Digital Marketing Archives - Page 6 of 18

In News

These 6 Classic Marketing Tactics Stand The Test Of Time

May 23, 2022 No Comments

In the age of digital marketing, it seems influencers, email marketing, SEO, and social media reign supreme. Are there any classic marketing tactics that have withstood the test of time? The answer is yes — there are quite a few “old school” marketing moves that still pack a punch. Let’s look at six tried and true marketing tactics you should still consider using in the modern era.

1. Networking and Relationship-Building

Networking online or in-person is just as important in the modern-day as it was in the past. Strong networking skills are essential for any marketing professional or business owner. Successful networking generates referrals and leads, encourages steady client retention, and helps to build a positive reputation among peers and patrons, alike.

Attending conferences in your area is a great way for you to meet other people in your industry and build connections with local businesses and clients that are geographically nearby. Attending national networking events or conferences can also help you expand your network across the country and meet prospective clients and professionals that are doing similar work and perhaps can partner with your business or brand to form a mutually beneficial relationship.

2. Actual Facetime with Your Audience

No, we’re not talking about FaceTime with screens. Investing in facetime with your audience or customers is still a necessary part of doing business and can be greatly beneficial to your relationship with clients, collaborators, and partners. You will develop stronger circular regional relationships by curating interaction opportunities as well, which in turn helps to build more resilient local economies.

When you have face-to-face time with clients or business partners you’re able to pick up on things that are often missed in emails or audio calls such as facial expressions, body language, and other social queues that can get left out in written text or audio-only interactions. This can help build trust and deepen relationships which can yield fruitful business opportunities.

3. Offering Freebies and/or Discounts

People like free stuff. It’s as simple as that. This is a marketing tactic that won’t be retired any time soon because it has proven time and again to be effective. Freebies and discounts allow your target audience to interact with your brand or business and engage more actively with your services and content or sample your products.

It also offers an excellent opportunity for free advertising. When hosting a contest or free giveaway you can get entrants to repost the contest on their social media accounts, follow your brand’s account, and tag other people to spread the news — extending your reach and engaging your target audience in a fun way. Everyone wins.

The USPS created a guide titled “Still Relevant: A Look at How Millennials Respond to Direct Mail” (PDF) to help companies understand why millennials respond to mail and how to create an appealing mail piece.

4. Direct Mail Lives!

If you think paper mail is dead, then you would be wrong. It turns out everyone really does love mail. Direct mail is still a great way to reach out with the right purpose in mind, even for younger generations. There are several benefits to using direct mail. Direct mail campaigns give a high return on investment (ROI)—even higher than paid ad campaigns.

It is possible to reach your target audience with the right information at the right time. Direct mail campaigns can work solo or in conjunction with a digital marketing campaign such as by integrating online sales or QR codes, and it is very easy to track their progress.

5. Radio Advertising

Audio is making a significant comeback, so don’t sleep on this medium! Listen to what the founder and CEO of NisonCo Evan Nison had to say about the benefits of radio advertising in Forbes:

The resurgence of radio-based advertising has become increasingly apparent. Podcasts and web-based streaming audio ads can reach national and global platforms. Radio ads can be used to target very specific local regions and varied audience segments.

For those with a brick-and-mortar business location especially, radio advertising is the fun, affordable option of choice for hyper localized advertising. For those looking to level up their findability in the technological age, look into optimizing your local SEO performance.

6. Testimonials and Reviews

People are generally more attuned to the tactics used to get them to buy things or engage with a brand. Testimonials provide both credibility and accountability for brands and businesses because customers are naturally more likely to trust feedback from other consumers. Creating space for testimonials and reviews allows for clients to leave positive feedback or bring attention to issues that can then be addressed to help better the brand or business. In addition to these benefits, bringing them into the modern era by dedicating time to respond on social media sites and to poor reviews will aid in your local SEO strategy so your site will rank better on search engine results pages.

Conclusion Caveat: It’s a Modern World

It is imperative to examine the past for the lessons it has to offer our present, with the caveat that the world we live in exists today in the here-and-now. Each marketing strategy — old and new — has strengths and weaknesses when placed in different applications and contexts. If your brand is uncertain what blend of old-school and digital marketing strategies to employ, reach out to our team of PR, SEO, and Content Writing specialists today to begin crafting a comprehensive plan.

This article was submitted by an external contributor and may not represent the views and opinions of Benzinga.

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By NisonCo

Sourced from Benzinga

In News

How brands can stand out in the customer experience economy

May 3, 2022 No Comments

By Morgan Mitchell

Online customer experience is changing like never before. So, brands need to decide: adapt or die, writes BOSCO™’s Morgan Mitchell.

The new customer experience economy is set to be the making or the breaking of not just newer brands but established ones too. Since 2020, the customer experience (CX) online has evolved dramatically. The need for a winning online CX is essential for success and is proving to be one of the most important and fundamental elements of marketing in today’s digital landscape.

With 81% of retailers increasing their investment in CX over the past two years, what does that mean for brands, consumers and the long-term relationship between the two?

The BOSCO™ index measures the online footprint of brands and benchmarks how effective they are with their paid and organic media channels. Using third-party data, BOSCO™ generates a score between 0-1,000 to determine how successful brands are in the digital space.

What is online CX and what does it include?

Online CX refers to the digital customer experience of your brand. It includes every stage of the consumer buying journey, including pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase.

Online CX is a huge part of brand perception as it encompasses every interaction a customer has with you digitally. That could be from first finding your Instagram page to using your online chat function to troubleshoot an order problem. While that may sound overwhelming, online CX is really just about providing a persona to your brand and carrying this through every customer-facing element of the business. And as we’re sure you know, consistency is key.

Why is online CX changing?

Unsurprisingly by now, the online and digital space is changing. Major steps have been brought forward by the Covid-19 pandemic as the world moved solely online as a result of international lockdowns. The need for online customer support skyrocketed and brands that previously didn’t have a digital-first approach scrambled to catch up.

Plus, it’s getting even more difficult for brands to retain consumers. 94% of sales and marketing professionals say that their business is effective at nurturing newer relationships during the ‘interaction’ and ‘awareness’ stage of the buyer journey. But that all changes at the advocacy stage, where professionals feel they are only 77% effective. What that tells us is that it’s harder to sustain long-term consumer relationships. This is where online CX comes into play.

So, how are brands adapting and strategizing to fit this new customer experience economy? What can we learn from these insights and consumer behaviour patterns?

Instant messaging & online chat functions

As the pandemic hit in 2020, consumers moved their lives entirely online in a way that hadn’t been seen before. We couldn’t pop into a shop to see a product, make a return, or just speak to an employee. Phone lines became jammed, so consumers turned instead to online messaging.

Since then, brands and retailers alike have amped-up their online messaging capabilities. Whether that be a live chat function on their site or through their social media, messaging became the go-to way to interact with brands online. In fact, between 2019 and 2020, social messaging rose in popularity by 110% – that’s huge.

Implement an omnichannel CX approach

Businesses fail to form meaningful, positive relationships with consumers when processes become tricky to navigate. For example, support tickets are passed from department to department without proper follow-up.

Let’s put that into context. A consumer messages you on social media with a complaint. The social team pass this on to customer service where the consumer has to explain the issue again. This then gets passed on to a complaints department and once again, the consumer must explain the problem. This could go on and on, meanwhile, the consumer is becoming more and more annoyed at the lack of communication within your business.

Instead, an integrated omnichannel CX system is seamless. Agents can easily transfer customer messages between apps and departments without the need to start from the beginning every time. This creates an easy, problem-free interaction that solves problems quickly, efficiently and, most importantly, leaves the consumer with a positive experience.

It’s not just about problem-solving either. Great online CX is more about being proactive rather than reactive. A great example of omnichannel CX is Zara’s (BOSCO™ score: 731) use of ‘Store Mode’ in its app. This allows users to only see products available in their local Zara store which they can then buy online and pick up in that store on the same day. This real-time shopping perfectly blends both online and offline channels using GPS and QR technology to its advantage.

Be open and responsive to feedback

When it comes to consumer feedback, there tends to be only two options: incredibly positive or incredibly negative. No one bothers to leave feedback or a review for an average experience, but they have plenty to say when everything has either gone right or wrong.

Being open to and receiving feedback is a huge part of uncovering valuable insights into your consumer base. While you may think your online CX is bulletproof, your consumers are the people who can really put that to the test. What they have to say is a massive part of the digital evolution of your brand. Plus, that open-ended communication helps you to build that relationship further and patch up damaged ones. Often, your next clever CX move will be the result of real-time feedback directly from the consumers themselves.

Uber (BOSCO™ score: 738) is a leading example of using customer insights to improve its online CX. The business makes around 22,000 tweaks to its app every month to customize it in every city it operates in. It does this using incident and reliability reports to tailor how the app operates based on where its user is. This eliminates data problems early and lets users know it is listening and adapting.

The key to digital transformation

Standing out in the digital space isn’t easy, and with the rapidly changing online CX expectations of consumers, brands need to fast decide their strategy.

The first step is to stay up to date with changes and developments as they happen. Take note of other brands that are adapting their online CX well and look at how you can implement something similar. With 58% of consumers expecting more from services than they did pre-pandemic, the need for integrated, omnichannel CX with room for personalization is key to digital transformation.

BOSCO™ is an AI learning platform that integrates your cross-channel digital marketing data into one personalized dashboard. The data allows marketers to make better digital marketing spend decisions with the help of data-driven insights, forecasting and mapping tools. Unlock your BOSCO™ score, today.

By Morgan Mitchell

Sourced from The Drum

In News

How to Effectively Manage Multiple Social Media Accounts

April 14, 2022 No Comments

By Greg Tuohy

Many of us are aware that social media channels represent some of the most powerful tools to employ within the world of digital marketing. Not only are these portals capable of reaching a broad audience base, but they can often be used without dipping into your revenue streams. However, another caveat needs to be mentioned.

It can be exceedingly difficult to manage multiple social media channels. Keeping track of the latest news, evaluating feedback, promoting offers, and interacting with visitors may detract from other in-house operations. This is when a bit of consolidation is in order. Here are five steps you can follow to help run each one of your accounts.

Employ an Editorial Calendar

One of the most common (and avoidable) mistakes when dealing with social media accounts is failing to understand when and how often to post. For example, you may wish to post Facebook updates three times each week while other platforms such as LinkedIn may require content only once or twice a month. This “digital juggling act” can lead to costly errors. You might even sacrifice conversions as a direct result.

It is therefore a great idea to create an editorial calendar. These calendars will remind you when it is time to post on a specific site. Let’s also remember that many calendars can be shared between different marketing teams. This centralised form of oversight will help to ensure that you remain ahead of the curve.

Social Media Management Software Bundles

These packages are must-haves for any business that hopes to leverage its social media presence. Their main intention is to simplify the entire marketing process through automation. For example, a single post can be created and subsequently shared across multiple platforms. This saves a great deal of time and effort. Furthermore, you will be ensured that previous posts are not repeated. Here are some useful (and free) packages to consider:

Later
Hootsuite
TweetDeck
Canva
Buffer

The user-friendly nature of these tools is also beneficial for those who possess a limited amount of experience.

All About Documentation

Coordination and accountability are important when creating a far-reaching social media marketing campaign. The only possible issue is that it can be tough for multiple team members to remain on the “same page”. Metrics such as policies, the type of content to be posted and the desired style all need to be considered. This is when a bit of oversight can go a long way.

It is important to develop a dedicated social media strategy. These guidelines should then be provided to all relevant personnel. If a question or issue arises, it can be dealt with in a timely fashion. When we remember that different social media pages are often associated with different goals, it becomes clear to understand why a centralised approach is crucial.

Actively Engage with Your Audience

Ironically, one of the most common social media marketing mistakes involves failing to communicate with followers. Real-time monitoring is critical if you hope to appreciate the unique needs of your client base. While this is a core component of any omnichannel marketing strategy, it is even more important when dealing with live interactions.

We are not only referring to responding to feedback in this sense. Proactively following the results of a marketing campaign will need to address other factors. These include (but are not always limited to) mentions, hashtags, keywords, and which posts have attracted the most attention. This enables you to better appreciate if any approach might need to be slightly modified.

Another massive benefit of active engagement will involve how the company itself is perceived. For example, customers are more likely to remain loyal if a question or complaint is quickly resolved. In terms of brand reputation, developing a working relationship with your audience is paramount to success.

Analyse, Assess and Adapt

We need to remember that not every social media marketing strategy is evergreen in nature. Some approaches may need to be modified while it might be better to entirely discard others from time to time. This is when the power of objective analysis comes into play. Here are some of the metrics which should be evaluated regularly:

Engagement rates
Reach (how many visitors have seen a post)
Impressions (the number of times an individual clicked on a post)
Likes, shares and follows

These will provide you with an accurate “barometer” of how a strategy is being perceived. Which accounts are being viewed the most? Are there any campaigns that have received the lion’s share of attention? What do customers have to say about a certain product or service? Answering these questions will allow you to manage multiple channels more effectively.

Remaining One Step Ahead of the Competition

As this article notes, there are currently more than 4.33 billion active social media users. As they are present across numerous channels, developing a centralised method of oversight has never been more important.

Of course, not every business can leverage the talents of a dedicated in-house social media marketing team. Therefore, adopting clear and efficient strategies from the very beginning is critical. The fact of the matter is that social media is here to stay. If you wish to keep abreast of the competition, learning how to effectively monitor different accounts represents one of the keys to long-term success.

By Greg Tuohy

Greg Tuohy is the Managing Director of Docutec, a business printer and office automation software provider. Greg was appointed Managing Director in June 2011 and is the driving force behind the team at the Cantec Group. Immediately after completing a Science degree at UCC in 1995, Greg joined the family copier/printer business. Docutec also make printers for family homes too such as multifunction printers.

In News

Businesses get the message – email is crucial to successful marketing

April 14, 2022 No Comments

By Michael Nutley

Many businesses turned to email to connect with their customers when pandemic measures sent so many people online. Now with increased privacy concerns for marketers and a need for joined up omnichannel marketing, email is about to be catapulted back into the limelight, finds a new report.

Email marketing in 2022 is more important, more integrated and more mature than ever, but email marketing teams still need to be faster, more efficient and better at personalization. Meanwhile the biggest concern marketers face – privacy – is also email’s biggest opportunity.

That is the snapshot of the discipline provided by a new report, Email In 2022 – The Trends, Behaviors & Benchmarks Driving Email Forward, published by email sending and deliverability platform SparkPost.

The report puts email’s growing role in the context of the recovery in business activity. It found almost a third (63%) of marketing leaders globally saying their budgets reflect pre-Covid levels. However, the pandemic has left its mark. Priorities are shifting, says the report, in that advertising and wide-net marketing efforts are too much of a gamble for organizations. Instead, businesses are investing in branding, CRM and email marketing. Content remains as high a priority as it was last year.

Email shines during lockdowns

Businesses certainly turned to email when pandemic measures sent so many people online.

“Email became a critical tool for organizations of all kinds to contact various stakeholder audiences with the combination of flexibility, speed, precision, and low cost not available through other modes of communication,” says George Schlossnagle, email evangelist and founder of SparkPost.

This crucial role continued into 2021. Three-quarters of marketing leaders (76%) say their email marketing program made a positive impact on the business in 2021, compared to 58% in 2020. And email’s increased importance is reflected in a greater maturity in the way it’s measured. Almost three-quarters (70%) of leaders said they changed the way they measure email marketing last year, compared to half (51%) who said the same thing in 2020.

Just as importantly, the pandemic also accelerated the integration of email with other marketing channels. Almost everyone who took part in the 2021 survey (95%) said their email marketing was aligned with other marketing disciplines, compared to half the respondents in 2020.

Intriguingly, this acceleration has happened despite the massive switch to remote working at the same time. Despite the fact that only 10% of the world’s companies are fully back in the office, almost everyone surveyed said collaboration is the same or better (98%) and that communication is the same or better (96%) than they were before remote working became a necessity.

Greater integration also ties in with the growing importance of an omnichannel approach to marketing. This means talking to customers on the channels they prefer and breaking down the silos between channels in order to deliver a coherent, consistent customer experience across every touchpoint. This is ‘absolutely the future of marketing’, the report says, particularly with the impending demise of the third-party cookie and the rise of first-party data.

The future is private

Indeed, privacy and data are the biggest concerns for email marketers in 2022.

“What we’re seeing now is only the beginnings of a paradigm shift that will continue to drive marketers to rethink data collection and usage practices,” adds Schlossnagle. “Changes in privacy regulations and a shift in consumer perception of personal data are big factors in marketing leaders’ commitment to investing in earned and owned marketing channels.”

The report found that the biggest concerns for respondents were the fear of existing digital marketing assets being unusable in the future; the threat of having to overhaul existing systems; and the need to re-do things from scratch.

More specifically, email marketers are most worried about Apple’s iOS 15 changes (a medium to high concern for 81% of respondents), Google’s third-party cookie tracking (77%), and government regulations and the deprecation of app tracking data (both 72%).

Email returns to centre-stage

Despite these concerns, the report predicts another impact of these changes will be to thrust email marketing even further back into the limelight. Companies leaning more heavily on first-party data and on the channels that are closest to their known customers – like email – creates an opportunity to build better profiles. In turn, these will drive longer term loyalty and engagement, leveraging audience behaviour on the company’s own website or app.

Email has the ability to be the glue between consumers and brands.

“The demise of third-party cookies puts a tailwind behind channels that leverage first-party data – email being the most pervasive,” says Schlossnagle. “We should all be gearing up for more investment in email and SMS because owned data is about to be more valuable than ever.”

Budget pressures demand greater efficiency

All this talk of a bright future for email marketing comes with a downside. The resources to support all this extra work haven’t necessarily arrived just yet. Two-thirds (69%) of leaders say their teams are busier than ever, but only 5% of respondents report having higher budgets in 2021 compared to 2020.

The result is even greater pressure for marketers to be more efficient – email marketers included. It’s one reason for the push for closer alignment of channel teams. Another effect is the increase in the proportion of companies bringing email marketing in-house. In 2020, just over half (55%) of leaders said they relied on agencies for their email marketing. Last year that fell to under a third (29%).

In addition, one of the key trends identified in the report is the increasing use of email design systems. These are pre-created and optimized selections of HTML templates. As the report explains, all the coding is done before marketers start creating an email – which means you can crank out high quality emails quickly. But it also notes that ‘there are clear opportunities for faster, more intuitive martech solutions, streamlined email marketing processes, and improved collaboration between stakeholders within the marketing team.’

One thing is clear. Email has long been seen as boring and unfashionable, but the current convergence of such trends as more time being spent online, increased privacy concerns and the need for joined up omnichannel marketing are just about to catapult it back into the limelight.

To explore this and more findings from SparkPost’s Email In 2022 – The Trends, Behaviors & Benchmarks Driving Email Forward report, click here.

By Michael Nutley

Sourced from The Drum

In News

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Strategy

March 11, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from BOSS Magazine

Are you moving on from the olden days of traditional marketing and looking forward to this new age of digital marketing? Do you want to know more about digital marketing and how to choose the best strategy for your business?

Digital marketing is one of the most important aspects of any business. It allows companies to reach a large number of people with their message and can help boost sales and profits. However, many businesses still don’t take full advantage of digital marketing and experienced SEO agencies like Finsbury Media, which is a mistake.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss why digital marketing is so important, and provide tips on how businesses can get started by choosing an effective strategy. Stay tuned!

Know Your Goals

If you are new to digital marketing and this is your first time trying to navigate the digital marketing world and choosing a strategy, you may be confused as to what the best strategy to choose is or may even take your chances with choosing multiple different digital marketing strategies. While this may seem like a good idea, it often doesn’t work out very well and it is in your best interest to take it slowly.

One of the first things that you should take into consideration when it comes to choosing the best digital marketing strategy for your business is knowing exactly what your goals are. Are you trying to reach a specific target audience? Are you trying to grow your business? Are you trying to sell a specific product or service?

All of these questions and more will give you a good starting point when it comes to choosing the right digital marketing strategy, as they give you the chance to eliminate strategies that will not work for you.

Know Your Audience

The next step when it comes to choosing a digital marketing strategy is knowing who your target audience is and who it is that you want to reach. This is important because different types of digital marketing strategies reach different demographics of people, and you want to make sure that you are reaching the right audience.

Does your audience check the emails frequently? Are they spending a lot of time on various social media platforms? These questions, along with others, are a great way to figure out who your target audience is. However, as a business you should already have an idea of who your general target audience is, and research will best show how to reach them.

Know How to Read Metrics

Metrics plays a big role when it comes to digital marketing as this is essentially how you can gauge whether your strategy is working well, or if you need to change something up. These metrics can also show the growth of your business through your social media strategy.

With that said, it is important to learn how to read these metrics and how to understand them in order to implement this knowledge into further marketing that is done for your business. Not taking these into consideration could be foolish of you, as this information can be incredibly helpful.

Know Which Platforms Are Most Popular

If you choose to go the route of social media marketing, it is a good idea to know which social media platforms are the best and the most popular to do this on. Today, there are a handful of incredibly popular social media platforms that all reach hundreds of millions of people, if not billions of people every month. These platforms include Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and even YouTube.

Each social media platform reaches a different demographic and are popular among different demographics. With that said, you should take the time to understand the different platforms and learn which one would be most suitable to your business.

Know the Types of Strategies

Last but not least, if you want to start making use of digital marketing strategies, you need to know all about the different types of strategies and what they have to offer. Digital marketing as a whole refers to any kind of online marketing.

Different digital marketing strategies include social media marketing, email marketing, push notifications, marketing on different websites, and more. It is important to know all of the different strategies that are available to you in order to choose the one that is best for your business.

Sourced from BOSS Magazine

In News

5 Digital Marketing Trends to Know for the Decade

March 9, 2022 No Comments

By Claire McKinney

The things we thought we knew about the digital landscape have proven to be the tip of the iceberg.

The past two years have shown a major increase in the amount of money allocated to digital marketing and communications, which has created challenges for senior-level marketers who have not been able to keep up with the changing times. The speed at which new techniques in digital advertising, social media marketing and SEO are growing and changing is faster than it has ever been.

People who have worked in marketing and communications for twenty years or more need to check their skills and knowledge. Don’t let practices you learned a decade ago become a weakness as you fight to be heard in an electronic community nearing four billion users.

Marketing in 2010

Remember MySpace? Friendster? These were just a couple of social platforms that were “out” by 2010. Facebook and Twitter were on the rise and YouTube was creating video game stars. Google AdWords was being used by some, but the world of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising was still developing.

In 2010, we advised our clients to set up Facebook pages and Twitter accounts if they felt comfortable doing so. Some individually branded businesses and people in the arts were not comfortable “putting themselves out there” in a giant global picture book or communicating in 140 characters or less.

Just posting regularly was considered effective on social platforms. Facebook was a couple of times a week and Twitter was three to five times a week. What a difference ten years make.

When 2020 took an unpredictable turn, I decided it was an opportunity to find out what is current in digital marketing by enrolling in a master’s program in business school. Here are some things I’ve learned about how digital has affected marketing in the 2020s.

Job roles and teams in a digital world

1. Roles have changed so that there are more demands on marketing departments to share some of their work with the public relations teams and vice versa. When I was working in a corporate environment, there was a clear division between marketing, public relations and design. Separate these key components today and it is difficult to get anything accomplished.

2. Digital marketing and design thinking have created opportunities for businesses to conduct strategy meetings and prepare plans for launching new products more thoughtfully. Now, it should be a standard practice to have representatives from all departments in a room. Bring your post-its in multiple colours to keep track of all the great ideas your diverse team will conceive.

3. It takes a village to launch a product. When I started, most marketing departments had designers, copywriters, ad planners and researchers. A digital marketing team needs writers for long-form content and copywriters. You need a search engine marketing person, web designers (who understand search engine optimization), analysts to pull data from the social media and web platforms, researchers, PR people to manage messaging and the brand, content schedulers, real-time social monitors who engage in real time, designers and producers who can edit video and audio.

Consistent planning and rapid growth

4. Decide on a plan and stick to it until you have a chance to see how it is working. Too often, I see digital marketers shift tactics and direction because a client or manager expresses concern or has a new idea. Without a plan and some data about the progress to review, digital marketing is like playing whack-a-mole.

5. Growth is great if it is sustainable. There are new businesses that take off quickly and generate nice profits in the first five years. This is especially true in a marketing environment where word-of-mouth takes place in seconds. However, if you do not have a marketing plan for the long term, you will not continue to do well. As fast as you might grow, there are a dozen other products right behind you that are researching and planning their attack.

There is much to know about digital marketing and not a lot of time to learn. It is an exciting time in the field of marketing and communications, but continued learning is key to being effective.

By Claire McKinney

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor

Claire McKinney has been working in PR for 25 years. She has appeared on Today and CSPAN as an expert on publishing, and she travels to speak to audiences about digital and traditional PR. She is an entrepreneur and author, and she will receive an M.S. in digital marketing in May 2022.

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

In News

Where to Learn SEO: The Best SEO Blogs

March 4, 2022 No Comments

By AJ Condez

The best SEO blogs provide the latest trends and insights in the world of digital marketing. They offer SEO tutorials where you can learn the best practices and tools to boost your technical skills and knowledge.

The topic of search engine optimization is varied and complex, so it’s important to read reliable blogs written by industry experts. SEO is continuously changing, it’s best to stay updated so you don’t fall behind the curve. Follow this guide to find out where to learn SEO and which blogs to follow to keep your SEO skill up to date.

How to Stay Informed About SEO Updates

When you’re just starting out in SEO, a great way to learn about updates is to find dependable sources and blogs and bookmark them to your web browser. You can also curate your feeds on social media and follow SEO experts or a digital marketing agency that provides free information to stay informed about important SEO updates.

Furthermore, you can use a site like Feedly, an application that aggregates reliable and informative sites and places them inside a highly optimized newsfeed. It’s a powerful application that lets you catalogue streams of information on your topics of interest while filtering out irrelevant information.

Success Lessons From the Top SEO Blogs

Success doesn’t come overnight, it takes time and a great plan to ensure you get the success that you want to see. These lessons provide a succinct explanation of key topics in SEO that you should know about.

Content is King

Content is the backbone of every great digital marketing strategy. Whether it’s in the form of video, audio, or written form, content is always teeming in the digital realm. Great and insightful content is one of the secret ingredients in developing your reach in SEO.

If you can create content that’s beneficial, informative, and interactive to your audience, not only will Google reward your content, but your audience will as well through shares and comments. Content is still the name of the game. Anyone who creates engaging content, whether it be to entertain or inform, has the upper hand in building their SEO.

Get a Niche

Your SEO strategy development will be easier if you find a niche. Specialization helps in optimizing your content to cater to a specific audience. This will allow you to cluster and segregate necessary keywords to fill your content with.

Finding a niche will also allow you to build brand authority and customer trust over your chosen topic. By positioning yourself to serve a target market, it makes your SEO efforts simpler by providing a clear-cut picture of what your intended audience wants to learn about.

Digital Marketing is Not Just SEO

SEO is an important factor in digital marketing but it’s not the only thing that makes up your digital marketing efforts. There are different factors like quality of content, user experience, and market reach that need to be taken into consideration.

A seamless user interface that boosts the overall experience of a website can benefit your SEO. Interactive content that engages your users and provides useful information can boost your SEO endeavours. Look beyond SEO for your digital marketing strategies, and understand that it’s not the only thing that’s going to bring in engagement and organic search traffic.

Best of the Blogosphere: Top Blogs About SEO

Ahrefs
Neil Patel’s Blog
Yoast SEO
Backlinko
The Moz Blog
Search Engine Journal
Content Marketing Institute
Marie Haynes Consulting
Practical Ecommerce
Gotch SEO

Best SEO Blogs: Where to Find SEO Support and SEO Tutorials

This essential reading list of SEO blogs targets key topics like domain authority, organic search traffic, and SEO ranking. These are some of the favourite SEO blogs by digital marketing readers.

Ahrefs Blog

Great for: SEO Strategies, Organic Search Traffic, and Online Tools
Posts Per Month: 12 articles

The Ahrefs blog is an SEO and online marketing blog operated by digital marketing professionals. The blog offers an extensive reading list on organic search traffic, search engine optimization, and digital marketing efforts like affiliate marketing.

Neil Patel

Great for: Content Strategies, SEO Insights, and Digital Marketing Industry News
Posts Per Month: 24 articles

Neil Patel is an SEO professional and an expert in the digital marketing industry. His articles on topics that tackle online marketing offer actionable content and act as a fantastic resource for your journey. The blog is an authoritative guide to the latest SEO topics and updates on a regular basis.

Yoast SEO Blog

Great for: SEO Resources, Content Creation, and Current SEO Trends
Posts Per Month: 4 articles

The Yoast SEO blog is perfect for people who want to start their journey in SEO. It has a dedicated section for the basics of SEO to begin your path towards becoming an SEO expert. The blog teaches you how to increase organic traffic and optimize content creation.

The Backlinko Blog

Great for: Online Marketing, Content Marketing Strategies, and Search Engine Marketing
Posts Per Month: 3 articles

The Backlinko blog offers comprehensive guides to search engine optimization strategies. Created by Brian Dean, Backlinko gives updated blog posts about SEO topics, search rankings, and deep insights to maximize your SEO knowledge.

The Moz Blog

Great for: SEO Industry Insight, SEO Trends, and SEO News
Posts Per Month: 4 articles

The Moz Blog offers how-to guides in optimizing your content and becoming an SEO master. It’s an amazing SEO blog that caters to advanced topics like domain authority, user search intent, and organic search traffic. Moreover, the posts are written by industry experts that are brought up to date on a constant basis.

Search Engine Journal

Great for: Google Search Optimization, Content SEO, and Search Marketing Industry Insight
Posts Per Month: 72 articles

Search Engine Journal provides in-depth guides to SEO insights and organic search traffic. This amazing blog offers a wide variety of articles that tackle different aspects of SEO, mainly SEO ranking, domain rating, and improved content creation. These topics help drive up organic traffic to websites.

Content Marketing Institute

Great for: Content Writing, SEO Tools, and Organic Search Traffic Updates
Posts Per Month: 16 articles

» MORE: Where to Learn Data Science: The Best Data Science Blogs

The Content Marketing Institute blog curates its information to give you the best insights on search engine optimization, domain authority, organic search traffic. The blog posts offer regular updates on the latest news and relevant information on SEO and content writing.

Marie Haynes Consulting

Great for: Google Search News, Organic Search Traffic, and Domain Authority
Posts Per Month: 1 article

Marie Haynes is an international SEO consultant that specializes in SEO services such as actionable insights in domain authority and in-depth articles in Google algorithm updates. The blog focuses mainly on Google to offer informative articles on organic traffic, search engine optimization, and advanced user experience.

Practical Ecommerce

Great for: Online Marketing, SEO News, and SEO Ranking
Posts Per Month: 32 articles

Practical Ecommerce offers SEO solutions using a competitive research tool like Google Analytics to boost organic search traffic for businesses. Its blog showcases regular updates on domain authority, ecommerce metrics, and niche categories like Amazon SEO.

Gotch SEO

Great for: Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and SEO News
Posts Per Month: 4 articles

Founded by Nathan Gotch, Gotch SEO specializes in complicated topics like SEO ranking and domain authority. Furthermore, it also tackles various SEO tools to enhance your skills and expertise in the digital marketing industry.

Where to Learn SEO

SEO resources and training can be learned through various online courses, both free and paid. Online learning platforms like Coursera and Udemy offer paid SEO courses that provide extensive training and information. You can also go to sites like HubSpot and ClickMinded for free SEO crash courses at your disposal.

There are also YouTube channels dedicated to SEO and digital marketing. Ahrefs and Neil Patel both have videos that give great insight into the topic. Moreover, there are also SEO podcasts for you to listen to like the Search Engine Journal Show or Voices of Search. There are different learning approaches to SEO, you just have to look for them in the right places.

Can You Learn SEO in a Coding Bootcamp?

Yes, there are numerous SEO bootcamps for you to enrol in. If you want to become an SEO specialist, then you can enrol in a boot camp to jumpstart your career and expand your understanding of SEO.

Bootcamps are training programs that teach extensive knowledge to students in a short amount of time. They are a great way to learn because they give students hands-on projects to build their own SEO portfolios and develop their SEO network.

SEO Support

Below are the best online forums for diving into the online SEO community. They have tons of users and active threads for you to read on a daily basis. If you want to read on a topic like domain authority, then you can do so in one of these forums.

Google Webmaster Help Community

This is the one-stop source for any questions related to Google products or services. The site is a very active forum with new threads coming in on a daily basis. It offers four categories for you to choose from.

Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking – Questions about SEO and algorithms inspecting overall website content for rankings on Google.
Security, Malware, and Hacked Sites – Inquiries on website safety measures, protective actions, and troubleshooting externally caused problems.
Structured Data – Queries on Google Analytics and how to properly optimize content for maximum search engine reach.
Google Search Console – Discussions on possible methods and tools in increasing a website’s Google Search performance.

Warrior Forum

Warrior Forum is a digital marketing forum that tackles everything and anything about online and virtual advertising. It has multiple categories for you to choose from, a beginner’s section, ecommerce, social media marketing, copywriting, and a whole lot more.

The Moz Community

The Moz Community is an online forum that engages in online marketing and Moz-related products. It provides the latest discussions and questions about SEO and offers tons of categories to choose from, like keyword research, affiliate marketing, and conversion rate optimization.

What Should You Do Next to Advance Your SEO Knowledge?

The most logical step for you is to dedicate time to study and see if you want to learn more about SEO. On the other hand, if you want to fully commit to becoming an SEO specialist, you can enrol in an online SEO course. Furthermore, understand that building knowledge about SEO takes time and consistency. Start with the fundamentals of SEO and slowly increase the depth and complexity of the SEO topics you want to study.

Best SEO Blogs FAQ

Why is SEO important?

SEO is important because there are millions of people who use search engines in their daily lives. In turn, businesses and organizations have to use the search engine algorithm to make it works in their favour.

They use keywords to drive organic search traffic and establish domain authority. Moreover, when companies create engaging and relevant content, search engines will rank the website higher in the results feed. These SEO efforts improve a company’s brand visibility and market reach.

Are SEO jobs in demand?

Yes, SEO jobs are in demand. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, market research analysts are expected to grow in demand by about 22 percent between 2020 and 2030. The median wage is around $65,810 and there are about 740,900 job openings for this position.

What do SEO specialists do?

SEO specialists optimize and create content, improve landing pages and conversion rates, perform keyword research, and audit websites. These responsibilities involve a high level of knowledge in SEO and digital marketing.

Are SEO courses worth it?

Yes, SEO courses are worth it. You don’t necessarily have to spend money in learning SEO, there are free resources and blogs for you to try before committing to a paid SEO course. Check the reviews of paid SEO courses to ensure that they’re worth your hard-earned money.

By AJ Condez

AJ, from Manila, Philippines, started writing for Career Karma in December 2021. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Accountancy from AMA Computer College. Previously, AJ worked as a content manager for New Wave Media, handling WordPress websites, publishing SEO-friendly content, and supervising teams of writers and editors. He has also ghost-written content for SEO sites and his personal website. In his free time, AJ enjoys reading and journaling.

Sourced from Career Karma

In News

Where 2022 Ad Spend Is Going (And How To Get Ahead Of The Trends)

March 1, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

There is a multitude of factors to consider and important decisions to make when creating an advertising budget. Aside from choosing the right channels and tactics to meet their own strategic goals, a brand must take the state of its industry as well as the latest marketing and advertising trends into account to create ad campaigns that will stand up against those of its competitors.

Brands don’t want to jump on any old bandwagon or social platform without a good reason to do so, and this year, they’ll once again be seeking the right avenues to reach their target markets. From diversifying with an integrated multichannel approach to doubling down in a specific medium such as digital, television, print or social, the options are endless.

With their insight into where ad dollars are being spent in real time, the members of Forbes Agency Council can forecast where brands will be spending their budgets this year. See their predictions below, along with good ways for brands to get ahead of these trends.

1. Digital Marketing To More ‘Connected’ Consumers

Digital marketing is something that cannot be ignored! The pandemic has made people even more connected to their devices with the demands of remote work and staying in touch with family and friends. This shift has made digital marketing a great vehicle to get your brand noticed by your target consumer in a cost-effective manner. – Thomas Morganelli, Centipede Digital

2. Connected TV Ads Informed By First-Party Data

Where your media dollars are spent really depends on your marketing goals. One area where we see continued growth is connected TV. There is real power that comes with the ability to serve up video on the big screen in your target’s living room. Combine that opportunity with the strength of first-party data, and it’s clear why CTV offers opportunities unavailable on other marketing channels. – Jonathan Schwartz, Bullseye Strategy

3. Online And Offline Platforms With Consistent Media Availability

Ad dollars will continue to increase on digital platforms that are optimizing their ad strategies, such as TikTok. There will be a continuous amount of spending on offline platforms that follow the supply-and-demand curve, where media availability is consistent. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne LLC

4. Higher-Funnel Digital Efforts With Advanced Tracking

Ad dollars will be spent in digital, but more specifically in higher-funnel efforts where advanced tracking and attribution are now showing true impact and ROI. Think about over-the-top content, streaming video, audio and more, which were once stuck measuring impressions or maybe view-throughs. Agencies implementing better tracking systems will be able to show the trickle-down effect of these higher-funnel efforts and get better buy-in for a full-funnel digital investment. – Brian Walker, Statwax

5. Niche Targeting Via OTT And CTV

I see a switch from spend on social and search to a surge in OTT and CTV advertising. With the level of understanding of these mediums growing, the barriers to entry are not so high now. For companies with the right level of budget, both OTT and CTV present fantastic growth opportunities and the ability to reach new markets in this increasingly niched-out world. – Christopher Tompkins, The Go! Agency

6. Digital And Social Media Advertising Strategies

Ad dollars will definitely be best spent this year on digital and social media. Brands can get ahead by starting to implement result-driven social media advertising strategies. There are more users on social media than ever before, and platforms such as Facebook and Instagram give businesses the opportunity to yield a considerable return on ad spend and stay profitable year-round. – Jonathan Durante, Expandify Marketing Inc

7. Small-Budget Programmatic Buying On CTV

2022 will see lots of ad dollars move into the CTV space. Many major brands will take their first steps into CTV, especially as they discover how effectively smaller budgets can operate in this less-crowded space. With programmatic buying and audience-targeting tools, it’s possible to make a big splash in CTV, and I expect we’ll see lots of 2022’s ad dollars migrating in this direction. – Jason Wulfsohn, AUDIENCEX

8. The Right Social Media Platforms For Narrow Targets

The growing addiction to social media in all the age groups and interest groups makes social media the best place for marketing investment. Social media ads allow for narrow targeting, which helps increase brand awareness among the target audience, and thus conversions. Agencies should identify the right social media platforms for their clients and develop a focused marketing plan to exploit this trend. – Ajay Prasad, GMR Web Team

9. Specific Content And Content Creators

While the easy answer is “digital,” I think “content” is more accurate. Forget about which screen, or even which delivery method, will be dominant—consumers are becoming more tied to specific content and content creators. This is a meaningful shift in consumer behavior and an opportunity for agile and innovative marketers to find their audiences. – Andrea Palmer, Publicis Health Media (PHM)

10. Video Content Designed For Omnichannel Use

Designing campaign creative for omnichannel use—with a focus on video through CTV and linear TV—is key. Our in-house production company and agency-owned studios allow us to quickly create video, and this is something all agencies should consider. Even out-of-home placements can leverage video more in 2022. Video content is the 2022 campaign anchor. – Vix Reitano, Agency 6B

11. Inbound Marketing Technologies

It depends on the audience. The goal of digital marketing is to get the right message to the right potential client at the right time. The best way to do that is to utilize the marketing technology that most clearly communicates ROI. I believe that inbound marketing technologies that show the full buyer’s journey are where ad dollars should be spent. – Christopher Carr, Farotech

12. Increased CTV Ad Spend Across All Industries

While spend by channel typically varies by industry, we expect a surge in CTV spending from brands across all industries. While many marketers are shifting spend away from linear TV, we expect investment to come from digital channels, as CTV offers the sophisticated targeting of programmatic advertising with a comparable reach to linear TV for a much lower cost. – Donna Robinson, Collective Measures

13. Product Placement In Streaming Content

Marketers and agencies are increasing their interest in product placement in streaming content on platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and HBO Max. This is driven by the fact that they themselves sat watching hundreds of hours of streaming episodes and films over the course of the pandemic, none of which included traditional advertising. – Stacy Jones, Hollywood Branded

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Why Digital Marketing Should Be A Top Priority For Small Businesses In 2022

February 15, 2022 No Comments

By Joe Pascaretta

The internet has become an indispensable tool for almost any consumer making a decision. Today’s internet users spend a daily average of nearly three hours on the internet, using it for communication, entertainment, research and information. In 2020, global retail e-commerce sales surpassed 4.2 billion U.S. dollars. One of the biggest fallacies I hear from small business owners is that they don’t need to worry about engaging with their customers digitally. So, what does this combination mean for small business owners and entrepreneurs?

First, if you’re selling something online, then it’s likely your target audience is online at some point during any given day. And second, even if you are not selling your product or service online, then you likely could still count on your target audience being on the internet at some point during any given day.

What does this mean for your small business?

As a previous small business owner, I knew that being agile and updating my digital skill set and go-to-market strategies were a must, given the pace at which marketing technology was changing. In fact, in our 2020 survey of small business owners, 60% stated they had to pivot to a stronger online presence and offering because of the pandemic, and 24% shared they knew that acquiring new and emerging digital technologies would be required in 2021 and they intended to investigate how to advance in the digital space. There are likely hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs trying to leverage digital marketing and other key business strategies in this age of digital transformation, which can make the competition for audience attention fierce.

What might not be as obvious for small business owners and entrepreneurs is how to effectively implement and manage a digital marketing strategy that will reach their target audience at the right place and the right time with the right message. Marketing experts usually give guidance on deploying social media marketing, email marketing and digital display. That’s sound advice; these channels are all effective. Yet, there is much more to consider when it comes to digital marketing, and not all small business owners have the same marketing knowledge base to work from. But there are also many self-service tools available that allow novice, small business owners to take advantage of some very powerful tools. How can you get started?

Meet the customer where they are.

I always say as a small business owner that it is important to meet the customer “where they are.” There are five generations of customers out there, and they vary greatly as to how they make decisions. While social media is one of the most popular ways to use the internet, when it comes to digital marketing, it’s important to be selective for the sake of clarity and effectiveness.

Some social media platforms appeal to one demographic while other social channels appeal to an entirely different age or group, and still others effectively bridge the gaps and meet the needs of numerous groups simultaneously. In other words, not all social media channels are right for every business model because every business is trying to reach a different group of people. I have heard dozens of success stories from the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when small business owners who had never used social media tried it for the first time and are now actively engaging with new and existing customers to this day.

Tailor your marketing efforts.

Other marketing channels — digital display advertising and SEO, for example — are intended to catch everybody’s attention by casting a wider net; however, you can absolutely tailor them to meet specific needs. They are also only two of multiple marketing avenues that can require significant time and financial investments to implement effectively. And don’t forget about a mobile strategy. At Dun & Bradstreet, we see more than 30% of our over 1.5 million small business subscribers log in through mobile platforms on a daily basis.

Lean on digital marketing tools.

Because there are so many digital marketing tactics to learn, each with its own strategy that requires a set budget and effort, it often can make more sense for an entrepreneur to keep their focus on the business. Turning to an agency isn’t always affordable, either. For owners who know enough to self-direct with a digital marketing tool, a good option can be to lean on a tool that reduces time spent learning all the nuances and can fully automate critical pieces of the effort, such as audience targeting. This approach simplifies the digital marketing playing field while still deploying an effective, targeted digital marketing strategy across multiple channels. I learned this first-hand as a landscaper; I found I was able to significantly increase my sales pipeline through targeted digital campaigns toward driving marketing to the specific ideal customer persona and demographic.

As technology advances, artificial intelligence and machine learning are now being leveraged to understand what target audiences are doing online and how to turn their behaviours into insights that deploy messaging on sites “where they are.” Such technology takes the guesswork out of choosing a social platform that your target audience is using and determining which websites they’re visiting.

In today’s world, it’s no longer a question of whether digital marketing is necessary. The question is how you will make the internet work for and with you and your business to effectively reach your target audience. Whether you are a landscaper or a retail store owner or a sole proprietor, digital marketing is critical in today’s environment.

If you don’t have the time or the desire to learn all the digital marketing platforms available and an agency seems out of reach, then consider taking advantage of the ability to self-direct your campaigns, messaging and budget. Your audience is out there waiting for you to reach them.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Joe Pascaretta

General Manager of Small Business at Dun & Bradstreet, overseeing the company’s small to mid-size business portfolio. Read Joe Pascaretta’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

The Covid Effect: Why CEOs Must Adapt a Digital Marketing Mindset

January 31, 2022 No Comments

By Joe Galvin

Four factors are shaping dramatic shift in buyer behaviour. What the C-suite needs to do in response

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Joe Galvin

Sourced from Inc.