Video Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

Video marketing content is undeniably powerful. It's visual, engaging and interactive. Once the province of large companies with million-dollar ad budgets, video campaigns are now accessible to small business owners. The rise of streaming video and smartphone technology means that it's never been easier or more cost effective to create video content.

Retail companies can use video marketing materials to promote their products to remote customers — and to bring traffic into their brick-and-mortar locations. Here are some ideas for small business video advertising.

Post Videos on Your Landing Pages

Landing pages are a central component of lead-conversion marketing: a digital storefront designed to usher prospective customers through to your homepage or mailing list. Why not incorporate video content into your landing page designs? Placing a video on your landing page creates an implicit call to action as cosnuemrs click "Play" to view your pitch. It also keeps their attention fixed on your content long enough for them to become invested in your message. Best of all, a video is a highly efficient way to package high-impact visuals and detailed information.

Mobile-Friendly Video Content

Mobile devices have quickly outstripped desktop computers as the leading online interface — more than half of all consumers access the internet solely on mobile screens! This means that traditional types of content, including dense blocks of text, are rapidly becoming obsolete. Video is extremely mobile-friendly — it's efficient, and it's also a great way to engage consumers who might be killing time sitting on public transit or waiting in line. The key to mobile-friendly video content is diversification and organic engagement. Use the same strategies you would to create engaging social media or blog content — i.e., a wide range of topics that are more entertaining and informative than "salesy." Viewers will click away if they think they're being subjected to a lengthy commercial.

Showcase Your Products in Action

Retailers devote a lot of attention to developing and marketing new and creative product lines. How do you give consumers insight into the unique appeal of your products? Create a series of demonstration videos! These video segments — unboxing, tutorials, customer testimonials, reviews — help shoppers understand why they should buy from you. If you can package these videos as an informative series, consumers will be motivated to watch the whole set. These videos can also be incorporated into FAQs and other parts of your website, giving consumers more opportunities to watch. See if you can solicit product review videos from consumer-interest bloggers and vloggers — these reviews will give you credibility and boost traffic to your site.

Create an Interactive Connection

The rise of streaming and smartphone technology has already made embedded video ubiquitous. Nowadays, the new digital frontier is video as a medium for communication. Video chats and video texting are more efficient than text, as well as more personal. Facebook Live is integrated into the social network platform, allowing customers to post comments that business owners can respond to. Build interest by incorporating these Q&A sessions into follow-up videos, turning a single live video event into a profitable franchise. You can also create choice-based videos, a high-tech version of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories you may have read when you were a kid. The key is to find ways to incorporate viewer contributions into your content — they'll feel heard and appreciated, and they'll be more invested in following and sharing your content.

Shoot Teasers to Spur Interest

Let's say you're planning a product launch or an in-store event, or maybe you're looking at a significant delay between product releases. To keep your company "top of mind" during these lull periods, film some teaser segments and post them on your website and social media platforms. These will help generate interest. You can combine this technique with the Q&A format to anticipate and respond to consumer questions. This will allow you to get a sense of customer concerns and preferences — you may even get some inspiration for future marketing materials.

Once you start creating videos, you'll be hooked on this exciting new medium. However, don't lose track of your other content streams. The best way to use video content is to integrate it into a multimedia marketing strategy, using a diverse collection of text, graphic and social media materials to connect with consumers and promote your retail business.

Emmanuel Lao is the founder and creative director for Square 1 Group, a boutique web firm specializing in real estate web design. 

Source: Video Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

Minnesota Ketamine Clinic Selects Force0six as Internet Marketing Agency

Force0six and Minnesota Ketamine Clinic

SAN DIEGO - July 30, 2017 - PRLog -- MN Ketamine Clinic, a clinical practice headquartered in Edina, Minnesota, has selected Force0six, a full-service internet marketing firm specializing in SEO, Google Adwords and Social Media Marketing, as its Internet Marketing agency.

Force0six will lead the strategic planning efforts for Minnesota Ketamine Clinics digital marketing campaign providing radius targeted ads using Google Adwords as well as multiple social media outlets. They will also be tasked with the websites search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and monthly analytics. This cohesive digital marketing effort will draw in clients seeking this specialized treatment throughout the midwest including Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin and beyond.

Jake Bastien, CEO and Founder of Force0six stated,

"We are thrilled to be partnering with Dr. Simelgor and the Minnesota Ketamine Clinic. Our team looks forward to helping them continue to grow their busines s with the help of our combined digital marketing efforts."

About MN Ketamine Clinic - http://mnketamine.com

Dr. Gregory Simelgor completed his anesthesiology residency at the University of Minnesota and decided to expand his scope of practice and started the Minnesota Ketamine Clinic where he consults patients suffering from depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. He uses recently discovered properties of a familiar medication ketamine to help patients in their fight with their debilitating illnesses. With his expertise in anesthesiology, Dr. Simelgor focuses on safe and effective ways of administering ketamine therapy in the outpatient setting.

About Force0six - http://www.force0six.com

Force0six brings digital into all aspects of your business, from online channels, processes, and analytics to the operating model, incentives, and culture. Specialties include:

🛒 Ecommerce Optimization & Analytics🛒 Digital Ma rketing🛒 Social Media Marketing🛒 Google Adwords🛒 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)🛒 Pay Per Click (PPC) Services

End

Source: Minnesota Ketamine Clinic Selects Force0six as Internet Marketing Agency

5 Social Media Marketing Trends in the Age of Mobile

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Archives Archives Categories Categories Jul 5 Social Media Marketing Trends in the Age of Mobile Barry Feldman: July 29, 2017 | Social media/social media marketing | Comments

When I repost an article I read elsewhere, which I rarely do, it means I found it important and insightful. This is one of those occasions. Check out this amazing piece highlighting five undeniable social media marketing trends, from Marcus Andrews of HubSpot… 

The Future of Social Media Is Here: These Are the Trends You Need to Know

It's time we talked about how you're using social media. That's right, this is an intervention.

We're concerned about what you're doing, and more importantly what you're not doing. Your lack of adoption of new channels. Your total disrespect of mobile first users. Your reluctance to try video. Your fear of spending money on social ads. Your results. We're concerned.

We bring up these concerns out of love for you and modern marketing. You see, social media marketing has changed, but most social media marketers haven't. A modern social strategy is light-years away from the definition we used in 2012 and it's time to adapt. Adapt to a mobile first, video obsessed audience. Adapt to new tactics that take advantage of new tools. Adapt how we measure success and what we're trying to achieve.

This isn't a matter of making tweaks, we need to start over.

We know this because it's something our own marketing team has gone through here at HubSpot. Over the last few years we've had to constantly reinvent ourselves. We've learned the hard way so you don't have have to.

Social media marketing has changed, but most social media marketers haven't.

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Why do we need a new start?

Things have changed—and that all starts with Facebook.

Flash back to 2012 with me for a moment. It was an eventful year: we were all watching Gangnam Style on our iPad 3's, mourning the loss of Whitney Houston, and eagerly awaiting the Facebook IPO. An IPO that we were excited but unsure about.

It wasn't clear at all in 2012 that Facebook had a viable business model. Investors were concerned if they could actually monetize. After the first few months of their IPO their stock was down and the future looked grim.

The fact that this was only 5 years ago Facebook seems ludicrous. Today Facebook is one of the fastest growing, most well known, most trusted, and most valuable companies in the world. Its only rivals may be Apple and Google.

Facebook's success as a business is directly related to their success in mobile. In 2012 Mobile represented only 10% of Facebook's revenue. Today it accounts for 82%. They were able to move with users from desktop to mobile and create a totally new stream of revenue that corresponded with a big shift in consumer behavior.

This success has allowed Facebook to expand, given them the means to buy Instagram and WhatsApp, and spend time developing new products like Messenger.

The average person globally now spends 50 minutes a day with Facebook.

These new products are big bets that they hope will have the same impact on their business as their shift to mobile did for them back in 2012. Below is Facebook's ten year road map. An astonishingly ambitious plan to create multiple new products and revenue streams, most notably around messaging, video, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.

Facebook has never been more important than now. They are innovating incredibly fast and changing the meaning of social media. It's critical to figure out how your audience lives in Facebook (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp) because they are there, everyone on the planet is. Once you do figure out how you can use the tools Facebook offers to connect with them.

The Trends: New Channels, Video, Mobile, Ads, AI

There are five major trends that are defining this next wave of social media.

1) New Channels

One of Facebook's most recent hits is Facebook Messenger. It's one of a handful of new channels, along with Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat that's dominating time spent on social.

In 2012, social media was the big three: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. That's it. Your goal was to engage and grow communities on these channels via desktop. The idea was to gain enough likes and followers so that you had a reliable distribution channel for your content.

Today, your audience may still be there, but there are many other places as well. Social media usage hasn't slowed down one bit since 2012, it's grown and diversified. You must know your audience and you must focus your efforts on the networks that are most relevant for them.

To make this happen, the role of the social media manager/marketer needs expand. They need to understand your target market, and whatever social channel they spend time in. That probably includes Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, but it's now expanded to new networks like SnapChat, Reddit, YouTube, WhatsApp, and more.

They should know how those networks work and be able to create the content that does best in those channels. This means that social media marketers need to be experts in ads, creating video, stories, messaging bots, and more.

Furthermore, their goal shouldn't be to try to turn these places into a distribution channel. Instagram for instance isn't interested in having users leave their app. They've made it hard for marketers to drive people from their app to a landing page without an ad.

A modern social media marketing strategy doesn't try to drive people out of these sites, they turn these sites into a conversion funnel in and of themselves. They create amazing content that brings attention and use ads and technology to convert those users in network. No landing pages, no emails. This is true for all networks now, not just Instagram. More on this later.

2) Video

Instagram was one of the first totally visually focused social networks, at first it was almost all pictures. Its massive success served as a spark for the rest of the industry. Quickly other social networks started leaning away from text into images, and that trend continued to evolve towards video.

We all now have super computers in our pockets with strong wifi and cellular networks. This makes hosting, sharing, and serving video a fast, enjoyable experience. The result is that video has become the currency of social media. People want video. You may have noticed how much more video you're seeing in your Facebook and LinkedIn feeds — expect more.

This may have impacted you, but for even younger audiences social has totally replaced TV. They still want to consume video and now these cord-cutters turn directly to YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook to get it.

All of this has already happened. It's not new. This means if you haven't figured out how your company or brand can produce relevant video you must act now or risk becoming irrelevant. Producing video should be something you add to your personal repertoire, but isn't easy, and unlike blogging a bad product can hurt your brand and image. If you can't do it yourself, get help. Lean on good freelancers or hire folks with experience to guide the way and help you build your video strategy and production arm.

Video should be part of all your marketing campaigns. It can be live, pre-produced, casual, or polished. You'll figure out what works for your audience, but you have to get started now if you haven't already. An easy way to figure out what to create is to always ask, "What's the video element?" about every single marketing campaign your team creates. Once you get started start reviewing the data. Focus on metrics like watch time over views, and let that be your guide to decide what's working.

3) Mobile

You, me, and everyone else in the world have relatively cheap, extremely powerful, mobile phones in our pockets. Wifi is now everywhere, and 4G networks can be found in all corners of the globe. This has made accessing the internet and consuming content on mobile much easier. And it turns out that as long as the experience is good, people prefer using their mobile device for everything.

A result of this is that social media is now almost all mobile. 80% of social usage now comes from mobile devices. Social media is growing like crazy and almost all of it is coming from mobile first or mobile only users. That's right: some users in some regions only access the internet from their mobile device. How are you going to reach those users?

Obviously it's important to know your own audiences trends, but the short story is your marketing should now also be mobile first. Assume that the majority of people you engage with or want to reach in social are coming from their mobile phone.

For most B2B marketers this is a hard pill to swallow. The school of thought is that mobile marketing doesn't work for B2B. That mobile users on the go aren't interested in a long white paper like someone accessing it from a desktop would be. And that forms with several fields turn off mobile users.

Those concerns are valid and true, but it doesn't mean mobile marketing doesn't work for B2B, it just means we need to change our tactics — and Facebook is eager to help.

Recently Facebook introduced Lead Ads, and they can become your mobile marketing strategy. There aren't many shortcuts in marketing or life, but Facebook's created a big one with Lead Ads.

The ad unit brings your content to users on the Facebook mobile app and Instagram. Its format allows you to feature your lead gen content, and a strong call to action. This is all great, but the magic comes after a user clicks on the ads CTA, they are served a form that is auto populated with their information by Facebook.

This dramatically increases conversion rates. We've seen this totally flip the script for some marketers. They are now actually getting a better cost-per0lead at a higher conversion rate from their mobile campaigns vs. desktop.

Another great option for converting mobile users is Facebook Messenger. HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar recently wrote, "Facebook Messenger will be the next great marketing channel, and it is arguably the best way to engage with the Facebook community as a marketer."

Step one is encouraging users to start conversations via messenger. There are lots of reasons why a customer or prospect would want to chat with you via Messenger. Maybe it's to aid communications at an event you're hosting, or perhaps to deal with a customer service question.

Whatever the reason, it's a good idea to start doing it. Having access to people via messaging means have a direct, mobile first channel to people. In a world where people are ignoring email and spending the majority of their time on their phone in a Facebook property, this will be important. Start building a plan for how you can start messenger conversations now.

4) Social Ads

Most people would agree that a modern social media marketing strategy has to incorporate video and mobile, but do you have to use ads? The answer now is yes.

You don't have to always be running ads or use them for every campaign. But if you can't effectively use paid media to amplify your inbound marketing strategy, you're going to lose to the competition.

Earlier I mentioned we are now in a world where pushing people off of social to your site to convert no longer works. That means ads are your main path to conversion in social now. Before you grab your pitchfork and start chanting "pay to play is wrong" let me say this: a good social ad strategy will make you way more money than it will ever cost you, and will help you compete with much larger businesses.

You also don't need to have a massive budget to be successful. Ads can be easily scaled up and down, so when you figure out the right conversion path and reach profitability, dial things up.

All of the major social networks are aggressively trying to monetize their audiences. Most of them have been for awhile. Those monetization efforts started with exciting marketing solutions for big consumer focused brands, and they work.

Now Facebook and the others are looking for new audiences to build for. If you're reading this you're probably a B2B marketer who doesn't work at a Fortune 500 company. That's a great place to be if you want to start using ads.

Facebook and LinkedIn both now have great lead generation solutions built for a mobile audience. This is a big opportunity — and one you don't want to miss out on. It's important to build a strong social media advertising muscle now. Ads don't have to be part of every campaign, but you should always consider it.

When you do decide to use ads, use them in conjunction with inbound. An ad that is only an ad is boring and disruptive. But an ad powered by great content that is part of a well targeted inbound campaign is something your audience will welcome.

5) Artificial Intelligence

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are ideas that marketers are chomping at the bit to put to work. But the question that hasn't been answered is how? Social Media and Social Ads are the answer.

No other marketing channel has grasped AI like social. It defines what content you see, what ads you're served, and how you engage with your friends. In many ways AI defines social, and it's important to keep this in mind when creating content. There is no more optimizing for time of day or keywords in social, everything is defined by a machine learning algorithm specific to individuals. When you're thinking about content try to think like the machines.

Facebook and others have now made the same AI that powers what content is shown to whom, available to better target your ads. When you run Facebook ads for instance, you have a powerful tool set of AI at your fingertips, even if they don't make that obvious. Leaning on Facebook to target and optimize your ads is a very good idea.

Upload lists of your most valuable customers or highest priority prospect to Facebook and then implement Lookalike Audiences. With this data Facebook will put its AI to work by combining with their global user data to serve your ads to only the most valuable people.

At HubSpot our own ads experts used to manually test and optimize combinations of creative and targeting to get the best results. But over the course of 2017 simply decided to stop. They couldn't beat Facebook's AI. We've decided at this point it's just best to get out of your own way and let Facebook do its thing.

Look, things are different. Facebook has changed the world, mobile and video are here to stay, ads are they way forward, and it's time to leverage AI. But for all the change that has happened, inbound is still the way forward.

The best marketing will always be remarkable and focused on attracting people with the quality of its substance. And for all the advanced technology we have, the best marketing will still always be about people and personal connections.

No technology can replace the feeling someone gets when they feel like you're talking only to them. It's important to root everything you do in those concepts. It's time to grasp these new concepts, tools, and tactics. If you can combine them with the fundamentals of inbound marketing, there is no stopping you.

The Future of Social Media Is Here: These Are the Trends You Need to Know was originally published on the HubSpot marketing blog. 

Here are 59 effective social media tactics, according to the experts.

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Barry Feldman Founder at Feldman Creative Barry Feldman, founder of Feldman Creative, is a prolific writer with 25 years of experience bringing his clients' online presence to the next level through copywriting and content marketing creation and consulting. He writes and educates clients on online marketing on The Point and on many other sites across the web. Connect with Barry on Google+. @feldmancreative Focused on effective online marketing #content marketing consultant #copywriter #creative director #social media advisor #rock n' roller 25 experts on #SocialMedia Marketing Tactics Worth Your Time @FeldmanCreative https://t.co/jxxcUksn68 https://t.co/Q8UDwOE99c - 2 years ago +Barry Feldman Latest posts by Barry Feldman (see all)

5 Social Media Marketing Trends in the Age of Mobile - July 29, 2017

How to Lose Friends and Not Influence People [Content Matters Episode 28] - July 24, 2017

7 User-Generated Content Ideas to Create a Trusted Brand - July 9, 2017

Examining Effective Processes for Creating Content [Content Matters Episode 27] - June 25, 2017

Entrepreneur Pekka Koskinen Shares Effective SaaS Marketing Tactics - June 13, 2017

Filed under: Social media/social media marketing by Barry FeldmanNo Comments »

Source: 5 Social Media Marketing Trends in the Age of Mobile

Freelancers HUB – A new Internet Marketing Services Company Opened for Business!

A new Digital Marketing Service, covering search engine optimization, PPC, social media marketing, branding and PR Distribution services, is now opened, and owner/operator Shovon Joarder, is inviting all small businesses and start-up owners to request a free website quote.

"We offer a wide range of pre-designed online marketing services at different prices range suitable as per your need and budget. If nothing fits, we also offer customized package, and we are happy to provide you a free quote." Said Shovon, who made today's announcement.

Freelancers HUB is new digital marketing services providing keyword research to local search engine optimization services, marketing campaign setup to analytic reporting, and their professional freelancers are ready to take up any new challenge. "No matter what the situation, we are ready to provide services, 24/7 and 365 days, that covers:

• SEO: Keyword research for organic search, on-page and off page SEO i.e. content marketing services. • Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing services on Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. • Brand Building and Reputation Management services through Public Relation Services. • Social Media account optimization and complete Social Media Marketing services. • Press Release copywriting and distribution helps the business to reach the target audience.

"Freelancers HUB digital marketing services company is small but efficient enough to make a real difference to your online marketing effort. We are not believing only on verbosity. We believe in action and do the best for our clients' projects to achieve the goal," said Shovon, the owner, and operator who leads a team of professional freelancers offer online marketing services for organic ranking and lead generation.

With its target market being start-ups and Small business owner in the USA, Shovon said his aim is to establish a freelance work platform where persons can feel confident in hiring freelancers to work as their in-house marketing team. "This is a one-stop service solution that offers reasonable and flexible pricing to suit any budget," noted Shovon, who has over years of online marketing Experience, and is considered a top-rated freelancer on Upwork since last two years.

ABOUT FREELANCERS HUB

Freelancers HUB is not like a traditional or large Digital Marketing Company. It is a small SEO marketing agency with the primary focus of different online marketing services. Search engine optimization, social media marketing, paid advertising, content marketing, viral marketing and brand image building is the primary focus of our all marketing activities. Freelancers HUB SEO Agency is formed by four Upwork-based marketing freelancers to offer their services at an affordable rate to all kind of online business owners around the world.

Media ContactCompany Name: Freelancers HUB – SEO Services ProviderContact Person: Shovon JoarderEmail: Send EmailPhone: +8801712279883Address:New DOHS, MohakhaliCity: DhakaCountry: BangladeshWebsite: www.freelancers-hub.com

Source: Freelancers HUB – A new Internet Marketing Services Company Opened for Business!

5 of the Major e-Commerce Marketing Myths

The e-commerce business has been on a rise for quite a few years now. Gone are days when people preferred to physically check a product before making a decision to buy it. However, this doesn't mean that the buyers have completely shifted over to the online stores and dumped the traditional stores. It's just that the ease of shopping that is presented by some of the e-commerce portals has prompted them to resort to these online portals.

Customers have plenty of options to choose from these days. This has led to a fierce competition among the various e commerce stores. In order to set their online business apart from their competitors, there are numerous marketing strategies that are adopted by these businesses. However, there are quite a few marketing myths that surround the field of e-commerce.

Below is a brief description of the top 5 e-commerce marketing myths that every e-commerce entrepreneur should avoid falling prey to.

Myth 1:  Revenue is the only factor that needs to be considered.

Yes, revenue is one of the most important aspects of an online business. No business can survive if it doesn't generate the revenue that is needed for affording the expenses and also paying to the employees. However, this does not mean that you focus only on this aspect and neglect some of the vital key performance indicators (KPI).

For knowing about the real position of your company financially and also among your customers, there are numerous web metrics that you can take assistance from. These include the search engine click through rates, the conversion and the bounce rate which will enable you to have a proper picture of the business. On the contrary, if you just focused on the revenue then you would miss out on these important aspects.

Myth 2: Just setting up your website is enough for generating traffic.

Having a well designed website and including a huge collection of products is enough to make people visit the website and ultimately buy the products. This is completely wrong as until and unless you make constant efforts from your end the website won't be visible to the online audience. These efforts need to be done on the SEO front. Start by developing a keyword list that is the best representation of the business. All these keywords must be effectively used on the website. All the content that you use on the website must be a high-quality one that will make your customers have a better information about your products and services.

Myth 3: Mobile Consumers Will Not Lead to Conversions

Mobile devices have literally overtaken the desktop computers as the primary device for exploring the web. The same can be said for the e-commerce platforms as well. The e-commerce website that you develop must be compatible with all the different devices so that a customer doesn't face any type of difficulty in viewing the content that has been displayed. Most of the top e-commerce websites ensure that their website works seamlessly on all the different devices and platforms. In no condition, any of the e-commerce portals would want to take a step that would make them lose their customers.

Myth 4: E-commerce Platforms Do Not Matter

There is a common notion that any e-commerce platform will be suitable for building the website. This is not true as the platform you choose for building the site will play a crucial role in integrating some of the top-notch features in it. The platform will enable you to sell your website easily and can be altered by implementing the design changes. However, if you end up making a wrong choice of the platform it can prove to be bad for your business and would prove to be costly for you.

Myth 5: Pricing is an important factor that prompts the customers for making a purchase.

Pricing is an important aspect for a majority of retailers while creating their business strategy. Yes, the customers do take the pricing of a product quite seriously while deciding on whether to make a purchase or not. However, this is not the only thing that they consider. Most of the customers pay attention to the credibility and the trustworthiness of a business rather than the price of their product. Therefore, every e-commerce business must focus its attention on providing top-notch services and win the loyalty of their customers.

In The End

Managing an e-commerce portal is not an easy job for any of the business owners. It becomes crucial that he doesn't follow the wrong strategy or plan. The business owner must focus only the facts and stay away from on the misconceptions and myths that surround his business.

Author Bio:Lauren McLaren is working as a Technical and Content Blogger at Digital Muscles is a Mobile App Development Company in Australia. She has contributed her working to high authority websites. In free time she love to research on technical IT field.

Source: 5 of the Major e-Commerce Marketing Myths

5 Best Digital Marketing Courses to Take Your Career to the Next Level

Try naming just one industry or discipline that changes faster than digital marketing. It isn't just the technology and speed of interaction that changes fast. It's also the way that marketers try new tactics to stay ahead of the curve.

Smart marketers employ new SEO strategies to better target prospects; they alter their messaging based on metrics; they walk a fine line on social media to optimize their presence and ensure their messages are perfectly suited for every audience. In other words, they move quickly and adeptly and they can never stay in place for long, lest they fall behind.

That's why it's critical in the digital marketing space to continually keep your skills sharp and take advantage of every innovation you can find. And with so much noise reverberating in online posts, blogs, and websites, you need a reliable place to learn digital marketing best practices that can set you apart from the pack.

Online education and certification offered by professional training organizations can be a lifesaver for marketing professionals. They give you skills proven to be effective in the workforce, taught by experts who live and breathe the stuff. You stay updated with the latest tools and techniques and you benefit from collaboration and interaction with experts and peers alike.

Why Choose a Career in Digital Marketing?

There is an enormous and still growing demand for digital marketers with finely tuned skills. Jobs exist in almost every imaginable industry. In most cases, you can get into the field with a low cost of entry (i.e. with limited prerequisite knowledge and experience).

They make great money. Average salaries for digital marketing range from $73,000 to $114,000 on Indeed.com1 and there are ample job opportunities for digital marketing managers, SEO managers, SEM/PPC experts, social media managers, affiliate marketing leaders, content marketers, and much more.

Here's a quick primer on five of the best digital marketing courses we've identified for professionals who have a passion for digital trends and techniques and want to take their career to the next level. In this list, we'll highlight the objectives and learning path for each course, how the courses are delivered, what they cost, and what distinguishes each one from the rest (pluses and minuses).

Our Picks for the 5 Best Digital Marketing Courses 1. Simplilearn 's Digital Marketing Specialist Masters Program

The Simplilearn "Masters Programs" are designed to provide comprehensive education on career-changing skillsets. Specifically, the Digital Marketing Specialist Masters Program does just that by covering all of the core digital disciplines in depth – SEO, PPC, social media, conversion optimization, content marketing, web analytics, mobile and email marketing – packaging in-depth knowledge into 14 courses (10 courses of the Digital Marketing Certified Associate program and 4 advanced courses) to complete the learning path.

We see several key advantages to the Simplilearn approach, content, and delivery.

First, the program content goes both broad and deep. It arms learners with all of the vital skill sets needed for digital marketing and provides a wealth of practical knowledge to help you pass various expert exams, such as OMCA (Online Marketing Certified Associate), Google Analytics, AdWords, Facebook, YouTube and more, which never looks bad on your resume.

Second, you nurture skills that are applicable in the real world. Simplilearn provides access to virtual simulations with their Mimic Pro environment (powered by real-world Google data) so you can step into the shoes of a real digital marketer, run marketing experiments, create virtual campaigns, conceptualize landing pages, and conceptualize other key tasks using virtual memory. You're also exposed to more than 40 digital marketing tools and learn how use them in on real projects.

Third, the course advisors are all highly-respected thought leaders and practitioners of digital marketing know-how, including:

Lilach Bullock, listed in Forbes as one of the top 20 women social media power influencers, crowned the Social Influencer of Europe by Oracle, and popular speaker on the digital marketing world circuit.

Stéphane Hamel, Google product strategy expert, named the Most Influential Industry Contributor by the Digital Analytics Association, and creator of the Digital Analytics Maturity Model.

Brad Geddes, author of Advanced Google AdWords, founder of Certified Knowledge, columnist for Search Engine Land, and co-moderator of the AdWords forum on Webmaster World.

Fourth, you get a course structure and delivery that is first-class all the way. The blended learning model combines instructor-led training in virtual live streaming classrooms with self-paced video so participants can follow at their own pace (with full one-year anytime access to courses). Instructors all bring 12+ years of work and training experience to the table, along with regular instruction from a "dream team" of Silicon Valley authors that provide their perspective to real-world scenarios.

Wrap that all up with monthly mentoring sessions, access to a community of digital marketing experts, regular quizzes and exams, downloadable workbooks and apps, and you've got a powerful delivery mechanism. You can complete the course in 4 months by learning for 10 hours a week.

There are no prerequisites for the course, just a passion for learning cutting-edge digital marketing techniques. The cost is $1,499 for the entire five-part course, which includes all courses, videos, exams, and workbooks.

In case you already know what topics you want to learn or which domain you want to specialize in, you can consider Market Motive's Digital Marketing Expert Pass. It allows you to access the entire content of Simplilearn's Digital Marketing Specialist course on a subscription model.

Highlights:

$1,499 for five key digital marketing disciplines

Blended learning model: virtual live classrooms + self-paced videos

Virtual simulations with Mimic Pro environment

40+ marketing tools used on real-world projects

Top instructors and "Dream Team" of Silicon Valley experts

Monthly mentoring sessions and community of marketers

In-depth preparation for key digital marketing certifications

2. Coursera's Digital Marketing Specialization

Coursera's Digital Marketing Specialization is a beginners' course that explores several aspects of the new digital marketing environment, including digital marketing analytics, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and 3D printing. The content is tailored to provide an understanding of the foundations of the new digital marketing landscape and acquire a new set of stories, concepts, and tools to help you digitally create, distribute, promote, and price products and services.

The learning path is fairly extensive but focuses a good amount of its time on concepts and theory, with a drill-down on analytics and marketing channels. Courses offered include:

Marketing in a Digital World

Marketing Analytics in Theory

Marketing Analytics in Practice

Digital Marketing Channels (Landscape)

Digital Marketing Channels (Planning)

Digital Marketing Capstone (final project, 6 weeks to complete)

The Coursera specialization is part of the University of Illinois Master's of Business Administration degree program. The MBA methodology becomes apparent in many of the theory-based course modules, but as digital marketing is a hands-on discipline, it would have been better if practical application was in-built into each element rather than coming at the end.

The course offers open availability, so virtually any job titles with any experience can enroll in the program, and they offer a certificate to highlight your new skills on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, Coursera does not include on-demand support for premium customers (such as companies who wish to up-skill their entire marketing teams).

Each course takes four weeks with 8-10 hours of work per week, 6-8 per week for the first module.

Highlights:

MBA-driven theory and practice with digital marketing techniques

Six four-week courses taking 8-10 hours per week

Open availability but no on-demand support for premium customers

Hands-on project course takes place at the end of the training

Affiliation with University of Illinois MBA

3. Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree

Udacity offers two options for digital marketing training. The Nanodegree program is a full-immersion, full-feature learning experience suited for someone seeking a digital marketing career after graduation. The program offers you the opportunity to master platform-specific skills, while at the same time establishing a broad-based understanding of the whole digital marketing ecosystem.

The learning modules include:

Marketing Fundamentals

Content Strategy

Social Media

Social Media Advertising with Facebook

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Marketing

Display Advertising

Email Marketing

Metrics with Google Analytics

The second option is independent study. If you're a working digital marketer who wants to skill up, add a specialty, or refresh your skills, you can consider the self-study model. This is also a good choice if you want more schedule flexibility, or need to watch your budget.

Udacity also offers real-world projects as part of the program, where you get to run live campaigns on major marketing platforms, and Display Advertising is a unique addition to its learning path to show you how to set up display ads in AdWords. They take a "360-degree approach" to digital marketing learning, but most training courses offer a broad-based approach of the digital marketing ecosystem. Live Q&A sessions and forums to engage with industry experts and mentors and you get your own assigned mentor to provide personalized feedback on projects and expert advice on career services.

Pricing for the Nanodegree program is $999, and for the Independent study it's $599 (upgrade any time to the Nanodegree program for $499). There are no prerequisites and the course load is 10 hours per week, which you complete in three months.

Highlights

$999 for full-immersion Nanodegree program, $599 for independent study

Projects included in 7 of the 9 modules

Display advertising as a separate course offering

Assigned mentor

4. Digital Marketing Institute's Masters in Digital Marketing

The Digital Marketing Institute's online training program is the lengthiest of the bunch. It's a two-year program that you take part time.

Part 1 of the program (60 weeks to complete) consists of 150 hours of digital marketing content via on-demand e-learning: video lectures, downloadable slide presentations. You also submit two 5,000-word assignments: a digital marketing research paper and digital marketing strategy based on an organization of your choice. The program includes six modules:

Communications and consumers

Search marketing

Social media marketing

Mobile marketing

Digital strategy and planning

E-commerce and email

Part 2 is a 15,000-word thesis (52 weeks to complete) with support of academic and industry mentors and a series of webinars. While there are merits of doing one deep project like this, it is a lot of time to spend on one project that may or may not be applicable in the future (i.e., you're putting all your eggs in one basket).

The program is designed to help professionals become a certified digital marketing master. The program is created by the Syllabus Advisory Council, comprised of digital leaders from places like Google and Facebook, to validate learning content to ensure it is cutting-edge, relevant, and technically accurate.

Prerequisites are higher than other offerings. You must hold a recognized third level honors degree in business/commerce/marketing and minimum two-year relevant work experience, or a minimum of three years digital marketing experience. You must also provide a copy of your degree transcript for admittance.

The cost for the program is $10,735 and includes all course materials, personalized support from an industry expert tutor, as well as additional resources in the form of Sandbox accounts, webinars, online tutorials, podcasts, and e-books.

Highlights

$10,735 for two-year masters course

Part 1: 150 hours of coursework (60 weeks)

Part 2: 15,000-word thesis (52 weeks)

6-module curriculum

Higher set of prerequisites for most participants

5. Simplilearn's SEO Specialist Masters Program

The Simplilearn SEO Specialist Masters Program puts particular focus on one of the most important fields in digital marketing: SEO and inbound marketing. The digital transformation of the world has led to a huge demand for qualified SEO specialists who can optimize websites and manage content and links to make content more accessible to digital audiences. SEO is the most in-demand digital marketing skill according to Smart Insights and cmo.com, and nearly half of all content jobs now require SEO skills2.

The SEO Specialist Masters program is designed to transform you into an effective, industry-ready SEO professional. You'll master various facets of SEO, including on-page SEO, link building, content marketing, web analytics and extensive project experience with inbound marketing initiatives.

Learning Path:

DMCA (foundation in digital marketing)

Advanced SEO Tools and Techniques

Advanced Content Marketing

Advanced Web Analytics

The cost of the program is $1,199 and provides access to more than 35 live, instructor-led online classes conducted by expert trainers. You also get access to high-quality eLearning content, simulation exams, a community moderated by experts, and monthly mentoring sessions by thought leaders. This course also comes with an iPad Mini to provide ease of access and learning on the go.

Annual average salaries for SEO experts in the U.S. range from $100,000 to $110,000. Graduates of this course will be positioned for highly sought after jobs such as SEO manager, content marketing specialist, and much more.

Highlights

$1,199 for 35 live, instructor-led online classes conducted by multiple expert trainers

Special focus on SEO, one of the most in-demand sectors of digital marketing

High-quality eLearning content and simulation exams

Community moderated by experts, monthly mentoring sessions by thought leaders

Position yourself for lucrative SEO jobs that range from $100-$110k

Conclusion

Whether you're already in the marketing field or looking to change careers and develop skills that will give you new focus and motivation, digital marketing has a lot to offer. Be sure to take the time to decide what skills you'll need and what courses can meet your needs for the right price. Either way, you'll be happy with the number of online training options available these days, and you'll be delighted with the career opportunities soon to be on the horizon.

There are plenty of options at your disposal when it comes to Digital Marketing courses and this shortlist of the top 5, will make your job easier. Here's a quick recap:

Simplilearn's Digital Marketing Specialist Masters Program

Coursera's Digital Marketing Specialization

Udacity's Digital Marketing Nanodegree

Digital Marketing Institute's Masters in Digital Marketing

Simplilearn's SEO Specialist Masters Program

References

1https://www.indeed.com/salaries/Digital-Marketing-Manager-Salaries 2https://www.conductor.com/blog/2017/03/digital-marketing-salaries-2017/
Source: 5 Best Digital Marketing Courses to Take Your Career to the Next Level

What Caused the Rise of Visual Marketing?

Since humans started communicating, visual symbols made up a lot of what was said. After all, it was easier to hold up a fruit to show your fellow man, rather than try to communicate that you found fruit through sound or written letter.

Our brains are naturally wired to receive visuals cues better than other forms of communication, due to our roots as hunter gatherers. We take cues from what we see, analyzing what represents a positive and what represents a threat.

Cave men didn't write words on the walls of their caves, they drew pictures.

When writing did emerge, it was in the form of hieroglyphics. These pictographic representations were responsible for passing on the collective knowledge of humans during that time period.

Thousands of years later, magazines and newspapers were the primary way the population informed itself. These were dashed with large photos to break up the walls of text they would otherwise contain.

With the rapid adoption of the internet, these two mediums started to fade. And that's where the upswing towards digital visual content began.

The History of Digital Content

We're going to start in 2004, even though that's obviously a bit late. That's because this is when social media as we know it began, and where visual content became something the user could add to the web.2004

In this year, popular social network Facebook launched. In that same year, Flickr, an image and video hosting website launched as well. This was the start of the visual content revolution. From then on users had a place specifically designed for sharing images.2005

YouTube wasn't far behind, launching its video sharing service just a year after Facebook and Flickr emerged. It started as mostly a platform for music videos, but then grew.

Yahoo! purchased Flickr that same year, likely wanting to capitalize on its visual-based success.

Not to be outdone, Facebook released its photos feature, which allowed users to post an unlimited number of photos. At this point, users still couldn't tag friends in photos though.2006

Facebook releases its "News Feed" feature, which compiled all a user's friend's posts into a single feed.

This was a huge change in the way media was consumed and now posts with photos in them are some of the most popular on the feeds.

Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion that same year, after seeing the platform's almost immediate success.2010

Pinterest, a photo sharing website launched. This network focused on photos, which users could discover and compile into their own personal "Boards"

This was also the same year that Instagram launched. These two services are both focused on images, which in turn changed how many other social platforms handled video and images on their websites.2011

Snapchat launched, creating a new type of video/audio sharing that would disappear after it was viewed.2012

Snapchat hops aboard the video train, allowing its users to share 10 second videos. This same year, Instagram is purchased by Facebook for $1 billion.

This same year, Vine is purchased by Twitter.

 2013

The next year, Instagram also releases video sharing. In October of this year, Snapchat introduced Stories to the platform.

By 2013, Vine is an overnight success after its launch on Windows and Android Devices. It was the most downloaded video sharing app on the market, where users can send each other six second videos. 2016

Then, in August 2016, Facebook launched stories on Instagram, adding in more features, including live streaming.

This was too much for the short-lived Vine, which was shut down by Twitter late in the year.2017

By April, Instagram stories had more daily active users than Snapchat. Facebook has also launched stories features on Snapchat, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook itself.

This is how visual content went from just a small fry online to the dominating force.

Why It Works

Visual content works for a variety of reasons. As mentioned above, our brains were not wired originally for language. They were wired for visual signals, so it makes sense that they respond better to visual content.

Visual content makes it both easier and faster to tell compelling stories. You can use all the words you want, but it won't replace a highly effective picture. Combined with simple, eloquent copy, images can say a lot with very little.

The Future?

Looking forward, augmented reality is likely going to be a top player. Now, on platforms like Snapchat, marketers are able to buy filters, which are a form of augmented reality. These are usually location based, but they will likely change to be based on targeting at some point in the future.

I think more of these highly interactive experiences utilizing mobile devices will be implemented. They will be highly personalized based off user information, sponsoring the appearance of the user and their surroundings.

Slowly, visual content promises to create more interactive and immersive experiences. Beyond AR, the technology of VR is getting cheaper to create. This means that eventually, VR technology will be widely used by marketers.

As a marketer, your best bet to keep up with current marketing technology is to test and handle the latest consumer apps and solutions. Some of these, especially when they have to do with ecommerce and social, will become the technologies of the future.

Did you enjoy today's post? What other factors contributed to the rise of visual marketing? Where do you think visual marketing is headed in the future?

The following two tabs change content below.

Acadia Otlowski is the editor and copywriter at HiP. She handles writing subject lines and email copy as well as contributing weekly to the blog. Acadia is a journalism major turned marketing enthusiast with a heavy background in research and writing. Outside of work, she is an avid reader and storyteller, as well as a fire performer.

Source: What Caused the Rise of Visual Marketing?

5 Mobile Marketing Practices Every Profit-Minded Business Should Adopt

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With millennials checking their phones 150 times a day and the average person regardless of age spending five hours a day on his or her smartphone, mobile devices are firmly entrenched as today's leading media.By 2019, mobile advertising will represent 72 percent of all U.S. digital advertising.

Related: 104 Facts You Didn't Know About Mobile Marketing (Infographic)

This applies to all ecommerce sites; even product-review sites like Yelp or BestAdvisor are in this mix. The message is that if you're not being smart about reaching your customers via mobile, you're leaving a ton of money on the table. So, how can you be smart?

Here are five mobile marketing practices companies must adopt in the age of "the mobile moment."

1. Location-based marketing

The era of location-based marketing is here. Businesses send customers notifications when they pass a store and promotions when they are near strategic locations where the brand's products or services would be useful.

In this context, Foursquare recently released Foursquare Analytics, which grants client businesses and marketers access to location intelligence and technology for more than 90 million geofenced locations around the world.

The company has also moved to integrate Uber into its system, enabling users both to discover places to go and also get there, using the same app. In fact, users can now order a ride from inside Foursquare without having to switch applications. No need to type in the address, look up directions or struggle through translations.

2. In-app marketing

Google Play currently offers 2.8 million apps, while Apple has 2.2 million. With such intense competition, apps must offer the most personalized service possible, or risk being ditched. In-app marketing fuels relevance and engagement, which in turn drives retention, loyalty and lifetime value.

An example of this is the challenge faced by India's Federal Bank as a result of that country's 2016 "demonetization plan" (when it replaced its 500 and 1,000 rupee notes with 2000 notes). Within months of the plan's implementation, over 14 million Indians downloaded the bank's new apps, and digital-payment use surged up to 80-fold among India's 260 million smartphone owners.

Related: Top 7 Reasons You Should Make Mobile Marketing a Priority

To capitalize on this deluge of new app users, the bank turned to Insert, an in-app marketing platform that allows marketers to create and publish targeted campaigns quickly, independent of development resources.

It further deployed contextual campaigns around a national holiday, as well as other targeted promotions, directly in the app. This resulted in an immediate uptick in conversions and retention.

3. SMS marketing

Mobile text marketing is the focus of many misconceptions, but with 91 percent of millennials text messaging weekly, marketing is essential. Many corporations, including Coca-Cola, Walmart and Toys 'R' Us, have integrated text messaging into their mobile-marketing strategies.

When a Domino's pizza franchise in North Carolina wanted to improve advertising at college sports games, it turned to EZtexting, a short messaging marketing service (SMS). Previous campaigns had displayed Domino's web address in ads, but the franchise found that most fans didn't bother jotting down a URL during a basketball game.

In response, Domino's reconfigured its new ads to tell viewers to text a certain number to get free or discounted pizza. Responses skyrocketed.

4. Mobile marketing measurement

Mobile ad revenue recently surpassed the amount spent on desktop ad revenue. With billions of dollars being dedicated to reach customers on their mobile devices, a scientific approach to mobile marketing has become necessary. AppsFlyer illustrates this approach, as a mobile attribution and marketing data-analytics company that helps marketers pinpoint their targeting, optimize their ad spend and boost their ROI.

Take the example of Game Circus, creators of the smash hit mobile video game Coin Dozer. Without the right data, mobile game developers were having difficulty reacting quickly to changes in the market or determining if the quality of users generated by certain ad channels was improving or declining over time.

The marketing team took action: It began using AppsFlyer to link attribution data to the engagement and LTV metrics it was monitoring at the game or campaign level. The result? Coin Dozer subsequently achieved a 2.3-times increase in total installs and more than a 40 percent increase in gross profit.

5. QR codes

One way to swiftly provide relevant information to mobile users is through the use of QR codes. These digital bar codes act as shortcuts for getting valuable information into the hands of customers and prospects. QR codes are highly versatile and can function as a Facebook "like" button as well as offer coupons, provide tourists with information and perform other functions.

One memorable QR campaign was the "Guinness QR code on a beer glass" action brilliantly dreamed up by advertising agency BBDO. When customers poured a Guinness -- and only a Guinness -- into a special glass, the beer's black color filled out a code on the glass that was scannable with a smartphone. Once it was scanned, customers could tweet about their pints, update their Facebook status, check in via Foursquare, download coupons and promotions and invite friends to join them.

The QR code could even launch exclusive Guinness content.

Final words

Each of these tactics can be duplicated -- by you. What's more, each tactic offers your company the ability to increase exposure, grow, attract and retain clients in ways that are relevant, timely and appealing to their interest in digital media.

Related: 4 Tips For Mobile-Marketing Success in 2017

So, give one or more of these a try: By continuing to develop your business's mobile-marketing activities, you'll be positioning your company exactly where your customers are hanging out.

Toby Nwazor

Toby Nwazor is an consumer-goods entrepreneur and freelance writer. Get in touch with him for ghost writing, website content creation and other professional writing services.

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Source: 5 Mobile Marketing Practices Every Profit-Minded Business Should Adopt

6 Sales and Marketing Tips & Ideas to Grow Your Business

To grow a business these days, one needs to understand why traditional sales and marketing strategies are failing and how to develop a sales marketing strategy that works.

What is Sales Marketing?

A well-crafted combination of sales and marketing is necessary for successful business growth. Sales entail the direct one-on-one interactions, those interpersonal connections that directly add revenue to the bank accounts. Telephone calls, networking, and meetings are all part of the direct sales process.

Marketing, on the other hand, involves all those actions that a business takes to reach and recruit prospects. Examples include direct mail campaigns, advertising, public relations, and television or radio commercials.

Direct sales marketing embodies all of these strategies. The number of 'touches' a prospect requires to convert into a sale varies, though research suggests anywhere between three and twelve touch points. More important than quantity, then, is following and maximizing each contact so that the time, cost, and effort put into each sale decreases.

What Isn't Working?

Some of the most tried-and-true methods of marketing still work. People still love video advertising, for instance. In fact, video accounts for 69 percent of all consumer Internet traffic, according to Cisco Visual Networking. However, many other marketing strategies are falling flat. To be sure, Sirius Decisions reports the average sales cycle has increased by 22 percent over the past five years since more decision-makers are being involved in the buying process.

According to the 2016 DMA Response Rate Report, direct mail is expected to experience a 19% decline over the next 12 months;

A mere 13% of people who read print publications report ever looking at the ads;

44% of direct mail is never opened;

70% to 80% of online users don't look at online ads, preferring to focus only on organic search results;

86% of people ignore television commercials.

Effective Sales Marketing Ideas

As buyers become increasingly over-saturated with advertising gimmicks, it becomes even more important for business owners and marketers to devise innovative ways to target potential customers. It is the role of a business owner, then, to ensure that information is delivered to prospective customers at the right time, in the right format, and on the right platforms. This is where an inbound marketing strategy becomes crucial.

Research

There's no need to spend copious amounts of time drudging up case studies. Instead, 'research' refers to time spent understanding the company and its goals, understanding the industry, and understanding the customers. This is where business owners focus on attracting customers rather than seeking leads and customers.

Clarify what the business is and ask:

What does it mean to 'grow the business?'

How will someone know if they're successful?

What are the long and short-term goals?

What is the sales process?

Check out the industry

Whether a person has been in the industry for two, ten, or twenty years, chances are pretty high that the industry will keep on changing. As innovations come up or new expectations are established, it's important to stay ahead of the curve. This is where industry research comes in.

How do other businesses fare against meeting (or exceeding) the goals?

What marketing strategies are other businesses in that industry doing to attract clients or customers?

What current events and news is impacting that industry?

Is there a business to business marketplace a business owner can access?

Are there any leaders that a business owner can speak to within the industry?

Figure out your customer base

Speak to the people on the ground—those who directly communicate with customers—to better understand the customer base. These are the people who can provide the most insight into what customers want. When talking to them, here are some worthwhile questions to ask:

Which marketing tactics are most effective?

Are customers complaining about any current strategies, such as too many emails or obnoxious ads?

What are the customer demographics?

What questions are the sales teams answering most?

What pain point/s does the product or service help alleviate?

Create Effective Content

No longer is it sufficient to leave a website dormant while expecting customers to magically discover its presence. Instead, business owners should update its content consistently. Over 70 percent of marketers say relevant content is the most effective search engine optimization (SEO) tactic, while companies that blog 16 times or more per month enjoy four times more leads than those who publish blog content less than five times a month.

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The most effective content is that which focuses on helping customers reach their goals and/or solve their problems. While content on the Internet often grows stale within weeks after publication, it's best to make sure content is as evergreen as possible so that it can retain its value for years to come.

Recognizing the importance of having an efficient, skilled copywriter either on staff or freelance is imperative. Doing so can increase the company's revenue substantially, double its customer retention rate, and create brand recognition.

Pay attention to SEO

In the world of marketing, SEO is the latest buzzphrase—and with good reason. SEO consists of all the factors that influence search engine ranking. It is like turning on a spotlight so that customers know where to find a business. After discovering what a company's customers are looking for (see above), it's important to weave those keywords onto every page of the website.

To optimize a website for SEO, Entrepreneur magazine suggests that business owners:

Create a priority list of targeted search terms that pertain to the customer base and market segment;

Review pertinent industry sources and competitive lists to determine what keywords should be used;

If users frequently misspell a word, include that in the webpages as well;

Track the site's rankings every 30 to 45 days to ensure the keywords remain effective;

Determine goals ahead of time and make sure they are measurable so that it's possible to note the return on investment regularly;

Create page titles;

Develop new sitemaps for Google and Bing;

Place strategic words and phrases throughout the content on every page;

Continually test and measure the business's success using objective tools to do so.

Develop Podcasts

People love to receive something for nothing. In the world of marketing, the most valuable asset is knowledge. Offer this to customers through an effective use of Podcasts. Podcast listening increased by 23 percent between 2015 and 2016.

Become social media savvy

The effectiveness of social media marketing is contentious. While some people say it's a complete waste of time, the numbers suggest otherwise. After all, the breadth of audience participation is unparalleled.

72 percent of adult Internet users utilize Facebook;

During the past two years, content consumption on Facebook has increased by 57 percent;

Instagram has 500 million active monthly users;

LinkedIn has 450 million members, with a reported 25 percent active on a monthly basis;

Thirty percent of U.S. millennial internet users use Snapchat regularly.

Stay in contact

Depending on the product or service offered, it may be that the company is on the customer's mind daily, such as the case with a food product, or only occasionally, as is the case with expensive beauty treatments. Regardless, it's critical to be in the customer's thoughts as soon as they are ready to buy. The way to do that is to maintain constant and consistent communication.

Collect the customer's information at every opportunity;

Craft email or text campaigns to stay in contact with prospects and previous customers;

Be sure the business is listed in local directories and search engines.

Effective marketing means more than relying on direct mail advertising or television commercials. It has evolved into a multi-dimensional, multi-sensory process. Keep up with industry trends, as well as the new technology available to assist marketing efforts using these suggestions.

Source: 6 Sales and Marketing Tips & Ideas to Grow Your Business

Marketing Series Teaches Local Businesses How to Capture and Keep Clients, Long-term

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ - Winning loyal customers is one of the toughest challenges that a business owner may face. It was out with the old and in with the new – inbound marketing tactics, on Monday, July 17, as guest speaker Walter Pardo offered some practical solutions during the latest installment of the TAPinto Marketing Series, held at Delicious Heights in Berkeley Heights.

To an intimate room full of fellow business owners and marketing professionals, the multi-business owner posed this question, "What is your marketing platform to attract, convert, close and delight your prospects of customers?"

Pardo, who is also the managing editor of TAPinto Basking Ridge, explained how to navigate through the four Essential Phases of a Good Sales Funnel, which includes traffic source, lead capture, lead development and lead conversion. From a marketing perspective, a good leader should ask the following questions, "How many clients do we have in our funnel? How to keep track of that, and what is our plan?

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"The Funnel is the pathway from attraction to conversion that prospects take to becoming satisfied clients," he explained. "TAP can help everybody understand the first two areas of that funnel because lead development is crucial to the overall strength of moving down that funnel."

Pardo went on to explain that "80 percent of all sales are made on the fifth to 12th contact, but people will usually stop calling after the second or third call.

Blogs, feature stories, social media publishing, press releases, etc., are the obvious marketing attractions to drive traffic to a website. But, how do you capture the lead? With a little bit of patience, "survey of clients is key," Pardo said. 

Having the traffic and having someone do a call to action (register to attend an event, sign up for a webinar, etc.) to a landing page document will lead them to the next step through the funnel, which is to engage and educate. And the initial goal is to educate somebody, not to sell them anything.

"You have to have an exchange for an exchange," he pointed out.

Other topics at the networking breakfast included search engine optimization (SEO) and how to categorize customers in order to figure out their specific needs. Learning about "customer centric marketing" was a favorite for those who attended this week's session.

Cathy Balsamo of Autumn Lake Healthcare at Berkeley Heights thought the workshop was "wonderful." The nursing home offers inpatient, outpatient and long-term care services for those in need. Figuring out the marketing tools to use, and how to question potential clients will come in handy for her when working with new patients and their families.

"It was so informative, learning how to figure people out, and how you would know who's this, who's that, and what personality," she said.

Agency Principal John Hawk of the John Hawk Agency was already familiar with the "Emotional Intelligence" marketing strategy. He runs the Allstate New Jersey Insurance Company on South Passaic Avenue in Chatham.

"I find this really helpful, especially when you're hiring people. People are wired to do certain things, and once you figure out what they're wired to do, you can put them in the right job. If you put someone in a sales job and they're not that type of person, then it will never happen," he said.

Bobbie Peer, Owner and Publisher of TAPinto sites for Berkeley Heights, Mountainside and New Providence said, "We're the platform that draws in the people."

"A perfect example of successful inbound marketing is between our marketing partnership with Delicious Heights," said Peer. "We meet with them regularly to decide on their next 'call to action.' We plan a calendar of events to custom promote -- keeping their message fresh to attract our readers attention. The 'call to action' tells our reader to click to learn about specific topics or to register for an event. This marketing process works."

To learn more about using TAPinto as your platform for inbound marketing, contact bpeer@tapinto.net or call (908)230-5760.

Source: Marketing Series Teaches Local Businesses How to Capture and Keep Clients, Long-term

Affiliate Marketing 101: A Breakdown For Beginners

When I started blogging six years ago, I dove right into affiliate marketing without knowing what the heck it was all about.

I would visit other websites and they'd have all these ads splashed on their pages and they'd talk about how easy it was to make money that way. I thought to myself, "I want to do that too." So I did and it was an epic fail!

We live and learn, right?

Anyway, I finally got the hang of this affiliate marketing thing. Believe me there is more to it than splashing ads on your website.

If you're just getting into affiliate marketing, this post is going to give you a breakdown about it, the different ways to promote products and help you understand the different ways you get paid.

Are you ready? Let's start with what is affiliate marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing

Wikipedia defines affiliate marketing as a type of performance-based marketing in which a business or brand rewards their affiliates – that would be you – for each visitor or customer brought by your marketing efforts.

Basically it's a marketing system in which you get paid for referring your visitors to a brand or retailer's website.

Now, if you're going to be an affiliate, here are a few terms you should become familiar with.

A merchant is also known as the retailer or brand. They are the ones whose products you would be promoting.

The network is the 'company' in which you would find the retailers and brands to promote. They are also the ones who handles the offers, provides you with the tools to promote the products as well as payments.

And finally, you will be referred to as an affiliate or publisher.

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

There are several reason why a lot of bloggers become affiliate marketers and it can benefit you, too.

For one thing, you can earn a passive income as an affiliate.

There is no limit to your earnings potential.

As an affiliate, you don't have to worry about products or customer issues.

And you don't need to have any special skills. All you need to know is basic HTML to copy and paste codes to your website.

How To Promote Affiliate Products

The most common way to promote an affiliate product is by placing a banner on your website like the screenshot you see below.

But there are other ways you to promote them.

You can promote products in a blog post, product review or a product comparison post. You can create a course or tutorial, promote it in a tools and resource page on your site or promote it in a "best of " blog post like the one I did called Blogging Tools Every Blogger Should Be Using or in your newsletter.

Understanding How Affiliates Get Paid

There are several ways affiliates are paid and here's a quick breakdown of what those are and what they mean.

Cost Per Action

CPA programs pays you when a specific action is taken by one of your visitors like clicks, impressions, sign-ups, registrations or opt-in. In this program you don't get paid for direct sales and the payout rates are lower than a CPS.

And speaking of CPS…

Cost-per-sale

In a cost-per-sale (CPS) program, also known as pay-per-sale the affiliate is paid when a customer follows an affiliate link and makes a purchase. Although there is a potential to earn a high commission, this program usually has the lowest conversion rate.

Pay-per-lead

In this program, affiliates are paid, provided the action is within the guidelines of the affiliate agreement, when a customer completes a certain action like completing a sign-up form for a newsletter, for a product trial offer or other action chosen by the advertiser.

Click-through rate

The easiest way to earn money as an affiliate is when you're paid by CTR or click-through rate.

A CTR is a percentage used to measure the effectiveness of an advertisement or other link on a web page, obtained by dividing the number of clicks on the link by the number of times the link was viewed.

The click-through rate is calculated by taking the number of clicks on a link or banner divided by the total number of page views on your site, multiplied by 100.

For example: You had 500 clicks from a banner ad, your total page views was 15,000. It would look like this:  500/15000 = 0.033 x 100 = 3.333. Your estimated earnings would be $3.34. Still, be sure to read the terms and conditions of the affiliate network you sign up with for their pay conditions.

While that doesn't sound like a lot, if you promote affiliate marketing the right way, you can make good money.

Make Sure You Promote Relevant Products

You have to make sure the products you promote are relevant to your community and to your niche. It's tempting to fill your pages with all kinds of ads. I can definitely understand, after all, your goal is to make money. But a couple things can happen with that.

Your readers can become overwhelmed with the ads and blog post for products they don't have a need for. So they leave, and never return. For example, if you have a fashion blog and you have ads placed for computer software products the chances of your visitor clicking on that ad are low to none.

Depending on the type of ad (video or moving graphics), it can slow down your site's load time. And as you know that's a hot topic right now.

Learn From The Experts

I didn't learn about affiliate marketing on my own. I followed great bloggers who took the time to share their experiences and showed their readers the ins and outs of affiliate marketing.

You might remember I interviewed Donna Merrill this year and she shared some great blogging advice with us. She recently launched Donna Merrill Buzz offering great interviews with top bloggers who share their secrets to success.

Check out this interview with Leslie Federici co-founder of Power Affiliate Club. This is a great resource if you are new to affiliate marketing.

She's got more great interviews on Donna Merrill Buzz. Go check it out!

For a list of affiliate networks check out these posts:

The Top 19 Affiliate Networks For New Bloggers

The Best Affiliate Networks and Merchants For Blog Niche Bloggers

Over To You

So that's what affiliate marketing is in a nutshell.

I hope this post clarified any questions you had.

But If you have any other questions feel free to leave them in the comments below.

If you're a seasoned affiliate marketer, I would really appreciate any advice you have to share as well!

And before you go, don't forget to share this post on social media!

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Source: Affiliate Marketing 101: A Breakdown For Beginners