10 Surprisingly Simple Lessons That Will Make You A Better Digital Marketer

Years ago, I was working as an online marketing manager at a digital marketing agency in Salt Lake City.

One of my clients was a large university that offered online courses. The client had expressed concerns that while organic search traffic was up, our “request for more information” goal was down (one of the primary KPIs).

The client was questioning the value in our work and the partnership was in jeopardy.

From competitive analysis I knew we had multiple online competitors that offered similar programs, and also that signing up for college level online courses wasn't an impulse buy – prospective students were doing their research.

Understanding the customer path to purchase

After the call I referenced the client's Multi-Channel Funnels Report in Google Analytics. I confirmed that the top conversion path was visitors finding our online courses via Google Search, and then coming back directly at a later point to request more information. Once I shared this with the client, she immediately saw the value in the work we were doing.

From that day forward, I included data from this report to not only show the full value in our work, but also gain a deeper understanding of my client's customer online journey to purchase.

This lesson is one of many that I've applied to assist me in running more effective campaigns, provide more actionable and insightful reporting, build stronger relationships with clients, and develop more efficient processes.

Here are the lessons I feel will provide real value and help you be a better digital marketer.

1. SEO is far from dead

It seems like every 6 months or so, a proclamation is made publicly decrying the benefits and the effectiveness of sustainable search engine optimization.

While Google is continuously refining and introducing new systems to help it better understand queries and return relevant results, both optimization and inbound links still work amazingly well to improve a page's visibility in Google Search.

Caption: This screenshot is of YoY organic search traffic with a filter applied to remove spam/bot hits. The website is a local business that had existing authority and no previous on-page optimization.

While not a definitive rule, pages and posts with links from authoritative, trusted sources tend to perform better organically than those that don't.

Ensure your website is sending clear, concise signals to search engines. Make on-page optimization and earning links a component of your digital marketing strategy by creating and promoting great content, getting the word out for company news and events and building online relationships with others in your industry.

Client education is key as it can often take months to see the benefits from optimization.

2. Community, Community, Community

Image Source: ALLBRiGHT 1-800-PAINTING

Getting involved in your local community can be an effective way to earn links, increase brand awareness and strengthen your UVP as a national or local business.

A community event can include charity work or sponsorships, meetups, presentations, etc.

If you need ideas on how to acquire links from your clients' community efforts or events, I'd recommend checking out this post.

Do something newsworthy that includes your local community and then get the word out!

3. Social media attribution

Many social media managers will agree that it can be difficult to show an ROI from building an engaged social community.

For many of my clients, I've found that social activity typically “assists” as opposed to acting as a last touch channel that directly leads to conversions. While traffic back to your website from your social channels is great, showing how these efforts are bringing in new leads and sales is even better.

By default, Google Analytics credits all conversions to the last channel a customer interacts with before converting. To help me show clients how both paid and organic social media marketing campaigns are contributing to either leads or sales, I use Google Analytics Multi-Channels Funnel reports.

Google lumps all social traffic into one channel, so you'll need to create custom channel grouping that defines all your social channels e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. You can also create a channel for specific campaigns that you've tagged.

Prove your worth by showing the assisted and direct conversion value from your social media marketing campaigns. Also, if you use GA, take the time to get your individual qualification – it's free!

4. Start with a great visitor experience

Spending time and valuable marketing dollars on campaigns won't be nearly as effective if your landing pages are providing a poor visitor experience. Don't put the cart before the horse.

For any online marketing campaign, start with optimizing the visitor experience on your website, then move on to marketing.

If you have suspicions that a design element/feature isn't enhancing the visitor experience on a site, request a few free 5-minute evaluations from Peek User Testing for unbiased feedback. In my experience, clients love it and it can be used in conjunction with analytics data to confirm a hunch.

To assess areas that could be limiting conversions, set up funnels for your goals in Google Analytics.

Are most visitors abandoning their cart? Are they making it to the contact page but not filling out the form? Funnels can help you assess where you may need to make changes.

The below screenshot shows a basic funnel that was set up using Google Analytics Goals.

You can also install and use heat map software to see exactly how your visitors are engaging with your landing pages. I like SumoMe's Heat Maps.

5. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it

I'm a firm believer in letting the data drive the decisions, but in order for data to be actionable, it needs to be as accurate as possible. Internal sessions, junk and spam traffic, accounts that aren't set-up properly, can all make your data less insightful and actionable. This is especially true for small businesses and websites that don't receive thousands of visitors a month.

Providing your clients with a thorough analytics audit can be worth its weight in gold. Having accurate tracking in place will not only help you know what's working, but also show how your work is impacting your client's bottom line.

6. Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose

Time and budgets are limited so why not get the most exposure possible for your content and events?

Repurposing can be defined as taking new and existing content assets and sharing or recreating them across multiple channels and content formats.

For example, if your client is holding an informative event, you could repurpose this content in the following ways:

• Live stream the event on Periscope, Facebook Live or via a podcast


• Record the presentation on video then upload and share it to Facebook and YouTube


• Transcribe the video or podcast and publish it as a blog post


• Gather emails from event attendees and send them the video and a link to the transcription on your website


• Take any presentation slides and add them to SlideShare


• Syndicate the content across other websites with a link pointing to the original post on your website

Before starting a new campaign, do a thorough content audit, then ask the client for anything and everything that's ever been used as marketing material. This can include PDFs, videos, PowerPoint slide decks, brochures, materials used for print advertising, etc.

7. Do a good job

Sounds pretty obvious right? Before starting my own digital marketing agency, I never considered word of mouth, reviews, and recommendations as marketing channels. The marketer in me would be amazed to learn that many successful SMB's were able to grow solely off of client referrals.

Since starting my own business, I've also found this to be true. Doing a good job can mean a lot of things, but I'd sum it up as working hard, keeping communication frequent, and showing the value in your work.

Remember, it's less expensive to retain a current client than it is to find a new one. Doing a good job means you'll retain clients longer and increase the chances they'll refer you to other businesses.

8. Be prepared to wear multiple hats

As a digital marketing consultant, it's my job to be able to advise and drive successful marketing campaigns across all online channels. SEO, PPC, social media, email – it's a lot to keep up with!

My advice: make a goal to read at least one blog post a day on a different marketing channel and keep good notes.  Take the best ideas and test them for inclusion in your internal processes.

9. Develop processes

Having processes in place ensures that your success is repeatable … and it also saves you time. While every business is unique and no digital marketing campaigns are identical, many strategies and tasks can be defined.

Having tools, templates, and repeatable tasks will provide consistency and help your business to grow sustainably.

10. Pay to promote

Growing an audience and building awareness for your business takes a lot of time and effort. While not all industries are social, for those that are, utilizing social advertising on the social channels used by your target audience can be an effective way to get the word out.

Make sure to retarget those who were interested enough to visit your website. This can include advertising on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even StumbleUpon.

You can learn something from everyone

I've only scratched the surface, but these were a few of the most actionable lessons I could share.

Do you have something to add? If so, please drop it in the comments below!

Guest Author: Brian Jensen is the CEO at Congruent Digital, a full-service online marketing agency that provides clients with a data-driven approach to search engine optimization, social media, content marketing and pay-per-click advertising.  Connect with Brian on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

The post 10 Surprisingly Simple Lessons That Will Make You A Better Digital Marketer appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

3 Things To Tell Every Customer

Your customer's or prospect's attention is extremely important to your business.  Let's look at three statements you should be making and backing up to your customers.

Must Have Customer Communication

1. We Want Your Feedback

At the end of any purchase, project or service with your customer, let them know you want to understand how the customer experience was for them. While it's great to use many different methods to get your customer's thoughts post-sale, you will get more feedback by personally letting them know you care about it and want it.

My bank let's me know they want my feedback with signage, for example. (See the image above.)

This mention of desiring their feedback also takes your feedback process from surprise to an expectation. When your customer survey call, email or mailer arrives to request their feedback they aren't surprised one bit.  You also have increased the responsibility of the customers to respond since you made a personal request of it.

Best of all is your extra touch of mentioning. This speaks to your business's culture of caring about your customer's experience and that's valuable in itself.

2. Here's What You Get And How Often

I see endless requests on websites, in store signage and everywhere a business can place an icon to ask people to sign-up for their email marketing, follow or like them on social media or opt-in to their mobile/SMS marketing. You absolutely should be making every attempt to gain more channels to communicate with your customer, but you can do it better.

“Sign up for our email list and get just a once per month email containing our specials, tips and clearance items.”

You just set an expectation and a value of your communication with them and they clearly understand what they are opting into.

I find endless “Join Our Email List” fields on websites without a single mention of how often you'll be emailing them or what with. Do you know what your customer likely thinks of this? That you'll email them daily or more with every sales pitch you have. How many customers want to sign up when they think that?

This email newsletter sign up lacks any detail on the content or frequency of this communication.

If you are asking for mobile numbers, which I think are marketing gold, make sure you clearly state when you'll use it and how valuable it will be. Customers guard their mobile number and rightfully so. Make sure your mobile campaign delivers great savings, insight or enables your process to be perfect (like reminders).

You'll find more customers subscribing and following if you state your offering, timing and value.

3. This Is Our Number One Differentiator

In our world of competition, access and pricing, it can be very hard for a customer to understand who is best for their needs. They combine what you say about yourself with what others say about you to make a decision.

Are you clearly communicating what your biggest difference is with your service or product? You need to be. If you don't control this messaging and clarity you rely on your customer figuring this out themselves from online reviews, referrals and other sources. Make it easy for prospects to decide. Give them your biggest difference right up front.

The best version of this is to be specific as well. While you can state it's your staff, you'll be better off stating why your staff is great. “Our technicians set us apart from other Windshield installers with over 40 years experience and multiple Master Level certifications.”

Telling this to your customers is just as important because this is messaging they are likely to repeat to others when referring your business.

Great Communication Wins

All of these examples and tips center on clear and valuable communication with your customers. Showing customers you care, you respect their time and where you are unique will help win more first time and repeat customers.

Customers Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "3 Things To Tell Every Customer" was first published on Small Business Trends

25 Tools for Social Media Marketers

Want to simplify your daily social media marketing tasks? Looking for a list of helpful apps and tools? The right apps can make a world of difference in the life of a busy social media marketer. In this article, you'll discover 25 of the top tools and apps shared on the Social Media Marketing podcast. [...]

This post 25 Tools for Social Media Marketers first appeared on .

- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

4 Content Marketing Fundamentals You Could Revisit With Nifty Hacks

To succeed at content marketing, there is a basic set of skills that you must possess.

This blog is a summary of the four most basic content marketing ideas with new-age hacks to help execute them.

While most senior marketers are aware of and experienced in these requirements, individuals who are new to the field are likely to struggle with the volumes of guides out there.

Newbies can use this write-up to avert the obstacles they are likely to face, and more seasoned content marketers can check off their agendas the fundamentals that they're covering while discovering time-saver methods of implementing them.

Let's begin.

1. Understand goals and create a focused mission statement

A content marketing plan begins with the goals you set. Without clarity of what you want to accomplish, you cannot create content with powerful underlying intent, which is the basis of effective content marketing.

Before you proceed to actual creation of content follow these 4 steps to define your goals.

Step 1: Survey your environment

Like battles involve surveillance of the terrain and the other army (and you would crash and burn if you didn't do this), you need to do the same with content marketing. Identify your competitors, the channels at your disposal and your audience.

This involves some research – surveys of your own, and borrowed from data farming firms. Search tools help. The right Google searches, and setting keyword alerts on Google and social monitoring tools like Social Mention help to some extent. Try tools like SurveyMonkey, they save a lot of time.

Step 2: Develop a Buyer Persona (or multiple ones)

You require a description of the person who would be interested in and purchase your products or services (the more detailed the description, the better). Interests, concerns, behavior are key. Use specific questions to survey your audience and social media polling apps to save time.

Step 3: Monitor your competitors

Observe what they implement. Adapt the ones that make sense, figure out how to break areas that the big players are dominating. Try Google alerts, Spy Fu, Topsy, these tools can help.

Step 4: Research social platforms and technology

Where is your audience present? Where do they spend the most time? What are the latest features of social platforms and how can you use them? Which applications can help cut down time investments and make your job easier. Figure these out.

Next, outline clear and well-defined goals. It could be anything as specific as overcoming a certain perception attached to your type of services or creating stories with user-cases for your product. Keep them that specific and document them.

With goals done, write a mission statement. Ask yourself these questions before you do that.

What do we want to accomplish?

How do we do it?

Who are we targeting?

What value are we adding?

2. Create and share content in audience-friendly packages

Every step of content marketing requires planning. Cutting straight to the chase may make you feel like you are getting stuff done, but doing so can get you stuck.

Here are a few things you can do to create and share audience-friendly content.

Generate a content bucket and a content calendar

If you kick start each month with a bucket of 50 ideas, your month is more likely to go smoothly and leave you time to “React” which is extremely important on social media.

List down 10 reasons why your audience should choose your brand over others (specific user cases), 20 blog topics, 10 ideas for simple contests/discussions. The idea is to keep a running stock of ideas. Add to it as you come across them. Hubspot's got a fun topics generator you could try for blog topics.

Make divisions based on themes of content and place your ideas across your content calendar. Ensure to take account of all important days (for your brand and otherwise).

DrumUp has an interesting feature that lets you view scheduled social media content in calendar form. So when you are curating content, you can still be sure that you are following your decided theme or pattern for content.

Use engaging formats

Content that is engaging for your audience. Remember who they are and decide your formats based on that information. For instance, foodies might want to see their content more than read about it.

But visuals are non-negotiable for social media. Use photographs, graphs, infographics, videos, whatever you can in context with the content you're sharing.

Match the tone of your content to your audience and the platform your are sharing on.

Curate powerful content

Content curation is powerful. If you can make available useful information to your audience, there's nothing like it. Curate content and tag or @mention the source, you'd be giving credit, building valuable relationships and generating more shares all in one go.

Use a good app to filter stuff for you. For fresh content DrumUp is great, you could also use Feedly or Storyful for some interesting stuff to share.

Finally, set up tests on your shares – share them at different time intervals and measure engagement. Identify your most successful blog posts (landing pages) and referral links from Google Analytics and re-structure your content to include more of what's working.

3. Develop a relevant and powerful content hub

A content hub (pages attached to your website with content about set topics) is a must. That's home to your original content and means to build authority, visibility and encourage revisits.

Set your topics: Explore your scope for what to include (technical how to's for your niche) and document what you intend to talk about. Pick topics that can help improve your revenues over time (attract your target audience).

Build the hub: The technical aspects may not concern you, but it is important to have your tech team incorporate share plug ins and SEO elements (meta descriptions, page titles and keywords). Your Content Management System should also be easy to use to update content and add the basic types of media – images, videos and the lot. WordPress is easy to implement and use, and comes with SEO and other useful extensions.

Promote it: Promoting a hub is extra effective when you involve people.

• Reach out to established firms you could partner with for content.


• Do trade offs. Offer content in return for visibility on external websites.


• Create content with people so you can share the task of marketing (content also has added value when you have an added perspective.)


• Craft interesting and short descriptions and invite people to your hub from social media.


• Use multiple formats of content for promotions (visuals could go on Pinterest, Tumblr). Remember to craft your content to speak to your Audience Personas.

Consistently monitor Key Performance Indicators: Use tools like Brand24 to monitor social mentions, engagement and sentiments and Google Analytics to fill in the dots (track time spent on a page, visits to a page). Use the insights to add more content that is popular to your hub.

4. Increase exposure for content that you create

For maximum exposure your content has to be discoverable to your target group.

Ensure that you're following the basic laws of SEO.

• Create content that genuinely helps your audience (and is directed at them with keywords they're likely to look for)


• Write long posts at least 1000+ words and if possible 2000+ words


• Provide backlinks to your site everywhere you post content


• Use the right keyword tags for your posts for search engine indexing


• Never duplicate content (copyright and search engines penalize duplicated content)

Exposure also requires the participation of people (they've got to share your content).

Here are 5 ways to creatively get them to do so.

#1. Involve them in the content you create (expert interviews and audience generated content)

#2. Use interactive elements on your blogs

#3. Create contests that require sharing

#4. Share their content occasionally as well

#5. Ask them to. Simple requests for re-tweets and shares work

Participate in communities like Quora, Google Plus communities and groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. Create Twitter lists to better organize and reach out to the community that you build.

Wrap

Interacting with the community is absolutely necessary with social media. Don”t make a task out of interaction and push it down the priority list because there's no substitute. Each of the steps discussed save more time when planned out than when not. So use this write-up as a plan to get yourself started, you should see positive results on implementation.

Guest Author: Jessica Davis is a Content Strategist at Godot Media, a leading content marketing firm. She works with businesses and individuals creating targeted content for various requirements. She also manages a team of article writers at Godot. Other areas of interest include technology, science and fashion.

The post 4 Content Marketing Fundamentals You Could Revisit With Nifty Hacks appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

Coca-Cola's Water Replenishment Effort Succeeds – and Fails (Watch)

Coca-Cola is giving back - water, that is. Ten years ago, the company pledged to replenish all of the water it used in its finished beverages. And it has now completed that goal about five years early.

But not everyone is impressed. Advocacy groups have criticized Coca-Cola for only replenishing the water used in its finished beverages, and not the water that it used in the manufacturing process. In the past, groups have also accused Coca-Cola of unethically taking water from communities that were already experiencing water shortages.

The company says that it will continue its water replenishment program, despite completing the original effort early. But will it be enough to actually help the company's image?

Since the company has received criticism about its water use in the past, consumers and advocacy groups were likely to put any charitable efforts in that area under a lot of scrutiny. Only giving back some of the water used, even though that technically fulfilled the company's promise, makes the effort look like nothing more than a PR ploy. And groups have called the company out on it.

Watch Out for the Pitfalls of Corporate Social Responsibility

The company's current predicament illustrates the danger of underestimating your customers and their expectations. The internet provides customers with access to huge amounts of information and gives them the ability to share it immediately. That means businesses can't just assume their charitable efforts and PR pushes will be taken at face value. Customers are going to look into them. So in your own business make sure everything you do to build your brand can stand up to close examination and you'll avoid the pitfalls of corporate social responsibility.

Image: Newsy

This article, "Coca-Cola's Water Replenishment Effort Succeeds – and Fails (Watch)" was first published on Small Business Trends

8 Big Changes To LinkedIn Groups That Will Enhance Your Social

It's no secret that LinkedIn is the number one social networking site for B2B Marketers.

Given the network's user base of over 380 million and the fact that it's a source of 80% of B2B social media leads, LinkedIn's prominence in the B2B industry will not change any time soon.

So if and when LinkedIn makes a necessary change it is important that organizations make a note.

LinkedIn has made more than 2 million discussion groups private, a major step in the social network's efforts towards improving the quality and professional nature of membership groups.

The move here was based on feedback of LinkedIn groups who craved real connections with peers and industry leaders helping them learn and grow.

Along with making the groups private, LinkedIn has also introduced several other changes that warrant a closer look for any brand making strides and gaining social presence on the network.

Here are the eight changes to LinkedIn groups that B2B marketers need to be aware of.

1. Groups have been designed with new features and fresh looks

LinkedIn members now can add images to their posts and mention other users they have in the group. Organizations believe that these changes can easily cut down on clutter, spam and promotional content within groups.

The navigation panel is simple and LinkedIn has significantly increased the amount of open space on the pages. The changes shown are among the most notable tweaks of LinkedIn groups.

2. Privacy of groups mean they won't be indexed by search engines

The information that is generally shared on LinkedIn groups won't be sharable via Google or any other search engine.

This exclusivity will increase the value of conversations held in different groups, followed by the fact that new ideas and strategies shared among members will be known to the ones who are a part of the group.

This major change will help B2B marketers establish thought leadership, showcasing knowledge that can lead prospective clients and customers to come back and check their company page, employee profiles and marketing collateral.

3. Group members will now be vetted

In order to join any LinkedIn group you need to make sure that your credentials are updated.

Having a professional image is a must, as well as having a fully fleshed out profile so that group administrators can assess how well they fit into their community. This generally works out positive for marketers who have spent deliberate time in optimizing their company profiles.

4. Changes for open groups

As an admin of a formerly open group, remember that your discussions can be seen on the web and shared among other social networking sites.

You need to have a bit of control on whoever has joined the group and what posts have been published.

Here are the changes for open groups:

• If your group has a sub group, then they are no longer considered to be the subgroups but regular groups. You will likely have to rename your subgroups along with the links to the old subgroups in the about us section of your LinkedIn group.


• Conversations won't be public and are now no longer searchable, which will again mean that more people will want to post and comment since they feel safer. On the other hand you will get far less eyes on the discussions compared to before since the comments and discussions were the only thing that were first visible to the group.

5. New app available for LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn has released a stand alone group app, just for iOS with the android version in the pipeline.

Searching for various groups will not be possible through the app, but you can participate in discussions through the app followed by a new algorithm suggesting new groups just for you based on your profile and past interactions.

The new app will appeal to users who constantly engage in discussions whether on the go or in office. Leveraging the convenience of this mobile app and staying ahead of your engagement opportunities as a part of your social monitoring approach.

6. You can now recruit talent without distracting a group

There is a new tab made available within LinkedIn groups for various discussions related to job opportunities. The job seekers can approach hiring managers and other relevant individuals about job opportunities they are having separately, without distracting the quality and focus of the other individuals in the groups.

Having the job conversations being moved away from pure discussions, your insightful and influential messages will continue to compete less with the personal interests of some other group members.

7. Spammers will be put into the naughty corner 

From now onwards anyone who is perceived to be spamming the group will be relegated to a penalty box, or indeed booted out of the group altogether.

This privilege of acting against spammers not only extends to the group manager but to all the other group members as well.

Yes that's right, any group member will now have the power to report or remove conversations that they believe don't meet the guidelines of LinkedIn, and can even block the person who makes these comments.

8. Discussions are now called conversations

Every conversation that you have on LinkedIn will now be published automatically without any approval from the manager of the group. However the manager of a LinkedIn group can still remove the post, marking specific people as required in moderation. 

Wrap

There have been issues with LinkedIn groups for quite a long time now. And these changes will be exciting only for those marketers who are already leveraging LinkedIn's power in the social landscape.

Now is the time for you to revisit your LinkedIn strategy using these new features and enhance your brands social presence.

What are your experiences with these changes made to LinkedIn groups? Better, worse or the same?

Guest Author: Jenni is VP from Ampliz who focused on business solutions. She writes more about current Marketing trends also she helps entrepreneurs to manage their sales and marketing through Email verification services.

The post 8 Big Changes To LinkedIn Groups That Will Enhance Your Social appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

10 Ways Your Business Can Grow with a Mobile App

Not so long ago, mobile apps were a reserve of large corporations and businesses. However, that ace in the hole for the big guys has changed rapidly over the past two years. Today, smaller companies are serving clients better and seeing much greater returns on investment thanks to mobile apps.

Any way you look at it, humans are wired to be social. Nobody wants to be secluded from what is happening in the world. The fact that mobile is social cannot be overemphasized. Just like in formal chatting and video calling, businesses can push sales through the mobile device. Creating a functional Facebook or Twitter account is great, but it is just not enough.

The bottom line today is very simple - you need an app.  The fear of high priced developers does not need to be a deterrent any longer, so there's really no need to put it off.  The right DIY app builder can get your business on the path to a mobile presence is a matter of days.

With the right planning and a clear picture of what you want your app to do, you can simply plug and play your app right into existence.

Simply start by describing your objectives and then prioritizing them from the start.  Following some serious thinking on your part, you can use any or all of the four main routes towards achieving a highly functional mobile app. These are:

• Customer engagement


• Service and support


• Promotion


• Online sales

After you are clear what you want, it will be no time until you discover why you needed to jump on the app bandwagon. Here are 10 reasons your business will start to profit more with an app.

The Benefits of Having an App

Increase Visibility to Clients at All Times

In the US, the average person spends over two hours on the mobile phone daily. Globally, there are more than a billion smart phones. So, the fact that people these days spend more time on phone than on PCs is great for businesses - if you adjust your marketing plan to match this shift.

Evidently, your business will be exposed to numerous eyeballs if you have mobile presence. Your image, name and logo needs to be seen when these masses scroll, unlock, and do whatever they do while on the go.

Humans have their devices either on their fingers, palms or pockets. We like using them when waiting at the bus stop, riding to and from work and even when watching TV in the evening. All these are suitable times to send a notification to prospective clients.

If you offer internet-based services or products, use a mobile app to make sales. Make it possible for clients to do the same things that they would conventionally do when sitting in their offices. Offer valuable solutions for customers remotely.  The more opportunities you offer potential customers to reach you,  the better off your business will be.

Market More Directly

Mobile apps bring a lot of information to your business about your customers. Examples are demographics and geographical locations. More importantly, you can give a lot of information to your clients about your products and services.

Examples are news feeds, product specifications, new features, prices, promotions and special rates. You can know the preferences of certain customers and meet their individual needs. The fact that you are marketing more directly is a huge advantage.

Provide Your Customers with Value

Do you have a loyalty program? Why not make it digital using a mobile app? You can move from the traditional reward collection to the smart phone and other mobile devices. As mentioned earlier, more people are glued to their mobile phones than ever before.

Customers are interested in valuable products and services. With so many outlets offering the same products, it can be difficult for them to make a decision. A mobile app can nudge clients to your store. For example, use an area-sensitive push message on your app.

When clients walk near your store's physical location, they get a notification inviting them to your store. Curious shoppers will flock your store to see what you have to offer. This approach has been effective for brick-and-mortar businesses. In addition, send a thank-you notification to your clients after making a purchase.

Build Brand Recognition

Whether your business is new or rebranding, you can enhance its recognition using a mobile app. Simply create an app with likeable features and you will mesmerize your audiences. Instead of putting up an expensive billboard, construct a functional app. After all, not everyone actually pays attention to or heeds the messages displayed on billboards.

Find a way to get your clients involved in your app regularly. The more often they interact with it, the more they will actually like the products or services it sells. This rule of the thumb in advertising is called effective frequency. It states that if customers see the brand more than 20 times, then it is truly noticed.

These days, mobile apps come with a sharing option where users can share your communication with their friends. It is like a friend telling you about a great service or product he or she bought somewhere. Studies indicate that referrals and third-party sales are among the most valuable marketing strategies.

Increase Customer Engagement

All clients need a way to reach the business that sells a product or service that they are interested in. If you are unreachable, you run the risk of losing customers. A mobile app therefore comes in handy at enabling this reach. Have a help desk on the mobile platform where customers can post their questions, orders, comments and complaints.

If you can reply to all their communication personally, then your customer engagement is great. Make the booking or ordering procedure as simple as possible yet secure. People are discouraged by lengthy procedures. They might even find it easier to click the 'Back' button than the 'Next' button.

Stand Out From the Crowd

The fact that a mobile app sets you apart cannot be overemphasized. Take advantage of this effective communication and marketing tool while it is still rare. By the time your competitors are realizing its importance, you will have grabbed almost the entire market share. No matter what you sell, you can take a commanding role among your peers.

Just by a tap of a button, your clients are able to see your products and services. That mobile apps are fast, easy, and simple to operate is a fact you need to capitalize on. This ease can drive customer engagement and loyalty to an unprecedented level.

Increase Customer Loyalty

How many customers come back to your store or office for a second purchase? This is an important aspect of business that you must cultivate. Customer loyalty can be achieved when you constantly remind your clients about your existence and the kind of products or services you sell.

There is already too much advertising out there. Examples are billboards, roadside banners, newspaper ads, flashing signs, flyers, website banners, coupons, email and social media marketing.  Are you going to add your communication in these crowded places?

Your message runs the risk of getting lost or forgotten amidst all this noise. Therefore, take a step back and rethink your marketing and ad strategy. A mobile app makes a truthful and sincere connection between your business and your clients. The fact that it is closest to the person means increased recognition and loyalty. Simply put, you are at their fingertips.

Turn Your App Into a Social Platform

Integrate numerous social features into a mobile app. A study once revealed that most people on social media just log in to see what their friends are saying. Incorporate this idea into your marketing strategy so that people actually see your brand while they catch up with their friends.

Include features like in-app messaging, comments, likes and photo-sharing capabilities. Additionally, enable logging in to the app via Facebook and Twitter. This approach has proven effective in increasing customer engagement, repeated sales, retention and monetization.

Complement Your Website with Mobile App

Many marketers operating on a shoe-string budget usually ask this question - “Do we need an app if we have a functional website?” The truth of the matter is that a mobile app complements the capabilities of a website. Where a website attracts new customers, a mobile app creates customer loyalty.

A website needs clients to open a browser and enter the website URL. On the other hand, all a mobile app needs is a single touch on the screen of a smart device. A website is a great platform to offer information and to post content such as copy, videos and photos. However, it may not enable the two-way communication that an app boasts of.

Most People Are on Mobile

It does not matter what service or product you sell. Having a mobile app is a must these days. Since 2008, the average mobile phone user in the world spends three hours on the phone. More importantly, the three hours daily are usually spent interacting with mobile apps.

In 2014, the number of people using their mobile phones surpassed the number of desktop users. Google released research findings on the use of mobile apps in 2013. The research involved travel, health, fashion, restaurants, home, garden and automotive.

It stated that three in 10 customers started a purchase path from a mobile app. These statistics emphasize why you need to go mobile.

Do not limit your presence to a responsive website. The danger here is what marketers call the “buy and bye” phenomenon. This scenario is where a customer finds a great product, purchases it and leaves, never to come back. On the other hand, you run the risk of never finding customers if you limit yourself to a mobile app. Evidently, these platforms complement each other.

Conclusion

Having a functional website is the place to start. After attracting new customers, urge them to download your app on their mobile devices. After that, use the app to generate profitable opportunities. Create engagement by encouraging user reviews and interactions. As you build brand loyalty, expand your reach to social circles and deliver personalized shopping experience.

Smartphone Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "10 Ways Your Business Can Grow with a Mobile App" was first published on Small Business Trends

How to Easily Create a Facebook Loop Giveaway

Looking for a new way to expand the reach of your Facebook page? Wondering how collaborating with other pages can help? Partnering with other businesses on a Facebook giveaway can help you build your fan base, while engaging your primary audience. In this article, you'll discover how to host a Facebook loop giveaway in four [...]

This post How to Easily Create a Facebook Loop Giveaway first appeared on .

- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

10 Tips to Build an Effective Online Marketing Strategy

There are so many different ways to market a business online these days. But luckily, you don't need to try all of them in order to find out what works. Members of our small business community have already done some of the legwork for you. Here are some of their top tips for developing an effective online marketing strategy.

Increase Website Traffic and Get Better Leads

Getting traffic to your website only really helps your business if you're able to convert some leads. But there are some simple methods you can use to increase your web traffic while also converting leads, as Christopher Uschan outlines in this Acumium blog post.

Create an Insta Worthy Account

Instagram is becoming an increasingly popular marketing tool for businesses. But you need to really focus on creating an account that's worthy of the platform if you want to get good results. Here, Kayla Wilkinson shares some tips for using Instagram on the Inkhouse Inklings Blog.

Follow These Social Media Rules of Thumb

Social media marketing isn't an exact science. But there are some general rules that you can follow to make your business accounts more effective. Here, Rachel Strella of Strella Social Media shares some social media rules of thumb. And the BizSugar community chimes in with some thoughts here.

Adopt These Digital Marketing Strategies From Pokemon Go

Chances are, you've played or are at least aware of the augmented reality game that's taking the mobile world by storm - Pokemon Go. But aside from being a fun and successful app, Pokemon Go can actually provide some useful digital marketing lessons to other businesses, as Jilesh Varma shares in this Blurbpoint post.

Don't Build Your Whole Content Strategy on Rental Property

Social media and blogging platforms can be great for sharing content. But if you only rely on those platforms without having an actual site that you own and control completely, you could find your business in trouble if those platforms decide to make changes. Frank Strong of Sword and the Script explains more here.

Amplify Your Marketing Productivity With These Tools

When managing your marketing efforts, you can use a number of different tools to improve your results and efficiency. In this Duct Tape Marketing post, Joanne Torres shares some top marketing productivity tools. And BizSugar members also comment on the post here.

Use These Quick SEO Hacks for Newbies

SEO can be a complicated concept if you're just getting started. But there are some simple things you can do to make the whole process of optimizing for search engines a bit easier. Here are some SEO hacks from Stephan Spencer on the Search Engine Land blog.

Use Small Data to Help Increase Sales

You hear a lot about big data these days. But small data can actually be quite helpful for businesses too. In this post, Neil Patel explains how you can use small data in your business to increase sales.

Launch Your Startup With an Infographic

Infographics can help you get messages across to online consumers in an interesting visual format. Here, Nick Bowersox shares some tips for using infographics in marketing efforts on the crowdSPRING blog. You can also see input from members of the BizSugar community here.

Create a SaaS Knowledge Base Your Customers Will Love

Technology has created plenty of opportunities for businesses to really personalize experiences for their customers. SaaS knowledge bases provide some of those opportunities when used effectively. In this Process Street post, Robin Singh shares how you can create a knowledge base your customers will love.

If you'd like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to:  sbtips@gmail.com

Online Marketing Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "10 Tips to Build an Effective Online Marketing Strategy" was first published on Small Business Trends

Facebook Slideshow Ad Enhancements: This Week in Social Media

Welcome to our weekly edition of what's hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention. What's New This Week Facebook Rolls Out New Features for Slideshow Ads on Facebook and Instagram: Facebook introduced new features to the [...]

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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

Video Production: How to Create Quality Videos Quickly

Do you create videos for your fans and followers? Want to improve the quality? Today, Roberto Blake is with us to explore how quality videos are produced. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover [...]

This post Video Production: How to Create Quality Videos Quickly first appeared on .

- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

Boost Your Click Through Rate on Your Site

There's a tendency to regard site rank on search engines as the single most important factor of SEO. After all, if your website is ranked among the top, doesn't the rest just take care of itself?

But what tends to get overlooked is how other SEO components can play an even more significant role in site performance; for example, your click through rate (CTR). As you likely already know, CTR is a ratio showing how often people who see your ad actually end up clicking it, and it's very telling of how successful your keywords are.

What many people fail to acknowledge is that your CTR can earn you the traffic of a top ranking spot. In fact, many websites get far more traffic than sites they're outranked by because a solid headline impression attracted more clicks than competing websites and ads.

With the recent changes being made to AdWords, specifically the keyword function, now more than ever is the time to freshen up your understanding of CTR and acknowledge the impact it has on site performance. Check out these tips and learn how to entice clicks that will drive your site's CTR.

Increasing the Click Through Rate to Your Site

Use Emotion-Triggering Words in Your Headlines

This is probably one of the easiest ways to entice clicks. Users are compelled to click on headlines that employ powerful, emotional words. By generating some kind of reaction - anger, positivity, shock - you compel users to click while also distinguishing yourself from other headlines and links.

Gain Exposure Through Social Media Ads

If there were ever a click-happy atmosphere, it's the social media sphere. First of all, social media ads are all pretty cost effective. For a cheap price, you can generate tons of clicks and exposure. This is a big deal for brands looking to broaden their target audience, because social media ads can be specific on who they display to and how they display.

Create a Sense of Urgency with Countdown Timers

Also along the lines of social media is the idea of using a countdown timer to create a compelling sense of urgency. Marking the end of a sale or special brand event with a countdown timer has shown to significantly boost ad performance and draw more traffic.

Use Ad Extensions to Show Reviews

Review extensions do a lot to help ads by creating visible social trust. The overwhelming majority of online users claim that online reviews influence their buying decisions, so putting a positive review as a built in component of your ad is bound to draw clicks.

Display Location Symbols

Location symbols give ads a sense of legitimacy that draws user attention. It seems subtle, but when there's a list of ads and only one has a location symbol, that's the one that will likely stick out. Getting noticed is half the battle of getting clicks, and symbols are one extra detail that will drive that attention.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Click-through Rate Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "Boost Your Click Through Rate on Your Site" was first published on Small Business Trends

Video Production: How to Create Quality Videos Quickly

Do you create videos for your fans and followers? Want to improve the quality? Today, Roberto Blake is with us to explore how quality videos are produced. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover [...]

This post Video Production: How to Create Quality Videos Quickly first appeared on .

- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

How To Dominate Content Marketing With Machine Learning Tools

The internet is loaded with too much content.

Whether you're blogging, publishing a video, or sharing an image, you are contributing to the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data that is made everyday!

The old method of publishing tons of content isn't as effective as it used to be. Many more are publishing great content nowadays to the point that it's becoming increasingly difficult to be heard over all that digital noise.

It's time to blow off that dust and apply a shiny new coat of machine learning polish to your content strategy.

What is Machine Learning?

As a sub-set of artificial intelligence, machine learning occurs when computer algorithms are programmed to learn from the data and information it inputs. The outputs of these machines differ each time because they are able to change their resulting actions from studying patterns, trends, and data-points.

The more information that is fed in, the more accurate and personalized the results are.

You can see machine learning in technologies that might surprise you. Pre-populating search engines, self-driving cars, spam filtering, optical character recognition, and even in a game of Super Mario.

Video by: Seth Bling

Creating a new and refocused content marketing strategy

We're all drowning in content. There is too much to read, scroll through, and find out what's really useful. The consequence of this is decreasing engagement, as seen in TrackMaven's survey.

In your role as a content marketer, you track your blog and social media analytics to understand trends. These trends then help you figure out the direction of your blog and social media efforts.

With so much information do you often find yourself asking these questions with your marketing tools?

• Is all this information necessary? Which metrics actually matter?


• What's the scale of data that is actually being studied?


• Will this tool tell me exactly what I need to do without too much hassle?


• How will this information contribute to the future success of my content marketing efforts?


• How long do I have to wait for the results to show?

By using machine learning tools, you will be able to easily shift your content marketing strategy to be more effective and useful for your audience.

How to create personalized content for your audience using machine learning tools

To increase job efficiency, machine learning tools are able to reduce the time it takes to manually track and decipher your data into effective actionable tasks that will lead to predicted success.

Refreshing your content strategy now entails creating personalized content that is predicted to give you engagement well-before you trial-and-error blog topics.

It's time to break out that polish.

Here are some intelligent marketing tools that will save you time, and provide you with an even more accurate and adaptive way to create and share content that connects:

Making and sharing blog content

The machine learning aspect to the Atomic Reach platform lies within its ability to forecast when you should share articles, and which aspects of your blog actually matter to your reader, even if your audience's engagement patterns start to shift.

Breaking it down to it's components:

• Insights shows you which audience level gives you the most engagement and how much more you could be getting using predictive analytics.


• Writer is an intelligent content editor that highlights specific parts of your blog that is achieving your standard for optimal engagement as well as the areas that are not.


• Scheduler takes out the guesswork of manually scheduling out articles to social, by automatically placing them in the best time for engagement unique to every user based on their social engagement behaviour.

Think of the Atomic Reach platform like the strongman game you see at a carnival.

In this case the puck is your topic, the participants are your writers, and the bell is your goal for engagement.

Without using this tool your content could be missing the mark. Not every writer will be able to get that puck to the bell, because each of your writers' have different styles and skill levels in writing.

To make sure you hear that ding with every article you publish, you'll want to consistently create high-scoring content even if the conditions change.

As a marketer, Atomic Reach helps you maintain a high level of content that is backed by blog and social media engagement data.

Intelligently-driven email marketing

Ever wonder how an email from your favorite brand knew which products to recommend to you?

Email marketing has continued to be one of the most successful ways to reach and interact with audiences. In many Inbound.org threads, the topic of email marketing increasingly revolves around ensuring that your messages are personalized to each recipient.

Personalization in the form of sending your prospects truly relevant information is Rare.io's specialty. Catering specifically to online retailers, Rare.io uses predictive email marketing to increase click-through rates and repeat business.

From analyzing e-commerce transactions and customer buying behaviour, those in your email list are sent product recommendations at the times that have proven to generate more clicks.

Just like this J.Crew email that I received, it shows me what items I clicked on when I was last on their site, and other promotions/products I might be interested in. Without these smart systems identifying products I'm interested in, I might be sent products that aren't relevant to me, like menswear or children's apparel.

With Rare.io, email subscribers are sent products they'll most likely love at the times when they're more likely to buy thanks to intelligent algorithms.

Finding the perfect content creators for your marketing strategy

Many companies hire content writers to generate content for their blogs. If you're familiar with the process, then you know that finding top tier writers that work within your budget can be extremely time consuming and challenging.

Textio helps you create “optimized job listings”. The method behind their smart word processor focuses on predicting how successful your job listing will be, or if your candidate will want to respond to your request.

Their rating system gives you a percentage of success, which is compared to other related documents. 100% being the highest and most difficult to achieve.

In real-time Textio highlights key phrases and gives you word-to-word recommendations, and the pros and cons of that phrase, which includes tone and gender appeal.

You will be able to better pinpoint and nab candidates that match the team's personality and work ethic. Textio will save you time writing a job listing that might not attract the right talent, and will help you acquire your new content writer or marketing employee.

All together now

Throughout each step of the content creation and marketing process, machine learning tools help marketers do their job with more efficiency without compromising quality. By adding intelligence to your marketing strategy you will be able to make more effective decisions with less time, stress, and confusion.

With machine learning marketing tools, you will:

• Find the right writers that will add to your team's work environment


• Generate emails your customers will want to click on


• Create and market the most relevant and engaging content for your audience

From these tools and tips, what new methods will you be implementing into your content marketing plan, and what do you hope to see? Let us know in the comments and don't forget to share this article.

Guest Author: Amanda Chiu is the Marketing Coordinator at Atomic Reach, writing posts, sharing news, and connecting with the community on the daily. Her attempts at clearing her ever-growing reading list continues to be unsuccessful, and she really does believe that sharing is caring.

The post How To Dominate Content Marketing With Machine Learning Tools appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.