5 Out-of-the-Box Ways to Improve your AdWords CTR

Google AdWords is deemed to be one of the most important implements in the digital marketing toolshed.  The metrics that it provides can give you an immense understanding of the performance of your ads, target market as well as website. Moreover, Google tends to charge you a lesser amount per click if you have a higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR). CTR, which happens to be one of the metrics is expressed as a percentage of ad’s clicks divided by its impressions. A higher CTR can also increase your Quality Score and give you a higher Ad Rank, as it tells Google that your Ad is resonating with users. Here are 5 out of the box ways to improve your AdWords CTR:

1.) Make sure your Keywords are Narrowed-Down and Relevant:

 Sifting out your keywords will improve your CTR will, in turn, reduce your Cost Per Conversion (CPC). The following mentions a few steps you can take to do this:

Reduce & Group Similar Keywords:

Your ad copy should match its keyword and this can be done by targeting your ads to specific keywords and grouping them accordingly.  For instance, if you’re writing ads for dresses, you can break up your ads into different keywords such as ‘cocktail dresses’, ‘summer dresses’, ‘gowns’ etc. in different ad groups rather than targeting those keywords under one generic dress ad. You should make separate ad groups for each of these dress categories and make varying ad copies for each one of them.  By doing this, you are being more relevant and attempting to sub-group your keywords.

Make use of Negative Keywords:

The negative keywords feature becomes useful when you do not want your ad to show up at certain google searches. This is done to stop your ad from showing to an audience that does not need your product at that moment in time. You can use the Keyword Planner to help you find negative keywords for your list so that your ads are more filtered. From them, you can get ideas about which words are not in line with your product offering and put them in your negative keyword list so that your ad does not show up in instances where it is not actually being searched for. So if we take the example of ‘dresses’, type it on google keyword planner, we will get relevant keyword search results. We might get results such as, “prom dresses’ or ‘dresses for rent’ etc. if you are a company selling casual dresses for sale, you would not want your ad to show up when people are searching for dresses for rent or even prom dresses. Hence you would put ‘rent’ and ‘prom’ as part of your negative keyword list.

Include target keywords in the Ad Copy you create:

It sounds pretty straightforward. Make sure the keywords you are bidding for are present in your ad heading, copy or in the display URL, or your CTR will plummet and you would end up paying more than you actually need to.

2.)  Title Case and Symbols improves CTR.

To improve your CTR, incorporate the use of title case in your ad copy. Make sure you use uppercase letters when you need to, along with symbols such as exclamation marks, currency signs or even the discount symbol if required. According to Acquisio, such symbols may appeal more to your target audience and thus increase clicks.

 

Photo Credits: Acquisio

Acquisio also gives the example demonstrated in the picture above. They stated that advertisement four or five would attain more clicks as it involves symbols such as % and ® which could potentially appeal to searchers.

3.) Use ad extensions to their full potential

 Never underestimate the power of ad extensions such as Sitelinks, Callouts, location, affiliate, price and more, as they allow you to reveal more information on your ads. With ad extensions, CTR may increase because you can input information such as a direct phone number for searchers to call, a map with your business’ location and buttons that link to different pages in your site, to name a few. This serves to be very appealing to potential leads as it provides them with a sense of direction. Not only this, ad extensions allow your ad to take up a greater space on the search results which entails that there is a higher chance of your ad being sought after.

Photo Credit: Clicteq

4.) Add Call to Actions (CTAs)

Right now you might be thinking that CTAs refer to phrases such as ‘Buy Now!’, ‘50% off, Only Today’ or ‘Check out our offers, Save big now!’

Although this might be true, CTA does not always have to be a sales push, unless you have tested it and it works for you. Instead, you can be creative and try something different. For instance, Wordstream exposed an example of a wedding planning company’s ad in Boston and their unusual approach to using CTA. In the ad copy, the company uses “Imagine the spectacular setting of the Boston Public Library…”’: a story-telling, unique and eye-catching phrase instead of the banal ‘buy now/save now’.

 5.) Review your bids to maintain/boost CTR

To ensure that you remain on the first page of relevant Google Searches, keep on reviewing on how much you have bid. Do not bid too less on keywords as it can reduce your ad’s CTR. Take into account and research on other factors, such as, time of day/week whereby your target audience is more engaged, geographic locations which would relate to your offering and many more. Moreover, be wary of your competitors and review the way in which they write their ad copies.

 

 

11 Effective Instagram Marketing Strategies For Beginners

11 Effective Instagram Marketing Strategies For Beginners

Instagram logo

Instagram boasts of a number of 800 million monthly active users, as of September 2017, up from 90 million in January 2013. This web-based photo-sharing mobile app is one of the most popular social networks all over the world, undoubtedly.

It possesses a huge capability for any business, as the target audience you’re trying to reach out could easily be available on this platform. Instagram happens to remain more popular with teens and youngsters, where about 40% of the global user-base is between 16 and 24 years old.

So what’s your killer strategy for Instagram? Following is a beginner’s guide for you to get going.

1) Keyword-focused profile name:

A profitable and useful tip would be changing your profile name to the keyword that you’re focusing on, related to your business/niche. It means, optimizing your account bio name for search queries.

Keywords

It is mainly because the Instagram algorithm will consider your username and actual name as the only fields that will get importance in search queries.

2) Fascinating emoticons:

You can add ’emojis’ as a bullet list in the ‘bio’ area to accentuate different components of your business, which further tells your followers about the niche that you’re talking about. Similarly, a short phrase/sentence after the emojis is able to draw much of the required attention from visitors.

Emojis

It also boosts the visual appeal of your profile to a certain extent. The bottom-line is to try displaying your creative and fun side more, instead of focussing only on formal sentences.

3) ‘About’ your profile:

As the total space in the ‘Bio’ portion is limited, owing to its 150 characters limit, choose to write constructively and precisely. Remember – ‘The first impression is the last impression’. Incorporating peculiar hobbies, interests or skills in your bio is another good trick.

When you determine the list of keywords to highlight in your bio, focus on the central importance or specific needs of your target audience. So that way, when someone sees your account name or even visits your account, he gets a fair idea of what content you’re offering and what topic it is basically about.

Having said that, referring your email address also gives you an advantage. Since it drives your followers to get in touch with you in a professional manner if required (in case the ‘comments mention’ or ‘direct message’ are missed out in the first place).

Instagram Bio example

4) The inclusion of hyperlinks:

The ‘Bio’ region is the only place on Instagram where a clickable link can be posted since there is no provision for including links in the comments section or photo captions. Even if we try to write a link in a comment or caption, it won’t be clickable. Redirecting the users to your main account’s ‘bio’ field by asking them to do so in photo captions would be advised.

You should use your ‘bio’ for indicating your website link or any landing page/capture page, or a specific product along with it’s a short description or a definite ‘Call To Action’ (CTA) button. This also helps new viewers getting identified with your business and what it offers about.

5) Care for right content:

Though it is rightly said that “Content is the King”, but on a visual platform like Instagram, one needs to check the kind of content that he plans to upload. Publishing breathtaking raw images, editing various fun-filled digital filters for photos, posting one-minute looped videos, adding locations through geotagged photographs are some of the top features that this service provides to its users.

Content is King

It would be wise to appeal more to viewers, rather than just focussing on writing. Even while writing the captions, try using succinct sentences, that resonate well with your audience. All this will be crucial in deciding whether users will follow your profile and would engage with your content or not.

6) Instagram ‘stories’:

‘Story’ section on Instagram is very powerful because it easily allows mentioning clickable ‘@’ symbol (followed by your Instagram name) to be put inside photos or short videos and get the user redirected back to your main account. Your followers have the option to replay the ‘stories’, as this feature lasts for next 24 hours and it disappears later.

Instagram LIVE

Instagram introduced this feature in August 2016.

7) ‘Live’ broadcast:

Just like the case of ‘stories’, similar is the case with Instagram ‘Live-video’ option. It can be added to your Instagram story by hitting the ‘share’ button after it has ended. Since it doesn’t have any time limitation, it’s an exceptional method to discuss your business, let people know why they should visit your account, build your audience and drive high user-engagement.

Instagram introduced this functionality in November 2016.

8) Relevant hashtags:

You can research the top hashtags that are in sync with the post that you publish on Instagram. This encourages to link up the subject/theme of the photos or videos to Instagram’s other content appearing on the same topic. Instead of using the same types of hashtags in every other post, try 4-5 group sets of different hashtags, typically 15-20 hashtags in each group.

Hashtags

When your followers get into the habit of posting with your brand hashtag, it definitely steers good amount of engagement on your posts.

9) More videos than images:

Videos for Instagram
Instead of posting only images, ‘videos’ are a great means of storytelling. So one option could be posting pre-recorded videos on Instagram (which are edited and have a logo of your business) on a regular basis on Instagram, irrespective of whether you possess a business of your own or not.

10) Stay responsive and authentic:

Responding on Instagram
Responding to your followers’ comments and following some of the important ones back is equally important on Instagram. Big brands position themselves as ‘engaging’ by appreciating present-day followers or attracting new ones by tapping on user-generated content.

11) A/B testing:

Lastly, never forget to track the efficacy of your strategies by experimenting with your available options. If a particular post on a particular day at a particular time doesn’t drive you a good number of user-engagement on Instagram, don’t hesitate to split-test by trying out multiple possibilities. It principally includes aspects like frequency of posts, the time of day that you post, popular hashtags, off-beat captions, and calls-to-action.

Owing to all these phenomenal reasons listed above, Instagram can surely be labeled as a profitable social media marketing tool. By following the above tips, one can easily transform from an ‘Insta-amateur’ to an ‘Insta-pro’.

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Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram

How Content Marketing Affects Audience Aggregation

how content marketing affects audience aggregation and how it helps in any business. Below are the points describing content marketing and audience aggregation and also how content marketing affects audience aggregation.

Content marketing

ways of content marketing
Ways of content marketing

It is how you make way for your content so that it can reach your target audience. Most important and crucial step for any business. An effective content can create an amazing impact on the audience.

Your business and your product both are portrayed through that content which reaches your user. There are so many ways to make a good content such as:

Pictures

The visuals play an important role in every field it makes space in customers mind for a long term. And if you get a right picture related to your content it will surely help to get the public attraction.

Videos

Talking about visuals, videos are trending these days as it describes your content in a detailed form where each and everything is right on point. Videos should always be short and crisp so that the public doesn’t get bored of what you are talking about. It is also said that the first 4 seconds of your video decides that if someone will see it or not. So always make sure you convey every message in that short span of time.

Add campaigns

Add campaigns are a very good example of content marketing. It includes people in it and it becomes a two-way communication which is more attractive.

Promo cards/discount coupons

The discount vouchers can be given to the customers based on their buying behavior. A personal mail and message would make a great impact on them.
And there are a lot more ways to make a good content. That will help you build an image in the customer’s mind.

Audience aggregation

know your audience
Audience aggregation is about knowing your audience.

Audience aggregation is to build a set of audience based on similar interest/ likes/ dislikes/ demographics/ characteristics. It brings the set of audience to one platform and nurtures them. Audience aggregation plays an important part. Where we must invest less and we want any type of interaction with the similar mindset of people. It is important from customers point view as its according to their interest. Audience process undergoes three major stages involves: –

Aggregation of audience

Getting audience on the same platform and with the same pace of mind so that similar message to be delivered and potential customers can be engaged.

Nurturing audience

Following are the steps included in nurturing audience:

Select distribution channel.
Select the distribution tools.
Builds your audience.
Set up content machinery.
Plan the customer journey.
Segment and target.

Monetizing them

It is the last step which involves converting customers in the call to action so that they go to the sales team. Also, right action should be taken at the right time.

How content marketing and audience aggregation

Content marketing plays an important role in any business, it’s the first step reaching towards your audience. Content marketing and audience aggregation go hand in hand.
The right set of content helps to reach a large number of audience required for a particular objective. The content should be clear and also precise. So that it can be understood easily so that content can be reached to the potential customers.

Qualitative content

At each and every step of audience aggregation fresh, effective and qualitative content should be sprinkled. So, that audience gets mature with each coming step and finally goes for the call to action.

Comparative example

Content marketing works as a fertilizer required for the soil which helps plants to grow. Same is the content marketing for audience aggregation. Audience aggregation is the inbound interest of customers whereas content marketing leads to call to action.

As a farmer keeps sprinkling the fertilizers in its farm to make the plants grow. In the same way, content marketer sprinkles content at each and every step of audience aggregation. Until and unless the customer goes for a call to action. Content marketing should be strategic and on point. As at the right time the crops get mature and ready to harvest. In the same manner the customer develops the inbound interest and goes for a call to action.

Similar content

Keep your content same on each and every platform of media promoting it. So that the customers following you on the various social network doesn’t get confused regarding what message you want to covey. Also, this happens many times that we put one content on different social platforms in different ways.

Suppose there is a product we are promoting on 3 different pages contain exactly the same information. Here, with each page customer will become clearer about what the message is explained.

Low cost

Content is king
how content marketing affects audience aggregation.

“HAVING A GOOD CONTENT IS LIKE HAVING GOLD.”

The above line says a very important point. There are so many ways to do paid advertising which helps you to get a large number of customers and which also increases the product reach. But on the other hand, if you have good, effective, smooth and easily understandable content, you will have a great benefit of it and it will save 90% of your cost.

A good content is a game changer in any marketing field if your customer is satisfied with your content you can expect an immediate reaction. So, content marketing leads to expand audience aggregation with low cost.

Conclusion

At last, concluding this topic I would like to say that there are many ways to which content marketing affects audience aggregation. It can also have two perspectives either positive or negative. The fact is content marketing is always important to keep in mind for expressing your message. It is the basic tool for any interaction from the customers. Also from the customer’s point of view content is the first and the most important impression one can make for its product.

Audience aggregation is a stage where with the help of content marketing you can get the customers you want. Which is a very important step in any business. So, first of all, make a good content and then go for a good strategic audience aggregation. This will help your business to increase its reach and express its message to potential customers.

LinkedIn VS Facebook- From A Marketer’s Perspective

With the increasing number of social media platforms, as a marketer, we need to make a crucial choice of focusing our social media efforts on a limited number of platforms. This decision is vital to the existence of a brand and can make or break it as well.

In this blog post, we will discuss the difference between LinkedIn and Facebook and which platform will best help you achieve your goals and objectives.

A brief introduction of our two contestants for today:-

Facebook– People tend to spend more time on Facebook than on LinkedIn for the simple reason that it is perceived as a more ‘fun’ platform where friends are able to get together and share their thoughts and opinions over a casual post like a meme or joke. Facebook is clearly in the quantity win with over 2.07 billion monthly active users.

LinkedIn– LinkedIn, however, is a more serious platform where users log in for a specific purpose, be it recruitment, job hunting, connecting with colleagues or sharing their professional expertise on specific industry related topics. LinkedIn is far behind Facebook when it comes to the numbers game, with around 467 million members.

1. Audience Profile

Facebook– General consumers. Facebook is primarily a platform where friends and family get together to de-stress or connect with known persons. Marketers on Facebook need to keep their audience interests in mind, keeping the tone light and friendly. Create content which your audience would like to consume.

LinkedIn– Companies/organizations/businesses. LinkedIn allows users to create a professional, job-oriented profile, offering a variety of ways for a marketer to target based on seniority, job function, industry and more. Marketers on LinkedIn should keep the tone serious and professional, industry-specific and to the point. LinkedIn is primarily used by B2B businesses to connect with users in the same industry segment.

2. Analytics-

Facebook- Facebook provides real-time, built-in reports consisting data of the type of audience, their country of origin, and others ranging from likes, reach, visits, posts, people, events, videos, messages to a lot more. This data is very useful to a marketer as their job hardly ends after an advertising campaign is created. They constantly need to optimize it to achieve the best results at the lowest cost.

LinkedIn- LinkedIn does not provide extensive insights on page performance limiting to updates, interactions, clicks, impressions, reach, followers and visitors. This makes it difficult for a marketer to analyze and extract data on the performance of a LinkedIn campaign. 

3. Cost-

Facebook- Facebook gives the option to adjust how much you’re willing to pay per day (starting at Rs.40 per day), which corresponds to the number of users you reach out to. Overall, Facebook is a much cheaper option, with the average CPC of Rs. 5, being the lowest across all social media platforms. As a marketer, a lower cost is of vital importance in determining the success of an advertising campaign  

LinkedIn- LinkedIn offers a specific way to reach an audience but the cost is higher than Facebook’s. LinkedIn is said to be one of the most expensive advertising platforms in terms of average CPC of Rs.150. The minimum amount that LinkedIn will generally require you to allot for your CPC and CPM bids is Rs.100 (for either). And the minimum budget generally allotted by LinkedIn for your daily budget is Rs.500. The huge difference in cost from that of Facebook, shy away many marketers, making LinkedIn a secondary consideration. That being said, there a number of successfully launched campaigns on LinkedIn as well,  like the Volkswagen Campaign, where the results were far greater than the initial cost.

4. Branding-

Facebook- On Facebook there is a strong distinction between a user’s personal profile and a brand’s page. The content posted on a personal profile and a company’s page is completely different and unrelated. A marketer must build his company’s brand and his personal brand separately and simultaneously.

LinkedIn- On LinkedIn there is no distinction between personal and professional branding as it seamlessly integrates with each other in the form of a common profile. Through a user’s profile, it enables the audience to connect with the brand. Vice-versa if a brand posts valuable content then the employees of the brand are known as well. A marketer needs to be able to sell himself as well as his company through the use of one single profile.

5. Thought Leadership-

Facebook- Facebook is not a platform where users generally express their professional opinion but rather a light and casual conversation amongst friends. Marketers cannot hope to get their audience to pour out their expertise and insights into their industry or job.

LinkedIn- LinkedIn is the primary platform where users come together to influence others through their professional opinions. The most common place of thought leaders is LinkedIn groups where experts speak about their opinions with respect to a specific industry.

6. Marketing Objectives-

Facebook- As a marketer, Facebook provides a number of opportunities to achieve objectives such as Awareness, Consideration and Conversion but is more suitable for Direct Sales and Traffic. The level and detail of targeting on Facebook is world’s apart that of all other social media platforms, making it ideal for marketers to grow their brand.

LinkedIn- As a marketer, LinkedIn cannot be used to directly sell to your industrial buyers as users on LinkedIn login for their own personal and professional development rather than to outright buy a product or service. It will lead to a very low conversion rate and more often than not, a poor brand image.

Conclusion-

The controversy of which platform is better for marketing has been chewed over and over in the last years by marketers, entrepreneurs and bloggers.

Lately, Facebook is focusing on improving their paid marketing campaigns and continue to develop new and innovative features appealing to B2B companies and marketers alike, in a strive to reach above LinkedIn in the B2B space.

Having a deep understanding of who you are marketing to (your buyer personas) and how they use these platforms at each stage of the buyer’s journey, will enable you to become more customer-centric in your marketing.

Instead of focusing on which platform is better for your marketing strategy, simply being aware of how and when to use each on the potential journey your prospects go through before they decide to buy from you can make a dramatic shift in your marketing strategy.

 

To know more about effective ways to maximize Facebook conversions, check out ‘8 Types Of Facebook Content To Drive Engagement‘.

Image Source- Hootsuite, Pear Analytics, Pinterest, Social Media Examiner.

5 Steps To Set Up Your Own Drip Email Marketing Campaign

Before proceeding onto Drip Email Marketing, we need to be clear with the concept of Lifecycle Emails. “Lifecycle Emails are sending the right emails, to the right people, at the right time.” -Patrick McKenzie. Customer.io, a leading email automation company defines Lifecycle Emails as “sending people emails based on what they do or don’t do.”

Drip Email Marketing is a part of Lifecycle Emails which divides communication into a series of emails and sends them out to your users based on your understanding of how your users can consume it. To put it in simple words, right from the first stage when your users enter and view your website or content, to the final stage of purchase.

The essence of this kind of campaign lies in the fact that unlike your website or regular email marketing, with Drip Email Marketing you send out only a part of all that you want to convey to your users, little by little, in each email that you send them; eventually taking them forward from one stage to the next.

5 Steps to Set Up Your Own Drip Email Marketing Campaign

  1. Define The Start Point-

The first stage of any Drip Email Marketing Campaign is to determine where your subscribers are entering from. Users may enter into your email list from any of the following sources:-

  • Existing Customer Information
  • Website Chat Integration
  • Conferences and Seminars
  • Lead/Subscription Form
  • Etc.

Your initial objective must be simple and easy to define. For example, your objective can be to target all those who have downloaded your most popular e-book rather than trying to get all those to convert who have d0wnloaded any file or whitepaper from your website. Try to be a little specific when you define your start point. Defining the start point will help you determine what kinds of segmentation you require to collect the data as well as choose the right tools to collect the data in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.

2. Attribute-Based Segmentation-

Once we have defined our start point, we then need to compile all our historical data and past records to segment allocate) our subscribers into different baskets based on their interests or activities.

Users may be segmented on any of the following attributes:-

  • Industry
  • Role
  • Company Size
  • Product of Interest
  • Etc.

You will be sending out a different communication to different audience segments. For example, someone watching a video may be more interested in viewing audiovisual content and should be targeted only through webinars as compared to someone who has spent 10 minutes viewing your blog post.

Note: You should be in a position to actually arrange the data you require from your audience, i.e. they should be willing and able to provide you with this information.

3. Identify All Events You Want To Capture-

Events can be decided based on:-

  1. Page Views:- Number of pages viewed or time spent on each page.
  2. Action:- The actions taken by a user. E.g. to download an e-book.
  3. Email Activity:- The response of users to the email communication sent to them. E.g. Open rate, Click through rate.

You can then decide which events you want to track and segment users on.  Based on these events, users would be sent a different communication.

4. Create Workflow-

The most critical part of a Drip Email Marketing campaign is to create workflows. Based on the various segments and trigger points that you have decided, you will now create the workflow. Similar to a content calendar in the case of social media marketing, a workflow will enable you to plan out the communication that will be sent to a user based on the activities that he/she performs.

The workflow can be altered based on changes in the customer lifecycle and ensure that it is in sync with the audience segment.

A typical flowchart for a Food Blog.

5. Write Drip Emails For All Nodes In Your Workflow

Once the workflow is created, in the final stage we will actually design the emails for each of our audience segments. Each audience segment will have a different trigger point which should be clearly communicated through your emailers.

People usually don’t like to be bombarded with irrelevant emails. Make sure you maintain an adequate time gap in between the emails sent to your audience and keep a track of the open rate. The emails should be short and precise, addressing the users in a friendly and personal manner. At each stage, users have certain blocking questions which prevents them from converting. These questions should be promptly addressed in the email, based on their relevancy to the audience.

Conclusion-

Two leading tools used for Drip Email Marketing are:-

  1. Drip:- As the name suggests, Drip is an excellent Email Drip Marketing Tool through which you can easily send abandoned cart messages and customized emails that drive sales and deepen customer relationships. You can easily design comprehensive, custom email campaigns and simplify your sales funnel. A major strength of Drip is that you can create customized workflows (paths that determine what emails will be sent to which user and at what time) based on their attributes. For businesses in the B2B space, Drip is an excellent platform for lead scoring (categorizing users based on their value).

2.Customer.io:- An advantage of using Customer.io is that you can easily implement and do A/B Testing. You can segment people based on their Page Views (viewed a particular page of your website), Events (actions performed by users on your website like spending more than 5 minutes on a webpage) etc. or a combination of several of such activities.

3. MailChimp:- MailChimp is one of the leaders in the section of attribute-based segmentation and helps you to easily manage subscriptions with a user-friendly interface for all our non-techies out there. I would recommend this tool for beginners who are new to the practice of Drip Email Marketing or have little or no technical skills.

I would suggest you go ahead with a trial version of all 3 tools and then decide what suits you the best.

Image Source- Google

3 Top Email Marketing Strategies for E-Commerce Startups

E-commerce businesses are using digital marketing platform to acquire new customers, generate leads, promote new products, and drive conversions. And email continues is one of the most effective and popular marketing channels. Initially designing an email marketing campaign comes across as an exciting and very creative task. But many first-timers often do not get it right at the first time. To help the startup guys, I have created the perfect email marketing strategy guide. Before talking about how the startups can jump into email marketing, do your homework right. You need to keep your game ready for carrying out in your email campaign. The remaining plan goes accordingly. Let’s Check the top 3 Email Marketing strategies for e-commerce startups to build their email campaigns. 

Email Marketing Strategy 1| Know your potential Customers.

The vital strategic point to know is who is your Target Audience and are you clear on that?  What is your target market according to your product? Would you rather concentrate your efforts on to target a broader audience or to a selected group? Finally, these questions should provide guidance and form the basis of the email marketing campaign. Knowing your target audience prevents you to waste resources on audience. Because, this can easily eliminate who are not a good fit for your product. The next step is to generate a list of customers who might actually be interested in what you’re going to say in your emails.

Email Marketing Strategy 2 | Building an Email List

Creating an email list is an art and it gives an edge to the business by collecting emails from the user. A rich and popular content has a higher potential to get liked by the users. In addition, while building the email list, startups should focus on the target audience. Especially relevant audience will only help to boost the business.

  • Using Email– First, create a remarkable email content if you want people to stay subscribed and forward your emails to their contact list. Second, encourage your email subscribers to share and forward your email by including a social sharing button and an email to a friend button. Third, promote an online contest in Twitter, Facebook and include a free giveaway and have the entrants signup using their email addresses. Fourth, Create multiple email subscription types to send more targeted content to specific segments of your marketing personas. Email recipients more likely click through emails that’s targeted at them. Fifth, include a link to your signatures which will lead people to product landing page where users will sign up.
  • Leverage with Social Media Channels– Promote your products and offers in Twitter or LinkedIn and add the Social Sharing button with your post. Use the Facebook business page to promote an offer which requires an email address submission. Most importantly, always add a CTA (Call to Action) button to your landing page that requires an email address for access.
  • Use Your Website– First, link to the product offers that would capture email signups. Consider your websites homepage, blog page, About Us Page and the Contact Us page. Second, When you are creating a content for the guest logins, make sure to add a Call-to-Action as well as a link for readers to subscribe to your product blogs.

Email Marketing Strategy 3 | Choosing a right emailing tool

Choosing a right emailing tool is the first step for success. There are varieties of tooling options available in the market each having some unique features.

MailChimp is the most affordable tool having a great feature. This Provides an insight to what worked well and what went wrong in the email campaign. It is the most widely accepted tool because of its affordability. The platforms also work seamlessly with Hootsuite, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Litmus is one of the most popular and robust tool for tracking and testing email. It supports all operating systems in the mobile world as well as traditional web world.

GetResponse is an user friendly email marketing tool and this offers an excellent return on investment. The price plan will depend on the size of your company and the length of your contact list. 

CakeMail – It is the ideal email marketing tool for the business looking to get the startup customer base. Google has the tool integrated in it providing an added advantage. The tool gives a detailed stat about the ongoing campaigns.

SendingBlue– SendingBlue is perfect for an e-commerce startup. The platform provides user-friendly email design tools. In addition, plenty of backend scope are there for developers to add extra functionality to email campaigns. Especially one of the most useful features of SendinBlue is it allows to synchronize contact lists from most major platforms.

According to a 2014 study by McKinsey and Company, for every dollar you put into email marketing you get back 40X more than you would through Facebook, Instagram, and almost every other marketing channel.

Photo Credits: Google Image

5 Common Questions Every Landing Page Must Address

Before we begin discussing how to build your ideal Landing Page, we need to address what exactly a Landing Page is.

Each page on your website that is used as an ‘entry point’, is called a Landing Page. A user can be directed to your website from any source, be it a Facebook post, a result turned up in Google search or a display add published on a website.

5 Common Questions Every Landing Page Must Address are:-

1. What Is It?-

You have to clearly define your Value Proposition. Value Proposition is defined as an innovation, service, or feature intended to make a company or product attractive to customers.  It should be the most attention-grabbing element on your Landing Page. It has to be crisp, short and loud so that a user that enters onto your website for the first time is exposed to this Value Proposition within the first few seconds and that’s what makes all the impact. A lot of marketers tend to ignore the power of a strong and impactful Value Proposition.

The above Landing Page of a popular marketing automation tool, Customer.io, clearly defines its Value Proposition, ‘Automate Your Product Messaging- Build, Test and Send From One Platform’. A user that visits their website for the first time immediately knows what it is, who is it for, how are they differentiating themselves from others and how it can be beneficial for him/her. They go on to further explain the Product Features, describing their Value Proposition through an infographic, followed by bullet points, keeping it neat and easy to understand.

2. Is It For Me?-

In order to communicate most effectively with your visitors, your Landing Page must contain the language your visitors understand.

A student visiting a University website would want to know about the course curriculum, fee structure, alumni association etc. An entrepreneur visiting an analytical tool website would want to know how that particular tool would help him grow his business.

You should understand your audience portfolio and create Buyer Personas in order to understand the needs, desires and demands of your audience. Your Landing Page should be able to resonate with your viewers.

3. What Does It Cost?-

Cost, in this case, doesn’t always mean Money. Of course, money is one of the costs involved but they extend to much more than money alone. Cost could be in terms of:-

  1. Time- People on the internet enjoy skimming through articles. They scan web pages, not read. You cannot expect them to spend additional time on your website without providing them with an incentive to do so.
  2. Learning New Things- Chances are if you’re reading this post, you like to learn and experiment. But as a rule of thumb, people usually are not the most passionate about learning new things, without knowing how it could benefit them.
  3. Data Import- The cost could be the time and risk involved with taking out your data from an existing system and transferring it to a new one. For example, you would think twice, thrice or maybe even more, before changing your internet service provider just for the simple reason to avoid all the hassle involved in the process.

These are in no way a comprehensive list of all costs involved with all kinds of businesses and industries. The cost, being subjective, would differ from business to business and user to user.

The above image showing a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, attempts to address the Cost related question a user may have by providing a full refund within 30 days if he/she is not satisfied with the product or service.

4. What Is The Risk?-

In a way, Cost and Risk go hand-in-hand. They are interrelated to the extent that the Cost is a Risk for a user.

As a marketer, we need to address that risk in a way that it mitigates a customer’s concern in using or buying your product or service.

A popular and effective way to do that is to include User Testimonials, which are basically reviews and endorsements of customers who have used your product/service in the past and were satisfied with it. It shows a visitor that there are people like them who are using it and people who they trust (thought leaders) that are recommending a particular product/ service. The more the visitor is able to relate to the testimonials, the less risky he/she would feel in going ahead and taking the next step.

For instance, an entrepreneur would be more convinced in seeing the testimonial of a fellow entrepreneur in the same industry that he operates in.

The above screenshot is an apt illustration of customer testimonials by Elegant Themes, an easy-to-use website builder, that displays its customer testimonials along with their profile picture, narrating a short story about how the services they offer helped their customers build a website in few simple steps, without needing any technical know-how. Testimonials help establish credibility and trust and are able to connect with a user on a personal level.

5. What’s The Next Step?-

The final and most important aspect of a Landing Page is to move a user from one step to the next. The next step should be based on the readiness of a user instead of asking him/her to directly make a purchase.

For instance, a visitor who first visits your page for the first time should be persuaded to sign up for a free trial of your product. Only on expiry of that free trial should they be sent content which persuades them to make a purchase as they are now more mature and groomed towards you and your product and trust you as a brand.

If a visitor who has visited your website for the first time, having no knowledge about the service you provide, is given a link to make a purchase using his/her credit card, there is an extremely likely chance that he/she would simply log off your website without taking another look at your value proposition.

The user should be shown the relevant Call to Action based on his/her readiness in the flow originating from trial or subscription to a blog, to final purchase and repurchase.  “Nobody likes to be sold to, but everybody likes to buy” -Anonymous

Conclusion-

Though each Landing Page differs in various aspects in terms of its objectives and end goals, any marketer interested in obtaining a higher rate of customers moving through the Marketing Funnel must consider primarily these 5 questions while designing his/her Landing Page.

To learn more about Inbound Marketing and how to best leverage your Landing Page check  ‘What Is Inbound Marketing And Why It Is Essential For Every Marketer To Implement’.

 

Source:- Google, Customer.io

Facebook Vs Instagram which is best for marketing brands

                                     

Best place to do Marketing on Social Media

  • Instagram for better engagement: As compare to Facebook, Instagram has better engagement. The number of people post pictures and videos more than Facebook. In a data it was revealed that Instagram attracts more likes and comments per post than Facebook. This was especially true for small brands, and those food, fashion, travels. This shows the engagement of people is high on Instagram than on Facebook.

    average likes per post facebook instagram

  • Facebook for higher visibility and reach: When it comes to reach, Facebook has authority over Instagram. It does have only the larger user base, but also it has acceptance across most age groups. So you will have a better chance at boosting visibility using this platform. This is true if you are not targeting a specific age group.
  • Instagram is to target younger audience: Instagram appeal to younger audience. This is a best platform to target younger audience. Many brands who has its customer the younger audience target them on Instagram. A brand Harley Davidson target the younger audience that was only for men between the age group of 18-35 targeted them on Instagram and they targeted 1.4 million men in this age group in just three weeks.

  • Facebook for distributing information: It is a best place to distribute information than Instagram. You have limits on Instagram. Facebook gives you freedom to share unlimited links to your blogs and products pages. So if your objective is to promote your blog and distribute informational posts, it would be better option than Instagram.

Conclusion:- Choosing the right platform depends on what you are looking for. You have to look upon your goals and what you want to achieve from this campaign. Benefits of both the social media, Facebook and Instagram is highly subjective in nature. Different business and different audience means that what work better for you may not work well for another business. Different business have different target audience so they should choose their social media platform where they find their customers active. According to me, the best place for marketers to market their brand is Instagram because their you will find the huge audience to target. You can easily promote your business and engage with the audience.

Five tips to improve Landing Page experience

Five tips to improve landing page experience

Introduction

when it comes to making that ad seen super effective, its not all about whats in the ad itself… let’s not forget about your landing page experience! landing page experience is adword’s measure of how well your website gives people who click your ads exactly what they’re looking for quickly and effortlessly.

you certainly don’t want a highly relevant well-crafted ad that ends up taking a user off to a product or service they weren’t looking for ! the experience users have after they click on your ad and visit your landing page URL is just as important. It affects your ad Rank.Your cost per click(CPC) and your position in the ad auction. a poor experience may even result in your ads showing less often or not at all! let’s work to avoid all that to do so, keep these five tips in mind.

1. Offer relevant, useful and original content:

  • Strive to offer features or content that are unique to your site.
  • make your landing page directly relevant to your ad text and keyword:
    • Be Specific: when the user wants a particular thing. if some one clicks on an ad for a sports car, they shouldn’t wind up on a general “all car models” and makes page.
    • Be general: when the user wants options if someone’s looking to compare digital cameras, they probably don’t want to land on a specific model’s page.

2. Promote transparency and foster trustworthiness of your site:

  • openly share information about your business and clearly state what your business does.
  • explain your products or services before asking visitors to fill out forms.
  • make it easy for visitors to find your contact information.
  • if you request personal information from of customers, make it clear why you’re asking for it and what you’ll do with it.
  • distinguish sponsored links, like ads, from the rest of your website’s content.

3. Make mobile and computer navigation easy:

  • Organize and design your page well, so people don’t have to hunt around for information.
  • Make it quick and easy for people to order the product mentioned i your ad.
  • Avoid pop-ups or other features that interfere with their navigation of your site.
  • help customers find what they’re looking for by prioritizing above-the-fold content.

4. Be fast (decrease your page loading time):

make sure your landing page loads quickly once someone clicks on your ad, whether on a computer or mobile device.

5. Make your site (even more) mobile-friendly:

see how your site scores on mobile-friendliness and speed and find out how to improve it.

How Apple created and captured marketing through Social Media

Apple is a American Multinational Technology Company that designs, develops and sells consumer electronic, computer softwares and online services. Apple’s first slogan, “Byte into an Apple” and the slogan “Think Different” was used in advertising campaigns. 

Apple created and captured market through Social Media:

Apple used seven market strategies to capture the market those are:

  1. Rethink the need of Advertisement: It is necessary to invest more on ads by google ans facebook when you want to increse your sales revenue. But apple doesn’t think that way, they have completely diffrent strategies:                                                                                                                                                             a. product placement through celebreties and in popular show.                                                                   b. the buzz created by positive reviews in media.                                                               Apple another strategy was to give free trails to the customers. They give free trails in exchange of positive testimonials.
  2. Avoid Price wars by Emphasing your Unique Value Propostion: Apple focuses on their UVP (unique value proposition), which is beautiful design that works right out of the box with ever-smaller packaging. It’s a marketing strategy that gets juice throughout social media and is very much a competitive advantage for Apple and its market share.How can Apple keep its fans with a pricing strategy so much higher than the competition?It’s because Apple doesn’t view PCs as competition. Where others focus on a single killer feature through a variety of content marketing, Apple focuses on the entire product, and it shows. Apple doesn’t focuses on price rather you are ready to pay something more tahn paying more in the other brand product.
  3. Keep your marketing and product simple: Apple understands that technology consumers often get overwhelmed. Overwhelm can create a confusion in a marketing mix. Apple helps reduce that consumer confusion by simplifying their web and sales copy. They completely eschew jargon or industry terms. Instead, they use simple, direct words and they continually stress the benefits that consumers absolutely need and will be thrilled by. This is part of their brilliance in content marketing; high tech without high tech terms.This approach doesn’t confuse their customers with too much information. As Leonardo da Vinci said, Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.Apple keeps it simple and their customers love it giving them a loyalty with market share that is unprecedented. Apple ads and marketing strategy doesn’t convey the specifications and features of the product rather than it focuses on how the product is useful and how it can change your living standard. Even the products themselves are kept sleek and minimal, with simple color schemes and clean, uncluttered design. The names are short and easy to remember, including the “app store” that has made third party partners huge successes.
  4. Know your audience and talk to them in their language: Apple mention their product specification and technical details of the product on therir websites. They doesn’t use the terms which the customers cannot understand, in their websites you wil find the words like edge-to-edge glass, retina display and LED backlight. Apple knows its customers and has developed loyalty in the market share. They know their customers and know the language in which they have to talk to their customers and make them comfortable instead of confusing them.
  5. Design a better customer experience: When a Apple customer buy a product they upload video in which they unwrap their new apple product which is called unboxing. Apple has created a customer experience that goes far beyond the actual purchase in a retail store. They no longer even need to be in charge of a huge part of their content marketing since their target market is doing it for them.
  6. Aim to your prospects’ Emotions: Emotional connections are the key to successful marketing strategies. It’s what makes certain stories, videos, and memes go viral. Think back to the first ads for the iPad, after its buzzy launch in 2010 and how simple their content marketing was.Remember those images of people relaxing in the living room with the strange new gadget? They looked happy and comfortable.They weren’t talking about display dimensions or processing power. They were just enjoying their iPads.Those ads, as with all of Apple’s marketing, hit their consumers where they really live – not in the pocketbook but in their hearts.
  7. Build a Community of users or customers: Apple has built one of the most hardcore fan bases for any brand, anywhere in the world. Apple has created a brand personality and culture that’s cool, fun, and friendly — the opposite of some of its competitors. Apple’s marketing strategies include making customers want to belong to that community. Their market share shows just how successful they have been. The first and most critical step to take in building a strong, vibrant and engaged community of users is to get crystal-clear on your brand values and personality. You have to create a vivid and accurate picture of your brand in your own mind first — your brand’s core message, its deeply-held values, its personality and what it stands for above all else.Then, your next step is to make sure that your pages, marketing copy and content all express those values and that personality. Every aspect of your website should be consistent with those words you chose to describe your brand, from graphics to fonts to color scheme.Last, but not least, show your readers and users you value them, as well as their opinions. Let them know that you’re deeply interested in them with your content.

    How can you do this effectively on the web? You can try any or all of the following tips to start with:

    •  Ask open-ended questions in your content.
    •  Respond to cooment on your blog posts– carry on a conversation.
    •  Try to initiate conversations with your users/readers on social media.
    •  Create a referral reward program for customers who refer other new customers.
    •  Reach out to customers with email.

    CONCLUSION: Apple as a brand take care about every single things through which they have a hold in the market. Apple on social media that is on twitter and Facebook without any advertisement has  captured the market. Apple joined Instagram where he has posted pictures shot by their product telling about the features of the product.

Apple on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Apple ( 1.5 million)

The twitter page of Apple has no tweet still have so many followers.

Apple on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apple/?ref=br_tf

Highlights info row image
10,935,466 people like this
Highlights info row image
11,039,250 people follow this
This is how the facebook page of Apple looks. It has no posts still customers are so loyal to this brand that it has so many who likes and follow this page.
  • 96 posts
  • 3.2m followers

This is the Instagram page of Apple where they shows the shot on their Iphones and they also generate backlinks by tagging the person.