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Are Customers Finding You

You have a website and you have something which people are looking for. The question is are your customers finding you? Only having a good website in place does not ensure customers dropping in and spending time on your website.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) takes care of this. SEM if harnessed effectively, will drive a sustainable pool of targeted traffic to your website, and will ultimately result in an increase in revenue.

SEM is still growing and evolving at a rapid pace, not because it is a relatively new concept(It has been there for more than two decades) but because it is highly dynamic and fluid with more refined methods and technology coming in each day. This dynamic nature makes the complete domain of internet marketing incredibly challenging and exciting.

An effective SEM strategy begins with website optimization. The process involves making the website suitable for the search engines to crawl and find it. This process is known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO. 

SEO is a broad mix of multiple factors – the quality of the site’s architecture, content on the website, various channels or ways to reach the website, the influence of the website: SEO is done correctly has to satisfy each one of these aspects.

WHY SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING IS IMPORTANT -Some important points to note-

During the month of December 2013, in the United States alone, search engines fielded more than 18.3 billion search queries (comScore qSearch). That’s more than two and a half searches for every living person on the planet in a single month!

•   70–80 percent of users ignore the paid ads on any given search, focusing solely on the organic results.
•   80 percent of users never scroll past the first page of search results.
•   Companies that regularly post their blogs have 434 percent more indexed pages. Companies with more indexed pages get far more leads.
•   SEO leads have a 14.6 percent close rate, while outbound leads (lead generated by email or SMS marketing, print advertising) have an aggregate of 1.5 percent close rate.
•   These statistics may vary across different spheres, a study from Slingshot SEO shows that of all Google searches 18 percent of organic clicks go to the #1 position, 10 percent of organic clicks go to the #2 position, and 7 percent of organic clicks go to the #3 position.

Optimizing the Website for Search Engines

This is where you Search Engine Marketing begins. Matt McGee, an SEO expert who specializes in advising small businesses (www.smallbusinessem.com), in an interview once said: “SEO is not rocket science... It’s simple, but it’s not easy. There’s a difference!... There’s a small set of basic rules that apply to any web page or web site, whether you’re a small business or not. Your site has to be crawlable, your content has to be good – and I’d include things like page titles, keyword use, etc, under the umbrella of “content” – and you need quality, relevant inbound links. That applies to everyone.”

This was way back in 2006, the early days when SEO and SEM had just begun to gain momentum, the fact is it still holds true and forms the groundwork of website optimization.

When you are trying to optimize your website for search engines, the best place to look out for tips on improving your site’s ranking with the search engines is with the search engines’ own guidelines and resources for your website.

Foundations of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

·        Make your site easy to crawl

If you have to attract more search engine traffic to your website you have to make sure that your website is easily crawlable by search engine spiders. Spiders are interested in text, text, and more text. They don’t see the graphics, flashy animations that web designers primarily use to make websites look pretty. In fact, over-reliance on some of these things even hinders spiders, many times preventing some websites from being indexed at all.

·     Choose Right Keywords

The starting point for effective SEO is to have correct knowledge what the people who are looking for your products, services or information are typing into the search box. What they are typing is known as keywords or keyword phrases. Finding and using the right keywords in website content is a must for successful SEO.

       ·     Right Keyword at the Right Place

keywords are useful and important but their right placement on a webpage is even more important. Repeated use of keywords is strictly prohibited. Keywords can be ideally placed at the following locations-

• Title tag: Use the keyword in the title and as close to the beginning as possible.

• H1 header tag: Use the keyword in the header tag and as much as possible

in the other H tags.

• Body content: Use keywords but make sure it makes sense in context. Remember to use synonyms rather than focusing on one specific version of a keyword. You should aim for about 350 words of content. But don’t overdo it or it could look like spam to the search engines.

• Bold: Use <strong> tags around the keyword at least once.

• URL: Try to use the keyword in your page URL.

• Meta description: Use it at least once in the meta description of the page, which should entice users to click through to your site from the SERP.

• Link anchor text: Try to ensure that the keyword is used in the anchor text of the pages linking to you.

•      Focus on one page at a time

While optimizing your website you have to focus on one page at a time. When a search engine presents results to a user, it does not present the whole website, it presents individual pages that, according to its algorithms, best match a user’s query. This means each individual page on your website has to be optimized for specific keywords or phrases. It presents an opportunity to focus on different verticals of your business by promoting each one on a different page. For example on one page you can promote health insurance, on another, you can promote life insurance with respective keywords. 

Check in the below-given image, when I searched for health insurance plans, the results came up with the link to the health insurance page of all the companies.

•      Add a description for Search Images

Content-relevant and page-specific images make websites look much more appealing. As search engines are improving at recognizing the content of images, It is extremely important to properly tag and give content for each image for search engines and visitors. This includes adding an ALT description to all key images and a caption wherever possible.

•     Content- The most important thing on your website.

Content is the most important thing on your website, as it is the unique, relevant, and informative content that sets your website apart. The term content encompasses everything on your website- the flashy graphics, animation, videos, images, banners, and text.  Of all this, the search engine spiders only see the text. So with regard to SEO; the text is the most important form of content.

When writing content for your website The first and foremost thing you have to keep in mind is your audience- These are the people whom you want to visit your website. 

Your pages have to be search engine friendly, they have to include keywords but still, you have to make your content engaging for real, live people. If people visiting your website don’t spend adequate time on your website and make an inquiry or a purchase all your efforts will be pointless. Moreover, the search engines also take into consideration the time spent by visitors on individual pages of your website. More is the time spent more is the probability of your website moving up in SERP. So, always develop content that is more audience-friendly and follows the search engine protocols. 

Let’s Sum Up

Having an updated website is an important aspect for every organization or an individual offering some product or service. To make that website count and deliver results, Search Engine Marketing(SEM) is equally important. You have got a website developed and have invested money in it, now unless and until you tell people about it, people are not going to find it and the money invested will not reap you any benefits. But if you spend just a little more and persist with it you are sure to reap huge benefits.

Internet is a highly cluttered space but has attained a level wherein you cannot ignore it – if you are serious about the growth and sustainability of your organization. So, don’t waste time; because every second foregone is taken up by someone else to consolidate his/her position. Hire a professional Digital Marketing Agency today and reach out to more people with higher rankings and more visibility. 

“Promoting yourself on the internet is as important as having a presence on it”

Social Media Rules of Engagement

• Look, Listen, and Learn- Before you directly start engaging with the online community, spend some time hanging around. Get yourself acquainted with the different types of social media platforms which you plan to target. Get a feel of how the online community is responding and interacting on each platform. Every social media platform is different so familiarize yourself with the nuances before you dive in.

• Be open and honest- The phrase “Complete Disclosure” does not fit into the picture anywhere else more appropriately than in social media. What you write and post on social media should coincide with your real-world actions (offerings). Never ever go on social media pretending and exaggerating the virtues and merits of your brand. This will only shun people off and they may even completely block you.

• Make your posts relevant, interesting, and entertaining– The Internet is already cluttered with a lot of information, social media is barraged with millions of posts daily. Making your presence felt in such a space is not an easy task. Make sure that everything you do on social media adds value and at the same time it is interesting. You cannot go in every time promoting your offers and brand directly sometimes you have to put in simple engaging messages people can relate to. For example, the post saying – “Colourful and attractive worksheets @ 30 % discount” may find itself struggling for engagement on social media but at the same time if you touch upon the current highest-rated problem of parents- “ Give your child a break from online, keep them busy and happy” will be immediately clicked upon by most of the parents.

• Respect people- Never offend anyone, always be respectful to your fellow community members. There will be debates and discussions you don’t have to refrain from them, as these are always good for engagement, but never turn these discussions into arguments. Everyone, although on a common platform, have their individual rights, tastes and preferences so never make it personal.

• Respond to feedback– Always respond to the feedback you are getting from people. Getting genuine feedback is invaluable. Feedback if positive; you can appreciate and thanks for it and if negative, you can be apologetic and concerning. Make sure to tell how you have improved upon on the basis of the previous negative feedback.

Social Media allows you to engage with an online community and reach out to an appropriate audience. The outreach of social media is its greatest benefit if harnessed properly. If users like your content enough they share it with their own communities. Efforts to control the conversation in social media are soon found out and backfire horribly. So work on a social media strategy that is more engaging and more considering. Always follow the thumb rule and basic rules of engagement, also make sure to always provide your digital marketing agency with correct and updated information. Never forget that in this evolving landscape the customer really is the king and any attempt to dethrone the king can have dire consequences.

Social Media Marketing For Business growth

Social Media Marketing for organizations is crucial and should not be overlooked, but at the same time, it is also tricky. Effective social media marketing is less about product promotion and more about customer engagement. You should never be forcing or pushing your prospects, day in and day out to buy your products instead work on the art of creating a pool of loyal followers and a huge fan base.

Use Social Media to talk to the people rather than push at them and more importantly listen to them. If you manage to do this effectively, then social media can have an incredibly positive impact on your organization’s online profile.

How far you go in reaching out and connecting with your prospective customers depends on a lot many factors-your business, your customers, your goals, and your overall digital marketing strategy. But one thing is for sure that there is something in it for everyone.

Understanding Social Media

Social media is a collection of internet-based software and services that allow users to connect, exchange of information, engage in discussions, communicate and participate in any form of social interaction.

Types of Social Media

Social media is present on the internet in varied forms. Each Social media platform has a different primary offering or maybe offering a mix of services. Each and every service offered presents, marketers, with a unique opportunity. To read in detail about the different forms of Social Media check out the article on Types of Social Media

Let’s go through the different forms of social media in brief and identify their offerings for Marketers as well.

• Social Media Submission Sites

Websites such as www.reddit.com, www.stumbleupon.com, www.digg.com fall in this category. The major feature which the social media submission sites have that here you can share the link of the content you like. These sites allow other online participants to rate and rank that content. The more people view and vote positive for a particular piece of content, the higher it rises in the rankings.

These websites also allow the top-ranked submissions to be displayed on the HOME page of the website, which in turn drives more traffic to these social media submission sites. 

What is has for Marketers?

• Keep an eye on what people are interested in- The marketers can use social media submission sites to keep track of what type of content do their target audience finds more compelling. Find out why is it more popular and what’s so appealing about it. Now develop similar or even better content for your organization and draw your target audience to it. 

•   What’s the talk of the town? Every now and then something becomes so trending on the internet that it becomes a point of discussion for everyone. Make sure you do not miss the bus at such a time. Be a part of the discussion and also try to include that trending news in your piece of content.

•  Add to your online reputation and increase traffic- Having content that is well perceived by the target audience makes your content rank higher on these websites. This high ranked content can give you a tremendous boost in traffic. At the same time, it also gives you a platform that adds to your reputation within the online community. Your constructive contribution in the form of content develops respect for the brand, and people begin to connect directly with the brand. 

•  Forum and Discussion Sites

These websites present the opportunity of an open discussion to like-minded people on any topic that one can think of. Discussion groups such as yahoo groups- https://groups.yahoo.com, google groups- https://groups.google.com have been around on the internet for a long time. People from the online community gather here to participate in discussions and express their views.

What it has for Marketers?

•     Understand your target audience better- Checking out what your target audience is talking about in these discussion forums lets you peep into his/her thought process. Getting to know how one thinks is a great way to align yourself with that person. Thus making it easier for you to engage with your customers in a meaningful way.

•     Earn Regard and Respect- When you contribute to the discussions, put forth your viewpoints, offer advice, and suggestions so that the online community gets to know you. If you do that continuously, and it is well perceived by people then over a period of time the online community starts respecting you thus doing wonders for your online reputation and profile.

•     Identify and get rid of what people don’t like- By continuously participating in forums you get to know what people like and what they don’t like it. Be proactive in taking care of their dislikes and increase your efforts towards what they like.

•     Don’t go for traffic- Your primary reason for joining a forum shouldn’t be traffic. Posting your website links, pushing your products and services in discussions creates a bad impression. Most forums allow one or two signatures, a short snippet at the bottom of every post you submit. Make sure you restrict to it. If people like your posts and comments they themselves will follow you through the links.

• Media Sharing Sites

Media Sharing websites are gaining in popularity day by day because of the very simple reason that they provide a platform for their users to become popular in the online world.

These websites allow users to post videos, images, and also share and comment on the uploaded content. Websites such as www.youtube.com, www.vimeo.com, www.blip.tv, www.pinterest.com lets members save and share images and videos. These videos and images can be seen by others and immediate reactions such as like, dislike, just love it, etc are available in form of emojis. Instagram and Flickr are other popular sites that allow users to upload, share, comment, and discuss their photographs. 

What it has for Marketers?

•      Find out the trigger which turns your target audience on- By keeping track of what’s trending on the content-sharing websites and how your target audience is reacting to it you can frame your marketing strategy.

•      Distribute and promote your content digitally- Media sharing sites have become the most ideal platform for reaching out to your potential audience. Develop the content which you think will be well accepted by your target audience and just post it on every suitable platform. And who knows the post you created triggers the next trend on the internet.

• Reviews and Rating sites

These websites allow users to review or rate anything they want to. It can be a product, a service, an individual or an organization. With their increasing credibility, these websites have the potential to build or destroy brands. Independent review website such as www.glassdoor.com allows users to rate and write a review for their current or previous companies. www.reviewcenter.com, www.epinions.com are some other standalone reviews and rating websites. These websites are extremely important for Social Media Marketing managers especially to maintain the online reputation of the company. 

What’s in it for Marketers?

•     Advertising platform- Most review and rating websites rely on advertisements to generate revenue. Business houses can either directly or through affiliate networks advertise their brand or product or service.
•     Get insights into people’s likes and dislikes- Even if your organization is not under direct discussion on any such website you can still gain valuable information from these websites. For example, if you run a travel agency, you can see what people are talking about most about whether its price, its service, etc and you can then apply this knowledge to further improve your offerings.
•     Market Research- If smartly used these websites can be used as a good market research medium. If people are posting reviews about your business, or a product or a service; nothing matches it. It’s the feedback coming directly from consumers. Use this feedback to further improve your offering.
•     Get in touch directly- Make sure to respond to people who are posting reviews about your business. If it’s a positive review you can respond by a simple “Thank you “ but if it’s a negative review make sure you satisfy the reviewer so that next time he/she writes a positive comment about you especially referring to the previous negative comment. 

Social Networking Sites

These websites present marketers with tremendous opportunities because of their large user base. Popular social networking websites such as Facebook(www.facebook.com), Linkedin (www.linkedin.com), Twitter(www.twitter.com) have users in multi-millions. Facebook today has more than 1.3 billion users- which is like having the whole of India on Facebook. And marketers very well know how big a market India is.

What these sites offer to Marketer?

•      Advertising- Websites such as Facebook have become one of the most effective advertising platforms on the internet. These websites have started providing flexible advertising options which are usually based on the PPC model. The best part is they allow you to target audiences based on their tastes, preferences, interests, locality; overall you can target audience at a very micro level and keep track of every single penny spent. You have to make sure that your ads do not offend viewers since the viewers are coming on these websites to socialize and not to shop.
•     Build your online reputation- Most of the social networking sites allow businesses to set up their business page. People on the same network can then follow and like your page. Viewers can also like, share, and comment on your individual posts. You get to interact directly with the interested people and design your posts according to their tastes and preferences. This provides a great platform to develop a community of loyal followers around your brand thus adding to your online reputation.
•      Identify people who love your brand- A business page on a social network can be a great way to attract and identify people who love your brand. Recruit or nurture these people as they are your loyal brand advocates. Provide them with that extra bit of information, find details about the product or even run an incentive program for them, and see how they take your brand to places.

• Blog

The blog is an acronym for weB LOG.  Blogging gives everyone and anyone the freedom to express his/her views, opinions, share experiences or write about anything in detail and the people with similar interests are out there to read and comment on your blogs.

Various web services such as bloggers (www.blogger.com), WordPress (www.wordpress.com) allow users to set up and start their own blogs in a matter of few minutes. The blogs also rank in the search engines based on their popularity. Blogs and Bloggers have tremendous power.  Many bloggers have millions of loyal followers.

These bloggers have the potential to influence their followers which can be well harnessed by marketers.

How can Marketers use blogs?

•     Massive exposure- Connect with the prominent bloggers of your industry. Even if one of your stories or a blog is picked up and propagated by a prominent blogger the amount of traffic and views it can generate for you than any of your local press releases or a PR activity.

•     Better Consumer Engagement- Create your company’s own blogging page preferably on the company’s official website. Use your blogs to showcase your target audience the hidden side of the company, one which they don’t get to see in an infographic or a 2 line post on Facebook. Give your customers valuable and detailed information about your products and services, tell them how they can use it. Use your company blog to not only promote but also connect with people. Tell them about the company, how it started, how it had evolved, what innovations you are coming up with, and much more. Thus keep your audience always engaged and interested and develop strong bonds with them.

• Podcasts

Podcast can be best regarded as an audio form of the blog. Various portals such as www.podcast.com, www.podomatic.com, and www.apple.com/itunes allow uploading and distribution of podcasts for people to download or listen online. People can also subscribe to podcasts of interest.

What Podcasts offer to Marketers?

•    Indirect Promotion  - People listen to podcasts when they are most relevant to them. Podcasters are usually people who are experts in their respective domains. It is then only that they can speak out and express their views with confidence and conviction.  So, if a podcaster in his podcast emphasizes the usage of a particular brand product it might not sound like direct advertising but it leaves a stronger impression on the mind of the listeners. For example in a podcast on things to keep in mind while setting up a home theater if a podcaster politely tells me that I have been using speakers of this particular brand and they have given me extraordinary results till now, the listener will definitely give it a try. Because of the very simple reason that the suggestion is coming from an expert as well as a user.

•    Try it yourself- If you have someone in your organization who is extremely good at vocal skills you can certainly give it a try and start your company’s own podcasts. By starting your own podcast and reaching your target audience directly you will definitely develop better ties and gain even more trust of the targeted audience. 

Microblogging

Microblogging can be thought of as a short message broadcast service that allows people to keep their readers up to date via short text posts. Twitter (www.twitter.com) dominates the space of microblogging services on the internet.

Microblogging has been successful in the sense that collective aggregation of the mini-posts creates a tremendous impact which is much more than the sum total of the individual posts. When your readers receive short but frequent updates they begin to connect with you and develop a bond.  This eventually creates a loyal following the power of which can be well harnessed for effective Social Media Marketing.

What’s in it for Marketers

• Keep yourself updated -  As a marketer, microblogging platforms give you access to trendsetters and industry leaders. Most of them use microblogging services to post snippets about what they are doing, the latest developments in the industry, and much more. Most of the organizations-private and government have their business accounts. By ‘following’ these industry leaders and business accounts you can put to use their valuable insights, and make more prudent marketing decisions.

• Establish Connection with influencers: Influencers have this amazing power of swaying the people. It is always good to follow the industry influencers, and what is even more important is to get into the good books of these influencers. Some influencers charge to speak about a product or an organization while some do it as part of their routine activity but only after a thorough analysis. Getting an influencer to speak or post about you will provide a lot of impetus in the online community.  

• Communicate with your customers: After an already cluttered mailbox, people have now moved on to the microblogging platforms to keep themselves posted and updated about the people, organizations, newsrooms they want to follow. It has thus become essential for organizations to maintain a microblogging account and also do regular posts.   

• Generate traffic:  A microblogging platform can be effectively used for generating and diverting more traffic may be to your website, youtube channel, latest blog, or any other desired platform. Link sharing on Twitter helps you achieve this in a most significant way.

Wikis

Wikis are an online collection of web pages. What makes Wikis stand out is that these pages are open for anyone to create, edit, discuss, comment, and mostly contribute to.

This is the underlying premise of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia has been developed.

Develop a strong collaborative community of your customers and people in your organization: wikis is a great platform to encourage constructive and collaborative interaction between the people inside your organization and people outside your organization including the customers. People here write what they know about the organization rather than critically reviewing and rating it. Once your customers start doing this it means that they now feel connected and have developed a bond with the organization. As a marketer encourage your customers to post on Wikis whatever knowledge they have about the organization. As it goes a long way in creating a strong background of the organization in the world of the internet.

Instant Messaging Service

With the advent of instant messaging service on mobile social media, the revolution has reached an altogether different level. This development is led by “WhatsApp”. Most of the instant messaging services provide you with a simple and straightforward interface where you send messages, pictures, videos, documents instantly to the receiver’s phone. It even allows you to make video and voice calls anywhere across the globe and at any time. All this comes at absolutely no cost(At least till date- October 2020)

Even though WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for a whopping 19 billion USD  in February 2014, but it has still continued to operate as a separate entity since then. And also Whatsapp has not yet seen the same marketing-friendly features as Facebook Messanger has. It still has a lot to offer to the ever anxious marketers.

What is has for Marketers?

Establish one to one and personal connections- the instant messaging services are primarily tied to mobile phones, which are definitely more personal than computers. Use these services to send personalized messages and spread brand awareness. Apply one to one marketing and work on interpersonal marketing skills and present your product to the individuals the way they want it.

WhatsApp business app- WhatsApp has launched a Business App for which they say it is “built with the small business owner in mind.” This app is free to download, and currently only available for Android devices. It allows businesses to easily interact with customers by using tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages.

Highest engagement rate- More than 60 billion messages are sent using WhatsApp each day and to cheer up the marketers approximately 82% of these messages are checked and read. Thus an engagement rate of 82 %. This is one thing that marketers are always looking for so start engaging with your customers on WhatsApp now. 

Social Media Marketing has helped businesses grow and achieve which otherwise, maybe, would not have been possible, at least at this pace. With the ever-increasing numbers on social media, organizations have become more and more concerned about ensuring their presence and maintaining a good online reputation.

It's important to reach out to people but in a way that appeals to them. So, for that matter, if hiring an expert is a problem you can always reach out to a Digital Marketing Agency having expertise and experience in the domain but don’t miss the opportunity.

“Don’t use social media to impress people, use it to impact people and change lives”

Posted on 01 Nov 2020, by Mudit Mittal

Types of Social Media

One of the major misconceptions for Social Media is that it is a recent development.

NO

Social Media since its early forms has been there on the internet for over two decades.

Surprised, but it’s the truth.

Earlier used dial-in bulletin board services (BBSs), online communities such as Compuserve and Prodigy allowed users to post messages online for other members to read and respond to, UseNet newsgroups (Discussion groups formed on the internet in the early days) allowed like-minded internet users to exchange views about all sorts of topics ranging from politics to sports, while The e-mail discussion lists did the same. Internet relay chat (IRC) introduced real-time chat, and browser-based forums and chat rooms brought the discussion on to the web.

What is Social Media?

Social media is the collective term used for internet-based software and services that allow users to come together online and facilitate the exchange of information, discussions, communications, and participation in any form of social interaction.

Let’s not dive deep into this, since everyone has basic knowledge. So, let’s move on to the different types of social media how each one evolved and what effect it has had on society at large.

Different Forms of Social Media  

Now, this is where it gets tricky. One might think that every social media platform has one purpose which is “Exchange of information” so what’s the difference?

The truth is social media websites come in varied forms. Each website may have a different primary offering or maybe offering a mix of services. So, here I have tried to classify the different types of social media websites on the basis of their primary function.

Let’s go through each of them one by one-

• Social Media Submission Sites

These sites have evolved from the earlier known social bookmarking sites. Social bookmarking websites allowed users to bookmark whatever they liked on the internet(maybe a page, audio, video, anything) and categorize them using tags and then share them with online friends. 

These sites have slowly and gradually made way to social media submission sites such as www.reddit.com, www.stumbleupon.com, www.digg.com. The major feature which the social media submission sites have added that instead of adding bookmarks to the content you like, here you can share(or let’s say submit) the link of the content you like which allows other online participants to rate and rank that content. The more people view and vote positive for a particular piece of content, the higher it rises in the rankings.

These websites also allow the top-ranked submissions to be displayed on the HOME page of the website, which in turn drives more traffic to these social media submission sites.

• Forum and Discussion Sites

These websites allow internet users to just sign up and start their own online discussion community on any topic that one can think of. Discussion groups such as yahoo groups- https://groups.yahoo.com, google groups- https://groups.google.com have been around on the internet for a long time. These websites are still popular, and you will many times come across a discussion site focusing on a specific topic that maybe politics or cricket or a specific industry maybe education. Likeminded people gather here to express their views and thus participate in discussions.

• Media Sharing Sites

Among all the types of social media sites, these sites are the most popular ones on the internet these days. Websites such as www.youtube.com, www.vimeo.com, www.blip.tv, etc allow users to post videos, share, and comment on the uploaded content. Pinterest(www.pinterest.com) lets members save and share images and videos grouped around a certain topic. This topic is referred to as a pinboard. Instagram and Flickr are other popular sites that allow users to upload, share, comment, and discuss their photographs.

Typically these sites allow you to make your content publicly available and even restrict access to the people you specify. These websites are gaining popularity day by day because of the very simple reason that they are providing a platform for their users to become popular in the online world. 

• Reviews and Rating Sites

These sites have the potential to make or break an individual, a company, a product or a service. These sites allow users to review or rate anything they like.  Most of the e-commerce platforms provide this as an add-on feature and facilitate product review and rating on their website. There are also standalone review sites such as www.glassdoor.com. It allows users to rate and write a review for their current or previous companies. www.reviewcenter.com, www.epinions.com are some other standalone reviews and rating websites.

• Social Networking Sites

These are the go-to websites when you are looking to connect and socialize with people. Websites such as Facebook (www.facebook.com), Linkedin (www.linkedin.com), have users in multi-millions. Facebook today boasts of more than 1.3 billion users- that’s the population of the second-most populous country in the world –India. And all the companies in the world know how big a market India is.

These sites are gaining in popularity as they allow users to look for and connect with people they already know. People can find and reconnect with their old pals and even make new ones in a novel and convenient way.

• Blogs

The blog is an acronym for weB LOG. The widespread popularity which the blogs have gained in a very short span of time has amazed everyone. With the advent of blogging everyone and anyone has the freedom to express his/her views, opinions, share experiences or write about anything in detail and the people with similar interests are out there to read and comment on your blogs.

Web services such as blogger(www.blogger.com), WordPress (www.wordpress.com) allow you to set up and start your own blog in as little as five minutes. The blogs also rank in the search engines based on their popularity. Blogs and Bloggers have tremendous power.  Many bloggers have millions of loyal followers so these bloggers are none less but prominent online influencers.

• Podcasts

A podcast is an extension of blogging in the form that it is an audio version of the blog. It is distributed over internet through various platforms for people to download or listen online at their own comfort. Most of the times podcasts are organized as a series where the subsequent podcast is released at a regular interval in continuation to the previous one. Some of the popular podcast portals such as www.podcast.com, www.podomatic.com and www.apple.com/itunes offer convenient ways to find and subscribe to podcasts of interest.

• Microblogging

Microblogging can be thought of as a short message broadcast service that allows people to keep their readers up to date via short text posts. Talking about Microblogging services there are plenty available on the web, but Twitter (www.twitter.com) dominates this space. Twitter allows its participants to post short messages with a 280 character limit. As soon as it was launched it was an instant hit.

Microblogging with its character limit has had a tremendous impact. It is not an individual post which brings about the desired change but the collective aggregation of these mini-posts creates an impact which is much more than the sum total of the individual posts. When your readers receive short but frequent updates they begin to connect with you and develop a bond. This connection goes on a long way in creating a loyal following the power of which can be well harnessed by Marketing Managers.

• Wikis

Reading the term “Wikis” the first thing which comes to mind is Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org). Fact is that Wikis are an altogether different form of social media. Wikis are online collections of web pages that are open for anyone to create, edit, discuss, comment, and mostly contribute to. This is the underlying premise on which Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia has been developed. 

Wikis or wiki articles are in a mode of continuous evolution because of their open nature. Anyone who finds a relevant and important piece of information missing can add it to an existing wiki article, similarly, others can edit or add on to it.   

In January 2014 Wikipedia reported containing staggering 4,426,000 English language articles in its database, with over 2.6 billion words. To put that number into context, it is nearly 60 times as many words as are contained in the Encyclopedia Britannica (www.britannica.com), its arch-rival.

• Instant Messaging Services

This is the latest and the most prolific development in the social media revolution, led by “WhatsApp”. WhatsApp provides you with a simple and straightforward interface where you send messages, pictures, videos, documents instantly to the receiver’s phone. It even allows you to make video and voice calls anywhere across the globe and at any time. All this comes at absolutely no cost(At least till date- October 2020) The popularity of whatsApp can be well judged by the fact that in January 2020 it registered over 5 billion downloads and became only the second non-Google app to achieve this milestone. The numbers are increasing at staggering rates and there seems to be no end to it.

What lies in the future?

New social media sites keep coming up, some of them go the distance while some fade away. But one thing which is never going to change is the urge of people to stay connected and create a world beyond all boundaries and borders. Developers are continuously working on new formats and new ways to lure people on their platforms. As they do all this they also provide a tremendous opportunity to the organizations to reach out to more people and connect with them directly.

Social Media has reached a stage where the lives of each and every living being are directly or indirectly connected to it. It has had far-reaching effects on societies in past and continues to change the landscape even more. It has made the world a smaller place and given people the freedom to express themselves. Business houses strive hard to create a strong online reputation, the one which is well propagated by online influencers and online communities. More and more social media experts are being hired or the work is being outsourced to a credible digital marketing agency and all this for one sole motive- POTENT ONLINE PRESENCE

“Social Media is addictive and is getting even more as it has given people what lacked in the real world- immediacy, direction, open platform to express and create value as an individual” 

Digital Marketing for Small Business in India

With the lockdown surrounding every aspect of our life, small businesses, and retailers are looking for ways to adapt and change the way of doing business. A large number of businesses are looking for the right set of opportunities to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the absence of physical options and more dependence on the digital landscape, digital marketing continues to provide value to small businesses and retailers that are looking to expand their horizon and revenue.

During this downtime, businesses have the golden opportunity to work out with their online marketing strategy and channels. Although it is chaotic and challenging period, it could become a good time for business leaders if they take a hard look at their digital marketing techniques and leverage the internet boom.

Digital Marketing Strategies for Businesses in 2020

• Build A Strong Social Media Presence

The possibility for face-to-face communication is currently confined as people are practicing social distancing. Given the current situation, businesses should leverage social media to reach out to their old and potential customers.

Social media has been a crucial part of the marketing plans for all the businesses who have transformed themselves into big brands. Social media is the best way to connect to a large number of audiences available online thus build a larger-POTENTIAL CUSTOMER BASE.

Businesses can use social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter to showcase consumer testimonials and ideas as a way to show potential clients what they can do and also engage the old customers.

Social media platforms encourage engagement, direct communication, and brand exposure. These factors build a level of personalization and trust with your customer base.

During the pandemic, businesses leveraging social media have been able to develop better ties with their customers as they spent an increasing amount of time browsing the web.

• Strategize Email Marketing Campaigns

In this era of digitization, the total number of email users in the world is more than 3.8 billion, so if you’re looking for a way to reach your customers, email is the perfect place to find them. Also, Two-third of customers have made a purchase as a direct result of an email marketing message.

"According to HubSpot, email generates $38 for every single dollar spent, which is a huge 3,800% return on your investment. Also, more than 60% of marketers strongly believe that email marketing produces a positive impact on their business.

The impact of email marketing goes beyond an email inbox. It’s a key tool for small businesses and retailers looking to extend their reach and influence.

Using techniques such as email, Newsletters can provide a sense of stability and connectivity with the audience, as you can inform, update, and greet your audience even in this period of time.

• Expand Website Marketing Efforts

Digital presence is extremely important for businesses in this era of the internet. If your business doesn’t have a website, your presence within your market is non-existent.

Website marketing is a more focused digital effort for developing online relationships, educating people about your brand, product or services. It allows you to tell viewers how you are different and what value can you add in their life. 

Website marketing is the main focus when it comes to digital marketing. The company focuses on creating and marketing content about the brand through blogs, articles, and videos.

Businesses can study their website’s footfall, traffic, bounce rate, engagement levels, and work on areas that work well for them.

• Start Using Video Marketing

The usage of eye-catching videos with an emotional message can help businesses dominate the online space as videos make the average user spend 100% more time on video as compared to other forms of content.

According to Neil Patel; a well renowned digital marketing expert, "More than 70% of average audience want to see more video content from brands, but only about one-third of businesses invest in creating video content."

If small businesses are low on a budget, they can create homemade videos that fit their audience’s demands and expectations.

As a large number of the audience are working from home and spending their free time online, a short visually appealing video can do wonders for your engagement rate.  

• Engage with Your customers; create a bond rather than just pushing your products.

It’s easy for a business to get stuck into the trap of just selling products and making huge sales. Although it’s not a sin to give priority to sales over other matters, you have to engage with people to make them learn about your company's services and products.

Social media is one of the best and most accessible ways to engage with your target audience. It offers an opportunity for indirect marketing which is very efficient.

Share or retweet their posts, comment, get involved in conversations with customers, and always backlink your opinions to your product. Over the period, people will notice you and ultimately they will begin trusting your brand and will buy your service or product.

However, you should be very cautious about what you post. People apparently will not read your posts or follow you if you are always boasting about your products and posting promotional ads. You need to create interesting posts, short articles, blogs, contests, and things that catch people’s attention.

• Join Local Business Groups On Digital Social Platforms 

Joining local business groups will empower you to meet up with other like-minded people and brands who already share some common interests and ideas with you. There are a large number of business groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that you can join and provide value to each other.

These groups provide a fabulous chance to work on ideas with other smart people, share referrals, discover talent and recognize new opportunities.

It acts as a major catalyst in developing and expanding your network around the globe. Connections tend to multiply, and if your group takes networking seriously, you can leverage your minor associations into many important ones.

While these business groups are typically best found online, it’s better to have face to face meeting for the majority of your interactions. It can also lead to joint ventures and profitable partnerships in the future.

• Partner With Other Businesses Online

Teamwork is always more effective and fruitful than the single effort, and combining the resources with another business will enable you do tasks you could never achieve on your own.

For example, if you are a budding retailer, small manufacturer or distributor, you can always partner up with big brands like Amazon, Flipkart, and Indiamart to boost your growth.

Also, food vendors and restaurants can collaborate with delivery partners like Swiggy, Zomato, FoodPanda, and Box8 to reach to a large number of audience present online.

It’s typically best to target companies in areas where you cannot reach or function physically. You aim to accomplish out a mutual arrangement that provides joint benefit for both businesses.

•  Determine Your Business’s Main Goal

Defining a goal to measure the success of your digital marketing efforts might be the most useful tip of all. Before strategizing a digital marketing plan, companies must determine their primary digital marketing goal. 

According to the survey conducted by Ogilvy & Mather, more than three-quarters (76%) of small businesses believe their digital marketing endeavors are effective in fulfilling their company’s goals.

Small Businesses Need to Look Ahead in 2020

A strong digital marketing campaign can not only build your presence but also can boost your sales during this catastrophic time and present you with seamless possibilities.

The impact of COVID-19 will be long-lasting, so businesses need to plan both short-term and long-term marketing goals to establish them apart from others in the market.

According to the survey conducted by SalesForce, "More than 75% of budding small businesses believe in the power of digital marketing. Almost all of them are investing in social media and are looking to grow their digital marketing efforts through website marketing, email marketing, and video marketing.

While this is a time to try something new, there are still valuable and effective digital marketing strategies that small businesses can explore to increase their customer base and market presence.

How Should Small Businesses Use Social Media Platforms?

• Converse Rather Than Sell

As a business owner, your aim on social media is to communicate with customers and create a bond rather bombarding their inboxes with useless information. If people like your approach and social campaigns along with products and services, they will correlate with your brand and become a buyer from a potential customer.

• Listen More Than You Post

If you are new to digital marketing, you should consider this rule. Being on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at an initial stage are like being stranded on an island full of strangers. 

The first thing to do is to find out who your targeted consumer is and figure out their buying behavior, understand what they want to hear, and see. It will enable you to outline your marketing campaigns better.

• Be Empathetic And Trendy At The Same Time

Whatever you are sharing should be correlated to your business and must not confuse the customer. Whatever you are posting should not be perceived merely as advertisements. 

Engage with the people's comments and remarks on a post and never leave any posts unattended. For every new post, figure out what is the on-going trend and use appropriate hashtags to stay in trend.

• Give People What They Want

Social media is the only space where people are always available and looking for information and knowledge. To make people interested in your product or service, promote the product by connecting it with their emotions and lives and educate them about the value they will get after purchasing it. Make sure to surround your products and services with related stories that keep people captivated.

• Be Different

Be a "unicorn" in a herd of "donkeys". Always create posts that are original, quirky and uniquely represent your Unique Selling Proposition through advertising and marketing. Make people aware about your business, team and all the people working behind it. It empowers the brand and creates a feeling of empathy among people. Like Tata’s Jaago Re Movement.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, you are the expert of your services and product and you have to decide what works best for your business. Nevertheless, in this process never drop out an opportunity to acquaint others about your availability and zeal to serve.

Make sure your digital and online presence is all that it can be. There is no other wiser method to compete with competitors and rivals. Online marketing will surely let you take a bit out of your rival's volume.

Stop being hidden and come out of your comfort zone and traditional ways of promotion. Show the people what you have to offer through a great marketing strategy. As you will work more and more in digital space, you will see your sales touching new heights.

All of these actions create space for your brand and lets you showcase your potential to the buyers by offering just what they’re looking for. Don’t wait, just adapt these strategies in your business and take a leap with your business.

Techive A Leading Digital Marketing Agency brings you out some out of the box and powerful digital marketing strategies for budding business and retailer. Follow These strategies to take a leap in the market.

Digital Marketing What and Why

Digital Marketing: What & Why?

Philip Kotler has defined marketing as “The science and art of exploring. Creating and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit”. In simple terms marketing is defined as the process of creation and satisfaction of demand for a product, service or an idea. The sole objective of marketing is to generate sales which transforms into revenue thereby generating profits for the company.

 

How does digital marketing come into picture?

Digital marketing is not different from traditional marketing. Both are same, the only difference being the medium. Digital marketing is specific to the digital world that is internet. With more and more people making their purchase decisions based on internet searches it is definitely not a medium to be overlooked.

 

What is digital?

Digital is a combination of electronic devices and internet. All the marketing activities take place on internet. Products and services are promoted, distributed and sold via internet. It provides users the facility to frame their own experiences and gives marketers the ability to bridge gap, gain feedback, send repetitive messages and develop strong connections.

 

Digital Marketing is powerful in two fundamental ways. First, the audience can be segmented very precisely, even down to factors like current location and recent brand interactions which means that messages can (and they should be ) personalized and tailored for a specific set of audience.

Second, the digital sphere is almost completely measurable. Every activity and every click by a customer can be registered. In digital you can always keep a track on how your campaigns are performing, which channels are getting in the most benefits and where should you focus your best efforts.

 

Digital Marketing- Yes or No?

Whether or not your business needs digital marketing depends less on the nature of your business but more on where you want to take it in future. A dairy farmer supplying milk to a local milk cooperative, probably having no scope and ambition to grow and diversify business does not digital marketing. Another dairy farmer having his shop in the city and selling milk directly to consumers besides cooperatives aspires to further expand his business, develop and sell milk products not only to the local people but also to people outside his city and one day across the country; will definitely need digital marketing.

The digital marketing will help him create awareness, develop and promote brand, sell products directly, get feedback, target audience and grow business.       

 

How to define digital marketing strategy?

Once you have a clear sense of your business and its marketing objectives you can define your digital marketing strategy and identify the most suitable digital channels to fulfill it.  Any marketing strategy you define should be such that is constantly iterating and evolving. Since the internet allows for almost instantaneous feedback and data collection, digital marketing strategy should always be optimized and made more focused for the target audience. Option to measure and track almost everything: from behavior to actions and action paths is one of the key strengths of digital marketing.

The digital marketing strategy you define should always be in line with your organization’s overall business and brand building objectives. For example if the overall and current objective of business is to generate more sales the digital marketing strategy would be to run targeted ads on different platforms.

 

How to meet objectives?

Tactics are the specific tools or approaches that will help you meet your objectives. At times a strategy may become more complex when trying to achieve a bigger objective. So, multiple tactics work together targeting different segments of the bigger objective. Below given table lists in details what you can achieve with different digital marketing tactic.

 

 

I understand the importance of digital marketing. Now how to start with it?

Its good if you have decided to start with digital marketing. With so much content on internet, tutorials on youtube, printed books in the market you can learn the art and start it on your own. But it is something which has to be taken up continuously and most diligently as you take care of other aspects of your business. That is where the experts come into picture, if you cannot time out of core activities of your business it is better to hire services of a Digital marketing company. Check out their expert domains, work closely with them, clearly state your objectives and define a strategy which best suits your business.

 

Posted on 8^th June 2020, by Mudit Mittal

Website business promotion and marketing tool Part 2

Welcome to part II of why your website is the most important marketing tool you have. In Part-I we concluded that everything we do points to our website now in Part -II we will understand that there is much more which can be accomplished with a website.

You see businesses growing around you catching up success ladders at a rapid rate, making progress, diversifying and expanding, coming up with strategies for better customer engagement and experience and much more.

Is it some rocket science they are working on or is it the lady luck that’s riding with them?

It all lies in the way we approach and do the task.

Technological advancements in the past two decades have added a new dimension to the way people communicate, search and research, interact and react, shop and promote on a day to day basis. The spread of internet use has created a very unique and cost-effective opportunity for businesses to reach customers and get in touch with them. At the same time, websites have become an important tool for customers to dive deep into the company’s product and service offerings and make a decision that is well informed and well researched.

Going by the examples which you can definitely think of many- let's discuss FLIPKART India’s top-notch homegrown e-commerce player. Without its brilliant, beautiful and effective website design, it would have not become what it is today. Don’t be misguided by the fact that FLIPKART is an e-commerce player so its website it’s more important. The fact is your website is as much a shop window for you as it is for any of the e-commerce players.

In this 2^nd part of the series let’s dive a little bit deeper with few more reasons why your website is your most important marketing tool.

 

Makes a strong first impression

With the mass reach of the internet, websites have become the first and foremost place that people visit to know about a company and its offerings so whatever they see makes a strong first impression. When someone arrives at your website for the first time, it takes under two seconds for that visitor to form an opinion of the website, and, by association, the brand it represents. People browse the web page in haste looking for what they want. The ease of navigation, the appearance of the web page use of images and videos, etc makes the visitor stay longer on the webpage thus creating a stronger connection with the brand.

 

Increased trust

Besides creating a good and lasting first impression your website also legitimizes your existence in the market place. The facts that you state on your website- your team size, the clients you have worked with, testimonials people have written about you, content the depth of which defines the knowledge of your offerings and everything else works in the direction of increasing the trust of the visitor. The more authentic information the visitor keeps on coming across more is the chances of him turning into your probable customer.

 

Serving table for all your informative materials  

No other sales and promotional material can provide your probable customers with so much of information as your website can. A leaflet can be used to promote an offer or launch a new product. An article in a magazine can be used to educate people about a new offering. A TVC can be used to create awareness about a particular product or offer. A website is the only place that provides information about a particular company at such lengths. A website tells about the company, its profile, and its management, its clients, all its products and services, the company of the offer is running and much more.

An effective website with the neatly laid out content is thus the most potent promotion and trust-building platform an organization can have.

The success of an organization depends on the way things are approached and plans are implemented and websites definitely have a strong role to play in business plans of any organization. A strong business needs a strong website and the people at TECHIVE are the best I know in doing this. As an avid content writer, I have worked closely with TECHIVE and their development team has proven their skills time and again. You can get in touch with them to get a website developed as small as a static home page or as big as an e-commerce portal serving customers around the globe.

Keep in touch as the three-part series concludes in the last and final article to be out soon.

 

The author is an entrepreneur in the education industry, a business consultant and an avid column writer

Website business promotion and marketing tool Part 1

The Most Important Tool you have to Market and Promote your Product and Services

Bundle up and calculate the impact of all your marketing platforms and you will find out that your website is way ahead of others. Yes! Believe it or not your website is the most important marketing tool your business has.

Why?

Because all that you do points to your website.

Now, what is all?

Any form of marketing strategy you undertake whether content marketing, email marketing, traditional outbound advertising, printed brochures or any other form- where do people eventually land up to get details and know more about the company- It’s your website.

Think about it – any time you want to know more about a brand and its products or services, what’s the first thing you do? Try to find it in the search engine of your choice. What you get to see there often immediately shapes your perception of the company. This perception further heavily impacts your decision making. Does the website look trustworthy? Is the website easily navigable and the details accessible? What are the offerings of the company? What is the existing client base of the company? On the basis of what you write on your website, people try to assess what it would be like doing business with your company. In other words, your website speaks volumes about your brand, for good or for bad.

75% of users admit to making judgements about a company’s credibility based on their website’s design”

Your website is the most ideal and appropriate place you have to communicate your brand, your culture and values. It is an opportunity to captivate and hook up the audience and turn them into prospective customers.

It is a platform where people either engage with you by opting in to receive message and mails or they make a purchase decision or they call you up to know more about your offerings. Overall it gives multiple options to the audience to proceed further with their quest of finding the most appropriate solution the way they like.

If the website is so important what about the good old ways of traditional advertising and marketing?

Traditional ways are there to stay. While It's definitely true that a website has attained a position of supremacy when it comes to marketing and promotion strategies but traditional ways are still required to create an immediate spur or diversion in the market. 

No matter what your advertising medium is. All your offline and online marketing campaigns should direct your audience to your website or give them an opportunity to interact with your brand socially. It will always best to keep the audience engaged and interested and if you have different marketing channels targeting the audience you are bound to reap benefits sooner or later.

 

it is a 3 part series and this is just the beginning so keep in touch to know more how your website can help you create more opportunities and thus generate more business. 

Mudit Mittal

The author is an entrepreneur in education industry, a business consultant and an avid column writer

Digital Marketing Trends For The Year of 2020

Business is upgrading with the evolving technology but at a pace which still has a lot to catch up with the changing consumer interests and behaviour. We live in the age where getting the consumer’s interest has become all the more difficult, least to predict what affects his buying decisions.

Any business, if today it wants to remain competitive leave aside become the market leader it is a must to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of digital marketing. Recently developed technologies such as data-driven marketing, voice search engine optimization, artificial intelligence have already become the top priorities of most business owners.

To move on further and to know where the year 2020 will be heading to when it comes to innovation in digital marketing technologies read on the list that will help your business not only face the competition but also be a step ahead in this age of innovation.

1. Artificial Intelligence

With global industry leaders such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google already extending their resources in AI and machine learning it is bound to become an integral part of our lives and businesses are sure to get affected by it. It has already started taking over a lot many simple jobs.

AI to save electricity, to patrol parking lots, to take orders at restaurants and much more. AI is being used by companies to analyze consumer behaviour and search patterns. The tools use data from social media platforms, blog posts, browsing behaviour to understand how customers find their products and services.

An exciting example of AI in practice is chatbots. Chatbots are already in use and the work is now being done to make them sound as natural as possible. The chatbots use a natural language processing software to understand what the consumer wants and respond as if it were a real person.

AI will soon be the deciding factors affecting consumers purchase decisions and it is already being extensively used in areas such as”

 

• Basic communication
• Product recommendations
• Email personalization
• E commerce transactions
• Mobile communication

 

Where does ARTIFICIAL INTELLIEGENCEstand today as we enter the new year 2020?

 

• 2 out of 3 consumers are already using AI without even knowing they are interacting with chatbots.
• It is estimated that by the end of the year more than 50 %of the companies will be using AI to drive digital revenue.
• More than 70 % of mobile users are already using AI-powered voice assistants.
• AI is estimated to grow into a $190B industry by the end of 2025.
• More than 60% of B2B marketers are already using AI for personalization
• More than 70% of the e-commerce companies are using AI track and study consumer behaviour.

 

2. Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising makes use of AI to automate ad buying so that more specific audiences can be targeted. Real-time bidding, for example, is a type of programmatic ad buying. This type of automation is much faster and efficient resulting in higher conversions and lower customer acquisition costs.

Even best of the manual advertising ad campaigns take into account three or four parameters: the keyword, time of the day, location and age. Tools built using programmatic advertising can use hundreds of targeting signals to individualize the advertisement and target audience according to their lifestyle and browsing habits when integrated with customer data platforms.

 

3. Conversational Marketing

With chatbots already taking a driving seat one thing is clear that the modern-day consumer is less patient and want more personalized experience while making a purchase decision. All this corresponds to that marketing has become more conversational.

Conversational marketing facilitates a one to one, real-time connection between marketers and customers.

Unlike other methods of marketing, this form of marketing is available at different levels across multiple channels while the consumer is making his purchase decision. Instead of pushing the customers it allows the customers to interact with the brand on their own terms: their comfortable time schedule, choice of device, platform which suits him the best.

Ultimately conversational marketing aims to make the user experience better and encourage greater loyalty and quick decisions.

 

4. Video Marketing

Video marketing might not be the latest or on top of the list of Digital marketing Company trending today but its importance still has only increased. Following statistics will further highlight the importance of video marketing:

• More than 70% of the business say a product video on their website has improved their conversion rate.
• 53% of the consumers say they watch a product video before making a final purchase decision.
• 40 % of the people are more likely to call a service provider if they get to see a promotional video on the website.
• More than 60% of the consumers say that they have shared a brands video.

Video by far is the most sought after way for the consumers to learn about the new product and hence still stands firm is the must-do list of all the businesses looking for strong consumer engagement.

If your site includes video its50 times more likely to drive organic search results compared to text because people find video content more compelling, so Google push pages that include videos higher up in the rankings.

 

5. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a type of celebrity marketing where the influencer is a celebrity in the context of the product or service being offered and has the aura to influence people in a restricted market place. Influencers are usually the people who have a strong loyal fan following on a specific platform. He may be a local sports hero, a youtube personality or a well-known teacher whose lectures and books are followed by students over a vast region.

Influencer marketing has attained the level where the majority of the people find it more authentic as compared to bran endorsement by a celebrity.

Colgate using real-life moms in their ads, Tata spices using chef using Sanjeev Kapoor in their ads, or a publication house using a well-known painter to promote their art and craft books are all forms of influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is not just a trend: A media kit study predicts that the ad spends for influencer marketing could reach $10 billion by next year.

6. Social Messaging Apps

If you think social messaging apps are just for sending emojis and jokes to your friends you are missing on a large customer base. For the sake of statistics have a look at the following graph:

 

• 55 billion messages are sent using Whats App every day.
• 10 billion messages are sent between people and Facebook messenger every month.

Since more and more people are joining this growing community of users and are spending even more time messaging with each other, this platform can definitely be used to market your company’s products and services. For better results do keep two things in mind: Personalization and product-centric data.

 

Reasons for your brand to use social messaging apps include:

• Develop relations.
• Delivery information
• Increase sales
• Send invites.
• Involve people in a group discussion.
• Provide support and assistance.
• Conduct a survey.

7. Geo-Fencing Marketing

The idea is to not only target people based on their geographical residence or workplace but also on the basis of their real-time geo-location. A target area can be defined as for example one mile radius with respect to a restaurant or a petrol pump.  Whenever people enter or leave this area they get a push notification, text message or any other form of marketing communication. A suitable example could be a tie-up of an oil company with Google maps. As soon as a person enters a particular geo-location the logo of the oil company pops up on the Google maps telling the users about the location of all its petrol pumps in that area. Thus inviting them to their petrol pumps and also give them some sort of an enticer such as cashback or chance to win a lucky draw.

8. Visual Search

Purchase decisions can be so impulsive that as soon as a consumer sees a product he wants a similar product right away.

People are getting even more comfortable in uploading a picture of the product they want and expect the search results to come up with all the options along with the best offers. Thus the visual search is all set to take the user experience to an all-new level.

Following the suit, Pinterest has jumped onto the visual search bandwagon. They have come out with a lens, a visual search tool that enables users to take a photo of a product; upload it and find out where to buy it online, search for similar products or view pinboards of related items.

Categorically speaking visual search aims to turn your camera phone into a search bar.

Top searched categories in visual search are:

• Fashion
• Home decor
• Art
• Food
• Products
• Animals
• Outfits
• Beauty
• Vehicles
• Travel

Pinterest is not the only one offering such services other popular players in the domain are Google Lens and Bing visual search offer enhanced visual search experience to its users.

• 62% of Millennials are more interested in visual search capabilities than any other new technology
• Images are returned for 19% of search queries on Google
• There are over 600 million visual searches on Pinterest each month

 

9. Voice Search

Voice Search has made rapid penetration in the recent past and now commands over 25% of all searches made online as per Google.

• 65% of Amazon Echo or Google Homeowners don’t want to go back to the days of keyboard input.
• 5% of individuals aged 16–24 use voice search on their mobile devices.
• Individuals aged 26–35 are the most likely to be smart speaker owners.
• 22% of smart speaker owners have bought something using voice search assistance.
• 46% of smart speaker owners use voice search to find a business situated in their vicinity every day.
• 20% of mobile queries are voice searches.

 

Voice search provides all the relevant information that people are looking for through audio content. With AI evolving constantly a number of errors too made by Alexa, Siri, and Google have come down considerably.

Top brands have already started including voice-based search in their digital marketing strategies to deliver personalized content to their information seeking customers.

• Domino’sallows pizza-lovers to order from the comfort of their couch without having to pick up the phone or even place an online order.

 

• PayPal users can engage Siri to send money to friends, family or businesses.

 

• Nestlécreated a skill that provides voice instructions as you cook.

 

With voice search gaining its ground Ads are most likely to follow soon. This means that soon Google assistant will answer your query along with a small promotion of the sponsor.

 

Brands here need to find a way to not to use this channel only to force messages and sales instead they should use it as a medium to develop a stronger connection with their customers.

 

10. Interactive Content

Text-based content is good to provide information and generate interest but what keeps the audiences going is interactivity. Interactive content has become one of the fastest-growing digital marketing trends in recent times.

Interactive content is designed to provide users an engaging and absorbing content. People tend to relate themselves to it and expect something in return: maybe an answer to a problem, an award after attending a quiz, some credits after answering a poll question or anything else. Interactive content can have may form such as:

• Quizzes and polls
• Embedded Calculators
• Augmented reality ads
• 360- degree videos

 

If you are kind of a person looking for statistics, consider that more than 80% of the people feel more connected with the brand and are more comfortable making a purchase if they have gone through a series of interactions with the brand in one form or the other.

All you need to know How Digital Marketing Works in Business

Setting up a business and getting the website up and running is like making yourself eligible for a race. The race which can take you places in the years to come. You can have the whole world interacting and transacting with you, business touching new heights day by day and breaking every record set by your forefathers. 

Having a website up and running is not all. You have to make sure you get the right visitors on it. This is what digital marketing does. It involves many techniques and is an expert’s job for sure. 

A digital Marketing company any should undertake all the verticals involved with the core objective of getting the website move up on the search engine rankings. It takes time and is something which has to be taken up continuously. It is not like where you go for it only for a month or two and then pack up the bags. 

Each and every digital marketing agency claims that it will eventually get your website on the first page of search engine results. Yes, it can be done but only If they have the right team in place. An SEO and SMO expert cannot write content neither they can devise strategies. SEO and SMO guys are technical people whose job is to implement and execute and most importantly generate reports.  A digital marketing team has to have every member an expert in his individual domain. 

We at Techive follow a unique, self- developed and devised a model for each of the Digital Marketing assignments we take up.

1. Clients perspective: 

Before embarking on any sort of strategy development we need to have a thorough understanding of our client’s perspective of doing digital marketing. 

This involves:

• WHO- Clearly define the target audience for each page of the Website.
• Where- Do mentions if any specific country, state or city is to be targeted.
• When- If it’s a seasonal business tell us the time when to go aggressive and when to lie low.

2. Keyword Research

This involves finding out the most appropriate keywords for each page of the website. Each and every keyword is such that it a fine mix of low competition but high on volume search.  

3. Website Optimization

After having generated the keywords the website is thoroughly analyzed for any sort of issues. The issues can be as small as website response time or as critical as inappropriate content on the website. All the issues found on the website are fixed and updated.

4. Content Development

Content is the king. For any sort of digital marketing, strategy content plays the most important role. A digital marketing expert without content will only be as good as a gun without bullets. The content on the website is first optimized to include all the keywords and then content for various listings and submissions is developed to divert traffic to the website.

5. Social Media Optimization:

Social Media presence on all the important platforms is ensured and a continuous touch and interaction are maintained via posts, blogs, infographics, etc. It is an important medium of promotion and is strongly emphasized in all our offerings. 

6. Lead generation and conversion:

Lead generation is the process of getting a viewer on a website and right up to the page where he fills up his details. Conversion can take place in many forms depending on the nature of business and website.

FAQ for Social Media Marketing

What are the benefits of social media marketing for a company?

Social media has transformed itself into a most effective way of reaching a large pool of audiences and finding prospective clients. With over a billion people using different forms of social media it has completely changed the way people make their purchase decisions. Being accessible to your clients- via social media is a vital means of developing relationships and increasing trust and credibility among the clients.

#1- How should companies measure their social media marketing success?

Success for your social media marketing is measured using the same parameters as for any other digital marketing activity: traffic, leads and customers. An increase in number of followers on social media profiles will help you understand your increased reach. Keeping a track on the increased number of visitors on the website, number of people filling up the enquiry form or contacting you qualifies as the leads and out of these the people who end up doing business with you are your customers generated from a social media drive.

#2- How much does social media marketing cost? What’s the ROI?

Any digital marketing activity taken up to generate more business can never be free. The expenditure can be in form of time, resources, or money. you can either ask your existing employee to do it for you, hire a social media expert, or outsource it to a digital marketing agency there will always be a cost. The more is to get the maximum out of it. ROI is always there but it is important to note that ROI is not always in form of revenue. It can be in form of more visitors, getting new leads, increasing followers, more number of happy and satisfied customers. The ROI you end up with is the direct result of your social media marketing strategy.

#3- Which social media platforms should I target for my business?

One fit doesn’t suit all is the notion which holds true for marketing strategy of any business. While going for social media marketing you have to make sure you are present on all the platforms where your competitors and audiences are. One set of audience might be overly active on facebook while others spend their time socializing on linkedin. Find out where your customers are and ensure a string presence there.

#4- How do I take care of the negative reviews being posted on social media platforms about my business?

Taking control of your brand and business on social media isn’t really possible. It’s a free to express platform where anyone and everyone can speak. But the good thing is at least you get to know the person who has written a negative review and what exactly has he written unlike in the physical world. The best way to handle these situations is to engage in a conversation. You can be apologetic, rectify the mistake or clarify the misunderstanding if any. This gesture of your will create an immensely positive environment among all the people who are reviewing and following your business.

#5- How much time does social media marketing takes to start showing up result?

There is no specific countdown to tell in how much time your social media marketing will start showing results. It depends on a lot of factors: the intensity of competition your business faces, the amount of time and effort you are devoting, your budget, knowledge of the person doing social media marketing for you, number of platforms you are targeting and most importantly originality and the variety of the content you are putting in. Regardless of all these its important to remember that social media is such an important platform of reaching your potential customers that you cannot afford to miss it.

#6- What are common social media marketing mistakes businesses make?

The worst mistake is inconsistency- only posting occasionally and not responding to your followers and customers’ hits you hard on social media. Another mistake is not engaging in discussions with your followers. Communication can never be one way. Things will not work if you keep on posting and harping about your business and do not engage in any sort of discussions and commenting with your audience. 

#7- Is mail marketing still effective as compared to social media marketing?

E mail marketing still holds the top place when it comes to finding out the most effective way of reaching a customer directly. Imagine a situation wherein you have updated something new on your website and now you are waiting for the visitors to come or you have posted on social media and hoping your followers will see it. Instead you are sending something directly into a person’s inbox where he or she will definitely see it. Even if they don’t open it at least they will see the subject line and company’s name each time.

#8- I have a B2C business where in my customers directly walk into my store and purchase the goods only after seeing and relating to it. Do I really require social media marketing?

Business have evolved and so has the consumer behavior. As per the marketing analysts tracking purchase decisions in giant specialty stores for years “A consumer when he even decides to visit a particular store has already made up half his mind whether he will make a purchase from there or not”. The rest half is taken up by the store ambience, product quality and variety, sales force presentation, behaviour and knowledge. So its really important that you are in the positive frame of mind of your customers even before they enter the store. Or who knows your strong online presence only might have encouraged them to come and visit your store.  

#10- What are the general “keep in mind” points for social media success?

Post consistently and engage with your audience. Always post original content which truly reflects your business. Post informative content which benefits your audience and increases their knowledge of your business. Don’t emphasize on sale purchase instead just try to connect and build up a loyal follower base. Be creative and crisp with your posts people don’t have time to read long stories.  

Digital Marketing Strategy of 2019

• Why only the first page?
• How does first-page ranking benefit your business?
• Various ways you can use to get to the top of Google
• Optimizing your website to get on the first page of Google

 

Why only the first page?

The most powerful of all search engines Google is used by over 4 million people per minute. It uses a mix of complex algorithms to crawl the web and to determine which pages are most relevant to its users for any topic you can think of under the sun. It can be rightly said if it’s on the web it’s within the reach of Google.

Results by Google affect your smallest to biggest of decisions right throughout the day. People rely on Google results and are immensely influenced by them. With such a commanding position and the strong influence, Google has you certainly cannot take the risk of avoiding it. 

In a layman’s language getting your website on Google’s first page is like having a multi-storey showroom at a peak commercial location in the town. Such visibility is bound to attract traffic and generate leads.

The large number of results that Google comes up with it might seem unrealistic to get your business on the first page of Google. However, it is this very Commanding power that Google has makes it possible for website owners to get on the first page of Google. Well just to begin with among so many other techniques Google itself provides you with so many tools which makes it a lot more easier for your website to appear on the first page of Google results.

 

How does first-page ranking benefit your business?

Google approximately gives you 10 results per page and at the bottom of the search window, you can see the number of pages Google has come up with its results. So getting your business on the first page of the Google 

• Improves your visibility: This means more people get to see your business
• Generate more leads: If you are getting on the first page for the keywords that are ideal to your customers you are sure to get consumers who have intent to buy or engage.
• Increase Engagement: A research shows that 81% of shoppers conduct online research before buying and Google attracts 90% of this search traffic. The first page results entice the visitors to contact the businesses which they feel can fulfil their requirement.
• Earns Trust: Getting on the first page of Google earns you a mark of trust and respect. Google algorithms are designed to identify and remove suspicious and spam content so if you are getting on the first page it means Google trusts you thereby increasing the trust of the visitors.

Various ways you can use to get on the first page of Google 

There’s a lot of stuff already floating on the internet but Google looks out only for quality and not quantity. It uses a mix of many complex algorithms to rank websites but it also has many different components which lookout for different types of media to rank a website. So, the various ways you can use to achieve the first-page status can be:

• Google My Business listing is important for any business. A complete and Google verified business listing with all the information duly 
• Blog posts with original and updated content to divert traffic to your website.
• Google Ad Words- A little amount of money with custom ads run by a professional Digital Marketing Agency to make sure that your business is right there at the top when it matters most.  
• Snippets of your website content in different search results of Google increases your visibility. This can be achieved through with listings on highly acknowledged business and classified listing websites.
• A search engine friendly Website with all the website pages aligned with the search engine ranking factors.

Optimizing your website to get on the first page of Google

Getting a search engine aligned website is the first and foremost step of any digital marketing strategy your team is planning to put in place. This is also called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Here’s a brief on how you can do it:

• Determine your keywords for each and every page of the website. Make sure these keywords are included in your content on the website. The keywords can be short or long phrases or both.
• Make sure each page has a different set of keywords so that pages are not competing among themselves for space.
• Make sure the keywords are rightfully included in the Title, Meta Description, URL and ALT Tags of each page of your website
• Provide the correct location of your business place on Google Maps as well as under the Contact us Tab to target location-based Queries.
• Make sure your website is optimized for mobiles.
• Make sure the layout and designing of your website are well in place with your target audience. Keep your user interface simple and attractive for better audience retention.

 

Getting on the first page of Google and especially on the top of rankings is something which every business wants. It takes efforts, time and in-depth knowledge but it is one of the most important things which you should do for your business. You can try doing it on your own but for better and timely results I would suggest getting in touch with a digital marketing expert. Maybe a  digital marketing company  having a team of experts for SEO, SMO, Google Ad words, etc. By doing so you will definitely get the visibility your business deserves.    

How to set up correct business listing in India

Business listings are important but what’s more important is listing your business correctly. A good and correct business listing not only increases traffic on your website it also affects your search engine rankings. A good business listing with all the information fields correctly filled ensures that you are easily found by your potential customers and also gets you good reviews. While listing your business on any directory whether free or paid to make sure to fill the following information correctly.
Name
Consistency and similarity in Business name across all the listings is a must. It is required to avoid losing potential customers and also to avoid confusion. For example, if you have listed your business as “ Brainmate educational publishers Pvt Ltd.” On Google business listing do not list it as “Brainmate Pvt ltd” on any other business listing.
Address
An accurate and complete address in directory listings helps you come up in local searches. Make sure to provide each and every detail of your business address including the floor, cabin number etc.
Hours/Time
It reflects your working hours and the time you are operational. While listing makes sure to include your opening and closing time. For better engagement with your visitors always update your holidays as you would never want a customer to visit your office on a day when you are not working.
Phone Number
Since the mobile phones have gained in reach people want to immediately get in touch with the listing they are viewing. Moreover, many business listing websites provide the tap to call feature which makes it easier for the customers to reach you. So, having a correct and operational mobile number is of extreme importance. Also, the person taking the calls should be well informed about the business.
Website
Do include your web address if you have one. Having a running and updated website increases your credibility. It also provides your potential customers with a detailed perspective of your company before they actually contact you.
Photos
Include real and actual pictures of your business wherever possible. Including photos of your business place, products, your team and even customers gives your potential customers a well-perceived insight into your business. It also increases the chances of the customer contacting you.
Category
This is extremely important if your business does not include and reflect the name of the product and services you are offering. It is mostly the products and services People search for so for your business to come up in their search results make sure to correctly define categories and subcategories wherever possible.
Description
For a listing platform that asks you to write a brief description of your business, make sure to keep it concise and straightforward. Also, use language and words that your potential customers are most likely to use while searching for your products and services. Online directories have become a fast-paced engine for the growth of small businesses. These listings not only increase your online visibility but also help build your reputation. You can at least start with top free business listing websites of India with Google My business as your top priority.
The business listing, especially on free portals, cannot be overlooked in this digital era. So if you are not comfortable doing it better take services of a professional digital marketing agency to get it done.

Top 10 Free Business Listing Sites in India

For every business, it is extremely important to be get seen and to be found easily on the web. Business listings in local directories play an important role in expanding your reach on the web. Online business directories have now moved on from “good to have” to “must have” and can no longer be ignored. What business listing does is that it creates multiple platforms for your Name, Address and Phone number (NAP) to be accessed by potential customers. With the increasing trust of consumers in the customer reviews and the strong online presence, local business listings are a must.

Business Listings help you in:
• It allows potential customers to reach you while searching for the services, products, and facilities you are offering without even knowing your name.
• A strong and complete business listing has high chance of taking the visitor to your website. Once that is done a smart website would take the details of the visitor thus generating a potential lead for you.
• Free business listings have potential to attract and redirect traffic to your websites but make sure you manage your listings and engage with your visitors regularly.

If you are taking the services of a professional digital marketing agency then it's definitely their job to do. Or else otherwise also you can try doing it on your own at least on free business listing websites. Here for your convenience, we have compiled a list of the top 10 free business listing sites in India. Well ! to begin with, this will definitely make a good choice.

Top 10 Free Business Listing Sites in India