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Category: DataDrivenMarketingPro

DataDrivenMarketingPro

  • For ROI, Email Marketing Makes Big Leap Over Last Year

    For ROI, Email Marketing Makes Big Leap Over Last Year

    Salesforce released its 2016 State of Marketing Report, finding that marketers are seeing increased ROI with email, mobile, and social media marketing. The report is based on a survey of about 4,000 marketers from around the world.

    Of those who use email marketing, 80% agree it is core to their business. Nearly half of them say it’s directly linked to their business’ primary revenue source. That’s up 140% from last year’s report. 79% of marketers, according to this year’s, say email generates ROI, which is a 48% increase year-over-year.

    Salesforce Reports Email Data

    The report says that intelligent email is driving higher revenue.

    “As email personalization capabilities grow more sophisticated, the channel becomes even more integral for marketers to deliver a holistic customer journey,” it reads. “Eighty percent of marketers agree that email is core to their business.”

    “Predictive technology is breathing new life into established marketing channels such as email,” the report adds. “Top teams are 4.2x more likely than underperformers to leverage predictive intelligence or data science to create personalized emails.”

    Salesforce email data

    What’s interesting is the diversity in the types of campaigns found to be effective. Take a look:

    salesforce email data

    The high-performing marketers, Salesforce says, are 2.3x more likely to trigger personalized emails in real time based on events. The high performers in general take a “more sophisticated” approach to email, it says.

    sophisticated email marketing

    75% of marketers using social report that it’s generating ROI, which is a 166% increase from last year’s report. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is found to be the most effective social channel for high-performing teams. This is followed by Twitter, YouTube, Google+, and then Instagram. Considering that advertising on Instagram is in its early days, it’s likely it will gain significance if you ask me.

    In terms of mobile, adoption of location-based mobile tracking saw a 149% increase while mobile push notifications saw a 145% increase. Mobile text messaging adoption saw an 111% increase, and mobile app adoption saw a 98% increase. More importantly, 77% of those who use mobile as part of their marketing strategy say it actively generates ROI, up 147% from lat year’s report.

    The report found that 65% of high-performing marketers say they’ve adopted a customer journey strategy. 88% say such a strategy is critical to their marketing success.

    The study found that 58% of high-performing marketing teams strongly agree they’re implementing digital transformations across the company. This compares to just 8% of underperformers. 63% of the high-performers also say they’re excellent at creating personalized, omnichannel customer experiences across all business units. It’s just 2% for the underperformers.

    You can find the full 2016 State of Marketing Report here.

    All charts via Salesforce

  • 9 Ways to Get Your Content Published On Authority Websites (Outreach Marketing)

    9 Ways to Get Your Content Published On Authority Websites (Outreach Marketing)

    Introduction to Outreach Marketing

    Outreach marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on human-to-human connection and consumer psychology to position ideas, brand, and products to the right audience at the right time.

    The simple act of connecting with prospects (your audience) not only helps them learn more and understand what you are about, but can also help them.

    Having other people tell your story or market your product (after they have used it or seen it) leads to more traffic, more sales and a better return on investment.

    Most consumers value another consumer’s recommendation as compared to the seller pitching for his/her products.

    The Blogger Difference

    Bloggers, on the other hand, use their platforms to provide useful, unique content and in return acquire high-quality links and exposure into their target audience.

    However, I have seen many bloggers posting quality and high-value information on their blogs but get very little exposure or traffic.

    Traffic (that converts) is everything in online marketing, and if you cannot get enough traffic or exposure, you are doomed to fail.

    While search engine optimization and smart marketing will help your site/blog gain more traffic, outreach marketing exposes your blog to your target audience easily and you can do so via a more personal interaction (as you’ll see).

    Authority sites get more traffic and are much more respected, hence a great place to market your brand and products.

    TIP: A good rule to follow: to drive more traffic, build authority and get REAL visibility, spend 80% on promoting yourself and 20% on your quality long form content (1500-2000+ word articles are recommended).

    Here are 9 Clever Ways for Outreach Marketing you can use:

    1. Identify your target audience

    The first step to getting your content published on authority sites is by identifying your target audience and what they enjoy.

    With the target audience already identified, it will be much easier for you to present and publish content that may interest them.

    You can learn key insights by browsing through rival websites to see how they do it. Twitter search can provide a treasure trove of information.

    It would also be advisable to go through the authority sites in your market to see how they like content created for them to publish your content.

    Reading through their guidelines and terms of service may also help you know how to approach them, and learn more about the target audience.

    2. Knowing who your target audience influencers are

    A little digging is required to get this valuable information. Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes to find out what they might expect from you.

    Social media has made it pretty easy for marketers. Many people turn to their favorite social media platforms for info and recommendations on particular products and services.

    With billions of people using social media networks these days, you can use this to your advantage to learn about them, and then start working towards filling in the ‘void’ they may be having.

    Buzzsumo.com provides great details about top posts, # of shares and their sharers.

    Followerwonk is another great tool to help you find your top influencers, or you can use AuthoritySpy to get a lot more data.

    3. Publish informative and high-quality articles on your blog

    Armed with information from points 1 and 2, you must first focus on creating high quality and informative content for the target audience to consume. If you have few references, no materials or low quality to share, it will be slow-going.

    As long as you can provide your readers and contacts with quality information on topics they are looking for, it will be much easier for them to share the content with their friends and networks.

    Before you can publish any post, make sure it is free from errors and that your research and data is easy to back up. Your readers do not want to follow your ideas based on an assumption.

    Do proper research on the topic and construct everything carefully based on facts, and in an easy to understand language.

    Share your new findings and complimentary research to work they are already interested in.

    4. Work on content marketing

    Publishing quality content on your blog alone isn’t enough. Especially in a growing, crowded online marketplace.

    You need to create and promote.

    Use your blog and showcase content, tools, infographics via outreach (email, phone, social) and seek to publish content in strategic locations from your research.

    It is only by offering to share highly informative and valuable content that search engines and authority sites will take note and interact with you.

    Ensuring only quality posts are published on your blog and other key locations is your best chance of attracting attention from your target audience.

    5. Use strategic email marketing campaigns

    Email marketing is one of the best outreach marketing campaigns one can adopt.

    Creating an avenue for your audience, webmasters and editors to communicate back, by either allowing them to publish comments on your blog or sharing their personal email addresses for further communication is invaluable.

    Note: Never embark on buying leads or email lists with the hope of getting more traffic and exposure, unless you can get validated traffic and conversion numbers.

    As long as the audience are willing to provide their contact information, and allow you to send them more information, there is a higher chance that they will consume and even share your information.

    TIP: The best way to reap big rewards through targeted email marketing is by keeping it simple and making the messages short and to the point. Use references and always include a “helpful” angle to all your emails. Don’t come off as a “sales person” and plan ahead on what they should do next. Make it easy for them.

    6. Make use of video posts and video marketing

    This is one of the best ways of reaching out to a target audience and receiving improved online exposure.

    Many people today prefer watching a short video clip other than reading a long post of written text. (Note: you should test this for your market).

    Technology plays a big part in this since consumers have Internet-enabled handheld devices (such as smartphones, iPads, or tablets) and can search & view your materials from anywhere. That includes accessing apps in app store directories.

    With these devices capable of playing video clips online, uploading high-quality video clips (how-to or explainer videos) to your blog and network can help drive more traffic to your blog. You can send them the information directly via email too.

    TIP: Make use of free video hosting sites (such as YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) to upload videos for increased ranking, exposure and ease of sharing.

    7. Social media marketing

    Social media is one of the leading sources of traffic for most sites and blogs, and is very helpful during a startup phase.

    Millions of people log on to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn to communicate, to make new friends and connections every day.

    This creates opportunities to tap into traffic, deeper research and ease of outreach to your target audience.

    Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn already allow bloggers and marketers to share information through different techniques (posts, paid advertising, #hashtags and @mentions).

    Using these features not only increases exposure but also helps drive essential traffic to your blog or website.

    While posting informative, creative, or funny content helps gain following on these social networking platforms, it would be advisable to allow users to be able to share content from your blog to their social feeds.

    This makes it easier for other audiences to read through the shares hence improving your reputation online.

    TIP: When posting to Twitter, include images as they have shown to improve sharing opportunities, but also creates attention and further branding opportunities. Let your targeted audience know about these quality shares.

    8. Host on-site blogger events

    This is more advanced, but easily one of the best ways of bringing bloggers together, where you act as the leader of the event.

    Hosting a blogger event not only improves brand visibility but also creates a stronger ongoing relationship with influential bloggers and editors.

    This alone can help you win the hearts of influential site managers hence allow you to publish your content on their sites and vice versa.

    TIP: Consider using a series of webinars for these events, and invite other bloggers to speak and present. Using blogger outreach programs to strengthen bonds and brainstorm on new ideas can also market your brand beyond borders, which in turn will improve your authority, trust and online visibility.

    9. Work with brand ambassadors

    Using or working with a brand ambassador on your blog can also help increase visibility and authority online.

    This not only approves the authenticity of your blog posts but also shows that you are an easy to reach person.

    Most bloggers hide behind their computer screens and rarely go out to public functions and events.

    Attending events also expose you to target audience in person, thus creating a much stronger relationship with them.

    It will not be long before you start trending on social media and other influential channels on the Internet.

    CONCLUSION:

    Outreach marketing not only makes your blog/brand known to target audience but also exposes you to a larger market on the globe.

    TIP: Use tools like Pitchbox, HARO and Buzzstream to find quality webmasters, websites and to completely automate the outreach process.

  • Survey Looks At Time Spent By Marketers on Email, Data Collection

    Survey Looks At Time Spent By Marketers on Email, Data Collection

    Hubspot recently put out some results of a survey it conducted in an attempt to get an idea of how much time marketers spend on the following tasks: building/maintaining marketing lists; monitoring/responding/analyzing social media; creating/sending email; building landing pages; and collecting/organizing/analyzing marketing data.

    The survey found that the average marketer spends roughly 16 hours per week on “routine tasks” or about a third of their time completing repetitive tasks. They spend 3.48 hours a week sending email and 3.55 hours a week collecting, organizing, and analyzing marketing data from different sources.

    Landing pages, social media, and list management all get less time spent:

    Sam Balter, who conducted the survey, estimates that by reducing the amount of time spent on such tasks from a third of work hours to a fourth of work hours, marketers could save about 250 hours a year.

    “Imagine what you could do with 250 additional hours,” Balter writes. “Whether that’s a website redesign, a new AdWords strategy, hosting an event, or just getting some R&R, a small reduction in time spent on a routine task can have a huge impact on your performance.”

    “Every marketer is different. The demands of the job, the technology available, and the size of the team all have a huge impact on how you can save time,” Balter adds. “But if you focus on simplifying, delegating, or even removing some routine tasks from your day-to-day, it’s very possible to work a little smarter.”

    Balter advises marketers to identify the most important metrics, invest in reporting software, and “get less creative”. By that, he means utilizing successful templates, text, subject lines, etc.

  • Pinterest Gives Big Spenders More Data [Report]

    Pinterest Gives Big Spenders More Data [Report]

    Advertisers who spend a lot with Pinterest can get some extra perks.

    According to a new report from DigiDay, the company is giving retail brands exclusive access to data if they spend “millions”. Garett Sloane reports:

    So far, the data program includes a few high-spending retailers, including Target, the sources said. The retailers dive into Pinterest’s data to find out what’s going to be hot months out, based on the pinning activity of consumers. The idea: Target or another retailer could tweak marketing and even merchandise plans.

    The program is akin to the white-glove treatment that many platforms offer VIP advertisers, like what Facebook provides, for example. In Pinterest’s case, brands and agencies have to spend at least $1 million on advertising to get the company to pull this type of information from the platform, sources said.

    A recent report from The Wall Street Journal indicates that Pinterest is narrowing its focus when it comes to giving advertisers hand-on support. Only businesses in retail and consumer products will get such support and consultation from the company.

    Pinterest will open up Promoted Pins to all U.S. businesses in January.

    Image via Pinterest

  • Bing Ads Get Remarketing Capabilities (Finally)

    Microsoft announced that remarketing in Bing Ads is now available to advertisers. This lets you target people who have visited your website before.

    “Remarketing gives you the power to do more than ever with Bing Ads data, to deliver the right ad to the right user at the best ROI,” says Bing’s Kalyan Nanduru. “Dozens of early users have seen great returns and we can’t wait for you to give it a try and let us know how it works for you, too. As a new targeting enhancement to optimize your Search and Shopping campaigns, remarketing is especially fitting for advertisers looking to get the most out of the coming holiday shopping season.”

    “Remarketing is a second change to engage visitors to your website after they’ve left,” adds Nanduru. “As a valuable addition to your audience targeting toolbox, remarketing gives you another avenue – and another chance – to reach your customers.”

    The company gets more into the benefits and set-up of remarketing in a blog post here.

  • Can Instagram Improve Your Email Marketing?

    Can Instagram Improve Your Email Marketing?

    Instagram has garnered a lot of buzz as a marketing channel over the past couple years, and that buzz is only on the rise thanks to new ad capabilities. What you may not have considered, however, is how Instagram content actually improve your email marketing efforts.

    Have you ever incorporated Instagram into your email campaigns? What strategy did you employ? What were the results? Discuss in the comments.

    Considering that email is one of the best marketing channels for the holiday shopping season, now might be a good time to consider how you can improve your campaigns using Instagram.

    Marketing services firm Experian recommends incorporating Instagram into email campaigns by adding the Instagram follow button, encouraging #hashtag engagement, featuring select photos from customers (possibly from #hashtag campaigns), and using it for contests.

    AVARI brand relationship manager Jake Stott suggests integrating Instagram with email marketing to strengthen both channels:

    The followers that brands build up on Instagram may be substantial, but often it’s not even close to the number of subscribers a mailing list can reach. With email, you have the ability to segment your list and deliver the right content to the right people. In contrast, with Instagram, every follower sees every picture you post, which makes it harder to target specific audiences.

    Conversely, email lacks in many of the areas where Instagram thrives. Whereas Instagram filters have a profound visual impact, emails aren’t always backed by a budget that allows for impressive design. What’s more is that, by default, the user engagement is just not visible in an email the way it is in an app, which makes it a challenge to get users excited about your products or promotions. And of course, without real-time content, you’re sending static emails that are quickly out of date.

    He goes on to recommend incorporating live Instagram feeds into email campaigns. Check out his article on the subject for some specific use cases, which include examples from a restaurant, a travel company, and a college.

    Curalate and Movable Ink have an infographic out (via MarketingProfs) that explores this very topic. According to that, while 76% of emails include social media buttons, just 14% use social images. Marketers appear to have difficulties incorporating social feeds into email. Silos, analytics, data collection, and varying databases also pose obstacles.

    According to Curalate and Movable Ink, people notice when marketers bring Instagram images into the email experience. It says one fitness retailer generated a 7x lift in on-site engagement after featuring editorial-style images from Instagram in an email.

    instagram-email

    In a blog post earlier this year, Movable Ink content marketing manager Blaise Lucey wrote, “Combining social media channels with email marketing campaigns has always been a delicate art for some and a total headache for others. Some companies have totally different social media teams and email marketing teams. That means that strategies and content often aren’t in alignment. And, consequently, the channels operate in a silo. But what if you could combine the rapid-fire mobile engagement of a channel like Instagram with the dedicated, direct touch of email marketing campaigns?”

    He went on to discuss a contest held by Saks Fifth Avenue utilizing an automated feed of the latest Instagram photos, promoting a specific hashtag to its subscriber base. This, he said, guaranteed more customers would engage with the campaign.

    Earlier this year, we had a conversation with Yesmail’s Jason Warnock about the benefits of incorporating social media into email campaigns. According to him, there are three main benefits: acquiring new subscribers, better ROI measurement, and identifying who is sharing your content. Read more about that here.

    Email marketing was a major driver of ecommerce during the holidays, while social didn’t play as big a role. Perhaps with better integration of the two channels, efforts in both will prove more rewarding.

    Do you see opportunities to get more out of your marketing efforts by integrating Instagram with email? Are you better off integrating different social media? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Image via Curalate/Movable Ink

  • Do These Changes Make You Feel Better About Facebook Marketing?

    Do These Changes Make You Feel Better About Facebook Marketing?

    It’s very hard to reach consumers on Facebook without paying for it these days. Luckily, as organic reach has decreased drastically for businesses over the past couple years, Facebook has dramatically improved advertising over that time period, offering numerous tools, targeting options and tweaks.

    The company just made two major announcements that address concerns some advertisers have still had with the platform, including viewability and measurement legitimacy. In a nutshell, Facebook is giving advertisers a new 100% in-view impression buying option and has partnered with a third-party analytics provider to bring in some independent insights so advertisers don’t have to simply trust Facebook on data.

    Will either of these announcements make you feel better about spending money on Facebook ads? Let us know what you think in the comments.

    Facebook says the new announcements give advertisers more control over how they run and measure their ads.

    As the company outlined earlier this year, it counts viewed impressions the moment an ad enters the screen of a desktop browser or mobile app (if an ad doesn’t enter the screen it doesn’t count it). Some advertisers don’t like this approach, as they (understandably) don’t necessarily want to pay for impressions in cases where the user didn’t even see the entire ad.

    Facebook still sees its original method as the best course of action, but recognizes that not all marketers agree, so it’s giving them the option to buy 100% in-view impressions if they think that will work better for them.

    “While it remains our belief that value is created for an advertiser as soon as an ad is in view, we also believe in offering advertisers control and flexibility over how they run their ads,” the company says in a blog post.

    Do you agree with the company on that or do you think the 100% in-view option is the right way to go? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Just to be clear, the 100% in-view impression means the entire ad – from top to bottom – has passed through the user’s screen in the News Feed.

    Advertisers will be able to buy all types of ads – text, photo, link, and video – with this option.

    As mentioned, Facebook also announced a partnership so that advertisers don’t have to take Facebook at its word when it comes to measurement and reporting. That partnership is with Moat, which has also partnered with Twitter on video viewability measurement in the past.

    Facebook is integrating Moat’s technology to verify its video ad views and view lengths so advertisers can gain “assurance” about their video ad campaign performance. The partnership will only cover video viewability for the time being, but eventually, it will expand to other types of ads. That includes 100% in-view impressions and the Instagram platform, which is now becoming available to all businesses and utilizes Facebook’s targeting capabilities.

    Unilever CMO Keith Weed has been critical of Facebook’s handling of viewability and reporting in the past, but seems pleased with the new announcements.

    He said, “Our position on this has been clear for some time: We need to get standards that help define viewability across different platforms and publishers, and those standards need to be third-party verified. It is very encouraging to see Facebook joining the ranks of digital media partners who are setting themselves apart – and this commitment continues the momentum. Our hope is that these steps will lead ultimately to 100% viewability through third party verification across the industry.”

    GroupM Worldwide Chief Digital Officer Rob Norman said, “What we want is quite simple: Ads that are actually seen by real people. We want viewability standards across clients and publishers that honor that position, and we want publishers to be held accountable by independent third-parties. We’re very encouraged that Facebook is partnering with Moat as a third-party verified solution. We remain committed to view duration as well as verification of appearance of the ad in the viewable window and hope that all sellers will recognize and align on an appropriate measurement standard. Facebook’s scale moves the industry one step closer to the standards we’ve been seeking.”

    Facebook doesn’t say exactly when the 100% in-view buying option will be available, but just that it will be available soon. It promises to keep advertisers updated on the Facebook for Business site, but also says advertisers can talk to account reps about it further.

    Are you pleased with Facebook’s announcements? Do you feel better about advertising on Facebook now as a result? Let us know in the comments.

  • Pinterest Reportedly Partners With Datalogix For Ad Measurement

    Pinterest has reportedly been trying to sell potential advertisers on its value as a search engine, urging them to dedicate some of their search budgets to advertising on the platform.

    It’s also making efforts to improve how it shows advertisers the effectiveness of their ads. Digiday is reporting that the company is partnering with Datalogix and Axciom to help businesses see how their ads drive sales. This would reportedly be in time for the holiday shopping season (which would be very soon). From the report:

    “Pinterest is moving very quickly to integrate Datalogix and other third parties into the platform,” the digital marketing exec said.

    …

    “It has big sweeping implications and opens a ton of advertisers for Pinterest, looking for that degree of attribution,” said another advertising source, who helps brands buy Promoted Pins through Pinterest’s ad platform. “This shows brands in-store sales they’re unable to see without Datalogix.”

    Datalogix already has partnerships in place with Twitter and Facebook as well, so this would be another building block for Pinterest, which is newer to the advertising space, to step up its game. According to the report, however, it won’t be using Datalogix so much for targeting, but more for measurement.

    Earlier this year, Pinterest launched its Marketing Developer Partners program, which brings on third-party tools to help businesses get more value from their Pinterest efforts. Partners for ads include: 4C, Adaptly, Amobee, Ampush, Brand Networks, HYFN, Kinetic Social, Manifest, SocialCode, SocialFlow, and Unified.

    Image via Pinterest

  • Over Half Of Retailers Struggle To Identify Most Valuable Customers Despite Data

    Over Half Of Retailers Struggle To Identify Most Valuable Customers Despite Data

    Yes Lifecycle Marketing has a new study out finding that half of retailers are struggling to identify and and engage their most valuable customers, even though they know information like full names, phone numbers, and purchase histories.

    It also found that 42% claim their store associates know nothing about in-store customers, which the company says indicates that a lack of consumer knowledge expands to the brick-and-mortar experience in addition to the online world.

    “In the retail industry, personalization proves powerful,” a spokesperson for Yes Lifecycle Marketing tells WebProNews. “Brands can take personalization efforts further using clienteling, which help retailers build strong relationships with customers using data that indicates their preferences, behaviors and purchases. To differentiate their brand among the rest, retailers must take a clienteling approach, but many fail to do so.”

    “Clienteling leverages omnichannel customer data to create personalized customer experiences,” says Yes Lifecycle Marketing President Michael Fisher. “By utilizing clienteling best practices, retailers can drive more in-store traffic, engagement, sales and loyalty.”

    Other findings from the study include:

    – 13 percent of store associates currently have access to customer data to ensure a successful in-store customer experience.

    – 43 percent of retailers leverage social media for customer service.

    – 36 percent of employees use past purchase history to personalize their interactions with customers.

    – 35 percent of retailers send personalized messages and recommendations across channels.

    The company polled about 200 retailers for the study showing that concerns about utilizing available customer data are quite legitimate.

    You can find the full study here. Yes Lifecycle Marketing also has an e-book about clienteling available here.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Facebook Updates Marketing Resource Blueprint

    Facebook Updates Marketing Resource Blueprint

    Earlier this year, Facebook launched Blueprint, an education program that trains agencies, partners, and marketers on how to use Facebook to create better campaigns that “drive business results”. It includes online courses as well as in-person training and certification.

    The company just made an update to the program, which enables those taking courses to more easily share their progress with those concerned with it.

    In an email, Facebook is telling marketers using Blueprint:

    As a valued participant in the Facebook Blueprint eLearning program we wanted to let you know that you can now share your Blueprint progress with your Agency or Business. Next time you access Blueprint you will have the opportunity to opt-in to share your information.

    You may elect to stop sharing this data with the Agency or Business by updating your Blueprint profile at any time.

    Blueprint launched with 40 learning paths/modules, and you can use it from the desktop or mobile. It’s available to anyone with a Facebook account. You select the courses you want to take, and take them at your leisure.

    We took a closer look at what all is available in Blueprint here.

    Image via Facebook

  • Important Email Marketing Findings To Consider Ahead of the Holidays

    Important Email Marketing Findings To Consider Ahead of the Holidays

    Email continues to be one of the best ways to reach consumers, and thankfully, many of them are happy to get it from businesses they’re interested in. This is good to know as the time for holiday marketing planning approaches.

    To you intend to make email a substantial part of your holiday marketing mix? Let us know in the comments.

    Recently, we looked at a study from Yesmail, which suggested that email marketers shouldn’t be afraid of high volumes for the holidays. It found average monthly email volume increased 46% quarter-over-quarter for Q3 and Q4 2014 while average open rates remained steady at 15%. Meanwhile, holiday-themed open rates jumped from 14.2% in 2013 to 15.1% in 2014.

    Digital River’s Bluehornet has now released the 2015 edition of its Consumer Views of Email Marketing study, which surveyed nearly 2,000 consumers to gather insights into how they interact with and perceive marketing emails.

    “So, what did we discover? Well, for starters, email is not only still alive, it’s kicking. Hard,” the report says in its executive summary. “Consumers readily acknowledge the impact that email marketing has on their purchasing behavior. With the proliferation of mobile devices they are more connected than ever – with more than a third now checking email continuously throughout the day. And our target audiences are savvier than ever… they know what they want, and their expectations are personal. According to our data, consumers now expect us to understand who they are, and what they do and don’t want. They expect us to give them control of how frequently we email them. They expect a seamless experience across, and informed by, all channels.”

    “When we say the email channel is ‘alive and kicking,’ we mean it,” Bluehornet says. “Our consumers acknowledge that they are impacted by what they receive every single day. They get daily emails from flash sale sites. They are connected 24/7 and receive personalized content from their favorite brands on most of those days. They are asked not only to convert, but to engage, interact, and share. Simply put, all this digital exposure means our audience is smarter than ever when it comes to digital communications. They’ve reduced the number of email addresses they use (who has time for all those accounts?), and use multiple devices to stay connected throughout the day. Today’s consumers expect personalized content and when they get it, appear to be happy with higher frequency.”

    The study found that the most common number of email addresses people have is two, while more people have three than have one.

    Screen Shot 2015-08-17 at 11.41.56 AM

    While many have multiple email addresses, most don’t use a separate one specifically for marketing emails. 28.6% do while 71.4% don’t. 39% check an email account where they receive marketing emails one to three times a day. 33.8% actively check their email throughout the day. Here’s what the device break-down looks like:

    Screen Shot 2015-08-17 at 11.45.25 AM

    Another recent study from Return Path suggested that the frequency that generates maximum response without excessive complaints differs among brands as well as based on account type. It maintains that marketers can send more messages without suppressing response, but not necessarily to users’ primary accounts.

    “As complaints increase, read rates decline with increased frequency, however the threshold at which more complaints offset the benefit of more reads is quite high,” a spokesperson for Return Path told WebProNews. “Among highly active email users, most tolerate up to an average of five messages per week before complaints offset increases in messages read.”

    “Primary users, whose accounts are most actively checked, are the key audience marketers should optimize their programs for, as they represent the majority of reads as well as complaints,” they added. “Primary accounts make up only 24% of all email accounts yet they represent 83% of all messages read. While primary users are highly engaged, they are also not shy in voicing their displeasure, accounting for half of total email complaints. Secondary accounts holder, whose accounts are less actively checked, are more tolerant; they are less than half as likely as primary account holders to complain.”

    The Bluehornet study found that most people prefer to hear from companies with marketing emails on a weekly basis, and by a wide margin. That’s the preference of 43.8% compared to 18.8% for monthly, 14% several times per week, and 13.9% for every couple of months.

    You can find the full 32-page report here (via MarketingCharts). There are a lot more interesting insights where these came from.

    In terms of volume, another study from Return Path released earlier this year looked at consumer email behavior in Q4 2014 finding that people did not experience “email fatigue” during the holiday season, but instead welcomed more messages from retailers – more evidence that volume shouldn’t be an issue for marketers.

    Experian Marketing Services, looking at Q3 2014, found that both mobile device usage and email engagement were up with 53% of emails being opened on a mobile or tablet device. That number is likely going to be larger this year.

    With that in mind, I’d urge you to take a look at this article: What Not To Do In Mobile Email Marketing.

    In its holiday recap, Custora fond that last year, email marketing and search were the dominant marketing channels for the holiday season.

    It’s time to start planning for this year. First, you’re going to need to get people to sign-up. Here are some tips for getting better at that.

    Here are some ways to improve your open rates. Here are some more.

    Do you expect to increase your email efforts for this holiday season? Keep them the same? Let us know in the comments.

    Images via Thinkstock, Bluehornet

  • Marketing Tools Get Instagram Ads API Integration

    Marketing Tools Get Instagram Ads API Integration

    In June, Instagram announced it would make advertising available through an Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces in the ensuing months, in an effort to open up ads to businesses of all sizes. It said it would open API access to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies first, and would expand it globally throughout the year.

    On Tuesday, the API Partner program launched. Whereas in the past, advertisers would have to work directly with Instagram sales people. Now, they don’t. They can start advertising on Instagram as they’ve been able to do on Facebook and Twitter.

    Make no mistake. This is big. In fact, it’s even been referred to as “one of the most anticipated moments in the evolution of advertising.”

    Business Insider shares a statement from Instagram: “”The Instagram Ads API will help us make ads more relevant to the community, serve more diverse business objectives, and make buying on the platform easier for advertisers. We started working with a group of Facebook Marketing Partners a few weeks ago and they’ve brought great experience and technological savvy onto the platform. We’ll continue to build upon the Instagram Ads API in the coming weeks and months.”

    Third-party API partners already on board include Salesforce, Hootsuite, Kenshoo, Ampush, Nanigans, SocialCode, Brand Networks, Unified, and 4C.

    “The integration allows marketers to use Social.com for managing advertising campaigns at scale, Active Audiences to unlock and sync CRM data in Salesforce to optimize advertising and Social Studio for publishing, engagement, customer service, and analytics,” a spokesperson for Salesforce tells us about its us of the API.

    “Instagram is the mobile marketer’s platform of choice for a highly engaged and growing audience,” says Jesse Pujji, CEO and co-founder of Ampush. “It presents a great opportunity to deliver in-feed, mobile advertising at true scale with its user base of over 300 million monthly active users. AMP’s integration with Instagram will allow our customers to advertise across a visually dynamic environment for consumers with a highly active community. Our strategic and in-house creative expertise, paired with our marketing solutions, delivers a unique ability to bridge audience engagement with revenue.”

    Instagram has over 300 million monthly active users. Beyond the API, Instagram has been doing more to improve its ad offerings including direct response that enable users to buy products or download apps, and expanding targeting options. More on all of that here.

    Image via Instagram

  • Doing This Will Make Your Facebook Marketing More Cost Effective

    Doing This Will Make Your Facebook Marketing More Cost Effective

    When you promote a Facebook post, do you do so to people who have already liked your Page or to people who have yet to do so? Some mix of the two? You might be interested to know that unless your ultimate goal is just to get more Facebook fans, you’re probably better off promoting to people who have already liked your Page.

    When you promote posts on Facebook, are you largely promoting to fans non-fans, or a combination? Let us know in the comments.

    According to new research from Socialbakers, marketers on Facebook are getting a lot more bang for their buck when they promote posts to fans instead of non-fans.

    This isn’t exactly surprising, but it’s worth looking at just how much of a difference it makes.

    Screen shot 2015-07-22 at 4.40.48 PM

    “At each turn, ads targeted to Fans outperformed those targeted only to non-Fans,” says Socialbakers social media analyst Phillip Ross. “They cost roughly the same per impression, but engagement metrics like cost-per-click and click-through rate make it clear just how much more valuable Fan targeting really is.”

    “While targeting some ads to non-Fans will always be necessary for expanding your audience, promoting engaging content to Fans remains the most valuable action for Facebook marketers,” he adds.

    Earlier this month, Facebook redefined how it calculates cost-per-click. From now on, CPC will only account for what Facebook calls “link clicks,” which are clicks related to certain ad objectives like: visiting another site, installing an app, or viewing a video on another site. This also includes call-to-action clicks and clicks to Facebook Canvas apps. It will no longer account for what Facebook refers to as “engagement clicks,” which include likes, shares, and comments.

    Facebook is also ramping up its video efforts, which stand to give advertisers as well as those looking to boost organic Facebook marketing new opportunities and a better alternative to YouTube.

    Facebook announced a couple of updates aimed at giving Pages more control over how their videos are organized and shared. These include improved upload tools and a new Video Library feature.

    “Page owners now have access to enhanced control and customization features when uploading videos, like the ability to set an expiration date or to add a custom thumbnail for a video,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews in an email. “We’re also introducing a suite of new distribution options, like secret videos and the ability to prohibit embeds on third-party sites.”

    Secret videos enable Page owners to upload videos that are only accessible via a direct URL, keeping them from being searchable or otherwise found on Facebook. This brings Facebook’s video product more in line with YouTube’s offering.

    Page owners can also restrict the audience of a video by age and gender. They could already do so by location and language. They can set an expiration data for a video and retain its insights even after it has been removed. They can also publish videos directly to the Videos tab on their Page without distributing it to the News Feed or Timeline.

    There are some new customization options as well, including the ability to add custom thumbnails by using your own image or a suggested thumbnail and the ability to label videos based on interest categories.

    “The new Video Library enables Page owners to easily organize and update their videos. Changes can be made on a per-video basis, or in bulk,” the spokesperson says.

    The Library feature lets you edit a video’s metadata (including subtitles and thumbnails) after upload, manage distribution options, search and filter videos by title, description, etc., and view and manage secret videos.

    All of this will become available to all Pages over the coming weeks.

    Facebook also announced a new Video Ad Creative spotlight aimed at helping you learn how to create better Facebook video ads.

    The company is also offering new interesting 360 video options, which YouTube also just announced this week. It’s clear that Facebook and YouTube are in hot competition for your ad dollars as well as your organic efforts.

    Facebook flat out tells people who post YouTube videos that they’ll have a better chance of increased reach in the News Feed if they use native Facebook videos.

    Is Facebook becoming a better video advertising option than YouTube in your opinion? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Image via Socialbakers

  • Email Marketing Study Suggests Sending More, Just Not To Recipients’ Primary Accounts

    Email Marketing Study Suggests Sending More, Just Not To Recipients’ Primary Accounts

    Return Path recently released an email marketing study suggesting that the frequency that generates maximum response without excessive complaints differs among brands as well as based on account type. It maintains that marketers can send more messages without suppressing response, but not necessarily to users’ primary accounts.

    The study makes use of data from over 600,000 users over the course of three months. It focused on consumers who receive email from at least five commercial senders.

    “As complaints increase, read rates decline with increased frequency, however the threshold at which more complaints offset the benefit of more reads is quite high,” a spokesperson for Return Path explains in an email to WebProNews. “Among highly active email users, most tolerate up to an average of five messages per week before complaints offset increases in messages read.”

    “Primary users, whose accounts are most actively checked, are the key audience marketers should optimize their programs for, as they represent the majority of reads as well as complaints,” the spokesperson adds. “Primary accounts make up only 24% of all email accounts yet they represent 83% of all messages read. While primary users are highly engaged, they are also not shy in voicing their displeasure, accounting for half of total email complaints. Secondary accounts holder, whose accounts are less actively checked, are more tolerant; they are less than half as likely as primary account holders to complain.”

    A study from Econsultancy last year found that frequency is the most common reason recipients unsubscribe from email lists.

    “It is important that you achieve a good balance between underexposure and overexposure when it comes to optimizing your email marketing strategy,” said promotion company MyGuestList in a blog post in response to that study. “Underexposure means lost opportunities and sales from your customers due to infrequent contact with your brand or venue. Conversely, overexposure will cause engagement with your readers to spiral because they simply don’t have the time to keep up.

    “Your emails should be frequent enough to enable you to build strong relationships with your customers and increase your brand’s ‘top-of-mind’ awareness when considering venues to visit,” it added. “More exposure to your brand leads to greater awareness that directly increases your venue’s patronage and sales revenue.”

    The full Return Path study can be found here. You may want to do some testing with secondary accounts based on its findings.

    Related reading: 5 Potential Ways to Increase Email Signups

  • Facebook Points To Neuromarketing Research To Illustrate That Mobile Is More Effective Than TV For Ads

    Facebook Points To Neuromarketing Research To Illustrate That Mobile Is More Effective Than TV For Ads

    Facebook recently released a study it commissioned from neuromarketing agency SalesBrain looking at how people’s brains respond to ads on smartphones versus televisions. It’s certainly worth noting that much of Facebook’s business depends on people buying mobile ads, but the findings indicate that smartphone-based content tends to resonate more.

    Specifically, the study looked at how the brain responds via engagement, attention, emotion, and retention. They divided participants into two groups. The first group was shown ads ranging from movie trailers to brand ads at 30 to 120 seconds in length, first on televisions then on smartphones. The second group viewed the ads in the opposite order.

    Screen shot 2015-07-06 at 9.18.21 AM

    According to Facebook, people were more attentive and felt more positively toward what they saw on smartphones compared to TV. They found that people were more distracted and had to work harder to process what they were consuming on TV.

    “We found that overall mobile was on par with TV with regards to emotional intensity and engagement,” said Helen Crossley, Head of Audience Insighs at Facebook IQ. “Having said that, emotions and engagement were significantly higher for a couple of the ads. People were equally likely to be as engaged on mobile as they were on TV. As an added layer on top of the neuro research, we also saw an uplift in message recall when participants viewed the stimuli on TV followed by viewing it on a smartphone.”

    Screen shot 2015-07-06 at 9.31.04 AM

    “We did not expect that the mobile viewing experience would produce more positive emotions. This was surprising,” said Dr. Christophe Morin, Founder and CEO of SalesBrain. “You would assume that because the TV screen is larger than a smartphone screen that the bigger screen would yield a more positive emotional response. It seems that when viewing a stimulus our neurological systems don’t really require a grandiose experience to feel a response. Overall, the more data that we seem to be exposed to, the more effort is placed on our brain. And, in some way, due to its size, the smartphone may provide a more efficient, less energy-demanding experience.”

    “It is our conclusion that the smartphone experience is more immersive than the experience of TV viewing overall,” he added. “When the same ad stimulus played on a smartphone, the reaction was greater than TV on both attention and positive emotion, and, to some degree, on engagement, which was quite remarkable.”

    While the conclusions drawn by the study definitely suit Facebook’s best interests as a business, they also make sense when you think about how likely you are to look at your phone while you’re watching TV. How often has your phone distracted you from your TV viewing? How often has your TV distracted you from your phone? I bet the former has happened a lot more.

    The people behind the study discuss it more on the Facebook IQ site.

    Images via Facebook

  • Google Analytics Remarketing Lists Extended To Search Ads

    Google Analytics Remarketing Lists Extended To Search Ads

    Google said on Thursday that it will now let advertisers use audiences (formerly known as remarketing lists) created in Google Analytics to reach people on Google Search without any changes to tagging.

    Google’s Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) lets an advertiser tailor search ads to users based on their past activity on the advertiser’s website. This can now be utilized in conjunction with over 200 Google Analytics dimensions and metrics, and audiences can be used to re-engage customers across Google Search and the Display network with a consistent message.

    Google has a case study looking at how financial services provider TransUnion used Google Analytics audiences to “spend more efficiently” on Google Search and get “impressive conversion rates and cost efficiencies”. You can take a look at that here. The company reportedly

    increased its conversion rate by 65% and average transaction value by 58% while lowering both CPCs for existing customers and cost per transaction by 50% each.

    There’s an Instant Activation feature, so you can start using RLSA by going to Property > Tracking Info >Data Collection from the Admin tab, and making sure Remarketing is set to “ON”. Then, all eligible audiences will start to populate for RLSA.

    remarketing-on

    Google says there are three ways to create new audiences. You can use the Audience builder in the remarketing section of the Admin tab and select the relevant Adwords accounts, or if you have an existing segment you want to turn into an audience, you can click on the segment options and hit “Build Audience”. It will then take you to the audience builder. The other option is to import audiences from the Google Analytics Solutions Gallery.

    “Once you have shared an audience with AdWords, it will appear instantly in your AdWords Shared Library and will show eligible users in the column List size (Google search),” says Google in a blog post. “Keep in mind that an audience must accumulate a minimum of 1,000 users before you can use it for remarketing on Google Search.”

    This help center article on AdWords remarketing lists for search ads should tell you just about everything you need to know.

  • Here’s Why It’s Getting Harder To Ignore Instagram For Marketing

    Here’s Why It’s Getting Harder To Ignore Instagram For Marketing

    Instagram unveiled some improvements to its mobile apps this week, which could help marketers increase their visibility on the popular social network, which is increasingly becoming the “go-to social network” for a younger generation. New trending content and search features could help businesses attract more eyeballs.

    Do you think Instagram’s new features can help you improve your marketing strategy? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    New Marketing Opportunities

    Despite its popularity, Instagram has never been great from a content discovery perspective, but that’s changing with these new features. As content becomes easier to discover, marketers have some new opportunities on their hands with a network that has already shown to be great for user engagement with brands.

    There’s a new Explore page with trending tags and places and a more powerful search experience making it easier for users to find people, places, and tags. The new Explore experience includes trending tags and places as they emerge in real time.

    “Through trending Tags and trending Places, you can experience moments like #bonnaroo or #fathersday from every perspective,” Instagram says in a blog post. “Rich visual content captures everyone’s unique take — not just what the community is talking about, but also what they’re doing and seeing.”

    The trends are frequently refreshed based on what’s popular at the moment. If you’ve enabled location services on your phone, it may show you places nearby.

    There are collections at the top of the Explore page, which feature interesting accounts and places in various categories. The content in the collections is editorially chosen by Instagram. They choose new topics to feature twice a week that it thinks the larger Instagram community will like.

    The company says it’s always working to update the types of photos and videos it shows in Search & Explore to better tailor it for users, and may show photos liked by people whose posts the user has liked or posts that are liked by a large number of people. Note that just because you see a post in Search & Explore doesn’t mean everyone else is seeing it.

    The new search experience is where the real potential is though.

    “For everyone on Instagram, we’ve dramatically improved the ability to find what you’re looking for,” the company says. “With the new Places Search, you can now peer in at just about any location on earth, allowing you to scout out your next vacation spot in the South Pacific, get a look inside that hot new restaurant or experience your favorite music festival — even if you couldn’t make it this year. The new Top Search also lets you search across people, places and tags all at once.”

    If your’e a brick and mortar business, the place search feature can surface your business and photos from users showing it off. You might encourage customers to share pics from your establishment.

    pizza instagram

    The tag search feature can surface popular tags based on keywords, even displaying just how popular they are. Hashtags are already a major part of Instagram marketing, so there’s obvious potential here.

    tagsearch

    tagsearch2

    The new features are available in updates to the iOS and Android apps. It’s unclear if and when they’ll come to the web experience, which recently got its own revamp. The new Explore will only be available in the U.S. for now, but will launch in more countries eventually.

    Big Engagement, Slow Adoption

    A few months ago, we looked at a study from Yesmail, which found that while brands on Instagram experienced a 278% growth in followers in 2014, the number of brands adopting the platform was still quite low. The firm analyzed over 2,000 brands on social platforms and found that only 23% were on Instagram.

    “Restaurants lead the Instagram-adoption rate, beating CPG, retail and hotel brands. However, only 31 percent of restaurants are on Instagram, compared to a whopping 86 percent of restaurants using Facebook and Twitter,” a spokesperson for Yesmail told WebProNews. “With 300 million users and 70 million photos and videos shared daily, Instagram’s high level of consumer engagement should motivate brands to adopt the platform.”

    It found that hotel adoption of Instagram is about 30.8%, while retailer adoption and CPG adoption are at 23% and 16% respectively. Retailers included in the research saw an 8% increase in followers per month, on average. That’s double the rate of other social platforms, according to Yesmail. 80% of brands from the research have Facebook pages, while 82% are active on Twitter, 60% engage on YouTube, and over a third have a Google+ profile.

    A newer study (from last week) from Yesmail found Instagram to be significantly better than Facebook for retailers when it comes o increasing follower counts.

    “The report indicates that although Facebook is the status-quo, it is not the most effective social media platform,” a spokesperson for the firm tells WebProNews. “Retailers hoping to amplify their social media presence should explore new channels and invest in campaign metric tools.”

    The study looked at the beauty, apparel, big box, electronics, and home goods categories across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Google+. Out of those analyzed, 91% have a presence on two or more social channels.

    Apparel retailers in particular saw an average follower growth of 417% on Instagram last year. Apparel brands were also the most socially connected with 86% on four or more social channels and 60% present on all five channels tracked.

    91% of brands were on Twitter, while 79% used YouTube, and just 43% were using Instagram despite its potential for follower growth.

    According to the new study, the average follower growth rate for brands on Instagram is 237%.

    “The focus on Facebook made sense years ago, but Yesmail Market Intelligence illustrated how follower growth for that channel has plateaued for most retail categories,” said Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing. “The answer isn’t necessarily to shift resources, but rather turn a serious eye to audience preferences and return on social investment. Social media has moved past the experimental phase, and retailers must know their audience and know the ROI of their efforts.”

    It’s not just Facebook that has seen follower growth stall. It’s a similar story on Twitter. In terms of follower counts, Faceobook still had the highest by far with an average of 2.8 million fans per page. Instagram came in second with 300,000.

    “Instagrammers are passionate about the platform and their love for amazing imagery. You’ll reach people who are open to new perspectives,” Instagram says on its business site. “Instagram’s simple design allows captivating visuals to take center stage. Each image or video fills the screen with nothing to clutter the experience. On Instagram your brand’s story will be surrounded by other beautiful content in a creative and inspiring environment.”

    They have over 300 million monthly active users and see 2.5 billion likes and 70 million photos every day. According to a new report from BI Intelligence (citing data from Piper Jaffray), U.S. teens consider Instagram to be the most important social network – more than Twitter, Facecbook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, etc.

    Screen shot 2015-06-25 at 10.25.04 AM

    What does Instagram itself say about how businesses should be using it?

    It just so happens that Instagram has its own content strategy tips and other tips for getting started. These are right from the corporate site:

    Instagram business tips

    Instagram business tips

    This video from the company is a year old, but it gives marketers an idea about how to show off their brands on Instagram and engage with the community:

    Instagram for Business from Instagram on Vimeo.

    Instagram has a page for marketers to “find inspiration” here. It shows off the company’s “favorite examples” of brands using Instagram to “reflect their unique identifies”. it should at least give you a good idea about the type of stuff that works well. You can also check out case studies from brands like McDonald’s, Maybelline, Qantas, Chobani, Ben & Jerry’s, Mercedes-Benz, etc. here.

    Is There a Science to Instagram Marketing?

    Marketing on Instagram may not be a science, but this recent infographic from KISSmetrics treats it as such, and may give you a hand with your efforts:

    ++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

    Source: The Science of Brands on Instagram (Infographic)

    Advertising

    While we’ve mostly been talking about unpaid marketing efforts here, Instagram is really just getting started with its paid options, and you’ll want to keep an eye out for more and more improvements and features in that area.

    Earlier this month, the company announced it would start letting businesses of all sizes buy ads. Instagram first launched ads a year and a half ago on a limited basis, and has since expanded formats most recently to include carousel ads.

    A New Way for Brands to Tell Stories on Instagram from Instagram on Vimeo.

    Here’s a look at how early-adopting brands have used those.

    The company says that across over 475 campaigns measured globally, ad recall from sponsored posts was 2.9x higher than Nielsen norms for online advertising.

    Instagram will begin testing direct response ads in the coming months. These will enable users to buy products or download apps from the ads.

    “People come to Instagram to follow their passions, from travel and fashion to cars and entertainment,” the company said in a blog post. “They want to see ads that reflect the things they care about. Advertisers also want to target their messages in more effective ways and reach people not just because of their age, location and gender, but because of the people, places and things they love.”

    “Later this year, we will continue to connect businesses to the right people through expanded targeting options,” it added. “Working with Facebook, we will enable advertisers to reach people on Instagram based on demographics and interests, as well as information businesses have about their own customers. We will also improve the feedback mechanisms within Instagram to give people greater control and improve the relevance of the ads they see.”

    The company is working to make advertising available through an Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces over the coming months in an effort to open op ads to businesses of all sizes. It says it will leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing, and measuring ads.

    They’ll be opening the API to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies at first, and will expand globally throughout the year.

    A lot of the news in the social media advertising industry of late has been related to ecommerce, buy buttons and the like. Instagram is reportedly working on some features that could make the service a better marketing platform for ecommerce businesses hoping to attract buyers.

    In which Instagram features do you see the greatest potential for marketing? Discuss.

    Images via Instagram, KISSmetrics

  • New Google Feature Means Businesses Need Apps For Search Marketing

    New Google Feature Means Businesses Need Apps For Search Marketing

    The world of search engine marketing is ever-changing, and it’s no secret that mobile continues to take over the desktop. Google has a new feature, even beyond a related ranking signal for organic search on mobile devices, that gives businesses more incentive to have mobile apps for search marketing purposes. It essentially expands as search marketing-related benefit device-wide, as opposed to limiting it to the actual search results page.

    At Google I/O, Google announced the launch of something called Google Now On Tap. It’s a new feature in the latest version of Android, which the company unveiled in developer preview. You’d be forgiven if you missed that particular announcement as the company made many of them.

    Google Now on Tap is essentially a way for you to utilize Google Now on your own terms rather than in the confines of Google itself. While Google Now already served as a virtual assistant, this makes it even more so.

    Do you see Google Now on Tap as a new opportunity to increase visibility of your content? Share your thoughts about it in the comments.

    “Since we launched Google Now, we’ve been expanding the ways it can help and do more of the work for you,” says director of product management Aparna Chennapragada. “You can get notifications like where you parked your car, news stories based on your interests, or help with travel like your upcoming reservations. We’ve also gotten better at giving smarter answers to some of your questions (‘Is my flight on time?’) and at helping you get things done across your apps (‘Ok Google, play Sugar on Spotify’).”`

    “We’re working to make Google Now a little smarter in the upcoming Android M release, so you can ask it to assist you with whatever you’re doing—right in the moment, anywhere on your phone,” Chennapragada explains. “With ‘Now on tap,’ you can simply tap and hold the home button for assistance without having to leave what you’re doing—whether you’re in an app or on a website. For example, if a friend emails you about seeing the new movie Tomorrowland, you can invoke Google Now without leaving your app, to quickly see the ratings, watch a trailer, or even buy tickets—then get right back to what you were doing.”

    “If you’re chatting with a friend about where to get dinner, Google can bring you quick info about the place your friend recommends,” Chennapragada adds. “You’ll also see other apps on your phone, like OpenTable or Yelp, so you can easily make a reservation, read reviews or check out the menu.”

    When the user taps and holds the home button, Google presents options for its best guess of what might be helpful in the moment. If it doesn’t provide the right thing(s), the user can say, “Ok Google” from any screen or app. If it works as advertised it’s pretty smart. If you’re listening to a band on Spotify, Google says you can simply ask “who’s the lead singer?” and it will get you the answer.

    As Google notes, it shows apps from your phone that may help with what you’re doing based on context. It might tap IMDb for movie review, OpenTable for reservations, etc.

    There’s an SEO element to all of this. App indexing. Google recently made App Indexing a ranking signal for mobile search results on Android devices, and announced that it’s starting to index iOS apps as well. Google Now on Tap is another reason to utilize app indexing.

    Clickz says Google Now on Tap “makes app search optimization more critical than ever.” Emily Alford reports:

    While the announcement comes as a boon to app developers, it also means that it’s now more important than ever for brands to think about App Search Optimization> (ASO) along with SEO, since Google is taking both into consideration for Now on Tap, according to Danielle Levitas, senior vice president of research and analysis for App Annie, which provides app ranking data and mobile analytics for businesses.

    “Part of the reason Google is providing deep linking is to give developers another way to be discovered outside of the app store,” says Levitas. “SEO is still critical, but you’ve also got to think about ASO, which has to do with keywords for discoverability, how an app is described, and even its reviews. But Now on Tap actually makes mobile and the app experiences easier for brands to execute because they can think about discoverability as a continuum as opposed to these two very disparate platforms.”

    Google says Now on Tap another way to get apps in front of users at the right moment. If you have an app with content that people need to see, well, that applies to you. Luckily, beyond app indexing, there’s nothing else you really have to do to be integrated with Now on Tap. Just have your app indexed by Google.

    While optimizing for Google via app indexing is one thing, businesses will also need to market their actual apps in other ways to drive app installs. The more people who have your app installed, the more chances they’ll have to actually see the content within via Now on Tap. As the Clickz article points out, a lot of downloaded apps are rarely opened, and Now on Tap could be just what those apps need to get more engagement from the users who downloaded them in the first place.

    In other words, if you’ve found app creation to be a waste of time in the past because you didn’t think people would really use your app, this means that people may actually use it more, provided that you can convince them of its usefulness enough in the first place to get then to download it.

    Google does say it will have more details about everything once the release of Android M gets closer. In the meantime, I really can’t urge you enough to get your mobile apps indexed, and if you don’t have a mobile app, now is a better time than ever before to build one or have one built. It’s becoming a matter of visibility in Google, and that’s not even taking the Google Play Store into account, which is now doing paid search results like Google Search.

    It’s actually possible that your business may be able to take advantage of Now on Tap in the future without having an app, as the company is reportedly considering including website content in the feature at some point, but that hasn’t been announced.

    Does your business have a mobile app? Do you expect Google Now on Tap to make a significant difference? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Images via Google

  • Does Your Business Have The Time To Get Online Marketing Right?

    Does Your Business Have The Time To Get Online Marketing Right?

    The fewer people a business has, the harder it is to do marketing right.

    Most small and medium-sized businesses don’t think they have the time or knowledge to manage their digital media efforts effectively, according to a new report from Thrive Analytics. 77% said as much, while 70% wish they could take advantage of digital media to help them expand their businesses and reach.

    Is a lack of time preventing you from being able to take care of the marketing strategy you’d like to employ? Let us know in the comments.

    The data comes from a survey of over 1,100 SMBs collected in January.

    “The problem is most small business owners feel current marketing providers don’t have their best interest in mind,” says Jason Peaslee of Thrive Analytics. “Owners often feel marketing providers push “flavor of the month” products on them and don’t bother to learn what they actually need. Current providers are falling short on several fronts including poor product performance (60 percent), and poor service levels (55 percent). This contributes to high digital product churn rates (+40 percent depending on the product) and low satisfaction scores given to current providers.”

    “Many smaller sized businesses have tried to go the Do-It-Yourself route leveraging their can-do spirit,” he writes. “However, they are falling short in a number of areas as well. Only, 55% have websites and those that do have websites don’t have mobile optimized ones (40% percent). Only 31% have a strategy to attract the mobile consumer and those that manage their own websites update them infrequently (58% percent every six months or more). This further illustrates the fact they need help as well.”

    The report finds that 51% of small business owners have a positive outlook on their business for the year, and 31% are willing to increase budgets and invest in digital solutions if it makes sense for their business.

    The biggest areas of anticipated growth are company websites, social media, mobile advertising, display ads, paid search, SEO, online video, and email marketing. Most of the categories with less anticipated growth are offline channels like yellow pages, radio, magazine ads, TV, newspapers, and outdoor advertising.

    You can find the report here.

    We recently looked at findings from BrightLocal, which found that smaller businesses are more afraid of increasing their online budgets compared to those with larger headcounts. Here’s a look at company size vs. planned spend on internet marketing in 2015 from that:

    “From further analysis we can see that larger organizations are more bullish about increasing their online spend, while smaller (which make up the majority of our respondents), are less assertive,” said BrightLocal’s Ross Marchant at the time. “Not only is there a higher sense of uncertainty in the group, but there are far more who confidently say they will not increase their online marketing spend.

    eMarketer is pointing to recent polling by Ebiquity for American Express OPEN, which despite Thrive’s findings that social is ranked as the second most effective marketing method, found that small businesses haven’t increased their social presences over the past year:

    Businesses not utilizing Facebook more might be missing out on some serious clicks, as research from Nanigans we looked at earlier shows CTRs have jumped 260% over the past years as businesses take more advantage of video and multi-product ads. More on all of that here.

    Is your business struggling with online marketing because of time and/or a lack of resources? Do you expect things to improve in the near future? Let us know in the comments.

    Images via Thrive Analytics, BrightLocal, eMarketer

  • Significant Marketing Efforts Still Needed For gTLDs

    Significant Marketing Efforts Still Needed For gTLDs

    It appears that the both the domain name industry and businesses opting to use new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) may have a great deal of marketing to do to spread awareness about gTLDs. Most consumers are not familiar with the initiative to get sites using over 1,300 new domain options, and at the same time, they don’t like going to domains they don’t recognize.

    According to the Domain Name Association (DNA), just a quarter of internet users worldwide are aware of efforts to expand the number of domain names. 55% are completely unaware, and 20% are unsure. eMarketer illustrates the data:

    eMarketer, which created the above graph based on the DNA’s findings, says, “The initiative isn’t without controversy. What some view as a ‘blank canvas for innovation’ to spur more creativity, diversity and trust on the internet, others see as costly, exploitative and bound to cause consumer confusion. Nonetheless, it continues to move forward, requiring all internet users to adapt.”

    The lack of awareness may not be as big a problem as the lack of trust about unfamiliar domains, considering that search is the way most people are getting to content.

    The DNA said, “Consumers trust domain names as THE most trustworthy way to navigate the Internet. The majority of consumers say they are most confident in the security of links they have bookmarked or have typed directly into the web browser. Ranked next, consumers most trust search results WHEN THEY RECOGNIZE THE DOMAIN NAME or url. Then further down the list are search results delivering an unknown web address. So people use search slightly more often but click on search results with recognized addresses and trust known or typed-in domain names.”

    It also says that new domain extensions that identify brands or security attributes are likely to increase user trust.

    Discussing a recent survey from NCC Group Trust, the DNA says, “60% of respondents stated that the ‘Websites associated with a known brand or company’ provide an increased sense of security. To me, this says that loans.chase will be seen as clearly more secure than chaseonlineloans.com where Chase can build brand awareness (and where long domain names with brand names embedded are often a source of Phishing attack). Similarly and in a short period of time, onlinepayment.bank and onlinepayment.secure will be able to build awareness as secure places.”

    Again, this just shows how important the marketing of these gTLDs is going to be to businesses who are using them. But even businesses themselves need to be marketed to as well.

    DomainMart CEO Alex Tajirian says, “Success requires cooperation among registries and resellers when it comes to sales and marketing. Impulse buying aside, a product’s sales are driven by the product’s utility, which is why some professionals believe that the main objective of marketing is to create awareness of a product’s utility. If people find the product useful, they will pay the right price. Hence, when businesses don’t register new gTLDs, it can mean one of three things: the businesses aren’t aware of the gTLDs’ existence, they don’t understand the things’ utility/benefits, or the price is too high to be cost-effective.”

    “Instead of targeting every unaware business and trying to change the minds of others regarding the new gTLDs’ utility, I propose a targeted and focused marketing audience,” he writes. “Start by focusing on undecided managers and those who are not aware of the new domains; then expand to a broader audience. One such audience is start-ups. They can be reached with booths at tech conferences, ads on online tech sites, and use of traditional marketing venues in high-tech hubs such as Silicon Valley.”

    Aditya Chauhan, a Business Development Strategist at LogicBoxes, writes at DomainNameWire that increasing awareness is one of the three biggest challenges facing new gTLDs, calling this a “nightmare for registries”.

    “Not only do they have to bear the burden of marketing their product, but also the need to educate customers about nTLDs [new TLDs] as a whole,” she says. “This is something that .CLUB seems to have handled remarkably well on a global scale. By using well known faces to endorse and use their product, .CLUB has spread both awareness and acceptance amongst their target audience. However, there’s still a long way to go to make nTLDs more mainstream.”

    Donuts, which is the largest registry for new gTLDs, recently unveiled what’s being called a “marketing offensive” aimed at “spreading the new gTLD gospel to small businesses in the US,” as Trevor Little at World Trademark Review puts it.

    The good news is that according to Donuts, several studies by search experts have found that the first generation of new gTLD addresses are matching or outperforming legacy gTLDs and ccTLDs in search performance.

    Images via ThinkStock, eMarketer, .CLUB

  • Using Personalized Data Critical To Brand Loyalty

    As more consumer data is available to brands than ever before, you might think that brands would be able to capitalize on this, and know their customers better than they know themselves, and in turn inspire increased brand loyalty. You’d be wrong, however.

    Earlier, we looked at a new study from IBM and Econsultancy, which found that businesses think they know their customers pretty well, while consumers strongly disagree. Considering that consumers are the ones who get to make the call about whether or not to be loyal to a brand, that’s probably the side you should be listening to.

    “Researchers asked consumers if they had changed providers in the last 12 months,” explains IBM. “The question focused on several service areas known to be inherently sticky, including banking, mobile, internet and satellite/cable. 49 percent of consumers said they changed service providers in the last 12 months with experience-related factors playing a prominent role.”

    30%, it found, switched because of provider failure, while 51% cited customer experience as the number one factor. 59% switched because the new company offered something better, with 42% referring to the actual products as the top factor, followed by experience at 29%.

    “The customer is in control but this is not the threat many marketers perceive it to be. It’s an opportunity to engage and serve the customer’s needs like never before,” said Deepak Advani, General Manager at IBM Commerce. “By increasing investments in marketing innovations, teams can examine consumers at unimaginable depths including specific behavior patterns from one channel to the next. With this level of insight brands can become of customer’s trusted partner rather than an unwanted intrusion.”

    Loyalty360, the loyalty marketers’ association, just shared some comments from Tom Santora, chief marketing officer at Omni Hotels & Resorts.

    “Brand personalization has never been more vital than it is today to capture and maintain brand loyalty,” he told them. “Omni has been rooted in personalization/customization way before the days of Big Data. We are in the business of creating memorable experiences for our guests–and with that, personalization was a key driver of that for us. Ten or 15 years ago, this was done at the property level, through guest interactions, and some through follow-up email surveys, etc. Take for example, a bellman, who will ask guests what they’re up to today, and then ask them about it upon return–that is personalization.”

    “Brands have access to more data about their customers than ever before,” he is quoted as saying. “Along with that comes the opportunity to personalize and therefore maximize the brand experience of our guests– both online and in-hotel–so that they will return and develop longer-term loyalty. Now we can help personalize a stay based on information collected from a variety of sources. A few off the top of my head at Omni include: Medallia scores, Trip Advisor feedback, social channel monitoring and responses, and a customizable program for Select Guest loyalty members.”

    He went on to talk about a system the company has developed for its loyalty program in which members themselves build and customize their stays.

    Last week, Bond Brand Loyalty released some findings from a survey, which found that a third of consumers agree they would not be loyal to a brand if it were not for a loyalty program. 70% of consumers were found to be a top contributor to brand loyalty, which ranked higher than factors like product and service availability, brand communications, and even overall price, according to the firm, which polled 10,000 consumers on loyalty initiatives across the retail, consumer packaged goods, financial services, entertainment, and dining industries.

    “Brands with established loyalty programs now must make the shift to the future of loyalty and an experience-based model that is consistent with the overall brand,” said Bond Brand Loyalty CEO Bob Macdonald. “It’s more important than ever that companies focus on their best customers, and their data, to design a more personalized and authentic experience, which can help build stronger, more meaningful bonds with customers.”

    You can find that full report here.

    Related: Study Looks At Top Brands For Customer Loyalty