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Moms spend 37% of their daily media time on their smartphones and 97% of moms made a purchase on their tablet in 2012. There’s a huge opportunity for brands to provide value to customers through apps, especially to moms. However developing an app, particularly for the first time, is not a simple task. Rather, you need a well thought-out mobile strategy. App development requires a large budget, skilled engineers, dedicated marketers, and time. Here are several key topics to keep in mind while you consider if an app is the right choice for your brand.
Augmented reality (AR), which overlays text, images, or video over physical objects, is one of those technologies that gets marketers really excited. In recent years, it's been used to create engaging advertising campaigns by brands as diverse as DreamWorks, Bloomingdale's, and Elizabeth Arden. But despite the pizzazz of AR-powered creative, it's still a novelty and marketers aren't entirely sure how it translates into ROI.
Today’s article is about the initial setup of your B2B search campaign. It also touches on the parallels between old-school B2B sales tactics and search engine marketing.
In 2012, the Encyclopedia Britannica – the go-to source for information for more than 200 years – announced it would no longer print its pricey reference books. It makes sense – why pay nearly $1,400 for a set of books when Google is free? Technology has changed the way we access information, including how we respond to advertising and marketing. We can record our favorite TV shows and skip through commercials. We can install pop-up blockers to keep pesky ads from annoying us while we’re online. And many people can’t even recall a time when they answered a “land line” and took a survey about their product preferences. Unlike the leather-bound reference books of yore, marketing departments are still relevant. But in order to be successful, they need to learn how to transition to inbound marketing.
Some people in the web marketing space have suggested that PPC shouldn’t be included in “inbound marketing” because you have to pay for placement. But this doesn’t make any sense. The whole point of introducing a term like “inbound marketing” is to create a more nuanced distinction than just “free marketing” and “paid marketing.” Any marketer who manages a budget knows that no form of marketing is truly “free.” HubSpot, one of the first proponents of inbound marketing, sells a product that helps you do it – how is that free? They know that if they called what they’re selling – a platform for blogging and SEO – “free marketing,” it would be a contradiction in terms. Of course, you can do inbound marketing without HubSpot (duh), but you’re either going to be paying someone or a team of people to do it (a blogger, a social media manager, an SEO specialist, etc.) or you’re going to be doing it yourself, as the business owner, and any time you spend on inbound marketing is time you can’t spend on other business activities, so all those activities have a cost. That’s why “free marketing” doesn’t cut it.
Now that email marketing has been around for years, every retailer has an email marketing program. But, each program is at a different level of sophistication. Do you ever wonder where your program ranks compared to others? Need helping mapping out where to go from where you are? The crawl, walk, run metaphor and PR can resonate with many marketers. Many times after finishing a race, you will hear a runner say, “I’m never doing that again!” But after just a few days, the runner is already planning her/his next race. Getting to the finish is hard, and at times may not seem worth it; but in the end, you can recognize your achievements and realize you can push yourself to be better, both as a runner and as an email marketer.
Inbound marketing is all the rage. Social media has us consumed. B2B Marketers are creating more content than ever before. We’re optimizing everything we possibly can all with the intention of driving more people to our sites, engaging with them and offering them opportunities to raise their hand and announce themselves. For many of us, it’s working! Visitors are showing up at rates we’ve never seen before. Some are just stopping by to see what we’re offering, some clicking around the site to check us out and of course those that decide to take the bait, oops, I mean fill out the lead form.
Social media is no longer a reminder or subsidiary medium. To understand and invest in this medium, marketer need to have a strategy in place, risk appetite in case of failure and a measurement system which is in sync with the brand objective. Dos and don’ts of social media have been chalked out quite a lot of times. However, experts express that to make the medium a permanent part of the media mix without risking RoI, there are a few business rules that they can keep in mind.
LinkedIn recently announced that they now have over 225 million users. A reminder that LinkedIn gives opportunities to connect and communicate for both individuals and businesses across more than 200 countries. In this post, we will look at some of the main features that are available for individuals and businesses on LinkedIn..
Local SEO is probably one of the toughest on-line marketing strategies to implement. This is partly because of Google’s strict local algorithm, which takes into account several factors. Long gone are the days where you could build a large amount of links and expect your local business to rank on the first page. Link building is one of multiple factors that Google takes into consideration when placing you on the coveted first page of a local search result (7 Pack). The purpose of this article is to provide readers with quick action steps on how to place your local business at the top of the local SERPS (search engine results page).
Today’s blog post comes courtesy of Jonathan Dempster, a digital strategist based in Leeds, UK. He is focused on providing marketers the tools to justify their marketing spend by understanding the customer journey from online to offline channels. Inbound marketing, especially for B2B companies, is difficult to get right. With so many online social outlets, content strategies, and performance metrics, knowing where to begin is a significant challenge. It is important to get the basics right. Once you have a manageable campaign, you can begin to piece together the parts of your marketing puzzle. A well developed marketing strategy enables you to more effectively drive inbound leads to your website. Here are four tips that can get you started.
Digital Marketing Power - My Curation Topic
I've been fascinated with digital marketing and its possibilities ever since the term was coined. I guess that's because I've been professionally involved in sales and marketing for over 20 years now, way before the invention of the internet. I remember trying to think of a suitable title to encapsulate what digital marketing means to me and I realised that the word POWER had to be in there. When you think about it, when has there ever been a time in the history of commercial marketing and PR where a one man band or small business could compete with a multinational or global business. Digital marketing (when executed correctly) can level the playing field. My objective with 'Digital Marketing Power' is to select the best content from the best content producers around the world based on the following 3 key principles; 1) Education - provide hot tips and advice which you can use in your business immediately to make a difference 2) well written and nicely presented content for your enhanced experience and 3) evergreen content - so you can go back and reference this material regularly if you so choose. This is not a news site. Finally, I wanted to take this opportunity to mention my business, Gary Hitching Associates. I'm a business development consultant and specialise in lead generation, sales and customer retention for mainly SME businesses. Digital marketing and social media marketing are very significant components of my business development toolkit. Please feel free to visit my website and download a free copy of my 'Marketing Audit Checklist' www.garyhitching.com
. There is a continuing disconnect with people’s personal use of the internet and how they then apply digital marketing to promote their business. The company CEO will use Google for researching and buying a new car but when it comes to optimizing his web site for ranking high in Google he struggles to see the value and perceives that building a website is all he needs to do to be “found online” and generate mountains of cash. Read more here...
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It is not so much a revolution but a rapid evolution and digital transformation. The growth of digital media, the convergence of paid, owned and earned media practices and the rapid growth and adoption of mobile and video have fueled change in the way we work in 2013. If you add to this equation the technological changes and innovation and the catalyst that is social media and content marketing it becomes apparent that dealing and adapting to change is a digital marketing necessity rather than the option that it used to be.
A webinar is a service that allows conferencing events to be shared with remote locations using Internet technologies, particularly on IP/TCP connections. The term “webinar” is short for “Web-based Seminar”, that often involves presentations, lectures, collaborative meetings transmitted online, specifically a portmanteau of web & seminar, and other types of specific web conference. Webinars are the latest marketing trend allowing for a more interactive and personal sales presentation. Popular online systems include service providers like GoToMeeting and WebEx.
Marketers (40%) are finding that delivering a positive customer experience is harder in mobile marketing than on the web. That’s likely no surprise, but what may be troubling is that 70% of marketers describe their multichannel experience for customers as “okay” or “poor. These findings, from a new IBM sponsored survey of more than 500 chief marketing officers and ecommerce leaders, revealed that while these leaders understand the importance of mobile, two-thirds still do not know how to define their mobile user experience. The top three most serious issues around mobile marketing were defined as bad navigation/poor “findabilty,” screen-sizing issues and form-filling problems. Mobile traffic continues to grow, with respondents attributing 19% of their total traffic to a mobile device. Even so, many companies continue to optimize their websites for mobile marketing and experiences, as opposed to building a mobile experience from the ground up which would provide an improved experience for the customer.
Serious inbound marketers are known for their near superhuman abilities to generate leads. But these supermen and women aren’t from another planet, and they don’t have a secret identity. Instead, they utilize modern marketing tools, dig through data and adjust their tactics on a regular basis. So how can you, too, be an inbound marketing man (or woman) of steel? Well, here are five things that make a super inbound marketer:
With exponentially growing interest in Social-Local-Mobile (SoLoMo), it’s easy to think of email marketing as passé; some have even gone so far as to declare its death. Most marketers know that this is simply untrue. The rise of new digital channels has, of course, had a significant impact on how marketers use email. There are certainly new challenges, but data shows us that the reward for successful email marketing continues to grow. The statistics I have collected below tell not one, but many stories depending on who you are and what your marketing goals are.
Every day we hear more experts preaching the gospel of podcasting as a content marketing tool. It’s a very enticing sermon. We get to have our own cute little pre-recorded radio show our audience can listen to when they’re working out or driving in the car. But how is a podcast supposed to help grow our business? In theory, podcasts create brand fanatics, people who are deeply invested in who we are as people and as business professionals. This is essence of long-form content marketing. Every minute that a customer or prospect listens to us speak with authority we’re establishing ourselves as a thought-leader. Conceptually the more time our audience spends with our content the more authority we have as content marketers. According to Google Analytics the average visitor to my website stays for two minutes and seven seconds. According to Stitcher {popular alternative to iTunes} the average podcast listener stays for twenty two minutes. If you believe the concept that the time our audience spends in front of our content builds authority then by these statistics I would have to produce 11 blog posts to equal just one podcast. Podcasts place the ideas and expertise that establish us as an authority in front of our audience for a longer period of time per interaction. From a business content marketing strategy, this is why we podcast.
If you look through the tech section of any newspaper, or spend any amount of time online, you are almost certainly familiar with the expression “augmented reality.” Used in everything from military exercises to sportscasts on national television, augmented reality (AR) applications have quickly become part of our everyday lives. But what exactly is augmented reality? In simple terms, it’s a view of the real world that has been enhanced by computer-generated graphics, text or sound. While we may not be familiar with the definition of AR, we are certainly familiar with some its applications. That yellow first down marker we see during televised football games is a classic and enduring example of AR. So is the data that is superimposed on the visor of a fighter pilot as he gazes out of his cockpit window. But while these are two of the better known AR applications, they have recently been joined by thousands of others. Faster processing speeds and better data delivery networks have combined to bring AR to every aspect of our daily existence. Here are just 5 areas where AR is leaving its mark:
The World Wide Web and permission based inbound marketing continues to revolutionize the marketplace and you can only ignore it at your own peril. It is pretty obvious that people are more and more averse to being interrupted by some marketing message and this will tend to annoy them rather than put them in the right mood to buy from you.
I have returned from the fiery abyss of writing my first eBook and uploading it on Kindle, and I bring you this message: It’s not that bad. But why write and publish an eBook? If you’re an online marketer, entrepreneur, writer, blogger, or maybe a chef, what’s the point? Here’s what I’ve found: It’s time to prove your authority. You have an incredible, life-changing idea? You won’t find a better time for your words to spread like wildfire to inspire and empower, if executed correctly.eReaders nearly doubled from December 2011 to January 2012. 1 in 4 Americans are now using some kind of tablet (iPad, Nook, Kindle) that is capable of reading eBooks (The Kindle reading app is also available on nearly every smartphone, more on this below).If you already have an established platform — or want to build one — this eBook will fortify all your other online marketing efforts. The opportunities to grow and expand your business or ideas through publishing an eBook are limitless. With a insightful, compelling eBook, your words can instill valuable wisdom, actions, stories and ideas that can build trust and relationships with your audience. If you follow the seven steps below, you’ll never have to read another article on publishing to Amazon’s Kindle platform ever again. Let’s get started …
So why should a small business either develop or strengthen its presence online? Clearly the world of technology, digital marketing and social media is having a significant impact on how we behave socially, act as consumers and how we do business so it could be fair to say that any business that does not adapt to the new era of marketing and communications is in danger of losing out. However, it may be prudent not to blinker your vision and miss out on any traditional media that your customers and prospects use and what currently works. It could be that a blended strategy of traditional and digital marketing can still yield returns for your business. Here are 10 suggested benefits of Digital Marketing v. Traditional Marketing:
Social media is part of our everyday life and we enjoy the conversation and the friendships that we develop everyday. You can find people blogging or sharing songs, pictures and links on Facebook and Google plus but you will find them sharing more on Twitter. Even though the site has been in existence for over 5 years now, there are a lot of people who still don’t understand those who are addicted to the microblogging platform. Here are some reasons to love Twitter...
Most of us who are content creators love to write. And we are pretty good at organizing and layout out content in ways that are useful and helpful to our customers. But as good as we may be at creating digital content, many of us are weak when it comes to marketing what we’ve created. It’s just not what we like to do. We create our stuff, we say a little prayer, and hope that the sales roll in. Need I say that weakness in marketing is a problem if you want to create income from your digital content? One of my first coaches, Ali Brown, set me straight by saying early on “if you refuse to become just as great at marketing as you are at your craft, your business will fail. Learn to love it.” That strong statement made me blink back then. I’m a good student, and in the years since then I’ve come to realize that half the battle of marketing is building into your product certain components that actually help you to market. Here are 3 ways to make your marketing easy when you’re ready to launch your digital content into the world:
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