How to get Social Media Goers to Share your Message

How to get Social Media Goers to Share your Message

Out with the old, in with the new. This motto has taken a whole new meaning with the advent of the Internet. Technology is changing at such a fast pace that people and companies need to be willing to keep up. Today, social media is redefining the way people share information. Before, if we read an interesting article you could call up a friend and share the information verbally. Now, you can literally share information and visuals almost instantly with your entire network by simply clicking a button.

It makes sense that companies would want to advertise their brands on social media to maximize their reach, but how do you utilize social media in a positive and productive manner? Because in the digital age, sharing is the key to social success.

According to Digital Marketing, book 2 in the SMstudy Guide®, “Consumers share content they like or find useful; thus, a high number of shares indicates that a large number of customers or potential customers perceive the company as helpful and knowledgeable and, by extension, may be more likely to purchase the company’s products or services.”

You can easily spread your brand successfully with the help of social media with three easy steps:

1. Get on board- everyone and everything is on social media right now. Social media is a source for free advertising, so companies cannot afford to miss the opportunity.  If you are not advertising your brand on social media, you are making a serious mistake. 46 percent of people said that companies that are proficient at social media marketing are viewed as more credible. So, if you aren’t utilizing social media then you can potentially be viewed as untrustworthy.
2. Create the right content- 73 percent of people process information more thoroughly when they share something. So, a company must ensure the content is engaging, easy to grasp, and attention-grabbing. You can increase engagement by following one simple rule: create content for your audience, not for your business. Identifying trending topics also makes content feel tailor-made and makes your company look up to date with the current market.
3. Use Visuals- Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text. Thanks to the rise of social media, customer’s attention spans are shorter and they expect more from an advertisement. So, visuals are a great way to boost engagement. Studies prove that images and videos drive more customer engagement which means more sharing. The image must capture the essential message of the brand. If the image does not align with the product consumers will skip it rather than share it. Your image needs to be visually appealing enough to drive audiences to your website for more.

Social media marketing is like oxygen for small business and start-ups, so in order to keep on keeping on, you must simply inhale. Happy Marketing!!

For more information and resources visit SMstudy.com

http://smstudy.com/Article/How-to-get-Social-Media-Goers-to-Share-your-Message

PPC Advertising

PPC Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or paid search advertising involves a company paying to have its ad appear on search results pages of search engines. PPC advertising providers such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing show sponsored ads, or paid search results, for most search queries. A consumer intending to purchase a microwave oven for her new modular kitchen may enter a query “microwave oven with convection and grill for home use,” seeking cost and feature information. A chain of electric kitchen appliances would likely then appear as a sponsored result. It is often observed that users with a high intention of making a purchase click on sponsored ads. This is especially true of highly transactional goods such as clothing, electronics, and consumer foods. 

PPC advertising has a significant impact on consumer metrics such as brand awareness and brand image, even among users who do not click on the sponsored advertisements. Image ads tend to be more effective in exerting positive impact and increasing visibility in search results. A consumer seeking a new microwave oven may choose to review multiple electric kitchen appliances advice pages before making a decision.

A business can increase the reach of its website using PPC advertising in the following ways:

Choosing relevant Keywords–keywords are the search terms used by consumers to tell search engines about the specific product or service they are interested in purchasing. For businesses looking for maximizing their reach using PPC or search engine advertising, the focus must be on bidding on keywords that are highly relevant to the search queries that are common in their business. Businesses can make use of their historical data and competitor data to determine the popularity and relevance of various keywords.

The price of keywords can vary greatly, from pennies to several dollars depending on popularity, demand, and the value to the advertiser. The ad’s “quality score”, rank and popularity of the keywords among the competitors determine the price an advertiser has to pay. The quality score is the search engine’s way of determining the relevance of an ad to the searcher by evaluating each keyword’s relevance to the business and its landing page, as well as other factors. The rank of an ad is determined based on its cost-per-click (CPC) and its quality score.

Choosing relevant Geography and Time–search engines have enabled business to analyze their past data to determine where their online customers are located and the best time to reach them. Based on this data and other internal research, businesses can choose the desired geography and time of day in which they should advertise their products and services for optimal results. For small businesses that cater to a local audience, geography-based targeting is especially important and helps ensure that their ads remain relevant.

Profiling the audience–Businesses must understand the profile of their target audience and create “user personas” that will help them identify the relevant ads for their customer base. A young age group may be attracted to video ads, while a more mature audience may prefer an image ad. Audience profiling may also help businesses identify the time of day when their target audience is most likely to make a purchase.

Selecting appropriate Ad sizes–Advertisements displayed on search engines and other third-party sites are available in different sizes, and the digital marketing team must customize their marketing content to the size of the ad being displayed.

Testing various Ads– Search engines allow businesses to experiment with two or more ad options in order to identify the more attractive one, commonly referred to as A/B or multivariate testing. A business can divide its marketing budget between two or more ads to be displayed to a similar audience throughout the day if it is unsure about the most effective advertising message for its products or services.

Customizing Language–businesses can also customize their ads based on the language preference of their target audience to make sure the intended marketing message is relevant and reaches audiences around the world. 

To learn more about PPC advertising, visit SMstudy.com

http://smstudy.com/Article/PPC-Advertising

Importance of understanding and evaluating Digital Marketing Channels

Importance of understanding and evaluating Digital Marketing Channels

When creating an online presence, one of the initial steps for an organization is to determine the targets as defined by the Marketing Strategy and then explore the various digital marketing channels available to achieve those targets. Organizations typically market their products or services to targeted audiences that differ in demographics such as age, sex, education, marital status, geography, and income. Implementing digital marketing tactics allows a company to target very specific audiences and measure each tactic effectively.

Given the volatile nature of the online world, new channels are emerging with greater frequency, and audiences are continuously exploring new sources of online content—digital marketers must regularly assess and reassess digital marketing channels for their effectiveness. To identify the most effective marketing channels for an organization’s products or services, marketers spend a considerable amount of time and effort identifying and understanding the dynamics of all available digital marketing channels and evaluating these channels relative to their company’s overall organizational goals and objectives.

The digital marketing team analyzes the Internet behavior patterns of its target audience and identifies all possible online media that are used by those consumers being targeted. It observes macro trends that might impact the way in which the organization markets and sells a product or service to consumers. As a result of this process, the organization gains a better understanding of the digital landscape and learns how it can develop and implement its marketing strategies to be effective.

A company must understand the pros and cons of each digital marketing channel as well as the situations in which a channel is most effective or ineffective. For example, when a company wants to promote an important achievement or milestone, the use of social media forums is a good option because of the possibility of a viral effect and mass exposure, which may raise awareness of the company. When promoting a discount offer, the use of e-mail marketing is beneficial because of the fast results it can bring. On the other hand, if the company wants to inform customers about an expected delay in service (e.g., due to a scheduled routine maintenance, delay due some unavoidable circumstances), it is usually enough for the company to use e-mail or their website to notify customers, rather than initiating a social media update. Negative comments often spread faster in social media leading to loss of brand value and image. Therefore, understanding different channels is important in order to evaluate their usefulness.

To learn more about digital marketing channels, visit SMstudy.com

http://smstudy.com/Article/Importance-of-understanding-and-evaluating-Digital-Marketing-Channels

Big Data and Analytics : Fundamentally changing the marketing landscape

Big Data and Analytics : Fundamentally changing the marketing landscape

Big data and analytics become an integral part of marketing since the inception of internet in the late 1990’s and the introduction of smart phone and other internet enabled smart devices in recent times. Big data usually refers to the data sets with sizes beyond the scope of commonly used software tools to collect, clean, manage and process data within an acceptable time frame. With the rapid advancement in technology and increasing use of smart phones and other internet enabled devices, organizations today face overwhelming volume of data through multiple channels and devices. The main roadblocks while using big data are:

• Capture high volume of data from multiple sources and consolidate the data
• Data cleaning (i.e. removing redundant or unnecessary data – internal data, data generated due to testing, deletion/ blocking of cookies)
• Data storage
• Data sharing/ transfer
• Data visualization
• Data analysis

Now the important question is why should organizations use big data and analytics. The answer lies in decision making. Organizations cannot afford to make any decision just by guess or gut feeling. The use of predictive analytics and certain other advanced statistical methods to extract value from data leads to more confident decision making which in turn results is greater operational efficiency, cost reduction and reduced risk.     

Big data enables marketers to increase the size and range of information sources while speeding up reporting, enabling real-time forecasting and more informed and accurate decision-making.

marketers benefit from a large volume targeting options when it comes to online advertising. The growth of cookies and information-rich social media, means that the data is there to go beyond simple demographic, geographic, psychographic and time-based targeting options. 

Big data analytics helps optimizing campaigns and improve results in a scalable, real-time manner.

Big data transformed the last-click conversion attribution model to the multifaceted attribution model which takes into account all touch points across consumer purchase life-cycle. It was complicated earlier to capture these different, interrelated factors and their relative weights. But big data makes it easy to track, analyze and evaluate activities to see what is actually driving customers to engage.   

Find additional posts on sales and marketing at www.smstudy.com/articles. 

http://smstudy.com/Article/Big-Data-and-Analytics-fundamentally-changing-the-marketing-landscape

SMstudy : Your Way Up

SMstudy : Your Way Up

When you leave the sales floor, where do you want to go?

Some people will just head to the lounge for a cup of coffee, but others will advance to new positions in marketing and management. What will make the difference?

Recently, the U.S. Department of Education began finding ways to encourage, facilitate and fund student participation in “alternative certifications.” As America and the global community moves to meet the needs of twenty-first century business, this is seen as a move to help training schools and companies that prepare students for professional certifications. The move is toward certified professionals that business and industry can trust.

There are many certifications available to programmers, project managers, automobile mechanics and more. Now there are certifications designed for professionals in sales and marketing. These certifications and complementary training come from VMEdu, Inc., the global training company that has trained more than 400,000 students worldwide. Through its association with SMstudy it offers a range of certifications in six Aspects based on the six most common and often distinct career fields related to Sales and Marketing.

For those who want to move into helping companies develop plans for making their products and services dominate the marketplace, SMstudy offers four certifications in Marketing Strategy. SMstudy says that marketing strategy makes the difference between startups that last beyond the start and those that falter a few steps down the track. These certifications lead to management-level careers and opportunities.

For those who have the desire to harness the power of the Internet and social media, SMstudy offers certifications in Digital Marketing.

And for those who like to know the inner workings of what makes people buy what they buy, there’s a path from a Marketing Research Associate certification to Marketing Research Expert.

Training and certifications are also available in Corporate Sales, Retail Marketing and Branding and Advertising.

More than 30 percent of the American workforce and similar percentages worldwide are involved in sales and marketing either directly or indirectly. It is an exciting field that drives every industry, business and profession. Training and certification organizations such as SMstudy can help retail clerks become sale professionals.

For interesting articles about Sales and Marketing, visit www.SMstudy.com/articles

http://smstudy.com/Article/Which-Way-Up

Doritos #CrashTheSuperBowl

A 30-second spot during the Super Bowl can cost upwards of four million dollars, so it better pack a punch. It appears that the Frito-Lay’s marketing team agrees. For the last ten years, Doritos, a Frito-Lay brand, has asked people from around the world to submit a commercial to the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest. The winner attends the game, receives one million dollars, and lands a “dream job” at Universal Pictures.

This year marks the 11th and final competition and there are three finalists in the running. The first commercial, “Ultrasound” isn’t for the faint of heart, but is hilarious. “Swipe for Doritos” is a play on a popular dating app, Tinder, and “Doritos Dogs” is very cute and very clever. Who doesn’t love dogs? The three commercials are quite different, but they all have one thing in common, you will most likely be sporting a six-pack after viewing them from laughing so hard.
Go to https://crashthesuperbowl.doritos.com/finalists/ to vote for this year’s winner.
With the use of the hashtag, Doritos is able to access all platforms of social media for maximum reach, relationship, and reputation. According to Digital Marketing, book two in the SMstudy Guide®, “Social media channels provide a good marketing medium for businesses to run offers and promotions to engage audiences and reach desired objectives. These offers and promotions are typically valid for a fixed time frame, require audiences to participate by discussing their experiences while engaging with the brand and offer attractive rewards to audiences that engage with the brand.”
The three finalists were announced on January 4th and now people will have until February 7th, the day of the Super Bowl, to see if their favorite won.
The Doritos #CrashTheSuperBowl was the first of its kind. It paved the way for companies such as Chevrolet and CareerBuilder, who also pursued online commercial competitions, but Doritos was the only campaign that succeeded. Last year’s fan favorite had more than seven million views!
A study done in 2015 by Medill IMC’s Spiegel Digital and Database Research Center showed that people who participated in the contest were more likely to buy the product and thanks to these participants, sales increased by 42 percent in the first week (post events) and continued to increase by 35 percent by the fourth week.  
With the success that has been generated over the years with this campaign, it will be exciting to see what Frito-Lay comes up with next. 
For more interesting articles about Sales and Marketing, visit - www.SMstudy.com/articles

[Stephanie Vezilj, SMstudy staff writer, contributed to this article]


Original Link: http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Doritos_Crash_The_Super_Bowl

Big Data and Analytics : Fundamentally changing the marketing landscape

Big data and analytics become an integral part of marketing since the inception of internet in the late 1990’s and the introduction of smart phone and other internet enabled smart devices in recent times. Big data usually refers to the data sets with sizes beyond the scope of commonly used software tools to collect, clean, manage and process data within an acceptable time frame. With the rapid advancement in technology and increasing use of smart phones and other internet enabled devices, organizations today face overwhelming volume of data through multiple channels and devices. The main roadblocks while using big data are:

• Capture high volume of data from multiple sources and consolidate the data
• Data cleaning (i.e. removing redundant or unnecessary data – internal data, data generated due to testing, deletion/ blocking of cookies)
• Data storage
• Data sharing/ transfer
• Data visualization
• Data analysis

Now the important question is why should organizations use big data and analytics. The answer lies in decision making. Organizations cannot afford to make any decision just by guess or gut feeling. The use of predictive analytics and certain other advanced statistical methods to extract value from data leads to more confident decision making which in turn results is greater operational efficiency, cost reduction and reduced risk.     
Big data enables marketers to increase the size and range of information sources while speeding up reporting, enabling real-time forecasting and more informed and accurate decision-making.
marketers benefit from a large volume targeting options when it comes to online advertising. The growth of cookies and information-rich social media, means that the data is there to go beyond simple demographic, geographic, psychographic and time-based targeting options. 
Big data analytics helps optimizing campaigns and improve results in a scalable, real-time manner.
Big data transformed the last-click conversion attribution model to the multifaceted attribution model which takes into account all touch points across consumer purchase life-cycle. It was complicated earlier to capture these different, interrelated factors and their relative weights. But big data makes it easy to track, analyze and evaluate activities to see what is actually driving customers to engage.   
Find additional posts on sales and marketing at www.smstudy.com/articles. 
[Suman Ghosh, VMEdu staff writer, contributed to the article.]
Sources:
https://econsultancy.com/blog/65260-the-top-four-applications-of-big-data-in-marketing/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mckinsey/2013/07/22/big-data-analytics-and-the-future-of-marketing-sales/#6f0ec1ee344d


Original Link: http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Big-Data-and-Analytics-fundamentally-changing-the-marketing-landscape

Thank you, P&G

One hundred days before the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Proctor & Gamble (P&G) gathered moms all around the world in a great, big group hug. Best known for products such as Pantene, Tide, Pampers, Bounty, and Oral B.—products that make bath time, laundry, clean-up, and brushing teeth just a little bit easier—the company launched a commercial portraying all the tasks a mother performs on a daily basis to support their child in achieving their dreams. The commercial closes with four children competing successfully in the Olympics and running up to their moms to thank them for getting them there.
The ad—that was spread through social media, TV and print—was a real tearjerker, making everyone grateful for the women who always cheered them on the loudest: their moms. If this commercial didn’t pull at your heart strings and make you tear up, then you were simply unhuman. The company reminded people from all walks of life that their success is, in big part, their mother’s success as well.

In order for P&G to create the ad campaign that was required to relate with their target audience they had to form a content creation and distribution plan. As stated in Digital Marketing, book two of the SMstudy Guide®, “The content creation plan identifies the type of content the business intends to create in order to connect with the target audience. The distribution plan charts how the organization intends to ensure that the created content reaches the intended audience by highlighting the chosen social media channels and detailing how each will be used to ensure maximum response to the content.”
The targeted audience of the commercial is moms. So, to ensure sales P&G appealed to the person responsible for completing the daily household chores. It is easy to forget everything that mothers do for their children, they don’t just raise them, they nurture them with love and with the help of P&G’s products.
P&G continued to clean up with this campaign, launching similar commercials prior to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2013 Special Olympics, as well as several other commercials titled “Raising an Olympian.” Providing audiences with a behind-the-scenes look at the amount of support moms really give their athletes, the brand used these commercials as a chance to sell their products. They showed moms cleaning their child’s uniforms with Tide laundry detergent and cleaning up after early morning breakfasts before practice using Bounty paper towels.
The initial commercial has six million views on YouTube and has been like 700,000 times on Facebook. I think we can officially say that P&G perfected the content creation and distribution plans making it the winner of the campaign Olympics.
[Stephanie Vezilj, SMstudy staff writer, contributed to this article]


Acknowledgement: This article is borrowed from http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Thank-you-P%26G

6 Ideas To Shake Up Your Digital Marketing

For some reason I have the number 6 on my brain this week. Not quite sure why.Yesterday it was 6 Ways To Take Advantage Of Negative Reviews and today it’s 6 Ideas To Shake Up Your Digital Marketing.

Maybe I have been watching too many reruns of The Brady Bunch lately.

1. Consider starting a Podcast. 

Don’t start a Podcast about your product or service but around an interest your type of customer has that uses your product or service.

Podcasts rank very well in Google and it also gives you a chance as the business owner to build a solid virtual relationship with your listeners. People do business with people they recognize, like and trust. Satpathy, CEO of Sales & Marketing Study, raves that “When my team has used podcasts as part of our marketing strategy, we have seen amazing successes in increased traffic and higher conversion rates.”

2. Consider publishing a book. Business flows offline and online to the authority leaders in the industry. Publishing a book can make you an authority and with using Amazon Publishing it’s extremely easy to do. It can get you press attention and can help you build amazing relationships with your readers that your competitors aren’t doing. Even easy, and more accessible to millennials, is offering a free ebook online.

3. Single does not always mean mingle. Remember that viewers of single product pages on your site will not click the buy now button immediately, and offer them other options such as email alerts if you drop the price or add new styles or other similar products to your site. Also, with the popularity of sharing products via Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, add a pop-up thank you message to shoppers who share and ask if they’d like to leave their email for similar price and option alerts. Tridibesh, the CEO of VMEdu.com, is convinced that his customers appreciate the chance to look around the website: “Our customers like our low-pressure but persistent online presentations.”

4. Don’t be afraid to show off your philanthropic side. A brand’s main focus has almost always been revenue, marketing to consumers to get them to buy more. As consumers become increasingly aware of the world around them, they start noticing a desire to help in some way. In 2015, e-commerce marketers who show their clients what they are doing to make the world a better place while improving the bottom line will be rewarded with loyalty.

E-commerce really lends itself to campaigns on web and mobile that highlight corporate social responsibility as well as ways to help the consumer through the products that are sold. E-Newsletters can be used to build momentum toward a brand’s cause, as well as traditional in-site displays.

5. Mine your data like you would mine for gold. Tridibesh, the CEO of VMEdu.com,, and he promises increased revenue from the smart use of sales statistics and patterns: “There’s nothing nerdy about mining for data when dealing with customer patterns – it’s a great money maker!”

It is a commonly observed online shopping behavior that customers switch between mobile, social, and web channels for just one purchase. This cross-channel activity reveals huge amounts of information about their preferences. So it’s essential for companies to follow that thread of interactions and customize display in a manner that would increase the chances of conversion.

6. Don’t overlook email and keep them fresh. Archimedha, Chief Sales Officer of Digital Marketing, believes that emails are an overlooked source of both new customers and customer retention. Changing a few basic elements in emails to give it a more customized feel takes only ten extra seconds but can push conversions to new heights. All you have to do is try to add value in emails – a product to enhance the look (upsell), a magazine subscription to stay on track of fitness (cross-sell), or just a tip to use the purchased product in a unique manner (to show that you care).

 

Acknowledgement: This content was borrowed from www.smstudy.com

Digital Marketing Enthusiast

  Digital Marketing is one of several Aspects of Marketing discussed in the SMStudy Guide series. Other Aspects discussed in this series include Marketing Research (MR), Corporate Sales (CS), Branding and Advertising (BA), and Retail Marketing (RM). The strategies for each of the Aspects of Marketing are derived from the outputs of the Marketing Strategy (MS), which are described in the SMStudy Guide series on Marketing Strategy.


The processes associated with establishing a Digital Marketing Strategy include gaining an understanding of the specific targets that this Aspect of Marketing must achieve in order to contribute to the successful attainment of marketing objectives; recognizing the various channels and options that digital media offers; building or acquiring the needed expertise and establishing a strong digital presence; and optimizing each of these channels to ensure maximum reach, build good customer relationships, and establish and protect a strong reputation in the chosen markets.

 

 Overview of processes of Digital Marketing

1. Digital Marketing(DM) Channels
2. Plan and Develop DM Channels
3. Optimize Website
4. Optimize Mobile Channel
5. Optimize Social Media
6. Other important elements of DM channels

Acknowledgement: The content is borrowed from www.SMstudy.com (original blog url: http://smstudy.com/whySMstudy/Digital-Marketing)