How-can-in-store-sales-be-increased-using-online-marketing-Griffon-Webstudios

How can in-store sales be increased using online marketing?

by Digital Marketing

Are you focusing a lot of your retail marketing strategies on online marketing? While many businesses are concentrating on increasing their retail sales online, it’s also important to use your online marketing tactics to increase your sales in-store as well.

Even though many customers love to shop online, studies show nearly 90% of the people who research a particular product or service they want to buy will actually go to a brick and mortar store to buy it.

That means companies need to find ways to get those types of clients to come into their physical store after they are done looking up a product online.

Here are some of the best ways your company can increase sales in-store by using the right online marketing strategies:

Provide customers a good reason for shopping in-store

Shoppers can head to any store they please to make a purchase, so you need to find a way to get them into your retail store.

 64% consumers want personalized offers from retail brands. (Salesforce)

This can be done by giving them incentives that make them eager to choose your store. Some examples could be letting them order online and pick up the item in person, providing coupons that are good only in-store and having great sales.

Give customers a great mobile experience

A large majority of customers shop using their phones, so if you want them to come into your store to buy that item they are looking at on their phones, then you have to provide them a great mobile experience by,

For example, enduring your mobile website is up to date, relevant and optimized.

Rethink print advertisements

Printed advertisements are still valuable these days! You just need to use them along with other kinds of marketing tools. One way to do that is to post those ads not only on your website but also on social media, and as emails.

Measure what is working

It is vital to have a tracking method in place that shows if your online marketing strategies are working. Focus those measurements on the things your customers do that end up garnering retail sales in-store so you know what you are doing right.

Localize your strategy

Be sure to create local messages that don’t just target your geographic location. You also want to determine things like how those local messages can be used, who they should be targeted to and when they should be used.

For instance, Google has great local business pages you should sign up for to attract potential customers who live close to your brick and mortar store.

Be sure to remain tactful

Even after you put together a large stock of online marketing messages, be careful not to overdo it and turn off your potential customers from coming into your physical store by sending out too many notices at once. Spread them out carefully over different digital platforms.

Know your customer’s needs

Understanding exactly what someone needs and determining the best way to give it to them is the first step to getting a person to come into your store to buy something.

You can do this better by analyzing the needs and wants of your target audience via sources like search engines, social media, third parties, and customer relationship management systems to get some insights.

Create Content Based on Specific Segments of Your Audience

Being able to create content that has been personalized for a precise group will ultimately bring you more retail sales both in-store and online.

Get your targeted audience to move from online to in-store by posting content on your website, blog or on social media that meets a known need via the use of niche articles, how to videos, customer testimonials, and interacting with your customer’s posts so they recommend your company to others. Once your potential customers trust your reputation, they will happily head instore when they are in town.

Target Clients and Ramp Up Content via Ads

After you have determined what your customers are looking for in their online searches, use some paid ads to get more visibility and throw in some in-store sales to lure them into your brick and mortar location.

Studies have reported that potential customers are going to click on a locally sponsored ad twice as often when they are searching for a product or service they need.

You can use this to your advantage by placing ads to showcase your unique products or services. Also, make the ads show up when potential shoppers are within a specific distance from your store. These could include banners, mobile, social media, or other ads.

Bank on Dependable, Consistent Branding Efforts

Once you have grown your brand into the one your customers trust and rely on, Be sure that anything showing up regarding your brand stays consistent no matter if it is online or offline.

If what the customer sees instore doesn’t match the same branding online, then your retail sales will drop due to customer confusion. Online marketing has to be consistent to work in your favor!

Use some influencer outreach to get customers

In order to get brand advocacy that goes further than online sales and turns into more in-store sales, you have to get your followers and fans onboard.

You can do that by encouraging happy clients to post reviews online, as well as do word of mouth regarding their experience offline. Put together some reward systems for them to come instore, like special coupons, a rewards points system that only can be redeemed instore, etc.

Expand your relations with customers to get more support

These days customer support goes a lot further than just calling a help desk or asking to speak to a store manager. Whether you know it or not, your customers are talking about you both on and offline.

Make sure you monitor those discussions online and use them to your advantage by rewarding their posts with in-store coupons, etc.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that in-store sales are influenced greatly by online marketing efforts. If you want to gain more retail sales instore, you have to have a good online marketing campaign that builds up your brand’s loyalty and makes your store a great place to shop.

If you stay involved with your clients online via interacting with their posts and reviews, in the long run, it will help you get increased in-store traffic as well.

5-winning-marketing-strategies-for-2019

5 winning marketing strategies for 2019

by Digital Marketing

If you own a business these days, then you know that the competition just keeps getting stronger, so you have to be ahead of the game when it comes to winning marketing strategies. Here are five of the best upcoming trends for 2019 to help your business stay successful:

1. Vertical Video via IGTV by Instagram is expected to be big

Visual content is the thing in 2019 in many ways, especially when it comes to social media marketing trends. When you use any sort of content marketing in 2019, you had better include vertical videos via IGTV on Instagram in your next marketing strategy, as 80 percent of what people are consuming online these days is video content, according to the marketing experts.

Vertical videos are the newest hot trend, especially after IGTV by Instagram launched a way to show longer videos that can actually be up to an hour in length. Plus, you don’t have to turn your phone sideways to view this kind of content marketing videos! IGTV is dedicated to showing vertical videos, which are especially great for mobile optimization strategies, which bodes well for businesses who want to reach mobile-only audiences.

IGTV is great for all kinds of video from animated content to interviews, 360-degree virtual reality, live streaming, and just about any other type your business could ever need to bring in the customers. So be sure to count it in during your next marketing strategy meeting.

2. Content marketing is still going strong

Some may think that content marketing is an old strategy, but the truth in 2019 is that it is still kind and still going strong. In fact, today’s content marketing is opening the door for your business to have one on one conversations with your clients and create a successful relationship that will help grow your brand and spear it on to greater success.

Content marketing can be used as a tool to meet a precise objective, so you need to have a strategy that fits your company, not something generic. You can start with something like generating leads or getting better SEO and from there tweak it so it precisely meets your business’ niche and needs. Studies by Content

Marketing Institute showed that 65 percent of the companies with the best success used properly aligned content marketing strategies to spur their brand to success.

For instance, do a content marketing assessment to figure out where you stand, then use it to your advantage. Salespeople might decide to use content of some kind to boost their sales pitches, while your brand manager could find a way to use it to produce good will, and your recruiting staff could use it to attract top candidates by posting specific types of content where the kind of people you need might read it, i.e. posting something on LinkedIn.

3. Influencer marketing has become a top way to deliver content

The whole idea of publishing content is to reach your target audience, so why not get the help of someone or someplace they are already paying attention to?

Influencer marketing is when you leverage the reach of someone who is popular in your niche that has a big following and a strong reputation to help you support your own business brand. That helps you get the clients you need because it increases your own brand’s product awareness and drives new sales.

These days instead of relying on celebrities to do influencer marketing, micro-influencers and nano-influencers are the ones with the most pull in 2019. Micro-influencers have between a thousand and 100K followers and nano-influencers have less than 1,000 followers, but they still have a lot of influence and credibility in small specific markets.

That’s because people connect better to the “little people” and trust that they are more genuine and honest. That helps you to sell the fact that your brand is also genuine and honest, which in turn makes more people want to buy your products and services. So, it’s time for your company to find some appropriate influencers to help you stay ahead in 2019.

4. Voice search and Mobile Optimization has become huge for 2019

Research done by Search Engine Land showed that voice-based sales in the US were nearly two billion dollars in 2017, and are predicted to hit 40 billion by the year 2020.

Additionally, in 2020 it’s predicted that about half of all the search engine requests will be made via voice because people love talking into their devices. So, now’s the time to jump on that bandwagon.

That’s because it reduces their screen time for one thing. So, to make things work in your favor, you need to do some mobile optimization to make your search options more voice-friendly so it recognizes conversational questions.

Expect to see a lot more than people just choosing to use it while they are driving around in their cars and they can’t hold their phones.

Mobile Optimization

Did you know that way over half the online page views is done on a mobile device? Any business these days that expect to grow it’s Internet customers must have a top-notch mobile ready website along with appropriate mobile apps.

No customer in 2019 or beyond will wait around for a website that doesn’t work on their phones and if you don’t keep up with the proper mobile optimization, your business will fail.

Plus, Google is now taking a customer’s mobile experiences to heart when they assign a search ranking for a business.

If your site loads too slow or otherwise works crappy with mobile devices, it will be ranked way low in the search results. That is death since we all know that most customers pick the first companies on the list of options when they are searching for specific products or services.

In $ dollar terms, this means that if your website typically earns $100,000 a day, this year you could lose $2.5 million in sales

You also have to take into consideration that most mobile customers don’t have keyboards so it can be hard to enter text or other such tasks.

So, your mobile site must have properly designed controls that are placed optimally for your mobile users. It should have, for instance, fewer buttons, fewer reasons to have to scroll, plus it’s time to get rid of Flash since it doesn’t work for instance on iOS systems and get rid of pop-ups since they could cover up the whole screen of some mobile devices.

5. Artificial Intelligence and chat boxes are the way some customers communicate

The world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing in leaps and bounds, and things like chat boxes are getting more popular. The Grand View Research people predict that by 2025 the chatbots market all over the world will grow to more than a billion dollars. That means almost half of the end users out there prefer using a chatbot for their customer service needs.

Using AI can help make your business more efficient if it is used properly. AI can do many tasks that take humans more time to do, and AI does it more efficiently in most cases too. A business can use AI to do things like monitoring their customer’s online habits, and then suggest products and services they may want or need.

Businesses need to use AI to be able to determine things like the type of content their potential clients are consuming, no matter if this refers to some type of technical support or other usages.

This, in turn, will help a business personalize its offerings to better meet a customer’s needs. For instance, you can use specific algorithms to study how your marketing campaigns are going and be able to change them in real time so as to increase your business’ return on investment.

All in all, these five trends will help your business succeed in 2019 and beyond.

7-cost-effective-ways-to-market-your-business-online

7 Cost-Effective Ways To Market Your Business Online

by Digital Marketing

When you run a business, every dollar counts! It’s not easy being a business owner, given the amount of responsibility needed to make it successful – not to mention all the money needed to get it off the ground, too.

So saving any money you can save is always appreciated, which is why you’ll definitely need these cost-effective ways to market your business online:

1. Learn the ins and outs of social media

Social media is a great way to gain tons of exposure for your business, but the best part is that it’s free! You can set up your business profiles for nothing and then create ads for however much you can afford to spend. Plus, social media is practically a necessity for all business.

But if you’re going to market your business on social media, learn the ins and outs of the platform to take advantage of all it has to offer.

94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as part of their content strategy. Other popular platforms include Twitter (87%), Facebook (84%), YouTube (74%) and Google+ (62%).

2. Create a blog

Another cost-effective way to market your business online is to create a blog. You’ll be able to incorporate keywords, which will get you organic traffic if done properly. This costs nothing, just a bit of time and hard work to create quality content people will want to read.

3. Use SEO for your website

Besides a blog, you’ll want to incorporate SEO into your entire website so that it ranks higher on search engines. By making sure your website is primed for what search engines want, you’ll be able to better market your business.

4. Put out press releases

When your business does something that’s newsworthy, put out a press release. You never know who might be interested and pick up the new! There are also tons of websites out there that you can use to distribute your press release for cheap.

5. Join an online community

Whatever your niche is, find an online community and get involved. By posting on forums, you’ll be able to spread the word about your business.

6. Email marketing

Email marketing is a low-cost way to spread the word about what you’re doing, any promotions and anything else you feel your customers will want to know. By creating a weekly schedule, your customers will anticipate seeing your email in their inbox!

7. Referral Marketing

If your customers find value in what you offer, then they’ll have no problem in referring you to their family and friends. It’s a cheap and effective way to take your online business offline!

How-to-Evaluate-the-Effectiveness-of-your-online-marketing-campaigns

How To Evaluate the Effectiveness Of Your Online Marketing Campaigns?

by Digital Marketing

Online marketing has become a great way to boost your brand awareness and sales, but how do you know if your marketing campaigns are actually working? Knowing how your online marketing campaign is crucial because it will let you know if you’re meeting your marketing goals and expectations (whatever they are).

With no real knowledge of how your online marketing campaigns are doing, you’re wasting time, money and effort. Before you even start your campaign, you’ll need to define a few variables to determine your metrics. This includes your objective, user context, target audience and the like.

Then based on these variables, you’ll be able to create specific call-to-action and associated assets that will yield trackable results. Here are some helpful ways on how to evaluate the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns:

1. Total Website Visits

One of the easiest ways to track your online marketing campaign’s effectiveness is with how many site visits you got during the time period of the campaign. This will give you a rough idea if the campaign is driving the traffic you expected to your site.

2. Website Traffic By Channels Or Sources

You should be using your online marketing campaign on all your social media channels and any other places you can drive traffic from, such as blogs, forums and the like. To do so, give each source and channel it’s own unique link so that you can track it to see where the most traffic clicks came from.

Using Google metrics like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools can help you determine where the most traffic came from.

3. Your Site’s Bounce Rate

The bounce rate of your website is the number of users that visit your website and then leave without performing any action. A high bounce rate means that there are flaws in your online marketing tactics.

Either it’s poor campaign targeting, weak landing pages, irrelevant traffic sources and the like. But whatever it is, your bounce rate means there’s a problem in your marketing that needs to be fixed for your next campaign.

4. Online Sales

If your online marketing campaign revolves around a product on your site, the number of online sales will help you figure out if you met your goal or not.

Even if you have brick-and-motor store, you can also track the sales of a particular item you mentioned in your online marketing campaign or see if your sales for the time period increased due to the online marketing campaign you created around more foot traffic.

Top-Internet-Marketing-Strategies

The Top Internet Marketing Strategies For Your Business

by Digital Marketing

When it comes to marketing your business online, it doesn’t matter whether you are a small local craft shop or a global business standing the test of time, the way we advertise and the way consumers look at our products or services is constantly shifting.

So we need to be constantly aware of what is going on in the digital marketing scene so that we can continue to do what we do and to continue to be seen.

Looking ahead towards 2019, we are seeing some changes in the way consumers are viewing advertisements and how they are reacting to them. People are constantly connected and as a result, are more clued up towards gimmicky and flashy ads that they see thousands of times a day.

In this article, we will look at a few of the top marketing strategies that you should currently be employing in your business and we will also take a look at what is trending for 2019 giving you a head start in shaping your next year.

What is an Internet Marketing Strategy?

You strategically market your business by putting in place a plan of action to promote, advertise and sell your service or products to people.

By understanding whom your target audience is, that is, who you are trying to sell your product or service to, you have taken the first step in implementing a strategic internet marketing plan.

Perhaps you want to advertise to other businesses (business to business or B2B marketing) or maybe your customers are the general public. In this case, you must consider the age group and gender among other factors to define your target audience.

Top Tip 1: Search Engine Marketing

This boils down to two subcategories, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay per Click (PPC) Marketing.

SEO is organic and allows for your company’s website to be on the list of search engine results. It is advised not to rely on SEO as your only marketing strategy, but you shouldn’t pass up on putting some effort into it either, as Google, Bing or Yahoo searches can still bring in massive amounts of leads and traffic to your site.

Your ranking within a search engine result is deemed by a number of factors, including what you keywords you place in your description and meta-tags on your website, your social media activity guest blog posts and such.

Pay per Click advertising such as Google’s Adwords involves you paying for your website to be displayed alongside an organic search engine results.

Other PPC advertising strategies include the very popular Facebook Ads, which is still one of the best ways to gain leads available with a ton of marketing information available on the billion people active every day.

Top Tip 2: Contests, Vouchers and Giveaways

Everybody loves to win. It is irresistible to enter a free draw and much more appealing to enter an online store or business with a voucher code in hand.

An epic way to see an increase in leads, customers and traffic are to advertise a voucher, offering 10% off, free shipping or a buy one get two deal, or to run a contest or giveaway to get involvement, shares and traffic through to your website.

Not only do contests give you loads of consumer data to use, but your consumers also market for your business and you can increase your fan base tenfold.

Top Tip 3: Be Active on Social Media

Not only should you reply to any comments that you receive on your Instagram, Facebook or Twitter accounts, increasing public likeability and engaging with your customers, but it is worthwhile maintaining a blog as well.

The more active you are on your blog and on social media, the more often you are able to post new keywords. This enables search engines to find and display your website more often, which we spoke about earlier with SEO.

Your blog can also gather a sort of a cult following, where you can offer advice, share what you know and really get to know who your target audience is.

Looking Ahead:

Digital Marketing sees trends rise and fall as consumers change the way they connect with each other on an online platform. Looking ahead, we can see a few trends that are to shape how we market online for 2019.

Video Marketing.

You yourself probably feel like you are watching more videos these days as you stroll through the net and your attention is called to something. Watching videos is more fun than reading an article and this new opportunity to reach and engage with customers is growing terrifically.

Thanks to a survey from Wyzowl,  99% of businesses who use videos say they will use them again, and 85% of businesses regarding video marketing as an important part of their marketing strategy. Get on board and don’t be left behind.

Internet video traffic will become a huge percentage of all consumer internet traffic in 2019. Live streams, in particular, are extremely popular and there is a lot of evidence pointing to a higher retention rate of live videos over pre-recorded ones.

Authenticity

Not exactly new, but in the world of marketing automation and chatbots, it is so easy to forget who it is we are actually trying to sell to real people. One of the best ways to market your business, and a definite growing trend as consumers are demanding it, is authenticity.

According to a review by Stackla, 86% of customers said that authenticity greatly influences their decision on what brands they like and support.

This is a huge percentage of people who want to feel like they are dealing with real people, not just another big business or brand. Take that into account when considering your marketing strategy for 2019.

With a strong online marketing strategy, you will help to grow your business and see more traffic to your site, more customers, more leads and connections and in the end, more sales. By taking into account the above tips your internet marketing plan can be your key to future and substantial success.

evaluate-brand-awareness

What Tools Can I Use To Evaluate Brand Awareness?

by Digital Marketing

Most business owners who are goal-oriented know how to track their sales and conversion rates, but how can you track and evaluate your marketing strategies on brand awareness?

Before the digital age, it just didn’t happen. We had no idea how many people saw an advertisement on a billboard or paid attention to a radio or television advertisement and knew what a brand was all about unless perhaps some surveys or questionnaires were taken.

But in the digital age, we have a much greater awareness of what people are seeing and how they are reacting to it. Just because a digital marketer has the same goal for every business they market, a business does not have to have the same goal as another business.

Some businesses are hoping to reach a different set of customers whilst others may want to target their target audiences only. How can we evaluate if our marketing techniques are effective in brand awareness?

1. Investigate your Social Media Followers

Calculating the number of people who follow your brand across the social media channels available, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Reddit Google+ etc., is a great way of evaluating who is aware of your brand. Needless to say, those with greater social media following tend to have a more successful business.

It is also important to track the involvement of these followers, so you can put more time and effort into the channels that are more active than the ones where not too many people show an interest or engage with.

As you follow these engagements, you can assess progress within your brand to see what marketing strategies work to garner more interest and build bigger followers.

2. Look at Website Traffic

Using Google Analytics or a marketing automation platform such as this one, to directly track the number of people who typed your URL into their address bar, clicked a link in an email or offline document or used a browser bookmark gives you over time, incredible depth into how your brand awareness is increasing or decreasing.

Measuring your website traffic over time when you look in the right places will certainly offer you insights into how people are aware of your brand.

Of course, measuring keywords has become more and more difficult with the introduction of private searching, so you will not entirely be able to evaluate who searched for your brand because they knew of it before or whether they happened upon it by chance.

Of course, not every brand is dependent on their website for sales, advertising may come from another point of call and the website is purely additional information for those interested

3. Surveys

You can conduct a survey either through email, telephone, website, social media or at the end of an order form. This will give you an opportunity to either ask existing customers how they heard about you or you can reach out to a randomly selected group of people to ask whether they have heard about your brand or not.

The latter approach is more useful if your brand already has the following of a decent percentage of a group of people, perhaps in your local town or community.

If a local business asked globally if their brand was known, the statistics would not come back in their favor.

When conducting a survey, you need to be aware of response bias, where people may not give accurate answers based on how they were asked. A way around this might be to be a fly on the wall. Again, social media is great for ‘listening in’ on organic conversations about your brand.

4. Don’t forget to benchmark your findings

It is all well and good to get more involved on social media, get your customers involved and use a few analytical tools to see how many people are viewing your website, but if you don’t benchmark these findings, that is to say, you do not have a baseline from where you have begun, you will not be able to document any natural peaks and troughs, or any irregularities. You can use this information to change how you chose to advertise.

89% of B2B marketers say brand awareness is the most important goal, followed by sales and lead generation.

We will continue the article by explaining some of the metrics that you can apply to assist with measuring brand awareness. Although the use of digital marketing has made it easier for us to gather information about our customers and leads, understanding and using all the tools available out there can be mind-boggling. Here are a few you should know about that you can use to evaluate brand awareness.

5. Reach

Reach is defined by the potential number of people who will view something about your brand online and will go and view your brand’s content.

This is the reason that influencers are given free products in return for writing a blog post or making a video about it. The number of followers an author has is the ‘reach’ that the author has for your brand when they mention it.

6. PPC analytics

This is probably the easiest tool you can use to gauge online brand awareness. PPC analytics can help you to calculate the conversion rate by providing you with the number of people that clicked your ads.

By using this information, you can also understand how many people you are converting through your paid advertisements.

This online tool is available on any individual platform that you are spending money advertising on, such as with Facebook Ads or Google Adwords.

Using brand awareness effectively results in an effective marketing strategy for your business. When you are able to understand how your customers are reached and how they respond once they have been made aware of your brand, you are able to design marketing tools effective to bring leads into sales.

Generally, the more consumers that are able to remember your brand, the more successful your brand is going to be. With social media being such an effective marketing tool, we are now able to use a huge amount of information that is obtained to our benefit and reach more people than ever before.

10-inexpensive-ways-to-get-your-business-noticed-online

10 Inexpensive Ways to Get Your Business Noticed Online

by Digital Marketing

When it comes to marketing our businesses online, it doesn’t matter whether you are a small local craft shop or a global business standing the test of time, we want to get noticed and we don’t want to spend a lot of money doing so.

The way we advertise and the way consumers look at our products or services is forever changing. So we need to be constantly aware of what is going on in the digital marketing scene so that we can continue to do what we do and to continue to be seen.

Here are 10 inexpensive ways to get your business noticed online.

1. Search Engine Optimization

If you haven’t heard of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) before, then now is the time for you to get clued up and involved. This is one of the best things you can do to ensure your business is found when potential customers search for what they are after, and best of all, it’s free!

SEO is organic. This means that it happens naturally and fortunately, it is through not too much effort from you. It is not a Pay per Click advertisement scheme or generated through you purchasing a bot to boost your presence.

When somebody asks Google, Yahoo or Bing (search engines) for information on a product or service, if you have input keywords relating to your business in the meta-tag and description of your website, then the search engines will relate those keywords to the person’s request and present your webpage. The higher up a webpage is relating to the relevance as well as activity and popularity of the website.

2. Love Social Media

You have probably heard it all before, but social media is key these days in giving you the opportunity to spread your word, share your name and attract leads, interest, and hopefully, sales! Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram are all social media platforms you should be familiar with and using regularity.

Remember not to preach too much about yourself all the time and mix it up with some other interesting posts in order to keep it fresh and exciting for your followers.

3. Choose a simple domain name

Now here is one where the boat might have already sailed, but if you are new to the world of online business or even willing to give another website a shot, bear in mind that your customers need to be able to remember your website, so keep it as short, simple and to the point as possible.

4. Try a high end (or low cost) domain

You might have heard that Google penalizes new domain names such as. flowers and .market so you might be willing to spend that extra cash by sticking with a .com or .org in order to move your search engine ranking up the scale. It appears this isn’t actually true.

Google has informed us here that they treat these new domains just like any other domain, so if you are squeezing every penny, don’t feel obliged to take a .com

5. Create a shareable blog

Blogging is great for connecting with your audience on a more personal level. You can offer insights into the industry, you are able to answer questions and by creating shareable posts, then your customers are essentially doing the marketing for you.

Not only that, but Google loves it when you create new and interesting posts and will reward you by boosting your ranking to allow you to receive more organic traffic to your website. The best type of blog posts you can make offer information about your company without preaching about it. You also need to make it easy to share on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit as when it is easy to share, people are more likely to do so.

6. Video Marketing

This is a great and inexpensive way to get your business online. It is dubbed to be the most influential medium in which to advertise this coming year, with 99% of businesses who use videos say they will use them again, and 85% of businesses regarding video marketing as an important part of their marketing strategy.

The survey from Wyzowl also informs us that “the average person is watching more than an hour and a half of online video content per day, with around 15%watching more than three hours”. That is a lot of video time.

7. Reward referrals

Let the people supporting your business such as friends, family and employees earn a little from their support. By including a referral system that offers a discount or up to 10% off when they refer a friend can provide a huge boost to your customer pool.

People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend. (Nielsen)

8. Be authentic

According to a review by Stackla, 86% of customers said that authenticity greatly influences their decision on what brands they like and support. This is a huge percentage of people who want to feel like they are dealing with real people, not just another big business or brand. This is a great inexpensive way to garner interest in your business.

9. Join up with another company

Think airlines and car rentals. They go hand in hand, don’t they? So when there is a deal that allows you to purchase your flight as well as sort out your car rental, many people enjoy the simplicity. This can apply to your business. You are also benefiting from the traffic flow of the other company, which boosts your exposure significantly.

If you haven’t been online long enough to have a substantial customer base, pairing with a company of similar age can be extremely useful.

10. Experiment with Instagram

Instagram, as a photo sharing platform may lead you to believe that it’s only really serving businesses such as bakeries, florists and cake decorators when it comes to getting your business noticed online.

But you can use Instagram to connect with your customers, no matter your business, by allowing to let people into a bit of your company’s culture and energy.

Billion-Dollar-Business-Model

Billion-Dollar Business Models

by Digital Marketing

A business model helps you define your customer value proposition and pricing. It provides a helpful guide on how to organize your business, whom you should partner with to generate revenue, and how to structure and manage your supply chain accordingly.

Airbnb, Amazon, Netflix, and Uber are among the most innovative tech companies. Their success lies in the viability of their respective business models. Any creative mind can design an attractive brand image to lure potential customers. Without a realistic business model, however, it would be impossible to monetize the attention. The ultimate goal of a business is to capture and retain customers to enable consistent growth. Failure to achieve this would prove costly to the firm.

For the best examples of business models, we sampled four innovative tech companies.

Amazon

Amazon has risen to become one of the most successful companies on the globe beating the biggest retail stores in the game. With a revenue of approximately $177.8 billion, the company surpasses Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Macy’s and other biggest retail stores combined.

Constant innovation that enables it to reach millions of people globally is responsible for this success. Amazon has diversified to as many markets as possible to achieve the widest variety of revenue options.

The company makes 67% of its revenue from retail. Negotiating with wholesalers for low prices helps boost their profit. Since they are dealing with massive amounts of products, the profit margin immensely increases. Over time, the company has developed a network of warehouses and lately manufactured its own products.

There are currently over 45000 robots working in the Amazon Warehouses

Amazon marketplace makes up to 17% of net sales according to their latest reports. The platform allows third-party sellers to conduct business on the company website. These sellers may also purchase Fulfillment By Amazon, which is a service that stores, packs, and ships products with world-class facilities.

Web Services contribute 9% of net sales for the company. Cloud computing infrastructure allows customers to access the software at any location and with any device.

A further 5% of net sales are derived from Amazon Prime. Through monthly subscriptions, Amazon Prime provides customers with shipping options, offers no-cost, unlimited space, and gifts.

Netflix

Netflix generated USD 11.6 billion from big data and analytics making it a major tech company. They buy and create content that resonates with subscribers. They can monitor and predict subscribers’ behavior and preferences with precision.

Netflix aims for 700 original series, movies in 2018

The streaming services come with free monthly trials. After the trials, the subscribers may continue with membership by paying for three plans. The plans are; Basic, Standard, and Premium. The basic plan is the cheapest and allows you to watch Netflix on one screen. The standard plan has an average price. It allowed you to watch Netflix on two screens simultaneously while the premium plan offers four screens running concurrently. It is the most expensive.

Most of the revenue comes from streaming but they still maintain DVD services.

Uber

Uber set out to revolutionize taxi tradition. It transformed the perception of the business. It has changed into a lucrative and efficient business. Since 2009, the company quickly increased its success in providing quality services. Today, it manages 15 million rides a day without owning a single vehicle. At the close of the previous financial year, Uber recorded $ 37 Billion in revenue.

The management-focused their effort on perfecting convenience for riders. They strove to increase speed and lower the cost of service. The company succeeded in addressing the issues facing most city dwellers. It made it possible for customers to book a ride with the nearest driver. They can also see the prices and track the driver’s location on the app.

Uber’s continued customer-related strategy attracted a huge following.

Customers may cancel a request before their driver arrives but at a minimum cost. If it takes too long to meet the driver, they hold the right to cancel the deal. Drivers can also accept or reject the request based on a user’s rating. The request immediately goes to the next available driver nearby.

Uber says it has 2 million drivers globally and 750,000 in the United States. They are the backbone of the company, which is valued at $70 billion.

Uber charges customers depending on the estimated time and distance of their route. Another contributing factor to pricing is the current demand for rides in the area. Your choice of the type of car also contributes to the rate. For example, for your comfort, there are four categories namely; economy, premium, extra seats, and more.

Economy level offers average carpool opportunities with other customers in a sedan. Premium level, on the other hand, offers a luxury ride with a professional driver. The extra-seats option offers space for 6 with a professional driver in an SUV or Uber XL. The final option named ‘more’ offers space for special cases such as wheelchairs.

Uber keeps between 20% to 25% of the revenue and leaves the rest to the drivers. Prices hike during rush hour, bad weather, holidays, and whenever there is high demand.

With the app, it is easy to track users. The app generates massive revenue for the firm due to its popular use by over 40 million active users. Other businesses can also advertise on the app and earn Uber more income.

Airbnb

Airbnb connects over 140,000 travelers with hosts in 190 countries every day. Like Uber, it owns no single property but manages accommodation services. It reached USD 2.6 billion by the end of 2017.

Airbnb became popular because of the creative ideas that give hosts a chance to use their property as a side hustle.

Airbnb have accommodated over 60 million people in 34,000 cities around the world.

Guests simply book rooms in a home that come at affordable prices in comparison to hotel rooms. Spending nights in a foreign home gives you the feeling of the local culture. This is not possible in a hotel.

According to this Fortune article, Airbnb bookings will increase from around 79 million “room nights” in 2016 to one billion per year by 2025.

The booking is easy and cheap. 3% of every booking goes to Airbnb. Guests, on the other hand, are charged 5% to 15% of the booking cost. Hosts can review their guests online before accenting to the deal.

YouTube-Marketing-Tips

YouTube Marketing Tips, Trends, & Strategies

by Digital Marketing

To achieve success online, a serious business cannot ignore the significance of YouTube as a marketing tool. Today there are over 1.3 million users and millions of visitors every day. Experts expect that by the end of 2018, video marketing will be the main marketing tool online.

Today, videos play a massive role in influencing the audience of any product. By the end of 2017, at least 80% of Internet traffic was video. A further 50% of all web traffic, especially in the evenings and nighttime, is YouTube and Netflix videos among other platforms. YouTube has proven to be the biggest and most promising marketing tool of the future.

6 out of 10 people prefer online video platforms to live TV.

Videos give the businesses a chance to address their audience. This is a great way to build a connection as you explain to the viewer why your product/service is good for them. It could also be an idea that you are trying to rally people around. YouTube marketing should, therefore, be part of your online marketing strategy. Take advantage of the great shift towards video with the trend of the moment.

We watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos a day, more than Netflix and Facebook video combined

Learn the tricks and tips to making appropriate videos that will give you the edge of the competition. Here are some marketing tips, trends, and strategies.

YouTube Channels

If you want your business to have a successful online presence, you need to view YouTube as the second website. This will help you to use your channels strategically. Change your perception of the platform from a social place for sharing fun videos into a marketing tool. First, create a channel and make it your homepage. Think of it as the website and the videos as web pages.

The logic is each video point back to the main page, which is your channel. Use the rules of web designing to YouTube too. The more commanding your channel is; the better your ‘site’ will rank. Make your videos aligned with the theme of your core mission depicted by the channel. It will help you build authority.

Creating a Good Video

Before creating a video, be clear on the role it is supposed to play on your channel. Determine exactly what you want the audience to get from the video as the initial plan. Let us explore some of the most common targets that businesses aim for using YouTube videos.

Growing readership

Since video gives you a good chance to encourage visitors to check your main website, use it to advertise by directing them to it. This will improve the readership on your website.

Lead Capture

Videos are among the best tools for capturing leads. Use them to direct the viewer to a link visible below your video. Let the visitor know what to expect if they choose to visit the page.

Building the Brand

This should be one of the main long-term missions of your videos. Seek to build your business website profile and visibility.

Direct Sales

YouTube videos help businesses to present the crucial CALL-To-Action. You can directly address the viewers and ask them to try out your product/service with the details of how to conduct the transaction.

Video Sequence

After creating your channels with the appropriate theme that addresses your business correctly, it is time to create the communicative video.

The ideal length of your video is extremely important in the process of video sequencing. Most businesses squeeze all the information they need to pass into a 3-minute video. Our recommendation would be to avoid a video that is 10 minutes or longer.

To make a good video, Introduce yourself and declare the brand. Be brief and precise in your content. Make sure you connect with your brand passionately if possible. Remember to give Facebook and Twitter connections.

Proceed by informing the viewers what they will gain by watching your video. Explain the benefits they should expect. Address the issues you promised in your introduction. Be detailed but brief and clear. Your summary should re-highlight and emphasize the key things in the presentation for the remembrance of the visitors.

Daniel Middleton, better known as DanTDM, is the highest earning YouTuber, bringing in $16.5m in 2017

Be kind and polite to advise them instead of begging or commanding the potential customers. You may encourage them, give a recommendation or tell them the merits of your product/service and how it would add value to their lives.

Do not forget to call the audience to take an action. Request them to take the next step and subscribe to your list and make a purchase. Find a creative way to make this call-to-action work. Do not be pushy.

Avoid sudden cuts

Let the video run a little for emphasis. For example, to avoid a boring end, use an arrow pointing to the download link or the subscription button. Abrupt ends will limit the time the audience can focus on the link as the video jumps to another on YouTube.

Content

Try to keep the content flowing. This is very important because you will keep the potential customers busy watching more of your stuff. Keep the video uploads frequent so that they may have daily or weekly check on your channel. More content will also increase the chances of the video being shared, which improves your secondary marketing technique- Referral visits.

Traffic and Connections

Connect your channel to other social media profiles to direct more traffic to your channel. Direct the traffic by advertising on the social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to increase the views of your videos.

short-term-vs-long-term-marketing-strategy

Short Term vs. Long Term Digital Marketing Strategies

by Digital Marketing

The business world has turned digital; In fact, if you do not have a responsive website or blog you are lagging behind the competitors in your business. Traditional marketing techniques of physically talking to your audience or potential customers are no longer effective; printing posters and hiring sales representatives is a thing of the past.

Besides effectiveness with respect to sales, such marketing strategies are expensive so you need to spend extra time and money hence there is a need to consider a better alternative- Invest in a website.

After investing in a professional website, the next step is to build your brand by increasing traffic and converting the numbers to sales. It can be overwhelming but you really have no better option. Irrespective of your business industry and niche, consumers expect to find your products and services online, competitors have the same resources, and opportunities hence there’s a definite need for a creative marketing strategy to increase sales.

Here are some long term and short term digital marketing strategies you should consider.

Short-term strategies

These techniques are often used to get a quicker result. Short-term strategies result in a significant boost in sales but for a limited time.

Pay-per-click

Paid advertising strategy is probably the fastest way to generate sales and traffic to your website. Common tools are Google Adwords and Facebook Lead Ads where an investor creates a link attached to a sensible investment idea.

It is about attracting online users to the platform with a form of payment when they click on advertisements. You have probably clicked on several advertisements without your knowledge because of the attractive rewards presented. This is the easiest and reasonable way to generate traffic as a technique in online marketing. $300 is the standard or least investment in implementing the short-term strategy.

Tradeshows

Attending tradeshows exposes your company to a wide audience. You also have a chance to physically introduce your products and services to your target audience; Also, you are able to answer any queries from potential customers.

Tradeshows give you a platform to explain why people should subscribe to your services; you have an opportunity to pick consumer reactions to each of your strategies and product types. Face to face interactions with the target audience is important for any business.

Today, Companies incorporate landing pages and email marketing techniques to reach out to a wider audience. Tradeshows are no longer out in the field; you can interact with consumers over a given link and share your website as a lead to your products and services. Tradeshows are characterized by promotions and offers, which attract customers.

Limited time promotions

Gifts-on-purchase, referral incentives, and price discounts are modern digital techniques in boosting sales. The promotions and offers are made attractive by setting a time limit to increase urgency. Consumers tend to rush to make purchases and enjoy the discounts hence boosting traffic and sales over a short period.

Long-term strategies

While short-term strategies are important for any business, they are temporary. You need to sustain the positive results through with long-term strategies.

Search Engine Optimization

Success in online marketing is defined by targeting specific audience and frequency on search engine pages. This can only be realized through proper search engine optimization techniques. After settling on a niche, you have to identify keywords based on the type of your audience and how they search for products or services.

50% of visitors are more likely to click a result if the brand appears multiple times in search engine results

Customizing content to suit a specific audience is the goal of SEO. There are billions of e-commerce websites and blogs meaning the competition is extremely high; you can easily be irrelevant. Search engine optimization increases visibility on search engine hence higher chances of sales. Also, you will no longer have to pay for advertising space on other platforms because search engines like Google present your company on top of its pages making it easily accessible to consumers. You also win confidence and trust with customers if you appear on top of Google first page.

Social media

Social media platforms are increasingly becoming popular in the business world. It can be a short-term and long-term strategy. Quick results can be demonstrated from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter because of the ease of access and graphics effect. Also, the platforms offer an opportunity to build networks and a huge following, which increases your chance of sales. It is not easy to gather 1000 likes on your Facebook page, it takes time and effort, but it pays in the long run.

61% of all visits from social media websites come from Facebook

With huge followers on social media, you are sure to reach people three times the number because, with every follower, there is a network of friends who would view your post. The beauty of this long-term strategy is the cost element; you won’t spend a dime for the following years while the network will be generating sales.

Content creation

Customize your content not only to suit the current target audience but potential customers in the future. This is in relation with SEO techniques; All you have to do is identify keywords and tailor content around that in relation to your business. If need be, regularly update the content posted on your blog to match business trends.

Companies who blog have 434% more indexed pages than those who don’t. That means more leads!

The digital business world is more interesting and effective; however, you are still expected to work for your success. Marketing is irreplaceable in any business; you have to be creative and apply relevant techniques to rise above the flooding online world.