Basic Digital Marketing

If you don’t think you’re getting the mileage you want from your blog articles, you might be right. The simplest SEO mistake can cost a website big. If your website’s failing and you’re not ranking where you want, from a blogger’s perspective, here’s where to start.

XML sitemap

The easiest instant change to make that will have a great impact on your website is to ensure you have an accurate XML sitemap set up. This is a roadmap of your blog, indicating to Google the structure of your site and the content ahead. Installing the Google XML Sitemaps plug-in is recommended as it will increase your post indexing rate, and make it easier for spiders to crawl/find your posts.

There is so, so, so much focus put on millennials, and their wants and needs, that few businesses are prepared for the incoming Generation Z. This is the first generation who grew up with smartphones and social media, and they’re a whole different set of people than millennials. If you’re serious about maintaining a young audience, you need to shift your attention towards sustaining popularity among Generation Z.

Generation Z now accounts for approximately 40 percent of all consumers. They’re much more advanced in their knowledge of technology and the digital world. Generation Z are generally referred to as having shorter attention spans and are thus more difficult to impress. If you haven’t made an impression in seconds, you’ve lost them and probably for good. Generation Z expects to be curated too, consistently. They also highly value influencers, particularly on YouTube and Instagram.

A small business can generate a lot of revenue these days if they know how to exploit social marketing just right. Let’s be clear in stating that social media marketing is not just about gaining followers and likes. In fact, sometimes the objective is completely different. Strategizing a digital marketing plan, here are 9 secrets that all the top players are using.

Creating bulk content.

There are going to be some days where you don’t have anything to post. That’s natural. Set a schedule where you bulk up on social media posts and blogs ahead of time. That way, you’ll always have something to post. Craft a week’s worth or a month’s worth of content at the same time.

Every company participating in video marketing wants their content to go viral. When a video goes viral, big things happen. A brand instantly boosts their social media followers and can generate millions off a single video. Going viral is very, very tough. It doesn’t come natural in video marketing. So few videos end up actually going viral that it’s a high bar to aspire to. Here are six examples of brands who have done viral video marketing right however.

Always

Always’ #LikeaGirl campaign showed children and adults contemplating the phrase ‘like a girl’. Its message was positive, inclusive, and creates an emotional connection with Always’ predominantly female audience. Always also took extra steps by encouraging others to share their own examples on social media and including the #LikeaGirl hashtag.

There’s a lot to focus on with an eCommerce company, with so many digital marketing channels and platforms to consider. For many businesses, marketing their products or services online is challenging because of how time-consuming it can be. If you’re looking to maximize your time, keep up with the competition, and show continued growth in your business numbers, here are 5 eCommerce digital marketing opportunities you should be capitalizing on.

A blog.

Overproducing irrelevant articles in an attempt to improve SEO is a bad move overall. When executed properly however, a blog can be an easy and cost-effective way to educate and highlight products. The key is relevance. An article should resonate with an audience, anticipate their needs, and answer the questions they are likely to have. Avoid hard-selling. Instead, content should be presented with value and no agenda. Design how-tos and similar help-based blogs. The more you do this, the more value you create in the mind of the consumer on a product.

Is your SEO out of date – you’re not the only one. Too many websites are using older SEO techniques which could be unknowingly penalizing your website. If you’re purposefully using spammy techniques to attempt to trick the system, chances are it’s either not working or you’re going to inevitably get caught. In SEO, you’ve got to change with the times and search engine algorithms have changed in the last decade. If you want high quality, targeted website traffic, ensure you’re not following these five bad SEO strategies.

Publishing too much content.

Although you might think posting blogs will increase traffic to your site, increased output generally equates to lower quality. A website which contains too many blogs and text-heavy webpages are not viewed favorably. If you’re serious about SEO, you want to focus on publishing as many high-quality blogs as you can. Prioritize quality over quantity. Quality equates to traffic – not quantity.

Digital marketing trends and innovation are always an excellent source for inspiration for small businesses looking to get a leg up on competition. Fast food brands like Burger King and McDonald’s have launched some of the best marketing campaigns in the last fifty years.

KFC’s most recent digital marketing campaigns are some any marketer has got to be impressed by. In recent years, KFC came up with a digital marketing campaign that used influencers, professional wrestlers, and Hollywood celebrities to dress up as the Colonel. This created a sense of anticipation as to who was next in line to take on the Colonel retro look and was a playful manner to create awareness in the marketplace.

Then, a second digital marketing launched involved a live-stream approach, broadcasting four hours of cats climbing Colonel-inspired merchandise ranging from a small cat condo to a rug, pool floatie, fire log, and more. This was, again, a great way to get attention for the brand.

High CTR rates are an email marketer’s dream. That said, in an inbox filled with possibly hundreds of messages, it can be difficult for some brands to create enough of a reason to get a subscriber to open their email and then, to click through to your website.

If you want fast, easy techniques on how to improve your click-through rate, we can help. Using these strategies, a subscriber won’t have to put out too much energy or think too much about where to click or what to do. Within 3 emails or less, you should see your CTR rate improve tremendously.

Attractive, catchy subject line.

Increase your click-through rate by getting people to open your emails with a catchy subject line. Ideally, the right subject line should either create a sense of mystery or intrigue, imply a sense of urgency, or are unexpected and unique. You want to get their click in 5 seconds or less!

An excellent influencer marketing campaign relies almost entirely on connecting with the right influencers for your brand. When done right, instantly, you can find your KPIs moving in a faster, higher direction.

Multiple studies have shown influencer marketing to be one of the most cost-effective forms of providing brands with an instant boost in revenues. On average, ROI for influencer marketing is $7 per dollar invested. In food, retail, and travel, these are the categories where the most effective influencer marketing exists. If you fall outside of these areas, no worries as influencers certainly have value. Any brand can tap into influencers, as long as the influencers is not in opposition to your brand’s image or credibility. Evidently, choosing the wrong influencer can be a waste of money and/or have dire consequences for the long-term health of your business.

Why influencer marketing is preferred so much more than other strategies is because of how simple and direct it is, particularly with its results. You don’t need to spend hours writing and posting blogs, sharing social media updates, connecting with customers one at a time, and waiting indefinitely for momentum to take shape. Going through an influence, you receive access to potentially millions of people in a single interaction from a voice they trust which thereby capitalizes on word-of-mouth. Because it’s coming from somewhere they know and trust, a consumer’s more likely to buy into a brand, product, or service.

Creating one-of-a-kind amazing copywriting for a website is a skill surprisingly more difficult to master than many imagine. Even so, it’s arguably the single most important skill you can have in ensuring your website’s success.

Think of all the writing a website and brand really has to have – blog posts, social media posts, email marketing, communication with customers and company stakeholders, etc. If you’re not committed to becoming a better writer, hiring a highly skilled copywriter, or developing better marketing copywriting, you may be unknowingly sabotaging your business.

A business writer in this capacity should have the skill to sell. Yes, you want to entertain, educate, establish brand awareness, and build an audience, however ultimately, all of this comes down to one’s ability to sell. If nobody’s buying, no product, service, or company’s going to stay in business. As if all this wasn’t complicated enough, how you write ads for a search engine will be different from what you write for Facebook or Twitter, and that will be different from how blog posts are written, and this will be different from how you build a landing page.

Digital marketing analytics data is a goldmine for any brand in any category of business. NBC’s used social media and digital marketing strategies, based around their analytics data, to drive almost 20 million primetime viewers to its Winter Olympics coverage in 2018. When one couple this with the more than 1.85 billion minutes of live stream digital coverage, NBC delivered the biggest Winter Games coverage there’s ever been.

NBC generated millions of social hits – and this is important – by inviting the audience in for a conversation. NBC didn’t tell anyone to watch but instead focused on creating a conversation around the athletes’ stories and the games. As an example, athletes like US snowboarder Chloe Kim’s stories were shared highlighting the sacrifices they made to get to the Olympics, family and cultural background, and using the athlete’s own narration.

In digital marketing, no one’s selling a product or a service – they’re selling a story. Analyzing the most successful marketing campaigns in the last five years, a commonality shared between all them is a focus on storytelling. It can be a hard skill to learn but if you’re able to tell a story that’s relevant to your audience and seamlessly blend in reference to a product or service inside, the advantage this gives you is tremendous over the competition.

Fifty years ago, marketing and advertising was all about peddling your products or services to consumers. Door-to-door sales was common, speaking direct to the population. Advertisements focused on specific menu items, prices, services, and more. What was being sold decades ago was a lot clearer to the consumer and the general public. These days, marketing’s grown more complex. You’re selling indirectly a lifestyle and a better version of the customer. This strategy’s been used successfully by health, wellness, and fitness companies for years, and now everyone from McDonald’s to The New York Times takes this approach.

Digital marketing employs a mix of business, technology, and traditional advertising approaches. Cultivate a community of passionate customers, potentially from a global audience using these amazing tips, tricks, and techniques.

Voice marketing.

Voice search and voice-related devices are creating a new era in digital marketing. As consumers communicate with devices to look and shop, and browse the Internet, marketers should find a way to match content to the sorts of questions and queries being asked.

Instagram Stories/Facebook Live.

Live streaming on social media is just as valuable in some instances as traditional posting. Instagram and Facebook are the top two social media platforms by far and on these, you can run contests, check in with followers, and build that level of connection you want.

Social media is thought of as a ‘marketer’s dream’ but it is its’ customer service potential which too many businesses forget about. Like it or not, sometimes it’s as if social media is what makes the world go ‘round. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, and other platforms directly connect you to your audience. More than a phone line, email, or anything, social media is your most important form of communication with your audience.

Why social media is so important is because most people see it as a personalized, customizable place where they can speak with friends and family as well as connect with their favourite brands. It’s a place they feel safe to represent themselves, ask questions, and engage. Throughout the past decade, it’s also become a place wherein customers can raise queries, issues, or concerns publicly. If they’re disappointed, a negative comment on social media is your business’ worst marketing nightmare. If it’s a positive review or comment, that can also act as a form of social media marketing. After all, it’s the perception you’re putting out to the audience.

Generating leads for business is strategizing how to capture your audience’s attention and filter it through to a conversion. It’s not always straightforward. Every business is different and their audience might need to be cultivated in a unique way. If you want to build lead generation, there are five things you need to get going.

A website that gives you the chance to post blogs.

There’s a lot of articles out there. Writing a great blog is not easy but it can be very rewarding. Speak from your perspective and don’t simply re-write what others are doing. Find your voice, write on subjects relating to your business or industry, and set up a blog posting schedule. A great article is not only going to act as a lead generator through SEO but also, on social media. Use a click-friendly headline, use subheadings, and make every word count.

Choosing keywords, developing the visual content, structuring the location of your CTAs, and sharing your landing page is all a part of ensuring your marketing sales funnel leads straight to a conversion.

Among your most important elements in closing a customer is the landing page. This is an opportunity to speak directly to your audience. A landing page is where a prospective customer lands when they click on an ad. After you’ve got the customer on-site though, you can still lose them. There are terrible landing pages and amazing landing pages. Here are 5 tips on what you can do to maximize your conversions and turn a motivated buyer into a customer.

Your headline.

The first thing anyone reads on a landing page is the headline. A landing page headline should communicate clearly value, identifying what your offer is and how it provides value. You don’t want to make it too long or complex. It shouldn’t be more than a line or two. Remove unnecessary words. Remember, headlines are all about purpose and value, and should be communicable within three seconds or less.

The value of email marketing campaigns is all in the results. No matter your objective with your emails, if you’re not getting the results you want from it, you’ve got to figure a solution. Search engines and social media platforms cannot generate the same engagement as emails can. They’re very important to long-term digital strategizing. Here are a few suggestions on strategies that will provide you with high-value subscribers and a strong CTR across your email campaign.

Obvious call-to-actions.

If CTAs are not easily spotted, customers are not going to know what to do with your email. Therefore, keep it clear, succinct, and transparent. Guide them through the process to click and convert, and arrange your text, images, and links as appropriate.

Digital marketing can be all trial and error. It’s your analytics which will guide you. If you don’t know where to pay attention to and to what, it can be tough knowing how to move forward. Measuring ROI can involve many elements but if you’re looking at a starting point, here’s some areas you can look.

Knowing ‘why’.

The objective of your marketing campaign may be different from the next one. Knowing why and what you’re trying to achieve can help determine where you want to focus. It’s important all objectives are measurable.

Augmented reality is giving small business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporations the opportunity to add value, solve problems in their supply chain or sales funnel, and enhance the user experience.

AR adds computer-generated imagery into a real-world environment, allowing users to interact with the digital realm. In shopping, entertainment, and work, augmented reality is making a difference.

Tourism.

Travel brands are using augmented reality to provide visitors information about their destination and related sites to see. AR apps are already being employed at international resorts to help guests navigate through the various amenities and local regions.

Construction.

eCommerce merchants invest a lot of time into generating traffic but they oftentimes focus on paid over organic. Even so, SEO eCommerce strategies are going to be key to grabbing customers from sites like Amazon and others.

Especially if you have products consumers can’t find anywhere else, you’re going to want to heighten the quality of your content, improve site architecture, and do whatever you can to increase search visibility. Here are 6 simple SEO eCommerce strategies to help you accomplish just that.

Optimize for fast load time.

Snapchat, as a social media platform, might seem like a hub of millennials talking and sharing pictures, texts, and video. Snapchat has not caught on as much as other platforms have. That said, it still serves an important purpose in branding and business.

Snapchat has accumulated more than 190 million daily active users and has been around for more than a few years now. Originally, Snapchat made its name off allowing people to send messages which self-destruct, delete, and disappear after a few seconds. Today, it’s a hub of communications and maintains a huge audience among females between 13 and 34 years of age.

Are you struggling to generate blog traffic – you’re not the only one. It’s estimated that as many as 70 percent of blogs struggle with attracting an audience. Sometimes, there are outside influences keeping people from your blog like an issue with your digital marketing. At other times though, it might be just because nobody wants to read it. That’s tough to hear but if you’re only getting a handful of views, it might be time to consider you need to switch things up. If nobody wants to read your blog, here’s perhaps why.

You’re posting irregularly.

Nobody wants to read a blog if they don’t know when to click on it to see new posts. Blogs and content marketing are all about strategy. That involves posting on a regular schedule. Even if creativity has ebbs and flows, you need to post regularly. Whether it’s once a week, bi-weekly, monthly or whenever, you need to get this down.

eCommerce conversion is a priority for any online shopping site, no matter the product. ‘Selling’ is the name of the game. When you increase your conversion rate, you improve your revenues and profits. Even small changes in how you optimize a website can produce sizeable results in revenues. If your goal is to sell more, read on.

Home page optimization.

Your home page is your home base. Most eCommerce pages waste this real estate. Nevertheless, here’s where you want to add your top-selling products, trendiest products, special offers, and timely messaging to get people clicking. Identify a path you want users to follow and use a CTA to get them there.

Nostalgic marketing from the 1950s and 1960s are sometimes troublesome to examine. The messaging is oftentimes incredibly dated, sometimes offensive, and not always application to contemporary audiences. That said, there are some ways nostalgic ads are still used in digital marketing today and rather effectively!

An artful style.

Ads beginning in the early 1940s applied contemporary art trends, creating a visual style that was extremely successful at selling a wide variety of products. Similar and also, distinct from what has been used in the past, different geometric and symmetrical forms still work to this day although now we have typefaces, new shapes, and new designs to work from. A lot of contemporary advertisements playing off nostalgia such as Banana Republic’s 1960s-Esque Mad Men-inspired campaign utilized various artistic shapes and emphasis.

You don’t need to spend a fortune to generate big SEO results in the landscape of digital marketing. Although there’s a cost, what you receive in ROI if you plan it strategically can easily justify the investment.

Combining different digital strategies, there’s a lot of positive results to be had with SEO. For example, we know SEO conversion rates are roughly 10 percent higher than social media marketing and they rise by 15 percent on mobile devices.

If you’re looking for a list of SEO growth hacks, we’d like to share some that we’ve used to make the most from search engine marketing budgets. Using these, your conversions will cost less and you’ll run a smarter digital marketing campaign overall.