Digital Marketing

The latest trend observed in searching for information is the ‘voice search’. With the diminishing patience of people, newer ways to get quicker results are being sought after. The voice search helps in finding information on the internet much easier while reducing the time and effort in doing the same. The voice search technology is undergoing exponential growth every year. This promising future of this advanced technology is causing major brands like Amazon and Google to leverage it.

Explaining The Voice Technology

The voice search technology allows users to search the internet using just spoken words (voice). There is no more need for typing out the queries. One can just voice out their questions to their smartphones, computers and other smart devices to trigger an action — a digital assistant will answer the query. This voice technology is not limited to just browsing the web and getting queries answered. Other domains like playlist management, placing a call, calendar management, email management, shopping and more are being served by this technology, with this list only growing by the day. Today, some of the popular and effective voice-based systems that answer questions are the Google Voice Search, Siri, Cortana and Amazon Echo. These are basically dialogue-based systems, making them quite interactive.

Below is a list of the top devices and software that allow voice-based search:

• iPhone – Siri
• Amazon Echo – Alexa
• Smart devices like laptops and smartphones that have Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana
• Google Home

Voicing Out In The Future

In the constantly evolving digital sphere, the progressive changes in user demands are the main drivers of this shift toward voice-based technology. In a quest for optimizing the efficiency, speed and user convenience, the voice technology evolved creating a new trend. The millennial consumers are demonstrating greater comfort with using this technology. The increased adoption of smart devices based on IoT is another major factor that is fuelling the demand for voice technology. Smart IoT-based devices such as speakers, thermostats, remotes and appliances are paving the way for voice technology in the consumers’ lives. The usage of this technology might not be restricted to just basic home and office needs. Experts predict that most applications will be integrated with voice technology in the coming years, making it a fundamental of the modern-day.

For the year 2020 and beyond, let’s have an overview of the major elements that this technology might leave a mark in:

Search Behaviour

Voice search is something that is already in use, especially by the millennial crowd. It is predicted that the search behaviour will take a long leap forward by dominantly using the voice search. Juniper Research predicts that ad revenues generated by employing voice tech will reach nearly $19 billion by the year 2022 and that this will be driven by the increased establishment and usage of voice search apps on smartphones. There is now a shift from touchpoint to listening points, making organic search extremely critical for brands. Data from Comscore show that by 2020, 50% of web search will be via employing voice tech. With the advancement in voice tech, marketing and advertising agencies will also shift to the new platforms and align their marketing strategies that will include different formats of paid messages to their strategy.

Voice Push Notifications

Push notifications focus on re-engaging customers with apps. These notifications are generally user-centric, aiming at customer retention. Voice technology will change the means of distributing these notifications. As an example, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant now allow consumers to hear rather than read the notifications from any compatible third-party apps. These notifications could be calendar appointments and reminders.

Device Integration

Integrating voice technology to multiple smart devices allow manufacturers to create custom voice-assisted products that will continue to carry out the innate functions. The foremost examples are the integration of Amazon’s Alexa to a wide range of products like Samsung’s Family Hub fridges and Alexa-enabled wall clock. The usage of such voice-assisted devices is set to grow exponentially in the year 2020. These devices could include mid-level devices that do not have full-blown smart speakers but rather function via Bluetooth connectivity to other smart devices like smartphones where any processing would take place.

The Helping Voice For Your Business

As the voice technology proceeds towards becoming a necessity in tomorrow’s business-scape, here are strong reasons why you should embrace it:

Voice-optimized SEO to drive website traffic

SEO depends on the search terms users type in their web browser, but with the voice technology replacing the habit of typing, a fundamental change in SEO practices is something that one cannot ignore anymore. Voice-optimized SEO successfully established for your website will mean, tomorrow when users search online for information using the voice search, your website will appear higher in search results. This increased traffic to your website will reflect in the growth of your business.

To stay a step ahead of your competitors

Charting out a strong voice-based marketing strategy is not only essential to allow your customers to find you, but it is also required to ensure that your prospective customers do not find your competition instead. There is a high possibility that when a voice-friendly user searches for a product or service offered by you, he or she can be directed right to your voice-optimized competitors. To have a leg up in the competition, adopting voice technology is the path to take.

To nurture loyalty amongst customers

Employing voice technology is not just required for staying ahead in the competition — it can also help you offer excellent customer experience. The voice recognition skill can be used generate more personalized content and responses, enabling a more natural interaction with your brand for each individual. With the speed of voice search results, a customer can experience instant gratification in today’s busy life. This personalization combined with high speed encourages customer loyalty and retention.

Let’s Talk Stats

The numbers below show that voice technology is here to stay!

• The global market for smart speakers reached a tremendous 20.7 million units being sold in Q1, 2019, which accounted for the triple-digit 131% growth in that quarter.
• Alpine.AI’s 2018 stats revealed that as of January, the number of voice searches averaged 1 billion per month and this number has only been growing since then.
• Global Web Index studies show that 34% of people who do not yet own a voice-assisted device are interested to purchase one.
• Sourced from BrightLocal, it is shown that 76% of those who use smart speakers perform weekly voice searches.
• Another information sourced from BrightLocal shows that 51% of users use voice search to get information on restaurants.
• PwC’s report states that 93% of users are highly satisfied with their voice assistants.
• By 2022, voice-assisted consumer spending is expected to increase to 18% as per Martech.
• Gartner data reveals that 30% of internet browsing will be screenless by the year 2020.
• Comscore experts predict that 50% of internet searches will be via voice search by the year 2020.

From starting out as a novelty feature to becoming a modern-day trend, the voice technology is witnessing tremendous growth with the capabilities of becoming fundamental in the near future.

The Required Tuning

Though the voice technology has become a popularised one, there are still certain problems that need to be addressed for the optimal usage of this technology.

Of these issues is the challenge of visibility during voice search. The visual interface has been a neglected element when developing voice assistants. Consumers will not be able to see the voice interface unless connected to the app for Google Assistant or Alexa.

Another issue currently faced by the consumers is phrasing used in searches. The UX that is employed relies on specific phrases that trigger specific results. People expect conversational functionality from smart speakers without being replied to with “I’m sorry, I do not understand the question.”

Trust and privacy are other major concerns when it comes to using the voice tech. On a day-to-day basis consumers can research a place, shop, book cabs and make voice payments using this advance technology, but the concerns regarding sensitive information being secure are well-founded. Keeping customer sentiments in mind, security should be a major focus as the voice tech is being improved to suit the evolving consumer demands.

There is no doubt that voice search will be a milestone in the technology space, but the issues currently faced have to be resolved to reach the prime. By keeping an eye out for growth in voice tech, brands can keep themselves abreast of the market by adapting to it at the right time and exercising the appropriate marketing strategies. Here at Digital X, we help companies and brands stay informed about the technology trends so that they can make informed decisions without any delay.

Good marketing is never a coincidence. The effectiveness of marketing is directly proportional to sufficient research and planning. Bringing together the right elements might sound like a simple task, however, it’s not the case when one dives into setting a befitting framework. Marketing mix modelling and choosing the right one can help steer your brand towards efficiency and achieving its goals!

What Is A Marketing Mix?

The term “marketing mix” was first coined by Neil Hopper Borden. According to Neil, the most unique elements of a brand that differentiate it from the other brands and that play a crucial role in brand promotion framed the marketing mix. With the increasing popularisation of the term, Edmund Jerome McCarthy proposed the concept of 4Ps marketing mix, which comprises of the base elements for marketing mix modelling.

These 4 Ps or the base elements of the marketing mix are:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

Although this was a widely accepted concept, with the constant evolution of the marketing world, contemporary elements have been introduced, which keep up with the present-day trends. These elements are the 4 Cs:

• Customer
• Cost
• Communication
• Convenience

While the 4Ps have been formulated keeping the business in mind, the 4Cs put forth a customer-centric approach.

What Is The Importance Of Marketing Mix?

A right marketing mix will determine the success or failure of a service or a product in the market. These elements, when combined in different ways, produce different results as required by the business goals. One can strategize and create the right mix of these fundamental elements to influence the target audience. These elements will also help a brand understand and set a great framework for successful marketing and brand communication. To create an effective marketing mix, one needs to have a good comprehension of the metrics involved.

Understanding The Base Elements Or The 4Ps

These elements help evaluate a company from a business perspective.

Product:

Today, a product could mean something tangible or it could also mean a service offered. For example, one could be selling clothes or e-commerce applications for the retail industry. The key to introducing effective products into the market is to have the right one at the right time – one that satisfies the customers’ current requirements.

Price:

The price of your product or service is the second important element that has to be continuously assessed. This is to be in line with the current market rates. An overpriced product could lose its market and under-valuing your product can also have a negative impact on the business. To peg down the right price requires adequate analysis of competitor products. If there is any resistance in sales and marketing, it probably is time to consider repricing the product or service.

Place:

This element is often forgotten when setting strategies for branding and marketing. However, to erect an effective marketing framework, this is a crucial element. The placement of the product or service determines its accessibility to potential customers. This requires a deep understanding of the business’s target audience. The better one understands the target market, the better can they place the products and services in the market. This, in turn, will lead to a successful marketing campaign.

Promotion:

This is one of the most essential elements for marketing mix modelling. Promotions include all types of communication that let the target customers know about the products and services. These could include advertising on multiple mediums, PR activities, on-going offers and more. Even a small change to the promotional strategy can cause a snowball effect on sales of the product. It is also important to keep in mind that a promotional strategy should continuously evolve to be at par with the marketplace changes.

While these 4 elements were initially the only consideration for creating a marketing mix model, companies today are revamping their marketing and branding strategy. This leads to the 4Cs which are taken into account for bossing the efficiency of marketing.

Understanding The 4Cs

The 4Cs help a business evaluate itself from a customer’s point of view.

Customer:

The first C is, of course, customers themselves. It is essential to understand the customers, find out their wants and needs, and figure out the relation between customers’ requirements and the products or services. The company or the business needs to understand how the customer can gain value from its products or services offered. It is also essential to understand the value of the products to the customers. Once the understanding is gained, the company can fine-tune the marketing strategies to target a specific audience.

Cost:

While cost and price might sound synonymous, in the business world, it is not sufficient to look at just the cost of the product or the amount a customer might be paying for it. While pricing the product or service, it is important to consider the benefits a customer will gain using the product as opposed to the risks of using it. It is also necessary to look at the existing pricing figures of similar products in the market. One also needs to estimate the total amount a customer might be paying, which includes the cost of shipping, taxes, etc. Finally, the company should also evaluate the profit it will gain post the product pricing.

Communication:

Communicating to the target audience is a focus area today among companies while creating a marketing mix model. Empathetic communication is imperative. Connecting with customers in a meaningful way creates a bond of trust and encourages customer loyalty. Using the language of the customer will help them understand the brand better and make the marketing mix model more efficient.

Convenience:

The final C is offering convenience of sales to the customer. With ever-improving technology today, customers choose how and when they spend their money. A customer might choose to swipe their cards instead of paying with notes. Another customer might choose to shop online rather than buying from a physical store. It is up to the company or the business to provide convenient and simple ways to purchase the products or services by negating any barriers the customers might face.

The Advantages Of Choosing The Right Marketing Mix Model

Considering the multiple choices available to the business and using the 4Cs or 4Ps or a combination of both is vital in determining the effectiveness of the branding and marketing strategy.Efficient and productive marketing mix modelling for your brand requires extensive research and analysis. One needs to consider many factors, both from the business’s perspective as well as the customer’s perspective. One can use the regression technique can be used to predict the most efficient elements and hence build a successful marketing mix model. Some of the advantages of choosing the right model are explained below.

• Once a market mix model is framed, a company can appropriately allocate resources to various departments. A strong model will act as a strong foundation to strategize and develop successful marketing solutions to meet business goals.
• While building a marketing mix model, a company can also evaluate the factors of product development with a better understanding of pricing strategies, product placements, promotions and sales process.
• A model that incorporates physical evidence – evidence that the product exists in the market – can help enhance customer loyalty. It is beneficial to managing how the product is perceived by the customers.
• A good model will assist in creating value that a company can sell to its customers. A customer will want to buy a product that offers the best value for the price. Value creation can be achieved by implementing unique marketing campaigns and incorporating discount pricing strategies.
• A brand can stand out in the crowd with a great marketing mix model. To set a model, the company is required to study its competitors. This can, in turn, be used for better product placement and brand promotion strategies, thereby differentiating themselves from the rest.
• A strong marketing mix model can deliver clarity to customers. It is all about sending out the right message, to the right place at the right time. A company can evaluate the best format of messages with the right emotions and the best mediums to communicate and thereby create a trust-based relationship with the target audience. The better the clarity a customer has, the more likely he is to make a purchase.

Companies’ marketing strategies are not some guesswork. Finding that perfect marketing mix model is crucial to any company’s success. While building the perfect model, one should also be mindful of using outdated methods and be open to changes considering the evolving trends in the marketplace. At Digital X, we ensure the concoct the perfect marketing model for your brand and digitally transform your business for a successful run moving ahead.

Building your business’s online reputation and managing it further is one of the most critical facets of the business to focus upon. In today’s digital world where every individual has access to publish, comment and review, maintaining a good reputation is quite an industrious task. 

As a business, your online communication can affect the audience’s perception of your business. You can influence a colossal number of people and at the same time, you could also create a negative image for your business to an equally great number!

Given the fact that any business’s audience is quite diverse in nature, catering to every type is near impossible. Despite this, you can employ certain steps to avoid any negative buzz and ensure you do not strip your business off any leads or the hard-earned customer loyalty.

The benefits of social media reputation management are not just the elimination of negative impact but also gaining the highly sought-after credibility by customers. This aids in gaining or even further strengthening the customers’ trust in your business. Below, we have collated a few tips and tools that will help manage business reputation on social medial.

Know What To Monitor

It is essential to know the parameters you need to monitor in order to assess and manage your business’s social media reputation. 

• Business’s name: 

You have to monitor all comments and messages that revolve around your business’s name. You could be a popular name in the region or you could be an upcoming one. Famous or not, ensure to monitor all possible misspellings associated with the name of your business. Misspellings are after all human errors that are likely to occur.

• Product’s/service’s name: 

Customers might choose to mention your product or service rather than your company’s name. It is thus equally important to monitor these and the associated misspellings as well.

• High-profile personnel: 

Your company might have well-renowned employees and it is necessary to monitor talk around their name as well. Any negative or positive comments on their work will have a direct effect on your company’s online reputation.

• Trending keywords related to your business: 

It is important to keep a track of the prevailing buzz about your industry, the medium used to convey the buzz and the impact it could have on your business.

• Competitors: 

It will serve good to do a thorough competitor analysis. This will help you compete efficiently and also analyze your own position in the industry as opposed to their’s.

In addition to monitoring the essential parameters, it is vital to religiously lookout for information and maintain an online reputation that the industry’s standards demand.  

Assess Your Current Reputation

While managing your social media reputation, it is ideal to assess the current scenario. You need to figure out how your audience is perceiving your business or brand before scripting a plan.

You can begin by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your online presence using a tool like Brand Grader. Google Alerts is another useful tool that will help you track the talk people are having about your business on social media. To monitor those negative feedback and reviews, Go Fish Digital is a tool that crawls through various complaint-related websites. Once you assess your current reputation, you can chart out an effective social media reputation management plan.

Encourage Customers’ Digital Reviews

This step will give you the chance to improve your business reputation on social media. Discouraging customers to give reviews or feedback will only create doubts in their minds, thereby resulting in them losing their trust in your company. Instead, allow them to review by providing them with an easy route. It could be a simple five-star rating system, a ranking system, a scale-based rating system or space where customers could type out their feedback. This action should, in turn, be complemented with the right responses to the customers’ reviews and comments.

Respond To Comments On Social Media Appropriately

Individual these days have access to post any comment on social media, positive or negative, relevant or irrelevant. Do not hesitate to take action and reply. When someone has posted or started a thread of offensive content such as hate speech or inflammatory words, it is best to nip the problem in the bud. If someone has given your business negative feedback, you can respond directly and attempt to solve their problem. This human intervention and transparency will show your customers that you care and ultimately they will start trusting your brand more! Similarly, if someone posts a positive comment on your page, it goes a long way to respond to them with gratitude. Giving your customers this individual attention and letting the entire world see it will help form a positive bond with your customers and maintain a positive online reputation.

Communication And Leveraging Hashtags

People acknowledge and appreciate content-rich social media pages. It is important the content is relevant and relatable to your customers. You can communicate the efforts you take to maintain your corporate social responsibility. Humanizing your brand voice will help your customers to connect with your brand easily. You can also provide product or service-related information and promote transparency. When it comes to effective communication, leveraging hashtags will be a favourable step. A trending hashtag in today’s digital medium forms a critical ingredient of the communication mix. It is essential to research the hashtags to avoid any misuse that might create a dent in your business reputation.

Reputation Management And ROI

Effective reputation management should also result in a healthy return on investment. You can invest in competent social media management tools and track the ROI in the form of positive feedback as well as lead generation and conversions. Today, social media referrals are equivalent to word-of-mouth marketing and might even have a greater effect in convincing customers. Individuals place a great amount of trust in an online review from another individual. With analytics tools like Google Analytics, you can track the results of your online reputation management efforts and dynamically chart out plans that address any concerns alongside improving your business. 

Final thoughts:

Building a strong and positive online reputation and managing it can be a tricky and tedious task. You might not know where to start and the steps to take. While every business is unique in its own way, the tips listed will help any business form a strong foundation for online reputation management. 

Digital Marketing is a consortium of important things – Social Media, Search Engine Optimisation, Marketing Automation, Social Commerce, Influencer Marketing, Video Marketing, Omni-channel Marketing, Artificial Intelligence and a few others. New techniques, everyday evolving technologies, and constantly changing Google, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat algorithms keep many digital marketing teams on their toes. 

As we embark on a world of ever-changing technologies and the digital world, find out how digital marketing will continue to safeguard its influence in 2020.

Social media: 

By now, we obviously know that social media is contributing a huge share to online marketing. What we might not have thought about is how many millions of people depend on social media for their shopping. 60% of Instagrammers find new products on Instagram and in a survey of over 4,000 Pinterest users, a massive 70% confirmed Pinterest helps them find new products. These platforms have apparently recorded the visits and stats that people are using them to shop and have made it easy for retailers to showcase and sell items through social media. And this goes for online retailers – a great way to boost traffic to their product pages. 

Search Engine Optimisation: 

It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. To think about SEO strategy in advance, some game-changers will influence how we build an SEO campaign. Mobile-first indexing, it means that Google uses the mobile version of your page for indexing and ranking. Page speed, mobile page speed’s become a ranking factor for mobile and metrics matter for Google in terms of page speed evaluation. 

Social Commerce: 

Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce that involves social media, online media that supports social interaction and user contributions to assist online buying and selling of products and services. More precisely, social commerce is the use of social networks in the context of e-commerce transactions. Social commerce allows companies to sell products directly through social media networks. There is a thin line between Social Commerce and Social Media Marketing. 

Influencer Marketing: 

Influencer marketing is a branch of the social media marketing that entails endorsements and product placements from people, celebrities, influencers and organizations who possess an expert level of knowledge and/or capable of socially influencing people in their respective fields. Influencer Marketing has its pros and cons, where the number of followers and reachability can be compromised. Brands and collaborators like to collaborate with well-known people, celebrities and YouTubers with larger visibility. 

Video Marketing:

Video Marketing is also another booming digital marketing trend that has dominated the buyers to buy products more impulsively on a different level altogether. Video marketing is, simply, using videos to promote, aggrandize and market your service or product or business, increase customer engagement on your digital and social media platforms, tutor your consumers, and extend your audience with another new medium. Consumers like it because it’s pleasant to watch, easy to understand, entertaining and engaging. Marketers love it because – when videos are done right – it will give a potentially huge return on investment (ROI) through multiple channels. Video is very accessible to everyone that has internet access – to watch and to produce. 

Omni-Channel Marketing: 

Omni-channel is a multichannel approach to sales. Its aim is to provide customers with an uninterrupted and a most appropriate shopping experience – be it from shopping on a desktop, mobile. Brands work to create united experience between channels and people, and this is one differentiator between traditional and omnichannel marketing. The old approach was to let every channel optimize on its own, without any consideration of the factors or wider experience. 

Artificial Intelligence: 

Artificial Intelligence has enabled marketers to create a more personalized consumer experience. To everyone’s surprise, the cost is notably less than the old-schooled campaigns. Every interaction that is enabled and made by a potential or a customer about the business is recorded and made use for future optimization. It takes forecasting and prediction to the next level by giving a very finite understanding of – both, your customer and digital advertising campaigns. It also creates a comprehensive customer profile and can be set up to enable a real-time conversation with the customers. 

Content Marketing: 

Content marketing is a strategic and coherent marketing approach. It focuses on creating, building and delivering valuable, pertinent, and reliable content to attract and maintain a clearly-defined audience. And most importantly, to boost profitable customer action. Not only does content demonstrate knowledge and expertise to potential customers reading your articles or pages, but it’s also what search engines put in their search results. In short, content fuels the fire that is your search engine optimization, so it’s best to never stop creating content. Also, focus on creating interactive content and videos. 

Google Ads: 

Automation is existent in the digital marketing world since long, however, appreciation to the latest updates of Google Ads, that was announced at Google Marketing Live – we expect smart bidding and automation to become the standard for account managers. Google Ads are dependent on machine learning to optimize your bids so that you can get the best value out of every conversion. The improvements announced at Google Marketing Live will make you optimizing your bids at its best than ever with the capability to select the conversion actions at every campaign level. These improvements are sure-fire to help you maximize your conversions. 

Social Messaging Applications: 

Social Messaging Applications like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct Messaging and WeChat isn’t just a messaging platform anymore. These apps are now the most approached method to communicate with the customers in a business. There are close to 10 billion messages shared on Facebook Messenger. 

Messaging apps are new business trends because customers use it daily and find it the most convenient to have direct contact with companies. Besides, it also makes personalized marketing easy which most customers love and appreciate. Messaging Applications encourages contact and building relationships whilst also educating the customers about the product, inviting people to events, boosting sales, regaining potential customers and providing customer support. 

Digital Marketing is definitely in the hands of evolving technology. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data, Smart tech and lots of others are changing the trends brands analyse and settle on a decision. This is directly influencing the way the brands can communicate and interact with their prospects and customers. Everyone is expecting a more personalized interaction just because of the internet and easily accessible smart phones.

To stay ahead of the competition and boost conversions in the upcoming years that are most likely dependent on digital, you’ll need to get better and upskill yourselves at producing custom, engaging and conversational content – particularly audio and video – to extend to your custom audience. 

And looking ahead, you might need to invest in some insanely futuristic tech to have your ducks in a row. 

Are you a startup? Are you a small business? 

Did you know – you have two cogent yet cost-effective response operators that you can hire for your business at your fingertips – Facebook Advertising and Email Marketing. Facebook Advertising gives you the option to target and filter the extremely narrow audience apt for your business. You can utilize its powerful lead generation techniques and tools. And then, there is Email Marketing, which is efficient, cost-effective and yet again, powerful. You can use it to introduce your company, launch new products, etc and filter your customers through sales funnel. 

A study says that:

• Email is used as the main medium for customer winning by up to 81% of SMBs 
• 49% of customers have shown interest to receive emails on a weekly basis from their favourite brands
• In the woo to receive special offers, 39% of people on Facebook follow business pages 

When Facebook and email marketing platforms are used together, the results will be supreme. 

Read the three tactics that you can effectuate in your business today to accelerate your growth and spike your sales.

Utilize Landing Pages to interlink Email and Facebook

With the help of a landing page, you can make use of Facebook Ads to help with structuring your mailing list. The landing pages can be created effectively with a planned approach keeping in mind the business objectives and goals. 

It is a general rule with the landing page to be offering something valuable to your customers. Eg: Ebooks, guides, cheat sheets, etc. And for the value you offer, you can in return get the most valuable information – email address and sometimes the contact number. And that will get automatically added to your mailing list.

This will become a winning situation for both the sides, as the customer will get what he or she needs and you will get their contact information. This information can be used in future for spreading more information about your business and get them to use your service more. 

So the whole deal lies here in building an effective landing page with CTAs that will persuade your user to click more and not distract or leave the page. 

Broadcast to similar audiences

Facebook is outstandingly brilliant and efficient when it comes to its targeting capabilities. With Facebook, you can target as wide as possible and as narrowly you need. You will have the facility to get to the basics of the targeting in order to get your message to the right audience. 

The most favourite option is to create similar or lookalike audiences. These groups of audiences already exist on Facebook with similar profiles. And that’s where the unison happens with Email Marketing. 

Example: 

You have 10,000 email addresses and if you upload them to Facebook, it will automatically match those to the maximum possible Facebook profiles as it can. Let’s assume that it can locate 8000 exact matches. This is called a custom audience. After matching the names, Facebook will then look for commonalities in these 8000 profiles for building a new audience of profile customers who are not on your email list, but with commonalities. This is called your similar or lookalike audience.

With the lookalike audience sorted out, you can start sending ads to everyone in that list. The best thing about this cadre is that most of the individuals are likely to be a new audience. They perhaps don’t know you, however, they would share commonalities and interests with people that know and like you. The likeliness will attract them to your brand and eventually make them your customers. 

Identify the people who didn’t open your email

The prime need for every small scale and large scale business is to build a genuine email list. If someone has given their email address to you, it is a sure shot that they would like to receive information from you or buy from you in future. Making use of this opportunity is striking the chord and showing off your service. You can send them an email about your brand, promotions, news, offers and other information that may entice them. Emailing is probably the most efficient messaging method either for free or at a minimal cost. 

The challenge here is, not every email will be opened. The reason could be – either you have sent at the wrong time or it could contain a history of boredom. 

Did you know, 80% of emails are ignored and only 20% are opened.

So the challenge lies in reaching that fugitive 80%? 

And the answer is: Move into Facebook advertising!

With the help of your email marketing software, you can identify the people who haven’t opened your email. And that list can be uploaded to Facebook as a custom audience. As mentioned above, Facebook will, by itself, group them and match those email IDs with the names. And boom, with Facebook, you can communicate to that set and fortify your brand, drive engagement and start making sales. 

Sponsored messages

What did you think of Facebook Messenger? Just a chatting tool? 

OMG! There is much more power to that tool. 

The intersection between Facebook and Email is Facebook Messenger. It was introduced to send private messages to friends and people inside the Facebook environs. 

Knowing the value of the tool, Facebook launched Messenger to communicate with brands in 2017. This paved the way for the brands to interact with their customers in a more personalized way, called Sponsored Messages. These are the messages or promotions that you can send to Facebook profiles directly with whom the brand has already got in touch, earlier. Although you this won’t help to contact new people or the first-timers, you can use this tool to its fullest with the existing audience. 

You can use it to start a conversation about your brand, understand what your customers like and dislike, what they are looking for from you and more things that could give you sales. It is definitely a tried and tested medium for generating sales. 

Although you have an option for a chatbot, it can never beat personalization. 

Digital Marketing Panacea for your small, medium and large-scale business

With the help of Facebook advertising and email marketing, you can use it to generate sales and make a significant impact on your ROI, but all with the help of marketing experts.

At Digital X, we understand the game that will help in reaping the maximum benefit from Facebook advertising, email marketing and both. Our main proposition is we are affordable, transparent and we really listen to your business objectives. This has made us the ideal comrade in the past and also in the present with our customers to enhance your marketing.

A greatest faux pas we frequently bump into with conversion rates is that businesses show signs of addressing issues only when distress signals are triggered. 

It cannot be the case with conversion rates. The conversion rates demand uninterrupted and unceasing focus and maintenance for your marketing and optimization endeavours. Like any other maintenance, marketing should also be maintained religiously. 

For marketers and business owners, it is common to make tweaks to the webpages and landing pages often when conversion rates aren’t what they had looked for, meaning, lesser conversion rates than expected. Here’s where you will try and adopt new practices like A/B Testing, improvising the content, changing CTAs, making the page look appealing etc. Although there are some benefits to these changes, there is a lot of other great deal to optimize better conversion rates. 

The strategy should be more of a quantitative and qualitative approach over an à la carte types which you may think will work then. 

So ruminate on these 10 questions before adopting new practices or making tweaks to your website or landing pages. 

1. Does your product have a market already? 

Seriously??? After launching the product??? – If this is the question that’s running in your mind, yes, we meant to ask this. If not now, when? 

Researching the market before the product launch is something that you would do in the beginning stages of product development. It is all a part of gathering information about your audience and also building a few features on what they exactly need or solving their problem with the help of your product. Despite having tailored your product for your audience, you face conversion problems, it is a cue that you may have to revisit this. 

You can search on the internet the volume of interest people have for your product. If the traffic is steady or shows a positive sign, then you have to look into the current form of your product and if it is really addressing the problems and needs of your audience today. 

If it is yes again, then look at how you should locate the product to make sure your customers can realize its value.

2. Is your audience-targeting strategy accurate?

What could sound more frustrating than recording hundreds of visitors to your website and yet empty carts and no opt-ins? And you will also not be able to find out what’s holding them back from leaving empty.

The only method that you can focus on is identifying if you are targetting the right audience.

This stands true to having a great product trying to make business with the wrong people. There will certainly be zero interest and this answer should majorly help you in rethinking your present audience and the target market.

3. Have you registered the trust in your audience’s minds yet?

Have you hesitated to ask your customers their personal information? It’s a good sign if yes. Asking your customers to store their personal and financial information on your website requires you to build an iceberg of trust and faith. Email address is still fine, but what about phone number, address and credit card or debit card information? 

There are cases you would have seen as a retail marketer online that people would stop their purchase at the last minute when it comes to saving their identity and bank information. Although your customers may want what you are selling unless they don’t trust you, they will never convert. 

Establishing trust may be done in different ways like:

• Real testimonials and reviews from real customers 
• Trust badges
• Company’s location and contact information
• Recognizable brand’s acknowledgement – logo, CEO’s name etc
• Trade group affiliations
• Awards and recognitions

4. Do you convey benefits and deliver recognizable value?

For you, me, our companies, the audience – everything comes down to value. Value is the benchmark for your product. It is enough to do the entire talking and selling for your product and business. In short, your company’s unique selling point. 

Big enticing buttons, graphics, gifs won’t always do the conversion magic. Unless your customers don’t realize the value of your product and don’t understand its benefits, chances are you will be ignored and so will be your product. 

You have to help your audience understand your product’s value succinctly and to the point. Get to the basics as much as possible so your customer understands the purpose and the value of your product, rather than just the features.

5. What is the purchase experience in real?

Entangled and complicated website navigation and several pages to see off before the checkout process is where the customers will crash. It is imperative to comprehend that you should give a happy journey to your customer in order to convert. From UI shopping experience to seamless flow between pages, during check out and completing transaction, your customer should not face a glitch and should not feel any page too long to sit for and unnecessary. This includes minimum number of clicks, seamless flowing between the pages, website is accessible on all devices etc. 

It is important that you run multiple tests from diffeent perspectives on your website and consider hiring a Tester dedicatedly at the time of site launch. Unbiased feedback and user experience should help you in this stage. 

6. Are there any loopholes in your funnel?

Understanding where people are actually giving up on your website should be a good indicator of why people are leaving or at the minimal, it should help you narrow down to the root cause of why they are leaving. This is the time where you will find out the reason why and discover the friction points that you never knew existed. 

Open your analytics windown and carefully observe the visitor flow.  Notice which page attracts traffic, the number of clicks, the steps people should follow to land on that page and uncover the point where they literally leave.

Replicate those steps personally within your team and see if you are able to discover why from different person. Is it the number of clicks or user experience or is it too lengthy etc. Narrowing down your options should help you unearth all the loopholes and determine an actual leak.

7. What are the friction points?

Friction in your business or sales funnel is anything that hinders your conversion – either by slowing it or completely stopping it. 

A few to be highlighted are: 

• Slow website loading 
• Too much information to fill on the form’s fields
• Too many clicks to complete an action
• Missing or hidden information [address, shipping details, contact information]
• Poor copywriting and UI 
• Stop words near your CTA [We’ll never spam you, no gimmicks, etc can most of the times backfire and remove the trust]
• So colourful as to be in bad taste design

You don’t need an expert to identify these friction points. You can practice an internal review within your team and notify everyone to chart out the points that they think could be a friction. On the forms, ask only few important questions related to the present and future order, avoid overwhelming your customer with a lot of options, target only clean and pleasing designs, hire a copywriter to make your customer relate their experience with words. 

Tip: A/B testing is the best way to identify what content works and what won’t. 

8. Ponder how your customers feel about the process?

When your concern is the conversion rate, what better insights that you can get from your customers? 

Having feedback tools on your website will help you discover these insights. It will go a way beyond telling what was not happy for your customer in their shopping experience. You can be specific in your feedback asking questions about the UI, what was the difficulty, the site experience, the navigation, design feedback and a lots more. 

The feedback approach will not only tell you the cause of poor conversions but also assures your customers that you genuinelyc are for them and are ready to incorporate suggestions based on their feedback.

9. What does the data reveal?

It is a good habit to occasionally revisit the data that you have accumulated for your business and website. Paying attention to the  the conversion metrics of your website, data from insights and social ads, bounce rates, visitor flow, clicks, average time spent on which page, what is good and bad about those page, etc will open your views to a lot of other things. 

Make your data talk and convert those talks into action. Otherwise you are clearly spraying to the market and praying to convert any one. 

Whether it is the ROI for ecommerce sales, enriching content marketing, data is imperative. When you revisit your data, measure the new data and record the new changes against the original. This will help in understanding if you are headed in the right direction. 

10. What are your competitors doing?

You should not follow your competitors but it is always good to know what your competitors are doing. A little positive inspiration from your competitors is no wrong and understanding their methods to leverage competitive insights for their market research could be an eye opener for you. 

If your conversions are tumbling for specific services or products, look up to your competition. What are they doing dfferently to sustain the value of that porduct? How different is their advertising from yours? What is their strategy to attract the target audience? 

List down the answers and map it against yours to discover why it is working for them and not you. This should give you answers on areas that you need to improve as far as your sales and marketing is concerned.

Time to ponder and reflect:

Now that you have some information on what to focus on for poor conversion rates, ask these questions to yourself and get that cracking. 

• Do you need to revisit market and product fit?
• How accurately are your targetting the right audience? 
• Have you registered the trust in your audience’s minds yet?
• Do you convey benefits and deliver recognizable value?
• What is the purchase experience in real?
• Are there any loopholes in the sales funnel?
• What are the friction points?
• Ponder how your customers feel about the process?
• What does the data reveal?
• What are your competitors doing?
• Lastly, bear in mind to monitor the numbers and accordingly make changes to the data – not mere assumptions.

Social video marketing is an important element of comprehensive marketing communication about your business. It is a well-laid out plan structured step-by-step to bolster audience or prospect engagement through social activity in the form of a video. 

Simply put, when you use a video to describe your business as to how you talk and send it to your audience, then it is called Video Marketing. 

If an image or a photo is valued a thousand words, just reckon the value of the video? That’s the base of video marketing, the forward technology or a marketing strategy that amalgamates appealing video to your marketing campaigns.

Video marketing can be used for every aspect of your business – building the brand, targeting your audience, promoting your products, services and your company. It can serve as a channel to showcase live-stream events, how-to’s, DIYs, promote customer testimonials, product reviews and provide the most viral word now ‘viral’ and entertaining content.

How does Video Marketing work?

The answer is pretty simple and you would have already guessed by now: You plan the content and convert that into engaging video, which in a way will deliver the message about your brand and business. In addition, it will also further advance and promote your company, increase sales, uplift awareness of your services and products, and engage your customers. It is definitely time-consuming and difficult in the beginning. To break your routine from the conventional methods and apply it to a new practice altogether requires time and efforts. 

Similar to all other marketing approaches which were once difficult in the beginning, video marketing is complicated but it is data-driven, results-oriented. In order to keep track of this, you will need to keep track of various other metrics and monitor customer engagement.

To build develop your video marketing strategy, you will need to:

• Allocate dedicated resources: It ain’t expensive but you still want to allocate a pretty good sum at least in the beginning for your video marketing budget. Consultants, software for creating videos, editing tools, and a video marketing consultant and an expert and most importantly, unrushed time. 
• Communicate your genuine story: If you don’t have an interesting story, then build one. Storytelling is an art and people are never tired or bored of listening to interesting stories. And this leaves you with an apparent answer to how stories will help your video marketing. Get brainstorming now. 
• Engage: It is never enough to cook up some story and narrate it without any human touch. The stories will be remembered only when they relate with your customers. So take your time and build a cogent story. 
• Keep it succinct: Although there is no defined length, keeping the attention span of a human, it is wise to keep your story short and succinct. Be very ruthless with your editing. We understand every part of your story will feel important, however, you got to analyse will it be important for your customer. Edit and Cut. Edit and Cut. Repeat the process until you have snipped out everything irrelevant. 
• Publish: Publish it everywhere possible – meaning publish your video on all your online presence – from blogs to social media, everywhere. And then promotes promote, promote.
• Analyze: Finally, monitor your numbers and metrics, to decide which videos are performing and which are not and why. 

Challenges of Video Marketing

The prime challenge was the cost. And it was in the times when video marketing was a totally strange concept. However, with its booming effect, not that the costs have drastically reduced, the companies have upgraded themselves and have far realized that investing money in video marketing is worth their returns. In addition, the equipment cost, editing software, tools for all the publishers and the usage of data from an audience’s perspective is relatively high. Thanks to the service provider’s flexible plans. 

However, these challenges are not big compared to laying out a strategy by a company. To see the returns that you have envisioned, you need video marketing and content strategists and this means huge money. The soothing part is the returns that you would see and your boost in your RoI. And so let’s put it under surmountable obstacles. 

As a company, you need to put your complete attention on – How to develop a concrete and effective video marketing strategy, how to build content that will be worth people’s consumption. and how to create engaging videos that will get shared by your customer. 

Types of Videos

1. How-To Videos

Educational or Instructional videos are in the trend. And the first thing that rings a bell is the DIY Videos. You can use such videos to educate your audience to build foundational knowledge and learn something new. And these videos can be used by your internal team for the new joiners.

2. Explainer Videos

As the name says, this video is used to help your audience understand why and how your service and product can be of help to them. You can incorporate a fictional or a genuine story to your video that will appeal to your customer’s persona. And it should convey the problem and the solution to it. 

3. Animated Videos

The animation is not only a children’s go-to but also adults. These videos are a great approach for every hard-to-grasp concept. Replacing difficult-to-interpret visuals with animation will engage your audience more. 

4. Live Videos

Live videos are booming. It is a way to encourage all the customers online to take a sneak peek of what’s happening in your live video. It gives your audience an extra special, behind-the-screens look of your company. Going live is a way to tell your viewers that you are in reality what they are seeing and it will give your higher engagement rates. Live-stream presentations, question and answer sessions, interviews, and events, promote trust and encourage your viewers to further engage.

5. Personalized Videos 

Videos are the most creative ways to continue your earlier conversation over messages or emails. You can use software to record and send personalized suggestions and recommendations for a product. These videos will be delightful, create a unique moment for your prospects and will build trust in their purchase journey. 

6. Demo Videos

Demo videos will explain how your product will work and what methods will it work in. Whether it is a tour of your product, service or your software, unboxing and testing a product – everything can be explained in a demo video. 

7. Brand Videos

Brand videos are usually brand campaigns to showcase your company or your business. It will be a dedicated set of campaigns that will talk about your brand, communicate your brand’s mission and vision and objectives. The objective is to construct awareness around your business and to intrigue and lure your target audience.

8. Expert Interviews

Recording and playing interviews of thought leaders and experts in the market is a great way to promise your customers about your brand. It is in a way telling them that they can rely on your brand for the questions that they may have and you will produce relevant content to answer all their queries. 

Final Thoughts

If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed, then don’t as this is a great marketing tool that can be at your company’s disposal. At Digital X, we have dedicated Video Marketing Consultants and Digital Marketing Experts that can elevate your brand and become your growth architects. We grow with your brand and we believe our success lies in your digital acceleration. 

Contact us to know more.