Home Tags Posts tagged with "Marketing"
Tag:

Marketing

Online Marketing

10 Must Reads for Improving Your Online Marketing

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Having a good website and clear online marketing strategy is very important in today’s business world. But there’s a lot that goes into building an online strategy. So we rounded up some of the best tips and related posts from members of our small business community. Read on for the full list in this week’s Small Business Trends community and information roundup.

Create a Welcoming Website

(Barefoot Basics)

What do your customers see when they go to your website? Do they see a site that is welcoming and professional, or one that is confusing and difficult to navigate? This post from Rochelle Stone explains the importance of creating a welcoming website and some things to consider in order to accomplish that goal.

Correct These Google Analytics Blind Spots

(Marketing Land)

If you have a website for your business, then you probably use a service like Google Analytics to measure its performance. But there are some website features that Google Analytics doesn’t help you with. This post from Brian Massey outlines some of those Google Analytics blind spots and offers solutions for correcting them.

Make Your Web Content Live Up to Its Promise

(Premier Content Source)

Writing great headlines and promoting content is very important to finding online success. But your actual content needs to live up to the hype. Here, Nicole Beckett shares some thoughts on creating great content. And the BizSugar community discusses the post further here.

Use These Tips for Your Holiday Facebook Strategy

(Competitive Edge)

When the holiday season rolls around, many businesses take the opportunity to spruce up their social media promotions. In fact, there are many different ways you can make your Facebook page more inviting for holiday customers. This post by Shantha Wetterhan shares three strategies for optimizing your holiday Facebook presence.

Measure Your Social Media ROI

(Stuart J Davidson)

When you use social media in your marketing efforts, it can be difficult to really tell what you are getting out of it. But this post from Stuart J. Davidson shares some methods for measuring social media ROI. And BizSugar members talk more about the post here.

Avoid These Online Marketing Mistakes

(Belle Communications)

So you’re marketing your business online. That’s great. But there are plenty of roadblocks that can negatively impact your online marketing efforts. Here, Kate Finley shares 10 of the most common online marketing mistakes and how you can avoid them.

Update Your Content Marketing Efforts

(Griot Digital)

Content marketing is a constantly evolving field. It’s not just the tools that change though. Businesses also need to update the methods they use for trying to reach customers. This post by Nadia James includes some thoughts on content marketing along with a helpful infographic.

Tell a Great Story

(Resonance Content)

It’s important to tell a story with your online and in-person marketing efforts. Part of that story is to explain who exactly you are. Here, Rachel Parker shares some methods for telling your story effectively. And BizSugar members talk more about the post here.

Use These Internet Security Tips in the Workplace

(Internet Billboards)

Online security is becoming increasingly important, particularly for business matters. In this post, Agnes Marylinn shares some tips for improving internet security in the workplace.

Get Your Great Content Noticed With SEO

(XEN)

If you want to get your website or blog noticed, you need to have great content. But if no one ever sees that content in the first place, it still won’t do any good. This post by Kerry Butters shares some thoughts on balancing SEO and great content. And the BizSugar community shares some thoughts on SEO as well.

[“Source-smallbiztrends”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

Step Up Your Online Marketing Efforts with These 10 Tips

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Today’s businesses need an online marketing strategy to succeed. While every business’s strategy may look a bit different, there are some common threads that hold most of those successful strategies together.

Members of the small business community have plenty of tips to share when it comes to successfully marketing businesses online. Check out their top tips below.

Make Your Way with Social Media

Social media isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. You have to determine the strategy that is going to work best for your business, as Rachel Strella of Strella Social Media discusses here. And Strella elaborated on these suggestions in a conversation in BizSugar community here.

Super Charge Your Local Search Results

Even for local businesses, online marketing can make a huge difference. Local search, for example, can help to bring new faces to your store, restaurant or other local business. To make the most of your local search marketing, check out this Inc article by Small Business Trends CEO Anita Campbell.

Think About These Things for Your Website’s Social Sharing Features

Letting customers or followers do some of your online marketing for you can really help out and save you time. But you need to make sharing your content easy for them. So in this article at the Social Media Week, Larry Alton suggests some things you should think about when incorporating social sharing buttons into your website.

Keep Up with Marketing Technology Trends

Thanks to technology, online marketing is constantly changing. That means that you need to keep up with the new trends in order to stay relevant to tech savvy consumers. This article at Docurated by Angela Stringfellow includes some marketing technology trends that are poised to re-shape the world of marketing.

Grow Your Website Traffic

Content creation can be a key part of your online marketing strategy. But you need to build traffic in order for your content to be effective. This post on the official dlvr.it blog by Bill Flitter includes a playbook for growing traffic to your content.

Expect These Things When Joining Social Media

As a small business owner, the idea of joining various social media sites and regularly using them as part of your online marketing plan can seem daunting. But if you know what to expect, the process can be a bit easier. Here on NutsPR, Corina Manea shares some things you should expect when joining social media as a small business owner.

Use These Best Practices for Twitter Polls

Twitter’s polling feature can help you to gain insights and interaction from your followers on the platform. And the microblogging site has now revealed some of the best practices that people should use when running polls, which Matt Southern covers in this Search Engine Journal article. BizSugar members also chime in with their own thoughts here.

Consider Starting Your Own Podcast

Lots of businesses have websites and social media accounts. But starting your own podcast can really help you to stand out in today’s business world. Here, Ileane Smith shares some of the benefits that businesses could realize through starting a podcast.

Create a Content Anchor

When creating content for an online audience, the length and quality of your content can make a big difference in how many people see and interact with it. In this post on Blogger Sidekick, Will Blunt discusses the concept of a content anchor and how it could help your online marketing strategy.

Use Influencer Marketing That Works

Influencer marketing is a relatively new concept to a lot of businesses. But it can really jumpstart your online marketing efforts if used correctly. Here, Ann Smarty discusses how small businesses can use influencer marketing in a way that should work both now and in the future.

If you’d like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to:  [email protected].

[“Source-smallbiztrends”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Internet

10 Tips to Build an Effective Online Marketing Strategy

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Image result for Online Marketing Strategy

There are so many different ways to market a business online these days. But luckily, you don’t need to try all of them in order to find out what works. Members of our small business community have already done some of the legwork for you. Here are some of their top tips for developing an effective online marketing strategy.

Increase Website Traffic and Get Better Leads

Getting traffic to your website only really helps your business if you’re able to convert some leads. But there are some simple methods you can use to increase your web traffic while also converting leads, as Christopher Uschan outlines in this Acumium blog post.

Create an Insta Worthy Account

Instagram is becoming an increasingly popular marketing tool for businesses. But you need to really focus on creating an account that’s worthy of the platform if you want to get good results. Here, Kayla Wilkinson shares some tips for using Instagram on the Inkhouse Inklings Blog.

Follow These Social Media Rules of Thumb

Social media marketing isn’t an exact science. But there are some general rules that you can follow to make your business accounts more effective. Here, Rachel Strella of Strella Social Media shares some social media rules of thumb. And the BizSugar community chimes in with some thoughts here.

Adopt These Digital Marketing Strategies From Pokemon Go

Chances are, you’ve played or are at least aware of the augmented reality game that’s taking the mobile world by storm — Pokemon Go. But aside from being a fun and successful app, Pokemon Go can actually provide some useful digital marketing lessons to other businesses, as Jilesh Varma shares in this Blurbpoint post.

Don’t Build Your Whole Content Strategy on Rental Property

Social media and blogging platforms can be great for sharing content. But if you only rely on those platforms without having an actual site that you own and control completely, you could find your business in trouble if those platforms decide to make changes. Frank Strong of Sword and the Script explains more here.

Amplify Your Marketing Productivity With These Tools

When managing your marketing efforts, you can use a number of different tools to improve your results and efficiency. In this Duct Tape Marketing post, Joanne Torres shares some top marketing productivity tools. And BizSugar members also comment on the post here.

Use These Quick SEO Hacks for Newbies

SEO can be a complicated concept if you’re just getting started. But there are some simple things you can do to make the whole process of optimizing for search engines a bit easier. Here are some SEO hacks from Stephan Spencer on the Search Engine Land blog.

Use Small Data to Help Increase Sales

You hear a lot about big data these days. But small data can actually be quite helpful for businesses too. In this post, Neil Patel explains how you can use small data in your business to increase sales.

Launch Your Startup With an Infographic

Infographics can help you get messages across to online consumers in an interesting visual format. Here, Nick Bowersox shares some tips for using infographics in marketing efforts on the crowdSPRING blog. You can also see input from members of the BizSugar community here.

Create a SaaS Knowledge Base Your Customers Will Love

Technology has created plenty of opportunities for businesses to really personalize experiences for their customers. SaaS knowledge bases provide some of those opportunities when used effectively. In this Process Street post, Robin Singh shares how you can create a knowledge base your customers will love.

If you’d like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to:  [email protected]

Online Marketing Photo via Shutterstock

[“Source-smallbiztrends”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

8 Digital Marketing Stats That Got Our Attention This Week

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

It was an unusually busy week in the realm of interactive numbers.
iStock.com

It was another intriguing week in online marketing data points, with even more eyebrow-raising mobile numbers than usual. Check out the eight that we found particularly noteworthy:

1. Social TV in 2017
Want to know which TV shows are currently killing it on social? AMC program The Walking Dead—with 18 million engagements recently—definitely is, per 4C, which looked into social engagement for the first four-and-a-half months of this year.

2. Spare change
According to TechCrunch, Pokemon Go charges retailers anywhere from 15 cents to 50 cents every time a user visits a sponsored location. Sponsored locations are one of the ad products the smartphone-based, virtuality-reality-based app offers marketers.

3. Gamers shop—a lot
Speaking of smartphone games, Chartboost, a mobile app ad network, analyzed activity across 64 million devices and found that mobile gaming audiences are 62 percent female and normally older than 25 years of age. In addition, 47 percent of mobile gamers shop online more than three hours per week, which is high compared to 28 percent for non-gamers.

What’s more, Chartboost claimed that the most popular mobile game beats the scale of TV networks.

4. Mobile eats away at traditional media
By 2019, the mobile web will account for 26 percent of all media consumption globally, up from 19 percent last year, per Zenith Media’s third annual forecast. TV and radio execs probably dislike reading those numbers.

5. Where Twitter routs Snapchat
Muck Rack surveyed 400 journalists and found that 70 percent think Twitter is a valuable reporting tool, while roughly 4 percent thought the same of Snapchat. Yeah, that’s kind of low for Snapchat.

6. Smells like teen social
Meet Baby Ariel, a star on Musical.ly, the hyperaddictive social media platform that counts more than 100 million users, or “musers,” many of them Gen Zers. Baby Ariel—a 16-year-old Floridian whose real name is Ariel Martin—has 19.5 million Musical.ly followers. Read our full story on the rising star here.

For the uninitiated, the 3-year-old Musical.ly lets users share short videos of themselves lip-syncing to popular songs or bits of prerecorded dialogue. It’s become a popular place for artists to debut new singles and for brands to connect with kids and teens. 

7. Mary’s data day
Mary Meeker released her uber-hyped internet trends report on Wednesday. Here’s one of her more interesting data points: Over the last four years, YouTube’s share of mobile traffic has fallen from 30 percent to 20 percent, while Facebook’s share has increased from 7 percent to 14 percent.

8. Superhero inspires super chatter
Fifty-four percent of people talking about the movie Wonder Woman online are female, per Taykey. Not entirely surprising. More interestingly, Gen X women are showing up in full force to digitally discuss the film, which is expected to be a hit in spite of controversial reviews.

[“Source-ndtv”]
0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

SBI Recruitment: Last Two Days To Apply For Marketing Jobs

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

The last date to register and pay fees online is June 2, 2017, SBI said.

The last date to register and pay fees online is June 2, 2017, SBI said.
HIGHLIGHTS
SBI extends last date to apply for positions in market department
Last date to register, pay fees online is June 2, 2017
Application fee of Rs. 600 is required to be paid online
Do you aspire to work in SBI, India’s largest bank? State Bank of India (SBI) is hiring specialists for its marketing department on a contractual basis. SBI has extended the last day to apply online for the positions, according to an advertisement on the bank’s website. The last date to register and pay fees online is June 2, 2017. SBI is hiring one senior vice president (brand/media/research), one vice president (marketing communications), one vice president (digital marketing), one vice president (media strategy & operations) and one senior manager (digital marketing). Selection will be based on short-listing – based on their qualification, experience and overall suitability – and personal interview, SBI said. The banking major has also relaxed the required experience by two years for two vice president roles – marketing communications and media strategy & operations, it said.

sbi marketing dept jobs

Candidates applying for the position of senior vice president (brand/media/research) should have a minimum 8 years of experience, “with career experience either in BFSI/ Telecom or any other large service sector”. Graduates in any discipline can apply and those with MBA in Marketing will be preferred, SBI said.
sbi marketing dept jobsCandidates applying for the post of vice president (media strategy & operations) need a minimum eight years of experience “in varied marketing roles including media strategy and operations”.

Without divulging the salary being offered on these roles, SBI said: “The compensation package would comprise of fixed and variable components but not a limiting factor for a suitable candidate.”

An application fee (non-refundable) of Rs. 600 is applicable, which needs to be paid online.

Some of the responsibilities of the senior vice presidents listed by SBI included:

Strategising and implementation of effective marketing plans for different Business Units in line with their business objectives
Developing sharp marketing briefs, based on compelling market/consumer insights
Managing different agency partners (creative, media, research etc.) and other vendors, to get them to deliver high quality output within defined marketing budget and timelines

Also, for the position of vice president (digital marketing), SBI is looking for candidates with MBA from a recognised university and a minimum experience of eight years “in varied roles including Digital Marketing. Work experience in a Public Sector Bank, preferably with awareness of SBI work culture and management practices.” Among other skills, SBI has mentioned core experience in product marketing using digital media platforms with specific experience in search and display, SEO, SEM and programmatic.

For latest news on Business, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
Story first published on: June 01, 2017 10:55 (IST)

[“Source-ndtv”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

Starting Your Online Marketing Campaign? Here Are a Few Tips

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Digital marketing

muneebfarman / PixabayDigital marketing seems to be all the rage right now. It’s one of the most efficient and trusted business strategies out there today, and a lot of firms and companies rely on digital marketing to boost their sales, draw new clients and get their products and brand some exposure.

However, deciding to embark on a digital marketing campaign doesn’t necessarily guarantee success; building a strong online presence is a process that involves perfectly executed steps and a fully feasible strategy. For businesses that have it in mind to pursue this channel of activity, here are a few tips that could prove nifty:

Define your Goals

A digital marketing strategy, when handled effectively, is capable of exponentially and sporadically increasing your clientele. However, it is highly important to clearly state and set your goals and what you wish to get out of this investment. These goals will act as guidelines that will lead your work efforts. When setting goals, the most important thing to note is that you should avoid setting goals that are just unachievable- it could set the bar too high, and that could mean that before you begin to reap the fruits of digital marketing, you’re already failing. The goals have to be feasible and realistic, especially considering the amount of manpower and resources being invested in it. Eventually, if you’re able to achieve your goals, good. If not, take it in stride. Work on getting better.

Organize Your Efforts

Digital marketing is an investment that’s critical to a firm, and just like other investments, planning is everything. Going to the field without a workable plan is like flying blindly. The planning process has to be done with caution so as not to make an entire mess of things. Carefully weigh the pros and cons of every single step you’re planning to go. It is also important to not deviate from the schematic which you have set up for yourself. Straying from the course could cause your campaign efforts to scatter and that alone could have catastrophic ripple effects on your goals. Whatever it is you’ve slated to perform, make sure you stick to it with discipline.

Monitor Content

The content being put out on your marketing campaigns is just as important as the campaign itself in the sense that it conveys the message you’re trying to pass across to your customers and the general public. Your content must be easy to decipher, reader-friendly and not cumbersome. If your marketing strategy involves the writing of any sort (as most marketing strategies do), be confident that your writer is evident with your concept and can pass the message across. If you can, hire a paper writing service like EssayHub to help compose messages and content. Although essay writing services might cost you, you can be sure that you’ll be getting quality writing services. If your strategy involves any form of graphic representation, ensure that the images are sharp (and copyright laws). People react to visual messages in different and unpredictable manners, but you can be particular that sharp images attract good attention. Spare no effort in making sure you have good content. If you must spend money to get quality content, then so be it. Your digital presence is highly critical to the success of your brand, and as such, its quality and integrity should be taken very seriously.

Make Regular Appraisals
Every investment should be subject to regular assessments, and a digital marketing effort should be no different. Periodically, you should be able to take a step back and evaluate your efforts. Questions like “How have we done so far?”, “What can we do even better?”, etc. should be examined in appraisals. This way, you’ll be able to re-evaluate your position and find more efficient ways to go about your campaign. A failure to do this will mean that you’ll just be chasing your tail, not making any success and even if you’re failing, you won’t necessarily be aware.

Discover the Right Channels for You and Work With Those

Businesses make use a lot of channels to launch their online marketing campaigns. However, the truth is that what works for Company A might not necessarily work for Company B. As a company or brand; some platforms are more efficient than others when it comes to online marketing. Your job is to find the one that best suits you and work with that. You can intensify your efforts there, instead of always wasting considerable resources on other platforms without getting any results.

Tags: B2B marketing
[“Source-ndtv”]
0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

Falcon Digital Marketing Wins AMA 2017 Crystal Award for Online Marketing

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das
Falcon Digital Marketing Wins 2017 AMA Crystal Award for Online Marketing for National Legal Research Group PPC Advertising Campaign

Falcon Digital Marketing Wins 2017 AMA Crystal Award for Online Marketing for National Legal Research Group PPC Advertising Campaign

HOUSTON, May 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — The American Marketing Association 2017 Crystal Awards honored Falcon Digital Marketing in the category of Online Marketing for their top performing Search Engine Marketing campaign. Falcon Digital Marketing was chosen to receive this award for their online advertising campaign in the legal industry for The National Legal Research Group, the oldest and largest legal research firm in the U.S that provides legal research and writing services for attorneys. Falcon Digital Marketing is responsible for the online advertising and attorney lead generation for the National Legal Research Group, supporting new attorney-client acquisition, and online branding.

The Crystal Awards were created by the American Marketing Association (AMA) to recognize the city of Houston’s best marketing projects and the people responsible for them. This includes marketing agencies and in-house teams, for a wide range of categories from digital marketing to traditional advertising to design work. The awards received over 600 entries in 2017 that were meticulously evaluated by judges consisting of marketing experts outside the city of Houston. In the category of Online Marketing, the judges strictly critiqued the results of the ad campaign to choose a winner. Falcon Digital Marketing was chosen to receive the award due to its ability to implement and maintain a highly successful online marketing campaign that exceeded the client’s goals.

Falcon Digital Marketing’s Online Marketing campaign for The National Legal Research Group was able to win this distinguished award for a successful paid advertising campaign that increased online leads, conversion rates, and reduced the cost per lead. Through advanced Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising strategies implemented on Google Adwords, Bing Ads, and remarketing banner ads on the Google Display Network, Falcon Digital Marketing was able to increase online leads by 308%, reduce cost per lead by 39%, and increase conversion rates by 175%.

About Falcon Digital Marketing

Falcon Digital Marketing is a highly-specialized online marketing agency that focuses on ROI driven Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns for competitive industries. Falcon Digital Marketing is based in Houston, TX, but services clients throughout the U.S. and internationally. By focusing on ROI and lead generation from online marketing campaigns, Falcon Digital Marketing brings a unique approach to internet marketing that creates more efficient advertising campaigns for clients in competitive industries.

[“Source-ndtv”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

Google Brings Machine Learning to Online Marketing Assessment

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

google-attribution-online-marketing-assessment

Google earlier this week unveiled Google Attribution, a tool that uses machine learning to measure the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns across a variety of devices and channels.

Part of a series of new measurement tools introduced at Google Marketing Next, Google Attribution aims to help marketers determine what is driving consumers to make their online purchasing decisions.

Google is at an “inflection point,” noted Sridhar Ramaswamy, senior vice president of ads and commerce, when it comes to the use of technology to measure online marketing effectiveness.

“What’s exciting is that things that were really hard we’re going to be able to make easy, because technology is doing the heavy lifting,” he told conference attendees.

Seconds Matter

Page-loading time is an important factor in terms of how long advertisers have to hook a consumer online, Ramaswamy said.

As load time increased from one to seven seconds, the probability of a consumer bouncing more than doubled, found a recent study that analyzed 900,000 mobile landing pages in more than 100 countries. That translates to conversions falling by up to 20 percent for every one second delay in page-load time.

Most existing attribution measurement tools have three main shortcomings, according to Ramaswamy. First, they lose track of the customer journey when they move between tools; second, they are hard to set up; and third, they are not integrated with ad tools.

Because of those shortcomings, marketers typically are stuck with using last-click attribution, which misses the impact of most marketing touchpoints.

The new Google Attribution tool incorporates data from AdWords, Google Analytics and DoubleClick Search, which provides a more comprehensive picture of data from all marketing channels, according to Google.

Google Attribution also makes it easy to switch over to data-driven attribution, which uses ads, keywords and campaigns that have the greatest impact on a company’s goals, Google said. Using the data-driven attribution model typically requires a minimum set of data, which is 15,000 clicks, and at least 600 conversions within a 30-day period.

Google will offer an enterprise version, Google Attribution 360, to meet the needs of larger advertisers, noted Bill Kee, group product manager at the company.

Google Attribution currently is in beta and will roll out to additional customers over the next few months.

Not Quite Ready

Google Attribution is an “aspirational sell” for advertisers, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses, suggested Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

“Google intends to make it free, so it will see a lot of uptake, but many users will have zero comparative experience to judge how much better they are doing with Attribution,” he told the E-Commerce Times.

The major benefit will be providing more-accessible feedback for designing online user experiences, Teich said, noting that it’s not clear how artificial intelligence can make a contribution — at least until Attribution has been able to analyze millions of Web pages.

Google is ahead of the curve compared to other Internet companies, which are only average at measuring the efficacy of online marketing, observed Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

“Machine learning does give it an edge in making sense of the relationship between key clicks and online purchases,” he told the E-Commerce Times.

“While simple algorithms can provide some insight, especially as applied to last click models, machine learning can understand such things as click back, where the last key click is not the purchase, but rather an artifact of comparison shopping,” Jude explained.

Data Points

Google made several other announcements related to providing additional marketing data.

It launched a new AdWords beta to let advertisers use fast-loading AMP pages as landing pages for search ads and to speed up ads across the Google Display Network. This follows Google’s introduction about 18 months ago of the Accelerated Mobile Pages project to speed up the Web with faster browsing.

Google also announced a new tool to bring in-market audiences to Search, in order to help advertisers reach users who are ready to buy their products. Using machine learning, the tool analyzes trillions of search queries and millions of websites to determine when searchers are close to making a buying decision on a product.

The company unveiled plans to roll out store-sales measurement at the device and campaign levels, which will allow advertisers to measure in-store revenue and store visits delivered by search and shopping ads.

If advertisers collect email information at the point of sale through loyalty programs, Google said, store transactions can be imported directly into Adwords by the advertiser or through a third-party data partner.

[“Source-ndtv”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

AI. Machine Learning. What’s the Impact on Digital Marketing Today? [PODCAST]

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

AI. Machine Learning. What’s the Impact on Digital Marketing Today? [PODCAST]

Low SEO budget? Get all the tools you need – for free!

SEO PowerSuite has helped 2 million users grow their business online, so it will help grow yours. Get your free copy of SEO PowerSuite now!

Podcast: Download

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been highly predicted trends in marketing and SEO. But how are they changing the industry now? Read on to find out more about the influence of AI on the marketing world in this Search Engine Nerds episode.

Marc Poirier, CEO and co-founder of Acquisio, joins SEJ’s Brent Csutoras to talk about how artificial intelligence and machine learning impacts online marketing.

Poirier also gives us a primer on how AI is affecting local search, and shares his verdict on the battle between AI and humans in search and marketing.

Artificial Intelligence

We’re starting to see AI integrate itself into a lot of marketing campaigns. Is that the direction we’re headed in?

Marc: I think this is the direction most software companies need to start steering towards over the next five years or so. We have all this data we’re looking at; no matter what field of marketing you’re in, there’s just so much data coming at us now. Being able to leverage that data and make good use of it through machine learning and data mining is something that’s happening today, but it’s going to accelerate over the next few years.

How do you see the transition of machine learning and AI really start to interact with marketing over the next five years?

Marc: There are various models of algorithms that are designed to solve specific problems, and they exist out there. So you can just use some of the work that has been done by academics before and apply it to the problem you’re trying to solve to parse through a ton of data and come out with a better answer really rapidly. I think a lot of companies do that today, but it hasn’t necessarily been labeled as such.

The reality is not so much about the data and having tools to visualize it. That’s great, but what are you going to do with it? How do you analyze it? How do you make decisions based on that data, and how do you automate that decision making process? How do you do that in marketing?

Brent: I think we see that even with small data. You can go in and show somebody Google Analytics at a very small scale and show the data.

Marc: Yeah, exactly.

Brent: And people aren’t really willing to implement that data as it is, let alone start getting into large-scale data collection and analysis. I think one of the big things for marketers is this sense of disconnect because it might not be overly new. It might not be overly complicated at the rudimentary level, but when it comes down to it, if I wanted to do AI, if I wanted to incorporate some of this stuff into my marketing campaigns, there’s a disconnect in the path on how I do that.

When you look at an AI solution versus an expert, do you feel that AI provides an equal or better outcome? Or is it still just a time versus money type of scenario?

AI vs expert: man arm wrestling with robot

Marc: No, it’s a better outcome, but it depends on the problem you’re solving. Some of the things we do are just research, so the outcomes are not better.

What we’ve been doing for five or six years is controlling money, and that’s not something humans can do very well, especially at scale. So we build software to help the small business, but we don’t sell it directly to them. We work with large resellers, companies that have tens of thousands of small businesses they need to serve. They need to make sure that the results are on point, that they’re spending the budgets, and they’re maximizing phone calls and clicks and things like that. This is where technology will do a better job than humans 100% of the time.

Brent: Is this similar to the stock market where you really have no chance if you’re not utilizing these tools? Has it gotten to that point, you feel?

Marc: Yeah, it has. We’re making decisions and making changes on budgets and bids every 30 minutes now across tens of millions of ad groups and hundreds of thousands of accounts. So you can’t imagine humans doing that.

First of all, it’s redundant. It’s error-prone and there’s a lot of accurate decision making going on, a lot of machine learning applied that always tries to hone in on the target. We’re trying to spend a $500 budget, or a $200 budget — it’s very little money, so how do we hit it? How do we get really close to it and not go over? How do we learn about that specific business, about their trend? So there are a few levers there that are really important to model.

I mean you could do it if you have just one account to manage and you apply a lot of time and energy. I’m sure humans can do a pretty good job at it, but you can’t do that at scale for small accounts. It just doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t work. It’s not possible to make the right decision all the time. That’s what algorithms and AI do.

What would be the steps and tools to start incorporating AI into paid search? What would be the end-point solution for somebody right now?

Marc: We have a product called Promote where any local business can sign up and we’ll create a local presence for them. We’ll create a Google AdWords account for them and all of the keywords they need, the ads, everything. It’s all automated. Then we’ll assign a small budget and control it really well.

If you look at what Google’s doing, or Marin Software, Kenshoo, Adobe, Ignition One, SearchForce, all the companies in this space, all the bid management solutions have some kind of algorithms or rule engines. So there is technology there to help make the right decisions on large data sets, and they do very well for different situations.

There are products out there in the search world that do that, but they’re limited, typically, to bid management. I think the areas of focus for us are how do we go beyond that in the future and automate more and do a better job at writing ad copy, for example, or testing ad copy.

What is it about AI or machine learning that’s really impacting local search? How does it affect what people are doing locally?

Marc: It revolves a lot around delivering value for small budgets, so it’s very difficult to control. If you have a lot of money to spend on AdWords, you’ll be able to see results, and there’s going to be a lot of waste. But you can’t afford any waste when you have a $200 budget for the month, right? You want to get some clicks. You want to get some calls, so it’s really important that we go out there and get those clicks that will cost the least amount of money. They need to be valid clicks and they need to be relevant.

It’s understanding the auction, understanding the profile for each business — the peaks and valleys, time of day, day of week — to see how the data has flowed historically when we have that. This is something the software will pick up, not only per vertical but also by business. You just gain more certainty if you can have many layers.

So you can say, “Okay, I’m looking at the law services category in general, all of the different attorneys and legal services that are available. Do I see patterns on a day of week basis? Yes. I see some kind of trend where Monday seems to be maybe 20% busier than all the other days.”

Then let’s look at by city for example, or by DMA. Do we see trends there as well? Yeah, larger cities seem to have more of that. Then per business, like for this specific business, if I look back three months, do I see a pattern? Do all these things come together? And does that help me make a better decision? How sure am I that this decision of changing that bid, lowering it by five cents will have an impact in the next 30 minutes?

In a nutshell, it’s a lot of complexities, a lot of data points to look at, but it’s to make that small decision. They’re always small changes that we make, and then validate the next 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes. Did I see pick up on impressions? Because when there’s not a lot of click-flow, do I at least see more impression flow hour per hour? Those decisions will be tweaked as the function of the results we observe.

How do you feel about where people spend their money on paid ads right now? Do you feel that Google AdWords is still a major place to spend budget? Are you seeing certain social areas better than others?

Marc: Facebook ads is the place where small businesses are going to start because Facebook is making it easy for anyone to start and they’re making it part of your everyday experience. If you have a business page and you wrote a post, we’ll suggest you boost it for 10 bucks or something. Facebook’s been really good at garnering small span from small advertisers, small SMBs. Most SMBs today have realized that before they graduate to do some paid search investments, they’ll go to Facebook first then introduce Google AdWords.

Brent: Is that just because of the ease of use? It’s just something they can easily engage with, and then once they see some kind of traction, they start looking at other areas to run ads?

Marc: Well, yes, it’s easy and there are many ad products on Facebook. It’s a Swiss army knife of advertising. And there are different ways to build your audience as well, so it’s not only the ad products, it’s how you target. It’s quite complex, despite how easy they make it for a small advertiser to start. They have products like local awareness ads that are that simple. But local awareness helps retailers, restaurants and bars, the food industry in general.

But maybe it’s not that helpful for an emergency plumbing service or the landscaper. When you need a roofer, you’re going to look for it. It’s not going to be an awareness play so it may not be the first place you go for those. Depending on the type of business you are, it may be best to start on Facebook when you’re building local awareness. When it’s something that’s more search-driven intent, search ads would be more appropriate to start with.

Do you feel that you can take learnings from one platform to the other? Or do you feel that they really are individual and need to be viewed as individual?

Marc: We’re not finding any learnings from Facebook can apply to search or vice versa. However, the one thing we’re doing there in terms of bringing things together is budget allocation. How do we devise or change the way our product works to automatically allocate the money correctly across search — AdWords, Bing Ads, Facebook? We didn’t crack that nut yet. This is something that’s really interesting to a lot of companies.

But we’re in the middle of exploring if it does make sense, if it adds value. We’re hearing a lot of “yes”. So we’ll continue that investigation, but the idea of having a marketing budget for advertising online, like a digital advertising budget, and to have one place where you can just sort of put your money in there and trust that the algorithm will do the right thing, seems to be appealing to marketers today.

To listen to this Search Engine Nerds Podcast with Marc Poirier:

  • Listen to the full episode at the top of this post
  • Subscribe via iTunes
  • Sign up on IFTTT to receive an email whenever the Search Engine Nerds podcast RSS feed has a new episode
  • Listen on Stitcher, Overcast, or Pocket Casts

Think you have what it takes to be a Search Engine Nerd? If so, message Loren Baker on Twitter, or email him at loren [at] searchenginejournal.com. You can also email Brent Csutoras at brent [at] alphabrandmedia.com.

Visit our Search Engine Nerds archive to listen to other Search Engine Nerds podcasts!

[“Source-ndtv”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

17 Online Marketing Influencers To Keep Your Eyes On In 2017

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Online marketing influencers.

Online marketing influencers.

An increasing number of consumers now use social media and Google to conduct preliminary product and price research before making purchasing decisions. Hence, most businesses today use online marketing to build trust with prospects and customers, build their brand reputation and increase revenue.

While many marketing campaigns flop daily, some others get great results too. But who are the people behind these successful online marketing campaigns? Here are 17 of the online marketing influencers you should keep your eyes on this year.

From social media rock stars and bestselling authors to world-renowned bloggers as well as some below-the-radar names you don’t hear about often, these are all standout marketers who continue to push the boundaries, wield enormous influence on a large portion of the Internet and collectively generate billions of dollars in revenue for their clients.

1. Gary Vaynerchuk is a marketer, serial entrepreneur and four-time New York Times bestselling author who became famous for growing his family’s wine business from four million dollars to 45 million dollars a year. Owner of the digital marketing agency, VaynerMedia, Vaynerchuk is an investor in companies including Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Uber and his shows #DailyVee and #AskGaryVee reach tens of millions of people every month.

2. Neil Patel, definitely one of the most well-known and prolific figures in online marketing, is the cofounder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and Kissmetrics. In addition to providing education and amazing tools for online marketers, Patel is also helps companies like HP, Amazon, NBC, Viacom and GM grow their revenue.

3. Tim Ferriss is a popular blogger and author of four amazing books – The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, and Tools of Titans – all of which were #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. An early-stage investor or advisor in Uber, Evernote, Twitter, Alibaba, Facebook and Shopify, Ferriss’ podcast has had over 150 million downloads, leading to his being dubbed the “Oprah of Audio” by Observer.

4. Michael Hyatt is a blogger, speaker and bestselling author of Platform, which is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY and Amazon bestseller. Formerly the Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the seventh largest trade book publishing company in the U.S., Hyatt has over 700,000 subscribers and now coaches marketers and entrepreneurs on building influence online, leadership and personal development.

5. Derek Halpern is a marketer, entrepreneur and the founder of Social Triggers, which has reached millions of marketers online. An expert at helping startups use human psychology to increase traffic and sales, Halpern’s work has been recognized by Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Next Web and more.

6. Kotton Grammer is a marketer, entrepreneur and the founder of Kotton Grammer Media, an 8-figure advertising and media company. Grammer consults for some of the biggest companies in the world and is also the cofounder of the renowned SEO mastermind, OMGmachines.com, which has sold over 30 million dollars in online information products since 2015.

7. Amy Porterfield is a marketer and entrepreneur providing data-driven marketing insights to help business owners build a highly engaged email list, create online training courses and use innovative strategies to sell. Featured in Fast Company, MSNBC, Entrepreneur and Mashable, and named a top 50 social media influencer by Forbes, Porterfield has built multiple 7-figure businesses and has over 250,000 email subscribers.

8. Abdullahi Muhammed is a writer, content marketing consultant and the CEO of Oxygenmat, an agency providing content marketing services to some of the world’s biggest brands. Named by Inc. as the #1 content marketer to follow in 2017, Muhammed is a thought leader for creatives and contributes to Forbes, USA TODAY and Entrepreneur.

9. Jayson DeMers is a marketer and the CEO of AudienceBloom, a Seattle-based Internet marketing company. DeMers specializes in creating high ROI digital marketing strategies for brands and regularly shares tons of free tips in his regular contributions on Forbes, Inc., Business Insider, Fortune and Entrepreneur.

10. Jay Baer is a marketing consultant, speaker and the founder of Convince & Convert, one of the Internet’s most respected marketing blogs and strategy consulting companies. Baer has consulted over 700 companies on marketing including Nike, Caterpillar, The United Nations and 32 of the Fortune 500 companies and his book, Youtility, is a New York Times bestseller.

11. Rand Fishkin, the go-to guy for the latest SEO advice, is a blogger and the founder of Moz, one of the most popular tools and communities for marketing professionals. Also the cofounder of Inbound.org, Fishkin has given presentations at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, the United Nations, Stanford University, Public Media, NPR, YCombinator and Hackers & Founders.

12. Filip Boksa is a marketer and serial entrepreneur most known for growing a multi-million dollar cleaning service, King of Maids using BookingKoala, the software he created and turned into a software company. Recognized by Forbes and Inc. as an innovative entrepreneur at age 22, Boksa now mainly focuses on investing in startups through Sassy Egg, Inc., his marketing company.

13. John Lee Dumas is a marketer and the host of the daily podcast Entrepreneur on Fire, which was awarded Best of iTunes in 2013 and has over 1700 published episodes with incredible guests including Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Barbara Corcoran, Tim Ferriss and Brian Tracy. Dumas’ The Freedom Journal was the 6th most funded publishing campaign of all time on Kickstarter.

14. Daniel Wallock is a marketer and heart condition survivor who’s worked with The American Heart Association, BMW i Ventures, Amazon Studios, Girl’s Inc, and Sarah Lawrence College. Recognized as a top content marketer by Inc. and featured in Forbes, Los Angeles Times and Yahoo News, Wallock was behind the viral crowdfunding campaigns for Perseus Mirrors and OneX, both of which raised over $100,000.

15. John King is a growth hacker who raised over four million dollars in series A funding for his startup at age 19. One of the most sought-out startup growth hackers in the state of Pennsylvania, King now runs Agency Tailored, a 7-figure internet marketing company with clients including franchise groups such as JDByrider and the International Hotel Group.

16. Joanna Wiebe is a marketer, conversion copywriter and cofounder of Copy Hackers who has consulted and optimized copy for companies like Tesco, Crazy Egg, Buffer, Wistia, Shopify, MadMimi, Intuit, BT and MetaLab. A sought-after speaker, she has presented at conferences like Mozcon, INBOUND, SearchLove, Call to Action Conference, Business of Software, Microconf, SearchLove, ConversionXL and HeroConf.

17. Zaid Ammari is the CEO of PPC Masterminds and a leading expert on data driven digital marketing reputed for doubling revenue for his clients within 3 months. He runs two popular marketing meetup groups with over 3,000 members and has over 5,000 students on his free monthly webinars and two online courses.

For more social media tips and lifehacks, follow me on Twitter @JimmyRohampton and check out my website, HowToCreateABlog.org.

[“Source-ndtv”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
error: Content is protected !!