The pandemic of 2020 had a huge impact on everything from our private lives to how we work and communicate. Businesses large and small were forced to respond quickly to a new normal and the changing needs of their customers. As we approach the half-year mark of 2021, it is worth a moment to stop and look back at how the digital marketing landscape has evolved. With this in mind, here are some digital marketing lessons that we will continue to carry forward as part of a robust marketing strategy to reach customers.
Conveying Value Via Storytelling
Businesses need a powerful story to grow because storytelling is essential for memorable communication. It is imperative for your brand to communicate the story of your history, your mission, and your values through your digital marketing. Consumers are more likely to connect with your products and services if they know how you got started and why your brand is beneficial to society. If you are successful in communicating your story clearly and consistently, you are more likely to earn customers’ attention, loyalty, and affection. The goal is to make the audience feel something. Decision-making is more emotional than logical. Telling a good story makes us think and feel, and will help your business stand out in the market.
Stop Taking Customer’s Trust for Granted
Taking care of your existing customers is just as important as attracting new ones. Businesses should not allow themselves to focus solely on growth. Businesses can not allow themselves to believe that customers that are there now will continue to be there tomorrow. No company or product is indispensable. It is time that you stop taking their trust and loyalty for granted and think about retention strategies. To retain customers, it is very important to customize your offerings to fit consumer needs and place an emphasis on service and value.
Some of the best digital marketing strategies for successful customer retention are:
- Promoting your brand value and commitments
- Pivoting your product or services into a unique offering
- Offer virtual services
- Create helpful content (blog or video promotion)
- Run an offer or discount to increase loyalty and client retention
Contest promotion
Contest marketing strategy persuades people to interact with your brand through the use of contests, giveaways, and sweepstakes. Contest marketing is effective because it entices individuals into interacting with your business by offering prizes. The hope of winning is powerful and exciting. Gamifying promotions are also a fun and exciting way to create brand engagement. They involve tapping into people’s natural competitive instincts through contests and leaderboards.
How do you decide on your contest type? In order to be successful, you need to choose a contest that aligns with your overall strategy and goals. You must make sure the planning for the contest is thorough, taking into account the process for determining winners, delivering prizes, and tracking the performance of the promotion. Some of the most affordable contest marketing formats are event-based contests, polls, giveaways, reward-based quizzes, and trivia contests.
The Verdict
The past year brought forth a significant change in consumer behavior along with many changes in the marketing industry. People found that many aspects of their lives were forced onto online platforms. Brands that were able to cultivate long-term relationships with their customers & clients will continue to thrive in the post-COVID-19 era. There is no time to lose in planning and implementing a strong digital marketing campaign. Please feel free to contact us if you have questions or would like to learn more about making an impactful marketing approach.
It may be hard to believe, but 75% of people will never scroll past the first page on Google Search. Listing your business on Google’s first page is a crucial part of any successful marketing strategy. Before we dive deeper into the benefits of being listed on Google, consider the following three facts:
- There are 3.8 million searches conducted on Google every minute – users search and research a lot before making any purchase decision.
- 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine.
- In the United States, 88% of users favor Google over other search engines.
Benefits of listing your business on Google:
- Direct exposure to millions of customers – As we mentioned before, Google is being searched by millions of people every day. Customers are out there searching for specific products and services. But they can’t buy them from you if they can’t find you. Enlisting your business in Google positions your brand directly in front of your customers. You can show your product or services on local search engine results pages (SERP) with relevant keywords and through simple search engine tactics.
- Precise targeting & high ROI – Google’s number one priority is to display results and information that is relevant to its users (based on their frequently searched terms, interests, and location). With precision targeting, you can display your ads only to those who are likely to buy. The entire ad campaign can be tailored to your business needs, which ultimately ensures a higher return on investment (ROI).
- Gateway to brand credibility – Google is where you are likely to be recognized as a brand. When customers search online, they compare companies and products. Customers prefer products from companies that appear more credible online. Seeing your business logo, information, testimonials, and pictures, will help convince potential customers that you are worthy of their business. Research has shown that businesses with complete listings gain more customer trust and result in almost 30% completing purchases.
- Long-term marketing strategy – Once you have claimed and optimized your Google My Business (GMB) listing, it is time to put it to work with your long-term marketing strategy. The ultimate goal is to help customers find your business. Over time your business will gain reviews that work to validate your company in the eyes of potential customers. You can also personalize your listing to help with local search results and by posting GMB posts that include business announcements, special events & offers, and new products. Don’t forget to keep an eye on the interesting insights you can pick up from Google analytics. This helps to better understand who your customers are and what they are looking for. Over time, your business will continue to build authority and naturally be one of the top search results in your category.
The verdict
Every business wants to grow and stand out in its competitive target market. So take the most important step and make it happen. Google, a robust marketing platform, can increase your chances of overcoming the competition. SEO, SEM, Google My Business, Google map promotion, and AdWords – these are some of the ways to promote your products and services.
Now that you have learned about Google and its significance in the marketing landscape, it’s time to make it a reality. For result-driven online marketing, contact us today.
Whether it is for marketing, sales, or customer service, messenger chatbots are one of the most innovative ways to streamline business tasks and foster growth. There is a reason why most vendors, agencies, and consultancies are integrating a chatbot function directly into their website. The fact is that many customers prefer an immediate response or a subtle interaction from a merchant. Through messenger chatbots, you can easily bridge a communication gap and improve your sales process – ultimately providing you with an edge in the market.
Ever thought of marketing via Messenger Chatbots? Well, you should…
Did you know that a majority of users favor chat apps over submitting a contact page on your website?
Every business aims to attract, convert, and nurture new and existing customers. Investing in messenger chatbots helps your business and your customers by leveraging your efforts with interaction, product recommendation, sales, and payment gateways. Think of messenger chatbots as a perfect channel to connect, nurture, convert and up-sell directly to prospective customers.
90% of newly established enterprises plan to adopt or have already integrated chatbots function into their digital-first business strategy. The following are some of the ways that messenger chatbots can enhance your marketing strategies.
Chatbots for 24*7 customers interaction – Your sales team may get worn-out but not chatbots. They are available to new & existing customers 24*7 (even on Sundays) and play a crucial role in 24*7 support, bringing instant answers to frequently asked questions and even helping customers to buy without sales help.
Better lead generation – A website landing page, when promoted, emphasizes conversion rate performance. But in order to increase the inflow of leads, you need to have a call to action that prospects can’t resist. A chatbot on a landing page promotion is a smart move for better conversion and increased ROI. They can help and guide users instantly. Moreover, with a messenger chatbot, your marketing team can easily collect important information such as contact details, demographic behaviors, and user buying patterns. All this collected information greatly helps in remarketing strategy.
Efficient and cost-effective – Compared to the manual method, messenger chatbots are extremely cost-effective and can easily handle complex queries. The implementation doesn’t take much of your time. It works spontaneously, and you’ll instantly notice massive savings come from slashing the time and cost incurred from dealing with customer queries.
Humanizes your brand – Messenger chatbots can make your entire website more interactive. They answer questions promptly and effectively, in a structured manner that mimics human interaction. With each question, the bot also provides a list of options making it easy to offer customers options for available queries. This personification is a great way of building relationships with your target audience.
The verdict –
Engagement happens when your brand is able to meet your customer where they need you. A messenger chatbot is always on hand can be helpful for site conversion. Furthermore, chatbots also allow businesses to understand customer’s expectations and provide relevant & desirable solutions. In short, the possibilities are endless.
Even though the business world is ruled by countless advertising platforms (such as email, Google AdWords, or Facebook advertising), text-based marketing is still considered a valuable asset to target customers on-the-move. Without it, you are potentially missing out on direct communication with your prospects and an opportunity for an increase in ROI.
You’ll be surprised to know that many big-name brands offer exclusive discounts & promos via text-based marketing. But why?
As long as people are using a smartphone, Text marketing or SMS marketing will always be a relevant tool to communicate with your customers successfully. Moreover, it is easy to understand and happens to be the most cost-effective & efficient way to reach a large audience in a day.
Text Message Marketing: 3 reasons to use it
- Build personal connection – The phone is the closest thing to your customers. With text message marketing, you can meet buyers’ personal expectations and introduce newly launched products instantaneously. However, the way you engage matters the most. The most persuasive copywriting usually includes an intimate one-to-one conversation.
- Very simple & straightforward to launch – Text Message Marketing is about as simple as sending a text. No special app, no additional navigation – you just have to limit your message to 160-180 characters. Thanks to its simple & straightforward process, SMS marketing remains valuable at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
- Outperforms Other Marketing Channels – Text message marketing is attention-grabbing, instantly seizes user’s attention, and has the highest open rates to delivery. To some extent, text-based marketing outperforms other marketing channels and gets the most bang for your buck. It has been well-researched that SMS open rates are as high as 98%, and it takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to promotions, offers, or discounts.
How To Make Your Message Convincing
People won’t read your message unless you catch their attention. For this reason, you have to scrutinize each word to get your message to be loud and clear. A compelling message intrigues inform, persuades, or calls to action. It has a sense of credibility, and fervently tells the reason to purchase. Strategies to make your message convincing are:
- Create a sense of urgency – Tell your audience about a limited-time offer, limited quantities, or offer coupons they can use right before the end of the deal.
- Play with emojis – 90% of users respond positively to emojis, and they are indeed a powerful tool to convey a more diverse message while using fewer words.
- Send offers in the morning – If you have something exciting to share (for ex- a 50% off discount coupon), try sending your message between 8:00 am – 12:00 pm. The timing works perfectly for people arriving at work, checking messages, and doing quick shopping online.
- Broadcast in advance – Surprise your audience with early reminders. You can use text message marketing to build hype about sales and promotions in advance and tease out some of the best upcoming discounts.
If you are looking for a quick and easy way to reach your target audience, text message marketing is the right choice for your business growth. It is being used by some of the largest and most reputable companies around the globe. Now it’s your turn.
Many experts give a strong emphasis to SEO-friendly blogs for better ranking, but have you ever wondered why?
SEO without unique content is pretty much useless. It is because of the content that Google and end-users get to know about your business and the offers that you provide. SEO blogs, articles, pages, or press releases are the only way to ensure that your business is being ranked with useful and relevant terms on search engine pages. They will help you to compete with other companies from your industry.
As you begin creating blogs, make sure they are useful, informative, engaging, high quality, and most importantly, optimized with relevant keywords.
Before we dive in further, let’s first learn how to do keyword research for blog posts.
Identify keywords opportunities – Keywords are basically the terms or phrases people use most often to search for your business, product, or services online. One can use Google Trends or keyword planner tools to find relevant phrases. It is a simple process, but you need to have a good grasp of your business niche & industry.
Other than shortlisting keywords on your own, you can also see what keywords your competitors rank for, and it is usually the best way to get started. Either way, you still need to use your best judgment when selecting competitive keywords.
Begin optimizing the title, URL, and meta description – After doing comprehensive research on keywords, your next step is to optimize:
- Headline – Headings have great importance in SEO, so including keywords in H1 or H2 tag will help boost your ranking and let your audience know what your blog is all about.
- URL – An SEO Friendly URL is built with a sound structure for both humans and search engines. The algorithm can easily understand what the destination page will be about.
- Meta Description – Meta description provides a short description of your blog or article on search engine ranking pages. Adding relevant keywords to meta content is helpful for ranking by summarizing everything in detail.
Optimize the length of your blogs. Studies suggest that Google prefers lengthier content, where 1000-1500 words of the content are most likely to dominate search ranking results on page one. The ideal blog length depends on the topic. Try to bring new concepts and ideas to each blog post you plan to publish.
Maintain keyword density. Keyword density sometimes referred to as keyword frequency, is the number of times a target keyword is used in a blog. The percentage is as follows:
Number of times the target keyword appears / Number of words = Keyword density
A higher keyword density can kill your SEO whereas minimum keywords density can steal your spotlight. There are no clearly defined “rules” for precise keyword density, but many experts believe that 1-2% is an ideal keyword density. In other words, a keyword must appear one or two times per 100 words.
We hope this blog has provided you with all the information you need to write an SEO-friendly blog post.
