editor, Author at Mediastreet

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Lead Generation vs Demand Generation: What is the Difference?

February 5, 2020 No Comments

Lead generation vs demand generation, what is the difference?

I’m sure you’ve heard these terms used regularly, but even though they sound alike, there are some important differences to be aware of.

Unfortunately, marketers often use these terms interchangeably, and it can confuse those looking to learn more about digital marketing and the online world.

To clear things up, let’s take a look at the key differences between lead generation and demand generation.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the method of using different content types and various marketing tactics to attract users and collect their contact details. The information you gather enables you to nurture users into qualified leads. These leads are people who have willingly shown interest in your offerings and are ready to buy from you.

Lead generation ideas include:

Gated content
Coupon codes
Webinars
Special offers
Etc.

It means that the lead generator will create a fence or gate around your content, which will entice readers to give you their contact information before they can gain access to the material. After that, you can use the data you collect to reach out to your subscribers, nurture them with more useful articles, and finally, with your offers.

Why does your business need lead generation?

Lead generation is essential to your business because it delivers your sales team interested prospects (leads) that are ready and willing to discuss buying your products or services.

A lead is someone who shows interest in your brand’s products or services by voluntarily submitting their contact details, such as an email address or other vital information. The lead will, from that point onward, be receiving communication from the business in various forms, including email newsletters with marketing offers.

Without leads, a business cannot survive.

Lead generation tactics

Research reveals that over 60% of marketers say that their top marketing challenges are how to generate traffic and leads. That is, according to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing Report.

Generating Traffic and Leads for lead generation vs demand generation

Nonetheless, several marketing tactics can help you boost your lead generation efforts. Here are some of the most effective lead tactics you can use to generate more leads.

1. Create highly-quality content frequently

In every digital marketing toolbox, content is a crucial instrument for attracting visitors to your website or a product page. It is not just any content but in-depth materials that provide value to your target market. Thus, creating quality materials will help increase your reach and produce more leads.

2. Use gated content

When used correctly, gated content can significantly generate more leads and increase your conversion rates. According to Optinmonster, the Trading Strategy Guide used gated content to increase email signups by 11,000 in a month. It shows you the effectiveness of gated content.

Use gated content to generate leads for lead generation vs demand generation

3. Personalize your brand’s point of consumer contact

Personalization has become more prominent because it awakens human feelings and helps in drawing users’ attention to your brand, product, or services. For instance, in a survey by Salesforce, about the “State of the connected customer,” they found that more than 55% of buyers are willing to give personal information in return for personalized overtures.

Furthermore, 50% of respondents will give you their contact data for a personalized shopping experience.

4. Optimize your landing pages

It is common to see multiple marketing offers on a single landing page. That is a digital marketing mistake you should avoid at all costs. Why? Research indicates that landing pages with multiple offers produce 266% fewer leads than landing pages with a single offer.

Therefore, concentrate on single offer landing pages. Create more landing pages with a focus on a unique offering for each page. That is because the study also shows that sites with 30 landing pages generate 7x more leads than those with 10 landing pages.

As a result, optimize your landing pages with clear messages that will move visitors to give you their contact details.

Other lead gen strategies include:

A/B test your paid marketing campaigns
Utilize influencer marketing
Evaluate the behavior of your web visitors
Automate your marketing tactics
Create more video content
Optimize and send personalized emails

Now that we have an idea of what lead generation is, and the why and how-to generate leads, let us define “demand generation” as well.

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is a business process that focuses on various marketing undertakings. These marketing efforts help to increase brand awareness and demand for the product or the services you offer. Demand gen is a thorough marketing application and sales proposal that takes place throughout the funnel when there is a demand for your products or services.

A viable demand generation approach comprises AIDA – an acronym for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. Marketers are using this approach extensively to explain the subsequent stages from when a potential customer became aware of a brand, to when they make a purchase.

Why is demand generation important?

Demand generation is essential because its purpose is to arouse your target market and prospective customers’ interests in your business. This marketing process is responsible for all touchpoints in the customer’s journey. That is from being an unknown consumer to a qualified and happy client.

This method is about creating opportunities for demand and the overall growth of your business. You can create such opportunities by advertising your products or services on different marketing channels. Also, ramping up your brand with useful content materials.

Fundamentals of demand generation

Since demand gen programs are touchpoints throughout the conversion and sales cycles, you can segment the applications into five controllable sections.

This step is essential if you want to create a sustainable marketing strategy that will help you to generate demand for your brand and products or services.

Therefore, here they are the five fundamentals of demand gen:

1. Target-setting and planning

Generating more demand for your services or products and ultimately growing your income is the primary goal of initiating this program. Hence, to reach your objectives, you need to set targets and plan strategies that will help you accomplish your goals.

The planning stage is your roadmap to success. It should include marketing objectives and sales tactics that will harness every touchpoint through the conversion funnel. This approach will enable sales and marketing teams to work in a united front.

In consequence, you should define the outcome and KPIs of your campaign to understand whether your planning will meet your result.

2. Brand awareness

Increasing the awareness of your brand involves getting in front of your target market with your brand message. In this way, you educate your audience about your business, product, or services. Thus, it will enable you to increase your chances of being remembered at the purchasing phase.

For example, Jeff Bullas partnered with the Instagram tool “HashtagsforLikes,” a platform where you can find the best hashtags that’ll increase your Instagram reach and grow your followers fast.

Grow Organic Followers for lead generation vs demand generation

So to increase awareness and generate demand for the tool, Jeff puts it in front of his target market via social media sites, including Twitter and other marketing channels.

You can use Jeff’s example as inspiration for your brand. Nonetheless, generating awareness for your business is primarily the first step in applying demand generation strategies. This activity will continue from the initial stage of the funnel to when a consumer makes a purchase.

Therefore, the best way to make it work for you is to know your targets:

Who are they?
What are their goals?
What interests them the most?
Where are they hanging out?
Why are they interested in your business?

To find the answers, you should create buyer personas. Your buyer persona will help you to understand and serve your target market better.

3. Inbound marketing

In today’s digital marketing space, consumers are more informed than they used to be. As a result, users will research your brand, products, or services before making a buying decision.

That is where inbound marketing comes in. Inbound marketing is part of the overall demand generation strategy that handles the high-volume acquisition of targeted leads. It is a lead nurturing tactic that nurtures web visitors through every stage of the funnel into qualified customers.

With inbound marketing, you can establish bonds with eventual customers by frequently offering users helpful information that adds value. It will assist in making your products and services relevant to the reader.

To make the best of inbound marketing, use the following marketing platforms:

Content marketing
Email marketing campaigns
Social media marketing

*Important* If you fail to nurture your website visitors, they will hang-out with your competitors. So help them define their problems and how to fix them with helpful content. In that way, you will build a loyal community around your business.

Other fundamentals of demand gen incude:

Client Retention
Testing and Analysis
Sales Enablement
Lead Scoring

Demand generation is not a one size fits all approach. It is a continuous process that is always evolving. Consequently, you should keep reviewing your tactics and make adjustments regularly.

Effective demand generation strategies

Demand generation strategies are helpful at every stage of the buyer journey. Demand generation enables you to create a positive impact and address all touchpoints before consumers enter the funnel to customer loyalty and retention.

Plus, the strategies involve multiple marketing and sales processes. These approaches will ensure that your marketing tactics are relevant to your target audience throughout the entire funnel.

Several marketing tactics will help you generate demand for your brand, products, or services. However, we will discuss only a few actionable steps.

1. Develop a free product

One of the best strategies for increasing demand for your brand is to develop free helpful products that applaud your brand. And the best product you can produce is one that solves your audience’s needs.

Develop Free handful products for lead generation vs demand generation

In consequence, do a bit of research to understand the struggle of potential buyers. After that, create a resource that addresses the issues and provide it for free. Jeff Bullas did that by creating a Free E-book containing over 100 tips and tricks to grow your organic web traffic for free.

The more value you provide to your audience for free, the more demand for your products or services you will generate. That is because your audience will become brand ambassadors. So when users signup for the tools, you can then nurture them through the funnel until they qualify as paying customers.

2. Create quality blog content regularly

Blogging is an excellent way to generate demand for your business. Although some content marketers choose to create and publish thin blogs that do not address the significant issues of their readers, blogging is still a fantastic tool for demand generation.

Blog post writing is not about creating lame content and expecting it to shine. You need to create persuasive blogs with strong conclusion paragraphs that will leave lasting impressions on the reader.

You can make the best of your blog by frequently publishing quality blog content. This type of blog will add value to the reader and drive more Google search traffic.

For instance, my blog post about the “Top 12 Most Profitable Freelance Writing Niches” has generated more demand for my freelance writing services, and also driven organic traffic to my site.

Top publications and websites have syndicated the post, giving it more exposure. Plus, yesterday, the new Marketing Director at Zest.is, Netanel Baruch, invited me through Twitter DM to contribute a guest post on the Zest blog. Why would he ask me when there are millions of other bloggers out there?

create quality blog content regularly for lead generation vs demand generation

The answer is simple. Netanel read my article and was impressed with the quality of the content. That is the power of creating informative blog posts.

However, besides the tips mentioned above, there are other demand generation strategies you can apply to generate more demand for your brand. These include:

Optimize your email marketing campaigns
Utilize video content marketing
Partner with influencers in your industry
Make the most of social media marketing
Analyze your marketing performance
Use display remarketing
Marketing automation
Guest posting, and so forth.

Wrapping up the differences between lead generation vs demand generation

At this point, I’m assuming that you already know the difference between these two marketing programs. However, for emphasis, the distinction is that lead generation is a subset of demand generation – a process of collecting web visitors data which you can use to nurture prospects and qualify them into customers.

Lead gen strategies typically imply the use of gated content and other types of lead magnets on landing pages to attract leads. On the other hand, demand generation is an excellent method of creating demand for your brand, products, or services.

Demand generation involves the use of inbound and content marketing in various ways that is far broader than lead gen tactics to generate a need for your services.

Are we missing something? Please, tell us in the comments!

By Moss Clement.

Sourced from Jeff Bullas

In News

Human-Centered Design And Customer-Centric Marketing Must Fuse In 2020

February 5, 2020 No Comments

By Andy Budiman.

Andy Budiman (feature image), chief product officer at Detexian write that in 2020, human-centred design must fuse with customer-centric marketing. Here’s why …

We all know how it usually goes. Someone comes up with a clever idea. They toil over it for months or years, working on prototype after prototype until they perfect the design and function. When they get to a product that delivers on its promise and can sell, it’s turned over to marketing who look at it and say, “who will buy this and how can we make it appeal?”

By this time, it’s too late to do anything to make it more palatable to the customer.

Steve Jobs understood this. Almost four decades ago he led the team that created the first Apple Mac, Jobs recognised that a product had to be more than functional. It had to appeal to the people who would you use it and create an emotional – almost visceral – connection to them.

While Apple doesn’t follow a conventional approach, what it understood, perhaps before many other companies, was that great design isn’t a feature that’s added to the specification when a product is designed. It’s embedded in every decision about every function.

Human-centered design, which is also called user-centered design, puts the needs of people into every decision made about a product’s development and evolution. And perhaps the best equipped people in a business to do that are marketers. They are keenly aware of what customers want and they understand their existing customers preferences. That goes beyond a functional perspective but into the emotional connections people feel with the products they use.

Think about a frustrating app on your computer or smartphone. Recently, I purchased an app for creating simple databases. The app had two sides, one for my computer and another for my smartphone. However, I discovered after spending my money that the two applications, while similar, didn’t behave the way I expected and that led to frustration.

I contacted the developer over social media who told me what I wanted could be done but it was “too hard”. Some further research revealed that many other customers had the same problem. That’s a sure sign that the creator of the app didn’t take a human-centred approach to the design. It’s not that what they created was ugly; they just didn’t consider the different personas and use-cases. It meant an obvious requirement for many users was missed. Development was led in a vacuum without thinking about the needs of different users.

Marketing is about ensuring a product or service is represented to audiences in a way that resonates. And the best way to get a product to resonate with your target market is by engaging people who know your customers from the outset. For a product to succeed it must be one people enjoy using. And that goes way beyond pure functionality.

Over the last decade, we’ve seen user-centered design completely turn industries such as transportation and accommodation on their heads. Instead of design decisions being made with the business’ interest at the centre, the needs of users became the focus. It’s why companies like Pepsi Co have a chief design officer. When he joined the company, he took then CEO Indra Nooyi to Milan to see how design could impact a brand, opening her eyes to a world where design decisions completely change how people think about brands and products.

Instead of handing a product over to marketing to “sell”, why not engage marketing at the start of the process? They’re the people most likely to understand the audience you are designing and developing the product for and it’s highly likely they will see beyond the developer’s vision and bring a different and valuable perspective. Engineers, developers, programmers and designers need the input of the marketing team from the outset because true cross-disciplined collaboration leads to innovation, new solutions and represents greater diversity of thinking.

While many products appeal to specific technical audiences, being able to design a product so that people can connect to it at an emotional level means you can bring non-technical decision-makers on your journey. This opens new sales channels and highlights that you are thinking about how people will use a product.

You could design a SaaS security product that tells you when something isn’t compliant with your policies. Or you could design a product that tells you when your risk profile changes or gives you a dashboard with meaningful information when something is amiss like we’ve done at Detexian.

By putting people at the centre of design decisions you can create meaningful products and services that are more than a collection of moving parts. You can create tools that give people positive experiences.

By Andy Budiman.

Sourced from B&T

In News

How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

February 4, 2020 No Comments

By Kayla Carmicheal.

You know the feeling of having a great idea, a brilliant view of how it’ll work, but no idea of where to begin to execute it?

If you have a promising idea for an online ecommerce business, that’s great. But it’s important to know how you’ll transform your idea into reality. That’s what business plans are for.

Download Now: Free Business Plan Template

An ecommerce business plan is especially important, with an increasing number of shoppers conducting their business online. It’s estimated this number has reached 1.92 billion. Having an ecommerce business plan keeps you organized and is useful when seeking investors who need to understand your company.

So, let’s dive into some examples of ecommerce business plans and what goes into writing one using our free template.

Ecommerce Business Plan Examples

1. Maple Ecommerce Plan

This sample plan, provided on LinkedIn, is for a fictional company called Maple, an online store that sells exclusive Apple products. Maple’s sample plan is great because it provides easy-to-follow charts and graphics while highlighting the most important information. For example, their market analysis included a SWOT plan for the business.

Image Source

Outlining the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of Maple in this format is easy for potential investors to follow. Notating each value with a letter keeps the format consistent, which is carried throughout the plan. For businesses that find their information is best presented in graphics, Maple is a good plan to follow.

2. Nature’s Candy Ecommerce Plan

Nature’s Candy is an online retailer that provides nutritional supplements. Their business plan is available online and is helpful in seeing how businesses go from planning to execution. Below is a preview of their plan, in the financial forecasting section.

Image Source

This example shows who will be on payroll in a yearly view giving investors an idea of how their investment will work in the long-term. Planning ahead also shows stakeholders dedication to starting up your business.

3. NoHassleIsReturn Ecommerce Plan

Fictional company NoHassleIsReturn’s sample ecommerce plan is an expansive, detailed version of how ecommerce would translate to a completely online store. The company itself is structured to offer a way to make returning items bought from an online store a simple process, and the steps to do that are featured below.

Image Source

Having a sequence of processes like this is useful if your company is a niche idea. Investors and stakeholders need to have an idea of how your business will be new and unique for the market.

Even though writing out a business plan seems like a painstaking process, we have a step-by-step guide to help. This will keep you organized and keep you on track when structuring your business.

How to Write an E-Commerce Business Plan

HubSpot’s template provides clear steps to structuring one for your ecommerce business. Throughout this section, I’ll use the example of a photography company specializing in online photo editing.

How to Write an E-commerce Business Plan

Give an executive summary.
List and describe your business.
Conduct a market analysis.
Outline legal notes and financial considerations.

1. Give an executive summary.

An executive summary is a one-to-two page overview of your business. The purpose of an executive summary is to let stakeholders know what the business plan will contain. HubSpot’s free template offers some tips on how to write one as I’ve done below:

It’s important to provide an executive summary so that an investor or executive, who doesn’t have the time to read your full plan, can quickly see the most important highlights about your business.

2. List and describe your business.

This is the section that needs the most detail because it highlights what you’re selling. To begin, provide an overview of your product or service. For instance, a photography company would probably list their photo packages arranged by price and services, like I did below:

HubSpot’s template also provides direction on how to describe the purpose of your company and break down values. It also advises businesses to include team structure, if applicable. Below that, you should go into detail about your product and service lines.

3. Conduct a market analysis.

For the market analysis, provide the operational climate of the industry you’re in. To illustrate, at this step, the photography company would need to analyze their position in a world of rival companies like Adobe or online services like Canva. Below, I’ve done a quick competitor analysis, available in the template:

Using directions in the template as a guide, I was able to come up with more selling points of the company and how it stands out from competitors.

Filling out the market analysis section of the business plan assists with providing the framework of future campaigns. You are able to define your target market and ideal customer. Refer to my example below for how to structure this analysis in your ecommerce plan.

A good market analysis includes your target audience, projections of your company’s goals, and a breakdown of the competition’s goals and weaknesses for a counterpoint of how your business improves upon those weaknesses.

For a complete guide on how to create a market analysis, we have one here.

4. Outline legal notes and financial considerations.

In the next two sections of your business plan, describe legal and financial structures. The photography company should provide detail on the legal considerations like online safety rules and e-commerce regulations. Further, the costs of the company.

Listing legality and every cost needed to start e-commerce is crucial information for investors and stakeholders. In this section, it’s important to be honest and thorough in order to give partners a realistic idea of how to contribute.

Follow these steps and create a strong foundation for your eCommerce business. An extra tip to keep in mind? Provide a table of contents and appendix. These few additions will boost the professional look of your business plan and make it presentation-friendly. For more information about e-commerce, check out our ultimate guide.

By Kayla Carmicheal

Sourced from HubSpot

In News

How to Build a Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy for 2020

February 4, 2020 No Comments

By Michael Brenner

I’ve already explained why I predict 2020 will be the year of the customer. The traditional, tried-and-true marketing methods of getting people to know about your brand and buy your products are no longer as effective as they once were. Successful marketing strategies in 2020 and beyond will focus on creating great customer experiences and building relationships with your audience.

This shift has already been happening for a while, but not all businesses have fully embraced this new way of thinking about marketing. We’re now at the start of the New Year, and it’s a great time to be thinking ahead and making strategic decisions for your business that will bring positive returns.

If your business is not yet putting your customers at the heart of your marketing strategy, now is the time to make the change. And if you think your strategy is already customer-driven, it may well be worth reviewing the process anyway. Many businesses claim that they have their customers’ best interests at heart, but their marketing strategy says something different.

Quick Takeaways

Concentrate on providing great customer experiences, and most of the hard work of marketing is done for you.
Rather than creating products first and seeking out customers later, think about your customers first and use their needs to help you develop products they actually want.
Knowing and understanding your customers is critical to the success of this strategy. Collect data from several different channels and sources to build up a clear picture of who exactly your target market is.
Customer-first marketing goes beyond the responsibilities of the marketing team. Everyone in the company must understand how to provide great customer service and experiences.

What Is a Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy?

Let’s start by going back to basics: what exactly is a customer-driven marketing strategy?

Rather than thinking about your business or your products and how you’re going to market them, you start by thinking about your customers: Who are they? What makes them tick? How can you help solve their problems?

By shifting the focus away from your brand and onto the customer, you ensure you’re meeting their needs. Over time this builds strong customer relationships and builds brand loyalty as you’re demonstrating that you’re working to create better solutions for them and not simply trying to make money out of them.

Image source: https://medium.com/@sandboxcommerce/product-driven-lead-generation-and-sales-driven-product-development-e6588807e584

So this approach means thinking about your customers and their needs before you do anything else. In fact, you’ll soon realize that this strategy goes way beyond marketing. When you consider your customers’ challenges, motivations, and desires first, it affects the entire way you run your business. A customer-driven strategy means you’ll be creating products and services that your customers actually want and need rather than what you think they want.

1. Identify Your Target Market

You can’t serve your customers if you don’t really know who they are, so the first and most crucial step of building your marketing strategy is to define your market and segment it so you can target each group more effectively.

Depending on your brand and business, you may be targeting one small market segment or several segments with varying needs and characteristics. You might have a good idea of who your customer base is already, but don’t make assumptions. It’s important to carry out thorough market research from a number of sources, including web and social analytics, studying competitors, your own customer databases, and customer surveys in order to build up a true picture of the demographics and needs of each market.

Once you have the data, creating a customer avatar or buyer persona for each target market is the next step. This is a text and visual summary of the average “ideal” customer you’re targeting in each market segment. This can really help you to create marketing materials that resonate with your audience as you have a detailed image in mind of who you’re trying to reach with your marketing messages.

Image source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/create-reinforce-buyer-personas/

2. Create Solutions for Your Customers’ Needs

Your initial customer research should inform you about what your customers actually want. You can then use this market intelligence to develop products and services to meet their needs. This approach is of course the opposite to what many businesses do, which is deciding on their products and services first and then seeking out customers to buy them!

With a customer-first strategy, advertising and traditional marketing methods are no longer needed because you don’t have to hunt out your customers – they’re already right there telling you what you want. As long as you really listen to what they have to say, the hard work is done.

3. Use Customer Feedback to Improve Your Offering

Tools such as live chat and online feedback forums can be a valuable way to communicate with your customers.

Using customer feedback and requests will not only help you to create better products and services in the future, but demonstrating to your customers that you’re listening to their opinion and that it actually matters is a powerful way to build trust and loyalty.

Because customer communication is such a vital part of a customer-driven marketing strategy, your customer service team becomes integral to your overall marketing plan. Ensuring that every person in the company who interacts with customers in any way offers an excellent customer experience brings benefits to both sides. The customer gets the help they need and enjoys positive interactions with your team, and your business builds a better brand reputation and learns more about how to create better products.

Image source: https://helpcrunch.com/blog/customer-driven-marketing-strategy/

When your customers are happy with what they buy from you and how they communicate with you, they’ll tell their friends. And this word-of-mouth marketing can be more powerful and have a bigger and longer-lasting impact than any type of advertising or SEO campaign.

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content that’s consistently published, check out our Content Builder Service. Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

By Michael Brenner

Michael Brenner is a globally-recognized keynote speaker, author of The Content Formula and the CEO of Marketing Insider Group. He has worked in leadership positions in sales and marketing for global brands like SAP and Nielsen, as well as for thriving startups. Today, Michael shares his passion on leadership and marketing strategies that deliver customer value and business impact. He is recognized by the Huffington Post as a Top Business Keynote Speaker and a top CMO influencer by Forbes. Please follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook and Subscribe here for regular updates.

Sourced from Marketing Insider Group

In News

Social Media Tops Digital Advertising With 28% Share: DAN Report

February 4, 2020 No Comments

By Shreya Ganguly.

The total Indian digital advertising industry spending stood at INR 13,683 crore at the end of 2019, a 26 per cent jump from INR 10,859 crore in 2018

Internet penetration in India has undoubtedly given a boost to social media usage and online content consumption. With popular social media platforms reaching out to millions across the country, it serves as an important outlet of advertisement for business and political parties.

According to the recently published, Digital Advertising in India 2020 report by Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), advertisement spending on digital media in India is led by social media with the highest share of 28 per cent amounting to INR 3,835 crore in the total digital advertising pie.

Social media share is followed by spending on paid search which accounts for 23 per cent, online video accounts for 22 per cent and display media forms 21 per cent.

The report revealed the Indian digital advertising industry spending stood at INR 13,683 crore at the end of 2019. This marks a 26 per cent increase from INR 10,859 crore in 2018. The overall advertising industry grew by 9.4 per cent to become INR 68,475 crore in 2019.

“2020 is going to be cricket heavy; and this, along with the upcoming state and Rajya Sabha Elections, should be able to generate strong demands in advertising. Also, the instant feedback and the ability to track ROI from digital—some of the most distinguishable traits of this medium, will once again make it a favorable platform among advertisers,” said Anand Bhadkamkar, CEO of DAN, in a statement.

Credit: Digital Advertising in India 2020 by DAN

Digital Media Ad Spending To Cross INR 50,000 Crore

According to Bhadkamkar, as the economy starts looking up in 2020, voice and technology will become the biggest driving forces, and together they may provide a huge impetus to the Indian advertising and marketing industry this year.

The report also showed that advertising spending on digital media is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 27.42 per cent to become INR 58,550 crore market by the end of 2025. Factors such as technological advancements, improvements in data science and analytics, introduction of policies and regulations, among others, will drive this growth.

Credit: Digital Advertising in India 2020 by DAN

A deeper insight into various industry segments showed that FMCG has the highest expenditure on advertising, i.e. 30 per cent amounting to INR 20,182 crore followed by e-commerce at 10 per cent and automotive segment. The biggest spenders on digital media are BFSI (42 per cent), consumer durables (38 per cent) and e-commerce (37 per cent).

Credit: Digital Advertising in India 2020 by DAN

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

By Shreya Ganguly

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

In Jobs

Freelance Sports betting Writers – NON EN

February 3, 2020 No Comments

KAX Media Ltd., 3rd Floor, Fitzwilliam Court, Leeson Cl, Dublin 2

Location – Global

Freelance Role

We are looking for experienced Foreign Language Sports Betting, iGaming and Casino Freelance Writers to produce high quality copy about the things they know about in the betting industry environment.

If the betting industry, sports wagering and casino games are new to you then this is not a role you can fill but if you believe you have the suitable experience in these areas and are used to providing well researched and consumable content then there are currently several spaces available on our global roster.

Applicants are welcomed for the following languages and all applicants should also be fluent in speaking and writing English –

Norwegian Content
German Content
Italian Content

Your Core Responsibilities:

Production of circa 10,000 to 30,000 words per month as commissioned by our multilingual commissioning editors.
Ideation and pitching of news, strategy and feature content pieces
Self-invoicing

We Require:

Demonstratable knowledge and previous experience in content creation for the following areas:

Online Sportsbook and Casino

Sports betting and strategy for key Sporting Events

Casino table games

Casino slots

Poker and Card Games

TV Specials Betting

Political Betting

Exchange Betting

& Specialists across the gaming industry in general.

– Excellent grammar

– Knowledge of writing for SEO a big advantage

– Experience of writing content in the Sports Betting, iGaming and Casino environment

– Samples of previous work and (or) successful completion of a test case commission.

It is expected that freelancers will provide a suitable bio and (or) photograph to accompany all use of bespoke written content for our various digital platforms; although we do not guarantee to credit all work to an author dependent on the specific use of such content from time to time.

All successful applicants will receive a freelance contract and be paid via structured monthly bank transfer – rates are negotiable dependent on experience and volume of work commissioned. Guaranteed monthly content volume is available for the right candidates.

We welcome your applications in the strictest of confidence.

Click HERE to apply for this job.

In Jobs

Digital Marketing Manager

February 3, 2020 No Comments

Ryanair, County Dublin

Ryanair Holdings plc, Europe’s largest airline group, is the parent company of Buzz, Lauda, Malta Air & Ryanair DAC. Carrying over 154 m guests p.a. on more than 2,400 daily flights from 82 bases, the group connects over 200 destinations in 40 countries on a fleet of over 475 aircraft, with a further 210 Boeing 737’s on order, which will enable the Ryanair Group to lower fares and grow traffic to 200m p.a. by FY24. Ryanair has a team of over 19,000 highly skilled aviation professionals delivering Europe’s No.1 on-time performance, and an industry leading 34-year safety record. Ryanair is Europe’s greenest cleanest airline group and customers switching to fly Ryanair can reduce their CO? emissions by up to 50% compared to the other Big 4 EU major airlines.

The Role
Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fares airline, has an excellent opportunity for an experienced marketeer to join their busy Digital Department. This is an exciting opportunity to work with one of Europe’s biggest and best digital platforms in a fast-paced environment.From the cockpit and cabin to our state-of-the-art head office in Dublin, we want bright, talented and enthusiastic people who are passionate, love a challenge and who like to get stuck in.

Reporting to the Head of Digital Marketing, you will:

Support the Head of Digital Marketing in the overall management of the Digital Marketing department and team, who are responsible for all the planning and delivery of marketing initiatives (for all products) which run across Ryanair’s owned media platforms; Ryanair.com, Ryanair App, CRM channels.
Oversee the marketing planning process, providing guidance and strategic direction to our Digital Marketing Pods who are dedicated to meeting the goals and objectives for each of our customer lifecycles: Retain, Win Back, Upsell
Keep track of marketing initiatives (tactical and strategic) planned by the team to ensure they are delivered on-time, with superb attention to detail and reported upon in a timely manner.
Manage the backlog of marketing optimisation initiatives for all ancillary and flight related products.
Keep abreast of our KPIs and objectives, ensuring we are following a roadmap to achieve these, reporting back on performance.
Build strong and collaborative stakeholder relationships throughout the business, becoming a key point of contact for our department, improving outbound comms.
Lead the implementation of marketing projects/initiatives which span all customer lifecycles.
Act as a point of escalation within the department.
Always know what initiatives we are targeting our customer base with and how these are performing
Manage a backlog of marketing optimisation tasks.
Collaborate with senior level stakeholders and present at C-Level
Improve our creative, messaging and the integration of our channels so we can improve conversion through our marketing to the customer base.
Ensure our ancillary and flight related products such as Ryanair Rooms, Ryanair Car Hire, Seats, Bags, Priority & 2 Cabin Bags are being supported in customer programs and are hitting their conversion targets.
Ensure customers and personalisation are part of everything we do.

Requirements

Role Requirements

Over 5 years’ experience working in fast paced, large marketing department
Comfortable with using analytics and working with an Insights team to understand the incremental performance of our initiatives
Experience of managing a specialist marketing function
Demonstrable experience of building strategic plans, especially in CRM channels (Email and Push)
Good knowledge of personalisation tactics
Good knowledge of mobile marketing
A growth mind-set with a passion for making a real difference and getting the job done
Highly organised
Effective communicator
Experience dealing with Director and C Level Executives
Strong ability to work under pressure
Some people management experience is an advantage

Click HERE to apply for this job.

In Jobs

Account Manager – Digital

February 3, 2020 No Comments

Ripple Marketing, Sandyford, Dublin.

We’re looking for an Account Manager – Digital to join us here in Ripple Marketing!

An exciting opportunity is available for a motivated marketing professional to drive current campaigns and drive digital growth within the business.

Our business is growing and varied, and we are looking for an energetic Account Manager who is keen to join a hardworking, fun loving team and drive the digital growth of Ripple Marketing!

Key responsibilities include:

In this role, you will be given the opportunity to take ownership over a large portfolio of Digital Marketing clients and will be tasked with and incentivised to grow this portfolio and take Ripple’s already impressive Digital Marketing offerings to the next level.

You will have ownership and drive end to end digital projects for the organisation, engaging with current and new clients and working closely with an already established digital team.

This role offers a flexible work environment, where a candidate’s career progression and work-life balance are of equal importance!

If the below sounds like you, please get in touch!

Degree in Marketing/Digital Marketing (or related discipline)
3+ years’ experience in the marketing space

A proven track record of delivering and managing digital projects

Comprehensive awareness and understanding of current marketing trends

Experience in digital advertising and budget management
Relevant strong experience in strategic planning, content creation, management and reporting across multiple channels
Ability to manage and inspire a marketing team.
A proven ability to identify and drive new business and growth within the Digital Marketing sphere.
A proven track record of generating sales/leads via digital channels
Flawless attention to detail
A can-do attitude with superb work ethic

Salary range depending on experience- €40k-€50k

As a reward for your commitment to the role you will receive an excellent salary and the chance to work with some of the biggest brands and events in Ireland. You will join a young dynamic team with the opportunity to influence and create major digital marketing campaigns and contribute to driving further business growth.

Click HERE to apply for this job.

In News

How to Make Custom Web and App Mockups for Your Business

February 3, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe.

UX-App is the design tool that makes prototyping your product easy.

Whether you’re already running a business and want to build a new app or you have several products you’d like to outline, you need a great prototyping software to see how everything will look. If you don’t have the technical expertise to wireframe and build out apps on your own, and you don’t have the resources to hire someone, you need a tool like UX-App.

UX-App makes it easy to create fully interactive website and app prototypes without writing a single line of code. Using real, functional HTML and JavaScript elements, UX-App lets you create complete mockups so you can see precisely how people will interact with your site or app.

It’s a comprehensive, all-inclusive tool that lets you use a drag-and-drop editor to prototype an entire product from scratch. By creating interactive and customizable components, this design tool lets you bypass the expensive and complicated parts of building an app so you can focus on the user experience and accessibility of your product.

Build something special without coding. UX-App is on sale now for just $29.

Feature Image Credit: Taras Shypka

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

In News

Market Segmentation Examples: Target the Right Audience

February 3, 2020 No Comments

By Karen McCandless

In the past, marketers often employed a (rather unpleasantly named) strategy known as spray and pray. This involved marketing their business everywhere they could think of and to anyone who would listen. This kind of marketing was expensive, difficult to measure, and ineffective.

Spray and pray was often combined with batch and blast marketing, which involved creating one email blast and sending it to everyone on their customer list.

This was in the days before the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), so many unsuspecting customers ended up getting emails and other marketing communication that they hadn’t given their consent to receive.

Thankfully, most (but not all) companies have moved on and are using a more targeted and personalized approach to marketing. One of the tactics that savvy marketers are using is called market segmentation.

Overview: What is market segmentation?

Instead of having one huge customer list and sending every message you create to everyone on that list, market segmentation involves splitting customers with similar characteristics or interests into different groups.

Customers can be in multiple different market segments at once. You would then only send your marketing messages to the relevant segment(s).

What are the 4 types of market segmentation?

There are four main types of segmentation that you can use to split customers into more manageable groups. We run through these below and provide market segmentation examples for each one.

Type 1: Geographic segmentation

Location is one basic but important way to segment your customers.

For example, if you want to market ski goggles, you might want to create segments for people who live in states that get a lot of snow and that have particularly good ski resorts.

Or, when creating Thanksgiving promotions, you might want to create a simple segment for all your customers in the U.S.

Examples of geographic segmentation

Geographic segmentation can refer to both a specific location as well as the characteristics of that location. Here are some examples of both:

Climate: It makes sense to only market certain items (such as ski products) to certain climates.
Country: Different countries observe different holidays, so it’s important to make sure you’re sending emails that customers will understand.
City: If you have brick-and-mortar stores, you might want to create promotions that are targeted at certain locations in specific cities.

Type 2: Demographic segmentation

This is one of the most popular methods that marketers use to segment customers, as it’s one of the easiest and quickest segments to set up.

Examples of demographic segmentation

It’s important to remember that some demographic information, such as age, is always changing, so you need to continually update your segments. Here are some examples of demographic segmentation:

Age: You can target different products to different age groups, as well as use different marketing channels and content to cater to different generations.
Gender: While gender is becoming a much less important target market, there are still occasions when you might (and we emphasize might) want to segment by gender, such as marketing pregnancy products toward women.
Income: You could market your more expensive lines to customers with a higher income.
Family situation: Someone who is pregnant or has children may be interested in different products than someone who is single.

Type 3: Behavioral segmentation

While it’s easy to collect geographical and demographical information, behavioral segmentation takes more work since you need to collect and analyze more data on your customers.

Examples of behavioral segmentation

To successfully create behavioral-based segments, you need to understand customer actions. Here are some examples of behavioral segments you can create:

Past purchases: Has a customer bought your product or service before and, if so, was how recently?
Brand loyalty: Do they regularly interact with your brand across different marketing channels or do they regularly buy your product?
User status: Have they just signed up to your newsletter or have they stopped interacting with your brand?

Type 4: Psychographic segmentation

Psychographic segmentation is probably the most imprecise type of segmentation, but it also gives you the opportunity to show your customers that you care about them enough to take their interests into account.

Examples of psychographic segmentation

To understand how to create psychographic segments, you need to really listen to your customers so you can understand them better. Here are some examples of psychographic segmentation:

Brand loyalty: Do certain customers particularly like certain brands? For example, if you sell sneakers, you could create a segment of everyone who likes Nike.
Values and beliefs: Do you have customers who are vegan or who only buy organic sustainably made products?
Lifestyle: Do certain customers like to spend a lot of money on certain products, or to buy them often? For example, some customers may want to spend a lot of money on a trendy suitcase, while others may see this as extravagant and only want to buy a basic model.
Interests: If a customer has certain interests, then they might buy specific items more often and buy higher-value products. For example, keen runners will often spend more money on sneakers and buy them more frequently than non-runners.

How to create your own market segmentation

Now you know the different types of segments you can create, it’s time to get practical. Here are the steps you need to take if you want to segment your customer base.

Step 1: Unify your customer data

To create the most accurate, more specific segments, you need to ensure you are collecting as much information as you can on your customers. Record every interaction they have with you and every bit of information they share with you.

Once you have that data, you need to ensure that you store it all in one place, rather than keep your social media data in one location, your email marketing data in another, and your event data in yet another.

When you’ve unified this data, you can start to build up a complete picture of your customers and spot patterns.

For example, you might see that a lot of customers are clicking on articles about vegan skincare in your email newsletter. You can then create a segment of these customers and send them a discount code to encourage them to make a purchase.

Step 2: Create buyer personas

Your segments need to correspond with your business goals and your target market. There’s no point in creating segments of people who live in places where it snows a lot if you don’t sell winter wear.

Putting together buyer personas — which are fictional representations of your ideal customers, including their interests, favorite sites, and demographic data — can help you choose characteristics you want to create segments for.

For example, if your target customer has an income of over $80,000 a year or lives in a major city, then you can create a segment for each of those things.

Step 3: Do your research

Once you’ve created your buyer personas, you need to get as much information as you can on your current and potential customers.

Do keyword research to find out what they are searching for online. Look at what news websites they use or social media channels they favor.

Find out as much as you can on how your competitors segment their customers by signing up for their email newsletters, following them on social media, and browsing their websites.

Step 4: Talk to your customers

This step is particularly useful for psychographic segmentation. The best way to find out a customers’ interests, values, motivations, and beliefs is to ask them directly.

You could create a survey and email it to customers or post questions on social media asking for your customers’ opinions on certain topics. For example, you could ask how many of your customers are vegans.

Step 5: Use your website

Your website is one of your most important marketing channels and an incredibly useful sales and marketing tool, but it’s also often overlooked.

If you want to create behavioral segments, then you need to use your website data. What products or categories are people browsing the most? Which channels are they using to find your website? Which products are they buying?

This information can help you understand which kinds of segments you should be creating.

Step 6: Test, measure and repeat

There is no one magic bullet that will help you create your perfect segment. Some will yield results and some won’t, but you won’t know until you try. That’s why you need to create segments based on the steps above, test the success of your marketing messages against each segment, monitor the performance against your marketing KPIs, and make adjustments as needed.

Methods of market segmentation your small business should try

At The Blueprint, we want to make your life as easy as possible. That’s why we’ve compiled some methods and tools you can use to make the process of setting up customer segments much quicker and easier.

Invest in email list management

One useful way to segment your customers is to use your email list. Leading email marketing software lets you search for common characteristics and surfaces the results. You can then use this data to create segments with just one click.

Mailchimp takes this one step further by analyzing your customer data using its machine learning–based algorithm and building segments automatically based on customer behavior, such as how much time has passed since they last opened one of your campaigns.

For this to work, you need to ensure that you’re managing your email list, which is one of the most important email marketing best practices. This means adding and removing customers from the lists when necessary (such as when they haven’t engaged with your brand in six months).

Create more detailed signup forms

If you want to collect more information on your customers, then you need to create as detailed signup forms as you can without overwhelming customers. To do this, you need marketing or CRM software that allows you to build and design these forms.

SendPulse lets you customize your forms to improve sign-up rate.

SendPulse not only lets you add as many custom fields as you like, you can also choose the type of forms, such as embedded or popup, change the layout from vertical to horizontal, edit the notification text customers receive when they sign up, and track the success of the form in generating signups.

Use lead management software

Lead management software — or a CRM solution that includes lead management functionality — can help you create segments by understanding which of your leads you should prioritize and which you don’t need to focus on based on your marketing metrics and goals.

Lead scoring — a key part of lead management — is a process that determines a customer’s readiness to buy. This is a numerical value that is worked out based on factors such as a customer’s engagement with your company and demographic data.

Insightly provides detailed information about the status of each lead.

Insightly has excellent lead management functionality, as its dashboard provides an at-a-glance view of the status of each lead. Once you’ve worked out which leads are a priority, you can create more accurate segments.

Automate the process

You can’t simply create segments and then just forget about them, but maintaining them manually is a time-consuming process. That’s why you need to invest in a direct marketing solution that comes with dynamic segmentation functionality.

Mailigen provides dynamic segmentation functionality, which means it automatically updates your segments as and when subscribers start and stop meeting your criteria.

Mailigen automatically adds and removes people from your segments.

If a customer hasn’t clicked on any link in your newsletter, that person will be added to a “never clicked” segment. When they click on a link, they’ll be removed from that segment. If they don’t click again for a set period of time, they’ll be added to that segment again, and so on.

The more personalized and targeted, the better

Most people are inundated with emails and social media posts every day, without a hope of opening and looking at every one.

That’s why making sure all your emails and marketing messages are as personalized and relevant as they can be is key if you want to get your customers’ attention. Customer segmentation is crucial to being able to send the most relevant messages to your subscriber base.

Just make sure you’re keeping these segments up to date, retiring any that don’t serve you anymore, and creating and testing new ones on a regular basis.

By Karen McCandless

Sourced from the blueprint