editor, Author at Mediastreet

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When David meets Goliath

May 8, 2018 No Comments

We live in a world where small businesses are popping up wherever you go. Enterprising minds across the globe put everything at stake for their one big idea and battle the world to turn that idea into a successful business.

Once that business is in place, through a long, arduous process, it’s then time to let the world know you have arrived and rope in the customers. Herein lies a big question.

They say there’s no such thing as a new idea, just new ways of approaching old ones. Assuming this is true, and every business does has tough competition. Here’s the question: how does a small business stand a chance when it goes up against a much larger company that has five times the resources and has been around long enough to establish themselves in the market? This is the same consumer that the small business wishes to steal away from its mammoth counterpart, aka competition.

The simple answer is – digital marketing.

Small businesses enter the big bad world of business, ready to take on every colossus that stands in their way. They come, however, armed with tiny marketing budgets and almost complete anonymity. This is not the best combination when your competition has budgets you can only dream of and loyal customers. Having said this, the battle must go on. So, the only way for small businesses to stand tall in this highly competitive environment is to use their budgets wisely and concentrate all their efforts on digital marketing.

When you’re marketing your product or service online, the biggest benefit you have is that the internet is a level playing field. If you find a way to reach your core audience, through highly accurate targeting, you stand as much of a chance to convert that member of your audience into a paying customer, as the big national chains would. The benefit of this is, you have the change to reach out to exactly who you need to, in a much more cost-effective way than traditional marketing methods.

The second big plus about digital marketing is that it’s completely tangible. Every insight, every statistic gives you more and more information to help you optimize your marketing strategy better. You know exactly how many people have clicked on your link, how long they stayed and what their preferences are. On the other hand, you’d never know how many people actually saw your billboard or sat through your TVC. So while traditional marketing is still relevant to larger companies, digital is the way to go for SMEs.

When it comes to digital marketing, lead generated is a customer who is actually interested. They have seen your product, most likely done their research online and if they’re still interested, there’s a much higher chance of that consumer leading to a sale. There are two major components to generating leads online. The first is SEO. According to Guy Sheetrit, CEO at Over The Top SEO, “optimizing your search rankings ensures that when you have a potential customer searching for topics related to your field of business, you’re always going to appear first and make an impact”. The second is social media marketing and advertising. This refers to creating strong content, on the right platforms and then advertising that content to all the right people. Lastly, email marketing. In today’s day and age, email marketing is becoming more and more relevant to marketing plans for small businesses.

In today’s highly mobile world, people’s entire lives fit in the palm of their hand, in the most inseparable element of their entire world – their smart phone. A recent study showed that on an average a person spends up to five hours a day on their phones. Digital marketing is a phone-first medium. It’s the most effective way of building a connection with people, in a world where screen-time has taken precedence over face to face time. If they’re on their phones, that’s where you need to catch them and market to them.

Another major reason why digital marketing is a massive boon for small businesses is because it gives a brand the chance to truly connect with their customers and build a relationship with them. It’s intimate, and more importantly, it’s two-way. If you’re doing it right, your customers wait to hear what you have to say and really appreciate it when you listen and pay attention to what they have to say too. Also, digital is social. It’s where your brand gains traction. It’s where your posts are shared, your praise gains momentum, where your brand it truly built. Social media reviews are the new word-of-mouth and it has never been more effective in driving traffic and sales. It makes you relatable, approachable and trustworthy. And for today’s aware, connected audience, that’s a winning combination.

So it doesn’t really matter if you’re a giant, multinational company, or a small home business, with the right tools under your belt, there’s no stopping your success.

Sourced from The Yale Tribune

In News

The Evolution of Marketing

May 4, 2018 No Comments

Sourced from Nexus

Over the last ten years, the marketing industry has been turned completely on its head. With the advent of social media, a number of human interactions have moved from the physical world to the digital world, and marketing is one of them. Traditional methods of marketing, including print, TV and radio, while not irrelevant today, now take a back seat to digital methods.

The last 20 years have seen technology grow leaps and bounds and social media, as a result, has evolved tremendously over the last few years. One of every eight people on earth now have a Facebook profile. One of every five minutes spent online is on a social network. With a whole generation, or maybe even two, so addicted to social platforms, marketers must promote their brands where their audience spends the most amount of time in their day.

While the basic tenets of marketing remain the same, digital marketing sees a complete shift in the way that brands and consumers view marketing. Take customer service, for instance. The three basic rules are still intact – make sure you listen to your customer, the customer is always right, and always remember to follow up with your customer. The only difference today, is that your customer is not always there, right in front of you. Your customer could be far away and still expect the same service as they would if they were physically in the store with you. Additionally, whether it’s information they need or reviews about your product or service or even a complaint, the first instinct in 2018 would always be to go online. In fact, Twitter is today one of the most popular platforms for individuals to share opinions and grievances about products or services they have used. Therefore, it’s one of the best points of access brands have to their customers. And that’s exactly what a smart digital marketer would make the most of.

The second thing that hasn’t changed is the fact that the only way to actually connect with a customer is to make sure you connect with the right customers in the right way. In traditional marketing, this would mean either sales calls or using media like TV, print or the radio to get your message across. What has changed today is that not only has the idea of targeting your audience evolved to a point where you can go down to specifics like never before, but we’re also in a day and age where the consumer wants a say too. It’s no longer a one-way street. Marketing today is all about the conversation. It’s about engaging your audience and letting them know they have a voice, that voice is important and that voice is heard. Another way that the consumer has changed is that the consumer no longer wants to be sold to. They want brands to know that they’re smarter than that. They want a story, not a sales pitch. This is why marketing today has shifted from a sales first to a content first strategy. As marketing guru Neil Patel puts it, “You can’t just place a few “Buy” buttons on your website and expect your visitors to buy.”

So then, in the world of digital marketing, what can a business do to ensure that their customers consume not just their products but also their content?

First off, understanding social media platforms and which ones they need to be on. Just because it exists, doesn’t mean you need to be on it. Each platform serves a different purpose. Find the one that fits your brand’s needs and audiences the best and stick to those. Once you have the platforms in place, create strong content. Clichéd as it may be, in today’s digital world where the numbers of distractions are increasing and attention spans are reducing, content truly is king.

The next thing you need to do is make sure you have highly effective Search Engine Optimization. This may be one of the most important investments you make for your business so go all in. SEO is important to make sure you are being found by the right people. Google is the new Yellow Pages and SEO makes sure that if someone’s looking for you, they will find you. As Guy Sheetrit, CEO at Over The Top SEO jokes, “the best place to hide a dead body is page two of google”. This is why it’s critically important for any business to be on page one.

Last but not least, your brand needs social media advertisements. With the way Facebook’s algorithms have changed, most of the content, no matter how incredible it is, won’t reach your followers unless you advertise. Make sure all your content is backed up with the right kinds of ads targeted to the right kinds of audiences. Get your advertising right and there’s no stopping you.

With the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, you need to make sure you stay up to date or get left behind.

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Sourced form Nexus

In News

18 Effective Ways to Grow Your Business with Facebook

May 4, 2018 No Comments

By Courtney Baird-Lew

With over 2.13 billion active monthly users worldwide, Facebook remains the most popular social media platform year after year. And while the beginning of 2018 has seen the network’s trust put into question amid a large-scale data breach, projections still see Facebook’s user base increasing well into 2019. In short, Facebook remains an unbeatable force in the digital (and social) sphere.

Taking advantage of Facebook’s resources used to be a simple formula: post frequently, engage occasionally, and expect your customers or clients to follow on your brand’s journey. This is not the case in today’s highly-competitive landscape.

Setting goals specific for Facebook has become increasingly important. While these may vary according to industry, the three main goals to keep in mind are: to increase Facebook “likes”, to improve engagement, and to increase sales. These big three are umbrella goals that should be monitored frequently. If you’re unsure of where to begin, we’re here to help. Here are 18 ways to help you work towards your goals of growing your business with Facebook:

1. Email existing prospects

While Facebook is ubiquitous, many of your current and potential prospects may still be unaware that you have a Facebook page. Craft an email that reminds people of your online presence, and get them excited to see your work. In addition, consider putting a link to your Facebook (and all social channels for that matter) in your email signature.

2. Embed a website plugin

Adding a little Facebook widget to any (or all) pages of your website will help boost the likelihood of current or prospective customers heading to your page. Provide the functionality for readers to “like” your page even when they are not on Facebook. Given the sheer popularity of Facebook, and knowing that the platform has 1.15 billion mobile daily active users, sending your prospects to your Facebook page will be beneficial rather than detrimental.

3. Create a landing page that encourages “likes”

Even when a person is not on Facebook, they can still “like” your page. Adding a “like” button on a landing page is an easy way to get clicks, while keeping the reader on your website at the same time.

4. Create exclusive content that’s only available when you “like” a page

As simple as changing a video or image post from “private” to “public on your Facebook page, this small amount of exclusivity can make them feel like they are part of the ‘club’ that you have cordially invited them to join.

5. Partner with influencers

With an extensive reach and a community of committed followers, partnering with Facebook experts will spread the word of your brand in an indirect way; resulting in a promotion that looks casual and organic, rather than pushy.

6. Join Facebook groups and share your content

Without being overbearing or coming across as too self-promotional, joining Facebook groups that relate to your industry expertise is a great way to connect with B2C and B2B prospects who would otherwise have not come across your page. Consider it a more colloquial form of LinkedIn groups, wherein you are sharing your vision, but also commenting on others’.

7. Embed email subscriptions into your Facebook page

Adding this feature is a solid way to help generate leads from the prospects heading to your page. This can be as simple as “sign up” button that links back to your landing page.

8. Conduct polls

Found in your “status” bar, a poll can heighten engagement between you and your current followers and prospects alike. You can also Implement ‘third party” survey tools, like the popular Survey Monkey, which can provide further resources than the basic Facebook “questions” feature.

9. Share your blogs and any relevant news

Immediately after your blogs go up, publish them on Facebook! In addition, create enticing, action-oriented copy that will further propel your audience to click back to your site. Encouraging your peers and business partners to share any news or articles will also maximize the post’s reach.

10. Respond in a timely manner

When comments or messages come in, make sure to respond quickly and eloquently. If you have a slow response rate, Facebook will point this out directly on your page. A good response rate will be listed in green, whereas a bad one is listed in shades of yellow, orange, and red.

11. Run a Facebook offer or competition

To sweeten the pot, create a set of rules such as: sharing the post, liking the post, and tagging a friend to be able to enter. Here is an example of a contest that garnered thousands of shares:

12. Share your SlideShare presentations

Since LinkedIn has embedded SlideShare into its platform, your presentations now have even more reach, and across multiple platforms. Share your presentations on Facebook to show your business savvy.

13. Consider an F-Commerce function

Convert and sell within your Facebook page with the Facebook commerce (F-Commerce) function. With the aim of increasing conversions, having the “shop” feature on your Facebook is an excellent way to amass further e-commerce transactions.

14. Share your visual media

The medium is the message! Media that is visual, like static images, Gifs, and Facebook live videos, are always more appealing when you’re in direct competition with viral videos for views. Create media that’s appealing to the eye.

15. Boost your posts

The act of “boosting” a post will require some pocket change on your end, but will give you a great ROI. Boosting a post will not only extend your post’s reach, but will also give you the ability to narrow who to target, and where to target.

16. Use Facebook ads

Facebook ads are categorized in a variety of ways. Use the ad type that’s most appropriate to your business goals.

There’s the popular (and effective) domain ad, which is comprised of a single image with a link to your website below. You also have the multi-product ad, which shows a carousel of images that lead to your domain. This a great way to test which products your audience desires the most.

Offer ads are a bit different. Instead of just sending people to your website, these ads target those familiar with your brand and usually offer discount codes with an expiration date.

Video ads (which are self-explanatory) work well for both brand awareness and retargeting.

Lead ads are great for collecting information from a Facebook user without them leaving the platform. Facebook will fill in as much information as possible, while the user can fill in the rest.

Here’s an example of a sponsored domain ad for the brand SSENSE;

An offer ad for the brand J. Crew;

An example of a “carousel” or multi-product ad;

And a Facebook lead ad;

As with any ad content, Facebook ads should not just be visually compelling, but should have a prominent call to action.

17. Post at the appropriate time

Timing is everything. And while the “right” time may vary according to your industry, location, and audience, there exist a set of general guidelines to abide by when scheduling your Facebook posts.

18. Consider marketing automation

Use a marketing automation tool to gauge which posts are the most successful, and to gather intel and which ones will provide the best ROI in future. Scheduling your posts with marketing automation platform will not only keep things simplified and organized, but will help provide further analytics in regards to your page’s performance. Overall, the aim is to enhance your potential results and build your reputation.

SUMMARY

Build to look simple, Facebook is a complex platform that can be used to every business’ advantage. The most popular social network, Facebook is forever changing and improving its performance, and ridding itself of seemingly inconsequential things like outdated metrics that could have an impact on your page’s performance. That being said, always monitor your Facebook page, treat it with care, and watch those sales flourish.

By Courtney Baird-Lew

Sourced from Digital Doughnut

In News

Online Marketing Plan: 7 Steps To Create A Truly Effective One

May 4, 2018 No Comments

By Harnil Oza

A well-created online marketing plan explains in detail all the tools, tactics and strategies that will be carried out to achieve the targeted goals

The online marketing plan is one of the most important tools for any company that wants to stand out on the internet. Competing in a world of constant change is very difficult, and here this article plays a very important role, which will help you to set different actions towards achieving your objectives.

Online marketing is crucial for any brand, regardless of its size. It is true that for many, the beginnings can be confusing, and it is normal not to fully understand what must be done to get off to a good start. Today, you will learn how to create an effective online marketing plan.

Attention! A marketing plan is not the same as an online marketing plan. A marketing plan is very general and also includes actions that have a place in the offline environment. The online marketing plan concentrate on getting and maintaining customers exclusively through digital channels. It is a very strategic in nature and involves objectives, facts and numbers. A well-created online marketing plan explains in detail all the tools, tactics and strategies that will be carried out to achieve the targeted goals.

Today, brands are facing a very stiff competition, where a business must differentiate itself in some way and face new objectives. The internet and the continuous technological advance are producing changes that in the end are going to be crucial for the success or failure of a company. You must adapt your business to everything that is happening, thus anticipating all the challenges that may arise. How? With a good online marketing plan.

Here are the essential steps to develop an effective online marketing plan.

1st Step- Analysis of the situation

You have to know where you stand, where you are coming from and know in depth your products and services, your competition and your potential client (market analysis). In this first step, you must define your company and everything you offer, showing how the benefits you are giving differ from the other competitors.

Not only do you have to be able to describe what you offer perfectly, but you must also have a clear understanding of what your competitors sell, to offer an added value that differentiates you from all of them.

It is what is referred to as SWOT analysis, Weaknesses, Threats, Strengths and Opportunities.

Weaknesses: These are the weak points of your company. Here you must write down everything that you think limits you or reduces the evolution capacity of your business.

Threats: All those factors that may impede a strategy or reduce its efficiency, increase risk, and reduce revenues.

Strengths: What are the strengths of your company? Analyze the capabilities and resources you have, as they will serve to exploit them and take advantage of opportunities.

Opportunities: Factors of the environment that can be exploited by your company. Whether they are new market niches, new investors, more staff.

Hire an iPhone app developer that will create apps that will help with SWOT analysis of your company

2nd Step- Discover your target audience

Developing a profile of your potential client is the next step of an online marketing plan. You can describe it according to demographic terms, age, sex, family composition, income, location, lifestyle, etc. There are questions you have to ask yourself at the time of this selection, such as, are my clients conservative or innovative? What are their hobbies? How often do they buy what you offer? What is the age bracket of people that can make use of your product?

Choose your audience based on your type of business, company size, and location. Strictly defining this is crucial, as it will be your future guide when planning campaigns and any communication. Many apps can help businesses discover their targets. You need to hire an expert iPhone app developer that will create sleek apps for your business.

3rd Step- Analyze your goals

What do you want to achieve through this online marketing plan? Write down a list of objectives to make them measurable and know when you have achieved them. It is very important that before moving on to marketing strategies, define the objectives both short and long-term. The objectives must be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and with specific times).

For example, do you expect a 15% increase in your sales every two months? Do you want to be better positioned? Do you expect your products or services to increase?

The goals depend a lot on the development of the business.

4th Step- Develop the strategies you will use

You are at the center of your online marketing plan. Through the previous steps, you have analyzed your goals and have identified your target audience. Now is the time to detail the ways you will use to reach this audience and achieve your goals.

Identify the best tactics to carry out your online marketing plan. It is vital to have a backup plan in case your initial plan fails. This will enable you to continue with your online marketing campaign without having to start all over again.

5th Step- Action plans

An action plan must contain aspects such as what will be done when it will be done, who are the people responsible for taking it forward, the real costs that it will have, what will be the final measurable result and so on.

Thus you will have detailed strategies so that all the activities that you carry out are well coordinated, and everything is organized.

6th Step- Resources and budget

The effective functioning of an online marketing plan requires three important resources: investment, money, and technology.

Once the design of the strategy is done and you know how we are going to make it, it is essential to budget. You should know the financial investment that you are going to make. Part of the financial investment occurs when brands hire iPhone app developer to help his business with a sleek app.

7th Step- Monitoring

You already have all the actions of our online marketing plan working. Now you must subject them to great control. This is done to detect possible problems and solve them as soon as possible, as well as to change or adjust what is necessary according to the circumstances. You speak of KPI (Key Performance Indicators), indicators that help you quantify all the work. Its sole objective is to improve the productivity of one or more services so that your company works in the best possible way.

In this step, all the figures obtained are evaluated and analyzed, such as clicks, visits to the web, where the traffic comes from, how much time people spend browsing your products or services. You can do this through measurement tools, such as Google Analytics.

Hopefully, these seven steps will make things easier for you when creating your online marketing plan. You have to dedicate a lot of time and effort, but the results are worth it. You need to hire an iPhone app developer that can create amazing apps that have the latest technologies to promote your business.

By Harnil Oza

CEO, Hyperlink Infosystem

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

In News

Why is Typography an Essential Part of Web Design?

May 3, 2018 No Comments

By Sabrina Sedicot,

Be Bold. Or Italic. Never regular – as the old graphic design joke goes. It’s a pretty played out pun by this point, but the truth is that typography is as essential to great design today as it has always been. Let’s take a look at the ways that creative and inspired typography can help designers to build unforgettable online experiences.

Maybe there’s even something a little surprising in our ongoing obsession with all things font, given the move from print to digital design. But, of course, effective and cohesive visual communication is now more important than ever. And typography is intrinsically related to technological advancements in the digital era.

95% of websites are made up of content. But equally important to what words you’re saying is how those words look. So, an opening word of advice for brands and organisations in the early phases of web design: pay as much attention to your Sans Serif as you do to your “About Us” section.

Let’s take a look at the ways that creative and inspired typography can help designers to build unforgettable online experiences.

UX Design & Establishing Hierarchy

As we’ve moved further and further into the world of UX, we’ve found that an increasingly important part of good design is finding a way to guide your user through site in the most natural way possible, with minimal effort on their part when it comes to making sense of everything. Type not only creates harmony and consistency across your site – it also provides a frame of context for your user to interpret content.

Whether that’s through style or size or placement – the user differentiates different types of information. A much better option than presenting them with a homogenous block of text. Of course, going wild with too many fonts will have the opposite effect. Select between two and four fonts and apply them carefully.

Brand Identity & Bespoke Typefaces

Robert Bringhurst describes typography in his book as “the craft of human language with a durable visual tone”. Type is a meaningful a mode of visual communication that gives an impression of tone and personality and relationship to the audience as human speech in exactly the same way that speech does.

The right font has the power to evoke the feelings and emotions in your user that you want them to associate with your brand or business. 2017 was the year of the bespoke typeface – Youtube and Coco-Cola both released their own custom fonts. They followed in the footsteps of Google, who released Roboto is 2011. Roboto is a neo-grotesque sans-serif font described by the company as “modern, yet approachable” and, “emotional”.

For brands and organisations, the custom typeface is a pragmatic move. To say that it’s a crowded marketplace would be a meaningless understatement, and designing something that’s just yours is a way of protecting your brand and cementing your visual identity.

As any good luxury branding agency will tell you, the bespoke typeface is here to stay. Here’s a good roundup, taking a look at The Death of Helvetica.

Typography and Virtual Reality

The digital designer’s role will change again with the arrival of VR and AR into mainstream culture and brand experiences. Type is still immensely relevant, but these new interfaces with their own unique set of challenges. The entire dynamic of typography as a visual medium changes.

As The Drum puts it: “in VR, type becomes physical, elastic, monumental, dimensional, and confrontational”. Designers must consider motion, volume, UI/ UX and sound in additional to the visual effect. VR dispenses with the frame, creating a new challenge for your user when it comes to establishing context for… well, text. The job of the designer is, as always, to solve it.

There’s always a place for considerations related to font when it comes to web design. Make sure your words are speaking for your brand in the way that you want them to with careful and consider application of typography and a creative approach to harnessing new technologies.

By Sabrina Sedicot

Sourced from Digital Doughnut

In News

Four Thinking Habits Of Successful People

May 3, 2018 No Comments

By Mr Mark Edwards

“Here’s to the crazy ones,” begins Apple’s famous Think Different ad campaign of the mid-1990s, “the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers”. It’s a celebration of history’s most creative people, drawing an interesting parallel between them: innovators from Mr Albert Einstein to Sir Richard Branson and Mr Pablo Picasso have all taken a rather interpretative approach to the status quo.

There’s a peculiar alchemy to the creative process that many of us would love to feel more comfortable with. But Mr Jonah Sachs, author of Unsafe Thinking – a new book intended to help you be “creative and bold when you need it the most” – says that playing it safe isn’t the answer. “So much creativity comes from when people break the rules,” he says. “There’s a huge value in interrupting people’s expectations and surprising them.”

But what does it actually mean to think “unsafely”? In Mr Sachs’ book, we are essentially encouraged to try doing the opposite of what we are told – or, more accurately, what we think we are being told. It’s a behaviour that Mr Sachs refers to as “productive dissent”. And yes, it can be applied in the workplace. However, before you start ignoring everything your boss asks you to do, consider why you could sometimes benefit from doing so – and how you’ll explain yourself afterwards. “Most importantly, you should be honest about why [you dissented]”, says Mr Sachs, “Say how, and why, you did what you did – why you did it for the good of the group, for instance, or so the company could meet its larger objectives.”

Unsafe thinking isn’t simply about disobedience, however. It’s about encouraging your brain to see the world – and itself – differently. And that means embracing your weaknesses. “Go outside your area of expertise. The more we try to make ourselves look like experts, the more error-prone we become,” says Mr Sachs, “Do something you suck at. The masters of any field focus their practice on what they’re not good at. The mediocre repeatedly do things they already do well.”

With that in mind, we’ve compiled a few examples of unsafe thinking to get you started.

Embrace discomfort

By the 1930s, Mr Mahatma Gandhi was giving speeches to crowds that even the most experienced orator would find intimidating. Which is all the more impressive when you consider the fact that he suffered from acute anxiety. The solution was counterintuitive. Instead of trying to battle it, Mr Gandhi welcomed his anxiety, viewing it as an opportunity to grow stronger. One particular night, having been kicked off a train in the middle of nowhere, the approach to anxiety inspired the idea for which he became most well-known: “satyagraha” (non-violent protest). He called the evening “the most creative night of his life”.

Adjust your focus

If you look at problems from a different angle, you’ll see different answers. Take, for instance, Mr Abraham Wald – a mathematician who was celebrated for his work for the US Navy in the 1940s. Unable to figure out why so many planes were being shot down, the Navy had turned to statisticians such as Mr Wald to solve the issue. The existing strategy was to armour-plate the areas of the returning bombers that were clustered with the largest number of bullet holes – the wings, nose and tail. Mr Wald immediately saw a flaw. These were the bombers that had returned relatively intact. It was those that had been shot down that should inform the areas they should be reinforcing. Thanks to Mr Wald, the Navy instead chose to place armour around the cockpit, where the pilots sat – saving untold lives and giving the allies a critical airborne advantage.

Utilise humour

Bogota, Colombia, 1994. A dangerous place to be a pedestrian. Thanks to most drivers’ complete disregard for road laws, or each other, simply walking down the street was a life-threatening activity. So how to tackle the problem and improve the relationship between drivers and pedestrians? Bogota’s new mayor, Mr Antanas Mockus, addressed the problem without a single police officer. The solution, instead, was comedy. He employed hundreds of mimes to walk the streets, mocking examples of bad driving. Unbelievably, it knocked some sense into the city’s drivers. Nobody likes to be laughed at, after all.

Disregard the rules (sometimes)

Gmail has wound itself so tightly into the fabric of our lives that it’s hard to remember a time before it. But, in 2004, Google had no real solution to how their new email service was going to pay for itself. One engineer, however – Mr Paul Buchheit – was on to something. What if Gmail could read your emails, and serve you up relevant advertising next to them? Ms Marissa Mayer, then a product manager, hated the idea – expressly ordering Mr Buchheit to drop it entirely. Luckily for Google, he had other plans. When Ms Mayer opened her email the next day, she found an advert for hiking boots alongside an invite to go hiking from a friend. To her surprise – it was actually useful. Mr Larry Page and Mr Sergey Brin agreed. The rest is the stuff of Silicon Valley legend.

Feature Image Illustration by Mr Patrick Ledger

By Mr Mark Edwards

Sourced from Mr Porter

In News

Pro-Sports Leagues Are Fueling America’s Obesity Epidemic With Unhealthy Commercials, New Study Says

May 3, 2018 No Comments

By Jericho Knopp

A new study suggests that commercials played during major sporting events are actually promoting obesity in America.

The study conducted by New York University’s School of Medicine analyzed the Nielsen ratings from numerous televised sports programs to figure out what programs were watched the most by youth (ages 2 to 17).

Researchers found that three-quarters of the food and beverage sponsors of the 10 most popular programs did not meet minimum nutritional requirements by the Nutritional Profile Model (NPM), which is a way of measuring the healthiness of food.

Some of the most common sponsors were companies selling energy drinks, chips, and sugary cereals.

The NFL was by far the worst of the 10 groups, with the most unhealthy sponsors AND the largest number of viewers watching the unhealthy content.

Another troubling one: Little League Baseball. This one was particularly concerning to researchers due to its focus on children and youth.

“The U.S. is in the throes of a child and adolescent obesity epidemic, and these findings suggest that sports organizations and many of their sponsors are contributing, directly and indirectly, to it,” said Dr. Marie Bragg – the study’s lead investigator. “Sports organizations need to develop more health-conscious marketing strategies that are aligned with recommendations from national medical associations.”

Those strategies would involve the higher ups in national sports leagues pursuing partnerships with companies that promote healthier food and drinks. Otherwise, watching sports on TV will become a health risk, according to Dr. Bragg.

“Unhealthy food and beverage promotion through organized sports is pervasive,” she added. “These organizations must put forth a better effort to protect their youngest and most impressionable fans.”

By Jericho Knopp

Sourced from Civilized

In News

Ecommerce Marketing for Small Shops

May 2, 2018 No Comments

By Anton Koekemoer,

When you have a newly launched shop with just a few products, you may think that ecommerce marketing is far beyond your current vision. This is often seen as something that is limited to large brands and superstores rather than tiny shops.

Ecommerce Marketing Tips for Smaller Shops

In reality, every single online store benefits from ecommerce marketing. Some low-cost, high-impact ecommerce marketing ideas to help you compete with bigger stores include the following:

Sell your brand story

One of the advantages that smaller shops have over big shops is the fact that smaller shops feel more personal to consumers. Take advantage of this by selling your brand story in addition to your products. Consider what you stand for, where you come from, what your passions and values are, or even what sets you apart from other stores in your niche. Use that as your USP and weave your story into your about pages and branding.

Focus on channels that drive sales

Rather than trying to use every single channel, focus on the channels that are adding real value. If you have seen results on your Facebook, YouTube and email marketing efforts, but not so much on Twitter and SEM, you will be essentially wasting time and resources trying to convert on channels that do not show growth. Instead, focus on a few high-performing channels.

Invest in a responsive website

One thing that no shop can afford to do without is a responsive ecommerce website. If your store is not optimised for mobile, you are missing out on a huge chance to reach customers. Rather than spreading your budget out everywhere, focus on the investments that will pay off in the long term. One such investment is a beautifully designed ecommerce site that is fast-loading and easy to use.

Build your mailing list

Having a powerful website is a good step in the right direction. Building a mailing list is an even better step. Many etailers are so focused on growing their presence on social media that they forget about the value of owning their own lists. When you own your list, you will be able to craft lead nurturing campaigns and other campaigns that are driven towards sales and conversion.

Try setting these ecommerce marketing strategies into motion and you will see what a difference you notice in your sales and growth.

By Anton Koekemoer

I’m your friendly neighbourhood digital marketing specialist and growth hacker. I specialise in helping brands connect with targeted customers by enhancing their online presence through emerging web-based communication channels. I translate business objectives into comprehensive initiatives that focus on humanising brand identity while maximising measurable business results.

Sourced from Open Circle Solutions

In News

Build Topic Clusters To Change Content Architecture For Top Rankings

May 2, 2018 No Comments

By Karina Tama – Rutigliano

Marketers are always looking for strategies to gain top rankings in search engines. Just when you think you’ve tried every keyword and linking strategy known to man, the search engines change their algorithms. You find yourself going back to the drawing board to beat your competitors with a new strategy.

The latest algorithm updates put a new spin on SEO ranking. Keywords and linking are still relevant, but SEO is evolving and favoring a new model called topic clusters. Using topic clusters requires new ways of thinking about SEO. It also requires changing the architecture of your content.

Why Search Engines Keep Changing

Search engines keep changing because consumer behavior keeps changing. Technology is evolving, and consumers are evolving with it. They’re learning how to use it, which also means they are expecting more from it. For example, people are no longer putting the word “housekeeper” into the search box. They’re more likely to input a sophisticated phrase, such as “find me a reputable and reasonably priced housekeeper in Boston.” The customer will be looking for results that are accurate and relevant.

Every time there’s a change in consumer behavior, search engine developers get busy redesigning their algorithms to match consumer behavior. The Google Panda update in 2011 forced digital marketers to stop overusing keywords and start producing quality content. Some marketers thought that the Hummingbird update was the official switch to changing SEO patterns because it focuses on phrases rather than keywords.

In 2015, the RankBrain update broke the mold with a machine-learning algorithm that could understand phrases in search queries and put them together with the customer’s intended context. Google picks up multiple phrases and keywords from past searches on similar topics. In this way, the search engine “sees” what the consumer is looking for within the intended context. According to HubSpot research, after the RankBrain update, websites that had greater numbers of interlinks got better placements in search results. Sites with a lot of interlinks also got more impressions.

Using topic clusters creates many interlinks. This new marketing strategy tells the search engine that you’re an authority on the subject because you have the highest quality of content, and it links to many other pages of high-quality content on the same topic. I like to think of topic clusters as spokes on a wheel. A single pillar page acts as the main hub.

Our pillar is in-home care for seniors. I set up several subtopics, such as senior care costs, quality senior care, care for Alzheimer’s and memory loss, etc. These topics form the center of the hub. Then, I expand on each topic with many more articles, linking each one to the center hub and to the others. A content hub about in-home costs for seniors might include interlinked articles about how much in-home care costs, how families fund it, how to blend family caregiving and professional care, and more. I then do the same with the other subtopics to create cleaner, more streamlined content architecture.

These topic clusters signal to the search engine that my company’s website covers our industry with a wide lens. It tells them that we’re a leading authority on in-home care. The result is that they’ll reward my efforts with a higher ranking.

Tips And Tricks For Topic Clustering

Try to keep the subtopic broad enough that you could easily add 30-40 posts on topics related to it. The topics that you add to the subtopic hub must have some type of connection. Each subtopic should cover one area of knowledge related to your industry. The interlinking topics connected by spokes (links) take your audience into greater detail.

Put solid thought into your subtopics. Are there any topics that you need to compete with other companies over? What do your customers need to know more about? Map out the problems that you know your customers have, and create subtopics around problems that you can help solve with your solutions. Take a look at your frequently asked questions to spark your imagination for even more topics. If your customers are asking the same questions, you need to create content to answer them.

Using topic clusters doesn’t mean that you should forget about other marketing strategies like keywords. I still use them in the content of the articles I create and add to the subtopic hub.

Looking Toward The Future Of Topic Clustering

Give yourself time to create new clusters for topics. A helpful resource for creating your new content architecture is to repurpose and revamp existing content. After it’s been on the web for a while, you can measure the results and restrategize if necessary.

Developers are also taking a look at how new tools can help website owners analyze and master cluster topic strategies. As a marketer, I look forward to these resources.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Karina Tama – Rutigliano

Karina Tama – Rutigliano is the Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Caring People Inc. where she leads SEO, PPC and content marketing.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

The Hard Reality of How Creatives Make Magic

May 2, 2018 No Comments

By Michael Thompson

Tell me if this sounds familiar? You sit down to write and you stare at your computer and think to yourself, “Shit, I have nothing to say.”

Like many people, I began to write because I had something to say.

However, as time passes, and writing for fun turns to habit, more times than not, I sit down and start writing, and hope the creative process wins. Some days it does. Most days it doesn’t.

There is loads of truth to the words of Charles Bukowski, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

I am not a professional writer, but over the last year or so, despite not knowing what I was doing, I started to write, and immediately learned what I had to say, some people wanted to hear.

The first comment I wrote online became part of Stephen Pressfield’s blog on how to pitch your product. The first article I wrote got picked up by Fast Company, and shared by INC. I had the same luck with a handful of other publications I liked. Most importantly, I got on the radar of a few people I had previously admired only from afar.

Life was sunshine and rainbows, then reality hit.

Writing about a few key past experiences and the lesson I learned came easy. However, writing for the sake of writing is hard.

This early recognition was both a blessing and a curse. Sure it was nice to be noticed and learning I had a talent, where I thought none existed, did a world of good for my confidence in a few areas. But writing consistently over the last year has taught me I was not nearly as creative as I thought.

Over the last fifteen months I have never had more doubts about myself, and this is exactly why I know I am only at the beginning stages of being creative — because it hurts.

The only part of the creative process that runs consistent is doubt.

When speaking about the reality of making art, and the pain that comes with making it, Artist Christoph Niemann said, “We measure ourselves against a lucky moment. And this is really painful.”

We do something great and we are expected to do it again. But it is hard to repeat success, and even worse, when it comes to creative endeavours, we know we cannot repeat it.

When making art, your next work is rarely your best work. In fact, for anyone that creates anything, we know this is the furthest thing from the truth and constantly think our best work is behind us.

Nothing ever magical happened by planning to create magic.

So How Do “Creatives” Keep Making Magic?:

When I began writing, I read every book I could about the process of the current and past greats. I learned a great deal. But at the end of the day, the conclusion I came to in regards to the perfect writing process, is that it does not exist.

The perfect writing process is writing everyday.

The perfect writing process means staring at a blank page and having the faith a lucky moment will take place.

Athletes practice everyday.

The best salesmen make their calls everyday.

The best musicians pick up their instrument everyday.

Same goes for writers and anyone pursuing creative work.

You have to start again — everyday. Again, again, again.

You sit down with a handful of thoughts running through your head and with each written word one path becomes clearer than the others. You recognize it, and you continue. However, just because you found momentum does not mean it will be any good.

Making a point is hard.

Cutting everything that is not essential is hard.

Leaving in the parts that open you and scare you because being vulnerable is the part that best connects is hard.

But that is what “work” is, and I have learned that “working” is the only way to take off the pressure put on by others and the pressure we put on ourselves.

It is not about hoping inspiration will strike.

It is about sitting down and starting.

Starting everyday is what gives amazing a chance, and this is the best a creative can do, give amazing a chance, everyday.

“Inspiration is for amateurs. Us professionals we just go to work in the morning.” — Chuck Close

The desire to be original is overrated:

Like anyone who creates, I want to be original.

I want to say, make or write something that nobody has ever heard, seen or read.

But over the last year I have learned the dangers of trying to plan to say, make or write something original.

Creativity does not mix very well with plans. Planning is not how creativity works. And it is certainly not how art connects.

The best writing, the best ideas, the best speakers, share experiences that relate to other human beings.

The best art, the best ideas, the best writing takes something people are familiar with and either simplifies it, or adds onto the conversation, exposing something others have not heard, seen or read before.

This is all innovation is in 2018.

This is all art ever was — drawing someone in with something that feels familiar to them and evoking a feeling or emotion that was not there a minute before.

I do not know about you, but I find comfort in this. I have spent too many days trying to be creative, I forgot the most important ingredients — learning from others, mixing it with me, and allowing my curiosity and fingers to fly.

It does not mean it will be magical.

But it does give magic a chance.

An hour ago I had nothing to say.

“Do what you love and let it kill you.”

If you have enjoyed reading this story, please give it a “👏” and me a follow so other people will see it here on Medium. Thanks again for choosing to spend your time here — means the world.

Feature Image Credit: Mubariz Mehdizadeh on Unsplash

By Michael Thompson

Sourced from The Writing Cooperative