Marketing - Marketing Strategy | Advertising, Networking

The Many Ways You're Marketing Even When You Don't Even Know You Are

The less your marketing resembles advertising the closer the connection you'll make with your customers.

Businesses work hard to create effective marketing campaigns, coming up with strategies carefully crafted to promote their brands both online and off.

But whether you realize it or not, you can promote brand awareness even when you’re unaware of it. A company’s image starts with its leadership and spreads to its employees and the work they do.

Here are some effective ways you build and grow brand awareness in ways you may not have considered.

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Social Media Marketing | Artificial Intelligence

New AI-Based Tools Are Transforming Social Media Marketing

With the vast amounts of unstructured social data, the myriad of social media influencers and the growing number of requests for service via social channels, marketers can often get overwhelmed. Throwing more bodies at the problem doesn’t usually help much so marketers are beginning to explore AI-based tools to help them better leverage the power of social media.

As a participant in this growing technology category, Lux Narayan, CEO of Unmetric, an AI-powered social media metrics company, has been following the category closely. Narayan admits “The whole social space has a lot of noise. It's very difficult to disambiguate one company from the other.  But I think there are distinctive patterns in what companies do. And indeed, in where they're starting to deploy AI within each of those subdomains. More specifically, they fit into six broad areas within social.”

According to Narayan, the six areas of social media marketing being impacted by AI are:

1. Content creation: “People are creating content at the speed of culture. And that's a cadence for marketers that we've haven't seen before. 20 years back the average brand would do one campaign every six months and now they do six campaigns a month. That's a lot of content. We're seeing interesting applications of AI being used in content creation.” says Narayan. On his watch list is Twizoo, a social content platform that uses artificial intelligence to automatically discover and display user generated social media content across a brand’s website.

2. Consumer intelligence: “This is essentially pulling out the needles from the haystack,  filtering out signals from noise and finding interesting relevant signals for a brand that it can take forward into actionable insights,” he adds. Converseon is a digital consultancy uses a machine-learning platform to gain insights from social and voice-of-customer data.

3. Customer service: Narayan continues, “There's a lot of experimentation but we're seeing interesting things happening in the chatbot space where it's either a machine replacing or augmenting what a human is doing.” He is keeping an eye on Conversocial, a platform that makes it easier for customers to get help through social, mobile channels.

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How Successful People Think - Gary Vaynerchuk

Social Media | Management, Marketing, Business Strategy

How to Talk Social in the C-Suite

It’s every social media professional’s greatest fear: Asking the C-suite for an increased social budget without a clear return on investment to show for it.

The social media department is often walled off from other departments, which makes it even more challenging for social media managers to rally support. It’s a daunting task even if you speak the language of the C-suite, but recent advancements in marketing technology have made it possible for companies to break down the walls of their internal structures and give consumers what they expect.

More than 90 percent of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising, and today’s typical internet-using consumer lives in a social-first world. Studies show that the average customer has seven social media accounts, and they aren’t shy about telling friends and family how they feel about your brand via social media.

The customer journey is changing. Corporate behavior and priorities are unfortunately playing a game of catch-up with both technology and consumers’ use of it. While social media is driving this change, it’s also the best solution to closing the gap between consumer and brand communication.

Social impact on the bottom line

Here comes the hard part—convincing the C-suite that social can drive ROI, match sales or marketing efforts and help push the company out of the past and into the future. So, how do you make them listen?

Present clear social strategies and objectives

Clearly outline how social fits into the company’s overall marketing, sales or public-relations strategy. This will look different for each organization depending on key audiences, overarching goals, etc., but weaving social into this process will help the C-suite understand its relationship toward similar strategies and objectives.

It’s important that social is recognized as a separate entity, but explain how it can belong to the larger ecosystem of marketing communications goals.

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SEO - Brand Authority

Why No Brand is Too Big for SEO

If you’ve ever helped lift a new brand off the ground and generate a large amount of organic visibility, you know that doing so is no easy feat.

You need to build authority, create resourceful content, and instill SEO best practices.

All of this takes time. Usually a lot of time.

On the other side of this spectrum are large brands. Those sites with so much brand equity that some may question whether SEO is even really a need.

But we can put this question to rest when we consider all that SEO encompasses.

SEO isn’t simply about attracting new visitors who know little about your brand. A lot of what SEO is composed of is the “maintenance” of your organic online presence and the experience that you provide to your site users.

Let’s think for a moment about one of the biggest brands in the world, Coca-Cola.

According to Forbes, Coca-Cola invested $3.9 billion in advertising and marketing in 2015. 

It’s amazing to think that this ad and marketing spend totals 6 percent of the entire forecasted SEO expenditure of the world’s companies for 2016.

They definitely don’t need to concentrate on SEO, right?

Wrong!

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SEO - SEO Tips - Best SEO Practices

What’s the most important aspect of SEO?

This is one of the most common questions in SEO.

And debate rages to this day.

Is content the king of SEO?

How about links?

Is technical SEO just makeup? 

The answer is that it varies by company, industry, and location. Read on for some generalized explanations of what should be “king” in different scenarios.

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Branding, Marketing | Ask Gary Vee Show | Jon Taffer Bar Rescue

SEO Tips | Search Engine Marketing | Entrepreneurs Guide

These 9 SEO Tips Are All You'll Ever Need to Rank

Entrepreneurs hoping for strong SEO (search engine optimization) rankings might take a lesson here. They can create a checklist of their own to make sure everything is perfect for their next website article. No, an SEO checklist won't protect you from crashing and burning. But it will help ensure that your post has the best chance it needs to rank high in Google. 

So, before you publish your next piece of web content, run it through the following 9-point checklist for the best SEO tips.

1. Pick a good keyword to focus on.

The first step is to simply pick the search term or phrase you want the post to show up for. If I am writing about the best dog toys for small dogs, I'll want to find out what people are actually searching for. The easiest way to do this is use Google Keyword Planner, a free tool that will show you an estimate for any search phrase. (Although Keyword Planner is free, you may need to set up an AdWords account to gain access.)

For example, I noticed that "small dog toys" receives 590 monthly searches -- higher than any other related combination of words. However, I'm still not totally ready to start writing about this topic. First, I need to do some research. 

2. Research the competition.

Now that I have a term I want to try to rank for, I'm going to go undercover and do some recon! Jump over to your "private browsing" mode on your web browser ("Incognito" in Chrome, "Private" in Safari and Firefox, "InPrivate" on Internet Explorer) and head to Google.com. (At my company, we do "private mode" because we don't want Google to use our past search history to influence what we see on the search results page.) Take a look at all the content on page one of Google, ignoring any ad results at the top. The 10 (or so) results are your competition! What are they missing? Can you do better?

3. Write the best content.

Now that you know what your competition looks like, it's time to create the content that is going to blow those folks out of the water. This is perhaps the most difficult part, but it's the most important. It needs to be amazing. I don't care if you are creating a blog post, ecommerce store page or sales-landing page. It needs to be better than the rest, or else neither Google nor your audience will ever take note.

For an example of an article I recently wrote -- with just this goal in mind -- check out "How to Become a Millionaire: The Ultimate Guide.". My goal with that post was to write superb content about that topic. How did I do? Related: 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Compete With Giants in SEO

4. Put the keyword in your page title.

This should be a no-brainer, but I'll say it anyway: Your page title should contain your keyword, but that doesn't mean it has to be exact (though it can be). Additionally, the title must also be interesting enough that people will actually want to click on it! A good example of this would be PT from PTMoney.com, who wrote a great post about "making extra money." However, rather than a boring title, like "Make Extra Money," he titled it "52 Ways to Make Extra Money." Now that is something I would want to read.

5. Put the keyword in your header.

You can organize most webpages by having a large title at the top, followed by several sub-headers throughout the page (like the sub-headers in this post). This organization is helpful not only for people in skimming blog-post articles, it's helpful in showing Google exactly what your blog post is about. Therefore, be sure to use your exact keyword phrase at least once in your sub-headers.

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Influencer Marketing: Personal Branding, Building Authenticity

The Importance and Impact of Influencer Marketing in 2017

Why Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is making a splash. Many thought it was just a fad and would vanish soon, but it is growing rapidly. Let us see some reasons why influencer marketing is important:

• Almost every company is using it to reach their target audience quickly.
• An efficient way to enter the target market quickly and reach the real audience.
• An alternative to paid ads and more efficient.
• High ROI because of targeted exposure.
• A great strategy to position the brand image and identity.
• The safe way to market the product or service through trusted people in the industry.
• A known personality talking about your product sells better than a text with a clickbait call to action.

What Makes a Great Influencer?

Personal branding and building authenticity are two important factors everybody should consider while becoming an influencer. Being yourself, putting in a lot of time and effort in something you believe and passion is not enough. You need to have a social media presence and should be able to share your thoughts out confidently on these social media platforms. Once you know you have built a decent follower base, it is time to become a great influencer.

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Content Marketing | Online Marketing Strategy

Content Marketing Musts: 5 Keys To Driving Sales With Content

Everybody knows that these days, content is king. But not everybody knows how to create effective content for their brand. Brands that create content on the fly without a strategic plan and objectives in place are sure to be disappointed in the results their efforts return. Those that don’t know how to optimize content with an eye toward conversions will be similarly disappointed.

Content marketing is a long-term strategy. Unlike paid search, for example, it simply isn’t a channel that will generate immediate returns. Content marketing must be built and nurtured over time, and it must be designed with conversion potential in mind. Here are 5 things to keep in mind when creating and optimizing content that will convert.

1. Test site messaging and copy

Content is about more than just blog posts and whitepapers -- content is central to every single marketing message your brand creates. Every piece of content has the potential to impact conversions. That includes everything from a million dollar Super Bowl ad to the button text of your homepage call-to-action. We often see brands in such a rush to create new, exciting content that they fail to optimize the content their users encounter on a daily basis: website copy.

Website copy -- button text, product copy, main messaging, etc. -- is one of the biggest conversion influencers. It will either create user desire to browse deeper or it will convince the user to look elsewhere. One of the best things you can do to use content to drive conversions is to audit your website copy, searching for opportunities to speak more clearly and effectively to your audience. Test different value propositions and messaging to identify the highest-performing variations.

2. Include a Call-To-Action

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of CTAs to your content’s ability to convert its audience. Every promotional message should include a CTA because without one the audience will be at a loss about what they’re supposed to do next. It may seem like a pretty basic recommendation and it’s not one that’s usually missed on more obvious pieces of content like emails. But what about the rest of your content? Do you include CTAs on your blog posts? What about your videos? Your whitepapers? Don’t miss an opportunity to tell the user what to do next. Include relevant, logical CTAs in all your content.

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Content Marketing | Social Media Marketing Tips

3 Tips to Create Content And Social Media Marketing That Sells

With the pressure on financial marketers to demonstrate ROI intensifying, it’s more important than ever to understand the buyer’s journey and create content that moves people through the sales funnel. To drive measurable growth, bank and credit union marketers need to target key audiences with relevant content to that speaks to their specific needs at each stage of the funnel.

Consumers are visiting branches less often. They can open accounts on mobile phones, and apply for loans at work on their lunch break. While lead nurturing and effective prospecting can be accomplished cost effectively in digital channels, the financial services industry has lagged behind. Banks and credit unions have failed to allocate sufficient budgetary resources where users spend most of their time. Instead, financial institutions have been flushing money down the toilet on tactics that can’t be tracked and don’t produce leads.

This is why a content marketing strategy is more important than ever before. Now that people can be targeted in digital channels with amazing accuracy, it makes financial sense to move budgets away from traditional media towards content marketing strategies that focus on generating leads, growing relationships and improving the bottom line.

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Internet Marketing | Voice Search, SEO

Voice search and SEO: Why B2B marketers need to pay attention now

Voice search is commonly discussed in the context of local and B2C SEO, but it’s being used for more than just getting directions to nearby restaurants or hearing the next step in a recipe while cooking. Voice search is being adopted for a variety of purposes, and its influence on B2B decision-makers is growing as well.

By looking at who’s using voice search, why they’re using it, and where they’re using it, it becomes very clear that the impact of voice search on B2B SEO is inevitable. Adoption of the technology is on the rise, so it’s time for brands to begin optimizing for voice search.

Who’s using voice technology?

As early as 2014, 55 percent of teens and 41 percent of adults were already using voice technology daily. Adults use it to dictate texts, illustrating a desire to avoid typing on small devices. Teens use it to get help with homework, demonstrating an early adoption of voice technology for organic search.

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