4 big digital marketing trends SA will see in 2016

As we all wind down (read: freak out, break out in hives) and skid into the much needed holiday season, it’s important to take time to reflect and prepare for the year ahead. Here are four key trends that will shape the approach to digital marketing in 2016.

1. Eschewing product-focused content

The ‘infomercial’ approach to branded content on social media and digital channels isn’t working for anyone. You cannot claim to be successfully mastering storytelling if your story is: “Our product is the best thing on the planet and is 10% more amazing than everything else. Everyone who bought it lived happily ever after. The end.”

Think about the way Dove went from generic soap ads to transforming their brand narrative through the ‘Real Beauty’ campaign.

To broaden your perspective on branded content, think of your brand as a person – consider what their interests would be and draw your content pillars from that. Compelling storytelling involves removing the product blinkers and looking at the broader context within which your brand exists.

Consider your scope of content as a series of concentric circles. The bigger the circle, the broader the appeal and the greater the potential objective value of the content.

2. Paid content distribution

As content marketing becomes the new normal for brands, the reality is setting in that publishing content and having it discovered online are two very different things.

Even the best content needs to be backed by spend to spark engagement and broaden reach. As a result, in 2016 brands will begin to see content distribution strategy as being just as important as content production itself.

Facebook has emerged unequivocally as the most successful paid content distribution platform for brands and publishers alike. With the right targeting strategy and the right content crafting, Facebook is the most effective way to put your content in front of the right people at the right time. And it doesn’t hurt that a quarter of all global web traffic is currently channelled through the platform.

That said, brands will also be experimenting with new opportunities for native advertising as publishers explore new mutually beneficial models.

3. Engagement analytics and ROI
As brands invest in creating higher quality content, they’ll also demand a higher standard of analytics to prove ROI. Looking beyond vanity metrics such as impressions and reach, brands will want to measure value by deeper metrics such as time spent on site (and specific articles), comments and, all-important, sharability.

In line with this, it will also be increasingly important to analyse the quality of referral traffic driven by paid content distribution platforms. All of these insights must be fed back into the content production and optimisation process in a constant feedback loop to ensure optimal ROI.

4. Influencer relationships and content co-creation
As content takes centre stage, it will become increasingly important for brands wanting to win at content marketing to partner with the professionals. This means working with video production experts when video is required, photographers for amazing imagery and professional writers and journalists for compelling articles.

(Hopefully) gone will be the days of influencer endorsement simply for a once-off fee. Audiences see straight through the one-dimensional ‘endorsements’ and influencers and brands alike lose credibility because of them. Brands will need to be thinking in terms of long-term, mutually beneficial relationships based shared values and the desire to create quality content.

Credits :

http://memeburn.com/2015/12/4-big-digital-marketing-trends-sa-will-see-in-2016/

How Companies Find You Online is Changing in 2016! Find Out How to Assure Your Company is Easily Found.

Every day, Google gets a little bit better at determining a website’s value in response to a user’s query. As a result, rankings fluctuate, and search engine optimizers like us spend a lot of time speculating on what SEO will look like next week, next month, and next year.

2015 is quickly coming to a close, and we’ve begun making plans for SEO in 2016. We’re reading between the lines, looking at what Google changed this year, and taking in the bits of information Google has given us in order to make predictions that will guide our work in January and beyond.

#1: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

When I was first learning SEO in 2006, I read the words “content is king” more times than I can count. Ten years later, content is still the single most important element of search engine optimization, and publishing unique, relevant, useful content that real people value (and share) is the best way to succeed at SEO. This was as true in 2006 as it will be in 2016. Content marketing strategies change over time, but creating quality articles, guides, videos, infographics, and blog posts is the first step toward the top of Google’s search results.

#2: Mobile is going to matter more.

In April, Google rolled out a mobile-friendly update to its algorithm. This change was highly anticipated by SEO professionals, and so many sites had time to prepare (and avoid the consequences). The sites that didn’t bother to update to a responsive design or design for mobile stopped appearing at the top of Google’s search results on smartphones. SEOs speculate that we haven’t seen the last mobile-friendliness update from Google. In fact, we expect that responsive design will become even more important in 2016 as more and more users research, shop, plan, and interact on their smartphones.

#3: Google is going to tell us less.

We’ve already seen huge cut-backs in terms of how much information Google is willing to give us about our visitors. Google Analytics reports most keywords as “not provided” these days, making it extremely difficult to see whether or not our SEO efforts are paying off. Now Google is adding “Dark Traffic” to its “Direct Traffic” numbers. This means that any time Google can’t readily identify a traffic source, it shows up as Direct Traffic. As more and more people interact with various apps, messaging programs, and other tools, we can expect these numbers to grow – and we can expect to be in the dark when it comes to knowing which efforts are really driving traffic. 2016 may be the time to invest in a paid analytics service like Moz.

#4: We’re going to be competing with Google itself for placement on the SERPs.

If you haven’t already noticed, Google has spent this past year making their search results (and likely, their pockets) much richer. Today’s searchers often don’t need to leave Google to find the answers they’re seeking. Things like game scores, factual information like definitions or math equations, and other tidbits pop up at the top of the SERPs, keeping users right where Google wants them. Maps listings, carousels with local business information and images, and other rich snippets are taking up more of Google’s real estate, making it even harder for site to get found organically. As Google continues to give itself a bigger share of its own results pages, SEOs will have to seek out clever ways to achieve the ranks they need.

#5: Factors that previously haven’t mattered are going to make a big difference.

For a long time, Google’s official policy stated that click-through-rate (how many people visit your site after seeing it in their search results), social signals, and engagement metrics didn’t play a role in a site’s rankings. As 2016 approaches, Google has given us reason to believe that things may be about to change. Social signals like “likes,” “shares” and Tweets are a good indication of how much users value your content, and so they’re an obvious choice for Google to factor into its algorithm. Similarly, CTR and engagement (how long a user visited and how many pages they looked at on your site) offer a potential indication of how well your site answers a particular query. Google is all about developing an algorithm that mimics natural search behavior, and all these metrics will only further that goal. Once again, SEOs who want to succeed need more than just technical know-how. They need to be experts at digital marketing and content.

Credits :

http://www.business2community.com/seo/companies-find-online-changing-2016-find-assure-company-easily-found-01399948#t8dgeLIJe6GES0DW.97

This investment bank presentation helps explain the complicated digital marketing industry for normal people

The digital marketing industry is packed with big and small companies, as the LUMA Scape generates.

The digital marketing industry is a multi-billion dollar space. And it's a complicated one too - even people who work in the sector struggle to get their heads around the latest acronyms and trends.

Investment bank LUMA Partners famously created the LUMAScape which shows the myriad middle-men technology companies that sit between a marketer choosing to spend money on an online ad, and that ad reaching the consumer.

Now LUMA Partners has created a new presentation that aims to demystify the digital marketing landscape - and it's particularly useful for those who aren't immersed the industry.

LUMA Partners has kindly allowed us to publish the presentation and commentary, which covers topics including the huge amount of M&A activity in space, the limited number of ad tech and marketing tech IPOs, and the newest digital marketing trends.

Credits :

http://www.businessinsider.in/This-investment-bank-presentation-helps-explain-the-complicated-digital-marketing-industry-for-normal-people/articleshow/50078175.cms

LUMA's State of Digital Marketing

Growth Hacking Tricks: Turn your Difficult Clients into Real Brand Advocates!

I have to disagree to a mindset that growth hacking is just another buzzword. Growth hacking is a unique practice with its set of goals, and it often extends beyond digital marketing, per se, to include using branding and even customer service as marketing devices.

In the simplest words, growth hacking is adopting and adapting ideas, techniques and methods that allow you to achieve your goals for business growth. The idea is that in order to achieve significant business objectives today, modern online businesses need to look beyond traditional marketing ideas and dive into some highly creative practices to get clear results in terms of both sales and retention. And what better place to start than with your most difficult customers?

What is a Difficult Customer?

Answering this question is not as simple as it sounds as there are quite a few types of customers that come under this category. Aggressive clients, customers who don’t like to wait, customers who think they are the only people that matter.
I love this post by Eunisse De Leon in which she defines different types of difficult customers, in a very light and pleasant tone. But seriously, every business at some point comes across customers who seem like they will never be happy. They’re often the most vocal, too. My advice is not to learn from these customers and develop techniques to eventually turn them around and use their energy and comments to improve, promote and grow your business.

3 Growth Hacks with Your Most Difficult Customers

As Bill Gates once said, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Gates is a wise man. Learning is the key to growth hacking with your most demanding customers, and here are some proven ways to learn, adapt and grow with them.

Listening

In the age of social media, the chatter never stops. Why not take some time to listen to your customers instead of just responding to them (or ignoring them)? By listening, I mean considering the causes of their comments, not just the comments themselves. The way to turn this process into growth hacking with your most difficult customers is to give them a forum designed around improving your actual product or service, rather than just an open discussion (e.g., Twitter) where people sometimes feel the need to comment on everything all the time :)

UserVoice is an awesome tool for this type of growth hacking, where you essentially build a forum for (current and potential) customers to make explicit suggestions based on your actual product or service. Not only does this help you make a better product, but a lot of companies also see a growth in referrals. This annotated graphic from Neil Patel’s useful growth hacking primer illustrated the idea well.

Hint: If you aren’t able to develop a new feature that people have been asking for, explain why. Sometimes the issue is just that (like LinkedIn shutting down their public API). Your most vocal customers want to be kept in the loop, and they might even have ideas to hack around an issue and come up with an unexpected solution!

Social Proof

Another form of difficult customers is the brand-conscious. I mean people who either go for high-end brands only (“luxury” or “exclusive” brands) or will not try something new unless it’s already popular in their social circle. How are brand-conscious customers difficult? Isn’t brand consciousness exactly what all businesses strive for? Well, yes and no.

As a business owner, you know that every customer is just as valuable as the next. But some buyer personas don’t think this way–they want social proof. And they’ll keep asking for it, so why not just make it easy to find on your site?

The first way to introduce social proof is simply in the form of truly social proof from social media. Add customer comments from Twitter, Facebook, and other outlets to your site. Agile CRM does this nicely with a constant stream of Twitter testimonials that are easy to read and share.

The next step with social proof is to add logos to your site. If you have some “big name” customers or clients, why not let their social standing help your brand? Not only will your difficult “brand-conscious” customers stop asking for social validation about your business, but this will help to improve trust–and, therefore, sales–across the board. For example, when one of my freelance clients, the Workplace Depot, added social proof to their site, they saw an immediate spike not only in orders but in order value as well. If your customers are conscious of making decisions, then this social proof integration on your website helps them convert in your favor.

Some difficult customers are always looking for a discount. You might even think that discounts are the only qualities they see when they look at your product. I’ve even heard customers ask for a discount on new MacBooks at the Apple Store!

But I love this type of customer. Why? Because their needs can be easily fulfilled if you gamify your system a bit. Rather than offering them a significant discount for no reason, you can convert these difficult customers into brand marketers by letting them share their love of discounts with their social network.

Dropbox uses this idea to grow their customer base like a rocket. You can sign up for a 0.5GB free account with Dropbox, and they offer to move you to a 16GB account just by requesting your friends to join. And those friends can then invite more friends and get a discount themselves. Positionly, AirBnB, Gilt.com, everyone’s trying this gamification model these days, helping discount-savvy customers convert their network into dedicated brand advocates. It’s especially useful as a growth hack because it often doesn’t require moving outside of typical margins (from the business perspective, the “discounted” account is actually the standard account). And once the system gets going, growth happens organically and consistently.

Gamifying your system a bit can super increase your sales plus this will also allow you to continuously introduce you to the new audience. Nothing wrong with reaching a new audience automatically!

Conclusion

I hope that all of these tips will help you see customer service and branding as opportunities, not just goals. You might notice that all three growth hacks for challenging customers have something in common: they are all designed to increase customer happiness. And it’s a repeatable cycle that goes from Listening to Social Proof to Incentives and Referrals, then back again to Listening. Start building your endless growth-hacking loop today and you’ll find that it’s a win-win for your customers and your business. Not a bad outcome!

What growth hacking ideas are you using to turn difficult customers into brand advocates and reach a new level of success?

Credits : 

http://www.business2community.com/strategy/growth-hacking-tricks-turn-difficult-clients-real-brand-advocates-01393048#tolV1xuWLr2YSApU.97 

Know about Connectifier

If competition is healthy it appears LinkedIn had better make an appointment with a doctor.

The social media network known for bringing professionals together has company in its niche market with Connectifier. The fairly new site is elbowing its way into LinkedIn’s territory and seems to have no problems poking at its competitor.

“The recruiting field has been starved of innovation. Connecting people and jobs is fundamental to our economy and our lives, and we think it’s time to build some intelligence into today’s employment platforms. We’ve begun by building Connectifier to give recruiters a complete view of prospective job candidates and a way to connect with those candidates,” the site explains on its ‘about’ page.

Connectifier was launched by two former Google employees who noted the number of calls they were receiving for recruiting while they were trying to fill their teams in their former jobs. The calls rang through to the pair who started Connectifier with the intent of “building intelligence into employment platforms.”

Some could argue LinkedIn’s already doing this but the team behind Connectifier argues it is providing something a bit more unique.

“(Connectifier) provides more information to recruiters, painting a full picture of the candidate, meaning recruiters contact only people who are a fit for the job. Further, Connectifier does not allow recruiters to send batch emails, which has in the past led to significant spam problems on platforms like LinkedIn, Dice, CareerBuilder, etc.,” marketing director John Girard recently wrote in a blog.

The site states it “conservatively” estimates it has helped nearly 40,000 candidates find jobs they love.

Credits :

http://www.sitepronews.com/2015/12/01/connectifier-looks-to-give-linkedin-competition/

6 Reasons why PPC is imperative for business

The competition to be searchable online is fierce. The business put their stakes in reaching to the top of the list. In the surge businesses tend to ignore the benefits of PPC in their digital marketing strategy. The term PPC or pay per click implies that you as an advertiser you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. In general terms, PPC helps you to reach the target customer by deciding on the criteria for seeing your ads. This can be keywords or other characteristics and you pay only when someone clicks your ads. Alongside search engine optimization, pay-per-click (PPC) can build your brand on the page regardless of the fact that your site is not present, consequently leading the way ahead of your competitors. In this post, we will talk about the benefits of PPC in digital marketing.

Good for high ROI :

If we compare email marketing with PPC, the latter is better in terms of return on investment. Firstly, you need to pay only when someone clicks on your ads. Secondly, the people clicking on your ads are usually those who are looking for the products or information that you are providing. That means most of the clicks are worth and organic and are highly prospective buyers. This yields in high return on investment.

Gives quick traffic :

The ads posted with pertinent keywords are available as soon as the keyword is entered. People looking for the information or services will look at the ads that provide the relevant information. This results in instant traffic. The sites may take the time to crawl up the ladder which may delay the results. However, the ads with low competition are available on the top of the list and are easily searched for getting instant traffic.

Data driven :

As soon as you get the traffic, you can get the data around how your promotion activity is working, what is the performance of your site, is it lacking in some respect and the success of the PPC campaign can be evaluated. The data can help to make required changes in the key areas.

Pay for organic visits :

As you have to pay only when someone click on your ads, this eliminates the extra cost spent on the advertisement. Only the organic searches are paid. The good PPC will result in payment only when the results are driven which means that the business earns better than it pays. Another reason that makes PPC a cost effective advertising solution is that you have the ability to control your budgets and allocate it on keywords or audiences that are profitable. 

Helps in retargeting :

One of the most effective ways to increase conversions is to use retargeting. It is a method where you make crusades and target individuals that have gone by your site but did not change over. By including a bit of code you permit the systems to recognize through cookies, individuals that went by your site yet did not buy an item from you. You then have the chance to make battles focusing on those individuals and offer them motivating forces to return to your site and finish the buy process. 

Helps to maintain budget :  

PPC goes well with other marketing strategies and a good planned PPC campaign helps to balance the budget. You can set the daily budget as per your needs can change it as per the results.