Grand Beach and Sugar Beach Resorts in Traverse City, concurs. He uses social media to tout the area and its attractions.

“The instantaneous nature of social media isn’t an imperative. We’ve invested thousands of dollars for an app to focus on the experience in Traverse City. We use social media to complement that,” he said.

Social media giant Facebook is now a ubiquitous presence for many businesses. They cite its ease of use and the fact that so many people have connections to it.

“Everybody and their brother is on Facebook,” said Rod Call of Great Lakes Sailing. “We know where our customers are: Detroit, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Texas, Florida, Canada. We can reach out to people via Facebook.”

Bob Streit of Twisted Fish Gallery in Elk Rapids likewise uses social media in concert with his website to maintain and build his business.

“Facebook is a way of communicating news and activities,” he said. “We’ve got over 5,000 friends and it goes up 50 to 60 per week. Those are contacts we didn’t have two or three years ago.”

Friday, 6 February 2015

Which Internet Marketing Methods Suit You?

Internet marketing methods
Effective internet marketing can drive more traffic to your website, increase customers and enhance the branding of your product. There are many different ways to do this and there are several options out there when it comes to crafting the right strategy. So, which internet marketing methods suit you?


What is internet marketing?
No matter what sort of business you deal with, the chances are the internet is at the heart of your business strategy and it has certainly transformed business marketing landscape as a whole. 

As the internet comes ever more accessible, with it the demand has increased for the connectivity to withstand everything that comes with it – whether that is to load pages faster or to complete secure transactions. 

Therefore, businesses need to think about how they will be fitting all the different internet marketing methods in to their business strategy – and expect it to take over most of it.

Check out the three ‘S’s: Search engines, social networks, SMS marketing
These are three internet marketing methods that will prove to be at the centre of your strategy. Get ranked well at the top of the search with major search engines and practice good search optimisation techniques. 

In other words, don’t overload your copy with keywords – make it readable, not robotic, as not only will this not be as palatable to your customers, it will also not be looked upon too favourably by a search engine.

Use social networks as one of your internet marketing methods. It’s a free tool at a basic level, so anyone can use it and when you consider that Facebook alone has more than 1 billion active users logging in daily, often multiple times, then what better way to spread the word about your business?

Plus, it’s a great way to reach out to a very specific sector on a one-to-one basis, allowing you to go straight to your target market.

SMS marketing comes under two slightly different internet marketing methods. One is known as a direct form of marketing to customers, which communicates offers etc., via text message. But this can be expensive and not always effective. 

Plus, it can be trickier to monitor open rates and responsiveness. The other method is known as SMS or “micro” blogging. These are somewhere between a blog and an SMS which can be read quickly, making small bits of information easily digestible. 

Twitter is sometimes known as a microblogging site, but there are other ways you can use a short amount of text to convert hits in to traffic to your website.

Above and beyond the basics
These are just a few pointers to get you started, but you need to make sure at the very least you have considered these. Then you can go on to build a more lasting strategy based on these foundations – and it won’t be long before you are on the road to internet marketing success.

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Why Most Digital Marketing Fails -- And How To Fix It!

If you’re looking for insights about the future of digital communications, it pays to ask someone who’s been there from the beginning. Social media strategist Sally Falkow has been a keen observer of online trends since the mid 1990s, and started her blog, The Proactive Report, in 2003. 

In 2014, she was named one of Cision’s Top 50 Social Media Influencers on Twitter. In a recent interview, she revealed four issues she sees with the current digital media landscape – and how smart companies can take advantage of the opportunity that presents.


Not Enough Companies Are Blogging. After more than a decade on the scene, you’d think that blogging would have become ubiquitous by now. Not so much. Falkow notes that a UMass-Dartmouth study showed that in 2008, 16% of the Fortune 500 had public-facing blogs. By 2014, that number had only climbed to 31%. 

She understands why companies aren’t jumping onboard. “Blogging is a commitment,” she says. “Once you start, you have to continue. A blog has a voracious appetite. You have to produce good content regularly, and that takes resources.” 

But she views this silence as a missed opportunity to communicate directly with stakeholders, share ideas, and stake out a position of thought leadership. Indeed, she says, “With digital, we have new tools. 

It’s easy to publish and you can use analytics to find out what content is resonating with your readers.” If your company makes the effort, you can speak to your customers in a very targeted and effective way.

Companies Still Don’t Understand ‘Social.’ We’ve heard it a million times: social media is like a cocktail party. Don’t be a jerk and talk about yourself all the time. Don’t try to make a sale before you get to know someone. And yet, Falkow still sees marketers doing this all the time. 

One particular pet peeve: the common practice of re-tweeting others’ praise of you. “If someone came up to you [with a compliment], you wouldn’t pull out a megaphone and yell to everyone else in the room, ‘Sally just said she likes my work!’”

Most Digital Communications Aren’t Visual Enough. The rise of platforms like Instagram and Pinterest has shown the hunger for visual communication online. Yet most marketers don’t take full advantage of the possibilities, says Falkow. 

That’s partly a function of their training. “Most PR folk are not designers and have not had graphics training,” she says. But that’s becoming a major handicap. “Every PR student should take a course in graphic design. Visual content is a must for social media success,” she says. 

There are no excuses anymore. “With the new digital tools, anyone can be trained to take amazing photos on their camera, or make a short video in less than an hour. You can use tools like Canva or Picmonkey to edit photos and make posters with text on them for Instagram or Pinterest. “

You Have to Mix Paid and Earned Media. Finally, Falkow advises companies to face facts: we live in Mark Zuckerberg’s world, and he wants to monetize. 

The days when companies could rely on organic reach to connect with customers on Facebook (or many other major social platforms) is long gone. “Distribution and amplification of your messages will need paid social advertising,” she says, and “the lines between paid, owned, and earned media will continue to blur. PR practitioners must master the art of using paid social media to support their content.”

More than a decade into the social era, most companies still don’t fully get it. That’s a competitive advantage for you, if you’re willing to immerse yourself in the unique possibilities online communication presents.

Monday, 2 February 2015

5 Word Of Mouth Marketing Tips To Get Customers Buzzing!

Are you struggling to find a way to give your online business or e-commerce store marketing a kick in the ol’ booty? Here’s an idea, why not put some extra focus on your word of mouth marketing efforts.

You know that I’m a huge believer in word of mouth marketing and customer referrals as a driver of business growth. But it’s not just me!


The marketing world is finally starting to take notice. In fact, we might be on the verge of a renaissance of sorts for good old-fashioned word of mouth. 

In fact now that the big brains of the marketing world are starting to pay closer attention, we now know that great word of mouth, and online buzz can increase overall marketing effectiveness by quite a lot. To the tune of 54% improvement in fact according to Ad Age.

So if you want to hop on the referral marketing bandwagon, here are 5 tips to kick your program into high gear.

1.Provide AMAZING Service!
Word of mouth marketing is all about having customers talk about you. That includes discussions about you with their family and friends in person, and also online where some of that chatter has the potential to go viral.

That being said, you want them to say GOOD THINGS about you and your business during these conversations. The only way to ensure this is to provide kick-ass service. Deliver experiences to your customers that are worth talking about; no that doesn’t mean having crazy big budget promotions and marketing. What it means is standing behind your products and promises. 

It means making things clear for customers in terms of the expectations they should have with regards to your products, shipping and return policies. And most importantly, it means responding in a timely manner to any and all questions and concerns.

In fact there is research out there from MIT that has shown that the BEST way to build loyalty and positive word of mouth is to help customers when they come to you with any issues. Because if you don’t, well they will talk about you for sure… but not in the ways that you want.

2. Reach Out To Influencers!
Chances are you’re not blazing a brand new trail and creating a new market. That’s OK. Actually that’s a pretty good thing when it comes to community building. When you’re entering an existing market that means the market probably has an existing community of influencers somewhere.

While any great content marketing strategy should involve building your own reputation and expertise. You can give those efforts a head start by researching your existing market and developing relationships with existing experts and influencers.

Use a tool like BuzzSumo to find writers, journalist and bloggers who may already be highly influential in your world, and reach out to them. If you can convince them that your way of doing things is interesting, or you as a person are interesting, having them mention you, or talk about you, can go a long way in terms of building some word of mouth momentum for you and your brand.

In the old days of marketing, finding influencers meant securing expensive celebrity endorsements. Today, thanks to social media, the most influential people are often “regular people” like you and I, who’ve built their brands on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter. The great thing about these social media celebs is they are often just as, if not more, influential than their Hollywood counterparts, and are almost always much easier to access as well.

3. Be social!
Customers want to talk to you through social media. I don’t know why, but some companies insist on fighting this trend. It’s convenient, it’s fast, and when you do it right it’s authentic. Consumers today are sick and tired of the faceless corporations of the past and want to be able to connect with real human beings online.

Real human beings are better at resolving issues (without reciting back a formal script), real human beings are better at answering questions, and real human beings are much easier to talk about . It’s these genuine and authentic interactions that can lead to the best stories spread through word of mouth.

Be a real person. In life and in business more than ever, authenticity counts.

4. Make It Worth Your Customer’s While To Talk!
Arguable the best way to convince someone to do you a favor (customers included) is to offer him or her something. In the world of online retail that’s easy. Coupon and incentive programs are pervasive, and they are something that customers of all stripes will understand. Offer them a simple discount on their next purchase as a thank you or incentive to provide your business with some word of mouth.

For those of you who doubt the effectiveness of digital coupons. Well, the research says otherwise. In fact according to research digital coupons in many instances can be incredibly effective.

5. Find And Reward Your Biggest Fans!
We’ve already touched on the changing nature of who can be an online influencer. The great thing about that is some of those power-influencers might be right under your nose. Any loyalty and referral program activities should also give you clues as to who your super customers might be. 

These are the customers who not only consistently buy from you, but they are the ones who have also referred their friends or written positive reviews about your brand.

In the world of word of mouth, these customers are often referred to as advocates. Quantitatively, these customers are your “net promoters”.

Make these people feel like a part of your business, make them feel like they are your brand’s insiders. Doing so isn’t quite as daunting as you might imagine.

Start by creating a list of the customers who you feel might fall into this category. Then reach out to them! But do so in a structured way so that your activities can be easier to track and to manage.

Start by composing a basic “thank you for your business” email template you can start with. Keep the message short and simple. Short emails not only are easier to both compose and read, they feel more authentic as well. Give your customers a quick thanks, and then get to the point, tell them that they are being added to a special list of insiders that will receive company updates and other news first (and maybe even special incentives).

When you launch new promotions and products, offer this list of insiders a discounted rate or exclusive bundle ahead of the rest of the world. Small gestures like this can make these super customers feel more connected to your business. This is a great way to lay a foundation to encourage them to continue offering your business great word of mouth and referrals.

So there you go, 5 simple tips to help you make the most of one of the best type of foundational marketing. Word of mouth. It’s the oldest trick in the book for good reason. It works.

Let me know, in the comments below, if you think there’s anything I missed, or if there are any tips and tricks you’ve used in your own businesses to drum up great word of mouth.