Whether you are a vast entity or a private venture that is searching for approaches to expand and grow, digital marketing can prove to be useful in doing all the work for your brand. Promoting on the web is endlessly unique in relation to offline marketing as the rules and regulations of attracting consumers differ hugely. The essential advantage of contracting a digital marketing agency is that these organizations are experienced and comprehend the online world of marketing. Internet marketing has various aspects, and you can enhance the greater part of the angles should you take after a couple of simple tips. Given below are few tips you might need to follow to help you succeed:-
1. Place Bids on Your Own Business Names
2. Boost Advertising Results
3. Answer Your Calls
4. Improve your online Reputation
5. Use in-app ads
Tools of Digital Marketing:
There are various ways to do digital marketing but below mentioned are a few key tools that can play an important role to boost-up your business:-

• Websites and SEO content
• High PR Blogs
• Internet Banner Ads
• Online Video Content Marketing
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
• Email Marketing
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)
• Mobile Marketing (SMS & MMS etc.)

Businesses have comprehended the significance of growing their branding and advertising to the current web world. Each business needs to join the pool of steadily rising prospects accessible on the web. It’s however difficult to get the most out of the digital space unless you have specialists to get the help. Your business needs digital marketing specialists to use an immeasurable market easily. A decent agency would be one that possesses a feature-rich and up-to-date website. The site must be furnished with responsive design and intuitive navigation. It needs to have a dynamic blog together with a vigorous transformation methodology set up. When beginning a digital media agency, you should be available in social networks as most customers will require this. It is fundamental that your page will have possible customers, candidates and different contacts so your viewers can see your fast development.
Cutting Edge of Client’s Business:
Clients who are searching for advertisements agencies have a tendency to get pulled in to those with conspicuous shading plans and smooth workplaces. You should also be forceful in your way to deal with taking interest new markets. So, take as much time as is needed in choosing your marketing partner and don’t rush into enlisting anybody and everybody claiming to be the best. Take as much time as is needed and make a point to never settle with anything not as much as the ideal.
Similarly, the agency will devise paid marketing tactics for those organizations that have a decent spending plan and can bear spending big for promotion purposes. If an agency is experienced, it will help in maximization of returns on investment for a business by managing it Pay-Per-Click campaigns superior. We offer you consult and guides brands on planning, execution and implementation of digital marketing services to help them with rankings and visibility.

​Source: http://www.josic.com/best-digital-marketing-tips-for-an-improved-online-presence

There’s no denying that a college degree is not as valuable as it was 20 or 30 years ago. Fresh graduates without prior professional experience can often run into issues when beginning their career search with no prior professional experience.
The competition for jobs is extremely fierce. Developing professionals are wise to build up their professional resume outside of the classroom while earning their degree. For Andrew Molz, SEO and social media expert and managing partner of a number of operations, landing in the world of digital marketing came from a healthy combination of hands-on experience and passion.
While this field does not technically require a fancy diploma, being successful can be extremely difficult. Molz has three big pieces of advice to help succeed in this constantly-evolving landscape.
Incorporate prior expertise.To get involved in digital marketing, it’s incredibly beneficial to have an idea of how a particular business functions in the big picture. In doing so, you will learn a lot about what types of people you need to appeal to and how to lay out a proper strategy.
Molz, who earned his real estate license shortly after departing Texas Tech University, found a number of strong correlations between the two industries.
“I’d have to say the main correlation between the two industries is the perseverance involved in both. Having the background in real estate most definitely benefits me because I can relate to the problems while also addressing solutions to their hot button issues,” says Molz.
Related: What Makes a Successful Entrepreneur? Perseverance.
Real estate is an industry primed for SEO, especially local. As Molz got to know some of the agents, he began managing their digital marketing strategies. During his experience in real estate, he learned some of its pressing struggles and developed a software platform called The Reputation Shop, which helps businesses like these manage their online presence.
Learning the ins and outs of a particular industry is essential for using digital marketing to boost engagement from both the business and consumer side.
Promote transparency.There are a lot of reasons why business owners are scared of SEO. Most prominently, the process seems too complicated, and they fear that a specialist could potentially damage the company’s online presence.
Therefore, it is extremely important that digital marketers convey that results will not occur overnight. They must be 100 percent transparent with new and existing clients.
“When making any kind of investment, you want to do your own due diligence to ensure that the company you’re entrusting with your SEO is one that can be trusted to deliver. The most important process when speaking to the potential clients is being 110 percent realistic in what their goals are for getting ranked on Google,” Molz explains.
Related: 5 Examples of Companies Succeeding Through Transparency
According to imFORZA, 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine. At this point, SEO is no longer just an option for incorporating into a marketing strategy. Brands are wise to do their research to get themselves up to speed on how it can boost their ROI in the long run.
Always keep an eye out for trends.One of the most important things to remember about SEO, and digital marketing as a whole, is that there are no guarantees. Strategies that worked wonders one week could very well be obsolete the next.
With technology and social platforms evolving hourly, what separates the good digital marketers from the great ones is being able to identify trends early on and act accordingly.
“I believe one of the more breakout trends in SEO for 2017 will be the continued interest and advancement of voice to text searching using Siri, Cortana and Alexa. Most business owners shake the notion until I ask them to search for where they are ranked on Google using their mobile device. The result is always the same. Business owners that own the top rankings when you manually type the keywords into Google, are often nowhere to be found when you ask your mobile device the keywords using voice to text. This is a trend that savvy business owners capitalize on,” says Molz.
Related: Aloft Hotel Adds Siri-Equipped Rooms
To get a better idea of potential trends, look into monitoring tools like Mention or Brandwatch. You can pick up valuable insights as to what people are buzzing about within a certain industry and gear your marketing strategy to fit the mold.

​SOurce: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290173

Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead” goes the theme song of one of my favorite shows of all time, “Pretty Little Liars” (PLL); the show begins its final 10 episodes on April 18th. For those who don’t know, the series revolves around four friends (Aria, Spencer, Emily and Hannah) who are being taunted by a mysterious “A” who starts blackmailing and tormenting them after the “death” of their friend, Alison. Though people who were thought to be dead are really alive and vice versa, one thing is a constant: someone (“A”) is out to get the girls. They receive ominous and frightening texts, mail, email and packages that make them do things to keep their secrets from being exposed; “A” knows all and is in control. Going into the final half of the seventh season, the hit show is filled with twists, turns and cliffhangers that have captivated viewers like myself since 2010.
The appeal of the show didn’t just make it a fan favorite; it made it the most “Social Show of 2016.” Accord to Variety:

• For truly rabid social fans, nothing on television came close to #PLL this past year.
• Freeform’s ‘Pretty Little Liars,’ which will enter its seventh and final season next year, far and away was the No. 1 show in terms of overall social engagement across major platforms, according to an analysis by research firm ListenFirst Media for Jan. 1 to Dec. 15, 2016. In fact, engagement for the show increased 25% versus the same period in 2015, to register more than 256 million interactions for 2016.
• ‘PLL’ has consistently been at the top,’ said Meghan Cahill, ListenFirst’s head of TV strategy. ‘The storyline, especially going into their final season, has helped amplify their social engagement despite the algorithmic challenges from each of the platforms.’ The teen drama does particularly well on Instagram, which accounted for 82% of its total social engagements, she said.

Whether you watch, don’t watch or have never even heard of the television series, there are lessons to be learned from the most social show on TV. Keep reading for digital marketing insights from the girls of Rosewood.
Guest Blogging
As I mentioned above, “A” is out to get the girls. At least nine characters on the show have assumed the identity of “A” for one reason or another. The different incarnations of “A” and the different motives behind them make for an interesting and intriguing storyline; a changeup in action kept the show from going stale and becoming tedious.
In the Three Girls, A Dog & A Marketing Blog, we have gone over the benefits of blogging for your small business. Two of them include:

• Establishing Industry Credibility

By publishing blog posts regularly, you’ll establish yourself as the go-to expert in your field. Some simple ways to do this are to share how-to posts, tips and tricks, industry best practices or answer frequently asked questions. By providing free information to your customers, you’ll show them you are on top of your game and can offer something of value.

• Increasing Website Traffic

Business blogging can help drive traffic toward your website, resulting in increased readership. In addition to helping improve your search engine ranking, you can also use the blog posts to help market yourself via social media.
If you find yourself struggling to post regularly, but still want to receive the benefits of establishing credibility, consider a guest blogger.
What is guest blogging? Guest blogging is just what it sounds like: having other people write posts for your blog. This can be a great way to remove some of the digital marketing demands from your plate and delegate to your employees. Share the task of blogging and have team members post about their thoughts on your industry; you may find you can learn something from your employees. Another way to make sure you’re blogging regularly is to attract writers to create content for your site. How do you do that? Here are 7 tips to attract guest bloggers to your site:

1. Create a Page Outlining How to Get Published on Your Site
2. Showcase Your Website Contributors, Including Guest Bloggers
3. Link to Your “Guest Bloggers” Page from Other Pages on Your Site
4. Make Yourself Available for Communication (Email/Contact Page)
5. Focus Your Energy on Becoming an Authority in Your Industry
6. Creatively Share Your Opportunity on Social Media
7. Offer an Incentive for Quality Articles

On top of saving you time and brainpower, guest bloggers may also:

• Attract New Readers

When someone writes a guest post, they’re likely to share it with their community and social networks. Once you publish a post written by a guest blogger, send the author a thank-you email with a link to the post and encourage them to share it on their social media channels.

• Cover More Topics

You have a lot of expertise, but there may be topics that can be discussed in greater detail by another great mind. Invite them to fill in any knowledge gaps you may have; this could provide an educational opportunity for both you and your readers.
Different ideas, mindsets and creativity levels can make for an interesting blog that will keep readers coming back for more.
Post on Social Media Often
There have been hundreds of messages to the girls from “A” and each one is more horrifying than the next. If “A” didn’t torment the girls regularly, how entertaining would the show be? The texts and messages keep the drama, intrigue and mystery going because you never know what secret will be exposed and whose life will be on the line next.
During the second half of the sixth season, viewers experienced a time jump that found the show taking place five years in the future. The “liars” have all gone off to college, started careers and new lives outside of the world knew without any threats of “A.” Following a request, they all came back to their hometown and after a tragedy, the mysterious texts resumed. As my favorite Rosewood detective said to Emily, “All the time you and your friends were away, no murders…but when everyone gets together, I just think that’s just a very interesting statistic, don’t you?” Just as no “A” means no drama, no social media posts mean no followers.
Recommended for YouWebcast, April 18th: Google Analytics Setup and Basics: Measuring What Matters for Business Impact
To keep your social media followers interested and engaged, here are suggestions from CoSchedule on how often you should post on the different platforms:

• Facebook: One to two posts per day, one post is recommended.
• Twitter: One to 51 posts per day, 15 posts are recommended.
• Pinterest: Three to 30 posts (or pins) per day, 11 pins are recommended.
• LinkedIn: Zero to one per day, one post is recommended.
• Google+: Zero to three per day, two posts are recommended.
• Instagram: One to three per day, one to two posts are recommended.

Timing was also everything when it came sending a threat and throwing the “liars” for a loop; follow this guide to learn when to post on each social media platform to reach and engage with your audience.
Facebook: The best days and times to post on Facebook are Thursdays and Fridays between 1 pm and 3 pm.
Twitter: The half-life of a tweet is just about 24 minutes. For best chance of likes and retweets, post at 12pm, 5pm and 6pm Monday to Friday. Since the life of a tweet is so short, you can share the same content multiple times a week or so later without looking like you’re repeating yourself. Just make sure you introduce the blog post, infographic or meme in a new way.
LinkedIn: Surprisingly, the most effective time to post on LinkedIn is Monday to Friday evenings; the best time to post is between 7pm and 10pm. It may be tempting to post during business hours because of the professional nature of LinkedIn, but users are generally busy working during the day.
Pinterest: The two best days of the week to post on Pinterest are Saturday and Sunday, with 8pm and 11pm being the most popular times for engagement. It is also important to spread your pins out to not flood your followers’ feeds.
Instagram: This platform has a wide-open timeframe for posting; anytime on weekdays expect from 3pm to 4pm are good for engagement. This gives busy business owners plenty of time to get a post in during the day.
Be Like “A” Liar
Well, maybe don’t threaten and stalk your followers, but the most social show on TV with a quarter billion mentions on social media in 2016 can provide a lesson or two. Knowing when to outsource brainpower can provide a new and interesting twist to your blog, and creating the right amount of content and posting it at the right time can increase your visibility and engagement on the different social platforms.
If you’re like me, starting April 18th, your next 10 Thursdays are booked as you experience the “End Game” of the hit show, ‘Pretty Little Liars’.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/can-keep-secret-digital-marketing-tips-pretty-little-liars-01810042#xE3QVbUXVET5awrK.99

Often, the communications officer isn’t in tandem with the digital officer in the same organisation. This is especially true in larger organisations that make daily decisions without having a single reporting mechanism or a unique message. When the digital marketing manager, the PR head, and the brand consultant sit in the same room – the message is loud, but it’s not clear. Often, the CMO is the last point of contact for these heads. Therefore, there needs to be a clearer line of communication and reporting for all departments in the marketing hemisphere, to report in a singular fashion in the organisation and be more transparent about each’s objectives and goals.
Here are some simple steps to ensure that your digital marketing programs are being supported and enhanced by PR:
Influencer managementAt the ground level, execution is sometimes difficult. Influencers from across the demographics have varying contracts and levels of agreements. It is digital’s job to employ PR activities whilst partaking in influencer marketing and vice versa. A digital first campaign won’t have wings if PR doesn’t follow through. Even for an SME, PR is the bread and butter, and digital is the daily coffee. Both are needed to fuel the organisation. Influencers that are utilised for digital marketing, must be utilised for PR as well
Stakeholder engagementThe level of impact that loyal fans can have on your brand are yet to be explored in India. There are brands like Xiaomi, which have revolutionised marketing in a single launch in India, and there are brands like Samsung, which have faced the backlash of bad PR and marketing. Thus, in order to truly engage all stakeholders, companies must involve the media in the on-goings of what is happening via digital. Consumers interact with brands on social media every day. However, their impact is limited when it comes to reaching the masses, i.e. the crowd outside of their own niche. For example, I love shoes, and I can like a small upcoming brand that I follow on Instagram every day. I share their content and it reaches my 200 friends. However, if I see a print mention, or their founder being interviewed, or their new launch being covered by multiple newspapers, the conversation that I can have with my friends about the brand is immediately intensified. The community of your demographic is excited.
AnalyticsThere are numbers on digital (although sometimes fudged) and there aren’t on traditional PR. However, we can gauge the response of either by the number of mentions v/s the typical brand’s release via print. The more mentions that reflect well on PR as well as digital, the more reliable the figures are in general. Therefore, the more reliable the marketing campaign as a whole.
ViralityThings don’t go viral on YouTube. Things go viral via PR. It is only when the PR side of the media takes over that any digital property goes truly viral. When brands want to create virality and forget about reaching out to the influencers that control the space, they fail miserably or rely upon instant recognition as a community-based outreach. One of the best examples of last year is Finolex Fans.
PR is the lifeline of any good brand. However, when it works symbiotically with digital, it creates a multi-fold effect that lasts a lifetime. Brands become synonymous with legacy and companies change their fortunes overnight. That being said, bad PR and bad digital can become their own worst nightmare. Hire a good agency and the rewards can be greater than expected.

​Source: https://yourstory.com/2017/04/boost-digital-marketing-pr/

Once you have a strategy in place, the reporting and measurement of your digital marketing efforts should be the main source of growth ideas and opportunities.
With a virtually endless supply of data, knowing where to look and what metrics matter is a good place to start. From there, spending your time on analysis rather than data collection will turn your analysis into actionable reports you’ll love.
Try applying a great rule from Chris Sietsema: For every hour you spend on data collection, you should spend 3 on analysis.
Here are 5 actionable digital marketing measurement tips that you can deploy today to help you uncover huge growth opportunities.
1. Segment and measure visitors by user deviceMobile, tablet, and desktop visitors interact with your website uniquely.
Measuring these three groups of visitors together will skew all of your analysis, leaving your insights far short of insightful.
How to segment visitors by device in AnalyticsIf you want to analyze and compare visitors by device in Google Analytics, follow these steps:

1. Click the “Segment” box
2. Unselect “All Users”
3. Select the predefined segment “Mobile Traffic”
4. Clicking “Add Segment,” repeat for “Desktop Traffic” and “Tablet Traffic”

Adding this device segment will now allow you to see performance, by device, for any report in Google Analytics.
Here, as an example, you can see the breakdown of performance for Organic Traffic:

Potential “Findings” and Action items:“Mobile traffic accounts for ~56% of total web traffic. Why is it only 10% of my traffic?”
Action: Perform an SEO Audit, with a heavy focus on mobile. Page speed is a common issue to look out for.
“Yikes! Our mobile conversion rates are terrible.”
Action: Assuming you already have a mobile site, start conversion rate optimization (CRO), with a focus on mobile performance.
“Uh Oh. Our mobile bounce rates are really high”
Action: First, assess your traffic source. If the traffic is high quality, you likely are having an issue meeting the expectations of your mobile visitors. Further assessment will point to the need for improving content, usability, design, or page speed.
Measure each stage of the buyer’s journey (Awareness, Consideration, Decision)
To maximize revenue driven by your digital marketing efforts, you must meet your audience’s needs at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Failing to do so will result in sub-optimal results, 100% of the time.
Aligning your measurement and reporting by stages of the funnel is an effective way to block out “the noise” and focus on what really matters.
2. How to measure digital marketing and create effective reports

1. Select KPIs that align with each stage of the buyer’s journey
2. Create a report that assigns 1/3 of the report to each stage
3. Report at a frequency that your business can implement changes. (Most commonly this is monthly although it may be weekly or quarterly, depending on your business)

Google Analytics evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, achieves this with the “See, Think, Do” reporting layout below:

There is no perfect template as your buyer’s journey and metrics are unique to your business. What is consistent is that each stage of the journey is critical.
This reporting approach will help you identify and prioritize opportunities much faster!
Potential “Findings” and Action items:“Wow! Visitors from social media are 2x more likely to turn into customers than those from other channels.”
Action: Double down on your social media efforts!
“Ugh! Our referral traffic is down 20% year-over-year”
Action: Further assessment will determine what website(s) you’ve lost traffic from. Backlink reclamation can help recover those high quality, traffic generating links that you may have lost.
“Hmmm. We seem to have a lot of visitors to the site every day but only 1% of visitors contact us. What a huge opportunity!”
Action: Get started with CRO! This is consistently one of the least utilized tactics and biggest opportunities for immediate increases in digital performance.
3. Create Google Analytics alerts to automatically monitor daily issuesConsider this the last time that you are blindsided by your (choose all that apply: Boss, client, agency, CEO, CMO, Director, Partner) saying:
“XYZ (something bad) happened… How did you not know!?”
Analytics Alerts will ensure you’re the first to know about most common day-to-day website issues that your reporting won’t catch.
This way, you don’t have to waste your day “just checking in” in hopes of being the first to catch issues.
How to create Google Analytics real-time, custom alerts:To get daily, weekly, or monthly custom alerts:

1. Click ‘Admin’
2. Click ‘Custom Alerts’
3. Create your new alert, selecting the frequency that the “check” occurs and conditions that will trigger an alert.

Here is what a Google Analytics 404 error alert might look like:

source: ​http://www.verticalmeasures.com/measurement-reporting/5-digital-marketing-measurement-tips-to-uncover-huge-growth-opportunities/

1. Keep your emails freshEmail marketing remains a great way to get your message across and communicate with your customers. But that doesn’t mean you should be complacent about it. This is the mistake that a lot of business owners make. If you want your overall digital marketing strategy to be effective, you need to make sure that you keep your approach to email marketing fresh. Only send out emails when you have something to say. And say it in an engaging and relaxed way; nobody wants to be bombarded with advertising jargon.
2. Be consistentConsistency is something that everyone strives for when they start out with their digital marketing plan. But it’s one of those things that often gets dropped and forgotten about. That’s not a good thing, so make sure you stay consistent when you’re carrying digital marketing techniques. For example, if you start a blog, it needs to be updated regularly. Otherwise, people will simply lose interest, and then you’ve lost your audience. Your approach and style on social media needs to be consistent too if you want to make it believable and relatable to people.
3. Work on a positive e-campaignYou need to be positive and upbeat when you’re creating a campaign for your business. So, use bright colours and positive language. A depressing or dull campaign is never going to be successful in connecting with an audience or persuading them to buy from your company. If things start to get boring and predictable, shake things up a bit. You could also partner up with a charity and show people you’re philanthropic side. This will paint your business in a positive light because you’re doing something for a good cause.
4. Improve the quality of your websiteQuality is something that a lot of people overlook when
it comes to creating a good digital marketing 

strategy. The main aim of most digital marketing techniques is to get people to your website. But what if they find an amateur, poorly designed and unattractive website when they get there? Then all your hard work will be undone because the visitor will leave the site and probably never come back! So, it’s vital to make sure that your website is improved. Follow the link to find out more about web hosting, and hire a web designer if you want a complete makeover for the site.
5. Engage with peopleCustomers expect to be engaged by businesses that are vying for their attention these days. If your business is not able to connect with people and convince them about your message, then you have a problem. Think about it; all the best businesses nowadays are the ones that are able to engage people and get them interested in what they have to say. You should use social media to your advantage when it comes to connecting with people. Use a tone that’s suitable for your target audience for the best outcomes.

source: http://www.talk-business.co.uk/2015/10/15/5-digital-marketing-tips-every-business-owner-needs-to-employ/​

What does success look like in the digital age and how can marketers make sure they deliver on a daily basis? Top marketers from Peugeot, Dixons Carphone, Mondelez, Aviva, The Economist and the IPA share their thoughts.
How do you drive marketing effectiveness and why is it so crucial?Janet Hull, IPA director of marketing strategy
“Getting the measurement strategy right is very important. You can look at data day in and day out, and make decisions every second, but you have to keep a clear head in terms of what you are trying to achieve. You need to make sure you’re making the spot decisions with the right context.
“Marketers also need to think about how to manage the process so all members of the team – agency and client side – are heading towards the same vision. You’ve got to give individuals a lot more responsibility these days to take decisions, so you have to make sure you’ve got a common view.
READ MORE: Is digital an effective mass market medium?
“Also marketing is continually having to demonstrate the value it adds to the business. So it’s that idea of how you articulate what you do to stakeholders who don’t work in marketing and make sure they appreciate where you create value.
“If you’re not careful effectiveness goes downstream into people who are technical, whereas we think effectiveness is a topic that everybody involved in marketing needs to address.”
How big is digital in your overall marketing mix?Pete Markey, Aviva brand communication and marketing director
“We have a mantra within the business – digital first. When the last Paul Whitehouse ad aired 90% of our spend was in traditional channels and the rest was in social and digital content. Now it’s 50/50.
“Digital is something that we do now, but measurement and effectiveness is key as we’re an accountable business and every penny we spend has to be paid back. The ultimate aim of any bit of activity in any business has to be a commercial result.
“You can have 20 million Facebook followers and likes, but no customers, so you’ve got to get this balance right. For me there should always be a commercial return. It doesn’t mean you always have to sell something, but there should be an understanding of what journey you are taking customers on and what the output should look like. I think of it as engagement and interaction leading to some kind of commercial benefit.”



What is the priority when it comes to your digital strategy – reach or targeting?Mark Pickles, Peugeot marketing director
“This very much depends on the overall campaign strategy. In general, when I’m building a campaign to build reach, digital usually takes two roles – to over-target priority customer groups, and then to develop the interaction and drive action.
“By definition, a properly constructed digital campaign is generally more targeted, however that’s not to say that reach can’t be achieved efficiently with a digital campaign. Indeed, the very term ‘digital’ is too much of a ‘catch-all’ description. There are so many different types of digital activity in our toolkit now, each with a different set of abilities. Think of digital as a box of tools rather than a multi-tool.”
Are we moving away from segmentation to personalisation?Jonathan Earle, Dixons Carphone commercial marketing director
“Online there’s an increasing consumer trend towards wanting things served up ‘just for me’. So personalisation is essential, but segmentation is still very important and I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s a bit like saying TV advertising is dead. It’s still very important if you’re looking to promote not just products, but individual categories.”



Are disruptors driving the pace of change?Jonathan Earle, Dixons Carphone commercial marketing director
“The barriers to entry are at an all time low and a disruptor can disrupt a marketer overnight. I could be out marketing to like-minded individuals in an online marketplace within a week if I were slow, because it is so easy now as an entrepreneur to get into the market. That means how you’re perceived by customers and potential customers has never been more important.”
Should brands use influencers to boost their digital effectiveness?Pollyanna Ward, Mondelez digital and social media manager
“On Instagram it makes sense to tap into a slightly more targeted audience and what’s fantastic about micro-influencers is they’re these tight knit communities that all talk to each other. So if you work with those kinds of influencers, content appears native in their feeds.
“Instagram has just updated its platform to allow users to upload multiple posts into one photo. As a brand we’ve been able to do that for ages with the carousel ads, but it says ‘sponsored post’. Whereas if you can get that from a micro influencer and you’re getting them to tell your story, that’s an added layer to what you are trying to deliver and a different way of communicating your message.”



How important is it to understand how your consumers act on different channels?Pollyanna Ward, Mondelez digital and social media manager
“Whatever channel you decide to go on you need to appreciate what that channel is doing for you and how your users are on there.
“If your users are coming on there to interact with friends and family, and you’re trying to push out an ad that’s got a hardcore message it’s just going to be missed. But if it’s fun, colourful and fits in, that makes more sense. If the message doesn’t resonate you’ll see the dwell time is significantly lower.”
Do marketers need to find a balance between long and short-term metrics?Mark Pickles, Peugeot marketing director
“For me, short-term strategy is often a reflection of failure or inefficiency in the long-term strategy. Every campaign, every piece of work, should contribute to the long-term strategy, however subtly.
“A short-term campaign that jars with the overall brand strategy, whilst often capable of ‘flicking the needle’, is unlikely to yield medium term efficiency.
“Equally, I have to acknowledge that reactivity is often required and sometimes a long-term strategy can’t second-guess those more immediate needs. The important thing to assess is that the short-term benefit of a ‘quick-fix’ campaign isn’t cancelled out by creating confusion or dissonance with the long-term strategy.”



Is it important to have a clear grasp of your KPIs in a world of real-time optimisation?Mark Beard, The Economist senior vice president of digital media and content strategy
“Academically the job of a marketer hasn’t changed. As a marketer it is your job to find ways to solve a business problem and use the right channels and activity against the right KPIs.
“What has changed is there are now a hell of a lot more ways you can monitor your activity and you can set machines up to monitor and optimise a range of different KPIs.
“So as a marketer you’ve got to be incredibly clear about what it is you want your campaign to achieve and then set every element of that activity up so that your campaign is optimised to the end goal.”



Should marketers try to measure every interaction between their brand and consumers?Mark Pickles, Peugeot marketing director
“Historically, we’ve thought of the sales and marketing process as a vertical funnel, with marketing actions designed to either close leaks in that pipeline, or increase the flow – very focused on hard conversion.
“Today, with prospects likely to consume multiple messages and pieces of communication over a protracted period, identifying the last action before a sale can be dangerous. Of course, I want to know which piece of marketing prompted action – but if I don’t consider all the other actions that brought the prospect to this point, the results can be very misleading.
“This means we need the ability to track consumption of our campaigns longitudinally, so that when we convert a sale we can identify all the actions which moved the customer a little closer to converting. This is one of the key challenges in the era of big data – working out what is the most efficient sequence of actions, rather than just identifying the last action.”
Do you think marketing effectiveness needs to be redefined in a digital age?Jonathan Earle, Dixons Carphone commercial marketing director
“Ultimately when we talk about digital, it sounds like this very grand term. It’s just the way we behave. Media is getting more fragmented and with more competition people are fighting for a greater share of disposal income.
“It is much harder to be a marketer than it was ten years ago, because of the number of channels available and the amount of personalisation. Customers are doing things a lot differently and we need to be able to show we’re driving return on investment because we know the customers better than anyone else.
“So does marketing effectiveness need redefining? Well probably not, we just need to evolve with how consumers are behaving.”

​Source: https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/04/10/tricks-and-tips-to-maximise-digital-effectiveness/

Every marketer understands the premise-and every CEO yearns to realize the promise-of connected customer journeys across all touchpoints. Yet the challenges of siloed departments and data, siloed customer experiences, disconnected channels, disconnected marketing tools and analytics, and security, scale and availability persist.
I know you're probably well versed in the problems. And I understand your pain-what's been missing is a solution that meets the needs of the entire organization. Until now.
Today, we've turned the corner in the digital transformation. We're now living in the age of the customer, where great marketing is powered by solutions that put customers at the center of every experience and every interaction. Providing cohesive, consistent, and relevant 1-to-1 experiences across marketing, sales, and service-on all channels and devices-is no longer a wish for the future. It is readily available to companies of all types, sizes and industries.
A finite focus on customer experience is the common thread among the world's most innovative companies like Uber, Amazon, GE, Fitbit, and I'm proud to say Salesforce. From established brands to digital startups, healthcare providers to financial services firms, and even government agencies, educators and not for profits, digital leaders recognize customers want transparency, ease-of-use, convenience, and personalization. Most importantly, marketers just like you are most often driving these customer experience initiatives.
Marketing's Role in Driving Brand ExperiencesThere's never been a more exciting time to be a marketer. Yet despite the dynamic environment in which we work, one thing remains consistent: We exist to generate more demand for our company's products and services.
We have hundreds of metrics to gauge success, but what matters most are our contributions to the bottom line:

• Driving customer acquisition
• Generating sales
• Decreasing customer churn

These goals have changed little over the years, but to attain them, we must recognize how shifts in cloud computing, mobile, social media, and artificial intelligence are reshaping how we market. Let's briefly walk through each trend.

Cloud Computing for MarketingForecasts from Forbes, Cisco, Forrester, and Gartner predict that by the end of 2016, more than a third of the world's digital content will be stored in the cloud. Marketers can operate with greater speed and immediacy than ever before-with more access to testing and instant optimization. With the ability to scale programs with near-infinite amounts of data, we can all better manage and personalize the customer journey, sending billions of 1-to-1 messages across every channel: email, mobile, social, apps, the IoT, and more. With easy access to apps in the cloud, marketers now have control over our businesses, allowing us to focus on innovation, not infrastructure.

Mobile MarketingPeople are attached to cell phones 16 hours a day and check them 80+ times a day. Apps give people context that can create connected customer experiences and drive personalization with location, proximity, speed, weather, and other daily cues. Mobile messaging-in-app push notifications and text messages-help us connect with customers when they need it most. Customers are now notified when their flights are delayed, when their reservations are ready, or when their pizzas have been delivered.

Social Media MarketingAccording to this case study from Facebook and Salesforce, marketers who align messaging in email campaigns with social advertising strategies have seen a 22% lift in email conversions. The average Facebook user spends 50 minutes per day on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. That's more than any other leisure activity the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys except watching TV and movies, according to the New York Times. Because these networks are identity-based platforms, marketers can reach more prospects, fans, and followers than ever-and in the process, learn an incredible amount about them. Social managers can create personalized experiences through ads, recommendations, and customer service-as well as use social to drive email subscriptions and app downloads.

Artificial Intelligence for MarketingToday, just 1 percent of business data has been analyzed and it requires skilled data scientists to develop apps and extract insights. Over the next decade however, AI will transform every aspect of business-every industry. It has the potential to make every company and every employee smarter, faster, more operationally efficient and productive.
Marketers can use artificial intelligence to recommend products and offers to customers, tailoring messages according to important metrics, such as email opens, browsing activity, and conversions. Customer data can help identify new audience segments to target with more relevant messages and offers. Then, marketers can measure, test, analyze, and optimize every step of the journey, getting insights into traffic, sales, and service metrics along the way.
The Key Questions You Need to Ask In Order to Your Achieve Customer Experience GoalsWhile it's easy to get excited about the age of the customer and its infinite possibilities, it's important to remember that great new opportunities can also introduce some new obstacles (or quite often highlight existing issues with legacy systems). To succeed, marketers must be able to answer five fundamental questions:

1. How can I blur the lines and remove the obstacles between marketing, commerce, custom apps, sales, service, communities, and IoT, so that there is one connected customer experience for each individual-and do it at scale?
2. How can I reach each customer, in every stage of the customer lifecycle, with relevant and personalized messaging - and do it at scale?

1. How can I create content and campaigns that are connected across the channels where customers are engaged?

1. How can I increase the speed, quality, and impact of my marketing departments if our data toolsets are not integrated and incomplete?
2. How do I ensure that my customer data is secure and that my messages reach my customers anywhere, any time?

Meet Salesforce for MarketingSalesforce is the Customer Success Platform. It's the only platform that puts the customer in the center of marketing, sales, commerce, and service to create one connected customer experience across all touchpoints with a brand. For marketing, it means Salesforce helps you do what matters most: drive pipeline, product sales, and their company's bottom lines. For example, retailer Room & Board enjoys an ROI of 2700% with Marketing Cloud.
Salesforce is the unquestioned leader in CRM market share. This is good news for marketers. It means that they finally have the tools to tie marketing metrics directly to sales, commerce, and service outcomes.

Leverage the World's #1 CRM PlatformSalesforce is the #1 CRM platform and ecosystem, with leading apps in sales, service, marketing, commerce, community, analytics and the Internet of Things. It's the only platform that puts the customer in the center of marketing, sales, commerce, and service to create one connected customer experience across all touchpoints with a brand. In fact, Salesforce is the unquestioned leader in CRM market share.
We're 100% in the cloud-no software-and the solution of choice for marketing, sales and service teams around the world to focus on innovation, not infrastructure. Specifically, here is how we partner with marketers to help you succeed:

Build 1-to-1 Journeys Across the Entire Customer LifecycleMarketers can use journey mapping to manage marketing strategies in real time across awareness, acquisition, onboarding, engagement, retention, and advocacy.

• Awareness: CRM-driven advertising and social media marketing
• Acquisition: Lead management (lead nurturing, scoring), selling, and commerce journeys
• Onboarding: Onboarding journeys that help new customers, employees, and partners adopt products, service, and apps
• Engagement: Event promotion, product information, cross-sell/upsell promotions, launches, holiday sales, app engagement, social media content marketing, and customer communities
• Retention & Advocacy: Renewals, customer support, social listening, customer care, service journeys, reminders, alerts, and updates

Connect to Customers on Every Channel and Every DeviceMarketers can reach their customers with personalized messaging across email, mobile messaging and apps, social media, advertising, websites, IoT, and communities.

• Email: Transactional, promotional, and 1-to-1 emails
• Mobile Messaging: SMS, push, and group messaging
• Mobile App Development: Loyalty and e-commerce apps
• Social Media: Listening, analysis, publishing, and engagement
• Advertising: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn ads
• Website: Personalized content, offers, and landing pages
• IoT: In-product messaging
• Communities: Customer communities, partner communities, and employee communities
• Customer Service: Integrated customer support and social customer care

Make Marketing More Intelligent and Predictive with an Integrated ToolsetWith the following set of tools, marketers can reach each customer with 1-to-1 campaigns and messages - no matter the size of their team or size of their audience.

• Planning, collaboration, and mobile apps
  • Marketing apps for budgeting, events, PR, and campaigns
  • Collaboration and docs
  • File sharing
  • Employee communities
  • Mobile apps for marketing on the go

• Audience Management
  • Extract, Transform and Load (ETL)
  • Customer data modeling
  • Audience segmentation

• Content Management and Personalization
  • Content scripting
  • Product recommendations
  • Content management

• Customer Journey Mapping / Marketing Automation
  • Event-triggered, real-time marketing
  • CRM lead management

• Channel Tools
  • Email marketing
  • Mobile marketing
  • Social marketing
  • Advertising
  • Mobile apps
  • Customer and partner communities
  • Digital commerce
  • Connected products
  • Integrated customer support
  • Integrated sales

• Marketing Analytics and Intelligence
  • Email and mobile analytics
  • Social analytics
  • Business intelligence
  • Artificial intelligence

Trust is our #1 ValueMarketers can trust a platform that keeps data secure, has no-downtime, and scales to meet a brand's business needs-ensuring that their messages reach their customers across every channel on any device. The Customer Success Platform sent 2.3 billion emails on Cyber Monday in 2015, and delivered over 370 billion messages securely last year.

• Deliverability and Security
  • Sender authentication
  • Numerous IP ranges
  • Industry-leading deliverability expertise
  • Tokenized sending
  • Encrypted data
  • Enhanced disaster recovery
  • No scheduled downtime

Put Your Customers at the CenterWhile the digital transformation will surely continue to evolve, the Customer Success Platform represents a major milestone for every business. The age of the customer is upon us, and marketers just like you are in the ideal position to give them what they want-cohesive, relevant and personalized experiences across marketing, sales, service, and everywhere in between.

​Source: https://www.marketingcloud.com/blog/marketing-digital-transformation/

Digital marketing agencies provide their clients with a whole lot more than a simple 3-page website. Well, at least the good ones do. Any marketing agency that does not have a firm grasp on current digital marketing trends is behind the times. Today’s marketing agencies must have a complete understanding of the digital world, and also must be able to implement effective digital marketing strategies for each of their individual clients.
Here are a few examples of what the best internet marketing agencies provide their clients:
Website Design. When a digital marketing agency designs a website for a client, the agency must thoroughly understand the client’s business – including the client’s target audience, sales strategy, and overall business goals. The design process cannot happen in a day. It takes a bit if time to develop a website that will meet all of the requirements of each client.
Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. Commonly referred to as SEM and SEO, the most effective digital marketing agencies develop custom plans for each of their clients. SEM and SEO cannot be handled using a “one size fits all” approach. A successful internet marketing agency will use various strategies and tools to ensure each client is ranked as high as possible on search engines.
Content. Marketing agencies that ignore the need for informative and useful content on their clients’ websites are not aware of the importance of content marketing. When looking for an internet marketing agency to hire, a business owner should evaluate the marketing agency’s philosophy on the importance of website content. One of the most effective methods to ensure any website it ranked high on search engines is to fill it with high-level content.
Social Media. Any digital marketing agency that does not provide social media services should be avoided. Marketing agencies that are unable or unwilling to help their clients with social media may be destined for failure. An successful social media campaign is vital to the success of any digital marketing campaign. Social media is incredibly influential, and an effective campaign can launch a business into a new level of success.
Branding. The process of branding involves creating a positive and memorable image for a business. Marketing agencies should provide branding services to all of their clients. However, developing an effective brand for a business requires a creative thought process. The most successful internet marketing agencies have creative thinkers on their staff.
Effective digital marketing agencies provide many services to their clients. But not only do they provide these services, they also stay in touch with their clients, provide feedback, and make smart suggestions on how a client can improve their return on investment (ROI). Another service a great digital marketing agency provides is sound advice. After all, a marketing agency that has been in business for at least a few years should know quite a bit about which digital marketing strategies are likely to work, and which will not!



SOurce: https://centermassmedia.com/services-digital-marketing-agency-provide/​

Did you know that 81% of shoppers perform online research before making a purchase? The future is now when it comes to digital. Digital marketing can span anywhere from ads on Google to posts on Twitter to even mobile display advertisements. So, the question still remains: Where do you begin?
Let’s take a look at the step-by-step process you should take to begin your digital marketing journey.
Step 1: Invest in a Quality WebsiteYour website is one of the most important elements of your digital marketing. This is the place where most of your advertising will lead your potential customers. That means a focus on user experience is incredibly important. You will want to make sure that all of your calls-to-action are easily seen and easy to understand, your contact information is on every page, and your website content is easy to read. You’ll also want to consider which devices your customer is using to look at your website. Roughly 60% of online searches are now conducted on a smartphone instead of a desktop computer, so it is vital that your website is mobile responsive. Having a mobile responsive website means that your website can fit into any size browser without being distorted. Thus, creating a great user experience.
Recommended for YouWebcast, April 6th: Mobile App Growth Secrets: Engage and Retain Users Like the Big Players
Step 2: Get Started with PPCNow that your website is ready for users no matter where they are searching, it’s time to drive people to it. One of the quickest and easiest ways to drive people to your website is by utilizing pay per click advertising. Commonly known as PPC or SEM, these ads usually appear at the top and bottom of the search engine results pages on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other top search engines. PPC is a great way for your business to dive into digital marketing because it’s one of the only forms of advertising that can instantly get your website in front of searchers looking for your products and services. Closely monitor the keywords that are driving customers to your website so you can adjust your ads and allocate to your budget to the right keywords.
Step 3: Add Display Ads to the MixPPC isn’t the only way to reach potential customers online. People may visit your website while they are still in the research phase of their buying process and leave your website without making a purchase or a phone call. It is important to stay top-of-mind for those people while they are still making their purchasing decision. This is where retargeting ads come into play. These ads work by placing a tracking pixel on a customer’s browser after they visit your website. While they are surfing the web, these display ads will show up in their browser reminding them of your business and the products or services you offer. Retargeting ads don’t quite get the same amount of clicks that PPC ads do, but studies have shown that site visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to return and convert on your website than visitors who aren’t retargeted. You can also use mobile display advertising tactics like geofencing to target users when they’re near your business.
Step 4: Work on Your Search Engine OptimizationPaid advertising tactics like PPC and display ads are the perfect way to quickly drive users to your website and jump into digital marketing. But, you’ll want to focus on some organic strategies as well to optimize your website and build a solid organic presence.
The first organic strategy you’ll want to get started with is SEO, which stands for search engine optimization. Having quality SEO for your website will help you achieve more shelf space in the organic listings of the search engine results page. SEO differs from PPC and display in the sense that it can take a while for you to start seeing the fruits of your labor. But, investing in an SEO strategy can yield a number of benefits for your business and should be a key aspect of any digital marketing plan.
Step 5: Look Into a Social Media StrategyThe other organic strategy to focus on is a strong social media presence across multiple platforms. Social media is an integral part of society, with people spending up to 50 minutes a day on Facebook alone. Setting up and managing business pages on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more can help you connect with your customers and prospects, drive additional users to your website, and even capture leads if you employ paid advertising strategies like Lead Ads on Facebook.
Step 6: Manage Your Online ReputationOnce you’ve established a solid paid and organic presence online, more people may be searching for your business directly. When this happens, review sites often pop up, which means managing your online reputation is important. In fact, 90% of people say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions, and 56% of consumers say they rely on search engines to help them find reviews about businesses.
The goal of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy is to be present wherever people are spending time online – including search engines, social sites, and review pages. Running a full digital marketing plan can seem like a lot of work – because it is – so you may consider looking for a digital marketing company to help you run these campaigns while you’re running your business. Don’t be afraid to look for a reputable company to guide you to digital marketing success.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/6-steps-digital-marketing-success-01813955#hCrylCicAzwEjTjV.99