What’s-a-good-conversion-rate-and-how-can-it-be-achieved

What Is A Good Conversion Rate And How Can It Be Achieved?

by Digital Marketing

Your business goal is to bring profits and in order to do that, you need to track your customer engagement and conversion ratio. The question is what’s a good conversion rate and how can your business achieve that?

First, Let’s define what a conversion is. It is when you guide your website visitors or your in-store walk-ins (who are intended to just browse the products) into actual buying customers. Whether you do that in your e-commerce website or at your brick-and-mortar store, a high conversion rate signifies a better return on investment (ROI) for your business

What is a good conversion rate?

Research shows that defining a good conversion rate depends on the industry you are in. Google rates in the past have shown that the average in selected landing page conversion rates was less than 3 percent, however, the industries in the top 25 percent of online businesses were getting a conversion rate of more than 5 percent.

Do you want your company to appear in the top 1 percent of the e-commerce conversion rates? You then need to convert 12 percent of your website visitors into paid customers.

So, if you are seeing a conversion rate on your site at less than these or even if they are right on point, there are still ways to increase them and get an even better ROI.

Ways to Get a Higher Conversion Rate

1. Vary what you are offering the customers

Most of the time a company has a default template/offer that they use on their landing pages. It usually looks similar to what the other businesses in that niche are offering to their clients.

For instance, many places offer a free consultation or meeting to new clients or some sort of free gift. People start thinking this is the norm and may get bored and think all companies and therefore all their products are the same.

  1. So, how do you shake things up and offer something more creative to your visitors?
  2. What unique and more compelling thing could entice your potential clients to help you in increasing sales?

You need to determine what your company can give to a new customer that your competitors aren’t giving them. Something that will make them loyal to your company and choose to buy your products or services instead of those from the competition.

2. Use Remarketing Strategies

Studies have shown that more than 85 percent of website visitors don’t convert into buying customers. However, if you properly use remarking tactics and send these people relevant and targeted messages, they could end up part of your e-commerce gains.

161% Conversion Rate Rise From Google Remarketing Campaigns

You do this by creating pertinent information that shows up on other online sites, social media, via email, youtube videos, or search engines. You must convince your visitors that you have the means to solve their problem or meet their needs via the content you place where they are sure to see it and decide to buy from you.

3. Try out different types of landing pages

Another reason your visitors may not be converting into paying customers is that they probably don’t like your landing page. You can up your odds as well as your conversion rate by trying out different types of landing pages to see which one helps you to increase sales.

How obvious is your call to action? You may think your directions to visitors are simple but are you making it easy for them to answer that call to action?

For instance, if you are asking your visitors to give you a call, Is your phone number easily visible and placed at the right spot? If you are asking them to provide their email address, is your contact form simple to understand? It’s always the little things that make or break your conversion rate.

4. Ask website or store visitors what they want or need

Don’t try to guess the needs and desires of your potential customers. You should provide a means for your visitors and your paying customers to provide feedback.

70% of unhappy customers whose problems are resolved are willing to shop with a business again

For instance, if you have a Facebook page for your business, Are you answering questions posted there by your prospects and customers? The speed at which you interact with people can be a determining factor in the number of conversions you get.

5. Establish your business as a leader in your niche

It’s impossible to get a higher conversion rate if you aren’t even getting enough people to come to your store or visit your website. You must ensure that potential customers know that your store or website exists and they trust your company as an expert in your niche.

You can do this by creating a blog on your website or on social media providing insights and tips on how your products or services can meet the needs of your potential customers.

This makes your company show up in search engine results for all keywords related to your products/services. Make sure that the content you post is always relevant and up to date or you will end up doing the opposite and scare your potential customers to run away and not buy from your store.

6. Traditionary PR Methods

Don’t give up on traditional public relations strategies. Especially if you are trying to shoot up your sales in your physical store, you can still get a lot of bang for the buck from radio or TV commercials, holding a live event, mailing out coupons, or doing mobile shout outs.

The bottom line is that getting a higher conversion rate will help your e-commerce sales, as well as your physical sales, improve, and lead to a better ROI for your business.

How-is-Branding-done-through-digital-marketing

How is brand building done through digital marketing?

by Digital Marketing

I am certain you have heard the phrase “build your brand.” However, what does that really mean?

https://www.pexels.com/photo/text-on-white-paper-7661590/

A company’s brand is a combination of its identity and all the things that make it unique, i.e. its name, the particular type of products or services, and everything from the color of its logo to the way its ads are written.

A company’s brand delivers a particular experience to its customers that can be good or bad, depending on the company’s reputation. Branding provides your customers with a type of experience that can be either tangible or intangible.

Not only does it involve a company’s reputation, but branding can also involve things like the value clients put on the business’ products or services, as well as if they see the company as one that is good for the environment, or how it treats its customers, etc.

What is Branding?

Branding is a vital process in the world of digital marketing, as well as being a type of PR strategy that helps a company get established in its chosen niche. It gives your business meaning and it’s the way your customers see you and can instantly recognize your products or services. It’s vital for a business to be able to build their brand via the proper type of digital marketing PR strategy.

One way of doing brand building is through digital marketing. There are many channels used in digital marketing that can help a company build its brand.

Through digital marketing, businesses can meet their customers’ needs all through the purchasing cycle. It is very powerful and versatile and has great potential to help build interactions between customers and businesses in ways print never did.

Some of those channels are email, websites (both mobile and regular ones), social media platforms, and more. Every digital marketing channel you use has the potential to make or break your business.

When your business interacts with a customer on, for instance, Facebook then there is a chance the business can either gain or lose that customer depending on how that interaction goes. That is part of what makes digital marketing so powerful.

Here are some common ways to begin building your brand via digital marketing:

1. Content marketing:

One of the first ways today’s savvy customers check out the credibility of a business these days is by going online to find you. Anything you post online whether on your business website, a blog, a social media site, ads, etc. tell who your business is and what it sells as well as how others see you and how you fit into your business niche.

To keep building your brand you have to always ensure you sound credible in your field, are putting out information that is relevant and up to date for your industry, and are finding ways to keep your customers in the loop on how things are going in that industry.

2. Social Media:

Social media is another part of your PR strategy for your digital branding plan. You have to be on social media sites relative to your industry and have a good social media strategy that aids your customers. i.e. posting current info on your industry, interacting with customers and answering their questions, and doing whatever you can to share your business with them.

This not only garners new customers; it can help you keep the interest of potential employees too.

3. Business Website:

Your business website is your branding foundation. You must always keep that website current and up to date otherwise, your customers will lose interest in your products or services, as well as lose faith in your brand, thus you push your brand down instead of building it up.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC)

SEO and PPC are considered as the back-end of your PR strategy for building your brand. They aren’t a feature that some new business owners are that clear on and most of the time the services are farmed out to experts who help you in your branding plans.

Maintaining good SEO is what keeps your online presence up to date and relevant, and it helps Google and the other search engines rank your business. As we all know, most people choose the first business on the list when they are searching online for a product or service they want to buy.

PPC is those pop-up Google ads that help to get your potential customers. They need to be interesting and work to lead your potential clients to your website or other location to help them learn all about you and what you sell so you can convince them to buy it from your company.

Where to Point your digital marketing PR strategy

Digital marketing has become an even bigger branding adventure than ever before with the emergence of so many types of personal devices from smartphones to smartwatches and tablets to laptops and more.

There are so many ways you can communicate with your target audience. In order to keep building your brand, your business strategy must include finding the best ways to reach your target audience via digital marketing. For example, mobile customers are reached by ensuring your mobile sites undergo mobile optimization strategies.

The bottom line is that digital marketing isn’t going away, and in fact, it keeps getting more important every year. Your customers are who make or break your brand, so as long as you don’t forget that and are always striving to meet their needs, your business brand should stay on top.

More and more people get online every day and if your business doesn’t keep up it’s PR and branding strategies up to date, then you may lose a large part of your market share to your competitors.

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.

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.

How-to-get-more-traffic-to-your-ecommerce-website

How To Get More Organic Traffic To Your E-Commerce Website?

by Website Development

There are many ways to get traffic to your e-commerce website, without having to pay for ads. Your business may not have a budget to spend on Facebook, Google or Instagram ads because you’re still starting out, or focusing your budget on other aspects of the business.

You don’t have to spend any money on growing your e-commerce website traffic – you just need to know how to do it organically! Organic traffic may sound like a challenge, but here are a few tips on how to accomplish this goal.

Here are the 3 most crucial factors to get more organic traffic to your e-commerce website.

1. Create Quality Content

The first thing you’d want to focus on is creating unique content on each of your product pages, homepage, and blog. By creating relevant content, people find value in your website and when it is mixed with vital keywords, search engines like Google will find more relevancy in your content and rank your page higher, allowing people looking for key terms to find you on the first few pages which leads to increase in organic traffic.

One easy way to do so is with product reviews and blog posts. By allowing your customers to submit reviews, you can leverage their words into sales to convince new website visitors to convert. You’ll also want to highlight the reviews on your site’s home page so it’s the first thing new visitors see.

Fresh content and regular blog posts will keep your potential customers more engaged with your brand, website and thus value the information you provide them.

2. Have Dynamic Meta Descriptions To Increase Organic Traffic

Your site’s meta descriptions are very important as they appear directly below the page title. Even though Google often doesn’t read what’s in a meta description, customers do and it’s the only other information besides the title and URL that appears on the search results providing them enough reasons to visit your website.

Writing engaging meta description is important for readers to visit your e-commerce store.

The 70-80% of search engine users are ignoring the paid ads and are only focusing on the organic results

3. Make Your Site’s Speed A Priority

Speed is actually a decisive factor for ranking on Google so you need to make sure that your e-commerce site loads in under four seconds (as well as all of its pages). The faster your site is, the better chance it has to rank on the search results.

You may also have to constantly monitor the load time, bounce rate and time spent on the site to really get a clear understanding of the health of your website.

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.

AUGMENTED-REALITY-AR-IN-MARKETING

Augmented Reality in Marketing

by Artificial Intelligence

At the moment, Augment Reality (AR) is still new and under-explored. This novelty makes it the latest solution for sharing information. It is set to beat the amount print, online, and TV advertisements combined. AR can capture people’s attention for at least 85 seconds, raise interaction by 20%, and raise the click-through rate to buy by a further 33%. Soon it will be the mainstream and competition will rise—as is the case with all other industries.

With time, there will be more companies focusing on AR-inspired experiences. A rise in people incorporating AR into marketing will yield an equal rise in competition. The quality of campaigns will improve in quality as companies seek to impress audiences. Creativity will determine the best performing products. You will, therefore, need to improve your ingenuity and innovativeness to retain relevance.

Here’s Why Apple Acquired a Small Augmented Reality Startup

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook predicts that AR will become part of our daily lives. It is, therefore, of vital importance for marketers to learn how it works. Let us explore companies that already utilize the technology. These leading companies focus on innovativeness and are keen on taking risks on future technology.

Sephora

Purchasing products online is continuously easy and convenient for most people. However, there are certain products such as makeup, which needs trying on first. Women make up the target group for beauty products and face a problem of having to try on desirable products.

 

Sephora’s Virtual Artist App with ModiFace is an AR tool responsible that helps you view makeup on a similar face. Not only does the app reveal how your face will appear when you apply that product but also suggests tools you need. It also shows the appropriate equipment for application and things you would need to accompany the product.

Virtual Artist also reveals the long-term effects of the consistent use of skincare. This is not possible with beauty professionals.

 

Timberland

Many people are not fond of utilizing dressing rooms when shopping. They prefer to try outfits in the comfort of their homes. Most stores allow returning dresses, shoes, hats, and other items if they do not fit. As a result, many shoppers choose to purchase items but retain the right to return them if they are not satisfied. No one likes to carry a pile of clothes into a public dressing room and wait in a line.

Timberland created a virtual fitting room to help people who want to avoid the hassle in stores. It is, therefore, designed for convenience and comfort. Using Kinect motion sensing technology, the AR lets shoppers view their image. You can see a model body with your size in various outfits.

 

Home Depot

Decorating homes is trendy and exciting but very cumbersome and involving. It is not easy to predict the outcome of a color, for example. Working on your house requires a predictive image to confirm if you will like the results. Products may seem impressive online but fail to give you the level of satisfaction you expected. You may end up with a bathroom that is too bright due to the wrong kind of paint.

Furniture can also go wrong. A piece of furniture may fail to impress you. For example, you may purchase a bulky coffee table at a high cost that does not fit in your living room like you wanted. Going through the hassle of acquiring and transporting an item that does not fit is demoralizing.

Project Color App is Home Depot’s AR tool. It uses patent technology to depict the outcome of colors in rooms. The technology is capable of incorporating a variety of conditions. For example, it takes into consideration, the lighting, objects, and shadows in the room of choice. You can see the real version of your room and share with friends to help you assess it.

 

StubHub

For Super Bowl lovers, StubHub provided an AR feature on their mobile app. The app allowed ticket buyers to view a virtual 3D model of the U.S bank stadium. They could visualize their experience at the stadium before purchasing it.

The different views helped them select seats. Hesitant buyers could not resist the offer. Sales increased tremendously.

 

Pepsi

Pepsi is responsible for designing one of the most exciting tools with AR technology. The tool was made in a London bus shelter. One side of the structure appears as though thrilling objects such as flying saucers, and a tiger is headed for the commuters.

This AR technique was used to amuse the public. It reveals the playful personality of the company. It entertains the Londoners with an exceptional experience. A video of the shelter’s exceptional design made 6 million views on YouTube. This became the most viewed advertising campaign ever.

 

AMC Theaters

AMC Theaters sought to enhance delivery of latest movie trailers in time. When movie lovers come across a movie poster in a theater, they can launch the AMC app and scan the poster. They will instantly receive information about it and a trailer too.

Technology accuracy and timing has given mankind a vital piece of technology of the future.

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.

Snapchat

Snapchat for Business: Should Companies Start using Snapchat?

by Digital Marketing

Despite its 187 million daily active users, its 10 billion daily video views, its 2.5 billion daily snaps, and the approximately 18 visits it enjoys from daily active users, Snapchat remains another massively underestimated platform.

Since its founding in September 2011, Snapchat continues to evolve and transform allowing you to post videos as well as photos and has added all kinds of extras, like filters, Geo-filters, lenses, emojis, and video-editing tools like slo-mo. Content is no longer ephemeral.

snapchat stat

The growth of Snapchat messaging app is unparalleled with millions of millennials using these feature every day. Snapchat is a lucrative platform for businesses and companies and some of the reasons why they should use snapchat include:

A quick way to reach a massive audience

Snapchat Ads– With a massive user count, Snapchat is one of the most popular social platforms today. Advertising your business on it will get you in front of millions of people, especially the young crowd aged 18 to 34 years. This is a group that love to stay connected and keep themselves updated on what’s trending in the social world and command a large purchasing power.

Some 82% of Snapchat users ages 18 to 24 say they use the platform daily, with 71% indicating that they use it multiple times per day.

In the United States alone, 80 million young Americans are using Snapchat several times a day. The chances of your sales skyrocketing are quite high if you use Snapchat to advertise your business.

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Growingly Popular among the Adults

With the average age of Snapchat users steadily going up, It’s no longer just for teens. According to Comscore’s U.S Cross-platform Future in Focus, Snapchat is getting a meaningful traction from the age group of 35+ and with more new releases, the number is expected to grow. At present, 28% of snapchat users are among the age of 35+. Companies should kick-start into the Ad products of Snapchat before it gets flooded with Ads.

More than 20,000 photos are shared every second.

Excellent User Engagement

Despite getting few punches from Instagram, Snapchat is growing steadily with its users seriously engaged to the content. An active Snapchatter opens the app 18+ times and creates 20+ stories a day.

According to a report by Axios, Snapchat user engagement is up by 40%. The users spent a total of 32.8 minutes per day with the app, up from 30.3 minutes per day in Q1, and 27.5 minutes in Q4. That’s almost a 20 percent jump in just six months during a time when Instagram was offering its own version of Snap’s best product, Stories.

statThe opening rate for an email newsletter is about 25% whereas for Snapchat it is 61%. If you have 100 followers on snapchat, it is very likely that 60+ would engage in your content.

Truly a fun way to advertise

Adverts about your company need not be too formal and serious. Companies could add some sense of humour in order to connect with their target market. Snapchat gives you that opportunity to be cool and funny while presenting your idea to your followers.

Younger audiences (which make the best targets on social media) express themselves through brands, and they engage with brands that have a relatable personality.

Rather than presenting the marketing gigs to your customers, you can relate to them by having a conversation which is more endearing to customers and helps you with a wider reach.

New ways for Brands to stay trendy

Are you trying to create awareness about your brand in the market? You should be the first one to give quick alerts, trends and breaking news about your industry. This will give the customers the curiosity to know more about your products and will stay tuned or follow your company.

Snap chat offers a platform where you can add brilliant value to your brand with fresh content. When sharing your product or status on other platforms like Facebook & Twitter, Make it a habit that you create a story in Snapchat.

Powerful tool to influence the market

Traditional Advertisements may continue to enter our homes through television and radio stations, but advertising that actually influences people will happen only when people feel comfortable with the brand that establishes personal affinity with the consumers. This will encourage the buyers to learn more about the brand and be all ears to their stories.

And the most effective way to do this is for companies to think and act like individuals with unique personalities and voices that people can actually see and trust.

Snapchat brings a lot of value to your Ad campaign but you need the assistance of a talented marketer/agency to master your Ads. With the benefits associated with using snapchat, Companies should revisit their marketing strategy and embrace the app because the results will be quite rewarding.