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We can barely walk down the street without bumping into a stranger on their smartphone.
So if you want to engage with your customers, you have to get mobile with your thinking.
Mobile marketing spend is predicted to hit $65 billion by 2019 in the US alone.
Ok you get it, mobile is kind of important these days.
But what can you do about it?
Let’s look at 9 mobile marketing trends dominating 2015 that you can make the most of.
1. Video ads are gaining popularity
Advertising on mobile phones has already seen lots of changes and this trend will continue.
Video ads on mobile phones will become increasingly popular as the screen size and quality of the phones get bigger and better.
Plus video ads are more engaging than pure image and text based ads. They allow you to tell a compelling company story and build a stronger brand.
This means they can help you get more customers.
2. We are hijacking popular apps
When marketing a mobile app, the best way to get exposure is to advertise on other popular mobile apps.
These are called mobile app install ads and this trend has been very effective in the marketing of apps.
This trend is not confined to promoting apps, it is an opportunity for companies to get creative and tap into super-targeted user groups.
3. Tracking ROI is getting real
The app ecosystem is not very well connected.
What this means is it becomes difficult to track ads after an app gets installed by a user.
As we move forward in 2015 the data collection from such apps will become clearer and it will be possible to track the fate of ads.
4. Interactive mobile ads are the better way
User engagement and acquisition can be taken to a higher level if the ads are interactive.
When users are presented with ads that they can interact with, it feels refreshing.
They like this feeling of being in control and the experience engages them on a more personal level.
When compared to other forms of ads, interactive ads have been found to be more effective in driving sales and app installations.
This trend is likely to stay around for a while as it is being implemented by a number of big businesses.
5. In-app promotion is growing
In-app promotion is becoming more mature than ever.
This is because user acquisition is getting harder and finding your intended audience is daunting.
This trend will have more to do with deep linking in the apps and controlling how ads are served with the help of programs.
As a result ads will become more targeted to users and time and resources will be saved in the process.
6. Native ads continue to gain traction
Native advertising is a trend that lets the ads emulate the look and feel of the websites they are posted on.
They typically take the form of blogs, videos, and infographics.
The main aim of native ads is to entertain and enlighten the viewers without explicitly promoting a particular product or service.
These ads often talk about topics that are in some way related to the product or service the company is offering.
For instance, a native ad about a cosmetic product will talk about skin problems and their remedies. Such ads are often labeled as sponsored or paid content.
Watch out for more of this on your mobile device.
7. Behavioral data helps target ads
Using behavioral data of users helps target ads and increase conversions.
The behavior pattern of the users is analyzed on the basis of their website preferences, shopping habits and several other data inputs.
The aim is to create a pattern so that the information can be used to present ads that interest a particular user.
User engagement and acquisition typically spike when an ad is uniquely targeted.
8. Location matters
For local businesses such as online grocery portals, rental car services and cab services location based advertising is a must.
User preference, purchasing-power, and tastes differ as you change locations.
This means generic ads don’t deliver the same returns as localized ads.
It is easier to present location based ads on mobile because tracking down the location of the device is simple.
9. Not every channel suits your business
There are several ad channels and you must know which one is best suited for your business.
If you have multiple ad streams going on at once, you need to be deliberate in tracking which one will return the best user acquisition.
Understanding this trend will help make better investment decisions.
Wrapping it up
The one-size-fits-all approach will not work in the world of mobile marketing.
Use these trends to your advantage, by picking the ones that work for you.
Guest Author: The blog has been penned by Ashni Sharma (@ashniapps) , an application developer working with AppsChopper. Blog writing is one of her hobbies and she makes it a point to share her knowledge and insight on the latest technological innovations, on-going trends, programming skills and much more. Her experience and expertise is evident in her writing which has inspired many budding developers.
It’s barely the end of June and it’s time to head back to school? This is either madness – or extremely savvy marketing planning. The back-to-school shopping season is the second-highest spending period in the year, behind the winter holidays. In 2014 shoppers spent $74.9 billion on back-to-school.1 That’s the annual GDP for the country of Costa Rica! And shoppers in the U.S. spend this in one three-month period.
Since when do crayons, superhero lunchboxes and jeans cost so much?
Sixty-five percent of the spend is actually back-to-college.1 What are college students buying for school? Technology, clothing and technology. The average college student will spend more than $900 on back-to-school supplies – and the main reason they increased their budget over last year is because of needing more expensive items like laptops and tablets.1
But it’s only June! Do I really need to start planning my marketing for back-to-school already?
Two stunning facts to consider (and then you can go back to tossing a frisbee in the sun if you want):
Most shoppers (two-thirds) begin shopping for back-to-school at least three weeks before school starts.2
School start dates across the U.S. vary by as much as two months.
Which means that as of June, there are back-to-school shoppers on the hunt already.
Should I go with skywriting to catch my customers on the beach?
You could try that – but we recommend the more sensible and reliable method of paid search marketing. The groovy thing about paid search marketing (using Bing Ads or Google Adwords to show up when customers search for the things you offer) is that people will see it anywhere they are, since 57% of back-to-college shoppers will use their mobile phone to shop3 and more than 60% of moms will use smartphones – mainly to look for coupons.4 This means it’s important to have your paid search campaigns customized and opted in for mobile users.
What do I need to know about paid search marketing for back-to-school?
My marketing colleagues at Bing Ads have created some helpful materials that will get you started. In the meantime, focus on these key things:
1. Start your search campaigns early.
Get your ads up in late June and early July to capture shoppers who plan ahead.
2. Budget appropriately.
Make sure you’re bidding highest during search activity spikes, particularly after the 4th of July weekend.
3. Use product ads.
These are the ads that show a picture of the product you’re selling. This makes it easy for shoppers to see what you’ve got – and to click to your site.
4. Add your phone number.
Call Extensions for paid search ads make this easy – and even easier for your mobile users, who are likely looking for your number anyway.
5. Be easy to find.
Most mobile searches are local searches – your customers are looking for you, which means they want to come and give you their money. Use Location Extensions in your ads.
6. Offer deals.
Shoppers love deals – from free shipping to buy-one-get-one to free returns. Make it easy for them to love you.
So if I get my ads on Google I’m covered?
Almost. Google Adwords is a smart and necessary place to show up – but so is Bing Ads. ComScore recently announced that Bing has reached 20% of the search market share. When you fold in the audience that the Yahoo/Bing partnership yields, the search market share rises to 33%. That’s one in three searches in the U.S. The little engine that could is…the little engine that is. And apparently many searchers on Bing do not use Google – so if you’re only advertising on Google, you’re missing a lot of people. See how many below.
Number of exclusive searchers on Bing by vertical
Audience data represents Bing Web and Yahoo US Web Search from comScore qSearch (custom), US, March 2015. Industry categories based on comScore classifications.
I always did like the crisp air and spiced pumpkin lattes of fall.
That’s the spirit! With some thoughtful planning now, you’ll be ready to capture all the back-to-school shoppers you can handle.
1. National Retail Federation 2014 Back-to-School Study
2. National Retail Federation, Monthly Consumer Survey, July 2014
3. National Retail Federation, Infographic: Top 2014 back-to-school and college trends, August 2014
4. Punchtab survey, Back-To-School Shopping & Decision-Making Moms, July 2014
Are you getting the most out of your LinkedIn personal profile? Interested in ways to drive traffic to your website? LinkedIn offers many overlooked ways to optimize your profile, helping more people discover you and promote your business. In this article you’ll discover 11 tips you might not be using on your LinkedIn profile, but […]
So we need content and lots of it if we want to make a lasting impression on social media.
Where do we find it all?
A big time-sucker for most social media managers comes from finding relevant, interesting pieces of content to fill up their social media calendar.
Not everything you find is solid gold, and wading your way through the noise to find thought-provoking content is tough.
That’s why I put together 21 of the top places you can find or create content to share on your social networks.
Create your own content
Creating your own content will ensure that you always have something new to share with your followers.
Although it’s more time consuming, creating content from scratch gives you more control over the message.
From photo to video, here are the places that make crafting new content easy.
1. Company blog
A company blog is a solid place to turn for social media content.
You have complete control over the topic you choose to write about, and when you share a link with your followers you’re driving potential customers back to your own site instead of someone else’s.
If you don’t have a blog to source content from you should consider starting one.
Wistia is a video hosting and analytics platform that makes it easy to upload videos to share across your social networks.
One of the great things about Wistia is the new “Learning Hub,” which has a ton of fantastic resources that help you get started with your own video marketing.
Although Vine is owned by Twitter, you can still share your content from the site to other social networks. In fact, the platform just recently announced a new share screen that contains a handful of updates to their sharing functionality, like the ability to send Vines directly to Tumblr.
7. Text updates
You don’t always need to share photos, videos or links with your audience.
Sometimes regular text updates will yield better engagement.
One example of a brand with great text updates is Denny’s Diner. The brand often garners incredible engagement on posts that are strictly text.
BizSugar operates just like Inbound and GrowthHackers, except the main subject is small business news and tips.
So check this site out if your audience needs tips on small business.
User generated content
Word of mouth marketing is very important for brands. That’s why it’s always a great idea to source positive content from your current customers or followers.
Take advantage of these strategies to find great user generated content to share.
18. Surprise and delight
This is a phrase that we use at Sprout Social. We find one of our top social fans or product users and surprise them with a box of Sprout swag.
Almost 100% of the time these people will mention it on social, and then we re-share their post.
Guest Author: Michael Patterson is a digital marketing specialist at Sprout Social, a social media management platform for business. He enjoys writing about social media and how users can optimize their efforts for long-term success.
Twitter’s Audience Insights is just as valuable as Facebook’s, and provides a lot of great information about how makes up your audience and how to best connect with them.
At the moment, we don’t really recommend Twitter Ads in general (depending on your specific audience and niche, this can be different for you) due to high costs.
That being said, using Twitter itself as a free marketing platform is a great way to promote and build your brand and your business, connecting with new audience members. Twitter’s Audience Insights can help you do just that.
How to Access Twitter’s Audience Insights
To access Twitter’s Audience Insights, you’ll click on your picture in the top right corner. This will open a drop-down menu, and you’ll click on “Analytics.”
Once in the analytics section, you’ll click on “Followers,” which can be found in the top left corner of the Page.
This takes you directly to your Audience Insights page, and you can choose to view Twitter’s Audience, your audience, or a comparison of the two.
What Twitter’s Audience Insights Tells You
Twitter’s Audience Insights can tell you a lot.
They break down the your audience into different categories, showing you what percentage of your audience fits into which category. They do this using information they glean from users’ onsite usage, as well as off-site information provided by third party company Datalogix.
The overview at the top of the page will tell you what their most common interest is, what type of lifestyle they follow, what type of buying style is most common, and their most commonly used wireless carrier.
On the rest of the page, Twitter gives you the information about various statistics on your audience, including:
Interests: Twitter will show you the most common interests shared by your followers, and what percentage of your followers are categorized into having those interests.
Occupation: Twitter shows you what percentages of your audience fits into different categories of occupations and types of jobs.
Consumer buying style: This seemingly erratic category breaks down users into how they purchase, having everything from “value conscious” to “vegetarian.” Will all of these be relevant to every business? Of course not. But knowing if your customers are “value conscious” or prioritize “premium brands” can be good intel.
Wireless carrier: Self-explanatory, this graph will show you what percentage of your audience uses what wireless carriers.
Household income: This section shows how much your average audience member fits into a household income category.
Net Worth: Again, self-explanatory, this category shows you which net worth categories your different audience members fit into.
Marital Status: Not as detailed as Facebook’s relationship statistics, this just shows what percentage of your audience is married, and what percentage is not.
Education: This shows the highest level of education completed, and what percentages of your audience have graduated from different levels of school.
How You Can Use Twitter’s Audience Insights
Just like with Facebook’s Audience Insights, this information can tell you a lot.
Sometimes the people you think will be your target audience aren’t really the ones who make up the audience that you actually have.
This can tell you two things—one is that you may somehow have missed your target audience and aren’t appealing to them. The other thing it can tell you is how to create content that is more geared to the audience you currently have.
You can adjust your marketing campaigns accordingly. For example, if you find that your audience prioritizes value and tends to be thriftier than what you previously thought, you can focus more on marketing strategies to take advantage of this information. For example, you can host contests with freebies, or advertise sales.
Similarly, if you find that a large portion of your audience has an interest in common that doesn’t directly relate to you, you can still use this interest to create engaging content. For example, if you see that a large percentage of your users like comedy, you can share more humorous content on your profile, and make sure to incorporate more humor into the content you create off of Twitter, too.
Final Thoughts
Twitter’s Audience Insights is a great tool, and it’s a good thing they’ve taken another note from Facebook to create it. I also want to note that their other analytics tools can be useful summaries, but their Audience Insights in my opinion is one of the strongest analytics tools that they offer.
Are you using Twitter’s Audience Insights? Has it helped you learn anything about how to better connect with your audience? Share your thoughts in a comment below!
It’s one of the most crucial factors in differentiating your company. Without it, your prospective customers have little reason to engage with your brand.
You struggle to figure out what your brand’s niche is. Like an architect, you try to design and construct a brand that will be a true delight to your audience.
But something is missing. Something every successful brand needs.
It’s called purpose, and your brand needs it badly if it’s going to thrive. Lack of a distinct and strong purpose can literally kill your marketing efforts.
Attempting to market a purposeless brand is like trying to sell a luxury vehicle without the luxury. There’s just no reason for someone to choose you over your competition.
Who Is Neil Patel?
I spoke with Neil Patel about this very issue. Not only is Neil Patel an Internet marketing wizard, he has founded multiple successful business enterprises such as Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics, and Quick Sprout. If Neil Patel has something to say about purposeful branding (and he does!), you need to listen.
What Is Brand Purpose?
Simply put, brand purpose is the reason your company exists outside of its products and services. It’s about more than just making money. It transcends the profit motive.
Modern brands are finding it more and more necessary to embrace a purpose that is intended to make a difference in the world around them. It’s no longer enough to just offer great products and services. Consumers want to know what your company stands for. This is what brand purpose is about.
Why Brands Need Purpose
Why is it important to find your brand’s purpose? Because you need to be the one who defines who your brand is. As an entrepreneur, you are responsible for crafting your brand’s image, reputation, and destiny.
When asked why it’s important for a brand to have a purpose, Patel said, “If you don’t define your own brand, the marketplace will define it for you.”
It’s true. The marketplace will define your brand, and it probably won’t define it in a way that benefits your company.
The Most Important Component Of Brand Purpose
When asked what the most important component of a brand’s purpose should be, Neil Patel emphasized the importance of emotion. There should be something about your brand that appeals to the emotions of your audience.
“People should feel something when they engage with your brand,” Patel said.
There should be certain emotions that people experience because of your brand.
It makes sense. Contrary to popular belief, most of a consumer’s buying decisions are based on emotion. Sure, we’d all like to think we’re 100 percent rational as consumers, but the truth is: we’re not.
It doesn’t mean that it’s not important to make rational arguments that support our claims. It just means that we can’t afford to ignore the emotional aspect of the buying process. If we don’t learn how to engage with our customers on an emotional level, we will lose opportunities to reach more people.
How To Discover Your Brand’s Purpose
The idea of having a brand purpose sounds great, but how does an entrepreneur figure out what their brand’s purpose should be? It’s not easy to decide what your brand should stand for.
According to Patel, “Brand purpose should come from your company values. Figure out what your values are and this will shape your brand’s purpose.”
The great thing about this is that you don’t have to do it alone. Realistically, your brand’s values should come from your employees and leadership.
Patel believes that your team should have input into what your company’s values are. It makes sense. After all, it’s really your staff that is building your brand, right?
Evaluate who you are as a person. After all, as the founder, you will need to embody the values that your company adopts. It will be easier if your company’s values come from the values you already have as a person.
Examples
So what does it look like to have a brand with purpose? There are several examples.
Take a look at Chipotle Mexican Grill. Its purpose involves more than just making great burritos. Its Food With Integrity movement is about making sure that the food we consume is sourced in a more healthy way. Chipotle’s brand is committed to a purpose that transcends the profit motive.
Zappos’ brand is committed to happiness. Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh ruthlessly chases after ways to make his employees and customers happy. By focusing on creating a great experience for anyone who interacts with Zappos’ brand, he has created a brand purpose that differentiates his company from others.
Lastly, let’s take a look at the man himself, Neil Patel. When asked about the purpose of his brand, he simply said that he wants to “help as much as possible without charging tons of money.”
This is why Patel gives away so much of his knowledge and expertise for free. He’s known for creating genuinely helpful content that brings a distinct value to those who consume it. And much of this content doesn’t cost anything.
As a matter of fact, Patel’s ultimate objective is to be able to benefit non-profit organizations that are focused on changing the world for the better.
Conclusion
If you’re starting or running a business, you need to truly understand the important role that purpose plays in your branding efforts. A remarkable purpose that speaks to people is essential to the success of your marketing.
If you haven’t already, you should think about the purpose your brand is meant to serve. Think about why you started your company in the first place. What problem are you trying to solve? Why? Answering these questions will give you a good starting point in figuring your brand’s purpose.
This takes you directly to your Audience Insights page, and you can choose to view Twitter’s Audience, your audience, or a comparison of the two.
