digital marketing strategy

February 15, 2018

5 Incredibly Effective Digital Marketing Strategies That Most Marketers Are Too Afraid To Try

What are you doing to embrace and tackle marketing industry changes? Are you afraid to try new things? Or are you fearless?

One of the reasons I am so passionate about the marketing industry is the anticipation of changes, and ability to experiment with new marketing tactics and efforts.

Taking chances is often what separates top marketing professionals from novices. But how can you separate fads from educated risks? Take a look at the top strategies I’ve identified that most marketers might deem risky, may not be aware of, or not fully understand.

These are risks, yes, but they are risks that are worth taking.

1. Switch from outbound to content marketing

In the past, it was enough to highlight your product or service and the hundreds of fantastic features and capabilities. These days, you have to add value to your brand and product/service with content that teaches and establishes you as a thought leader and an expert. Why should your customers believe in what you’re selling?

It might scare you to switch to an inbound format that teaches and nurtures your prospects. How will they know what you offer, you ask? How will we sell and generate leads without pushing our product? Content marketing can be scary to adopt because it relies on your expertise and puts the ball in your prospects court.

In contrast, content marketing is shown to drive more traffic and leads than outbound marketing. According to Demandmetric content marketing generates as many as three times more leads than outbound marketing.

2. Interactive content

As content marketing rises in popularity, pushing through the clutter is becoming more and more difficult for all of us. But even though we know we must differentiate ourselves from the pack, we can be hesitant to make our basic content more interactive and exciting.

Interactive content can draw more attention to your messaging while increasing your engagement on powerful social media sites. Quizzes, ROI calculators and interactive infographics can help you convey your brand’s story in a more dynamic fashion.

As a bonus, eye-catching, interactive, fun content can draw the attention or industry publications in addition to attracting prospects. As a result, you can extend your reach and continue driving traffic and high quality links to your site and blog.

3. Embrace up-and-coming social media channels

While there remains a place for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, new social media channels will allow you to reach consumers in new and exciting ways. Additionally, new channels allow you to explore more creative methods of telling your stories and conveying who you are.

Snapchat, Instant Articles on Facebook, and Instagram Stories provide companies and even professionals a channel to experiment and target specific groups and audiences. As a bonus, new and exciting social media channels are often a great place to promote the interactive contentdiscussed above.

4. Developing content for real people, not algorithms

As a marketer, you may have gotten in the habit of developing and creating content that will highlight your company, blog, business or ideas at the top of the search engines.

These days you’ve got to step out of your box and think about your content in the context of your reader’s desires, fears, worries and needs.

Creating content that is displayed in front of thousands of sets of eyes is no longer enough to set you apart. Instead, readers expect real ideas that are well written and display complex and interesting ideas and thoughts.

While SEO is still very important, don’t be afraid to put your audience and their needs and wants first and consider your page rank secondarily.

Instead of using keywords to draw more traffic from search engines and their algorithms, use keywords to highlight your points and draw readers in by providing information that is valuable to your audience.

5. Reuse and repurpose your top content

Even your loyal readers may not see your content initially. It could take several touches and multiple channels to get through to them. Try reposting your top blog posts with refreshed titles or new visuals.

Utilize that content in a digest newsletter format to drive traffic to content that your audience’s peers have enjoyed (it can be tough to resist content that we know our peers and colleagues have enjoyed).

Want more traffic? Automate that refreshed and repurposed content for periods when it’s relevant or for different days or times to attract new readers who may not have engaged the first time around.

According to Curata, only 29% of marketers are reusing/repurposing content, which means many marketers are only putting their messaging in front of their audiences one time: they’re missing out on valuable clicks, impressions and engagement.

Conclusion

We’re often afraid of the uncertain. We get stuck doing the same marketing activities over and over again in an effort to remain comfortable. We know our metrics for what we’ve been doing. We have goals for those efforts. We know what to expect.

Getting over our fears is as simple as widening our expectations and being ok with not knowing exactly what to expect from our marketing efforts. Try something new. By taking small steps and measuring your efforts very closely, you might find that your strategies are not enough.

You might try something that doesn’t work or isn’t right for your audience. But more importantly, you might find something that is a clear win and helps you change the course of your marketing efforts, your business and messaging.

Written by: Neil Patel , CONTRIBUTOR - Forbes

View Article Here

Photo: Marius Masalar - Unsplash

January 23, 2018

11 Digital Marketing Buzzwords to Know and Love in 2018

Well, it’s 2018, so now's the time to get your marketing plan in place, if you haven't done so already.

To help, we think you'll need to be aware of these marketing buzzwords in 2018.

Don’t worry, they’re not the useless jargon style buzzwords so many people loathe. These are useful marketing terms that will need to be part of your vocabulary this year.

Here are your digital marketing buzzwords for 2018:

Algorithm – Everyone wants to talk about Google’s algorithm updates or the Facebook algorithm making it hard for businesses to get their marketing messages in front of their target audience, but what does it really mean?

Well, you can think of an algorithm as a formula. It’s a set of rules Google or Facebook uses to determine what content shows up where. So, Google uses its algorithm to determine which businesses and websites show up for certain searches, while Facebook uses its algorithm to determine which posts are most important and relevant to its users.

SEO – SEO stands for search engine optimization and it's the way that we optimize for Google’s algorithm.

SEO involves optimizing your business’s website for searches by adding keywords, meta-tags and other information that search engines need to know in order to rank your business in the right searches for the right consumers. Don’t forget there’s more than one kind of SEO.

Marketing Automation – Marketing automation is exactly what it sounds like - it's software which enables you to automate certain marketing tasks.

Even if this makes it sound hands off for you, you still need a human touch to set up your automation and make sure everything continues to run smoothly.

AI – AI stands for artificial intelligence, and it’s taking over the marketing world. You can think of AI as any time a machine mimics human intelligence.

Those algorithms we mentioned earlier are one example of how AI impacts your marketing strategies - the algorithms replace humans by quickly figuring out which businesses or websites should show up in your search results, News Feed, etc. AI is also used in advertising to determine which consumers see your business's ads in search results or their Facebook newsfeeds.

AI is already an important part of digital marketing, but we expect it to become even bigger in 2018 and beyond.

Customer Journey – Your consumer’s path to purchase is longer than you think and involves multiple touchpoints across different channels and devices.

People don’t purchase products or services after the first click – it's much more complicated than that. The customer journey is one of the most important things to understand when creating a digital marketing strategy.

Omnichannel – Along the same lines, omnichannel marketing means creating a seamless online presence (and marketing plan) that reaches customers wherever they’re searching or browsing.

Because the consumer’s path to purchase is longer and more complicated than it used to be, omnichannel marketing is more important than ever.

Attribution – Attribution is a fancy way to say figuring out which marketing channels are driving ROI (ROI was one of our buzzwords for 2017).

Attribution can be tricky, though, since consumers will likely interact with your business in a few different ways (visit your website, scroll through your social media, be served a retargeting ad or any other number of ways) before making a purchase.

You can track attribution through the first way a customer ever interacted with your business, assign attribution to each step of the way or even use the very last action/interaction before the customer made a purchase.

Geofencing – Geofencing is a form of location-based marketing.

It's setting a virtual boundary around a specific location. Think of it like drawing a circle (or polygon) around your business on a map to target people who are in the area.

Businesses that have an app can use geofencing to target people near the business and draw them in with a special offer or promotion.

Micro-Moments – Google talks about micro-moments all the time - they’re those little moments in your life when you need help with something so you reach for your phone.

Micro-moments are broken down into moments such as “I want to know,” “I want to go” and “I want to do,” among others. The point of micro-moments is to understand that there are plenty of small moments when you can be there for a consumer if your business has a consistent, correct online presence.

Smart Content – For a long time, everyone was saying that content is king, but it looks like smart content may be planning to usurp the throne.

Smart content is a term that people are throwing around a lot right now. It refers to personalized content that's designed to meet a consumer’s needs. This could be anything from adding the consumer’s name to an email or personalizing a call-to-action depending on where the consumer is in the buying cycle.

Hyperlocal – The word “hyperlocal” is nothing new, and neither is the marketing concept. But, with Facebook and Google making it easier and easier for local consumers to find the right business in their area, having a hyperlocal marketing strategy is imperative for businesses that want to compete in today’s digital world.

Local search marketing is a good place to get started with a hyperlocal strategy so that your business shows up when local consumers are looking for your products and services.

These are the buzz terms we expect to see a lot of in 2018. Some have been around for a long time, others are new, but it's worth considering what each means in a modern context, and how they relate to your approach.

Written by: Isabella Andersen

View Article Here

Photo by: Alisa Mulder - Unsplash

January 17, 2018

3 Tips For Creating Controversial Marketing Campaigns Without Destroying Your Brand

Is controversy always a good thing for marketing your brand?

It’s that age-old question… is all press good press?

There are supporters on either side of the fence, both armed with examples that suit their purpose.

So which side of the fence are you on?

Let’s reframe the question like this: How much and to what extent is controversy good for marketing, and after what point does it get bad?

The answer is complex, with several things to consider, like:

The level of controversy
The subject of controversy
The connection between the controversy, the conversation and the brand.

This may seem surprising given we are accustomed to seeing high-profile companies running controversial (sometimes highly controversial!) campaigns, and hijacking conversations on social media to rake in the profits that come from increased visibility.

But a study by academics from Wharton Business School found that while “controversy increases the likelihood of discussion at low levels”, beyond a moderate level of controversy, it “actually decreases the likelihood of discussion”.

So what are you meant to do if you want to add the right amount of controversy to your marketing campaign without going too far?

This blog post will explore how to create campaigns that provoke conversations and push the boundaries of social perception without negatively impacting your brand.

Ready?

Let’s go!

Tip 1: Choose the right controversy

Just as there are different degrees of controversy, there are different types of controversial campaigns that you can undertake:

Shock campaigns
Taboo campaigns
Debatable campaigns

Shock and Taboo campaigns are the ones that provoke widespread commentary on a contentious topic; for example, an ad that trots out the idea that all gamblers are liars or a pro-atheism poster that shows two priests kissing.

Whereas a Debatable campaign is one that has valid and rational points in both its pros and the cons, and is supported by data.

It is highly recommended to opt for a campaign that is Debatable.

That way, you can still stir up a debate, but let people decide where they stand on it. Debatable campaigns don’t solely rely on administering emotional shock or activating trigger points to generate a response, and rarely cause damage to your brand.

With a Debatable campaign, there is a minimal chance of anyone getting offended or hurt, yet everybody participating in the debate becomes aware of your brand. And this additional awareness can be leveraged by you to boost business.

A study conducted by the apartment location start-up Abodo called ‘Tolerance In America’ analyzed 12 million tweets for profane language, then ranked US states on the basis of tolerance.

The headline may be melodramatic, but this type of content is conducive to debate amongst people, as bigotry and intolerance are hot-button topics. Abodo was not adversely affected by putting up this blog post and the campaign was a huge success with more than 620 placements (240 DoFollow links and 280 co-citation links) and more than 67,000 shares which, in turn, stimulated social media discussion.

Another way to successfully harness controversy for your brand is by taking a bold stance on a highly-charged issue.

A great example that springs to mind is Oreo.

So what did Oreo do?

They came out in strong support of gay rights with a Facebook post that contained the image of a multi-colored cookie in the same configuration as the Gay Pride rainbow flag.

The result?

Well, the image sparked fierce debate among the company’s 27 million fans on its Facebook page. While Oreo did cop some flak, the controversy also popularized Oreo wildly and the company reaped a massive dividend from the ensuing publicity.

With more than 50,000 comments and 300,000 likes, it was so successful that there was even a petition for Oreo to manufacture real-life rainbow cookies. The general perception was that Oreo was a ‘brave’ brand for taking a courageous stand on a contentious issue.

There are several other lessons that can be drawn from this example, and some others which we will examine later in the article.

For now, the key takeaways are:

Keep your campaign debatable, or…
Take a stand on a contentious issue and center your campaign around that.

Tip 2: Connect the controversy to your brand

Deciding on a Debatable controversy is not enough. You also have to find a way to connect the controversy to your brand.

Otherwise you will simply be stirring the pot without translating it into measurable outcomes (be it tweets, likes, dislikes, shares, comments or sales profit).

Take this example of a 1-minute video advertisement released by United Nations Women, titled ‘The Autocomplete Truth’, that highlights gender inequality. The campaign compiled the Google autocomplete search results from around the world for the words ‘women should…’

Watch it for yourself.

The campaign was a huge success with the hashtag #womenshould gaining 224 million impressions on Twitter and earning the top spot of ‘Most Shared Ad of 2013’ on Facebook. The campaign also helped to spark a global debate on gender equality and women’s rights – both offline and online.

You can see how a controversial campaign like this allows the data to speak for itself; in this case, for Google search results from around the world.

Another example of a high-performing controversial campaign is from Sisley.

It subverts the stereotype of fashion models as starving and drug-addled by depicting fashion models ‘snorting’ clothing off a reflective surface.

While debate raged about whether the advertisement was glamorizing drug usage, one thing is for sure, the advertisement was racy and pushed the envelope of good taste. But it did so with a self-referential wink.

While it contained elements of a Shock campaign, it wasn’t just shocking for shock’s sake. And it definitely didn’t do any damage to the brand, with most of its target audience embracing the idea of being ‘fashion junkies’ or ‘addicted’ to expensive style.

Today’s consumers love to take a peek ‘behind the curtain’ and relate to witty content that speaks directly to them, so this type of campaign is well-placed to succeed.

Tip 3: Have a crisis management plan

As we’ve already discussed, controversial marketing campaigns are, by nature, well… controversial.

Before launching your campaign, it is imperative to discuss and have in place a crisis management plan to handle any backlash.

That way, you won’t have to fumble in a conference room putting together a press release in the wake of a social media storm. A good response system is crucial to effective brand management and maintaining your campaign’s integrity.

In other words, have a thoughtful and prepared response ready to go.

Let’s return to the example of the Oreo image.

While the company was successful in gaining massive online and offline support for their post, it did cop some flak.

Despite gaining more followers than they lost (or alienated), Oreo ending up pulling the image from its Facebook page after succumbing to pressure from followers threatening to either boycott or leave the page.

This is exactly the sort of situation you don’t want to wind up in.

Oreo’s panicky response in removing the image made them look less ‘brave’ than initially intended and indicated that their marketing team hadn’t properly considered the potential ramifications of the post. It showed a susceptibility to pressure as well as a regrettable inability to handle criticism.

So, here are some failsafe tips to put a crisis management plan (or as you may prefer to think of it, positive response system) in place.

Take a top-down approach. In other words, people at the top of your organization should take the initiative in responding. This shows that they lead by example and tells the public that their concern is being taken seriously.
Adopt a positive and empathetic tone when engaging with consumer complaints both online and offline. Offer a solution to fix the problem instead of merely apologizing. Show grace, tact and sensitivity.
Follow-through with those affected or offended by the marketing campaign in question to demonstrate an ability to listen to feedback across multiple platforms and action the ensuing results.

In conclusion

Don’t just court controversy for the sake of courting controversy. Instead, ask what it can do for your brand in moderate dosages and examine how it can be connected to your existing marketing messages.

Sometimes it is better to stay cold than to play with fire, however, if you decide to undertake a controversial campaign, use the above tips to generate the positive results you want.

Remember, your aim should never be to offend anybody, simply to tap into popular ideas and debate as an integral part of your engagement strategy.

Author: Vaibhav Kakkar is Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at RankWatch and NotifyFox, Software Solutions that help digital marketers perform better. Apart from helping businesses succeed online and writing about Internet Marketing, he spends time digging deep into the beautiful world of search engine algorithms. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

View Article Here