Digital Marketing Archives - Page 3 of 4

Google’s Algorithm For Dummies

Posted on May 10, 2018June 23, 2021 by David Dinh

Google is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest search engine on the internet. It is like the vast outback; unmatched in its scope and reach, and aside from a few secluded spots, is all-encompassing, when it comes to things you can search for. It is immensely widespread, and has features which ease your time on the internet to a significant degree. At the centre of all that is the algorithms, which, since their inception, have been updated a number of times. These algorithms are what drives Google marketing and generates billions in revenue.

Understanding Google Algorithms for Beginners

Frequency of Google’s Algorithm Updates

In the past, the internet giant would come out with an update and see how well it worked, before beginning production on another update. This is not the case nowadays, especially not since the repertoire has expanded past being just a search engine. Producing a number of updates and introducing them in real time, sometimes even multiple times in a day, has now become normal for Google. This frequency of updates, which is not really noticeable to the general public who are searching for things on the eponymous search engine, is sometimes a mystery to those who have posted their content online.

Google’s latest updates keep track of which websites and which content is the best (keeping in line with their regulations). This helps content creators, Google marketing experts and uploaders who have specifically crafted their websites and the content within to rank well on the search listings. This also helps Google itself, since these sites often generate the most revenue in terms of ads, which adds to the bonus of them ranking in the top echelons. This is why also the updates made are so frequently, since there is an immense amount of data being uploaded on cyberspace, which makes it necessary for there to be an update.

How does Google Search Actually Work?

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It is surprising how many times during the day people use Google search, and yet so few know how the search system actually works, and most importantly, how do some websites rank above the others, and how some content pops up instantly in the search bar. Following is a concise explanation.

Google has an index of websites within it, which it accesses in order to answer the specific query typed in by the user. This is done by a number of spiders systems that accesses a certain number of web pages, and then follows the links. This is done instead of accessing an enormous amount of data at once, which would slow down the progress considerably. Since the network of websites in the index grows every day, the need to manage all that data gave birth to a new update every so often.

Google Search Algorithms

Finally, we come to the meat of the matter; the algorithms which make all of the aforementioned possible. Google does not reveal much information about their algorithms, which makes it difficult to explain in full exactly how they manoeuvre around the data. Therefore, Google marketing cannot be truly taken advantage of either.

However, this much is known that they search for certain keywords and phrases, which are in high demand, when it comes to actual searches. They also factor in the placement of said keywords in a content piece. The number of keywords, as well as their placement, and an entire Search Engine Optimization song and dance, makes for higher rankings.

Types of Searches which the Algorithms Differentiate BetweenFollowing are some types of searches which the algorithms produce results for.

Informational Searches

This is fairly straightforward, as this type of search is for a source of information. Wikipedia always ranks number one in informational searches, being the biggest treasure trove of knowledge in the world.

Navigational Searches

This is for when you know the name of the website or brand, but not the full web address. Google then brings out all the relevant websites which have that name, allowing you to click on the one which is right.

Local Searches

This is when you look for a certain piece of information pertaining to a certain place or location. For example, searching for ‘cafes in Brisbane’ would be a local search type, as it is searching for something within a given locality, or within bounds of that locality.

Transactional Searches

This is for when you are looking for something specific, most often a product, and the search results display the product itself in a lineup, along with the price of said product. This information is often sourced from a website which incidentally ranks at the top of the rankings, and which also offers this product for sale. This is to make searching for a product easier, and also makes Google marketing such a beneficial venture.

Google, as a company and internet phenomenon, has been constantly evolving, and the progress in search will continue to set itself as a search technology giant for decades to come.

Am I Targeting The Right Audience?

Posted on May 8, 2018June 23, 2021 by David Dinh

When you’re working online, targeting the right audience is your main concern as it goes hand in hand with your success. A business that is unable to reach its target audience doesn’t just experience lower visibility on the internet, it also has to face failing or lagging sales and a waste of resources since it is unable to utilise them effectively.

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For this reason, being aware of the target market is necessary to ensure that you’re optimising everything according to it. However, due to the vast nature of the internet, you cannot always guarantee that you’re reaching the right target audience. On the other hand, if you’re spending more time questioning whether or not you have successfully managed to reach the right audience, you might want to consider providing predictive customer services. To make things easier for you, let’s take a closer look at the points which identify the who, what, where and why in this scenario.

Who is your Target Audience?

Before you start out, you need to know who your target audience is. Consider this aspect much like you would when you’re building a physical, retail outlet. While you might be thinking that your products are meant for tech savvy individuals, elaborate on it further. Consider the age group of this target market. Take the location into consideration.

Gender and income level also make an impact here. By taking the time to define your target market properly, you’re going to improve your chances of reaching out to them. Keep in mind that niche target markets are just as challenging to reach out to as broad target markets, even with predictive customer services. It might take you some time to find your balance here but it is not impossible.

What Do You Want?

Here, you need to assess what your business’ aims are and the reason behind your need for better target marketing.

Do you want to find out if you’re meeting their needs?
Do you want to expand your offerings?
Do you want to maximise sales?
Do you want better growth?
Do you want to tap into a new market?
Do you want better exposure?

Whatever your reasoning is, you need to make sure that it aligns with the wants and needs of your target market. For example: If you’re a start-up, you’re going to want better exposure and growth as well as better sales. Resources are also limited in such scenarios. For this purpose, identifying your target market can ensure that not only are your resources properly utilised, but that your marketing is also on point, which results in more sales. Making use of predictive customer services also becomes easier as the target audience and your goals align.

Where is Your Target Audience?

If the crowd doesn’t come to you, you might have to go to the crowd. However, the Internet has made it easier for businesses to function on an almost global level. Nonetheless, for many businesses, this can be a defining feature for their services.

For example: Amazon considered that its target market was everywhere in the US so when it launched as an online marketplace, it provided shipping and more on a national scale. Eventually, using predictive customer support, Amazon understood the potential to tap into other markets and expand the business along with the services. This is why we now have Amazon Prime, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go and more.

Another example of going where the crowd is, includes Snap Chat. They knew their target market and they knew they were everywhere. With the launch of a simple app, they became accessible to millions of users, ranging in age and spread out across the globe.

Why Predictive Customer Support?

One of the biggest ways through which you can identify your target market and its growth is with the help of predictive customer support. Your target market will grow with your business and their needs and wants will change over time. In order to provide them with the right services and ensure proper growth, you will need to make use of predictive customer services. Businesses that don’t meet the wants and needs of their clientele cannot remain at the top of the game if their marketplace changes.

For example: Take a look at the history of Kodak. The first commercial camera and picture company, Kodak had global success with an extremely wide target market. However, when technology started expanding from print to digital, Kodak didn’t take it seriously. All data showcased that the time to go digital was approaching and as more and more consumers begin opting for digital cameras, Kodak’s target market started to shrink.

Eventually, by the time that Kodak had to close its doors, the target market it had previously catered to, no longer existed. Digital cameras were everywhere and film photography was virtually obsolete.

B2B Marketing Campaign – Red Flags

Posted on May 6, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

So B2B marketing campaigns aren’t working? There are times when you bring in a founder or someone with decades of experience to help with B2B campaigns you need to launch ASAP. When someone comes in which has a pivotal role to shape the future and growth of the business, you need to ensure communication and transparency of all B2B campaigns. The problems are compounded when you’re in a business partnership, because both partners need to be on the same page to make it work. The only way you are going to see progress and success in a partnership is through communication. This is why both partners need to communicate about everything for the sake of their B2B campaign.

Failure to do so, can result in catastrophic failures such as failing to get traffic, and not managing to convert leads into sales. There are lots of things that go into a B2B campaign, and if you and your business partner don’t communicate about it, there are going to be problems that need to be dealt with down the line. Don’t think you will have to deal with such problems? Think again!

Research states that 61% of marketers believe that they have an effective marketing strategy for their B2B campaigns!

The only way you can make your business partnership successful is through teamwork and effective communication, which should solve all your problems. So, if you’re looking to ensure that your business partnership thrives, along with your B2B campaign.

Here are 10 things your business partner should tell you but probably doesn’t about your B2B campaigns

1. You’re not solving the customer’s problem

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To ensure success for your marketing campaign, you need to try to solve your customer’s problems, and you can only do that if you understand your target market. Your business partner may be unaware of this, which is why he hasn’t shared this piece of information with you. The key area you need to address is pinpointing a precise problem that customers in your market face, and then resolving it through your products or services. Read this interesting customer service story here: https://www.livechatinc.com/blog/customer-service-problem-solving/

2. Your team is inexperienced

You shouldn’t rely on your business partner to know that you have an inexperienced team working on your B2B project. He may be trying to cut down on costs, but it is one of the reasons why your B2B campaign isn’t firing on all cylinders. Inexperienced marketers can make some very big mistakes, which can fail entire brands, which is why it is too big of a risk to put faith in novice marketers for B2B campaigns. Read this list for finding the ideal growth business partner https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254751

3. No skills for B2B campaigns

Your business partner may not have revealed that he doesn’t have the skills required to work with a B2B campaign. You need to understand that a thriving B2B campaign requires strong SEO, robust analytics, experienced marketers, and skills to work in data-driven campaigns. There have been many campaigns that have failed in the past due to the lack of skill of one partner in working with B2B endeavors. Still unsure? Here are the top 8 skills for a B2B marketer http://www.business2community.com/b2b-marketing/8-must-skills-modern-b2b-marketer-01642360

4. You have a generic subject

If you truly want your customers to value your product, you need to ensure that your subject is eye-catching and stands out from the rest. Your target audience is no stranger to marketing emails, which is why they won’t bat an eye for yours. Unless you do something out of the ordinary that grabs their attention, you’ll be another fly on the wall.

Studies have shown that personalizing your emails boosts open rates by nearly 20%

5. The preview text is boring

You should probably know this, but your business partner may not have been highlighting the importance of the preview text in your marketing emails. If you want your audience to open your emails, your preview text needs to be entertaining and something that the customer wants to read or know about. Make it concise and attractive to really entice the audience. An experience growth hacker knows the difference of 1% or 20% open rates lies in an engaging and attractive preview text. There is a whole science about it here: https://blog.ometria.com/email-preheader-best-practices

6. You’re not using different forms of engaging content

Your business partner should really be informing you about the importance of using different forms of engaging content. This means embedding videos in your emails to increase click-through rates, and having more people read your emails. It is vital that your emails attract your audience enough to lead them to your website, which is how you generate leads and convert them.

7. You need to standout from everyone

Your business partner should have told you about why you need to standout from everyone else in the eyes of your target audience if you want to influence them. It is important that you not only attract customers, but also have something unique and different about your brand. This not only makes you more recognizable, but also increases your chances of lead generation.

8. Your team isn’t measuring efforts

measure marketing efforts

To ensure success in any B2B campaign, you need to measure your efforts with data metrics. Failing to do so is not going to do you any favors, and this is something that your business partner should have told you when you started working. If you don’t have the analytics, you won’t be able to make sense of what is working and what is failing. There are seven ways to measure B2B campaigns here: https://www.pardot.com/marketing-metrics/7-ways-measure-b2b-campaign-performance/

9. Sub-brands aren’t effective

Most businesses involved in B2B campaigns make the mistake of overcompensating and offering options for sub-brands. This backfires on them, as they fail to generate any interest in the market and this is something your business partner should have told you about.

10. B2B buyers are demanding

Your business partner should have made this the first point when you entered a partnership together for B2B campaigns. You need to treat B2B buyers differently than your regular target audience, since they are more demanding, in every sense.

CTA marketing strategy template

6 Questions You Should Ask Before Executing Your B2B Campaign

Posted on April 26, 2018June 23, 2021 by David Dinh

Many businesses in Australia and abroad fail to build a long-lasting relationship with a B2B marketing company. The reason given for this by most business owners is that they couldn’t find a B2B marketing company that understood the pains and struggles they’ve already had to deal with. Do you know why most businesses in Australia and abroad are unable to build a long-lasting relationship with a B2B marketing company?

The key to avoiding marketing misalignment issues and building long-lasting relationships is proper communication. You need to keep in mind that B2B marketing is all about ‘partnership’ and you need to do your part to make the relationship work. When it comes to communication, one of the most important things that you can do to build a long-lasting relationship with a B2B marketing company is being clear about what you want from the execution of the B2B marketing campaign. How can you do that? The best thing businesses can do to make their B2B campaigns successful is asking the B2B marketing company relevant questions. So, what are the relevant questions that you should be asking?

6 Questions Before Executing your B2B Campaign

1. Do You Have Relevant Industry Experience?

A B2B marketing company with experience of working for companies in your industry is more likely to know the ins and outs of your trade. By evaluating the experience of the marketing company, in your industry, you can minimize the risk of failure. A B2B marketing company will be able to understand your marketing needs faster and better if it’s familiar with the value propositions, the language and keywords, and the customer behaviour relevant to your business.

Whether it has relevant industry experience or not, the B2B marketing company you choose should understand the intricacies of your business. Moreover, they must have the ability to develop the required skills quickly. If you don’t ensure the above, you’re going to have a mediocre B2B campaign at best.

2. Will You Listen and Try New Things

Before hiring a marketing company for B2B campaigns, ask yourself if you will listen to the company you hire and be open to trying new things. Now, this doesn’t mean that you implement every idea proposed by the marketing company your hire or adhere to everything they say. Rather, it means thinking about whether or not you’re willing to try something that’s different from what you’ve always done. If you aren’t then there’s no point of wasting your money on hiring someone to implement your ideas. Here is a reason to be open to listening new things: about 50% of the Australian B2B researchers are millennials. As the B2B marketing company your hire is likely to have ideas that help you specifically target Australian millennials, being open to what they have to say is in your business’s own interest.

3. What’s Your Communication Style?

Before hiring a marketing company to execute your B2B campaign, you need to determine your communication style. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, communication style means how you communicate i.e. through emails, over the phone, scheduled meetings etc. Once you’ve determined your communication style, find a marketing company that’s a good fit. This means finding a company that has experience in the same communication style as you. When the marketing company you hire has the same communication style as you, maintaining a working relationship becomes easy.

4. Can You Determine If We Are Focusing on The Right Target Audience?

One of the most important things that you need to know before executing a B2B marketing campaign is who you’re talking to or targeting. It is important that the company you hire for the campaign is able to give you a data-driven answer about whether you’re focusing on the right target audience. Also, find out about the segmentation practices of the company and how they plan to identify the sub groups in your target audience.

5. How Well Can You Help Your Marketing Partner Meet Deadlines?

To do their jobs and meet deadlines, every marketing company needs certain things. A lot of information is required to run successful B2B campaigns. Since the marketing company is running the B2B campaign for you, it is your responsibility to provide insights, answer questions, review material as it’s developed and give approvals in a timely manner to ensure that your marketing partner meets deadlines. So, before executing a B2B campaign, determine your ability to do things within specified time.

6. What Do You Expect Your Marketing Partner to Do?

When a business expects services that their marketing partner does not offer, problems start to occur. Not every marketing company does everything. So, determine what you expect your marketing partner to do and what they can offer you. In short, before executing B2B campaigns, ensure that you have the people and tools required to get everything you expect to get from them.

Digital Transformation Audit

Posted on April 8, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

When it comes to digital transformation, every intelligent business in the world wants to adopt it (if they haven’t already done so) because it allows them an easy way to measure their success. If you want to learn where you stand in your digital transformation journey, you need to take advantage of digital transformation audits. It will help you understand how far you have come, and how much further you need to go before you finally manage to achieve digital transformation success.

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Before we get to identifying digital transformation, let’s first look at what digital transformation means to businesses. Whenever we talk about digital transformation, we are looking at new business models, user or customer experiences, along with operational processes. When you combine all of them, you not only engage people, but also connect with them through different technologies. This way you can create deeper and more meaningful relationships with your customers.

Why Audit?

digital-transformation-how-to

When we talk about a digital transformation audit, we are discussing how far along your business has come in terms of technology and what type of digital trends you have adopted. It is basically your digital footprint, and if you are looking to compete in your industry, it is imperative you get a digital transformation audit.

Most businesses don’t understand the value in audits, but that is only because they fail to understand that knowing your weaknesses before they are exposed is a strength. It is designed to help identify key areas where a business can improve, and what they need to do to create lasting transformative changes. The entire process is complex, but you will need to adopt it if you want to survive in the economy today. A digital audit helps create a roadmap for your organisation, since it outlines where you stand, and helps you measure yourself as a digitally transformed company.

Achieving Digital Value The business world is highly competitive and therefore, you must adopt digital transformation if you want to stand apart from your competition. Once you have achieved digital superiority over your competition, you will become the leader in your industry. However, all of this requires that you achieve digital value as a brand. How do you achieve that? By conducting a digital transformation audit.

It will not only help you respond to digital disruption, but will also help you figure out effective, innovative, and transformational solutions. The digital world is always changing and the only way you will ever be able to stay ahead of the curve is through digital transformation audits.

It looks at the strengths of your organisation and any vulnerabilities that have crept into the organisation. This way you can separate the good from the bad, and achieve digital transformation easily.

Expand your Revenue Generation

When it comes to digital transformation, you will need to adopt complex IT solutions, because that is one way that you are going to bring about change in your organisation. Studies have revealed that businesses that want to dominate the IT industry needed the help of digital transformation audits, so that they have a better idea of where they stand. It helps them come out with a timeline for eradicating processes that are hampering their chances of true digital transformation.

Helping your organisation adopt digital transformation trends is going to be hard, because change is hard and not everyone is equipped to deal with wholesale changes. To ensure that you’re on the right path, you will need to adopt digital transformation strategies that are designed according to the strengths and weaknesses of your organisation. Once your organisation has adopted the latest digital trends in the industry, you will be able to expand your revenue generation.

Dealing with Digital Performance

The one key area that a digital audit is such a huge success is in determining what kind of problems are persisting in the digital setup of an organisation. Once you go through the audit, you will have a clearer picture of where you stand, and what you need to do to achieve digital transformation independence. Once you start monitoring your own digital performance and the environment it is creating in your organisation you will be able to make changes.

Dealing with digital performance is crucial to achieving digital transformation, and this is what an audit will help identify. Most businesses are hesitant towards audits, because they don’t want an outside party going through their processes. This is understandable because no business wants their secrets and important data to fall into the wrong hands.

However, conducting a digital transformation audit has a lot of benefits for the organisation, and when it is done by professionals, you will be able to achieve exceptional performance levels. Investing in the IT of your organisation includes investing in digital transformation audits, because it is linked to the future of your business and your legacy.

How to Drive More Customers to Your Business

Posted on March 26, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

Every entrepreneur wants their business to succeed, and the only way to do that is by driving customers to your business. It doesn’t matter what type of business you are running, all of them are dependent on the same thing: traffic. If you want success for your business, only your clients can provide you with that, and that is why you need to do everything in your power to drive customers to your business quickly. There are no short cuts. The only way you can launch your business successfully is by getting as much traffic as you can early on. That is what we are going to be discussing here, because it is going to affect your sales and campaigns as well.

If you really want to establish a legitimate business, then you need to get involved with getting more traffic. There is no shortage of tips that will help drive customers to your business, but we are going to be focusing on 6 of the best tips, to help you give you that edge.

Here’s how to find more Customers to your Business and Increase Sales

1. Send free samples to Instagram Influencers

Everyone loves a sample. If you really want to make a statement, then you need to get your business on the right track, and you can use the power of social media to do that. Instagram is one of the biggest and most popular social media platform around today, and you can easily drive traffic to your business through it. A study found that Instagram offers brands 25% more engagement, and is better for driving traffic than Facebook and Twitter! You can use it to your advantage by giving free samples to the top influencers on Instagram.This will help spread awareness about your brand and will drive customers to your business. The only thing you will need to worry about Instagram influencers is that you must target influencers that resonate with your brand and what it represents.

2. Promote through the Press or Bloggers

There are lots of different ways you can use to promote and drive customers to your business, but using promotional content through bloggers, vloggers, or the press is one of the most effective ways to go about it. This allows you to quickly build a large following, by leveraging from the size of the follower that most bloggers have. You can easily search for the best bloggers on the internet, and then have them promote your brand, products or services in their blogs. We use a MOZ tool https://moz.com/followerwonk/ and there is also their tool bar you can use to check the blog’s domain authority https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar

This will quickly spread awareness among the masses about your business, and when you have the press and bloggers promoting your business, it will help drive traffic your way.

3. Promote on Reddit

Another great way to drive customers to your business is to start promoting it on Reddit. A huge part of the internet hangs out on Reddit, and anything that goes viral or trending on Reddit is immediately spread like wildfire on all the major social media platforms. The exposure your business will gain by being promoted on Reddit is unparalleled, which is why it is a smart idea to promote it there.

Once your business starts trending on Reddit, you will not have any problem in attracting people towards your business, because the traffic numbers you get will be insane.

4. Ask family and friends to share

You can also get your family members and friends involved to help drive customers to your business. It can be done easily by asking them to share pictures or post comments about the products and services that your business offers. You can also get your inner friends circle to go check out your business, and then recommend it to people that they know.

Word of mouth is a great way to drive traffic for any customer, and you can get your family involved to help spread awareness about it.

5. Be pro-active on Twitter

You should start engaging with people on Twitter to promote your brand, which is a solid strategy to use if you have been trying to drive customers to your business. Once you have a decent following, the next step would be to quickly engage more customers and then notice as your business starts getting more traffic.

6. Come Out with Viral Content

If you want to grab attention and drive customers to your business, one of the easiest and most effective ways to do that is by creating and spreading viral content everywhere. This will get people to start noticing your brand, and you will immediately see an increase in traffic for your business. Now you are probably rolling your eyes wondering I’ve tried and tried again but the viral thing is not happening. Buzzsumo has a great lessons learnt article about this.

Convert Demand Generation into Customers – 5 Tips for Busy Marketers

Posted on March 23, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

If you’re looking for tips to convert your demand generation campaigns into paying customers, you came to the right place. All businesses must use different marketing and demand generation strategies to help build leads online, but generating leads should not be the only goal. If you’re unable to convert your leads into customers, then you are losing out and will not be able to complete sales. The business therefore, relies on marketers to come up with effective demand generation strategies that provide them with high quality leads. The leads a business acquires are only valuable if they turn into sales for the brand. That is why it is imperative that the business pays importance to the marketing aspect, and gets the sales process properly done. This will help them accomplish greater sales after generating valuable leads.

Here are the top 5 Demand Lead Generation Tips

1. Use Data to Understand Customers

It is important that you take advantage of data to understand the entire process of converting online leads and getting customers for your brand. This is why so many businesses spend on customer management, customer channel and data collection tools, because it allows them to easily funnel all the customers from multiple campaigns and convert leads into sales. By having accurate data available you can easily focus your attention on reaching out to people with the highest chances of becoming long-term customers of the business.

This is where most marketing and sales campaigns fail, because they don’t give the data great importance to separating customer channels and fail to assess how it will help them out. Don’t fall into the same trap, and make channel management and data a crucial part of all sales meetings, so that everyone understands and can interpret what is converting, where the customers are coming from and how long it is taking to onboard them.

2. Act Fast to Convert Leads

Once you have attracted the customers to your campaign, you need to move fast, because the longer you wait, the greater the chances that you will lose out – managing the customer response times. Faster response times will generate more demand to your campaign. There is no point in delaying a good lead, because if you don’t reach out to them in time, someone else from your industry will. That is why it is important that any decision you take must be fast, so that you can easily convert leads.

Reaching out to leads quickly also convinces customers that they are working with a business that is reliable and serious about working with them. This builds customer relationships and greatly increases the chances of the leads converting into sales.

3. Make Sure to Follow-up

Identify and open up multiple channels for leads to come back and reach out. Also find out where they are talking to manage the conversations effectively. When you’re reaching out to a new lead, and don’t get a good response, you shouldn’t give up on them. This is critical if you want to learn advanced demand generation strategies. Here’s a 3 step formula for writing brilliant email marketing subject lines that gets you through the door.

Make sure that you reach out to them again, by sending them an email or calling them some other time so that you get the chance to talk with them. This will help increase your chances of communicating with as many high-quality leads as possible and help you convert the maximum number of customers for your business. Demand generation relies on being able to reach out to customers on what ever platform the customer is familiar with.

4. Convert Leads by Qualifying Them

Another great demand generation strategy is by qualifying your leads separately, and setting them apart in different categories. This will allow you to have a detailed breakdown of leads from different communication channels that you can work with and the ones that you need to let go. Mark them as high quality leads and leads that you can move past, because this is how you will advance.

This helps you save time and ensure that you only work on sales-quality leads and have the right conversations with the right customers. It drastically improves your demand generation chances, and ensures that you can build strong customer relationships. Qualifying leads is a strong tactic, and one that will allow you to properly funnel leads to convert them into sales. There is also a reduced risk of losing out on valuable clients, because you already have the information needed to convert them into sales.

5. Have a Proper Sales Team

There will be no point in adopting any demand generation strategy if you don’t have a structured sales team. You need to ensure that your sales team not only manages relationships with existing clients, but is also able to convert new leads. This will help make things easier for you, because you will now be able to balance out the requirements and target customers effectively.

You should divide your sales teams so that one is focused on dealing with existing clients, while the other team handles the conversion of new leads. Having this kind of structure in your sales team will ensure that you don’t lose out on customers, and bring in new business as well. This can be achieved through a multi-channel conversation framework.

Conclusion

If you plan your work properly, and structure your sales team, while using data carefully, then you will be able to greatly improve your chances of converting online leads from multiple channels. Remember that you need to stay in touch on various social, sms, phone, emails and chat platforms with your customers, and follow up with the right conversations, resulting in a successful sales funnel.

6 Tips to Using Emojis in Your Digital Marketing Campaigns

Posted on May 11, 2017March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

And similarly, an emoji is also worth more than a word. This has actually been proven in a University of Missouri-St. Louis study–seeing an emoji is much more enjoyable than seeing a word in the Oxford Dictionary. Surprisingly, research has shown that looking at a smiling emoji ? activates the same parts of our brains as looking at a real smiley face! Emojis change our mood and may even alter our facial expressions to match that of the emoji. Out of the people surveyed, 75% of men and 84% of women think emojis are more effective in expressing their feelings than words.?

What’s mind-boggling is that we’re not born with these kinds of reactions to emojis. Rather, emojis are so powerful that they have actually shaped our brains and created a new brain pattern.? They’re also modifying our vocabulary and speech patterns. According to Instagram, users are substituting Internet slang such as “bae,” “rofl,” etc. for emojis.

A whopping 92% of the online population uses emojis. Emojis are loved or liked ? by 64% of users but are hated or disliked ? by only 6%. The tremendous rise of emojis has significantly affected digital marketing campaigns. Emojis increase the like rate of Facebook posts by 57% and the comment rate and share rate by 33%.

Because of the effectiveness of using emojis, digital marketing campaigns have pounced on the opportunity. Every year, brands use emojis in digital marketing campaigns 609% more than they do in the previous year. In 2015 alone, brands’ emoji usage increased by an unbelievable 777%.?

By now, you should be thinking, “How should I best use emojis for my own digital marketing campaigns?”?

Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Use Emojis for your Digital Marketing Campaigns

1. Know your emojis

This may seem like common sense, but misuse of emojis could really backfire and show how out of date a brand is. For example, the peach emoji ? can have different connotations than what seems obvious. Be sure to check out Genius’s comprehensive descriptions of each emoji, Hubspot’s guide on obscure emojis, and Daily Mail’s 12 commonly misunderstood emojis.

Genius’s List of Emoji Names

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Not only should you know the basic meanings of each emoji you use, but you should also know which ones to use in the first place. Which ones have the highest engagement? Which ones appeal to your audience the most? See the chart below for the top 10 most popular emojis.

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2. Know your audience

Again, this may seem like common sense, but there are some powerful ways, such as audience segmentation, to cater to specific sectors of your audience. Keep in mind that although all of the statistics mentioned above seem to be very positive, there are still 11% of customers who find using emojis in digital marketing to be inappropriate and 12% who think it’s childish, which are significant portions of your audience.

Age

Unsurprisingly, emojis are used more by younger people, who also have a higher chance of thinking that it’s normal for brands to use emojis. The social media channels in which users see emojis vary for different age groups as well. Users aged 25-44 prefer emojis in texts ? whereas users aged 45+ prefer emojis in emails.✉ Thus, you should make sure to tailor your digital marketing campaigns to users of different ages.

Researchers discovered that English-speaking US emoji users ?? were more “direct” while Japanese emoji users ?? tended to be more indirect, using emojis to decorate their messages or imply something for other users to deduce.

See the chart below for a comparison of emoji usage on Instagram in different countries.

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Obviously, brands should maximize their emoji usage in digital marketing campaigns in countries like Finland ?? but reconsider using emojis in countries like Tanzania.??

Ultimately, being mindful of differences in culture, social norms, communication, language, etc. across different regions goes a long way for digital marketing and for any cross-cultural interactions in general.

Age and region are only two of many possible ways of using audience segmentation to customize your digital marketing campaigns for different users.

3. Combine emojis with videos

According to Twitter, chances of videos being retweeted are 6 times higher compared to photos and 3 times higher compared to GIFs. Video ads that include branded emojis kindle SIX times the level of emotional connection and interest.

4. Simplify user engagement

How do you want your customers to use emojis? Do you want them to share/retweet the post? Answer a question? Tag someone else?

General Electric ran an effective digital marketing campaign by asking users to send a snap of an emoji to view their “Emoji Table of Experiments.”

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(Source: http://emojiscience.com)

Domino’s launched a digital marketing campaign that allowed users to order pizza by tweeting pizza emojis. ? This campaign not only dramatically simplified the process of ordering pizza, but it also increased brand awareness for Domino’s, which benefited from free advertising thanks to Twitter users.

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The bottom line is that so many people today are too busy to devote time and attention to digital marketing campaigns, but if you can find a way to make their lives easier and make it simple for them to engage, you’re golden.?

5. Don’t overuse them

With all of that being said, emojis are a double-edged sword.⚔ Similar to the law of diminishing returns in economics, where past a certain optimal point, something becomes inefficient, the same goes for emoji usage. Let us all learn from Aristotle, where he stated that we should find a mean between two extremes–excess and deficiency.

59% of users aged 18-34 believe brands are trying too hard to incorporate emojis into marketing campaigns.

Like everything in life, there’s a balance. Aim to strike that balance for the use of emojis in your digital marketing campaigns as well.

6. Use emojis to track customer reactions

As we said in the beginning, emojis are powerful ? ways for consumers to express their feelings and are more effective than words for most users. This creates a vast field of opportunity for companies like yours to gather fast, up-to-date data on customer reactions to their products, which can be used to target customers in the future. Surely, we can all agree that customers these days are much more willing to share their opinions on social media rather than in surveys.

At first glance, emojis can seem like very simple, fun things that you use in your messages to your friends to make sure that they know you’re joking. But emojis actually have tremendous potential and have already transformed the ways we think ? and communicate. Start making use of them today, and comment an emoji below to let us know what you think!

Are you looking to further capitalize on digital marketing but not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered with 8 marketing plan templates.

5 Ways Companies Have Used VR for Marketing

Posted on April 27, 2017March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

In today’s ever-changing tech world, companies from around the world and from all different industries have started to incorporate VR into their marketing campaigns. VR gives them the opportunity to give their users experiences like never before.

But wait a minute. What is VR?

VR stands for Virtual Reality, and a brief introduction for Virtual Reality can be found in our Innovated Uses of VR for Businesses.

If you are already aware of the basics of VR and are more interested in incorporating this new impressive technology into your marketing strategy, stick around to see what 5 innovative companies have already done!

How VR has been used for Marketing

1. Volvo

Volvo, a worldwide car manufacturer, began the virtual vehicle tour. As shown above, their new car, the XC90, has the ability to be accessed by anyone in the world with a computer. They designed a virtual tour of the car where one can interact and see all the features without ever having to leave his/her home. The idea itself may be simple yet nobody had done it before. Shortly after Volvo premiered this new feature, other companies followed. Mercedes-Benz now does the same as Volvo, allowing customers from anywhere in the world to tour its cars virtually. This marketing strategy has also spread to other transportation companies such as KLM and other airlines. As the VR industry becomes bigger, companies such as Volvo will continue to provide excellent and detailed displays of their products to improve consumer experience.

2. Coca-Cola Sleigh Ride in Winter

Coca-Cola, a massive and well-known international company, has always been at the forefront of innovation, from their products to their marketing teams. Within the last few years, Coca-Cola has started to implement VR into their marketing strategy. This past winter, Coke put together a sleigh ride VR experience that gave customers, and more importantly children, an opportunity they will never forget, Santa’s sleigh ride. They have also started a creative project to turn recycled Coke boxes into DIY VR glasses. Coke’s marketing team truly moves with innovation, coming up with impressive ways to maintain such high customer satisfaction through the services they provide outside their products.

3. How Patron is Made

Patron, unlike the rest of the other companies we looked at, has more of a challenge when it comes to marketing. Really, what can you say? Drink this for a good time? It took a very creative turn to make its VR experience one that their customers were sure to enjoy. It looked past its product and looked at more of the process behind the company. It was able to capture the process from start to finish, highlighting things that made its company look good, such as recycling its used products, and showing that its finished product ends up in places where most people are having a great time. Patron really thought outside the box, taking the drinking experience to another level.

4. Marriott Teleporter

Marriott Hotels, much like the others we have talked about, provided a new and innovative way for customers to view its brand. It created sites where individuals have the opportunity to travel the world from essentially inside a phone booth. These experiences brought them from NY to Hong Kong, and along the way they were always reminded that there was a Marriott location in each city. This showed the customers Marriott’s vast reach and that they could always find a place to call home no matter what corner of the world they wished to travel.

5. Discovery VR for Environmental Education

Discovery, my personal favorite, has further advanced the way we educate our world citizens through virtual reality. It has created a learning environment like no other. Discovery found the value in virtual reality in that it is so versatile. It took 360-degree cameras from the depths of the ocean to the vastness of space. It put these incredible experiences online where customers could interact by actually moving the camera in the direction they pleased, giving the user the best experience possible. A brand that is willing to spend so much time and innovation on its customers, like Discovery, creates valuable customer retention through these marketing strategies. It also provides a service to the public that is so innovative and captivating.

Marketing With VR

While these companies are the early adopters, other big companies are soon to follow. The future of VR is here, in the now. Companies from around the globe are transforming the way virtual reality is used to provide the best customer services and experiences through marketing strategies.

From startups to international corporations, VR is changing customer experience and service. It is taking a new form, allowing individuals to travel the world from the convenience of their home or simply letting their imagination run wild. VR is the paving the way for businesses to once again focus on the customer bringing to life experiences that were once thought of a thing of the future.

5 Customer Analytics You Should Be Measuring

Posted on March 13, 2017March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

Living in a time where we are so surrounded by technology, we would think that it makes sense that companies would start to take online information and use it to their advantage. Businesses around the world are using customer analytics to drive up profits and keep customers happy.

But what is customer analytics?

Customer analytics is the process by which data from customer behavior are used to make business decisions. In more simple terms, it’s businesses tracking your every move online, compiling profiles on each customer so they can improve the shopping experience. The information they take ranges from four main categories. These include personal, quantitative, qualitative and descriptive data. Now that we have the basics, read on to find out more about the top 5 Customer Analytics You Should Be Measuring to increase your businesses profits and better adapt to customers.

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Best Customer Analytics to Boost Business

1. Demographics

Demographics are the basics of customer analytics. It is essentially a personal profile on each one of your customers. These consist of categories such as age, gender, race, geography and income. This information is important to marketers especially. For example, if a company is trying to target teens and young adults through their marketing campaign, they would be able to see if their advertisements are getting to the correct people. If they see that for some reason only people 40+ are visiting their site, it is easy to conclude that they need to find a new way to reach their intended customers. Demographics, although seemingly basic, are one of the most important customer analytics to track.

2. Sources of Incoming Traffic

Being able to track where your customers came from is also an extremely important factor when it comes to customer analytics. If your company has been trying to market on different platforms such as email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, you can see what campaigns are working. This is essentially the same as the demographics analytic except the difference is in the application they are coming from and not personal qualities.

3. Returning Customer Conversion

Gaining new customers is 6.5 times more expensive for a company than keeping an existing customer, so why not prioritize your existing customers? This is why using the metric of returning customers can save companies vast amounts of money. If a customer has already been on your site, you can once again track the way they got to the page. Noticing that most of your returning customers are coming from social media, you could possible scale back outside marketing or TV ads. This would most likely cut costs and allow you to focus more on keeping your old customers as well as increasing advertising in places that tend to have returning customers.

4. Page Views

Page views, one of the more simple topics in analytics, are simply the number of visitors your website or individual page gets. It is important to get the most page views you can to bring in as many customers as you can. This function can also monitor specific blogs or PDFs that your company posts. This will allow your company to post more blogs or PDF that are on similar topics. It is important to know what part of your website interests your users the most so you can develop more of that material.

5. Average Session Duration

When it comes to making big business decisions, such as spending large sums of money on advertising, a company will want to know who to target and why. All of this information can be found using Google analytics. It is important to know who spends more time on your website so you can gear your advertising toward them. For example, the average Facebook link stays open for only 10 seconds where average direct URL is open for closer to 53 seconds. The people who spend more time are obviously more interested in your product, but you also have to look at where the traffic is coming from to understand the true data. You can even see what pages on your website are visited the most. For example, say that a company has a blog page that attracts more views than any other page. You can have your employees focus on outputting more blogs on topics that have been getting the most clicks and highest average session duration.

Analysis of The Analytics

As you can see, all of these chosen analytics work together, but a company has to find the patterns and solutions to the problems they are seeing. While it may seem that monitoring just demographics or page views will not boost a business too much, the long tail effect comes into play by monitoring more and more analytics. As the world keeps embracing the technological changes in our society, more businesses will move to using customer analytics to improve business strategy and efficiency. Google analytics makes tracking your customers habits and desires that much easier too. These analytics are the best option for a company to get a well-rounded look at who, what, and where website traffic is coming from. They lay the platform for more analytics to be built on.