Artificial-Intelligence-AI-in-Marketing

Can Artificial Intelligence Help Marketing Your Business?

by Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence or cognitive technology is by far the next big thing. The applications are limitless from retail, banking, finance, marketing, manufacturing among others. But, the adoption of artificial intelligence is being met with fears of job replacement.

For the online business person, Artificial Intelligence will bring a new dimension to how you do business. It will take over the process of marketing, leaving you to focus on providing customer support, and driving your business forward.

Will AI replace humans

How Does It Work?

The technology is powered by big data available on the internet. It searches through, billions, of unprocessed data, to draw insights, which you as a marketer can use. Unlike, existing software tools, limited by the data they can access, Artificial Intelligence will have access to all digital channels, and provide comprehensive insights into your marketing strategy.

What are the Potential Applications of Artificial Intelligence?

Cognitive technology is here to automate tedious task marketers do: These may include:

Selection of the Marketing Channel

Through new algorithms, you can know which marketing channel is most appropriate for the business. It analyzes the website and the products, to determine where to run your marketing campaign.

The new artificial intelligence tools only require your site’s URL to function. By making this process automatic, it can save you costs of using channels that don’t generate traffic.

Image Recognition

Pictures are the first thing the customers see before engaging with the ad, by reading the copy. New algorithms can analyze separate objects in an image. For, instance, the AI can allow customers to search for a dress they have spotted on a model.

AI Shopping

The algorithm will comb through pictures on the web, and provide users with a list of online businesses selling the item. Also, the AI can recognize objects in a video. This feature could change the way users interact with your ads and website.

Content Creation

The AI can allow marketers to generate an advertisement automatically. It can come up with ad banners, select the image, and write the copy. This feature can reduce the time you spend creating the perfect ad, and hasten the implementation of the marketing strategy.

During content creation, the cognitive technology will write content that is not plagiarized, and readable; however, the quality of writing is not that good, but they are available services that generate articles in seconds.

Customer Support and Chat Bots

Part of your marketing strategy must involve creating better engagements with the customers. Once you drive thousands of people to your website, they have many questions which a chatbot can answer.

The chatbots have machine learning capabilities and grow smarter with each user interaction. However, there is the need for human supervision, to provide extensive replies.

Sales Forecasting

Before launching your marketing strategy, you must predict future sales. The AI can use historical data to know your business and potential customers for generating scenarios, analyzing risk and prediction of outcomes of the strategy.

Sales and AI

The cognitive technology is not aiming to replace markers but to automate tedious, time-consuming and complicated tasks. The technology is still at infancy but, in the future, it will be the real deal. For example, Google is perfecting their algorithm to create a personal assistant.

Instagram-Marketing-Strategy

How to build an effective Instagram Marketing Strategy?

by Digital Marketing

Instagram was launched in 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012. Since then, It has taken the mobile photo-sharing niche by storm and has attracted businesses from all over the world.

The social network claims that there are more than 15 million accounts with business profiles on the platform.

Business owners who want to improve their social media marketing campaigns turn to Instagram to reach their targeted audiences and engage other users.

how-instagram-started

Let’s check out some interesting Instagram stats.

  1. Instagram is estimated to have brought in $1.53 billion in global mobile ad revenue in 2016, which is a 144 percent increase year-over-year and would amount to 8.4 percent of Facebook’s global mobile ad revenue according to International Business Times.
  2. 100 million users use the “stories” feature daily.
  3. 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram per day.
  4.  Instagram has 1 million monthly active advertisers—up from just 200,000 in March 2016.
  5. 60% of users say that they have learned about a product or service on the platform.

 

Success on Instagram takes more than just uploading beautiful images. A successful Instagram marketing strategy is the product of a well-defined brand identity, strategy, and effective community management. Below are some of the ways that can help you come up with a good Instagram marketing strategy for an online business.

Determine the Objectives

Before an online business registers for an Instagram account, one should know what they want to achieve on the social network. It is important to determine first the purpose of the brand in using Instagram.

InstagramWith the platform’s focus on photo and video sharing, it provides businesses with a unique platform to showcase its products and/or services as well as the people and culture where the business is based.

Instagram is basically a mobile social media marketing platform. It is the perfect place to show in-the-moment or candid visuals. It provides followers a channel that allows them to interact personally with the brand. Engagement on the platform is also more instantaneous and casual than other social media networks.

It can help an online business achieve some of its marketing objectives that include increased brand awareness, recruitment of new talent, feature products and services, share company news, connect with influencers, and drive sales through traffic, just to name a few.

Know Your Audience

It is important to know who your target audiences are. That way you will be able to come up with a strategy involving content that your audience will want to engage with. The more you know about your target market, the better you can personalize your campaigns for their needs.

The best way to know about the audience is to follow them on Instagram. You can use the suggested feature of the platform to find other users like your target customer. This will also allow you to know them more and what they want to see on the social network.

Determine Content Strategy

Content strategy is one of the important elements of an Instagram marketing campaign. If the content is not interesting or relevant to the target audience, you will have a hard time becoming successful on Instagram.

The first thing that you need to do is to find out what you are going to share on the social media platform. These are the kind of images that will make up the majority of your Instagram posts. Some of the categories include product-centric, culture-centric, or a combination of both.

instagram content

If your brand already enjoys a good customer base, you might want to post content that is created by your loyal customers.

Instagram is a very important channel for all businesses these days. A good social media marketing campaign on the platform can take the business to the next level. All it takes is a little planning, creativity, and a lot of passion.

mobile-app-engagement

5 Practices to Increase Mobile App Engagement

by Mobile Apps

Companies have embraced mobile app marketing, and they need to ensure that mobile device users are using their applications. As a business, you must ensure that Mobile app development consultants adopt the following methods to achieve an increase in mobile app engagement.

Focus on App Usability and Improved UX

The first impression of the user when using your mobile app will greatly determine whether he/she will revisit again. If the application creates a bad impression, the user will instantly uninstall it.

UI Design
To ensure that the user keeps using the application, ask your mobile app development consultant to make certain that he creates an app that allows a great user experience from the moment the app is downloaded.

During mobile app development stages, your developers should target simplifying all the aspects so that mobile app user does not have to read a lot of instructions to be able to use your mobile app. The application should be easy to use with minimal need for support.

Embrace Push Notification in Applications

Push notifications act as reminders to the mobile app users and therefore will improve app engagement. To increase mobile app engagement, use push notifications appropriately. Don’t send too many notifications, but send them moderately.

Push notifications mobile appMobile app users are easily annoyed with apps sending too many unnecessary and irrelevant push notifications. During mobile app development, always make sure that your developer gives the users an option of subscribing to app notifications. It is good to ensure the notifications are helpful and not just junk information that mobile users may not be interested in.

Social Media Sharing

Make use of the social media links on the application. This has to be done during mobile app development so that users can share the information in your app with their social media networks.

social media sharing

This will generate some extra traffic to your application. This option will be better if you consider asking new users who find your mobile application through the link to install it before or after reading the material sent through the app.

Advertising

Creating marketing campaigns for your application will greatly drive installs for your mobile application and increase user engagement. You can advertise through social media or in other applications. The motive of your ads should be to engage advertisement of your products should at least direct customers to download the application and let them know that it can be used to communicate with you.

fbThe best alternative way to achieve mobile app user engagement is through display ads on search results and websites. Offer discounts for the first items bought through your mobile application to attract users.

App Tracking Tools

After mobile app development, it is important that you install tracking code so that you are able to track what users do and how they engage through your app. Using this you can send customized push notifications reminding the users to come back and resume sessions. 

Mobile Apps have become increasingly competitive today. Companies across industries are targeting users through mobile app marketing. Apps account for 89% of the mobile media time, with the other 11% spent on websites. Follow the guidelines above to keep the mobile app users engaged.

ecommerce-marketing-ideas

5 Effective eCommerce Marketing Ideas.

by Digital Marketing

Regardless if you are a start-up or an established company, it is highly important that you are updated with the latest marketing strategy and trends. Structuring, developing and finally launching your eCommerce website is a single step towards your company’s goal. You will then have to develop an effective web structure and effective marketing plan that will contribute to your company’s success.

Top 5 eCommerce Marketing Tactics This 2017

Read on if you are interested to find out the latest and effective marketing strategy this 2017. Here are some of them.

1. Content Marketing

content-mAfter you launched your online shopping portal, it is time for you to create original and high-quality content. Make sure that your content resonates with your targeted customer that will encourage them to interact with you. Your content may also help you build an active community that is ready to be converted into a purchasing customer. Some people choose to use Adobe Photoshop to alter and re-engineer images. Unfortunately, duplicated or even altered content can affect your branding. You should invest and purchase only the original graphic content. The same thing can be said about text and articles.

2. Personalized Marketing

Personalized MarketingConsumers will serve as the driving force of your eCommerce business. This means that you need to stand out and be unique if you want to capture the interest of the consumers. Most companies will provide them with the latest technologies, allowing the consumers to browse the list of products and purchase any time they want. It is important that you will provide them with personalized UX (User Experience) that will address the needs of your consumers. Customers will be here to stay when they feel that they are valued.

3. Social Media Marketing

newyork social media marketingSocial media is a powerful platform which allows you to interact with your customers, digital influencers, and possible business partners. Social media can be used to generate organic traffic, develop a community and encourage interaction. Social media can help your online shopping business develop trust, authority and brand recognition. We also recommend using analytical tools in order to measure how your marketing strategy is affecting your company’s bottom line.

4. Email Marketing

email-marketingEmail marketing is still the most effective way to reach out to your audience this 2017. However, you need to be careful when executing your email marketing strategy. Most people are tired of receiving junk and spam email and will no longer pay attention to these messages. You need to offer your audience some value when sending emails. You can provide them with the latest updates, coupons or discount codes, informative content and others.

5. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO-Marketing

This is a manual and crucial method of your marketing strategy. With the increasing standard in the SEO this 2017, you need to make sure that your eCommerce website is in compliance and constantly updated to avoid getting penalized by the search engine sites. You may seek the help of a professional developer to perform a diagnosis on your online shopping website and find errors and issues in your codes.

Stay up to date with the latest marketing strategies as it is essential for the success of your business. With the right marketing ideas, you will be able to attract your prospective customers and boost your company’s conversion rate.

3-Simple-strategies-for-mobile-marketing-success

3 Simple Strategies for Mobile Marketing Success.

by Mobile Apps

Having a mobile website or an app will not guarantee the success of a mobile marketing campaign. There are already 2.5 million apps in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store combined. Without app store optimization through SEO, ASO and SEM, people will not be able to find the app.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization has four factors such as relevance, honesty, popularity, and indexation. There are SEO tools that can help with the indexation of the mobile app, such as Google Keyword Planner. Popularity is measured by the number of backlinks to the web app.

Quality content will not only deliver more value to the community and attract other websites; it will also bring more relevance. Being honest by not trying to cheat Google is important to avoid disappearing from the search engine’s index.

App Store Optimization

App store optimization or ASO works the same for Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It is important that you give a good user experience when they land on your app page. In the Apple App Store, the title must be short and descriptive. Keep it around 25 characters at most. The description should include the keywords, but it must be short and direct to the point. Keep in mind that Google indexes iTunes pages, and you should optimize your description with the best SEO practices.

The app page must have five screenshots and a preview video of around 15 to 30 seconds long. The Apple App Store allows users to define keywords for the app, so you should make the most out of the 100 characters. You should avoid using misleading keywords. For the reviews, use the feedback to improve the app. However, your goal is to get good ratings.

For the Google Play Store, it is important that you also keep the title short. The guide on descriptions is the same as that of the Apple App Store. Make sure that it includes all the features and important keywords because it affects the search engine ranking of the app.

The icon of the app is the first thing that users see when they search for it, and that’s why a lot of effort must be used to make it stand out from the competition. Google Play Store allows users to upload up to eight screenshots and a YouTube video up to 120 seconds long.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing or SEM is paid ads placed in search engine result pages. It should be part of your mobile marketing strategies. Before any SEM campaigns, you should first define your objectives, select the keywords, make create ads, create landing pages, and decide on your budget.

These are the things that you need to keep in mind if you want to launch a successful mobile marketing campaign. Search engine optimization, app store optimization and search engine marketing are important if you want your mobile app to gain a lot of users.

Voice-search-is-changing-the-future-of-SEO

How Voice Search Is Changing the Future of SEO?

by Artificial Intelligence

 siri-760x400

Statistics from think with Google place voice search at 20%. Users are interacting with smartphones more than their computers, and Google is trying to provide quality mobile-friendly websites. Therefore, content marketers need to focus on mobile users more.

What Are the Pros of Using Voice Search?

voice-search-app-ss-1920On a mobile phone, it’s quicker to ask Google a question than to do manual typing. In some demanding scenarios like when driving; you can’t type in the query for directions, but the voice search feature is applicable and safer. Also, you can accurately express what’s on your mind by talking; rather than typing it down.

An Expert’s Take on the Impact of Mobile Search

During the Search Marketing Expo in March 2016, BehshadBehzadi, a Principle Engineer at Google delivered the keynote speech on the prospect of mobile search. According to Behshad, the future of search is the creation of an online virtual assistant. He also demonstrated the strides made by the search recognition technology, which has a high accuracy rate and an advanced capability of comprehending natural speech patterns. For instance, the voice recognition algorithm automatically removes repeated words and stuttering in speech. It’s able to recognize the user’s intent and display relevant content.

Google SearchThe Google search algorithm can understand long questions, and give the user accurate information. An example you may ask Google what the weather condition will be tomorrow and get the weather forecast based on your location. The voice search app talks back to the user; it’s like having a conversation with a real person. You can also set alarms using the action feature; play music, call someone, or book a reservation –providing users with a hands-free experience. Google has also improved the integration of voice search with other apps for increased productivity.

How will the new trend impact SEO?

It will place more demand for unique content that Google can use to answer voice queries. To rank higher; websites should focus on adding more pages that target both short-keyword phrases and long sentences queries. Also, existing content would require rewriting to incorporate longer sub-titles. The use of location-specific keywords would also increase since Google is focused on helping users interact with their immediate surroundings better.

How can Marketers and Content Creators Gain from Increased Mobile Search?

Understanding the difference between voice queries and typed searches is important. When typing on the computer, users will be less descriptive and focus on specific keywords. However, in a voice search, the user is free to add more details to the query creating a longer phrase. Content marketers need to add detailed descriptions to the products focusing on using real-world phrases. It’s also important to incorporate more versions of the keyword phrase in the content.

mobile search

Google wants to focus on providing the right user experience. The process of displaying search results is still the same. First, Google crawls the web and downloads web pages, analyses them, and stores them for retrieval during a search. What’s different is the focus on semantics or linguistic analysis in addition to the mobile-friendliness score. For better SEO webmasters need mobile-friendly sites; they will rank higher on the Google index. It’s also critical to avoid duplication of content and ‘spammy’ behaviors.

The reality of an online virtual assistant to automate daily mundane tasks is no longer a science fiction fantasy. In the future, instead of searching the web, we will be having a conversation with the internet.

5-reasons-why-small-businesses-need-a-mobile-app

5 Reasons why small businesses need a mobile app

by Mobile Apps
Small business needs a mobile app- Not Kidding!

Small businesses were once very easy to run. You just have to set up a shop, place an ad in the local newspaper, wait for the businesses to come through. Though it took a few days, it wasn’t a complex process. But as days went by, the Internet became an essential element in running any business.

Small business owners now have to keep up with technological advancements in order to run their businesses successfully.

The difficult part starts with setting up a website as small businesses seriously need one. Earlier, only large corporations had a website on their own, but it was time for the small business owners to become familiar with web designing, hosting, etc. Once the website is ready, it doesn’t end with that. You should also get familiar with SEO, Ads, tackling issues related to social media, offline and online marketing, etc.

As all these became essential for a small business, it looks like you now need to function like an MNC.

shopping-with-mobile-phonesDoes it all end here. Absolutely not. Now it’s all about mobile phones. Gone are those days where we used mobile phones only to talk to each other. Smartphones have revolutionized the way we do business. Even large corporations from all over the world, have shifted from their routine work of printing ads, billboards, and giving out leaflets, to the world of mobile marketing and ads. And of course, there are enough reasons why small businesses should embrace the change but almost all small businesses have one common perception in their minds.

A mobile App? We don’t see a need for that at the moment.

Yes, You might not see a need but there are plenty of stats and research findings that reveal what the consumers expect. Here are a few surprising mobile app stats.

  • Of the 1.8 hours average users spend online on their smartphones each day, mobile apps account for 89 percent of this media time (Social Media Today).
  • Almost 60 percent of marketers say mobile apps are crucial to creating a cohesive customer journey (Salesforce).
  • Around 88 percent of customers who search for local businesses online will actually visit or call these businesses within a day (Social Media Today).
  • 269 billion apps will be downloaded in 2017 (Statista)

Number of mobile app downloads worldwide in 2016, 2017 and 2021 (in billions)

Mobile app stats

You need an “extra” to become extraordinary. The survival rate of small businesses depends upon the extraordinary effort and innovative ideas they bring to the table. Here are few ideas that show how small businesses can benefit from mobile apps.

1. More Value to Your Customers

Business is all about giving. When you open up and offer your product, it should create value for your customers. If they find your product/service to be great, the market/customers will be ready with their wallets. Mobile App is a great way to increase your customers’ interaction with your brand. And not only that, you can add a lot of offers and loyalty programs inside your app in such a way that when the user opens the app, they have great deals either while ordering online or be it in the shop. One great example is The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, They offer free brewed coffee/hot tea to customers who install their mobile app.

2. Better Brand Engagement

Customer service is not always about communicating through emails or having a conversation over the telephone. Nowadays, it has become much more than that. A recent survey brings an interesting fact that 63.5% of the entire U.S population is expected to use a smartphone.

The real challenge for businesses is to create a rapport with their target audience and the best way to deal with this would be with the help of a mobile app. Design the mobile app in such a way that it interacts with your customers seamlessly. It should give a feel as if they are interacting with you in person. If you can win this challenge, you can resolve all your sales and customer service issues.

mobile app for small business

Another huge advantage of building a mobile app is when a customer wants to know something about your business at his convenience, say middle of the night, all he has to do is unlock his mobile and download the app. Very simple. Even buying a product is very simple. The customer doesn’t have to wait for the opening hours. He can just order it through the mobile app even when the working hours are over. For example, big boys like Amazon, eBay, etc allow you to order anything you need, from anywhere and at any time.

3. More Revenue, More Profit

A mobile app has enough features to generate additional income. By 2020, there will be 6.1 billion smartphone users globally.

When you create a user-friendly mobile app, the customers tend to spend more time browsing your product/services. When there’s more personalized content, there is a higher chance of an increase in sales. Recent data from Yahoo’s Flurry analytics shows that 90% of consumer’s mobile time is spent on apps.

It’s an App world, the web just lives in it.

percent-time-spent-on-mobile-apps-2017

CMO by Adobe recorded every e-commerce transaction during the 2016 holiday shopping. It reveals that a staggering $46 billion worth of sales came through mobile devices.

Here’s a very interesting statistic from Domino’s Pizza. When they introduced the mobile app for ordering pizzas, they saw a quick rise of 28% in sales in just half-year. As of today, 51% of their online orders come through mobile apps.

4. Customer Experience

A well-designed mobile app can perform faster than a mobile website as it does not require a web server. Mobile App stores all its data on the local device thus making it perform faster.

Minimal UI design combined with personalized content is more likely to engage your audience.

 Sleek Design

5. Extended Marketing Tool

More than just a mobile app, it can act as a tool adding a lot more value to your marketing efforts. If your app helps the users save time or keeps them engaged, they would definitely recommend it to their friends and share glowing reviews.

mobile-marketing-Griffon WebstudiosAs a business, Instead of reaching out to the customers through the traditional medium of phone/email, you could try conveying your message in the form of a mobile app.

Your downloads will increase when you promote the app with special deals and coupons. The users would enjoy the experience rather than avoiding the brand.

You must remember that today’s customers are constantly moving and addicted to their mobile devices.

72% of adult internet users use Facebook.

Your app can be easily integrated with Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. That allows the users to share your app with their network and review your business if they enjoy the experience. This gives you free publicity.

Forbes states that “building and delivering great mobile experiences will be the beating heart of your customer engagement strategy for the next 10 years.”

Push Notifications

One of the most important features the small businesses can make use of is push notifications. Push notifications are alerts that pop up on a user’s screen and informs them of the latest news, deals, offers and so on, which are available through your app.

Frequency, Timing, Content, and Deep linking are the important strategies to master when it comes to push notifications.

Frequency: Push notifications can keep your customers well informed and interested but too many notifications would frustrate the customer and they end up trashing the app. There are no universally correct solutions for frequency but don’t overdo it. It all depends on your audience and their expectation.

Timing: Right place at the right time always works. Timing is very crucial in sending push notifications. The best way to determine the optimal timing for your business is by A/B testing. The same message at different hours will give you the user pattern and their engagement rate.

Content: Make sure that you offer real value, every single time. Content that drives urgency and relevancy would drive them to your app.

78% of users tend to immediately delete the app or disable notifications if they are unhappy with the content.

Deep Linking: Push notifications with links can redirect your audience to a specific screen or pages in the app. As a result, It provides a seamless experience and increases the engagement level of the viewers due to less distraction.

Mobile App stats

As you know, Mobile apps play such a huge role in the world of small business but there are two major things that make or break your app strategy. The quality of your app and the way it is marketed to the audience determines your success.

local-seo-image

5 important things to remember in Local SEO

by Digital Marketing

One of the highly effective forms of online marketing is Local Search Engine Optimization commonly known as Local SEO. This online marketing technique is found to be tricky because it does not just stop with performing the on-page and off-page work, but even the more complex activities such as citations and listings.

Though it sounds simple, Local SEO can get confusing when differentiated into various forms and deeper analysis. A good example of this is, the common misunderstanding that having listed in a lot of directories is the exact way to achieve a successful local SEO. The reason why it’s not completely true is that there are several other factors that need to be in order other than the number of listings in directories.

Local business store

The business should ensure that the directories listed are unique and relevant to the industry of business and are being optimized based on the location of your business which includes street name, city and state.

To better understand the technique to achieve a successful local SEO, you should remember the five major things below:
  1. Accurate location in online listings
  2. Useful information on directories.
  3. Building social profiles
  4. Getting more reviews
  5. Optimizing for Hyperlocal.

 

1. Accuracy and Consistency in online listings:

The first important thing to keep in mind is the information such as Name, Address, Phone number and Website. The information should be accurate and consistent across all the listings. A recent study revealed some interesting patterns found among the local business owners. 

Around 85% wanted their business to be found on local listings and directories but only a very few have actually taken the effort to update their business information on the web.

70% of business owners say that there is not enough time for them to update.

The two most annoying things for the local customers are:

  1. Finding a false location of the business he/she’s searching for will have an adverse effect on the business.
  2. Mismatch in business information- Untrustworthy.

A lot of times we don’t find even some of the most important details such as the store information, operational hours, location with a map. Such inaccuracies lead to the dead-end of your local SEO efforts.

This can further be divided into two

(i) Accuracy of the Information

(ii) The consistency of the information.

  • crossfit nycThe accuracy of the Information: Information required to optimize your local business are Name, Phone Number and Address. It is used as an important tool to determine the accuracy of the business. The information fed on the listing should have the correct information. An easy example to remember is Kasey’s Donuts misspelled as Kassey’s Donuts– A simple spelling mistake would lead to inaccurate information on the listing.
  • The consistency of the information:  After accuracy, Consistency is the second most important word to remember in Local SEO. The business information on listings, local mentions, citations and directories must be consistent across all the places. Businesses should stay cautious and not let the consistency of their brand slip away by entering information that mismatch.

Local SEO can be optimized in a simple way by keeping the information consistent and accurate.

2. Useful information on directories:

It is a well-known fact that getting listed on the directories is a very simple process. The difficult part of this process is to provide detailed information about your local business and making them rank higher.

The most important step to perform is to create a local listing. A recent survey conducted by the Local Search Association Inc revealed the information consumers wish to see when they search for a local listing. 

  • Address 67%,
  • Phone number 66%,
  • Location 59%,
  • Company name 56%,
  • Website 54%,
  • Prices 52%,
  • Credentials 22%

There is enough reason now to keep the directories updated with as much relevant information as possible. If your listing has more information, there are higher chances of customers reaching out leading to more new business. 

3. Building Social Profiles:

The biggest advantage of local SEO is that your business can benefit even without having a website. This is possible because of the way the Local SEO works. Social profiles like Google plus, Yelp has become an identity for all the local businesses and it dominates the search results and listings providing exact information thus bringing success to the local SEO efforts.

As a business owner, Do you think the website will help in scaling up your business and streamline the operations? The answer is always a resounding “Yes” irrespective of the niche your business belongs to. A lot of times, customers prefer checking the business details on their social profiles instead of visiting the website. But having a website is an authority on the business you are managing as it allows the customers to know more about who you are, what services you offer, and read the client testimonials.

One classic example is the delicious coffee shop in New York- Neil’s Coffee Shop has so much success with social profiles. When you search for this restaurant you’d only see the rating, reviews, timings, and price. Now, this information surely hasn’t come from the web search, because this shop doesn’t have a website. The only way the restaurant earned its place is through social profiles and local listings, which clearly signifies the importance of social profiles for local businesses.

4. Getting more reviews:

The best thing about local SEO is that you can control it very easily by creating local listings in Yelp, Foursquare, Google Business page, and Facebook page which helps the listing go on top for the local search.   

The only thing that you cannot control is the ‘reviews’. You need to earn it with the quality of the service provided to your customers. You can always encourage them to give ratings and reviews online as most of the shoppers decide their visit depending upon the ratings and reviews.

As a token of appreciation and love, you could always incentivize your customers with some free coupons, discounts, etc which would make them share their experience at your store. We can do a few innovative things to make the customers voluntarily perform this act.    

QR-Code-local storePosting a sign at the door, a QR code on the menu allowing the customers to scan and post reviews, and so on. By going a little further, you can also get your service team to ask for reviews from customers at the time of checkout.

Reviews are an essential part of local SEO. Google always keeps delivering results that are local with high reviews for a great customer experience. 

5. Optimizing for Hyperlocal:

Google is in the process of testing an algorithm called the ‘neighborhood algorithm’.

Few steps for a successful local SEO:

  • Your neighborhood name can be added at the end of the business page. (Example: Ray’s Pizza, South City East)
  • If you have a website, don’t forget to add the texted version of your neighborhood name.
  • Your neighborhood name has to be added to the website on the title tags area.
  • Be aware and check thoroughly whether Google Maps has defined and placed your neighborhood correctly. 
  • Don’t forget to add your neighborhood to all the citation profiles that are local.

You need to follow the guidelines above to successfully optimize your business for the local search.

10-tips-for-email-marketing

10 tips to create a successful email marketing campaign

by Digital Marketing

Is your e-mail marketing campaign facing a massive challenge with open rates and clicks? Here are 10 tips to create a successful email marketing campaign. This will help your email campaign grow more effectively and bring success to all your email marketing initiatives.

In this article, We’ll learn how to handle the email recipients and distribution of newsletters along with some tips to design campaigns and trigger emails.

1. Optimizing your subscriber list

Having a huge email database of clients/subscribers will not change the game, It’s the quality that matters. Obviously, There’s no point when your email campaign has 5,000 subscribers but only 300 opens the email. Right? If you have a large number of inactive subscribers, mailing them over and over again will be the worst thing to do. In order to optimize the process, it is very important to generate relevant data from your previous email campaigns.

How to find your inactive subscribers: The first step is to look at the subscribers who have neither opened the mail nor carried out any action. In the second step, Sit back and carefully analyze the behavior of these inactive subscribers. Check their status in the last 30 days or a period of 3 months and understand the pattern on the timeline the users became inactive. It could be because of the frequency of your email broadcasts. Whatever the reason is, Always remember that you DO NOT delete the inactive subscribers.

2. Reactivate the subscribers

After thorough research on your subscribers’ list, you might now know which contacts are inactive on your mailing list. Now the aim is to create a campaign that mainly targets to transform them back to interested readers or customers. Before starting with the reactivation campaign, you can suspend the regular emails for some time to the inactive recipients and surprise them with some unusual way to promote your brand, offers, newsletters.

unusual-emails

The surprise effect has a much higher response than the boring conventional “We missed you” emails. Here are 4 unusual campaigns that are quirky and memorable which could restore interest in your product/service.

  • Brand Stories
  • Say Happy Birthday.
  • Ask for opinion
  • Mark a customer Anniversary

 

Brand Stories– Who doesn’t like secrets? We get so intrigued to know the conversation Neil Amstrong had with his partner before stepping foot on the surface of the moon. We wait eagerly to hear what happened inside the dressing room during the super bowl game. Don’t we?

brand-storytelling-1A story communicates a lot more about your product/service than just the conventional way of communication. You end up becoming more transparent to the customer by sharing every bit of the occurrence while creating your awesome brand.

A few brands have been successful in doing this like Apple- which is a cult for its customers and “Transfarency” by Southwest Airlines which has a loyal bunch of customers.

Say Happy Birthday – Surprise! Your customer might not be expecting you to wish on his/her birthday. A small gesture like this would naturally make them remember you.

birthday-surprise_thumb1The same subscribers might also be in your competitors’ mailing list and they’d probably get generic emails and newsletters, coming at it in an unusual way would make them remember your product/brand over the others.

You still need to follow a rule and add value to your emails. Follow the Dos and Don’ts of the birthday mail campaign. 

Ask for opinion– According to a survey conducted by PwC, 62% say that they trust brands less today so the traditional form of advertisement may not be as effective as it used to be. You need to connect with the customers and ask for their opinion. A lot of companies are aware of it and they are in the game of collecting feedback by asking way too many questions.

Keep your customer survey/feedback form as short and simple as possible for a better completion rate.

Mark a Customer Anniversary: Yes, A customer anniversary. A lot of companies these days are pro-active in maintaining a record of birthdays and other important dates for their customers. You could take this to the next level by remembering the date when they first purchased your product or signed up for the newsletter and celebrate the date.

customer-anniversaryYou could offer some anniversary discount or special offers which they would definitely not be expecting.

3. Winning your email subscribers

This part needs a lot of creativity as the subscriber should feel the worth of receiving your emails. Let’s first understand how to win email subscribers.

Winning email subscribers– How it works?

Building a perfect follow-up/email sequence is one of the biggest challenges in email marketing. Most companies are indifferent towards setting up a proper email sequence in their campaigns as they find it to be time-consuming. Yes, This cannot be done overnight as it requires you to understand the buyer’s mindset and slowly build interest in your product/service. But it is worth every bit of the effort you put in. A personalized email offers a great potential for wider coverage and more interest.

Why create your own email list?

There are plenty of reasons why you should create your own email list. Most of the emails IDs are captured in pop-up/ contact form on your website or from your social media pages. It means that the subscriber has already shown interest and agreed to receive your newsletter, which marks them to be of good quality.

These recipients are partially or fully aware of your brand or services so it obviously makes it worthwhile for you to spend enough time nurturing these leads. Also by creating your own list of emails, you clearly know the exact stage they are at and it helps you to determine what happens to the data and how often the recipients are to be contacted.

Why not just buy email addresses?

We often hear this question. “Where can we buy email addresses?”. Let me give you the answer: “JUST DON’T DO THAT!”

no-unsolicited-emailsFirst of all, Purchasing email addresses will not make any good to your business. You might get offers from different companies like “100,000 e-mail addresses for $300” which might sound lucrative but In reality, these are mostly illegally collected data, which are sold to the business that lacks marketing capabilities.

Unsurprisingly, The quality of these purchased records is extremely poor. In addition, relevant e-mail addresses are often sold several times, so the recipients will already be receiving tons of spam emails from different vendors and you’d only end up damaging your brand with these tactics.

What should I consider when building an email campaign?

It is very important to first determine your target audience. It brings your business usually a little or nothing if you have addresses in your mailing list which are not looking for your service. You should always follow the legal framework while adding new emails to your list. Follow the double opt-in process and always provide a choice for your recipients to unsubscribe anytime from the newsletter.

4. Check the lead generation/landing page

A landing page is a page where your visitors “land” to know more about your product/service.

This is exactly where the visitors transform to become a subscriber. Therefore, you should devote a lot of attention to this page. Do not overload this page with unnecessary distractions such as banners, advertisements, or information about some events. These do not belong here. The focus has to be on the benefits they get by subscribing to your newsletter. Place the incentive in a prominent place in the form of vouchers/Freebies that they could avail by registering for your newsletter. See how people view your website. 

5. Placing the newsletter sign

Is the registration form for your newsletter easy to find on the website? In principle, it is advantageous to place the newsletter subscription at several places on the site. Clearly visible, because no one wants to search for it. The ideal place should be on the sidebar or header.

newsletter-popup

6.Keep Consistent Design

Is the color and design of your brand updated on your newsletter? Has anything changed on the front-end design on your website? The new design should always be used in the newsletter. webdesignA unified design across all channels will help the customers recall your brand and differentiate yours from other players in the market.

These days most of the newsletters are read on smartphones or tablets which require all your newsletters to be optimized to display on mobile devices.

7. Install Tracking code:

The email campaign is all set and your reactivation campaign is in the starting blocks. Have you thought of tracking the emails? Tag everything you use in the newsletter like images, Call to Actions buttons (CTA), download buttons, and links so that you can follow exactly in the wake of what works in your newsletter and what does not.analytics

In your tracking strategy, Remember to track all the measurable objectives like clicks on images, links and track your conversions. You can integrate your email tool with Google Analytics if you want to track the number of visits your newsletter generated for your website. And always make sure that your emails comply with the current privacy policy.

8. Improve your email campaigns

Filter the email campaigns of last year and note down the tracking results and other key performance indicators. Analyze what went well and what needs improvement. Get regular customer feedback in the form of surveys and find out what your customers like and don’t like. With this information, you will be able to easily improve your campaigns.

You can try some online survey tools like Survey Monkey, WebEngage, Engageform.

9. Triggering automatic emails

Triggering auto e-mails are made in various stages of contacting the customer. Automation is a great advantage for your business as it keeps reminding the recipient about your offerings constantly but it also carries the risk of annoying the recipient with frequent e-mails.

auto-emails-jpgAnalyze the open rate and responses from the recipient and create a cheat sheet to get more insights on the following.

  1. What worked in the past?
  2. Which design makes good impressions (CPM) and generates more clicks?
  3. What revisions should you do on the email content? etc.

 

When you keep your email content updated, it would be more effective and rewarding. You can use some of the best free email marketing tools like MailChimp, Mailerlite, Hubspot, Zoho.

10. Timeline for e-mail campaigns

Create an annual overview of your e-mail marketing plan. You don’t have to strictly follow the same plan throughout the entire year. But it is to give a clear direction on when and how to increase the frequency of emails. An annual plan will help you to keep track of the daily businesses and get some space for creative campaigns like Seasonal events such as Thanksgiving, Halloween, Super Bowl which is the best time for targeted marketing.

Now it’s your turn! With these 10 tips, you have a checklist in hand and this should bring more success to your email campaigns.

What-is-SEO

What is SEO? How does it work?

by Digital Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique used to increase the number of visitors to the website and improving the ranking on search engine results such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Let’s see how this works.

According to Hubspot, 80% of the traffic for a website begins with a search query.

Search Engine Optimization Process

The process of search engine optimization can be divided into three parts-

  • Keyword Analysis
  • On-page and Off-page optimization
  • Backlinks.

It is essential for every website owner to extensively research the keywords that are relevant to their business. Creating descriptive and useful content using the identified keywords will help the website to rank on top of the search results. This can be done through on-page and off-page optimization activities.

On-page optimization- A few changes are made on the back-end to integrate the keywords on your website in the form of the page title, description, image names.

Off-page optimization- The optimization measures do not take place on the site. but “off” page in the form of backlinks, a link-building process of obtaining hyperlinks from other websites to yours.

The search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo have their own algorithms and formulas to deliver the best possible results for all searches. The algorithm keeps changing every now and then in order to fight spam and ensure the best results. The entire search process happens in 1/8th of a second.

Google’s algorithm is very dynamic and it is focused mainly on delivering the best and most relevant results to the users. In order to maintain the quality, Google releases updates on the algorithm quite often. Google Panda was the first update followed by a lot more focus on improving the quality of the website and search engine optimization practices.

google_algorithm_

What is a Keyword in SEO?

A keyword is referred to a particular word or combination of words, that are entered by the user in the search engine to access specific information. Search engines such as Google or Bing assess the keyword phrase and line up websites in the search results according to their relevance. The site which has great content and more visits will be placed on the top of the search results.

computer repair concept - workers repairing keyboard

The website ranking has to be closely monitored by the site administrator because he can make a positive impact on the keyword ranking by accurately researching and placing appropriate keyword terms in the content which would lead to more relevance and better quality. It’s very important to be more specific in selecting the keywords as more irrelevant visits to the website would be simply meaningless.

It is also important to keep in mind to target long-tailed keyword phrases than a single keyword.

Keyword tools

There are many tools available online to determine the relevant keywords for your business. The most reliable tools are Google keyword planner and Google trends.

Google Keyword Planner is a free Adwords tool that is more focused on picking the right set of keywords for Ads in Google. You can search for new keyword ideas, find out the volume of searches and obtain the keyword list to decide on the relevant keyword for your business.

Google Trends is an excellent tool that allows you to compare the popularity of search terms over a period of time. It shows the relative level of interest for your prospective keyword phrase and helps you identify the most trending keyword that is relevant to your business.

Here’re some keyword tools that would help to do the research

importance-of-keyword-research

On-page optimization

On-page optimization is nothing but making certain changes to the website to bring in line with the best SEO practices. These changes are done by tweaking the HTML code, meta tags, keyword placement, and keyword density on the website in order to improve its ranking in search engine results.

Following are some of the on-page components that impact the website ranking in the search results.

  • Page Title: This is the first element that is shown in the search results for your website, Page Title has to be unique for every page.

page-title

  • Meta Description: This attribute provides a short explanation on the topic of the web page that both the users and search engine can understand.

meta-description

  • Meta Tags/Keywords: Enter unique keywords relevant to the content in the meta tag field. However, It does not have any effect on SEO these days.
  • H1 Tags: The header tag that goes from <h1>to<h6> is the heading that stands out on the page indicating the title of the content.
  • Alt-Text: Alternative text gives a description of the image to the website users and search engines.

Off-Page Optimization:

In order to increase the ranking of the website on the search engine results page (SERPs), Off-Page optimization is quintessential. This is one of the most effective ways to build the online reputation of your website using backlinks.

Backlinks

In Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) backlinks play an important role. Google considers the website with more backlinks to be the most relevant to the content. It is also important to have diversity in backlinks, The quality of your website will increase when you get endorsed by different domains linking to your website.

link-building-in-michiganHow to get backlinks?

In order to keep an eye on the quality of the content, Google carefully monitors each and every activity that takes place on the web. A piece of advise-DO NOT buy or trade links. It increases the risk of spam which could bring a lot of trouble to your website. The organic way of creating backlinks yield some great results. Here are some easy methods to start building organic links.

Blogging

Keep in mind that the main objective of Google is to provide users with useful and relevant search results. All you need to do is, Create helpful content that benefits people. If you have a product or provide a specific service, Talk about it on blogs. Let the readers know how your product/service adds value to people’s lives.

blog-facts

A big part of Google’s algorithm focuses on the concept of unique and original content so make sure that the content created across the blogs is all genuine.

There are a lot of companies that sell backlinks. NEVER buy such cheap backlinks. Google will ban your website for spammy content.

Social Networking

Social Network is an online platform where users engage in discussion and build social relationships. It’s very important to be active on social media. It provides a great opportunity to communicate your thoughts, interests, and ideas with the online community.

Building your brand on social websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr makes it easy for people to access and know more about your company.

Search Engine Submission

Search engine submission is done to notify Google about the existence of the website and instruct the bots to include the site in the search results. Some of the most authentic Search engine submission sites are

  • Google : https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url
  • Bing : http://www.bing.com/toolbox/submit-site-url
  • Baidu : http://zhanzhang.baidu.com/sitesubmit/index
  • Yahoo! Search : https://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
  • Dmoz : http://www.dmoz.org/

Social Bookmarking

The purpose of Social bookmarking is to help Google identify the category/concept of the website. The web pages bookmarked in social bookmarking sites add authenticity which helps in improving the backlink quality. This is one of the important steps in the search engine optimization process.

  • StumbleUpon
  • Delicious
  • Reddit. These are some of the well-known social bookmarking websites.

Business Reviews

The online business review makes a huge impact on businesses these days. The three major benefits that we get from testimonials and reviews are

  • About 90% of the top executives read testimonials before making any business decision. It plays an important role in influencing the customer.
  • Reviews help to understand if your business is on the right track and make a decision based on that.
  • Testimonials have a direct relationship to your performance. You can market it to your leads in the form of email campaigns. You can also place them on the website and forums.

Local Listing

One of the important steps performed in the SEO process is to create a local business listing. A local listing is an online profile. It consists of all the business information and the exact location of the premises.

us-local-business-listing

You can create a Free business listing on sites like Google My Business, Bing places, Yelp, Foursquare and Yellow pages.