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9 Most Common Hashtag Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

March 1, 2019 No Comments

Hashtags, they’ve become something like an ironic t-shirt print now. Everywhere you turn, people are using them, they’ve even become a part of our verbal dialect, hashtag weird.
As overblown as they are, they are essential to social media. With platforms like Instagram and Twitter, they really can allow your business ideas to grow and your service to be reached by many more people. However, the art of hashtags can be a tricky one to master. We’re here to help.
Instead of telling you what you should do, we’re here to tell you exactly what to avoid. If you find yourself doing them, just hashtag stop. Here are the 9 most common hashtag mistakes to avoid.

What are hashtags?
There was a time when they were used as a number sign, used in databases and cryptographic applications. In 2007, Chris Messina changed the meaning of the key all around.
They’re no used all over the world, as a type of link or tag for users on social media. They basically identify a keyword (or multiple) and the indexed into the realm of social media. They then become discoverable by the other users.
Agreed, they are a tiny bit overused in today’s social media mad world, but they are instrumental. They categorize specific messages, have become a marketing tool by many businesses and lead users to certain discussions and conversations that they wish to be a part of.
Here are just some of the things that you should avoid when using hashtags.

1. Using only the popular hashtags
Yes, you see something trending, and you join the wave. We get it. In theory, it makes total sense — using the ones that have the most followers. However, these won’t get you the results that you’re searching for.
Tagging your pictures with #love or #beauty will put you in a world of hundreds of thousands of posts. Don’t mistake the extra likes for anything meaningful — they usually come from automated robots.
If you don’t believe us, check it out for yourself. Post a picture with generic hashtags like, say, #followforfollow and #motivation and try to find your post amongst the millions of photos. It’s next to impossible and really won’t increase your popularity.
You should always seek to use more specific, relevant hashtags that will speak to your target audience. Looking into your industry’s keywords could help you massively with this.

2. Don’t be too #obscure, though
On the opposite end, you don’t want to use a hashtag that literally nobody knows about. This would be futile.
Yes, it could be beneficial to start your own hashtag and watch your brand grow with it. Initially, this won’t gain you any new visitors or customers or followers.
You really want to be finding that perfect balance between popular and obscure — something which has a couple thousand posts on it, enough for you to be seen, but not too little that nobody notices.
We promise, there are enough out there for you to find, you just need to be a little bit creative and check up on your competitors.

Using way too many hashtags
We’ve all seen it, people posting something which quite literally has a million hashtags on it. Do you need reminding? #Travel #Travelpictures #Travelgram #Instatravel…you know the rest.
Captions which have tonnes and tonnes of hashtags on tend to kill the message you’re trying to put forward. It can be seen as overkill or desperation. The majority of followers and likes you get aren’t ones who engage, shop or provide anything meaningful. They’re programmed, and will sometimes even unfollow you after a set amount of time.
The best copywriting services that know a thing or two about social media and efficient use of hashtags live by the mantra: “quality over quantity.” Using 1-5 hashtags will stop your post looking cluttered and will gain you actually positively interested readers, not just automated likes.

Not analyzing your hashtag use
Social media campaigns rely on hashtags. Without them, everything would be a little bit crazy. That being said, if you’re not analyzing your hashtags properly, it can lead you to quite the #confusion.
For example, you have a social media campaign in which your followers have to use a unique hashtag, that you created. In order to measure your reach, track your growth (and pick a winner) you will need to monitor your numbers carefully.
There are social media tools and platforms which can help you with this, as well as just a very eager eye. You don’t want any angry competition entries, either.
Social media marketing relies on analytics just as much as any other type of marketing including email marketing. So, don’t underestimate the power of the hashtag.

Not using any hashtags at all
You might feel like they look messy, or people will judge them, or whatever reason. Ignore all that, because the biggest mistake you can make is not using them.
Once you have a big brand name, tonnes of followers and organic engagement, the hashtags can come to an end. Yet, when you’re building up your brand, they will become your new #BestFriend.
The little tags should be seen as targeted exposure, and nothing less. Think of them as a search tool — something that people can find your profile and content with. Nobody is too good or too proud to utilize a hashtag, they’re a great marketing tool that will give you so many benefits.
Did you know that tweets containing 2 hashtags get 2x more engagement than those without? It’s quite impressive, and something you should completely get behind.

A lack of research
It’s really no use describing everything you see in your picture using hashtags. To make the most out of them, you need to do a little bit of research.
You should take a look into the world of hashtags, using tools like Ritetag and Tagboard. These allow you to look at trending hashtags and review the performance of your own.
Also, don’t forget to dive into the world of National hashtag days. Things like #SmallBusinessSunday #TransformationTuesday and #MondayMotivation could be great little time markers for you. There’s even #NationalSelfieDay and #NationalNutritionMonth…there’s a hashtag for every event, some might just be great for your business. Check out if there are any more relevant to you and your purpose.

Not trying out new ones
So, you found your perfect set of hashtags, and you use them in every single post. We hate to break it to you, your users notice this (and they get bored), and it isn’t gaining you any new exposure after time.
Never get too comfortable with your hashtags, social media is an ever-changing world, and you need to move with it. You might find some of the best hashtags that you used to begin, are now completely oversaturated or deserted.
There’s always room for new hashtags. Take a nice scroll through your timelines, see what other people are using and see if they’ll work for you. Switch up your current favorites every now and then, checking your analytics to see if they really worked for you.

Not localizing your hashtags
This is especially true for the brick and mortar businesses out there. If you want people to come to your shop, it’s not particularly useful to use hashtags that are only being seen by people hundreds of miles away.
Check out your local community, see what hashtags they’re using, build relationships and gain exposure.
Even something as general as #NewYorkCity might just attract one new visitor to your shop. There’re also location hashtags that will be relevant to your industry. For example, #NewYorkBloggers or NewYorkBusiness will be more condensed, but much more effective hashtags to use.
Side note: make sure to utilize that location button too — more people use that than you might believe.

Using hashtags that aren’t relevant
We touched on using hashtags that are really popular and too obscure, but what about the ones that just aren’t relevant.
Yes, you might have found a great hashtag, that has a few thousand posts — but if it isn’t relevant to you, it won’t help you at all.
Just think about your profile, your target audience, your goals. What hashtag would be really great to go along with this?
As an example, say you’re a new sustainable fashion shop. In today’s world, #sustainable will have thousands and thousands of posts, there’s a risk you won’t be found. Why not try #SustainableFashion or #EthicalDesigner? It’s a little bit more relevant, not so popular and will bless you with specific exposure.

Conclusion
It might seem like a lot, especially listed out like this, but it is actually straightforward. You can easily avoid these mistakes and utilize hashtags to your best ability.
Like with every kind of marketing strategy, there is a bit of a trial and error process. Some will work, some won’t work — emphasizing the importance of analytics and careful tracking.
The truth is, hashtags are the key to growing a following on social media, especially one that engages with you and your brand. So, what are you waiting for?

By Daniela McVicker

Daniela McVicker is a blogger with rich experience in writing about UX design, content planning, chief editor at StudyClerk.com and digital marketing. Currently, she is the chief contributor at Trustmypaper where she helps individuals and organizations improve their web content writing, design, and planning skills. Her posts are always packed with examples and actionable content that readers can put straight into the action.

Sourced from Irish Tech News

In News

How to Use Psychology In Marketing

February 27, 2019 No Comments

By Freddy Muriuki

Have you ever wondered how some marketing experts seem to have the magic bullet to drive many sales while you can barely get a single prospect to click any of your buttons?

They naturally appear to have the knack for convincing prospects to buy what they are selling and at whatever price.

It’s like they have a solution for every need the customer has, which causes people to flock to their businesses, whether offline or online.

How do these successful marketers do it, and what can you learn from it? Well, it’s nothing profound; extraordinary marketers have learned how to incorporate psychology into their marketing campaigns.

They know exactly how to get into the mind of their target customer. As a result, they create content and offer solutions their customers can’t resist.

Yap, psychology has a great role to play in marketing. And according to Maryville University, there’s a growing demand for workers with a background in psychology in fields such as market research ($62,560 per annum), surveying ($54,470) and human resources ($59,180) among other career choices.

In today’s post, I highlight a couple of ways you can use psychology to drive your marketing efforts forward. Read on to learn how you can appeal to the emotional and psychological needs of your prospects, and leave them craving for your products.

Relate To Your Prospect

As human beings, we love forming packs or groups. We also tend to view and treat kindred spirits more favorably, a phenomenon known as in-group favouritism.

In marketing, you can use this phenomenon in your favor. It all begins with segmenting your audience in smaller and more focused groups. After that, create relevant content and appeals that are specific to each group.

It is one of the reasons testimonials are a popular part of marketing material. They show the prospect other users like them found a solution in your products and services.

On top of that, have you noticed how marketers are fond of displaying social proof at any given opportunity? Also known as social herding, showing social proof makes the prospect feel like they are part of your community.

Users are more likely to engage with your brand and products if they see others (who are like them) doing it. Take dancing for instance. At the beginning of the dance, everybody is hesitant to take to the floor. But as soon as the first few people start dancing, everybody else wants to join.

It is psychology in action, and you can leverage this technique in your marketing campaigns by trying your best to relate with a prospect at a personal level.

See how almost every mobile app has an “Invite Friends” button? Many web apps and social media sites thrive on this “join your friends” mentality.

It goes something like, “if your friends are doing it, then it must be good.” So, you figure out that “if my friends are buying this product, then it must be good.”

Foot-in-the-Door Technique

Psychological studies show that people are more willing to agree to larger requests, if they previously agreed to a smaller request.If you’re in doubt, you can try this psychological trick on your friends. Say you want to borrow $500 bucks from your friend, asking for $500 bucks in whole outrightly will face some resistance.

But by borrowing $100 bucks first, and then after a couple of days asking for $400 bucks, you’ll realize better results. Try it and come back with results, guaranteed.

This is common especially with email marketers. It’s easier for a user to provide an email address as opposed to buying your products.

Now, instead of throwing products at the prospect’s face and hope something will stick, the smart marketer starts small by asking for the email address.

Afterwards, you can send targeted emails to the user to provide context. Later on, you can introduce the user to your sales funnel.

If a prospect takes time to subscribe, they are more likely to engage with your brand and products later on.

The opposite of this technique is often known as the door-in-the-face technique. Instead of starting small, you start with a large and outlandish request that the user, obviously, turns down.

After that, you make a smaller request that the user “magically” accepts. But this is not a magic show, it is psychology at work. So, start big or small but make your second offer the exact opposite.

Appeal to Emotions

Along with getting personal comes appealing to emotions. If you can trigger the right kind of emotions in your prospects, you can get them to do whatever you desire.

At every stage of your marketing campaign, seek to appeal to your customers’ emotions. So, instead of listing your product’s features, outline the benefits the prospects will enjoy from the said product.

If you had no idea, highlighting the benefits of your product appeals to emotions as opposed to listing the features. By all means, the “features section” is important, but add a “benefits section” as well.

Make the benefits prominent across your marketing collateral. This shows the user you understand their needs, and have just the solutions they need.

And since we are talking about emotions, another psychological trick to use in marketing involves introducing fear, uncertainty and despair. Oh yes, evoking these kinds of emotions in your prospects is legitimate, and a popular tool that many politicians use to great success.

You can show your prospect how opting for an alternative product will cause mayhem in their life. By any means, you want the user to take your product as the best option.

Fear is a powerful emotion and if you can harness it to turn your prospects against the competition, you’re golden.

Appealing to emotions can, in fact, help you to reposition your competition in your prospect’s mind.

Use Amazing Multimedia Content

Using multimedia content helps you to appeal to the customer’s senses. Whether you like it or not, people will judge your business depending on the quality of the marketing materials you use.In practice, get in the habit of using plenty of high-quality visuals on your website, blog posts, email, social media, ads and brochures among others.

Don’t bore your prospects to death with a ton of text! Combine images, videos and infographics among other multimedia content to jazz things up.

If you use audio content, strive to create a catchy story or jingle that prospects associate with your business. Many brands do this, and a good example is McDonalds.

The McDonalds’ “ba da ba ba ba” jingle was originally sang by Justin Timberlake, but it has grown more popular than Timberlake’s actual songs.

Don’t hold back and never skimp on your content. Go all out and create multimedia content that appeals to your customer’s senses. Your content (whether online or offline) must have that wow factor or your marketing campaign is doomed.

Reward Your Customers

There is a reason the opposite of generosity is stinginess, and nobody gyrates or gravitate to the latter. Generosity is a virtue, and stinginess is a vice you should let go off. Remember, there is a big difference between being frugal and stingy, but I digress.Rewarding your customers needn’t be challenging or expensive. For instance, you can create cheap gifts for your customers. You know, I’m talking about something like an order of t-shirts and key-holders for your customers. Or cookies, mint and anything else you can think about.

All because, let us admit is, we all love free stuff. This psychological need is the reason giveaways are incredibly powerful as marketing tools.

If you had no idea, you can use a single giveaway to grow your social media presence, boost engagement on your site, increase email subscriptions and drive relevant traffic to your products among other things.

Use generosity in your favor by rewarding your customers at all stages of the conversion funnel. For instance, mobile games are fond of this technique.By rewarding users at the end of each mission, mobile developers boost engagement and brand growth. You can reward your users for completing a particular action on your site.

Conclusion

Psychology and marketing go hand in hand in the offline or online worlds. By getting into the mind of your target audience, you can craft content and solutions they can’t pass up.

Going forward, strive to incorporate psychology into your marketing campaigns, from market research and product creation to promotion and beyond.

We hope this post points you in the right direction as far as using psychology in your marketing goes. Still, this is not an exhaustive list, which means we gratefully welcome your contribution because there is more to learn.

Which are your favorite psychological techniques in marketing? Let us know in the comments.

By Freddy Muriuki

Sourced from Business 2 Community

In News

Tips to help small business owners choose a marketing method

February 11, 2019 No Comments

By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG

NEW YORK (AP) — The growth of the internet and social media has changed the way small businesses market themselves — the variety of online marketing channels allows businesses, whether they serve consumers or other companies, to focus on a broad or narrow population.

But many owners find that low-tech marketing methods can work for them. For example, a new retailer or restaurant might send discount coupons through the mail to homes in their area. Some owners who consult or provide services like accounting may find that networking and word-of-mouth are their best bets for finding clients. Often, it can take trial and error to find the right approach.

Before owners pick a marketing channel or channels, they need to answer some key questions for themselves, says Ramon Ray, a small business consultant who often speaks publicly about marketing. Who is your target market? Are you clear about how your service or product will help them?

Here are some tips from small business owners about selecting a marketing method:

— Owners should consider which marketing method is the best way to get information to prospective customers to help build a relationship, Ray says. For example, an accountant could offer in social media posts to send tax tips in return for a potential customer’s email.

“I’m not trying to sell to the customer first,” Ray says. “I want to get their attention.”

— Social media can be ideal for start-ups. Carolyn Bothwell, whose marketing consulting business is just about a year old, social media has been low-cost and effective. “Over 80 percent of my inquiries come in directly from Instagram,” she says. Many of her clients are also young companies and social media channels including LinkedIn and Facebook have worked for them.

— Different social media channels will yield different results. Germain Chastel, CEO of technology consultant NewtonX, says Twitter helps the company be more visible — it shows up at the top of Google searches. LinkedIn is the social media channel most of the company’s clients use, so it’s a natural to try to reach them there.

“You just need to be on the channels that can lend real value,” Chastel says.

— Face-to-face contacts can be just as valuable as online marketing. Robyn Lanci, owner of Owl PR, a marketing firm, has “found the best methods for marketing my business are networking groups and pure, organic conversation.”

By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG

Follow Joyce Rosenberg at www.twitter.com/JoyceMRosenberg . Her work can be found here: https://apnews.com

Sourced from AP News

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4 Social Media Marketing Bad Habits (and How to Break Them)

February 11, 2019 No Comments

By Nathan Mendenhall

Social media is the one thing that almost everyone has access to, yet few fully understand, and this is especially true when it comes to business.

Many people – even some with years of marketing experience – believe that posting pretty pictures on Instagram is “doing social media,” when posting images is really only the tip of the iceberg. The activity that lies beneath the surface is much more complex, and important for successful social media marketing.

There are a heap of posts out there which outline tips on things you should start doing in order to maximize your social media marketing success, but in this piece, I want to look at some things that you should stop doing, immediately, to get your process on the right track.

Here are four social media marketing bad habits, and how to break them in 2019.

1. Focusing Only on Vanity Metrics

Guess what? Followers and on-platform engagement alone will not help grow your business.

This is a fact – thousands upon thousands of studies and articles can prove it. Sure, there’s a correlation between the amount of time consumers spend with a brand online and their likelihood of going on to make a purchase from said brand, while there’s also something to be said for positive consumer sentiment. But brands and marketers who are content to simply track the number of followers they gain on Instagram, and/or the amount of likes they get on a Facebook video, are making a huge mistake.

You absolutely have to base your social media marketing success off of more than just vanity metrics.

While community growth and engagement are pieces of the puzzle, you would be much better served by including metrics such as impressions, website visits, time on site, conversions, and bounce rate. By layering in these true digital marketing metrics, you can start to see how social media activity helps you meet your business goals.

Now, it is important to note that sometimes the main objective of your social media marketing efforts truly might be brand awareness – which is fine. In this case, you’re going to want to push for as many Impressions and targeted brand engagements as possible.

The big thing to avoid here is judging your social media marketing activities by follower growth or engagements alone.

2. Lack of Storytelling

One of the most underused strengths of social media marketing is storytelling.

Let me clarify by saying that storytelling in marketing isn’t this majestic fable that your brand is stringing together. Storytelling is how your brand provides snackable, contextually full snippets about why your brand exists, and how you do what you do. These stories should be concise and easy to understand for uber-distracted social media users.

Sometimes brands try to string out storytelling across a few different blog posts or content pieces, without realizing that distracted social media users are more likely to get confused by the lack of ongoing context than to follow a single story from start to finish. To avoid any confusion, I typically recommend a series of independent stories which can stand alone and be easily digested.

After all, how realistic is it that users will remember post #1 of a five-post series about your product or service?

It’s a fragmented experience – imagine scrolling through your own social media feed and seeing a content piece that’s in the middle of an ongoing story, one which you’ve missed the beginning of (and will likely miss the end). Pretty confusing right?

Consider creating smaller stories that build your brand up, individually, and over time. This way, if users get interested by one content piece, they can dive deeper into those stories across your social accounts and/or blog.

3. Your Analytics are Weak

There are so many data points being spun off by social media activity that it’s unacceptable not to have your analytics organized in a way to capitalize on such insights.

Too many brands simply post daily and hope for the best, as opposed to reviewing detailed reports to learn about what worked, what didn’t, and what opportunities might be on the horizon. To avoid having weak, or useless, analytics, you’re going to want to organize your data so that it helps you derive context from the numbers.

For example, are your impressions lower than the previous month, but your overall engagements are up? This suggests that your content was favored less by social platform algorithms, but people really liked it.

Did your website visits from Facebook spike, but no conversions came through? This suggests that the experience on your landing page might not be optimal or there was an inconsistent experience along the way.

By improving the data collected, you can optimize your social media marketing efforts to ensure that you aren’t wasting time, money, or resources.

Here are the data points I recommend you analyze:

Social community
Social media impressions
Social media engagements
Social media website visits
Time on site from social media
Pages per visit from social media
Bounce rate from social media
Conversions from social media

You can use a tool like Sprout Social to easily collect social media analytics. I also highly recommend using Google Analytics to review how traffic from social media sites is behaving on your website. This will enable you to standardize activity, and find trends across marketing channels.

4. Social Media is Siloed

A big mistake that a lot of brands make is thinking that social media marketing alone should be responsible for business success.

All too often I’m asked to launch a social media strategy without a high-quality website, an email marketing strategy, or even a solid search engine marketing approach. When social media marketing is the only player out on the field, your team will lose.

When you think about user behavior and your own activity when making a purchase online, it becomes apparent that consumers interact with multiple stimuli before making a final buying decision. By only relying on social media marketing to make sales, you’re leaning on a channel that really focuses on upper funnel awareness activity to carry a consumer all the way through to final buying decision. Don’t get me wrong, it can happen, however it’s not likely to happen as frequently as you might hope.

Another point here is that many brands fail to use social media marketing to support an overarching initiative. For example, if your company has a really awesome piece of downloadable content, you should create blog posts which support it (be sure they are optimized for search engine visibility), deploy email marketing campaigns to generate traffic to the content, publish paid and/or organic social media content supporting the effort, and retarget all traffic that’s visited the content landing page but didn’t convert.

An integrated approach like this will go much further for your brand than placing social media marketing in a silo and hoping for the best.

5. Neglecting Advertising

I am a huge fan of social media advertising. Comparatively, you’d be hard pressed to find a more cost-effective method for targeting consumers online.

With interest data, behavioral data, CRM data, and lookalike modeling, social media advertising can target almost any group of consumers in one way or another. But unfortunately, many brands have been slow to embrace social media advertising. I personally believe there are two main reasons why:

The altruistic intention of social media marketing to bring brands and consumers eye-to-eye digitally doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just unrealistic. There are so many distractions and competitors online that it’s not rational to think that a brand can cut through all the noise via organic engagement alone. Almost all social platforms limit the reach of content in some way, so brands are already starting at a loss.
Most brands don’t understand how attribution impacts the ROI of social media advertising. As noted earlier, social media marketing tends to be very effective when it comes to building awareness. Social media can help stimulate direct sales, but most consumers bounce around between devices and marketing channels when shopping, so tracking breaks and social media activity doesn’t get the trackable credit it deserves for generating sales. There are ways to fix this, however, when brands are ignorant to the situation, they simply look at conversions and get disappointed that social media hasn’t generated more.

The big missed opportunity here is omitting social media advertising from your social media marketing strategy. No matter your business goals, there’s a social media platform and an ad unit that can help you achieve them.

Once you quit these four bad habits, you’ll undoubtedly begin to see improvements in your metrics, and be well on your way to achieving greater social media marketing success.

By Nathan Mendenhall

Follow Nathan Mendenhall on Twitter

Sourced from Social Media Today

In News

4 Reasons Why Marketing Should Never Be the First Expense You Cut

February 8, 2019 No Comments

By Craig Bloem

Reducing marketing spending will, in most cases, only make a bad financial situation worse.

Early on in their startup’s life, many entrepreneurs find their expenses outpace their revenues. That’s especially true when you’re bootstrapping your startup.

That’s why for many entrepreneurs, growth is the only path to early stage success (although there can be great reasons your startup should not try to grow, at least for a period of time).

Yet sometimes growth — especially rapid growth — isn’t possible. When costs exceed revenue, sometimes your only option is to cut expenses: Inventory. Supplies. Product development. Fixed costs. Variable costs. Marketing.

Whoa. Not so fast.

Unlike many other costs, marketing expenses are relatively easy to cut. You can pause a Facebook ad campaign. You can shutter email or social media marketing campaigns. You can put traditional marketing campaigns on hold.

Sounds great but in the process, you may only increase your startup’s burn rate. It sounds simple, and it is: without sales, you don’t have revenue and without revenue — especially if you’re funding your business with that revenue — you soon won’t have a business.

Keep in mind there’s a difference between efficient marketing and simply throwing money at acquiring customers. While a high customer acquisition cost (CAC) can make sense if new customers generate consistent, long-term revenue, most startups can’t afford a high CAC.

We made that mistake with our business card product. Since customers loved our logo product, we decided to scale rapidly — and in the process paid too much for each new customer. Because we relentlessly tracked key metrics, we recognized the problem and quickly reined in our marketing expenses. Had we not, the company might have failed.

But that didn’t mean we eliminated our marketing expenses. After all, smart marketing is the lifeblood of any business.

So when you miss sales targets, or when you need to cut costs, make sure your marketing costs are not the first expense you cut.

Why?

You can almost never save your way to profitability.

Unless your startup’s spending is totally out of control, it’s almost impossible to save your way to profitability. When fixed costs are high, when cash flow is poor, when labour makes up a major portion of your costs, the only way to become profitable is to increase sales.

And what is the best way to increase sales?

Marketing is the ultimate Catch-22 for a small business.

A startup is like the cliché about a tree falling in the forest: if no one hears about your products and services, your top line won’t make a sound.

It’s almost impossible to raise awareness, generate leads, land customers and build a brand without spending money on marketing. Sure, word of mouth helps, as do referrals. But early adopters — much less raving fans — must come from somewhere.

And that “somewhere” is marketing.

Effective marketing requires time and repetition.

While the “rule of 7” (in short, the idea in which potential customers need to be exposed to an ad seven times before they will act) might be outdated, frequency and repetition are still important. Many potential customers will not act the first time they see an ad, a promotion, or a piece of content marketing. Many will not act the second or third time.

Value propositions take time to establish themselves. Brand awareness takes time. While direct-response marketing can often produce short-term results, most forms of marketing require longer-term investments in money and time to pay off.

That’s why cutting your marketing expense might be the worst thing you can do — especially if all the groundwork you have laid is about to pay off.

The contrarian approach is often the best approach.

A number of studies show that companies who increase spending during a recession enjoy greater gains in market share than those who cut their advertising investment. In fact, when markets expand, market share is much harder to come by. If your industry as a whole is experiencing a downturn, that may mean the right approach is to increase your marketing spending.

But what if your industry is doing fine and your startup is not?

Take a hard look at your products and services. Make sure your business truly fills a need or solves a problem. Make sure your business provides excellent service. Make sure your operations are as streamlined and efficient as possible. In short, make sure your business is taking care of business.

If it is, don’t let marketing be the first thing you cut.

If you provide great products or services, helping people understand the benefits you provide — and the difference you can make in their lives — could be the one thing you can’t afford not to do.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Craig Bloem

Founder and CEO, FreeLogoServices.com@craigbloem

Sourced from Inc.

In News

11 Trends That Will Shape Marketing In 2019

February 4, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

Building brand awareness and successfully interacting with consumers is a crucial part of doing business today. Customers enjoy and expect a personalized experience, and delivering just that will set you apart from your competition.

Voice search and live videos were just two of the methods marketers explored to improve consumer interactions and brand awareness in 2018. As innovations in technology and ideas come forward, 2019 is also sure to see its share of trends having an impact on marketing. Below, 11 Forbes Agency Council members shared their predictions for the year ahead.

Members of Forbes Agency Council offer insights on what marketing trends to expect in 2019.Photos courtesy of the individual members.

1. A Bigger Role For AI In Personalization And Automation

We are all watching the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing and how it affects our clients’ relationships with consumers. As a company that focuses on bringing out emotional connections through physical environments, we’ll see AI play an even bigger role for brands as they look to personalize and automate more digital and traditional communications. – Jessica Reznick, We’re Magnetic

2. Smart Speaker Advertising Opportunities

Smart speakers and voice assistant devices are more affordable than ever before, making them a huge potential marketing tool in the upcoming year. As the relationship between big tech and the consumer grows deeper, marketers can more effectively reach their target audiences with personalized messaging and content. Expect to see more ad opportunities surrounding smart speakers in 2019. – Timothy Nichols, ExactDrive, Inc.

3. Growth In Content Marketing

Content marketing will always have a strong impact because of the exposure and backlinks you can receive for your brand. Writing interesting content and marketing it to influencers is a win-win. You are helping people with solution-oriented content, and the influencers help your exposure and outreach so it’s widely seen by the right audience and shared with their peers. – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design

4. A Turn To The Human Side Of Marketing

We are fortunate to live in an age of advancing technology, but we run a risk of oversaturating our market with off-the-shelf tools that gather faceless data and create ineffective content. Marketing has a remarkable power to inspire audiences. Instead of an influx of new tech to adopt, I predict we’ll embrace a deeper understanding of human behavior that will foster more meaningful relationships. – Hamid Ghanadan, LINUS

5. Integrated Online, Social And Mobile Marketing

2019 will be all about the integration of online, social and mobile marketing. Many businesses have dabbled in one or all of these marketing strategies, but true success in the year ahead will be marked by a fully integrated marketing program that incorporates all three. This will eliminate redundancies, increase efficiency and fully leverage content across these three major players. – Laura Cole, Vivial

6. The Growth Of Micro-Influencers

As influencer-tracking technologies continue to improve, brands are becoming better equipped at fielding and managing large networks of high-engagement, low-following micro influencers for their campaigns. This largely untapped market will soon allow for more brands to avoid the significant costs of mid- to high-level influencers and invest in more down-to-earth and relatable influencer marketing. – Jordan Edelson, Appetizer Mobile LLC

7. Audiences Made Part Of Brand Stories

The ability to engage with audiences (that is, making audiences part of the brand story) will have a huge impact. The less friction there is to engagement, the more connected people feel. Brands that are more willing to interact with customers publicly will have a strong impact—and brands that can show how this engagement influences their products and services will make an even bigger impact. – Bernard May, National Positions

8. Thought Leadership

Audiences seek expertise, critical insight and ways to be better at all points of interest. Experiential and interactive engagement with a brand is the future of consumer-brand connectivity. From live video, to recorded advice, to content with real-time responses, to contests and beyond, it’s about offering information and encouraging feedback from stakeholders in a way that establishes trust. – Scott Kellner, GPJ Experience Marketing

9. Transparency As Key To Winning Customers

Technology is giving us so many new tools and platforms that sometimes we forget that communication always happens between human beings. Brands are groups of people who try to communicate with other persons: their customers. In 2019, I expect transparency to be the key to winning the hearts of consumers, who will reward those brands that share their values in an authentic and transparent way. – Daniela Pavan, The Ad Store New York

10. Quality Trumping Quantity In Marketing

Content marketing has been preached to death by most marketers. Content marketing is important, but oftentimes companies are capitalizing on this strategy with over-optimized and bland content that is largely regurgitated from other companies doing the same thing. In 2019, I believe we will get more discerning and choose low-volume, high-quality content instead of high-volume, low-quality. – Brandon Stapper, Nonstop Signs

11. Customers Empowered As Brand Ambassadors

By utilizing tools like YotPo and BazaarVoice, we can now chalk up a percentage of a marketing campaign to leveraging our customers as brand ambassadors by asking them to share info on a product to their own networks. This helps bypass “influencer marketing” to an extent and lets us empower our customers to do the talking. – Loren Baker, Foundation Digital

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only, fee-based organization for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Find out if you qualify at forbesagencycouncil.com/qualify. Questions about an article? [email protected]

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Use These Four Tools to Increase Your Marketing Knowledge

February 4, 2019 No Comments

By Susan Gilbert

Monday Tips is a short list of the best finds across the internet to start your week off right.

Today I have some great resources to help you gain more knowledge that will help you become more successful with your marketing strategy. Here’s four links with tips and tricks to kick start your Monday.

Learning something new about a specific topic will help provide more opportunities for your brand to reach a larger audience in a meaningful way. And you can gain new skills that can be used today for your marketing campaigns. There some top online resources that can teach you anything from social media management to building a better brand image for your business. Do you need to improve your knowledge, but don’t know where to begin? Take advantage of these resources, and let me know how these work for you!

1) Gain the skills you need to build your business – Facebook Blueprint

Reach your marketing goals at no cost with over 75 courses. Facebook Blueprint is available to anyone who wants to learn how to master digital marketing or take a new career path. Learn at your own pace and find out more about terminology, creative best practices, and more. Schedule an exam to add an official blueprint to your profile online.

2) Gain in-demand certification – ALISON

Learn the latest in business and marketing with this free online course website. ALISON offers the best classes for businesses, authors, entrepreneurs, ect. who need to expand on or get new knowledge. Earn your certification in subjects like online business, business intelligence, and marketing management. There are hundreds of programs to choose from, and getting started is simple with a self-paced curriculum.

3) Improve your digital marketing knowledge – Google Ad Grants Online Marketing Challenge

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student you can learn directly from Google with real-world marketing classes. Google Ad Grants Online Marketing Challenge is a comprehensive online training challenge that enables you to master the skills you need to successfully launch and grow a campaign. Modules are self-paced and taught by actual professors in topics that include search advertising, analytics, AdWords fundamentals, ect.

4) Learn social media analytics – Quintly Academy

Learn the basics of social media analytics with this free resource. Quintly Academy provides users with a full curriculum that starts with an introduction then moves you step-by-step through each stage of data, metrics, and goals. Whether you work for a brand, agency, or want to improve your business this is a great course to help take the guesswork out of complicated measurement.

Hopefully you will find these marketing education tools useful to your brand or business. Are there any that you would like to add as well?

Have fun with these Monday Tips and Tools.

Wishing you a FAN-tastic week!

Susan

By Susan Gilbert

I’m a small dog addict, miniature horse owner, online marketing maniac, bestselling author, and eHow video contributor who’s been working online since 1999. I guess that makes me an old timer who is learning new tricks every day!

In News

Channel 4 and Publicis ad price row rumbles on into 2019

January 21, 2019 No Comments

By Rebecca Stewart

Channel 4 and Publicis Media have failed to resolve a multimillion pound dispute over ad prices, leaving big spenders like Asda without airtime across the broadcaster’s portfolio of channels.

2019 planning talks between the pair broke down in December, after Publicis took issue with Channel 4 upping ad prices despite a decline in audiences. It is believed Channel 4 wants to link ad prices to the wider figure Publicis Media spends with its sales arm, instead of basing the cost on audience share.

Last month, the Guardian placed the potential loss of the ‘blackout’ to Channel 4 at £210m, although a source with knowledge of the matter told The Drum the number was significantly lower.

The network and media giant were geared to reach a solution in eleventh hour talks held at the tail end of last year. However, it’s understood that Publicis Media clients will now be kicking off 2019 without a deal in place to air commercials across Channel 4’s 26 linear channels and three on-demand platforms.

Channel 4 and Publicis Groupe were unable to comment.

The hold up means rivals like ITV, Sky and Channel 5 could stand to benefit from ad spend being diverted their way.

Starcom, Spark44 and Blue449 are among Publicis Media’s cohort of agency brands. Clients include Samsung and the world’s biggest advertiser P&G – although the latter will be unaffected by the blackout since as it has its own deal with Channel 4.

In December, Channel 4’s chief commercial officer Jonathan Allan took the unprecedented step of penning a letter to Publicis Media clients to inform them of the tussle.

In a statement to media in December, Allan said Channel 4 had “put forward competitive proposal to Publicis” and would continue discussions to “hopefully reach an agreement that suits both parties”.

The duo’s inability to reach a compromise ahead of the new year follows on from a similar row Channel 4 had with Denstu Aegis Network in 2018 which seen clients pulled off its inventory for just over a week until a resolve was agreed.

Channel 4’s portfolio includes E4 and Film4. It also sells inventory on behalf of BT Sport and UKTV’s multitude of channels.

The news comes amid huge pressures from advertisers on agency holding groups to drive down costs and break down internal silos.

By Rebecca Stewart

Sourced from The Drum

In News

The web design trends brands need to prepare for in 2019

December 21, 2018 No Comments

By James Pruden

2019 is set to see ecommerce sales increase by 19.5% globally, offering an opportunity to savvy brands who are up to speed on the latest web design trends and developments to drive significant additional market share.

But what do brands need to bear in mind in 2019 to ensure that they continue to deliver relevant standout online design, and therefore sales?

Mobile First

It’s vital to implement mobile first design in 2019. In 2015 mobile searches overtook those on desktop, making mobile search the highest search form worldwide. In accordance with this, Google has changed which sites they index first — they now prioritise mobile sites over those that aren’t mobile friendly.

However, it’s worth bearing in mind that this push toward mobile first design isn’t just based on ranking factors or SEO, the visual result must enhance the user’s experience on the device that they will most likely be searching from.

This focus on mobile first requires a fundamental shift in the way that websites are designed. It used to be that a site would only be created for a desktop or laptop computer and a mobile-friendly or mobile responsive design might be added as well. Today, it’s critical to design the site for the mobile user first, before creating a version that will also standout for those on desktops.

Micro-animations/movement

Using moving micro-animations along with feedback loops – that deliver movement when hovering over an icon – help make websites more usable and engaging. The details of the micro-interactions: the button clicks and the page transitions can greatly improve a user’s experience on your site, meaning they are far more likely to return. It’s this meaningful motion, connecting an action with a reaction, that satisfies a user’s desire for interactivity. And with touch interfaces, especially on small screens, it has never been more important to deliver motion in micro-animations and feedback loops to make the interaction smooth and guide users on their journey to checkout.

Custom and classic fonts

Expect a move back to custom and classic font design – clean but formal – with bigger and bolder typefaces, and a move away from humanist fonts as brands aim to standout against the proliferation of humanist typefaces.

Colour

Bright colours should be used more liberally in 2019 to deliver greater standout. The last two years has seen an explosion of big, bold colour across the internet with an increasing number of brands choosing to use their core packaging brand colours as backing for their graphics, with clashing tones moving away from the edgy start-ups into the mainstream. Those who have embraced arresting colours include The Premier League, Sky and eBay. Though bear in mind a classic font design and bright colours won’t be suitable for all. The choice of font and colours has to be right for the values of the brand and resonate with the audience they are targeting.

Optimise for search

As is always the case, making sure the design of your website is optimised for search algorithms is vital. Developments in web design will be driven by what Google’s constantly evolving search algorithm looks for. To this end, make sure that the content being communicated is relevant to your target audience and written as naturally as possible. Google looks for honest, human generated content. Of course, this must be quality content to encourage others to have weblinks back to your site to aid your SEO efforts. If users want to share your copy this highlights to Google that you are a valuable resource and the reward for your efforts will be an improved organic search ranking.

Speed

With research revealing over half of consumers leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load, websites must be designed with speed in mind. Also, the faster your site loads the better it will rank in search results, particularly in Google search. This is not to say that websites should be sparse affairs with limited content and imagery for the purposes of speed. With better broadband it’s much easier to have image and content heavy sites that can load quickly. However if you have an app it’s seriously worth considering hosting it on a Progressive Web App (PWA) for speed purposes. A PWA can be launched from a home screen and can be ready in less than a second, often beating native apps in load times.

All brands need to constantly evolve their web design to continue to standout and deliver an engaging experience to their users that generates sales. By recognising and having these six web design points front of mind, brands will be well placed for a profitable 2019 online.

By James Pruden

James Pruden is studio director at Xigen

Sourced from The Drum

In News

4 Marketing Strategies Every Startup Can Afford

December 18, 2018 No Comments

By Juupiner

You don’t need to outspend your competition. You just need to out-think and out-work them.

Do your products sell themselves?

Having a great product is essential, but that alone isn’t enough to make your startup successful. Aside from your fantastic product, you’ll also need a stellar marketing strategy to grow your startup. But for many entrepreneurs, it’s simply not realistic to spend a lot of money to acquire new business.

Instead, consider a few of these cost-effective marketing strategies that can help generate early successes.

Affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is the most cost-effective marketing strategy that works. I believe all businesses — regardless of size — should adopt referral, or affiliate, marketing. I’ve used it with a good deal of success and put it to work in all my online businesses.

Here’s how it works: Encourage people to recommend your products to others, and pay a commission only when someone purchases your products through those referrals.

Start by setting up an affiliate program though networks such as ShareASale or ImpactRadius. You then can promote your affiliate program by featuring it prominently on your website and inviting customers to join the program. Additionally, you can choose the right reward structure — one that’s compelling enough for your network’s members to engage.

Email outreach also can serve as an efficient tool when communicating with influencers: