Digital Marketing Trends

Projected Digital Marketing Trends For 2017

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A new year is here, and that means it’s time to speculate about what digital marketing trends will emerge! There’s no question there will be some new trends to follow, but much of what will happen in 2017 has already been happening!

Classic strategies don’t change much from one year to the next, but strategies and tactics indeed evolve. By the year 2017, everyone is aware of the fundamental nature of mobile marketing. Web developers have been noticing a shift to mobile device access for years. Now, it appears as if Desktop users are nearing extinction! That means Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and other technologies will proliferate rapidly.

AMP Is Worth Implementing

Google and Bing are always looking for ways to increase speed for their users. One way they can do that is by showing AMP pages in their search. These web pages display fast in mobile devices by stripping many additional HTML elements. Users want answers fast and search companies are delivering quick results. Anytime you can stay abreast of technological advances; it pays to do so! AMP and HTTP2 are two enhancements for your website technology and a digital marketing trend to consider.

Virtual Reality Is Going to Grow

One digital marketing trend we saw emerge toward the latter part of 2016, was virtual reality. Depending on your vertical, virtual reality may play a large role in your digital marketing efforts. It’s not hard to imagine the numerous potential applications for just about every sector. Millions of people are purchasing VR technology, and they’ll want to use the pricey equipment to its fullest advantage. If your organization can come up with a slick way to deliver content or a user experience to this emerging technology, you’ll see a sudden boost in sales.

Big Data Keeps on Growing

There’s an interesting thing about data. The more of it anyone amasses, the more useful it becomes. Companies are relying heavily on mining Big Data as much as possible to guide their marketing. Being able to predict results accurately means you can spend marketing dollars much more wisely. Big Data has been contributing a lot to the top end for large organizations. Next up we’ll see small and mid-sized enterprises catch up. Amazon Web Services have some Big Data options that marketers will build applications for to help the ecosystem grow.

Multi-Channel Marketing Continues to Dominate

Companies have to craft specific messages for the various crucial social networks. If they don’t, they’ll find the effectiveness of their overall campaign diminishes. Having to do this requires more work and money, but the results make it a mainstay. It’s not enough to manage a Facebook Page. You should also represent your company on Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have a business where creating visuals is easy, consider the benefits of Pinterest and Instagram. There’s no one size fits all strategy that will work for any small business’ marketing plan, but it is a digital marketing trend that is still a staple.

Social Analytics Become Essential

Analytics help marketers correctly interpret social media information. Analytics may not mean much when you first start, but when you’re running multiple campaigns with high budgets, they are unavoidable. It helps to see what content matters most and who your most influential followers are at all times. Social analytics dashboards range in features, but all of them give you profound insights into how you interact with customers and prospects. For those who are waging campaigns across multiple channels, this type of knowledge is hugely important.

Video Never Slows Down

By now you’re probably investing heavily in video content. That digital marketing trend will continue in 2017 and beyond. People love the format of video. If you introduce a video marketing campaign to your inbound marketing efforts this year, expect a boost in your activity. Attracting viewers on Facebook and YouTube is easy. Facebook has been granting precedence to video content for months, and that will go on for quite some time. Now’s an excellent time to dive in with both of your feet and start pushing engaging video content. There are still many of your competitors who haven’t been producing videos. Beat them to market and win new fans and customers.

Distributing Your App Helps Growth

2017 may be the year to advertise your app to a broad market. The app ecosystem is so large that it’s still possible to find low-cost advertising that works. It’s worth experimenting by targeting those who are already using related applications. You may be able to poach the exact type of customer you want at an affordable cost. Have your digital marketing agency come up with a strategy that takes the vibrant world of App Discovery into consideration. Investing in an app once is never enough. It matters that you continue to improve your offering and that you advertise it far and wide. Rewards for companies that stay consistent with their marketing are high.

The classics won’t change this year. In marketing, that means to have a strong brand and a coherent message. If people can quickly identify what your company sells, you’re on the right path. It might be worth discarding older marketing material and coming up with fresh new ideas. If you aren’t into doing it yourself, many professionals can assist. People who work with digital marketing every day develop a strong sense of what works. Once you plug your existing efforts into a digital framework, you have a chance to really take off!

No matter what digital marketing trend you decide on, make sure you follow up with your clients! Whether you use email alone or call or text them doesn’t matter. You’ll find those who have dealt with you in the past can be excellent sources of revenue. Sometimes all it takes is a simple reminder that you’re out there and can help them. That triggers a process that ends with them seeking you out for more services! Adding more people to the top of your sales funnel and selling more to those who are already customers will help you get excellent returns.

What You Need to Know About Digital Marketing

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Digital marketing offers businesses of all sizes the opportunity to advertise their products and services on the Internet. While the two words ‘digital marketing’ may seem relatively simple and straightforward, digital marketing campaigns are made up of multiple different marketing tactics to engage potential customers on their preferred platform.

A successful digital marketing campaign is effective at reaching your target market and increasing sales and conversions across the board.

Your Website

Before launching a Digital Marketing campaign, it’s important to note that your site serves as the ‘hub’ for all of your other marketing activities.

For this reason, you’ll want to be sure that you offer your site visitors a pleasant user experience when they browse your site. These days, more people access the Internet using mobile devices such as Smartphones and Tablet computers, so it’s critical that business owners offer these visitors a mobile-friendly version–commonly referred to as a “Responsive Design” that automatically formats to accommodate their screen size. By doing so, you’re making your site easier to navigate for an improved user experience.

In addition to being mobile-friendly, optimizing your site to meet other technical requirements such as faster response time, secure browsing sessions, E-mail Opt-In Forms, and E-Commerce integrations helps you derive more value and success from the investment you’ve made in your site.

Stay in Touch with E-mail Marketing Campaigns

E-mail marketing is a cost-effective way for companies to market to individuals who have signed up for their e-Mail list online or in person. E-mail marketing gives business owners the opportunity to connect with clients and potential customers directly in their E-mail inboxes. E-mail marketing isn’t’ reserved for major corporations. E-mail marketing companies including AWeber, Constant Contact, MailChimp, and others make it easy for businesses to send periodic newsletters and updates.

Additionally, e-mail marketing is the ideal way to follow up with people by setting up an Autoresponder series that’s designed to engage the reader with free information or to encourage them to take action by making an inquiry or buying the product or services offered

Stay Social and Get Connected!

In the last five years, the use of popular Social Media websites like Facebook and Twitter have skyrocketed! Companies that neglect the importance of representing their brands on these high traffic platforms are missing out on connecting with more people. Your potential customers are already there, so providing your audience with helpful and timely updates strengthens your overall branding message.

Most social media platforms have direct messaging available, so these outlets give small and medium businesses an additional way to communicate with both existing and potential new clients seamlessly. Instead of having to make a phone call to ask a quick question or two, they can send a secure message from their app to get an answer. Communications via these platforms help remove friction and time by connecting with your potential customer directly.

Your social media profile is a digital asset that works as an extension of your website. Furthermore, since these platforms are often easy to integrate with other widgets and apps, such as Live Chat support, appointment setting, and E-Commerce functionality, you can use these outlets as another way to market your goods or services. With over 2.3 Billion users, it’s easy to understand how having a presence on these platforms matters.

Content Marketing

Another critical aspect of every digital marketing campaign is putting a content marketing strategy in place. These days, content comes in many forms including text-based content, image-based content, and video content. If possible, it is always a smart idea to use a combination of content types to engage with your audience. Image and video content are appealing for making regular updates on both your website and your social media channels.

In most cases, text-based content focuses on updating business website blogs, often with image or video based content that complements the topic matter getting discussed. By creating compelling and informative content, that’s customized to speak to your audience you are making the right moves to build trust, to improve your customer relationships, and establish your brand effectively.

Additional Digital Marketing Assets

Creating a successful digital marketing campaign takes a great deal of careful planning and precise implementation. Additionally, the plan must be consistently monitored and tweaked to keep delivering the most favorable results.

Other digital marketing assets include Landing pages that are designed to encourage website visitors to take a very specific action on the web page they’re visiting, whether it is to sign up for a free newsletter or to take advantage of a free offer or another type of promotion. Landing pages work hand in hand with paid advertising campaigns to maximize the ROI of the ad campaign.

Since Landing Pages usually lack web site navigation, people who “land” on the page are left with very few options to click on other pages on the site, so they stay focused on the offer and can respond quickly. By removing a lot of the “noise” and unnecessary navigation, your website visitors have little choice but to decide whether or not they’re interested in your deal or promotion.

Companies that overlook the importance of having Landing Pages to help steer visitors into a sale, or a conversion can easily be squandering thousands of dollars of valuable traffic by sending them to pages that contain a lot of information, but just not the information that’s needed to convert that visit into a sale successfully.

The Devil Is In the Details!

Constructing a results-oriented digital marketing campaign involves a lot of technical details and fine-tuning to make sure you have everything just right. If you don’t have the time to learn how everything fits together when it comes to a digital marketing campaign, that’s OK! There are many well-qualified companies and individuals who specialize in this line of work so you can specialize in whatever it is that you do best!

An Effective Digital Marketing Campaign Requires Thought and Planning

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Regardless of whether you are just starting a new business or you have an existing business that has to modernize your approach to marketing, an effective digital marketing campaign is one of the best ways to launch and promote your business.

The one thing to keep in mind is that an effective Digital Marketing Campaign isn’t about doing one or two things right. It’s about getting everything right and fusing all of these things together to build a finely-tuned lead generation, conversion, and sales machine!

These days, this means that small and medium-sized business owners can’t afford to overlook the importance of representing their brand on numerous online platforms and channels.

Get Moving on Social Media!

Social networking sites provide people with a broad range of benefits. Businesses, no matter how big or small they are, have access to a platform to target their ideal audience and connect with them.

By establishing social profiles and keeping your business page updated with pertinent information, you have a direct way to sell products and introduce promotions quickly to your target market. It’s not surprising that so many small business owners love these platforms, merely for the fact that they can get their messages out to their audience with just a few keystrokes!

Further, most Social Media platforms also tend to offer affordable advertising to help extend the reach of these types of posts for increased engagement. With multiple types of advertising options available, business owners have the ability to customize their advertising specifically for the kind of results they want from the digital marketing campaign.

Why Hiring a Digital Marketing Company Makes a Lot of Sense

The issue that many small and medium-sized businesses have is that a truly successful digital marketing campaign isn’t about updating a time or two a month on one platform. For the best results, it is always a smart idea to maintain a presence on multiple platforms.

But this takes time and consistent effort every day. Even business owners with the best intentions can have a difficult time keeping up with the demands of making updates and managing ad campaigns, especially when you have multiple ad campaigns running across multiple social platforms.

When time is of the essence, and you need to focus on the side of the business that you do best, a digital advertising agency is better positioned to handle this aspect of your business. Because they specialize in this type of technical work and have employees that understand the complexity and consistency, that’s required to run a successful digital marketing campaign. This allows you to rest easy knowing this part of your job is getting done.

Digital Marketing Agencies Offer Keen Insights

Another advantage of working with an experienced digital marketing agency is the fact they use tools and technology to evaluate data and offer insight about your web presence and digital marketing campaign. By using tools, digital marketing companies can easily extract and sort information that most business owners don’t have the time to collect on their own.

A well-orchestrated digital strategy is a wise investment in your business. Results are measurable and available nearly in real-time. The best digital marketing agencies know how to identify trends in your analytics and make adjustments as needed for a maximum return on your marketing budget.

Stay Competitive and Build Your Brand Online

The most successful business owners know that marketing strategies are not an option; they are a necessity. Think about it. You wouldn’t know many of today’s famous companies had they not invested in branding and advertising campaigns to help with positioning in their market segment.

While you probably won’t be able to spend millions of dollars on your digital marketing campaigns like the big corporations do, you still have the opportunity to build brand awareness and recognition within your local or target market. Depending on the platform that your digital agency is using to advertise on your behalf, they can set tight parameters for targeting the ideal potential audience. In larger ad networks like Google, run of network and retargeted ads are helpful for display purposes and overall branding efforts.

Ads are shown on millions of websites, including properties such as YouTube, mobile devices, and favorite sites that participate in the Google ad program. If you want your brand name to get in front of people when they’re visiting high-profile sites, Google ads are one way to do it.

If you prefer to have your digital marketing agency run a campaign that is more finely-tuned, Facebook offers advertisers the ability to drill down and select who sees your ad based on demographics you choose. These demographics could include by Zip code, interests, age group, marital status, and even shopping habits.

As you can imagine, having this type of tight control over who sees your ad optimizes it for higher returns and better results. For instance, if you’re selling a product for women, such as a beauty cream or cosmetics, showing your ad to men who are unlikely to be interested in your offer is bad targeting. There is never a good excuse for bad targeting when you have all the controls you need to skip running a poorly targeted ad campaign.

Talk to a Professional!

If you have questions about what you need to do to strengthen your web presence and build your digital marketing campaign, don’t be afraid to talk with a professional digital marketer about your concerns.

Professional digital marketing companies are happy to answer any questions you have and offer solutions to help you get your business to where you want it to be.

It’s worth noting that most digital strategies take time and consistent effort for them to unfold, so you should be willing to make a commitment of a minimum of 12 months for all of the foundational work to come together cohesively. By staying on course and following through on a long-term digital marketing campaign strategy, your business is certain to reap the rewards of sales and conversions.

Building the Brand You’ve Always Dreamed Of

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If you’ve been around the block even one time, you know how important branding is. You find brands everywhere you look – just drive down the busiest street in your town and you’ll see for yourself! As a small business owner, building the brand you’ve always dreamed of and establishing your market share is the key to your success!

Depending on the product or service you offer, and the scope in which you see yourself operating, you’ll need to make some big decisions on how best to position yourself. The more you understand your target demographics, the better you’re positioned to market effectively to them. By making the experience that consumers have with your brand more meaningful, customers are likely to be more loyal to your brand.

Selecting Your Name, Making a Statement and Building the Brand

If you are just getting started with your business venture, the first couple of things you need to do is decide what ‘name’ will represent your commercial efforts. There is no exact ‘cut and dry’ solution to selecting the ideal name for your company or Organization, so it is always a good idea to brainstorm some naming possibilities. Don’t be afraid to talk about your project with your business partners, friends and family members to drum up some ideas. If you are coming up short, working with a branding expert is another way to launch your brand effectively.

Measuring Your Brand

Once you’ve officially launched your brand, the next step is to measure your market share actively. These days, you’ll find no shortage of tools to evaluate and track the strength of your brand, as well as your brand equity. You’ll know you’ve reached the pinnacle of success when your brand name is used to replace the generic term for the product! Think Kleenex or Q-Tips. Obviously, this isn’t something that happens overnight, so if you are aiming for this business goal, you might have to use a long-term plan to get to this point, and your branding will inevitably be one of the biggest pieces of solving this business puzzle.

Promotional Products for Building the Brand’s Awareness

Nearly everyone appreciates getting something free from time to time. If part of your business plan includes being an exhibitor at local or industry-sponsored trade shows or conferences, investing in meaningful, personalized, promotional items is a cost-effective way to keep your brand name in front of people who could potentially be your customers. Things like Pens, Styli, USB Memory Sticks, T-Shirts, Water Bottles, Tote Bags, and Printed Materials with more information on your company are a relatively inexpensive ways to market your brand and build goodwill. Instead of attendees forgetting about your brand as soon as they leave the venue, they have something they can use with your brand name or marketing message imprinted on it directly, so they can refer to you when it is convenient for them. While they may not buy from you directly that day, they have a way to connect with you again at a later time when they’re ready to buy!

In the modern marketplace, companies of all sizes must compete against one another to garner the attention of consumers. Establishing your brand is critical to getting the coverage and business you need to succeed. The more efficient you are at providing a product or service that commands brand loyalty, the better! Once you’ve become a trusted provider, the higher your chances of repeat and referral business.

Digital Marketing and Branding Go Hand in Hand

Technology and the extensive use of Internet Technology have made it easier than ever before for people to connect and sell online. With the proper branding elements in place and a professional web presence that includes a branded website domain, a managed Social Media Presence and eCommerce capabilities, business owners and entrepreneurs can start on a level playing field, which was more than what was possible even twenty short years ago.

As a general rule, a website that supports your brand should be user-friendly and mobile-friendly to be viewed correctly on display screens of all sizes. These days, more and more people depend on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones to access the Internet, so you’ll want to be sure that you have a responsive design in place to cater to website visitors who are using these devices to browse your site. Another technical aspect to have in order is having your site hosted on a fast web server. No one likes to have to wait for more than a couple seconds for a website to load, so every extra millisecond counts! All you need to do is think of how many sites you’ve hit the “Close” button on because it was taking too long, to understand what we’re talking about here!

Do You Need Help With Building the Brand and Putting It All Together?

There is no doubt that branding is a complicated process to put together on your own, especially if this isn’t one of your business strengths. But there is no reason to worry when you can work with branding experts like Colleen Eakins, who specialize in these aspects of business development. Head on over to the contact page to get in touch with Colleen and get started building the brand you’ve always dreamed of!

Your Stuff Cannot Stink – Prove Your Ability and Worth

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Yep, here we go again. Colleen is on a bit of a rant again today. What has my gears grinding today? Businesses that think they are illusionists and use smoke and mirrors to dazzle you into believing their claims. They use their messaging to tell you how great they are, but do not show you how great they are. In the past, it may have been enough to use frilly adjectives like “awesome,” “great,” and “best” to sell a product or service. However, today’s consumers are a bit more skeptical and you need to demonstrate or prove that you really are the best, great at what you do and have an awesome product.

To borrow a line from the movie Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money!” For example:

If you build “cutting edge” websites, but your own website looks similar to Berkshire Hathaway’s website or you are using the free version of Wix (that includes their logo and favicon), I’m not going to believe you. I probably won’t bother to take a look at your portfolio, because you have proved to me by your own site, that you do not know what cutting edge currently means when it relates to web design.

If you are a self-proclaimed social media maven or guru, I should be able to find you on every major social media network. Not only should I be able to find you, but I should be able to see your prowess reflected in the quality of your posts, engagement and following/fandom on those networks. I need to see you walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

SEO, SEM or PPC expert that gets great results? Show me with a few case studies that include mathematical figures and percentages of how you took a client from point A to point B with their goals. If you can back that up with a few client testimonies from real and verifiable business owners, I might just believe that you can improve my search engine rankings and boost my website traffic.

In a nutshell, your stuff cannot stink. Fluffy adjectives to describe yourself and your business/product will only get you so far. If you are truly as good as you say you are, you should be able to prove it.

 

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