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Digital Strategies to put in your 2019 Marketing Plan

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While there are many digital strategies for marketers, the ones that stand out, are rare the ones remembered. Your clients want to use the tried and true, but they always ask for the “innovative” tactic every year. However, innovative needs to provide ROI. Here are a few strategies (that don’t have the word blockchain in the title) that will be influencing your audiences, and stealing eyeballs. These strategies have been effective for several years, and will be for several more. I recommend you provide your clients with some of the solutions below:

  • Voice activated strategies

  • Influencer marketing

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Live Video marketing

voice

Voice Search

When you talk about change in digital marketing, search has got to be the most chaotic aspect of it all. The “Google algorithm updates” alone have kept marketers awake at night. Now with the entrance of Alexa and Google Home, search has taken on a whole new perspective. Voice search is rapidly gaining acceptance among consumers. Although still in its infancy, voice search is making a huge impact in how we get information, how we purchase products, and how we interact with our environment (home control). See how Merck is Alexa to interact with their patients.

60% of people have started using voice search within the last year.

Planning Ahead

According to ComScore, at least half of all searches will be made via voice query by 2020. That’s not so far away. And it doesn’t mean that we should ignore traditional SEO, either.

The rise in instant answers without search results will continue

You’re going to see a continual rise in instant answers. What is happening is that when a lot of these voice and conversational search queries are coming through, they tend to be longer, and they tend to be seeking out an answer that a device can quickly give you a direct answer to. Things like, what I placed here, and this requires some logic and some understanding from the machines, some contextual understanding, but it’s not that challenging, and the machines are doing a good job of this.

influencer

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing as a strategy has been growing in popularity for the past few years, but new and different types of brands are now starting to take notice. By using social media listening tools a marketer can identify individuals that will help a brand get the word out. There is a defined process to identifying these influencers, and understanding the online conversation around your brand is vital to choosing the right online influencer.

85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations – BrightLocal Survey

influencer

84% of marketers planned on executing at least one influencer marketing campaign during 2017 – Inc.com

ai

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is not new – in fact, you probably already interact with marketing AI when you see ads in search results and on social media. And, 57% of marketers already use AI. However, the use of AI for marketing is only going to grow as the technology improves. 

ai

Examples of AI in Marketing

  • Chatbots
    Chatbots designed to serve one or more purposes to the customers. For example, a chatbot operating in a chat screen of a website, or a bot operating in any social networking website’s chatbox. National Geographic lets you chat with Albert Einstein on Facebook messenger to raise awareness of the launch of its new original series Genius that dissects the psyche of the physicist Albert Einstein.
  • Data analysis
    One of the most useful examples of AI in marketing is data analysis. These days you don’t have to guess what will work for what audience. There are thousands of data points attached to the target audience that can be accurately analysed by bots to understand which message is going to appeal to whom.

AI closes the gap by moving far past human limitations to consume and analyze data on a scale no human can. The “intelligence” in artificial intelligence is the ability to think independently, to grow more knowledgeable from being exposed to more information and to adapt and adjust when things change.

  • Recommendations/content curation
    Predictive analytics allows Netflix to surface and finesse recommendations. This kind of clustering algorithm is continually improving suggestions, allowing users to make the most of their subscription.Uniting information from diverse datasets is a common use of AI.Under Armour is one of the many companies to have worked with IBM’s Watson. The sports apparel company combines user data from its Record app with third-party data and research on fitness, nutrition etc.The result is the ability for the brand to offer up relevant (personalized) training and lifecycle advice based on aggregated wisdom.
  • Content Generation
    A significant portion of sports and finance related articles are already written by machines, not humans. With AI marketing, this trend is poised to spread throughout various other industries. Finance and sports are traditionally numbers-heavy industries, which makes it easy for AI programs to understand the data and translate it into human-readable articles.
    A creative solution would be providing thoughtful answers in real time to customers. Check out Google Duplex coming soon.

google ai

In 2017, marketing platforms collected and stored information such as site usage, browsing patterns, search history and content preferences to create customer profiles and behavior marketing strategies that help marketers create custom messages to address these prospects. But the next step is even more exciting.

Consider These Stats and Facts

live video

Live Video, because it’s Live – Instant Gratification

Like AI, live video is nothing new, but it’s growing exponentially. Everyone wants a piece of Facebook Live.

And, it isn’t just popular with marketers. People love watching live video too. In fact, 80% of users said they’d rather watch a live video than read a blog post, while according to Facebook, live video gets 3x more views.

Here are a few tips for getting started with live video:

  1. Use live video at events to give followers a behind-the-scenes look at the event.
  2. Show off holiday displays and sales in live video.
  3. Use live video to introduce your followers to your employees.
  4. Advertise an exclusive sale or promotion to anyone who watches your live video.

Consider These Stats and Facts

  • The $127 billion autonomous vehicle market is being driven by AI. That’s how much the self-driving car market is expected to be worth worldwide by 2027
  • 76% of smart home speaker users conduct local searches at least once a week—with 53% performing daily searches
  • Live video is more appealing to brand audiences: 80% would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog, and 82% prefer live video from a brand to social posts.

How AI is changing Business: A look at the limitless potential of AI 

How to be a Search Expert on Google

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Do you “Google” everything? Whether it’s a quick fact at a party, or to see if someone is still alive, fact-checking our politicians, or researching topics for work, we use Google or the internet to find an answer.

google searchPersonally, I search every single thing out there. I don’t know if its for truth or just because I can. I’m pretty sure I’m addicted to “Googling” (yes I Googled Googling). But I know I’m not alone. However, the output/answer you get from a Google search, equals the input you provide. If you don’t ask the question in the right way, you may not get the best answer. Finding what you want sometimes requires a little detective work. So, how can you use Google to your advantage? There are many tips and tricks you should know about to help you become a Google expert.

Learning how to research is yet another science. There are different ways to search that provide better answers. Sometimes thinking like a computer helps and sometimes just being human is best.

TIP: If you’re looking for health related items, Google started a site this year which may help called Searching for Health

Researching tips

Let’s start with some researching tips first. I usually start with Wikipedia, then go to Google, then on to YouTube. Those are my big 3. That combination gives me a well rounded wealth of information on any topic.

I keep a Google Doc (Microsoft word) for my research with links and some definitions. You usually go down many rabbit holes so its good to keep track of your favorite links. you should also make note of the website you’re pulling info from. Is it reputable? Does it sound reputable? If yore not sure, maybe you’ll find 2-3 sites saying the same thing which is a better validation.

search expertTIP: If you’re searching for computer related information, visit Google Research. They tackle the most challenging problems in Computer Science and related fields.

 

“The output you get from a Google search, equals the input you provide.”

Here are some tips and tricks I’ve used to search on Google.

  1. Use quotes to search for an exact phrase
    This one’s a well-known, simple trick: searching a phrase in quotes will yield only pages with the same words in the same order as what’s in the quotes. It’s one of the most vital search tips, especially useful if you’re trying to find results containing a specific a phrase.
  2. Use an asterisk within quotes to specify unknown or variable words.
    Here’s a lesser known trick: searching a phrase in quotes with an asterisk replacing a word will search all variations of that phrase. It’s helpful if you’re trying to determine a song from its lyrics, but you couldn’t make out the entire phrase (e.g. “imagine all the * living for today”), or if you’re trying to find all forms of an expression (e.g. “* is thicker than water”).
  3. Use the minus or hyphen sign to eliminate results containing certain words
    You’ll want to eliminate results with certain words if you’re trying to search for a term that’s generating a lot of results that aren’t of interest to you. Figure out what terms you’re not interested in (e.g. jaguar -car) and re-run the search.
  4. Search websites for keywords
    Think of the “site:” function as a Google search that searches only a particular website. If you want to see every time TIME.com mentioned Google, use the search “Google site:TIME.com”.
  5. Search news archives going back to the mid-1880s
    Google News has an option to search over 100 years’ worth of archived news from newspapers around the world.
  6. Use “DEFINE:” to learn the meaning of words—slang included
    Streamline the dictionary process by using, for example, “DEFINE: mortgage.” For words that appear in the dictionary, you’ll be able to see etymology and a graph of its use over time alongside the definition. Google will even sift the web to define slang words or acronyms. Try out “DEFINE: bae” or “DEFINE: SMH”.
  7. Search images using images
    Ever come across a photo that looks strangely familiar? Or if you want to know where it came from? If you save the image, and then search it on Google Images (with the camera button), you’ll be able to see similar images on the web.
  8. Use a colon to search specific sites
    There may be an instance where you need to Google search for articles or content on a certain website. The syntax is very simple and we’ll show you below.

    1. Sidney Crosby site:nhl.com
      This will search for all content about famous hockey player Sidney Crosby, but only on NHL.com. All other search results will be removed. If you need to find specific content on a particular site, this is the shortcut you can use.
  9. Search for multiple words at once
    Google search is flexible. It knows you may not find what you want by searching only a single word or phrase. Thus, it lets you search for multiples. By using this trick, you can search for one word or phrase along with a second word or phrase. This can help narrow down your search to help you find exactly what you’re looking for. Here is the syntax.

    1. “Doctors that are experts in Oncology OR Doctors that treat Cancer”
      By searching that, you will search both phrases. Remember the quotes tip above? It’s being used here as well. In this instance, these two exact phrases will be searched. It can be done by word too, like the example below.
    2. chocolate OR white chocolate
      This will search for pages that have either chocolate or white chocolate!
  10. Use words that websites would use
    This is a very important one. When people use Google search to hunt the web, they generally search for things using the same language that they would use for speaking. Unfortunately, websites don’t say things the way people do; instead, they try to use language that sounds professional. Let’s look at some examples.

    1. “I have a flat tire” could be replaced by “repair a flat tire.”
    2. “My head hurts” could be replaced by “headache relief.”
  11. Use words that websites would use
    This is a very important one. When people use Google search to hunt the web, they generally search for things using the same language that they would use for speaking. Unfortunately, websites don’t say things the way people do; instead, they try to use language that sounds professional. Let’s look at some examples.

    • “I have a flat tire” could be replaced by “repair a flat tire.”
    • “My head hurts” could be replaced by “headache relief.”

voice searchSearch wrap-up

So you have the tools, tips, and shortcuts for you to be a research guru and a Google expert. Happy searching. But what if you don’t want to type? How about voice activated search? In my next article, I’ll take this search thing to the next level and use voice commands with Alexa and Google Home.

 

Increased ROI with Retargeting Ads

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Retargeting ads are nothing new at this point of online marketing, but following the basics of marketing principles will get you higher returns. Don’t get caught up in the technology of it all. It’s still about targeting your audience, segmenting them correctly, and delivering he right message at the right time.

Once set up correctly, retargeting ads will work hard for you. Don’t forget to set realistic goals for your program. This shouldn’t be an awareness program. This is about conversion – about getting people to buy your product. It’s all trackable and quantifiable. If your’e using pixel-based targeting you’ll get new leads, and when your’e using list-based retargeting you’ll have better quality leads. Let’s take a look at how this all works.

Web site visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70 percent more likely to convert on your Web site.

Quick 101 – What is retargeting?

Retargeting ads are a form of online targeting advertising and are served to people who have already visited your website or are a contact in your database (like a lead or customer). Unlike banner ads, this is not random advertising, this is more specific, more “targeted” like the name says. This is a marketers dream. Tell me who to advertise to and I’ll find a way to communicate with the right message, at the right time.

retargeting

Two Types of Retargeting Campaigns

There are two main types of retargeting: pixel-based and list-based. 

Pixel-based retargeting is a way to re-display your material to any anonymous site visitor. It uses cookies to track you. When they leave your site to surf the web, that cookie notifies retargeting platforms to serve specific ads based on the specific pages they visited on your website. By tracking past interests, purchases, level of buying intent, and overall engagement, ads will be displayed to you when you go to FaceBook or other websites.

List-based retargeting simply works after you already have someone’s contact information in your database and it is uploaded.

The pros are that results show better performing ads, stronger ROI from your advertising spend, and the ability to nurture customers with a consistent, cross-channel experience. The cons are that people find it creepy and sometimes annoying. It depends on the product you are selling. I would make the effort to make it “less creepy” by adjusting the purchase and behavior parameters. 

Hubspot has this quick guide to setting up retargeting on FaceBook.

retrget

3 Ways Your Retargeting Ads Can Be Better?

  1. Audience Segmentation
    Audience segmentation allows you to tailor ad messages to users in different stages of the purchase funnel. The process is simple: you place different retargeting pixels on different pages of your site, and then tailor creatives based on the depth of engagement of each user. You want to have specific messages for different people.
  2. Geographic, Demographic, & Contextual Targeting
    Targeting gives you the chance to optimize your ad placements. Ads can be targeted based on demographic information, like age or gender, contextual factors like subject matter of the website, or geographic data. When you target your ads with consideration for demographic, geographic, and contextual variables, you don’t waste valuable impressions on people who aren’t relevant to your campaign.
  3. A/B Test The Heck Out Of The Campaign
    Even if you launch your campaign with incredibly strong creatives, running the same set of ads will result in a lower performing campaign at some point. Plus, what you think is going to work ad what works can be two different things. A/B testing your creatives will help you determine the optimal combination of ad copy, calls-to-action, and graphics.

Retargeting ads are powerful and can be optimized to not be “creepy” to your audience. When used properly, retargeting has a great ROI. Follow some of these  best practices and your guru marketing skills, and you’ll be sure to see positive returns.

 

5 Ways to Keep Your Content Marketing Fresh

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contentContent marketing can seem a bit of a daunting task at first, but with some planning and a few tips, it can be very rewarding. Content is what keeps your customer engagement alive. It is the heart of your marketing plan. Once you have started pumping out good content, you’ll see an increase in interest from your customers.

Sometimes people are so concerned about the quality of their content, they don’t publish anything. Don’t be that person. That’s not to say you don’t need quality, but get some drafts going and tweak them over the week. You’ll soon have enough articles to publish and pus out to your customers on a weekly basis.

“One of the first things to learn is how to hit the publish button regularly and confidently.”

There will always be an excuse not to publish content, but what good will that do for your brand? Push yourself to create meaningful and relevant content. Write, plan, and hit publish often.


Tip #1 – Create an editorial calendar for all your content. Your editorial calendar will outline all of the content pieces you’d like to publish during the month. Create titles, set dates for publishing and stick to the calendar.

Tip #2 – Save ideas, links to content and your thoughts to DRAFT posts. You can never have to many Drafts. Write what’s in your head and the n come back to the post with facts and backup. Refine your thought and publish.

Tip #3 – Set a goal to publish one piece of content each day or week. Content can be anything from updating your evergreen pages to creating a blog post.

Tip #4 – Create content guidelines for internal folks to follow. These guidelines should outline what is both acceptable and unacceptable when publishing content on your site. Determine what you consider to be quality content, and stay true to those guidelines. Most importantly though, include people in the office to write on the blog.

repurpose contentTip #5 – When you can’t create new content, repurpose.

It can be hard to come up with new content all the time, so re-use what you have already created. For instance, this very article I wrote 2 years ago and went back to spruce it up. I updated the content, added a tip and reposted. Or, after you’ve written a few posts, you can easily combine them into a white paper that you offer your readers. If you have some statistic-heavy blog posts, consider using the data to create an infographic. For every piece of content you created, think about ways you can re-use and re-distribute what you’ve already developed.


Finally…
Have clear, defined goals. Save time and wasted resources by writing down clear goals for your content marketing efforts. These goals should include some (if not all) of the following:

  • Traffic increases
  • Lead increases
  • Conversion increases
  • Revenue increases
  • Bounce-rate reduction
 content blog

Shoot great video with your phone

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Learn how to shoot great video with your smartphone.

The average consumer takes pictures and shoots video on their smartphone, not an expensive camera. Whether it’s a iPhone or Android, this is what people have with them and “a good picture is the one you take.” Most people know the basics when it comes to still photography, but when it comes to shooting video, it seems all rules go out the window. Here are some basic tips to start with when shooting with your phone.

smartphone video1. Use a tripod (if possible)

The newest iPhones have built-in optical image stabilization, which makes shooting decent handheld footage fairly easy. But no matter how steady your hands are, nothing beats using a good old-fashioned tripod.

 

shoot horizontal2. Shoot horizontal, not upright

In order to watch your video at full size on a monitor or TV screen, keep your smartphone horizontal when you are recording. Shooting a video clip with your phone upright doesn’t seem like an issue at the time because you’re watching it on a device with a vertical screen, but as soon as you want to play the video anywhere else, your clip will be fighting for space with two black bars on either side of the screen.

3. Concentrate on keeping it smooth and steady

Your smartphone is small and light, so it can float while your walking or talking. The key thing is to use both hands, and lock your elbows into your body for extra stability. 

video one-third rule4. Think about composition (a little bit)

This is a tip for any type of photography. Good shots have one thing in common. Your eye is drawn to a subject matter in the picture. Place objects one-third in from the sides, with people’s eyes one-third down from the top.

available light5. Don’t shoot into the light

The bad news is you wont see faces and you’ll get a silhouetted image. The good news is you might get a nice, but unexpected silhouette.

Light can make your whole shot wonderful and it can make the worst video to look at. Working with available light is the trick. No FLASH, unless your in a cave – and even then I would try. If you want to shoot better video, you need to know how to work with the available light and use it to your advantage. If some parts of the shot are looking too bright or too dark, get into the habit of changing your position and finding another angle which allows you to still achieve the shot you wanted, but you’ve got the light working for you not against you.

 

6. Record 3 seconds beforehand after the action and shots should be 5 seconds minimum

If you’re going to edit your videos then this is a hard fastened rule. You need extra time on both sides to to edits and transitions. If you’re just shooting and showing the video to friends then don’t worry so much.

7. Manually set exposure and focus (more advanced, but a good tip)

Not all smartphone apps do this, but try pressing and holding on an area of the screen to activate the AE/AF Lock function. With a smartphone, the most important is the AE (Auto Exposure) Lock because you don’t want the smartphone to keep changing the exposure while you’re filming. Manually setting the focus is great when you want to get close to an object, and you need to tell the camera to focus on a particular area.

free camera appIf you want to get a nice camera app for free get this one for iOS and this one for Android.


microphone8. Get your microphone close to your subject (which means the phone

A general rule for clear audio is to get your microphone as close to your subject as possible. But that means you ned to get the phone close which may or may not be an option. Microphones on cameras pretty much suck so don’t expect a miracle.

If your’e really into getting the audio you can buy some inexpensive microphones that will do a better job. Check them out on Amazon.

s9. Share your videos

Show people what your’e doing with video. See their reactions. Have fun!

 

Some examples of good video and a comparison of iPhone and Android – Believe me each phone shoots good video.

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