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.

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.

Importance-of-User-Experience-in-your-Business

Importance of User Experience In Your Business.

by Website Development

User experience encompasses all efforts you put on the website in order to make it attractive, user-friendly and interesting to visitors. Visual appeal and usability have the largest influence on people’s first impression of a brand. And these initial impressions can last for years.

First impressions are 94% design-related. Don’t get me wrong, quality content matters. A lot. But even the best content is rendered powerless when it’s embedded in poor design.

A good user experience should entail value, usability, ease of navigation and a functionality which provides the website visitors with a positive impression. Cheap is expensive, Do not compromise on average design and functionality to save cost.

Ask yourself and your staff the following question: Have we logged in and changed anything in the last month? Six months? Year or more?

The longer that period is, the more likely your site is outdated and that goes double if no one can remember the logins to get into the website.

Reasons why user experience matter to your company.

Mobile factors

In the current scenario, mobile phones account for 52.2 percent of everyday web traffic. This means you should design your website to accommodate mobile users or else you will be serving less than half of the web users. Most companies are quickly adopting mobile-friendly website and marketing strategies to boost their sales.

User Behavior

It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave.

Here’s a sad scenario.

A prospective client is referred to you by a friend, family member or client. Before they contact you, though, this person does what everyone else does — they visit your website to learn more about who you are and what you do.

But then, silence. They don’t call for an appointment. They don’t email you. Nothing.

Apparently, your warm lead just turned cold. What happened?

Easy. Your website scared them away.

Instead of giving them the confidence that you know what you’re doing and you can actually help them, your site did just the opposite. It created doubt, uncertainty and a general feeling of uneasiness about you and your company.

So they quietly click the back button on their browser and decided to look elsewhere. Probably to one of your competitors that offers inferior services to yours, but has a better website than you.

Bringing clients on board is already tough. Don’t make it even harder by having anything lesser than an exceptional website that drives them away.

Referral to other users

When your website leaves a lasting impression on the minds of the users there is a huge probability that they will pass on the good name to their friends hence increase traffic to your site.

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

With limited time and higher stakes than the general consumer, business leaders have to be sure that they’re making the right decision. And many of these top-level business people already know that referrals are worth their weight in company gold.

84% of B2B decision makers start the buying process with a referral.

With the right tools, your organization can implement a structured process for monitoring, tracking and rewarding your customers. And over time, campaign analytics can show you key areas of the referral funnel that need improvement.

Sites efficiency

If you can customize your site in such a way that it simplifies processes and saves the users time, you will definitely create a great user experience. If a task initially took five minutes but your system performs it in two minutes people will definitely opt to use your site. The ease of your site is also an important factor to consider.

The ability to increase sales

One of our clients runs an e-commerce business and they faced a situation where more than 60% of the users exit the page after adding the items to the cart.

After some research, it was discovered that there was a form that the customers were supposed to fill before checking out and it was putting most of them off.

In order to make sure that you don’t face such user experience nightmares, you should ensure that your site has a smooth workflow and the user should not be introduced to a new task after every click.

Elements of a successful User experience.

Most people always assume that user experience only entails design and colors of your site, well there is a little more than that. A positive user experience must incorporate the following elements.

Value

What are your customers getting from your website? What value are your services adding to their lives? Are you solving their business challenges? These are the basic questions which should be answered when developing a perfect User Experience strategy for your site.

Usability

Good usability is not attained overnight. Your website should consist of clear, credible and relevant information that provide answers to all the questions your visitors are yet to formulate.

Navigation

Customers definitely hate a lot of ‘next buttons’. You should, therefore, reduce the number of clicks to find out what they are looking for. The layout of your site also plays a key role in ensuring that your site offers a great user experience.

Functionality

A website without functionality is a one-way street. Since the Internet is designed to allow more than one channel of communication, it is pointless to have a website that does not provide some form of visitor interactivity.

Your site should be straightforward about the services you offer. Customers should not wonder what you are specialized at and be able to see it at the first click.

Adaptability and Design

Your website should be goal oriented without distraction to the buyers. It is always easy to deviate from your goal when on the internet; your website design should not be the reason the users will get distracted from what brought them there in the first place.

It should also adapt to all devices that use internet be it phones, tablet, iPad or even desktops

  • 57% of internet users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website on mobile
  • In 2017, mobile eCommerce revenue accounted for 50% of total U.S. eCommerce revenue
  • Nearly 8 in 10 customers would stop engaging with content that doesn’t display well on their device
  • Average smartphone conversion rates are up 64% compared to desktop conversion rates

 

Impact of User Experience in Return-on-investment (ROI)

Research shows that your ROI increases rapidly with an increase in your investment in better design. Every 1 dollar spent on UX has a $100 ROI.

A good example is the ESPN which saw its profits increase by 35% after taking into consideration its fan base suggestions on how they wanted the site’s homepage designed.

It is important to ensure that you offer the best experience for your clients. This can get you a better website traffic, generate sales and an increase in ROI.

user-engagement

How can a Mobile-Friendly Website Boost User Engagement

by Website Development

With the introduction of technology in the business world, complicated business endeavours that were once a pain have now been made simpler. We live in a generation where a simple device like a mobile phone is no longer just used for communication but to mainly seek information on the internet and even manage and run a business.

The big question is How much time do consumers spend on mobile devices?

mobile devices

With a massive growth of the mobile market in the recent years, having an archaic website that only runs on the desktop means that your website is losing a large volume of valuable traffic.

1. Mobile Marketing Strategy

Why do you need a mobile marketing strategy? Well, this is the age we live in! Just get to the city square and you’ll find thousands of folks glued to their smartphone screens.

Here’s a quick bite of some mobile marketing stats.

  • According to official Google statements, more than 50 percent of search queries globally now come from mobile devices. But we don’t know whether the number is 51 percent or 60 percent, or if it varies significantly by country.
  • The number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019. In 2016, an estimated 62.9 percent of the population worldwide already owned a mobile phone. The mobile phone penetration is forecasted to continue to grow, rounding up to 67 percent by 2019.
  • 66 percent of all email in the US is now opened/read on smartphones or tablets and 34 percent is viewed on a desktop. The mobile breakdown is as follows: 49.5 percent of email opens were on a smartphone, 16.8 on a tablet.
  • Google drives 96% of mobile search traffic, followed by Yahoo at 2% and Bing at 1%.

 

2. Mobile website optimization

With the help of a Smartphone, Buyers can now access your website within a short span of time and shop. Due to the increased use of mobile devices to access online content, you need to ensure that your website is fully functional and well optimized for mobile devices.

Enter your website’s URL into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and it will let you know if you’ve got a mobile-friendly page on your hands. If the website you entered passes Google’s test, you will see a green banner indicating the website is mobile-friendly

A slow website loading time is, and will always be your biggest threat. The webpages should operate well to allow it to smoothly function on multiple screen sizes. Most people will abandon the website if the loading time takes more than five seconds.

Human-vs-Goldfish-Attention-Span-researchGoogle has announced mobile friendliness as an important ranking signal. The change has affected the websites all over the world and made a significant impact on the search results. Optimizing your website to be mobile friendly will result in reaching scores of mobile users.

3. Mobile phone applications

Companies have started to embrace mobile apps as they understand the exceptional user engagement and the value-add it brings to their business. It can be easily downloaded from the App Store. The app economy is continuing to grow, with the worldwide revenue from app stores expected to top $110 billion this year.

mobile-app-usageMobile apps with numerous functions help customers to quickly access the company’s products/services with minimum steps.

It also provides an easy payment option with an ability to track sales which benefits both the customer and the seller. Similar to mobile-friendly websites, Mobile apps engage buyers to spend more time surfing the products and services, thus increasing sales remarkably.

4. Social Share

It is no longer a news that we’re in a social-driven world. Facebook has more than 1.6 billion monthly active users, while Twitter has 305 million–numbers that are rapidly increasing. More than 100 million people use Instagram every month.

You don’t have to limit social engagement on social media. Engage customers as soon as they arrive on your website by offering a Live Chat option. Linking your social media is just the first step but to truly boost engagement, you need to get serious about the content creation and distribution.

Social media for mobile-friendly-website

A mobile-friendly website with social media engagement would be a perfect mix to retain visitors and respond to your call-to-action.

5. Online surveys

Surveys are a way to know the market views concerning a certain product or service. The consumers give their opinions concerning the improvement of a product or service by completing online questionnaires made available.

A mobile-friendly website would allow the customers to take part in online surveys easily. This will enable the service providers or companies to evaluate themselves and make changes to the products/services leading to a better user experience and increased sales.

6. Better Conversion Rate

If your target market can access your website conveniently on their mobile devices, then they are more likely to complete contact forms, make purchases and become a loyal customer to your brand.

One of the main benefits of having a mobile-friendly website is that even for dynamic technology platforms- such as wearable devices and smartphones- your website will still run very well and be optimized. This means that a mobile-friendly website will serve your business for years to come.

The mobile market is rapidly expanding nowadays. It presents a great opportunity for your business to stand out from your competition. When done properly, your mobile website will help attract more customers and achieve a better bottom line.