Digital Marketing: Capitalizing on content in 2016

Here’s a little digital marketing heresy you won’t hear very often: Sometimes the newest, freshest content isn’t the best (ducking to avoid rotten tomatoes hurled by my SEO friends).

Sometimes last year’s (and even older) content can be new again — if you have existing, quality content to pull from and you know how to use it.

As you plan your 2016 marketing strategy, analyze your website’s performance, particularly blog posts and articles, to uncover content to rejuvenate. Updating and republishing your best and most successful pieces as a part of your content strategy can reduce your marketing costs and bring you more quality traffic and leads.

Historical Optimization

Historical optimization is just a $10 term for updating and republishing your existing content so it is fresh and up to date. While it may feel like cheating, according to Rand Fishkin of Moz, Google often rewards republished content with higher rankings.

Blog articles and other content with perfectly accurate and valid information often lose credibility with the search engines and with readers simply because the posts were published a couple years ago. Once republished with a current date and a few updates, these proven topics have the potential to generate even more traffic and conversions than they originally did — at a fraction of the cost.

Judging Your Content

Good analytics will provide objective, measurable results you can use to gauge which pieces of content are right for historical optimization. Take inventory of which blog posts attract the most visitors and which generate the most leads — hint: they may not necessarily be the same blog posts.

Then start digging into what changes you could make to the posts more relevant and current. The changes don’t need to be extensive: Improve your image game, write a better headline, or optimize for any relevant, new keywords you have added to your keyword strategy.

Conversion Tips

You ideally want blog posts that attract high page views and high conversions. Then again, those aren’t the blog posts you have to worry about.

Opportunities for historical optimization usually lie with posts that have high traffic and low conversions or low traffic but an awesome conversion rates. This is where the most potential exists.

For example, if you have a blog post with high traffic but low conversions, this may be an indication that your conversion path is misaligned. You may want to change the call to action or landing page, or perhaps rewrite your meta descriptions.

For older posts with low page views but high conversion rates, you may want to attract more page views with better headlines or keyword optimization strategy.

Look at every facet of the reader’s journey to decipher why the post isn’t performing as intended.

Up Your Promotion Game

Perhaps you’ve been blogging for years but only recently started promoting your content on your social media platforms. If you feel strongly about the blog article’s potential, you may want to try a more aggressive promotion strategy — social media or paid ads — to see if you can draw more traffic that way.

Historical optimization should be only one tactic in your content marketing strategy, but it can be a powerful tool. As consumers and search engines continue to find new and innovative ways to block poor quality content, capitalizing on your proven winners and creating helpful, new content will set you up for marketing success in the future.

 Credits :       

http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/digital-marketing-capitalizing-on-content-in-2016-20151128

9 Reasons why website is important for businesses

Like many businessmen, you may also think that the website is not in your budget or you may not get benefit from it. Or even that your business is too small for starting it online or even that as you do not use the computer, it is not beneficial for your business. This post is for you to understand how your business can actually get benefit from the website.

Expands your market

It can help you to expand your market locally or globally depending upon your choice. Not only the nearby residents will be your customers, but the whole city or the world across can reach for your products. With the website, you will be bringing your products in front of the world.

Your business will be operating round the clock

you may be working are the regular hours until now, but with the website your business will be working round the clock round the year, There will not off which means the potential customers will know about your products anytime at their wish and can become genuine buyers.

Makes your business reachable

Once you have your website in the digital market, the customers who are searching for the relevant products will be able to find you more efficiently. The good search engine optimization and use of keywords will help your business to be more easily available.

Increases credibility of the business

With the well planned website in place, your business will stand apart from those who do not have one. This increases the credibility of your business in the market.

Time saving in terms of promotional activities

You must have spent a lot of time in sending fliers, ads in newspapers or even audio advertisement. But promoting the products online is more time saving than conventional methods of promotion. With just the click of the mouse, you can spread the information across the world.

Cost effective

Similarly, a huge sum of money is invested in print media or hoardings. But they cover a small market. With the website, the single promotional activity can be flashed by using social media or other means which is more reasonable and faster.

Helps you to compete in the market

With the well-presented website and proper strategies in place you can be in a position to compete with the competitors and even the big brands. The proper planning and execution of website can also help the new business to make a strong presence.

Helps you to communicate with the buyers

The website with the links with social media can help you to communicate directly with your customers, understand their needs and even gain benefits from their feedbacks in terms of introducing changes in product line or services as per market demand.

Gives your business a platform to introduce itself in the market

It proves as a platform for the business and provides a voice to inform the prospective buyers about its products and services. The product images, portfolio or the web gallery can help to showcase your business. Even the informative posts on the blogs can build the relationship with the customers by sharing relevant information.

People look offline and then buy online, read reviews online, then look offline, then buy whenever convenient- and this move by Amazon reflects this..

Amazon opens first physical book store

Amazon is opening its first physical bookstore, 20 years after the world’s biggest online retailer started selling publications on the internet.

The company unveiled a shop called Amazon Books at University Village in Seattle, its home city, on Tuesday.

The store will stock about 6,000 titles, with the selection based on reviews and sales data from Amazon.com. The price of books in the store will be the same as on the website.

For Amazon to have a physical point of presence makes sense. They’ve moved into the same space as high street department stores, so it fits that they should have a place consumers can trust to look, touch and experience the products.

Amazon has slowly moved into physical retailing by launching lockers and pick-up points where customers can collect their orders, as well as kiosks where they can buy gadgets such as the Kindle e-reader.

The relationship between physical stores and online retaielrs is becoming ever more entwined. We live in an omnichannel world, so there’s a seamless blend throughout the path to purchase. People look offline and then buy online, read reviews online, then look offline, then buy whenever convenient- and this move by Amazon reflects this..

The store includes a shelf holding the bestselling books on Amazon.com and another with books that are rated 4.8 stars and above by customers. Comments from reviews are also shown next to each book.

“To give you more information as you browse, our books are face-out, and under each one is a review card with the Amazon.com customer rating and a review. You can read the opinions and assessments of Amazon.com’s book-loving customers to help you find great books,” said Jennifer Cast, the vice-president of Amazon Books.

In terms of long term strategy, it remains to be seen if Amazon can leverage in-store collection as a way of reducing its delivery costs.

A small network of stores in large cities could prove to be highly cost-effective, and strategically valuable at broadening the breadth of the shopping basket. As Amazon pushes more into the grocery space, this is a model we’re bound to see them pilot further.

 Credits :                                                                

 http://www.netimperative.com/2015/11/amazon-opens-first-physical-book-store/

Digital Marketing Aspects

Digital marketing is the most crucial concept in today’s commercial sector. Every business needs one or more electronic media to promote its brand and expand the scope of market. With the introduction of markets in electronic gadgets like computers and smartphones the direct approach to the buyers is now possible. Earlier the sellers has to assume what the buyers want to know and it’s their discretion to choose the information that they want to spread amongst the customers. Today buyers are more educated about the brands, competitors and they rely more on feedback's. Customers want the products that have positive feedback's and are trustworthy.

Today the information is not only spread across the globe within few minutes but it can also be tailor made to be closer to the prospective customers

Digital marketers may use multiple tools to promote the businesses. These can be

Internet, Mobile applications, Electronic billboards, IM, etc.

Digital marketing requires great deal of creativity and strategic planning with prompt actions. All the strategies revolve around the customers and their requirements. The components of the digital marketing include PPC, SEO, SMO, CRO, ORM, etc

Pay per click:

The PPC account on the search engines are easier to create but the search engines require the customers to click on the links for generating the revenue whereas for businesses the direct business will be the better choice. The effective PPC strategy requires careful planning so that they can get the best from the selection

Social Media optimization:

Social media is gaining its intervention in promoting the business. It is a great tool to promote to the selected group of the audience. If carefully chosen, the social media can be the great tool for getting closer to the clients and understanding their needs and knowing feedback's.

Search Engine Optimization

To gain the organic customers the SEO is the most effective tool in digital marketing. It also helps to get the traffic for web portal from listings, search engines, editorial, etc. The search engine displays relevant links that are most searched and active. People usually tend to review those links that are on the top of the list and tend to ignore the ones available on the later pages.

Conversion Rate Optimization

The idea of this concept is over changing web browsers into customers. Actually, there are different tools that are accessible to gage the deficiencies of a website. These include

·         Google analytic – this provides credible data on online traffic, set of keywords and other numeric and analytical data for a site

·         Scroll map and hit map – These advice about what the guests are tapping on and about how far of a website page they are really looking over.

·         A/B test and Multivariate test – These tests help recognizing the progressions, either big or small, to a website that will encourage better reaction from the targeted online people..

Online Reputation Management

This refers to the core of the digital marketing. The digital marketing revolves around the reputation of the product on the market. The feedback of the customers about what they are looking for in digital marketing. Hence the online reputation marketing is the major element to achieve success. The major role of ORM includes:

·         Prompt response on queries

·         Using feedback's efficiently and

·         Carefully handling adverse feedback's.

Decoding Harisal, India's First Soon-To-Be 'Smart Village'

MUMBAI:  On the state highway to Melghat, you will not find Harisal on milestones or road signs, not even when you are just 10 km away. It comes up suddenly - a cluster of houses, a prominent blue Bank of Maharashtra board, and a fading green sign that says 'Harisal', which is a "medium-sized village" as the 2011 census described it

Until a couple of months back, Harisal was a nondescript adivasi settlement left to its devices. Now, it is all set to become the first "smart village" in the country, and "online" is the buzzword here, a magical string of syllables on the lips of its 1,479 residents.

The buzz started on September 14, when the village received rather unusual visitors - Microsoft India head Prashant Shukla, district collector Kiran Gitte and the CMO's IT chief Kaustubh Dhawase - as a rite of initiation into the mothership called Digital India.

Two weeks ago, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who had visited the village last year, announced at Microsoft's Future Unleashed event that Harisal will be the first-of-its-kind "smart village".

"Technology will be the means to solve problems of health, education, skill development and employment," as collector Gitte puts it. Mobile connectivity, a Wi-Fi zone, a digital centre, cashless markets, health cards and telemedicine are on the agenda to transform Harisal, according to officials.

Kaustubh Dhavse, officer on special duty (IT) in the Chief Minister's Office, told mid-day, "The idea of village smartness was the CM's concept to bring villages to the mainstream. The region has all core infrastructures in place but the people need to be made aware of the benefits they can derive from it.

He added that Harisal was an ideal place as most of population had smart phones and television sets that connected them with the world outside. But over at Harisal, villagers draw our attention to a lone bulb that barely lights the readymade clothes shop.

The village faces severe load-shedding - six hours in the night and eight hours during the day - and even when there is power, it is just enough for a low-wattage bulb. Running televisions at home and motor pumps in the field invite strict reprimands; villagers say there is no water supply.

Jayshree Kharve, an ASHA worker at one of the three aanganwadis in the village, said the things the aanganwadi needs the most are a compound wall, water supply, and pensions for the workers - none of which are to do with technology.

In fact, looking back at Dhavse's remarks, it looks like Harisal will only now really get the so-called "core infrastructure" under the Digital India plank. The sarpanch Bhau Chipu Dhikar, an adivasi from the Melghat's predominant Korku tribe, believes "online" will be the doorway into "sukh suvidha" (comfort and amenities).

The quiet ex-forester does not own a mobile phone and has never seen a computer. For him, Digital India is "something the American sarkar has brought to India."

Thanks to Digital India, Dhikar is optimistic that his village will become more like a city, and that his sons, who are high-school pass-outs, will get a steady employment rather than farming.

Another villager, Deepak Nagle, 28, is one of the 14 members in an all-male nodal committee of villagers formed under the smart village plan. Nagle will be trained in computer basics, and will in turn teach other villagers.

Nagle, who stopped at high school, works as a driver, shunting between Harisal and Parathwada, the nearest developed centre at the foothills of Melghat.

He has a mobile phone number, but with no way to charge his phone, it is pretty pointless. Nagle has other pressing concerns too.

The nearest undergraduate college is in Dharni, 26 kms away, so pursuing engineering or medicine is not an option for every Harisal student. Buses do not ply frequently into Harisal either.

"There are new technologies in education that we can be part of if we have Internet. Microsoft has already mapped our houses using GPS, and soon farmers will be able to ask their queries online," he says.

Power struggle

While these ideas look great on paper, electricity is a major issue for Harisal. The town Dharni, which is also the taluka under which Harisal falls, has 24x7 power supply.

So does the neighbouring hill-station of Chikladhara, a tourist destination. But in Harisal, the bank, fitted with an inverter and solar panels, is an anomaly. The most solar energy that is domestically used in Melghat is in the form of lanterns, provided by the Forest Department.

Dhikar says, "We have been conducting morchas and fighting the load-shedding problem for the last four years. We had electricity supply before that; but with decreasing ground water levels and an increase in the number of bore-wells, we started facing this problem." Another villager chimes in, "But families here still get a monthly electricity bill of Rs. 400."

Asked about this, Collector Gitte said power supply will soon be directed from Nepanagar in Madhya Pradesh. Sources on the ground, however, added that these talks have been on for over a year without any results.

Gitte and Officer Dhavse added BSNL has finished laying fibre optic cables and Indus will erect a mobile tower (even as one installed by Reliance stands defunct) right outside the panchayat office in a month's time.

Dhavse, who has worked for top corporate companies before joining Team Fadnavis, said the information highway would be ready for transmission anytime soon.

More than just digitisation

At the Future Unleashed event in Mumbai, Fadnavis - speaking in the presence of Microsoft boss Satya Nadella - said: "The lack of nutrition, coupled with genetic health problems, and the lifestyle of people have to be changed to make it more healthy and connected with the mainstream."

District Health Department figures show the Dharni taluka in Melghat recorded 158 deaths under the age of one just in April and May, though villagers don't make much of it. The deputy sarpanch Ganpat Babuji Gayan, in fact, claimed malnutrition figures have come down considerably in the past few years.

Vandana Krishna, director general for the Rajamata Jijau Mission, explained Harisal's attitude thus: "Local people have become cynical. Melghat has been so over-exposed as a malnutrition centre that villagers have reached a saturation point.After all, Melghat is not the only hotspot. Gadchiroli, pockets of Nashik, and Nandurbar are more backward, but with fewer NGOs operating in these places."

In 1996-97, the area recorded more than 1000 deaths under the age of six, as compared to 2013-14, when a little more than 400 deaths have been seen.

Explaining how digitization will help curb these deaths, Collector Gitte said, "While child mortality rates have been on the decline with the help of anganwadis, midday meals, etc, it is still a challenge to bring down Infant Mortality Rates (IMR). The challenge is to bring pregnant mothers well in time to hospitals and not lose them during transportation."

Baby warmers in ambulances, mobile-connectivity for ambulances and tele-medicine are some of the ways by which the smart village will combat IMR and (Maternal Mortality Rate) MMR, he said.

While Harisal gets its fair share of basics along with digitization, the plan is that 51 smaller villages within a 15 km radius will benefit from this. Gitte added that locals will be taught improved farming techniques using digitally-accessed advice in weather patterns, soil quality with the aiming of increasing the output of soybean and tendu leaves, which is used to make beedis.

Dr Ashish Satav heads NGO Mahan, established in 1998 to improve health for adivasis in Melghat. He said technology against malnutrition will work only with the right human intervention.

In a report he co-authored in May, Satav recommended home-based child care, preventing under-reporting of malnutrition cases, building child development centers and nutritious kitchens.

Satav also said newer diseases like tuberculosis and heart attacks were on the rise in the community and that digital initiatives should look at ways to tackle these, too.

Similarly, Krishna said the greatest boon digitization can offer the village is to take aanganwadi reports online. Currently, the reports show mere numbers, and have no details. "The reports do not tell you what is happening to each child but show bulk figures. Digitising records will help us to track the progress of each child, make comparisons, and minimise the under-reporting that is predominant in these records."

Satav added that while it is good to focus on Harisal, some of the other worse-off villages should not be forgotten. "Harisal, with its PHC and an ambulance on call, is not the worst off among villages with malnutrition in Melghat," said Satav. "It is on the highway and has access to health amenities. Kokmar, a hamlet 25 kms away from Harisal, on the other hand, has seen the worst of inaccessibility to basic healthcare."

Substandard delivery kits (which include razors and sickles), diarrhea-related deaths, misbeliefs regarding check-ups are predominant in Kokmar.

The Korku tribe, say experts, have been a challenge to health workers, since they are particularly superstitious. The tribe usually resorts to witch-doctors and quacks, who dispense amulets and taveez.

'Jhaad-phoonk' is the first option; approaching the PHC is the last. Women have as many as 12 children. Dr Satav says, "Making a hamlet like Kokmar, which has 14 kms of kaccha road, into a smart village will be the real success story. Harisal is not the real representation of Melghat."

The 30 houses in Kokmar have a monthly income of less than Rs. 3000 and are mostly Korku. Harisal, on the other hand, is not your average adivasi village since it has several migrants, including Marathi-speakers and Muslims.

"People from Kokmar have no market facility, no buses and are exposed to quacks. There is absolutely no electricity. Is Harisal then a replicable model?" asked Satav.

Needed: Smart solutions

Some of the proposed technological initiatives have already been tried out with varying degrees of success. Advocate Purnima Upadhyay, from NGO Khoj, a voluntary organization in Melghat, pointed to the failure of telemedicine in the Semadoh, 24 kms away from Harisal, and on the highway as well.

About eight months before the Fadnavis government came to power, the villagers were given telephonic access to doctors in urban areas, but with no mobile phone coverage, this plan died a quiet death. Moreover, the medicines prescribed by the doctors were not stocked at the PHC.

"The top-down model is not going to work and the basics need to be improved. The ideal way to go about with digitization is to do is simultaneously in five villages, with different indicators and then analyse different success rates," she said. Her colleague Adv Bandu Sane added, "Instead of waiting for so long to bring in cellphone towers to enable calling ambulances, why weren't landline facilities made available years ago?"

On paper, tele-medicine is a zero-cost solution, according to Sam Pitroda, who launched the Centre for the Development of Telematics as part of a similar initiative by the Rajiv Gandhi government in the 1980s to take telecommunication to the country's farthest corners.

"All you need is access to a qualified doctor. Khatam," he said. What Pitroda is wary of, however, in this "reasonably sound plan" is a tight handshake between the Maharashtra government and Microsoft. "We don't want proprietary software. It should be open source, which people can further develop.

Instead of just hardware and software getting pumped into a village, we need NGOs, activists, women, social scientists, anthropologists and psychologists to be part of this model. There has to be a balance between customization and standardization," he says.

Pitroda said connecting panchayats is the building block of digitization, but it then has to be planned well, both top-down and bottom-up. He uses the term interoperability - a way of making sure that various institutions are linked together.

"The old ways of doing things have become obsolete, especially with the rise of social media. What do you think will happen if you put a whole village on Facebook," he asked. Admittedly, Harisal is just a pilot project, based on the successes of which 11 more clusters will be digitized in the area.

And pilot projects and experiments are great, says Pitroda, as long as there is a "tough understanding" of the needs of rural Maharashtra. "A tribal may not know the possibilities of digitization, but he knows what he wants. If you spend Rs. 2 crore then what do people get?" asked the telecom engineer.

State speak
Kaustabh Dhavse, officer on special duty (IT) in the CMO and the nodal officer for the Harisal project tells Dharmendra Jore how the government will transform the village

Q. Why Harisal?

A. Harisal has the dubious distinction of being the malnutrition capital of Maharashtra. It has very peculiar demographics.

Its social indexes are highly negative and despite being blessed with ample natural resources the area suffers from a plethora of issues.

The issues are solvable and only require intent and government will. When we met the people of Harisal, their steely resolve to work to fix the issues inspired us and made it the right choice.

The CM believes that when an effort becomes people's movement its success is guaranteed. Our strategy is similar to what we did in Jalayukt Shivar (rural water conservation programme).

Q. What changes can Harisal expect in the coming months?

A. 1) Self-sufficient and Sustainable Village economy with enough resource creation, 2) Bringing Harisal people to the mainstream by providing them access to the Information Superhighway, 3) To bring the entire village on the banking system with 100% compliance to PM Jan Dhan Yojana, 4) PDS, Education, PHC, Tribal/EBC (other backward class) benefits ecosystem will be created, 5) Village GDP and Socio Economic Growth Quotient will be measured and monitored on periodic basis. Efforts to drive it up will be taken. Focus is to drive economic growth, and 6) Skill Development initiatives with mahakaushalya.com

Q. How will the Digital India programme help put an end to malnutrition in Harisal?

A. Malnutrition is a byproduct of a system that does not organise itself well to solve the issue. Policies earlier were like band-aid. It never looked at the problem in detail to see what causes this menace. We were able to dwell deeper and basis data co-relate factors affecting health to impoverishment and ignorance. It is like a vicious cycle. Malnutrition problem is similar to the farmers suicide issue. The problem is systemic. Our design philosophy which primarily rests on driving up economic activity, empowering villagers and giving them clarity, literacy and access to govt services will kill this menace once and for all. Several thousands of crores have been spent to drive away malnutrition without understanding the problem in detail. The issue when understood completely now is in the process of resolution.

Q. What kind of support is Microsoft receiving from the Maharashtra Government?

A. State and Microsoft are in a partnership to make Harisal the first Digital Village in the country. MS will invest capital and GoM will provide all support. The day this is ready, it will become a national example. What technology can do to common lives and how it can solve complicated issues, our implementation will show.

Q. Harisal does not have continuous power supply. How does the government think Microsoft is going to deal with that?

A. Power will be continuous through renewable sources. There might be a short-term issue till we get our act together, once our core (conventional) and non-conventional power sources are in place, the village will shine like never before. Villagers deserve to be part of the economic growth story. We are committed to deliver this to them.

1,479
Population of Harisal village in Melghat in Amravati district

158
Malnutrition deaths in Harisal in April and May

1,000
Number of children below six who died in Harisal in 1996-97. This has come down to 400 in 2013-14.

Rs. 3,000
The monthly average income of Kokmar village, which is just 25 km from Harisal

Credits :
 http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/decoding-harisal-indias-first-soon-to-be-smart-village-1243808

5 Ways Social Media Drives Digital Marketing

Social media has changed the way we look at businesses. The new markets have been opened for the sellers. It is not just the tool for personal use but an easy tool to share information across the globe in just a few clicks. It is now easier for businesses to reach the world and be closer to their customers. Let us see how it can benefit the buyers in establishing and expanding their business.

Drives traffic:

Every business needs traffic for its expansion. The search engines today are dependent on not only searches for websites but the reaches of people on the social links as well. The social media is faster and effective tool for promoting business. Fewer clicks as n spread the information worldwide and the increased number of likes and shares helps the business to get more business.

Get the best of the search engine ranking:

Today with every post shared on sites like Google. Twitter etc., every move is counted on search engines. People are preferring to search for business on social media prior to search engines. Some social media like Facebook and Twitter are becoming next generation search engines. Having the presence on these and keeping the information up to date definitely improves the search engine results. The easier the business is available on social media, better will it be available on the search engine.

Customer interaction and engagement:

It is a tool to get the real feel of the customers personally. The interaction with the customer directly is possible with the social media.

The regular feedbacks and suggestions from the customers help the businesses to understand the customer needs and gets the opportunity for research and development for the expansion of the business. The business needs to be prompt on queries, suggestions, and feedbacks for gaining customer acquisition and loyalty.

Helps in Branding:

For the small businesses, social media plays a crucial role in introducing the business in the market and creating brand awareness. The accumulation of the real-time data of the customers also help the business to understand their potential market and tailor made promotions on the social media tool helps to gain the attention of the organic customer and set up the brand.

Mobile means more business:

It is easily accessible on the smartphones which have expanded the business to work 24 X7 in the global market. With the increase of mobile apps, more personal contact with the organic customer is possible. The apps has also made it easier to share anything anytime. The mobile compatible websites offer better opportunities to business and better ranking on the search engines.

For every business, whether a newbie in the market or the existing brands, it is truly the helpful tool to get more opportunity and bigger market.