Basic Digital Marketing

As we look ahead towards the last weeks of winter, here are our top 5 digital marketing statistics to remember!

53 percent of marketers will increase AI spending in the next 3 years.

AI is going to see some massive investments in the world of marketing as more have come to accept it as a necessary part of the future of the industry. In 2019, AI is already responsible for several companies seeing an increase in sales and increases in customer retention. The impressive performance of AI in a marketing context is leading to more strategy development and investment paid to simplifying the online customer service.

eCommerce sites have a lot to focus on. Setting up eCommerce analytics can be a step easily forgotten in all the hype. Nonetheless, analytics can help track what products are being viewed and purchased or not purchased, measure transactions, and provide insight into consumer behaviour.

If you’ve just started selling product on an eCommerce site, being able to measure consumer behaviour helps to show what people are buying and what they’re not so much into. If you’re honest in interpreting what you see, eCommerce analytics information can help build or re-develop your catalogue of products. Perhaps you’ll notice a product that’s getting a lot of views and yet, these views are not converting into sales. Or, potentially you’ll see products that are failing to get the sort of leads other products are. All of this data can help you create a more effective eCommerce web design and inform your marketing efforts as well.

Analyzing blog traffic for the average business website, you’ll find somewhere approximately 50 percent of leads come direct from search engine optimization whereas less than 9 percent come from social media.

So much focus goes on promoting content on social media platforms, it’s easy to forget the power of SEO. As a video, AR, AI, voice search, eCommerce, and other trends have come to influence SEO keyword research, the most successful keyword research you can produce are related to targeting long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords contain a minimum of three words, usually embedded with specific terms relevant to your audience. Long-tail SEO accounts for more than 70 percent of total searches, incorporating descriptive phrases and sometimes questions. Long-tail works because it’s more specific, less competitive than more generic keywords, and can be better targeted to a geographic location, audience, or something else.

You may have heard the term ‘growth hacking’ before. Far from just another buzz word, growth hacking is any strategy executed specifically for fast, strong growth. It’s all about leverage resources and market knowledge to spur your company into fast results. For when you have a constraining budgeted, limited time, and big-spender competitors, growth hacking can help even the playing field.

Growth hacking is commonly employed in digital marketing, assisting with the accomplishing of goals. There are three areas that makeup growth hacking – experimentation, creativity, and performance measurement. It goes without saying but if anyone could do growth hacking, it wouldn’t be considered a ‘hack’. Thereby, experimentation is important. One must be willing to investigate unique ways to find and build an audience. Growth hacking never comes from the expected.

As a blog writer and marketer, you may not know what you want to write about. When the ideas stop coming, it can be infuriating. Trying to write like that and stir up emotion or action from a reader, the result is usually pretty terrible. If you’re looking for inspiration to get you going, there’s thankfully plenty of places to find it. So if you’re in a predicament where you can’t get going with your content marketing plan writing, here are a few places to look.

LinkedIn has social media marketing tools used by both B2B and B2C companies, although its effectiveness is mostly associated with B2B. With so many opportunities to release content and then, to target it to the appropriate audience, instantly win yourself new business.

Using both organic marketing strategies and paid advertising, your brand can engage with the right people and begin building loyalty. Like other social media platforms, any content plan must be carefully considered.

The best advice we can give as a starting point to LinkedIn marketing is to identify user intent. Users consume content on LinkedIn primarily to inform themselves about a certain category of industry. Users also want to show others that they’re smart, qualified, and knowledgeable about certain subjects. LinkedIn marketers will usually target users’ needs, creating high value, informational and useful content that they can consume in the industry or category they’re interested in.

Digital marketing changes because it has to. As consumer behaviour changes, one’s marketing adapts.

If you’re going to remain successful, how you advertise needs to match what’s going on in the world – not only in the cultural conversation but also with the technology, strategies, opportunities, and platforms available.

Twenty years ago, social media was not even a thing. Today, it’s arguably the most powerful digital marketing tool there is. Some would say it’s even more important than having a website. This is just one of dozens of examples of how things have changed.

Sourcing visually appealing images that are relevant to your blog are a large part of any blog’s success. They can also be one of the most challenging aspects, for less experienced writers and marketers.

There are a few considerations you want to make when selecting images. Firstly, you want them to be sized correctly. Secondly, you want them to be high quality in high-definition and high resolution. And, thirdly, you want to ensure you know whether they are free to have or whether they need to be purchased. Lastly, you need to know your permissions to use them.

Not all images come free and/or are able to be used. A lot of images come with copyrights associated to them and if you do use them – and don’t ask permission – you could be breaking the law.

eCommerce and selling online can provide locally-based small businesses big returns. Selling online, you won’t need to worry about paying overhead and any limitations relating to location are erased. Let’s say, you’re a small business selling in Toronto. Through eCommerce, you can spread and send product to Australia, Ireland, China, and wherever in the world you wish to expand to. As lucrative as eCommerce can be, it can also take up time and resources to successfully manage an eCommerce site. So if you’re thinking about selling online, read ahead first.

Twitter’s always been a very effective platform on which brands can connect with fans and deliver engaging content.

Twitter’s also been a central platform that can be used to direct fans to become customers. Use it as an eCommerce lead generator and a hub of customer service. Compelling tweets and on-point brand messaging is all you need to have in place to make it work. According to a recent study, 30 percent of Twitter users will buy from a brand they follow this year. Use the opportunity to increase retweets, favourites, and shares on Twitter, and build your sales in the process.

Creating content comes down to satisfying the technical prerequisites of search engines while also appealing to your audience and ensuring you’re writing for engagement. It’s the highest priority to fulfill both of these expectations.

Knowing which content types work for your audience, however, can take time. Waiting for content to boost rankings and increase organic traffic can sometimes be challenging, especially in moments where you come to find out a strategy isn’t working.

Here are 12 content strategy rules we believe should be kept in mind as you build effective content marketing.

As a beginner to Facebook marketing, it can be easy to send a ton of money down the wrong path. If you’re serious about generating real results using Facebook, you’ve got to master both organic and paid reach. These days, more than 70 percent of digital marketers are using Facebook to build an audience. For 47 percent of all marketers, they call Facebook their #1 influence on purchases. There’s no disputing it’s got significant power. Make the most of your Facebook marketing and read on.

Keeping customers warmed and ready to buy is an art in email marketing that relies on maintaining a healthy subscriber list. For those that know how, there’s high potential in email marketing to generate strong returns, using cost-efficient strategy.

According to a recent survey, 20 percent of North American marketing firms say their primary source of revenues are directly linked to email marketing. To maximize the power of email though, you need to know the importance of personalization, and how to segment and target effectively. Increasing open rates, conversions, and email-derived revenues begins with focusing on strengthening your email subscriber list.

High quality content and the creation of said content within the parameters of SEO algorithms are important to your success. Correctly optimizing your website for Google, Bing, and other search engines have to be priority in digital marketing. If you’re looking to up the effectiveness and performance of your SEO in 2019, here are the key strategies you should hang your hat on.

The rise of millennials and Generation X buyers has brought with it what is possibly the most socially conscious generation of our time. For businesses, marketing, and media to succeed against requirements for a social conscious, authenticity is key. Traditional advertising isn’t working anymore. Ads are easy to tune out. If you want to cut through the noise and are marketing to an under-30 audience, a brand has to look for new flourishing digital marketing opportunities that haven’t been beaten to no end. As the buying power of millennials and Generation X continues to rise, this is a lesson extremely important to learn.

According to a recent report, 24 percent of companies using social media marketing saw an immediate, direct increase in their revenues. If you want to be one of the many companies thriving in this space, there’s a lot to take into account. Selecting the right social media channel is important. Ultimately, it comes down to your company type, target audience, resources available, and competitor activity, perhaps above all else. Check out our guidelines on how to approach social media marketing, beginning first with choosing your channel.

A business blog can help you build sustainable momentum and grab you an audience, like nothing else can. Having a business blog where you regularly put out content, even if it’s only once or twice a month, gives Google a reason to pay attention to your website and stokes a higher SEO ranking, a blog will give you something to share on social media, and it’s also an inexpensive, natural way to get clients returning to your site. So should your business have a blog – unquestionably, yes.

Facebook remains one of the biggest marketing tools a digital marketer has. Continuing to maintain a monthly user base of more than two billion people, any category of business can find their target audience here. Just having a Facebook business page is not enough. As you’ll see, there are other ways you could be maximizing Facebook’s resources to up your social media revenues.

There’s a lot of metrics out there. All those numbers carry with them importance but there are some more important than others. Resist the temptation of all the figures in your dashboard and sink your teeth into what matters most to what you’re trying to accomplish.

For every business, small to a corporate giant, there are 3 metrics that matter most. Using these metrics, you’ll be able to gather key information about your business, including how many customers are actively engaged, how many people are taking the action you want, whether organic traffic is improving, if your site’s being linked to by high authority sites, and whether you’re getting the best revenues in return with what you’re investing.

As each year passes, the marketing industry comes with a new set of predictions and outlooks on where the digital landscape is headed. As we set out on 2019, there’s a difference this year. There’s A LOT of significant movement happening in the digital world, regarding tech, software, apps, consumer behaviour, and new digital marketing strategies. These are things that will completely change the way we do marketing in the coming year. Here’s just a few of the digital trends that are making us think twice about what strategies to use ahead.

Digital marketing is growing in some big ways in 2019 with automation, email, data analysis, augmented reality, voice search, and content marketing all being key categories marketers continue to focus on. Are you looking to up your game in 2019 – read below to find 14 expert predictions on where to take your Internet marketing in the New Year.

Not every email we receive is wanted or read. Sadly, within 2 seconds of opening an email, over half of these are deleted. As a website with an email marketing campaign, there’s a lot of opposition you’re going to have to go through to get your emails to read. Thankfully, there are ways to maximize the potential of your email marketing campaign and to prevent your email from being deleted without a second thought. The best prevention method – write emails that are engaging, personalized, and that your customers care about!

In marketing, we’re always taught to treat the human beings in front of us as our buyers and thereby, our companies, our brands, and our websites as our business. This distinction sometimes ends up being reflected in the content and marketing businesses put out.

Humanizing your brand is something a lot of companies do extremely well. Contemporary customers are sick of being sold to and they’re tired of hearing about how great you are. As business owners, you’re always told your customers come first. Assuming one believes this to be true, humanizing yourself is not a bad strategy in winning the hearts and minds of your customers.

Search engine optimization, or ‘SEO’ for short, is essential to getting your website found. According to a recent survey by BrightEdge, the average website receives up to 51 percent of their traffic from search engines. This is a far higher rate of traffic than what paid search and social media provide. A lot of this traffic – if not all – comes to a website from keywords. Keywords can be short-tail or long-tail, and help to get your website indexed properly according to the most relevant content. Keywords also can help steer you towards the right target audience. That said, before you begin on the route to being found on search engines, it takes keyword research.

Snapchat face filters and similar fun apps were the introductions for many consumers to augmented reality. As we stare ahead into 2019 and beyond, AR is only going to grow.

For eCommerce sites, there’s a lot at stake in the world of augmented reality. As we continue to see integration into Snapchat, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and Google, it’s going to be very interesting to see where opportunity pops up and to exploit that to sell product.