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Marketing Strategies to Boom in 2019

July 29, 2019 No Comments

Internet marketing is all set to undergo a tremendous change in 2019. It will completely change the way the businesses have been handling their marketing strategy and technique. The technological onslaught has redefined the whole marketing ecosystem. The expectations of customers have also changed as everyone not only wants the best product at the most competitive price but are not even ready to wait. There is no room for lags as there are many options available. 2019 will be a signature year in terms of marketing as businesses will have to continuously innovate to keep pace with the changing lifestyles and future marketing trends. Businesses will thus have to look deeper into their marketing strategies and reinvent themselves continuously to survive. Recent trends in marketing suggest that it will no more be an easy ball game as the world wide web is getting exhausted with more than 1,800,000,000 websites present and the number is growing by the day.

Best Digital Marketing Strategies to Make a Mark in 2019

Inbound Marketing: This typically focusses on your product which is able to add more value to the lives of your customers or audience. There is an obvious shift in the industry towards enhanced levels of personalized content. Content takes center-stage but it should not just offer the keywords used in searches, it should also be able to address the concern for which someone punched in that keyword. There is no dearth of content on Google, so the content has to offer an accurate and precise solution to the problem. Fresh and original content will remain a hot favourite for both Google and the audience. Content is thus here to stay as more and more businesses are increasing their budgetary allocations for producing more relevant content.

Video Marketing: No future marketing strategy can dare to ignore the scope of video marketing. Video and audio form of content is yet to reach its saturation level on the internet, unlike the text content. These forms also have a much more attractive and engaged audience. The prevalence of smart devices has made streaming of videos much more competitive. Marketers thus cannot afford to miss this trend as videos are more likely to result in conversions than plain text. Making a professional video is expensive but it presents a compelling case for businesses that they do not want to miss the chance. The extent of success can be gauged from the fact that more than 100 million hours of videos are being watched on Facebook every day!

Growth Hacking: This comprises a group of small and simple techniques which are highly helpful for the businesses for stimulating their growth and demand. Some of the strategies involved may not satisfy the ethical criteria but the results suggest that this cannot be missed. The people behind it, also known as growth hackers, are highly committed to taking your business to a new level as they see the whole idea of digital marketing as a battle which has to be won at all costs. These hackers play with data and creativity to give rise to revolutionary products. Growth hacking has emerged as one of the best marketing strategies of all time.

Chatbots: Chatbots are a recent strategy in the realm of Internet marketing but have come loaded with immense potential. These are bots which enter meaningful conversations in real-time with customers with the help of AI. Majority of the businesses around the world are looking at chatbots as the most promising future marketing strategy. Customers also prefer to speak to chatbots over humans due to their efficiency, quick response time, helpful in recalling the whole purchase history and are very cordial. One can instead focus on more important tasks as these help in automation of repetitive work.

Automation: Future marketing trends present a strong case for the automation of marketing. It comprises of software which aims to automate repetitive marketing tasks like email marketing, social media or website actions, etc. This has helped businesses to develop their relationships with prospective clients without having to spend any extra time on it. The technology which has developed in recent years has shown no sign of slowing and will stand pronounced in 2019 as one of the best digital marketing strategies.

Conclusion

2019 will be a defining year for the marketers as the latter will have to experiment and come up with new approaches and strategies to win the customers. Technology will continue to evolve and keeping pace with it will be the biggest challenge. It is going to drive you crazy and it is this craziness which will make you succeed. The best digital marketing strategies to rule 2019 will be marked by technologies like AI and machine learning. Chatbots and other automation techniques present a strong case along with video marketing. Content will still be valued provided it is original.

By Anuja Lath

Anuja is India’s #7 LinkedIn Top Voice 2017. She is the Co-founder and CEO of RedAlkemi Online Pvt. Ltd., a digital marketing agency helping clients with their end to end online presence. Anuja has 30 years of work experience as a successful entrepreneur and has co-founded several ventures since 1986. She and her team are passionate about helping SMEs achieve measurable online success for their business. Anuja holds a Bachelors degree in Advertising from the Government College of Fine Arts, Chandigarh, India.

Sourced from BBN Times

In News

Why Marketing Change Management Fails

July 26, 2019 No Comments

By Maarten Albarda

My daily “grind” is helping complex marketing organizations with change. This could be change in the way they work, who they work with, how they measure the output of their work, and so on.

It’s rarely just one thing that triggers the need for change. It is almost never “Our agency/agencies suck, can you help us find a new agency/agencies?” More often it is a combination of lack of results combined with a marketing structure and process that is no longer fit for a purpose (but rather has organically grown into whatever it is today), as well as a marketing ecosystem stuck in neutral. They often have questions about the effectiveness marketing dollars and how they are deployed.

Let’s start with a platitude: Change is hard. It is even harder when it is supposed to correct for poor performance. Patience is not exactly a marketing strength; results need to be delivered every month, every quarter and every 12 months, rolling.

Lack of patience is getting worse rather than better; short-term results trounce everything. Because other parts of the organization nowadays move fast, or give the illusion of moving fast with implementing changes (sales, CRM, online marketing, etc.), the expectations of implementing marketing change, especially by those without marketing experience but with results-driven performance metrics hanging over their heads, are often grossly unrealistic.

Having been “inside” many different companies of all shapes, sizes and industries, I have learned a thing or two about factors that impact the outcome of a change management process.

If you can address these issues before you set off on your change management journey, you’ll stand a much better chance of delivering results.

Align all parties before you start. Aligning does not mean telling them what is about to happen. Aligning means ensuring all parties understand what is going to happen, why, in what time frame, and what their role is in the process.

Use “their” language. Refrain from using marketing gobbledygook, and instead use either simple language or the language of the company. If it smells like a “marketing initiative,” other departments and parties might feel as if it’s your journey, not theirs, and they don’t need to be actively involved.

Similarly, explain what the benefits are for each party. Make it about “wins,” not just about “change.” If they understand what they stand to gain from you taking production in-house, or changing their way of working, they’ll be more likely to actively participate.

Start small and build it out, rather than tackling the whole deal at once. I have seen “everything at once” succeed only very rarely, and that was when a company was going through a profound change like a merger or a significant downsizing. Under all other scenarios, it usually pays to go slower.

Build incentives into the process of delivery. If teams can win by playing ball, they will. Incentives for delivery, teamwork or implementation of new tools and processes will pay dividend in the long run. It also shows that senior leadership is serious about the change because they are measuring the organization against implementation success. The incentives should be levied across all departments involved, not just marketing.

Good luck. Change is hard, but not impossible.

By Maarten Albarda

Sourced from MediaPost

In News

AI Advertising: 9 Ways To Use Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

July 24, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from Droid Men

61% of marketers declare that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most critical element of their data strategy.

Marketing is a fast-paced discipline. If you want to succeed in it, you must stay at the bleeding edge of new breakthroughs.

By 2020, 85% of customer relations will be automated. You, therefore, need to position your brand to stay competitive.

AI is probably the biggest technology push of our time revolutionizing every aspect of marketing. To get the most out of automated customer service, marketers are turning to AI advertising for strategies that can deliver higher value.

Here are some ways in which you can incorporate AI into your marketing to keep up with the times.

1. Chatbots

A Chatbot is an AI software that is capable of simulating a conversation (chat) with a user in natural language.

Brands have taken to using chatbots to interact with their clients on messaging apps like WhatsApp, Slack, and Facebook Messenger.

Through these bots, brands can answer queries customers frequently ask in a speedy fashion.

Since they retain a customer’s data after the interaction, they can build on that information to deliver more personalized experience during the next interaction.

That reinforced learning pattern only makes the experience better for the customer.

2. User Experience (UX)

When you have a website, the user experience will significantly influence whether the customer will return to it or not.

You can use AI to collect information on customers and understand their likes, intent, and desire. Data points to gather here include location, the devices they use to visit the website, demographics among others.

As the user keeps browsing the site, you get to gain more insights about them and deliver appropriate offers and content that resonates with their needs.

AI marketing that helps shape your user experience for the better has the potential to increase your conversion rate.

3. Search Engines

People today take it for granted that they can search for anything on Google and find a relevant result.

Such a scenario is the result of decades of research and analysis on how to create and deliver a more intuitive search experience for customers.

After Google deployed RankBrain, its machine-learning based algorithm, many businesses saw the value of such an application.

Nowadays consumer companies like Amazon take advantage of artificial intelligence marketing tactics that can help them deliver relevant results to you.

Innovations like natural language processing and semantic search determine the relationships between products.

When you run a search, they help recommend similar items and auto-correct mistakes so that you can find the right products.

4. Predictive Analysis

Predictive analysis is the use of data, machine learning techniques, and statistical algorithms to draw conclusions on future actions based on the data.

Using predictive analysis you can determine the probability of a prospect becoming a client.

Thus, depending on the conclusion your draw you can determine how much resources you will dedicate to converting the prospect.

Another area predictive analysis is useful in is pricing. Using this tool, you can more accurately determine which price point will deliver more sales for you.

That information can then contribute towards your value proposition marketing.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a crucial part of any brand’s marketing mix as it is one of the few digital assets they fully control.

But with the rise in sources of data from 10 in 2017 to 15 in 2019, marketers may struggle to personalize these emails.

AI can help you unify the piles of information on a subscriber and learn how to reach more effectively.

For example, it can help you determine how many times to send the email per user and what time of the day is best to send it.

6. Digital Marketing

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a cornerstone for any digital campaign. Typically, PPC ad campaigns are usually managed by an in-house team or a large agency.

AI can help you discover new channels your competition may be unaware of.

Machine learning techniques can help you optimize the layout, bids, targeting, and copy for your campaign.

You will be able to realize a higher return on advertising per campaign by using AI in marketing online.

7. Social Listening

Every brand needs to have a presence on social media to extend its customer service to where its customers are.

Consequently, it is essential that brands have their finger on the pulse of what users are saying about them.

Natural language processing innovation has made it possible for brands to hear what users and the public at large like or dislike about them.

Therefore, they can get ahead of any potential issues before they blow up.

You can also use AI in social listening to identify potential purchasers and nudge them towards a sale.

8. Audience Targeting

Customers today have come to expect a certain level of personalization, and as a marketer, you can’t fail on this expectation.

To help you create more accurately personalized campaigns, you will need to segment your customers as finely as possible.

AI can draw on the data you have on your customers and identify a common variable that can help shape your communication with a specific audience.

For example, if your data shows you that a significant number of your customers are into destiny power leveling, you can set up banner ads to effectively reach them.

9. Voice-Based Services

In the past few years, voice-based services have gained quite some traction.

Voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri, and Cortana have made it infinitely easier for consumers to search and place an order by speaking at their devices.

Natural language processing technology helps improve speech recognition so that customers can successfully issue commands.

AI can help you deploy voice-based services to provide your customers with an avenue for easier sales and interaction.

Beef up Your AI Advertising Strategies or Get Left Behind

Artificial Intelligence is making a big impact on marketing. High automation levels in what once used to be human job roles call for precise AI advertising strategies by brands.

Are you concerned with the impact technology will have on your business? Thumb through our content to learn more about how you can use innovative breakthroughs to power your business forward.

Sourced from Droid Men

In News

How to Assess Your Content Performance: 5 Tools You Haven’t Tried

July 22, 2019 No Comments

By Ann Smarty

Content analysis is a marketing task that’s never really complete.

You need to come back to your old content again and again to see what should be updated, which new visibility opportunities can be pursued and how to better optimize it for more conversions.

With that in mind, there’s no set list of tools you should be using again and again. New tools bring new analysis methods and, hence, new ideas. Here are 5 tools to use for content assessment:

1. Which Keywords Have I Missed?

Any time I am assessing my existing content performance, I start with identifying which keywords I have missed.

Content gap analysis answers one of the most important content marketing questions: which topics have I failed to cover, and which questions have I failed to answer when creating that content?

It’s usually a multi-step process where you need to:

Identify competing URLs
Run organic analysis of current positions
Compare rankings with yours and identify which keywords your URL fails to rank in top 50

Serpstat is the SERP analysis platform that minimizes the whole process to only one step: simply enter your URL into their Missing Keywords tool, and it will generate a handy content analysis report including:

Search queries competing pages generate traffic from while your URL fails to rank in top 50
Search volume and “Competition Strength” for each query (“Competition Strength” is Serpstat’s own metric they calculate based on average authority of pages ranking in top 10 for the given query)
Other URLs from your domain that rank for any of those queries (For you to avoid internal organic competition, i.e. keyword cannibalization (the term I am not a big fan of by the way). This latter report section is pretty awesome: I’ve never seen this done by anyone else and for established blogs (that tend to have a lot of content on similar topics) it’s a time saver!

You can also filter the report by search volume, competition strength, any keyword in the query.

This is one of those reports that have too much going on: I always end up working on all “Other URLs”, as well to try and push them higher in SERPs.

2. Who Will Find My Page Content Satisfying?

Another fundamental question to answer is: is my page meeting the users’ expectations? In other words, have I done enough to optimize for search intent?

Not only is search intent playing a decisive role in engaging your visitors, but search intent optimization also is able to boost your rankings. That’s because Google has learned how to identify whether your page is meeting users’ needs when deciding how high it should rank.

Text Optimizer is a semantic analysis tool that identifies the type of audience your page caters to.

If you see that your text seems to be targeting the wrong type of audience, use Text Optimizer to better optimize your content for search intent for any given query.

Simply enter your query and provide your page URL: the tool will run Google search for your query and identify which related concepts should be covered in your content for it to better meet Google’s (and its users’) expectations. Include 20-25 of these concepts in your copy to better optimize it for search intent.

3. Does My Page Pass the 5-Second Test?

What’s the very first impression your page makes when users land on it? Is it instantly clear what the page is about? Are CTAs clearly visible on the page? Is the goal clear?

Studies have shown that most people need just a couple of seconds to decide whether they want to stay or leave a web page. In today’s fast-paced digital environment where most people browse the web on the go, from their mobile or smart assistant devices, this time frame is likely to become even shorter.

It takes most people about 5 seconds to decide whether they want to stay or leave a web page. #UX Click To Tweet

This makes your actual content quality almost secondary: most people won’t even see it unless they are instantly compelled to stay. This is where the 5-second test comes along: let strangers look at your page for five seconds, and then ask one simple question: “Was is this page about” or “What are you supposed to do on the page?”

If you recruit your own testers, this test is free to run. I usually use Usability Hub to quickly set up the tests. You can also recruit testers through the site which costs $30 (free for the first-time users).

4. What Distracts Users from Following the Conversion Funnel?

Besides understanding the instant impression your users get when landing on your page, it is helpful to know what exactly distracts them. The easiest way to collect this data is through running a one-day heatmap test.

A heatmap is the visual representation of user behavior on the page, including scrolling, clicking, mouse movements, etc.

If you need to identify what gets your users’ attention, set up a move map that tracks cursor movements on your page. In most cases, it is safe to assume that people look where their cursor moves, so move maps can give you a good idea where people look when landing on your page.

There are multiple platforms that you to run heatmap testing, as well as several WordPress plugins that integrate heatmaps into your A/B testing routine. In many cases, unless you have really heavy traffic, you can run simple move map testing for free.

5. What Is Interrupting Your Conversion Funnel Flow?

You probably have a few CTAs within your content, each leading your visitor down the conversion funnell, from clicking to opting-in to finally buying. Which of those steps is reducing your conversions?

Finteza is a free web analytics tool that allows you to monitor multiple events on a page and how they interact with one another.

It’s pretty obvious that an extra click reduces conversions, so eliminating the extra step is likely to boost conversions.

Finteza is pretty easy to set up. Adding events for tracking is very straightforward too. If you are not technical enough, you can simply add a new link attribute data-fz-event=”Event+Name” (Put your event name instead of “Event+Name”), and the new event will be automatically populated and monitored.

Monitor all kinds of conversion-focused links on within your content including clicks to lead magnets,

Putting It All Together

There’s an overwhelming amount of both traffic acquisition and conversion optimization tactics. With so much testing and analyzing, how do you put everything together in a most actionable way? In other words, how do you move from analyzing onto implementing?

When working on old content, I treat it as a new marketing campaign. As soon as I come across an existing article or landing page that needs some work, I put it down as a new content project in my calendar inside ContentCal.

ContentCal is a collaboration editorial tool that is every content manager’s dream. I don’t have time for creating tickets or distributing tasks, so ContentCal is ideal. It takes two seconds to schedule a content campaign and put together a content brief, including all the numbers and test results I was able to collect.

My team will be notified of an approaching campaign through the shared calendar and will be able to quickly share the tasks and implement the suggestions.

Having a centralized dashboard that consolidates all my plans keeps me very organized and productive.

Hopefully these new tools will breathe fresh air into your content assessment process and inspire you to look for new tactics and trends to boost your content marketing performance.

By Ann Smarty

Sourced from CONVINCE&CONVERT

In News

Probing for facts in a fog of online marketing

July 12, 2019 No Comments

By Neil Macdonald

Manufacturers have seized discussion forums. Corporations are buying reviews

About three years ago, Costco hired a fellow named Chris Wheatley to pick up a faulty hot tub being returned by one of its customers in Nova Scotia. Costco would come to regret having done that.

Wheatley, who runs a small business in Halifax selling and servicing tubs, had, out of disgust at what he calls the confidence game of the hot tub industry, established a website meant to educate consumers.

When the tub’s exterior panels began falling off during the ride back to the Costco warehouse, Wheatley abruptly pulled into a parking lot, took out his smartphone, and launched into an impromptu technical review.

It was savage. Wheatley took the viewer into the guts of the $10,000 tub, pointing out its skimpy insulation, a design defect that caused its pumps to overheat, the inferior quality of its fiberglass shell, which appeared to be propped up internally by Styrofoam, and the cheap plumbing of its hoses and connections. He then posted the video on his website, hottubuniversity.com, where it remains to this day.

“It went viral. I got, like, 200,000 hits in a very short period.”

Costco, says Wheatley, was in touch pronto.

“They told me to take the video down or they’d take legal action. I told them every message from them, every statement, would be put up on my website for public inspection. After that, they went away.”

Wheatley didn’t know it at the time, but he was on his way to becoming probably the North American hot tub industry’s most influential influencer. He says his website now attracts nearly 100,000 unique hits a year, mostly from people about to spend somewhere between $7,000 and $20,000.

Influencers are the big thing in marketing nowadays. Some are celebrities, some are Instagram stars who make big money promoting makeup, but most are just independent operators who found a niche. What they all seem to have in common is the ability to engender trust. Wheatley is a perfect example. His reviews are blunt, his language sometimes rough, and he answers all his emails – 4,500 last year – personally.

Manufacturing reviews

He reckons he influences, directly or indirectly, hundreds of millions worth of purchases from consumers who want to buy, but are gasping in the fog of the internet, most of it put there by the marketing departments of the unregulated hot tub industry.

“The online discussion forums are all controlled by the manufacturers,” he says. “People are getting lied to. This is a crappy world where companies trick customers with marketing for their crappy products.”

They do it because it works, of course. Research in the U.S. indicates that more than 80 per cent of buyers sometimes check a review before purchasing, and 40 per cent read them every time they buy. Younger buyers are especially reliant on reviews.

The hot tub game, says Wheatley, is being taken over by private equity firms that buy up manufacturers, cheapen the product by using cut-rate components (for which replacements can only be purchased from them), then package it with glossy, misleading marketing.

“You’re buying a product that’s designed to fail.”

So Wheatley doggedly plugs a small group of manufacturers that still use standard parts you can buy anywhere. He endorses brands that produce strong hand-rolled shells, glued-and-clamped plumbing, and proper insulation. He refuses advertising.

But he also lives in the world, and has to make a living. The website costs money. He has employees. He has to procure tubs to dissect and review. So, like most influencers, he’s begun taking money from manufacturers he recommends. Enough to break even, he says. He will disclose, if asked, which ones they are.

And he turns down all offers from manufacturers that don’t meet his standards.

Does taking the money make Wheatley less credible? Maybe, a bit. But where, nowadays, does a consumer turn? As Ira Rheingold at the National Association of Consumer Advocates in Washington puts it, never has more information been available, and never has so much of it been fake.

Now, a disclosure here: When a physiotherapist prescribed a hot tub after some surgeries two years ago, I found myself poking around the internet, seeking some reliable advice, and finally found Wheatley. I am certain the information on his site prevented me from making some awfully costly mistakes.

Controlling consumer information

But the more I researched, the more I realized how completely corporate interests, open or veiled, control consumer information online.

A Google search for almost any consumer item will turn up a raft of review sites, most of which are clearly for-profit operations offering to rank companies’ products in return for payment, or want to solicit customer complaints as a profitable means of developing leads for lawyers.

Sales and review sites routinely offer sellers more visible billing in exchange for a premium. It’s the online equivalent of fees companies pay to ensure their products are placed prominently in store aisles.

Consumer review sites, where individuals testify about the quality of a purchase or sales experience, are equally sketchy. Reports abound of shills driving up five-star rankings.

In fact, says Rheingold, companies are taking steps to stifle negative reviews.

“When you buy something online you might be unknowingly agreeing to a non-disparagement clause buried in the fine print. We’ve seen a number of companies turn around and sue over a bad review on a site like Yelp. The idea is to scare people.”

Enabling consumers, says Rheingold, is not a priority in the United States nowadays. Quite the opposite, where the Trump administration is concerned. In Canada, we just seem indifferent. We’ve never had much of a consumer movement here. We certainly could use one.

Feature Image: We’ve never had much of a consumer movement here. We certainly could use one. (Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images)

By Neil Macdonald

Neil Macdonald is an opinion columnist for CBC News, based in Ottawa. Prior to that he was the CBC’s Washington correspondent for 12 years, and before that he spent five years reporting from the Middle East. He also had a previous career in newspapers, and speaks English and French fluently, and some Arabic.

Sourced from CBC

In News

4 Major Marketing Trends for 2020 and Beyond

July 8, 2019 No Comments

By Alp Mimaroglu

Do you know what ‘on-SERP SEO’ means in the marketing universe? You’re not alone, but you are missing an opportunity.

Can you believe it’s almost 2020? When I began my marketing career over a decade ago in 2009, I could hardly imagine what I’d be doing today as a marketing leader at an enterprise organization …

… especially with technology. But each year, new and disruptive technological innovations are forcing marketers like me to evolve our best practices. Digital marketing, once the only game in town, has given way to multichannel marketing; and today, we are rapidly approaching the omnichannel marketing age.

And that can be overwhelming: As the rate of marketing innovation continues to accelerate, most organizations are having a hard time keeping up. But the good news is that new ways of doing things bring new opportunities. Here are four major marketing trends I see developing among organizations for 2020 and beyond:

1. Optimizing for on-SERP SEO

Ever hear of zero-click results? You’ve probably seen them. A zero-click result is a search result in which Google automatically provides the answer to the search query in the form of an automated snippet.

For example, if you type in ,“What is the temperature in San Francisco?” Google will automatically provide you a result it generates on its own. You’d actually have to scroll down to see the Adwords results and organic search results.

Google auto-populates search results for much broader queries, as well. Everything from “What is a cryptocurrency?” to “How do I create a marketing funnel?” has a snippet that may prevent a searcher from scrolling down to see more results.

Why is this significant? Because 61.8 percent of search results in Google are now zero-search results, according to data from Jumpshot. As a result, more and more keywords are becoming less profitable.

While the automatic snippet sometimes comes from a website that ranks somewhere on page 1 of the search engine results page (SERP), companies are unsure how to optimize their content so that Google chooses them over anyone vying for the same spot. Needless to say, this is a concerning development for any business that markets or advertisers on Google.

Opportunity: The brand that figures out on-SERP SEO first will have a huge competitive edge.

2. Advertising on smart speakers (and optimizing for voice search)

Another major development in recent years has been the proliferation of smart speakers. In 2018, around 56 million smart speakers were sold to consumers, according to Social Report.

Yet despite the growing number of households asking Alexa, Siri and Google Home questions, smart speaker marketing and advertising opportunities have been scarce. But this seems to be changing.

In 2017, for example, Google Home users noticed that a universal ad for Disney’s Beauty and The Beast began playing shortly after scheduled morning announcements, called flash briefings. These types of ads were rare and infrequent at the time, but are now growing in popularity.

In 2019, we’re seeing better, less invasive, examples of branded advertising on smart speakers. One of the most customer-friendly ways to advertise on smart speakers is to make what’s called a “branded skill.” For example, if you tell Alexa “Ask Patrón for a cocktail recipe,” Alexa will respond with a diverse selection of possibilities, courtesy of the premium tequila maker. This strategy works:. Patrón gets more than 6,000 queries a month for its Alexa skill, according to Digiday.

Opportunity: Try the “branded skill” approach for your branded advertising, for a more customer-friendly tone.

3. Optimizing for voice search

Granted, most brands may not be ready to explore smart speaker advertising just yet. But in the meantime, they should explore optimizing their content for voice search.

According to Google, 20 percent of all Google search queries now take place through voice search. Even more telling is that 71 percent of all mobile users between the ages of 18 and 29 use voice assistants on their smartphones, according to Thrive Analytics.

Needless to say, it probably makes a lot of sense for all businesses to start optimizing their content for voice search, not just big enterprises. There’s a lot of advice from marketing experts on how to do this, and it seems that the consensus is that making content more conversational does the trick.

Opportunity: With most search happening on smartphones, optimize for voice search.

4. More chatbots and, yes, even more content!

Finally, as I’ve explained before, written content isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Not only is it predicted to be the marketing activity that will make the largest commercial impact three years running (according to Smart Insights), but written content is also the main throughput of chatbots, which are expected to see increased usage in 2020 and beyond.

According to a recent study by Juniper Networks, as AI-powered chatbots grow in popularity and sophistication, retailers can expect to cut costs by $439 billion annually and increase sales by $112 billion, by 2023. With numbers like that, it’s not too hard to see why large organizations will continue investing in newer and more helpful chatbots.

But chatbots aren’t useful just for big business. Any business that has a website with traffic can benefit from a simple chatbot that answers the most common visitor questions and helps convert visitors into warm leads.

Opportunity: Chatbots will help you cut costs.

Marketing is changing, and marketers must change with it

When I first got my feet wet in the marketing world, I couldn’t have imagined that I’d be helping run digital marketing transformation programs. But that’s what it takes to stay competitive in the world of 21st-century marketing.

It’s almost 2020; have you looked into any new and innovative ways to spend your marketing dollars? Or how to double down on the marketing channels that work best for your business?

Because if you haven’t, I guarantee your competitors have.

Feature Image Credit: ipopba | Getty Images

By Alp Mimaroglu

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

In News

What Does a Content Marketing Manager Do Exactly?

July 8, 2019 No Comments

By Brody Dorland

While the practice of content marketing has been around for decades, it’s only started to come into its own as a recognized and respected form of marketing in the last decade. As the practice has proliferated globally, so has the introduction of dedicated, content-centric staff within corporate marketing organizations. Among the most common new titles we see these days is the Content Marketing Manager.

According to Google Trends, the term “content marketing manager” was rarely searched until around 2013. Interest in this new role rose steadily over the following two years and has remained steady since 2015.

But what exactly is a content marketing manager? Do you need one? To understand these questions, you first need to have a clear picture of what content marketing managers do on a day-to-day basis.

A Content Marketing Manager’s Role

A content marketing manager is ultimately responsible for managing a company’s content marketing operation, and the overall success of content marketing initiatives. They guide content marketing strategy, facilitate ongoing content planning, manage day-to-day content creation, editing and promotion, and report on the results of each content marketing initiative.

Skills & Experience

In a recent study, researchers scoured more than 300 “content marketing manager” job listings from Indeed, Glassdoor and LinkedIn to examine the qualifications requested by companies. This infographic by Sarah Robles sums up their findings nicely.

Source: https://www.nrmedia.biz/blog/ideal-content-marketing-manager

A Content Marketing Manager’s Responsibilities

Here are the eight strategic initiatives that most content marketing manager will be responsible for developing.

1. Research and Competitor Analysis

The content manager’s main aim is to successfully carry out the business’ content marketing strategy by publishing and promoting content that achieves the goals set out in the strategy. It’s impossible to create an effective content marketing strategy and plan without initial research. This research helps the content manager and creators to understand their target audience better and decide what types of content to create and which topics to cover.

This research might involve:

Analyzing competitors’ content, messaging and distribution tactics
Identifying target audiences and their key demographics, interests, and online behavior
Surveying current customers to understand and validate strategic and tactical decisions (template below)
Facilitating internal stakeholder interviews to identify business objectives and subject matter experts
Keyword research
Research to define appropriate subjects and topics
Looking into content tools and software that can help them to create and promote content

2. Preparing Content Marketing Plans

After an initial research phase, the content marketing manager can start working on one or several content marketing plans. Depending on the size of the company and scope of their offering, multiple content marketing plans will often be needed to define strategy and tactical execution for individual brands, business units or channels. For example:

A bank may have one content marketing plan for their consumer offerings, and another for their commercial offerings
A software company may have an external content marketing plan aimed at generating new business, and a separate content marketing plan designed to retain and up-sell existing customers.

Each content marketing plan should be informed by the overall content marketing strategy (which is usually created with the help of the wider marketing team) and should define the exact goals for each initiative and identify how the content manager will achieve these goals with content.

Content marketing plans should include (at a minimum):

Specific, measurable goals with a timeline in which to meet them
A general budget with estimates for staff, creative resources and paid promotion
The types of content that will be created (ex: blog posts, ebooks, white papers, infographics, etc.)
The topics that will be covered (and why)
The channels that will be used to distribute the content
A plan for paid promotion of the content
An execution plan outlining the publishing frequency, production workflow (creation, reviews and approvals) and ongoing maintenance of the content

Your content marketing manager may also create individual content marketing plans for specific campaigns, an overall plan for a set time period (such as the next quarter or year), or a combination of the two.

3. Creating an Editorial Calendar

Once a content marketing plan has been flushed out, content marketing managers can now plot deadlines for creation, publication, and promotion on a content calendar so the whole marketing team can see at a glance what content is planned for the coming weeks and months.

Having a visual editorial calendar helps your content manager align content publication and promotion with key dates that are important to your business and other marketing campaigns. It’s also important to build slack time into the schedule to allow for any delays in content production and to allow for last-minute, real-time marketing opportunities.

4. Content Creation

After the content plan has been created and approved by all relevant stakeholders, it’s time for the main responsibility of the content manager – actually creating the content.

This being said, not all content managers will physically produce and publish each piece of content. Many content marketing managers will be dictating production workflows and overseeing a team of creatives. However, it’s vital that your content manager has excellent writing and editing skills as they’ll hold the ultimate responsibility for what is finally published.

As well as researching and writing content, content marketing managers may need to source photographs and illustrations to accompany written content, format content, and add meta information.

5. SEO

It’s not enough for online content to read well and be free of spelling and grammar errors. Content marketing managers must also have search engine optimization skills to make sure that web searchers can find their content and that it appears on the first page of Google and other search engines.

If you have an entire digital marketing team at your disposal, you may have already employed an SEO specialist. Alternatively, you may be outsourcing your SEO needs to a specialist agency. Despite this, it’s still important that your content marketing manager understands at least the basics of SEO in order to carry out an effective content marketing plan.

6. Editing and Ensuring Adherence to a Style Guide

When a content marketing manager has a team of writers to manage, their editing and proofreading skills are essential. They also have to be able to give constructive feedback.

It’s vital to maintain a consistent brand voice in your content and this can be challenging when there are several writers working on your content. A style guide is essential for this reason. Your content marketing manager should create this style guide, which might include information about brand personality, writing styles, punctuation and grammar preferences, SEO best practices, and guidelines to aid in selecting images.

As well as making sure that each piece of content is proofread and edited before publication (if not personally, then by a dedicated editor), your content manager must also ensure that all content adheres to this style guide.

7. Publishing and Promoting Content

After each piece of content is produced and approved, it’s the job of the content marketing manager to ensure it gets published and promoted to the right people in the right place at the right time. They might do this manually themselves or leverage technical staff to load content into a web CMS, email marketing or social media automation tool.

Once published, a pre-defined promotional strategy should be executed, often including automated social media posts or other tactics that fire at times selected for the best engagement. This type of content automation is an effective way to speed up your content production without having to grow your team.

Your content marketing manager must also integrate your content strategy with the rest of your marketing campaigns and identify other channels for online and offline promotion.

8. Content Performance Monitoring and Analysis

Your content marketing manager’s job doesn’t end once they’ve published a piece of content. One of the most important parts of this role is continual monitoring and analysis of published content so they can see what’s working and what isn’t working. These insights will inform future marketing plans and provide intelligence for your overall marketing strategy.

Content analytics software can help to make this task a straightforward one, but it’s important that your content manager still takes the time to interpret the data, make suggestions and draw actionable conclusions based on it.

You’ll also need to monitor engagement with your content, reply to comments and questions, and note suggestions for future content. All this comes under the umbrella of the content marketing manager’s responsibilities, although they may outsource some or all of these tasks.

Do You Need a Content Marketing Manager?

Certainly, many of the tasks outlined above can be outsourced or delegated to other team members, freelancers, or agency partners, so it can be tempting to think that you don’t need to fill this role at all.

However, this line of thinking is unwise. The job of your content marketing manager is to ensure your content marketing strategy succeeds. If you don’t have a passionate, talented person in this role, it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day grind of simply churning out content.

Content marketing managers tie together all the individual parts of your content strategy – writing, SEO, promotion, analysis, and optimization – with a clearly defined content workflow.

Hiring someone to manage your content marketing strategy might be a big investment, but you may not get a return without it.

By Brody Dorland

Sourced from DIVVY HQ

In News

The Push-Pull Relationship Of Sales And Marketing: How To Foster Collaboration

July 5, 2019 No Comments

By Kay Kienast

Traditionally, sales and marketing — both important in their own right — have operated as separate silos. Sales is a direct process, requiring one-to-one interaction with customers, whether it’s using email, the phone, in-person meetings or social media. Marketing, on the other hand, drives leads through brand or product awareness with potential customers as a group and is a more holistic process.

Something as simple as developing a capabilities presentation demonstrates how sales (direct) and marketing (holistic) can be at odds. Marketers may create a presentation that ensures the message is on target and consistent across customers, but the sales team may deliver it directly to specific customers. Here comes the push-pull relationship.

This may seem like a simple example, but it is indicative of the dynamics behind the sales and marketing relationship. Both entities, while seemingly at odds, have much to gain by learning to work together in a cooperative way. After all, both want to increase quality leads, reduce sales cycles to close more leads, and generate more revenue.

While the sales process has not changed significantly over time, marketing methods and channels have evolved dramatically over the last decade. Today’s marketer relies on content marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), organic traffic and influencer marketing.

Another significant shift is in the buying process, which has undergone a major transformation. Customers often spend more time educating themselves before purchasing and are looking for more information. Indeed, according to Forrester, “Today’s business buyers are increasingly self-directed: 60% prefer not to interact with a sales rep as the primary source of information; 68% prefer to research on their own, online; and 62% say they can now develop selection criteria or finalize a vendor list — based solely on digital content.”

This change in the purchase process puts more power in the hands of the buyer, and more weight on marketers to guide the buyer through the buying journey.

Sales and marketing have also historically had different processes, different software — customer relationship managers (CRMs) versus marketing automation platforms (MAPs) — and different goals, resulting in a competitive, rather than collaborative, relationship. Even further, marketing has been responsible at the beginning of the customer life cycle, with sales involved later.

But customers don’t care about where marketing and sales begin and end — they expect one seamless experience. This means that the two departments need to foster a parallel relationship where both co-own the lead and the ongoing process to qualify that lead. There is one customer pipeline and it belongs to both marketing and sales.

How do sales and marketing make this push-pull relationship work successfully?

Learning how to communicate is a critical step. What often happens is that marketing will talk to sales, but sales won’t listen, and vice versa. You need to establish a regime for communicating, and the best way to do that is to find common ground and acknowledge what you are both trying to accomplish. Sometimes there are multiple issues at stake, and you have to untangle them one at a time. That may mean putting the other issues on hold until you reach an agreement on one. Then you’ve proven you can work things out, which sets you up to succeed at resolving the next topic.

It should be noted that working in tandem is ultimately best for the customer. If marketing and sales are synched up on messaging, it facilitates the customer’s understanding of the value you provide today and where you’re headed. It makes it easier for the customer to work with you.

It’s also important to understand how sales and marketing are going to work together — akin to establishing a sales and marketing service level agreement to state each department’s role and clear definitions on things like buyer personas and ideal leads. This starts with determining who they are going to target together and creating a coverage map. If marketing sends leads to follow up on and sales doesn’t act on them, then money has been wasted on leads. You have to create a model together that defines how to cross-sell and up-sell opportunities together, how to acquire new customers together and how to retain your current customers together.

Adding to these complexities is the fact that each department has its own budget. Sales has to meet one key performance indicator (KPI) while marketing has a different KPI, and conflict can arise as a result. Instead of fighting a marketing and sales war, cooler heads are needed to prevail, and that means coming together and establishing an agreement. Reaching an agreement requires a give and take by both parties.

In the end, it comes down to honest communication and arriving at a set of agreements that define how to work together.

Working more in collaboration can have immediate benefits, but I still find that most organizations have separate sales and marketing teams with their own leadership and targets. Changing the structure and mindset of those teams requires strong leadership at the top of the organization. Leaders need to set the vision and ensure that the reasons for change are understood by all.

In my next article, I’ll continue to address the “push-pull” aspect of the sales and marketing relationship and how leaders can bring about this much-needed alignment from the top down.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Kay Kienast

Chief Marketing Officer for True Influence, responsible for all company marketing including data, demand generation, SEO/SEM and PR.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Five Key Trends Driving Your Marketing Data Needs

July 4, 2019 No Comments

By Leah Pope

With thousands of marketing technology vendors to choose from, most companies are using multiple products to meet customers where they are — whether they’re scrolling through Instagram, doing a Google search, checking their email or entering a store. As a result, marketing stacks today may consist of dozens of different technologies and potentially thousands of data streams.

This fractured landscape makes it difficult for companies to get a holistic view of their customer data and analyze marketing performance, but finding a solution is imperative. Visibility is critical to the success of today’s marketing teams — that’s what allows them to optimize strategies, course correct if needed and achieve campaign goals.

Companies have sprouted up to address this need. As the chief marketing officer (CMO) of one such platform that provides a single source of truth for integrating customer data, tracking marketing performance and analyzing return on investment, it is clear that these marketing intelligence tools are entering the mainstream. However, I have found that some marketers remain unclear about their long-term uses.

As customer expectations for personalized engagement evolve, CMOs need to understand how influential trends will affect the way they evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing and how marketing intelligence can help them stay one step ahead. Here are the five trends that I believe are shaking up the marketing industry.

1. Artificial intelligence is moving beyond the hype.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are now capable of doing the heavy lifting in processing massive amounts of data. For example, marketers can create continuous data source connections and automatically organize data in real time without specialized technical skills.

When asked “which activities marketing analysts spend the majority of their time on, data wrangling topped the list, along with data integration and formatting,” according to Gartner’s “2018 Marketing Analytics Survey.” Marketing intelligence tools can help leverage these AI capabilities specifically for marketing use cases, without marketers having to build tools from scratch or adapt general enterprise solutions for their needs.

These tools enable marketers to integrate all of their data, have visibility into it in real time and take action to pivot journeys or campaigns as they’re happening. I believe AI will soon get even better at not only surfacing insights but also at providing smarter recommendations and empowering marketers to take action on them.

2. Marketing analytics is becoming democratized.

Barriers to entry are dissolving when it comes to marketers accessing data insights. The technology solutions emerging today are leaning into marketers’ skill sets, allowing them to focus on analytics without requiring the technical know-how to create complex models.

Marketers can use marketing intelligence to acquire a deeper level of insight by connecting the dots across all customer engagements, including email marketing, paid advertising, web traffic and more, rather than being limited to data from a single channel. With these tools, you can gather recommendations about how to structure programs and spend budgets based on historical data from your own company and industry benchmarks.

3. Martech and adtech continue to converge.

As marketers have sought ways to create a seamless experience throughout the customer journey, marketing and advertising technologies have begun to merge. This trend has been happening for quite some time, but analytics has remained a challenge. Marketing intelligence tools are bringing all of that information from across the customer journey — from paid advertising to email and e-commerce — together in one place.

Regardless of whether an ad platform is part of a larger enterprise marketing technology solution or is a standalone vendor, brands can leverage marketing intelligence to bring everything together in one place to analyze performance, from first-party data about known customers to anonymous data and from the granular to the aggregate.

4. Brands and agencies are banding together.

Traditionally, brands allocated a budget for agencies to spend on advertising, and the brand would take it from there. These days, I find that brands want more transparency into where their ad spending is going and a better grasp of how it’s performing. Brands and agencies are often taking joint ownership of data and working together to drive customer engagement not only through advertising but also throughout the entire sales cycle.

As agencies and brands become strategic partners, they are also converging on the technologies they use. Marketing intelligence can help provide a single source of truth for both agencies and brands in order to collaborate on a standardized platform.

5. Customers are demanding personalization.

Companies that sell products directly to customers are known as business-to-consumer (B2C), while those that sell to other companies are known as business-to-business (B2B). Many companies are both. For example, Ticketmaster sells tickets for live events directly to customers and also has business relationships with venues, entertainment agencies and sponsors.

(Full disclosure: Ticketmaster is a client of Datorama.)

In the past, business buyers didn’t require the same level of personalized engagement as consumers in the market for shoes, chairs and TVs. Now, B2B marketers are expected to step up their personalization strategies. That means reaching beyond traditional demand generation sources, like a company’s website, to channels like LinkedIn and Instagram.

In light of this shift, I believe it’s more important than ever for B2B brands to employ marketing intelligence in the same way as B2C companies do. These companies can gain a unified view of their data, connect every part of the sales funnel and enable highly personalized marketing campaigns.

The Next Competitive Advantage

Marketing leaders who feel overwhelmed by the challenge of unifying disparate data streams are in good company — this is the same quandary many of the largest brands in the world are tackling. While it’s easy to succumb to analysis paralysis, companies that get ahead of the pack in achieving true visibility are often better poised to win.

CMOs already invest nearly a third of their budgets on marketing technology. Now it’s time for marketers to make sure they’re able to make sense of all the data they collect.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Leah Pope

Chief Marketing Officer at Datorama. Former CMO at Synthesio. Helping marketers navigate their data woes each step of the way.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Most Effective Social Media Marketing Tactics for Small Business in 2019

June 26, 2019 No Comments

By Stephen Forde

Social media has turned out to be a powerhouse for the data on the internet. Social media marketing as a concept is getting popular and trending day-by-day. It enables small businesses to engage their customers, interact with them, and reach a vast network of potential customers in lesser time.

The majority of businesses do social media marketing on an ad-hoc basis. They know they should do something engaging about social media, but they really don’t understand where they exist and what they should do. If you are not attracting the desired customers, sales and leads even by using social media, then there may be the reason behind you’re not using the right social media strategies. So, in this article, we’ve summarized the most effective social media trends, strategies & tactics that will help you grow your small business in 2019.

Boost Your Small Business in 2019:

Before we move ahead, it’s worth pointing out there is no fixed approach that will work for everyone. The key is in finding the right one for your business. The one that is more likely to align with your targeted audience in a limited period of time is social media marketing. Social media marketing is not as complicated as it seems if you know the right strategies and tactics.

If you can master its insider secrets, you are good to go. Using social media to market your small business will not only help you get more money from your existing customers but also help to acquire new ones. However, failures to have an effective social media strategy can be harmful to your small business.

While you may not think of the lack of social media presence is always having a great impact on you today, it will eventually be laid down your business to a distorted path. So, don’t wait until it’s too late, get started today with the latest social media trends & tactics.

Follow Social Media Marketing Tactics we’ve outlined below & set your small business up for sustainable growth.

Create Engaging Profiles on Different Platforms:

If you have an account on Facebook, that you are headed in the right direction. But Facebook alone won’t be enough to grow your small business. You need to make a strong social media presence on top-rated platforms, including Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Before you rush to create profiles on these channels, it’s important you understand your targeted market analyzes the latest Social Media Trends.

Regularly Post Content:

Once you have made an engaging profile of the different social media, your next task is to post quality content on a daily basis. Suppose if someone stumbles upon your page and your recent posts about 2 weeks ago, then they for sure no longer will follow you on that platform. So, you have to do regular social media optimization as it is the best opportunity for you to stand out from the crowd. Each time you update new content, it reminds your follower that where your brand exists and how it can be so helpful for your small business

Build Relationship with Social Influencers:

When it comes to social influencers, celebrities & athletes will quickly appear in your mind. But partnering with athletes or celebrities may won’t fit within the marketing budget for your small business. So, you should search for social influencers who are more cost-effective than an athlete or a celebrity like micro influencers. Micro influencers have stronger engagement matrices with their followers and can increase productivity in an enhanced and faster manner.

Employ Automation Tools:

We know how you are feeling right now that everything we discussed above is time-consuming. But as an owner of small business, you need to manage multiple tasks throughout the whole day. And at the end of the day, you’re left with no more working hours to plan for the next day. This is where automation tools can help you out. Automation tools will enable you to schedule your posts in advance. You just need to take time once at the start of your week to set the date and time for your posts in the future.

Motivate User Generated Content:

This Social Media Marketing trend will help you build a strong presence and optimum brand awareness in a few clicks. Your small business can be exposed to a wider audience. Anybody who follows people who enter the contest will see your brand/products being promoted, even though if those people don’t follow you. So, user-generated content is the best way to get more followers and then turn those followers into potential buyers.

Give People a Reason to Follow you:

In order to run a small business, you need to have strong social media visibility and followers. Without these two, nobody is going to follow you. Once you made your strong social following, it will be easier for you to convert your followers into potential customers. Because people are more likely to buy things, that they follow on social media. So, organize a contest, give discounts and promote flash sales.

Conclusion:

To stay at the top of the competitors, you need to make use of social media marketing tactics, no matter your business is small or large. Just having a Facebook account isn’t enough to boost your small business worldwide. It requires a strong web presence on highly usable platforms that people like to use. So, you just need to post fresh content daily on your social media accounts, give consumers the discount, sales offer and maintain relationships with the industry’s leading influencers. Best of all, following the right trends can give your small business a good turnover and excellent ROI.

Feature Image Credit: LoboStudioHamburg / Pixabay

By Stephen Forde

Stephen Forde is the CEO of Media Fortress, a digital marketing & web hosting firm. He helps clients grow their web visibility through all aspects of digital marketing.

Sourced from Irish Tech News