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How Marketing To Millennials Can Take Your Business To Next Level

How Marketing To Millennials Can Take Your Business To Next Level [GUEST POST]

These days, many business owners are realizing that effectively marketing their products or services to millennials is an excellent way to optimize the company’s profitability. However, many corporate leaders and entrepreneurs draw a blank when it’s time to begin cultivating a customized marketing campaign that will get millennials interested in their brand. If this is your dilemma, it’s important to know that social media marketing may be the advertising strategy that helps you effectively connect and convert millennials. Review the short outline provided below to learn about the strategies you can implement to optimize and expedite the social media marketing process:

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Although defined broadly, social media marketing is a process that involves advertising a brand’s products and services through social media channels such as

  • Google+
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

Social media marketing is an incredibly effective advertising strategy for many reasons. One of them is that this mode of marketing enables business owners to connect with members of their target audience in a much more personal, interactive manner than some traditional modes of advertising permit. For example, business owners can use a social media channel such as Instagram to share personal photos such as pictures of them with their dog. This highly personal mode of marketing can accelerate the relationship-building process and enhance the client’s trust in your brand.

Related: Social Media Metrics to Track in 2018

Social Media Marketing: Steps, Suggestions, And Strategies

Once you realize how effective social media marketing can be in building your brand, you may be ready to develop and implement a customized advertising plan that will help you connect and convert millennials. Below you’ll find several steps that you should take to make the most of this marketing modality:

#1 Learn as Much as Possible About Your Audience.

To really connect with and convert millennials through your social media marketing process, you must first know who they are. This is why learning as much as possible about millennials through the target market research process is imperative. This process will help you determine key things like which social media channels your unique audience uses most frequently. It will also help you determine what types of images and concepts to include in your campaign based on your understanding of your audience’s preferences. There are typically four types of information you’ll attain from the research process. They include geographic, demographic, behavioristic, and psychographic data.

Related: Content Marketing: Targeting 5 Types of B2B Buyers

#2 Put Content Marketing First.

Once you’ve done your target market research, you’ll be ready to move to the next step of the social media marketing process: content marketing. The ongoing implementation of sound content marketing strategies is imperative because social media marketing involves regularly publishing your videos, web articles, and blog posts through social media channels. Luckily, there are several ways to ensure that the content you produce and publish is exceptional. One of them is making sure that your content is scannable. Scannability is an important part of the content marketing process because various research studies have found that 79% of test users scan the new pages they come across. A mere 16% read this content word-for-word. In light of these realities, it’s important to ensure that the content you’re sharing on various social media channels is scannable. Textual elements such as subheaders, headers, bullet points, and numbered lists can help you realize this objective.

Related: The Difference with Australia-Specific Content to Generic Ones

#3 Make The Social Media Marketing Process Interactive.

Another strategy you can implement to make your social media marketing process as effective as possible is ensuring that the entire endeavor is unequivocally interactive. This process is important because the more actively involved your audience becomes with your brand, the more likely they are to make purchases and share your product or service line with other individuals in their social networks. There are several strategies you can implement to make the social media marketing process interactive. One is the use of Twitter polls. These polls enable you to put together brand-related questions and have your audience answer them. An example would be asking them which of your coffee flavors they find to be the most delicious.

Note that the marketing power of Twitter polls is three-fold. First, it keeps your audience engaged with your brand by encouraging them to answer questions about your product line. Second, it functions as a form of word-of-mouth advertising because the results of the poll are published and available for viewing by the general Twitter audience. Third, the Twitter poll enables you to conduct meaningful research through which you’ll be able to more effectively develop and market products. For example, if the poll reveals that the majority of your target audience finds a specific product to be outdated, discontinuing that product may be a practical, prudent business decision.

Related: 6 Basic Tricks to Boost Organic Reach on Twitter

Conclusion

Once you realize that social media marketing can be an incredibly effective way to advertise your brand to millennials, your next course of action should be the development of a high-quality advertising campaign. To ensure that you can effectively market your product or service line to millennials, be sure to incorporate some or all of the aforementioned strategies into your company’s marketing plan.

The Australian Digital Marketing Landscape Forecast

The Australian Digital Marketing Landscape Forecast

The digital world never seizes to amaze us with constant technology innovations, but one needs to be competitive enough in order to stay in the curve and leverage on marketing opportunities.

Digital marketing trends employed by most marketers this 2018 are:

  • Artificial Intelligence, which is used to drive customer conversions by interpreting customer’s buying behavior.
  • Live Video, which is widely delivered via social media channels, Voice Search which continues to rise and becoming more popular and potentially taking over text-based algorithms.
  • Micro-Influencers, with Facebook and Instagram, are two of the most cost-effective methods.
  • Privacy Protection, which is a major selling point for a brand’s marketing message.

If 2018 is focusing on social media trends, what’s in store for the marketing populace in 2019? Let us give you a hint on what Australian digital marketing would look like next year.

Smart Speakers

Smart speakers like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomePod are surging in the consumer technology market, preferred by 65% of smart speakers owners. It is seen to tie up with digital marketing as more online publications embrace voice and publish audio content via these devices.

Internet vs Television

A study shows that in 2019, people will be spending 2.6 hours every day online and 2.7 hours watching tv, while 45 minutes of an average person’s internet browsing time will be spent watching mobile videos, thus predicting companies will spend less money on web ads, web video, and social media.

Social Media Integration With 3rd Parties

Social media companies are expected to deeply integrate their services into third-party applications. These social platforms will start sharing more user data with their audiences and create an even more seamless experience with third-party apps, which could help them retain dominance, acquire more information about users, and provide better services for smaller webs and apps.

Related: Social Media Metrics to Track in 2018

Live Video Will Continue To Grow

Live videos on Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram have been making waves since 2016. In fact, 80% of internet users watched more live videos in 2016 than the previous year as more streaming services spawned. The best thing to do is join in the bandwagon as 67% of live viewers say they are more likely to buy an event ticket if they’ve seen a live stream of the similar event online.

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Video Will Keep Up For Many More Years

Traditional video will keep growing. According to study, a whopping 85% of total internet traffic is expected to account next year. Currently, 54% of internet users watch video on social platforms every month, a number that will continue to grow in the coming years. Also, 65% of ads impressions on Instagram were results of video content and expected to grow in the future.

Chatbots To Become Ordinary Thing

Chatbots are seen to continue to grow and eventually become normal to the consumer’s eye. It’ll become the first place to go for availing retail services like food orders, hotel bookings and choosing mobile plans.

Related: Why Should Live Chat be Part of your Multi-Channel Strategy?

The Rise Of The Social CEOs

According to data from OkToPost, 40% of CEOs were active in social media in 2016. Out of that number, 70% used LinkedIn, and such number is expected to grow as people’s distrust continue to grow, wanting to hear news right from the very source.

Twitter-Marketing-Lessons-for-IT-and-Software-Marketers

Twitter Marketing Lessons for IT and Software Marketers

Twitter is an online social networking tool in which users post updates of what’s going on with their lives along with pictures or links of the things they think are interesting and are useful to their followers. Twitter users choose who to follow and control what news to show in their feed. This platform is used to engage with families, friends, peers, and favorite brands.

In business, Twitter is a great marketing tool for marketing startup or any established company to use. IT and Software companies use twitter because it gives them many opportunities to connect with their target audience. Most users follow brands in order to learn more about them and to know about promotions and new products. However, in order to maximize the opportunities provided by Twitter, you should be familiar with its marketing etiquette or you’ll end up offending your followers.

Here’s how IT and Software companies should use Twitter.

#1: Start following people.

Twitter Marketing Lessons for IT and Software Marketers

However, be careful when following people as Twitter have a strict rule when it comes to this one. You don’t want your account to get suspended because of suspicious activities so take it slow.

Who are the people that you need to follow?

  • Your customers
  • Your competitors/ other IT and Software companies
  • Leaders, Influencer and expert people within your industry
  • Other businesses run by people you know

Related:  Can Social Media Help Generate More Leads for Solar Products?

#2: By using Twitter,  you can stay up to date of the latest news in technology.

Twitter Marketing Lessons for IT and Software Marketers

IT and software companies should follow other IT and software companies and leaders to stay aware of the new practices and resources which provides them access to different opinions.

#3: Through Twitter you get to learn new tools.

Twitter Marketing Lessons for IT and Software Marketers

Ask questions or start a discussion with your followers or those who are following you. Follow experts within your field to benefit from their experience and interact to learn more from them.

#4: Use famous (#)hashtags for IT and software companies correctly to create visibility for your brand and showcase what you offer to expand the reach of your tweets and get more followers.

Twitter Marketing Lessons for IT and Software Marketers

However, you should limit your use of hashtags. Too much hashtags can be annoying. Use at least 1 or 2 relevant hashtags per tweet.

#5: Tweet regularly but don’t post promotional content constantly.

Interact with your audience and make them feel valued. Build a rapport with them and educate them by posting important IT and software contents to connect with them.

Related: 5 Ways To Implement Education-Based Marketing

#6: Twitter can help you build relations with your target audience by connecting with them.

Twitter Marketing Lessons for IT and Software Marketers

Find out who are the influencers and experts within your field and interact with them on a regular basis. Twitter can help you discover and learn from interesting people within your niche, achieve trust and build rapport with them. Remember that these influencers have thousands or millions of followers with them and when they start to notice the frequent discussion between you and their idols, they’ll eventually follow you.

#7: Learn from your target projects and check for feedback through Twitter.

Here’s how Linkedin use twitter as their customer service tool. They created this account ‘Linkedin Help’ for user complaints and to give loyal users immediate aid to their problems.

Experience is everything, and you have to monitor feedback on twitter if you want fans to become loyal customers. Ignoring comments, both positive and negative on Twitter is like abandoning your own business. Optimism is important when dealing with negative feedback. Put aside your fears and engage with your followers in an open and honest manner. Use feedback to improve your products and services. You’ll be surprise on how much your customers appreciate quick responses and solutions to their problem. Customer service is very much important especially to IT and Software industry, given the fact that not all IT buyers are tech savvy.

To become successful in twitter, don’t just share your product’s message and drive traffic to your sites, concentrate on building relationships with your followers as well. Discuss interesting topics, Interact and connect with them. The benefits of twitter depend on the context and the links you’ve posted to create noise. Make use of these marketing lessons for IT and Software Marketers to maximize the opportunities provided by twitter.

You might also like: Dummy’s Guide for Content Marketing

The Myth about SMM for B2B Lead Generation

The Myth about SMM for B2B Lead Generation

There’s something in social media marketing (SMM) that some B2B marketers do not like. It could be because certain surveys and reports within the industry list SMM as the least effective lead generation channel. Moreover, these same marketers adhere to the idea that decision-makers rely less on social media in prowling for solutions.

However, this is just pure myth. While there are studies that center their argument in the alleged weaknesses of social media, there are also articles and surveys that still regard SMM as an important tool for fostering and maintaining B2B relationships.

Take a 2013 study from Marketing Profs and the Content Marketing Institute indicating that 87% of marketers use social media for content production and distribution. Other than that, marketers use up to six different social media platforms and, compared to previous years, have increased their usage of such platforms.

In addition, content marketers are focusing more on brand awareness. Social platforms are especially suited for this, given that 93% of marketers (based on the same study) apply content-based demand generation strategies.

These numbers debunk those in other studies that maintain a pessimistic view about social media. In your case as a B2B solutions provider, it is high time to ride the numbers and optimize your content marketing online with these basic steps.

Link up with LinkedIn. At least a majority (or 91%) of B2B marketers depend on LinkedIn for their SM activities. Moreover, they find the site the most effective in terms of generating high-quality B2B leads. This is mainly due to its function of fostering professional relationships and allowing businesses to explore better business opportunities via its blogging platforms and advanced search option.

Present yourself via Slideshare. Slide presentations are among the best and widely-used content options, mainly because they are an engaging way to maintain audience retention. Via Slideshare, they are also effective in giving advice and other information to your intended demographic. So, remember to give provide links to your Slideshare account and put up timely presentations that cover most B2B issues.

Start stumbling. StumbleUpon offers numerous possibilities. Most well-known as a social bookmarking and SEO tool, the site can be leveraged for content curation and lead generation. If you want quality traffic towards your site, you may want to start “stumbling” now.

Forget what other marketers say, SMM is still hot as a freshly baked pie. But it is not easy though as you may need the services of a competent B2B marketing firm to handle your SMM metrics and increase your online conversions.

a man on a webinar concept

Need To Build Online Presence Fast? You Need These 5 Tools Now

B2B lead generation is not a passive task where you just produce content and wait for leads to come marching in. Rather, it entails elaborate, sometimes meticulous, processes to sustain online presence. Your target market needs a constant consumption of anything related to your brand in order for them to keep that awareness burning in their memory.

Now, these responsibilities may be too much for a person to handle, especially when the need for monitoring and analysis is building up. In such cases, one needs powerful and efficient tools to help manage the flow of online activities.

For starters, consider these 5 tools proposed by Clément Delangue, chief marketing officer of online social business monitoring app Mention:

1. Buffer to post content. Content sharing is one of the easiest ways to grow and nurture your community. Yet, with more and more social platforms popping up online, content sharing can be time consuming, as each has its own style and messaging. Enter Buffer. This tool is a great way to streamline your posting and schedule on multiple platforms, making sure you’re talking to everyone where it counts.

2. LaunchCrew to launch campaigns. When launch day comes, startups need to get the word out to as many people to have the most impact and increase the probability of being heard in crowded industries. Often this entails getting your current followers to share with their friends, family and connections. LaunchCrew will help you do just that. It lets you cast a much wider net, practically doubling or tripling your impact.

3. Unbounce to create landing pages. Landing pages are now a must-have design choice to boost your online special operations. By customizing these towards a targeted audience, along with specific and relatable calls to action, it makes them way more efficient at achieving higher click-through rates.

4. Click to Tweet to foster sharing. It’s ok to ask people to share. But the simpler it is, the more people you’ll get to do so. By giving out a simple, pre-composed click-to-tweet URL for your audience to tweet in seconds, you’ll find that your potential for virality is drastically increased.

5. Mention to monitor and react.Once people start talking about you, the best way to continue growing is to detect these mentions and to reply to every one of them. By doing so, it fosters a lot of motivation for them to talk and mention even more about you, creating a network of trusted brand advocates. By having alerts based on keywords — like the name of your company, your products or your competitors — mention allows you to stay in the know and react in seconds by connecting your social accounts directly to the app.

Read the full article at 5 Tools For Entrepreneurs to Grow Their Online Presence in No Time

3 Questions to Ask Before Pulling the Plug on Social Media Marketing

3 Questions to Ask before pulling the Plug on Social Media Marketing

In B2B lead generation, marketers are used to receiving immediate responses from prospects via email, telephone calls and events. But when it comes to social media, if there isn’t an instant and significant response then it’s considered a waste of time. While that is a logical response, a marketer should also understand that social media works differently. Considering that its potential to reach millions of people is unprecedented, it’s a shame to pull the plug on something that could help your business, just because of things you didn’t understand about it. Before you take a leap of judgment, evaluate your lead generation campaign using the following three basic criteria of effective social media marketing:

1. How useful was your content?

Unless your content is really useful, it could get lost amidst the flood of blogs, emails, videos, articles, tweets, and commentary, and it won’t get read—much less shared. So how do you create useful content? Think of value. Think of yourself as a business owner looking for information to help you decide whether you would like to outsource certain parts of your IT infrastructure. Of course, you would want to learn about the pros and cons, how much you need to prepare financially, and how much control you can retain after farming out.

2. Does your content encourage engagement?

A piece of content is most effective when it compels the reader to join in. It could be something that ‘challenges’ the status quo, like presenting an idea that’s entirely new or unique. Or it could be something that raises curiosity, like posing an industry-related question that can really stir their brains. Or it could be a comparison of 2 things, which could spark a debate among commenters. These are the types of content that people watch out for and have no problems with sharing to others.

3. Did you set realistic metrics?

Marketers often think that social media is so powerful that it has a life of its own and generate overflowing publicity (and revenue) for the business. Again, it simply doesn’t work that way. Social media is more about exposure and engagement, as well as understanding the target market. To truly appreciate the influence of social media, you may want to measure engagement and responses from people. It may not equate directly to leads (at least in the short run), but it can show you how your content and brand image are circulating in people’s awareness. After that is established, make a move on how to take advantage of that exposure, and that’s when the real stuff happens.

How To Make Social Media In Australia Generate Better B2B Leads

How To Make Social Media In Australia Generate Better B2B Leads

The thing about social media, despite all the flak it gets from older companies, is that it actually works. It can an effective tool for B2B lead generation, helping you get in touch with the right prospects, interact with them, as well as get important business information about potential sales leads.

Yes, it may be new, it may not be that reliable, but you can be sure that this is here to stay in the B2B leads game. What matters is that you make it work. You need to invest in new marketing means to get prospects and do business with them. But how will you make that happen? There are several pointers that you should be keeping a close eye on:

  1. Know your goals – before you start your B2B lead generation campaign, you need to carefully plan what you want to achieve at the end of the year. By setting good business goals, you will be able to set up the right parameters and the tools that you will need in the campaign. Think of this as a necessary, if not time-consuming, business investment.
  2. Know your metrics – yes, now you know what you want to achieve. But in order for you to actually find out whether you are reaching your goals or not, you have to put the right metrics in place. For example, you need to decide whether average handling time, number of calls made, or even the number of B2B leads you are able to convert into a sale. This will serve as a key to crucial office decisions that you need to make.
  3. Know how to measure right – once you have the right metrics to take note of, next would be the measurement tools that you have to employ. It has to be done real-time, so you can better decide on what you should be doing next. It must be a system that fits your business well and that can be used by your employees properly.
  4. Know how to monitor – observing and recording the results of your appointment setting activities can be said to be as important as the tools that you use to generate the data. After all, how will you be able to figure out what you have to do if you fail to properly record what happened during a business call. That would be trouble for you.
  5. Know how to evaluate – the evaluation process, as well as the steps you need to take in order to improve your telemarketing campaign, is very important. You know that there is nothing perfect in this business, and if there is any way for you to be better, then you should take it. This might be the key to keeping your business running better now and in the future.

Yes, social media can help in generate good B2B leads. What is important here is that you know where to start and that you have other marketing tools to use in your lead generation campaign.

What Dr. Seuss can teach us about social media marketing

What Dr. Seuss can teach us about social media marketing

When talking about children’s books, some of the titles surely to be brought up are The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who! and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. These, among others, are classic tales written by an American author, poet and World War II hero named Theodor Seuss Geisel, most widely known in pop culture as Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss was not your ordinary storyteller dealing with common morals and lessons. He often touched issues on environmentalism, anti-consumerism, racial equality, and militarization. That makes it no wonder that his stories did not only appeal to the young but also to teenagers and adults alike.

Dr. Seuss was open in discussing his methods and motivations in writing. These nuggets of gold have been treasured as guiding principles in literature and public media. Either through direct quotations or passages in his books, his philosophies can be applied in social media marketing:

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant.”

One important ingredient in making an impact: sincerity. You have to own your words; otherwise people will persecute you and question your integrity. Before you put a word out, check if it really represents what you wanted to convey.

“The more you read the more things you will know.”

Dr. Seuss wanted to promote reading among children, and for adults he acknowledges man’s innate thirst to learn. It’s hard to introduce concepts to people if you don’t have anything to give. Reading inspires, motivates and brews ideas so we can share them.

“Why fit in, when you were born to stand out!”

Social media is becoming so multi-faceted that the only way to be noticed is to be extremely unique. If your content doesn’t have that x factor, recognition will be a long shot.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because the ones who mind don’t matter, and the ones who matter don’t mind.”

Critics may decry your work, but they are not who you’re marketing for – it’s the audience who matters, and as long as you cater to their needs, you’re doing fine.

“Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.”

Statistics will tell you that posts with photos gain more engagement, and common sense will tell you why.

“It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.”

Perhaps one of Dr. Seuss’s most famous lines, this just means that you are always allowed mixing enjoyment in achieving your marketing goals – in fact, sometimes it’s a pre-requisite to being effective. You just have to determine certain boundaries to remind yourself to stay on track.