Popular Articles on Business 2 Community |
- Branding Advice for 2014
- The Marketers Guide to the Social Media Galaxy (Infographic)
- How to be Successful on Pinterest in 2014
- 4 Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2014
- 10 Marketing Predictions For 2014
- 8 Effective Ways of Measuring UX
- How Mobile Apps Have Changed The Way We Do Business
| Posted: 02 Jan 2014 08:43 PM PST
These days, the topic on many people's minds is brands: product brands, service brands, and as a result of social media, personal brands. Everyone – from IT to HR to Sales to R&D – has joined the conversation that traditional brand marketers have been having for years. But the questions remain: What is a brand? How can a strong brand affect business? And how can a strong brand impact revenues? David A. Aaker, brand equity expert and UC-Berkeley Professor, shared an excellent explanation in his timeless book, Managing Brand Equity: "A product is something that is made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by a customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless." To put it simply, a brand centers on an experience – something so incredibly unique and memorable that it cannot be duplicated by another product or service. A customer has a positive experience and wants to repeat it. This concept of a customer experience has taken center stage over the last few years and has melded with brand marketing. The smart companies, the ones that are industry leaders and trendsetters, have realized that customers who have positive experiences will become brand advocates, ambassadors, and influencers. It is these individuals who will help sell a company’s brand through positive word-of-mouth marketing. Reasons for a positive experience may include customer service, product quality, or ease of purchase. Positive experiences may be tied to products as small as a particular brand of toothpaste or butter to something more substantial as a retail store or automobile. While this concept of customer experience is easy to grasp when it comes to product marketing, how can it be applied to a personal brand? While one half of the brand equation is corporate identity, for an individual, this is known as personal identity. Brand marketing for an individual’s personal identity includes the same elements as for a corporate identity: differentiation, perceived quality and value, attitudes and feelings, and strong associations. So, as you set up your social presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, a Blog, etc., and develop a defined personal brand, ask yourself why you support your favorite brands. What does Nike do well? What does Coca-Cola do well? What does Disney do well? What do your favorite brands represent? Once you have your answers, apply the same elements that yield memorable and long-lasting product and service brands – and you will be on your way to becoming a memorable brand yourself. |
| The Marketers Guide to the Social Media Galaxy (Infographic) Posted: 02 Jan 2014 04:40 PM PST The use of social media to help accomplish business goals is no longer a “what if” but a “how to.” It is clear that social media helps brands influence and engage their audience. Ninety-three percent of marketers use social media for business. It’s time to start leveraging social to the fullest extent. Consumer engagement with social platforms is one of the best ways to determine what your consumers are looking for from your brand. Connect their social experience with your company to the landing pages of your website. Make the connection by personalizing website content based on the social media post that brought visitors to your website.
|
| How to be Successful on Pinterest in 2014 Posted: 02 Jan 2014 10:00 AM PST
Review your goals for 2014: do you want more followers, more website traffic, or more sales? Pick one to start your 2014 Pinterest timeline and tailor your Pinterest strategy to achieve that goal, then focus on the next goal. Once your brand has improved in all three areas, you'll see each aspect support one another and improve steadily. Think of your Pinterest as an ever-evolving collection of images that represent your brand. The following list shares ways your brand can achieve its goals and stay top of mind in consumers' minds this coming year. Gain more followers: – Pin regularly: An easy step that many brands don't do is pinning 15-20 pins a day onto different boards throughout the day. This will increase the likelihood that your pins will show up in search results and promote follows. A pin scheduler or account management can ensure this is met. – Promote your Pinterest: Utilize all other social media platforms with a quick link to your page. Promote your page with widgets, "Follow us" button on your website in a prominent spot, "Follow us on Pinterest" cover photo along with regular posts on Facebook, and email (a huge one). Emailing a specific call out for people to follow your brand on Pinterest can increase followers drastically. The easier for them, the better for you! – Descriptions: Using specific keywords in your pin descriptions is a major way to improve SEO on Pinterest. Be descriptive and you'll see your following increase steadily. – Dedicated boards: Dedicated or group boards shared with a top Pinterest influencer increase brand awareness and the likelihood for people to follow your brand. – Pinterest contests: Pinterest contests are a great way to increase followers because you can make them 'following' you a required step in entering. – Integrate in-store with Pinterest: Nordstrom has done a great job at marking "top Pinterest items" in store with tags to create buzz around the items and their Pinterest account. Increase website traffic: – Create content: Create pins for your blog articles or flash sales. Design pins that lead pinners to want to click-through to your website. A heading will make pinners want to check out what you have to offer. – Pinterest Influencers: Learn more about HelloSociety's Pinterest Influencer network here or by emailing info@hellosociety.com. – Verify your Pinterest: Learn how to verify your website here. – Get Rich Pins for articles: Get rich pins for your articles to have an article overview by the pin description leading to much higher traffic. Learn more here. – Include a call-to-action: In your pin descriptions, simply tell people to click through, learn more, and explain what they could learn if they check out your site and they most likely will. – Board categories: Make sure every board you have has a category. Go into 'edit board' to make sure your pins will show up under category searches. Get more sales: – Pin seasonal: Create boards that coordinate to the seasons. Have a New Year's Eve board with your products integrated (ie: planning an NYE party or making the perfect NYE outfit). – Pinterest Influencers: Pinterest influencers make a huge difference for brands on Pinterest. Learn more about HelloSociety Pinterest Influencer network here or by emailing info@hellosociety.com. – Get Rich Pins: Rich Pins will have your product's price by its pin description and it will also alert people who've pinned that product when the item goes on sale! – Make it exclusive: Have a board with products exclusive to Pinterest like J.Crew's catalog prerelease on Pinterest or Lowe's exclusive Black Friday deals board. – Add text to your images: Pin images with the text "Items under $50" on the top will increase likelihood of click throughs, awareness, repins, and sales. – Pin during specific times: Pinning between 2-4 pm and 8-11 pm are the ideal times to get the most exposure for your pins and products.
|
| 4 Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2014 Posted: 02 Jan 2014 09:00 AM PST This year social media will do more than introduce the masses to a royal baby and the peculiar dance moves of Miley Cyrus. In 2014, social media will continue to be a necessity for small business marketing, not just a fad that will fade away. That's just one of the predictions Sharon Geltner, a marketing teacher and small business counselor at Palm Beach State College, has for the new year. Geltner's predictions are based on her marketing prowess and her conversations with new business owners. As a counselor, she helps small businesses get started, which includes marketing advice. "The small businesses I work with know that social media has a lot of marketing potential," she says. "I think in 2014 we'll see new social media tools revealed and smarter strategies from small business owners." Here are a few other predictions Geltner has for 2014: 1. LinkedIn will become the go-to social media site LinkedIn is making big strides to earn your attention, Geltner says. The site, known among Geltner's clients as "Facebook for grownups," has attracted a lot of new users with business-centered features like endorsement tools and the ability to join groups. "LinkedIn will become a social media powerhouse in 2014," she says. "More business owners are realizing the treasure trove of information that potential clients list on profiles." Geltner expects business owners to search LinkedIn for potential clients and use the information offered online to do research before cold calling a prospective customer. 2. YouTube channels will grow Geltner predicts more businesses will turn to video to spice up marketing campaigns in 2014. With YouTube channels growing in popularity and video equipment becoming cheap and easy to use, Geltner says more emails and social media posts will contain videos rather than lengthy paragraphs. "People click on videos," Geltner says. "If your business can pack information into an informative and engaging video, it could be more effective than writing the same content." If Geltner doesn't convince you of YouTube's power, statistics will. Every second that goes by, an hour of video is uploaded to YouTube. Retailers are flocking to the video hub as a way to boost online sales. For example, online retail store, Zappos, says 250,000 visitors were driven to its website by YouTube in 2012. 3. Twitter's popularity will fall (with SMBs) Geltner says the small business owners that she interacts with aren't embracing Twitter quite as much as we're led to believe. She's not convinced that this platform will become a vital tool in the marketing toolbox. "I really think Twitter has a 50/50 shot of making it in the small business world," she says. "I know I'm probably in the minority with this line of thinking, but Twitter seems to be an afterthought for many businesses. We'll see how it goes." Geltner isn't the only one who thinks the 140-charcter site is a bit overrated when it comes to marketing. According to statistics from Peer Research, Americans aren't in love with Twitter. In fact, the U.S. ranks eighth in Twitter engagement across the world, behind countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. 4. Small businesses will get selective about social media Every small business struggles to balance time, money and resources. While many small businesses gravitate towards all social media platforms because of their free marketing potential, Geltner expects businesses to be more efficient and selective in 2014. "The novelty of social media is starting to wear off," she says. "Business owners don't need a presence on every social media site that exists." She believes small businesses will focus on one or two platforms rather than offer a meager presence on every site. A shift towards quality over quantity is also expected. "Small businesses have enough experience with social media to realize that they don't have to post every 30 minutes, but when they do, the content should be worthwhile to readers," she says. While Geltner says social media tools are an affordable way for small businesses to generate leads and promote a brand, she reminds owners not to forget about traditional media. Geltner says social media isn't a silver bullet and advises every small business to combine its social media marketing with traditional marketing tools like email marketing to have the most successful year. Have any predictions of your own? Share with us in the comments . This post contributed by guest author, Lisa Furgison. Furgison is a media maven with ten years of journalism experience and a passion for creating top-notch content. |
| 10 Marketing Predictions For 2014 Posted: 02 Jan 2014 06:39 AM PST
The ball has dropped, the fireworks have popped and all the champagne is gone. 2014 arrived in style, but now it's time to get down to business. There's been a lot of talk about what's going to happen in the coming year. As a Bikini Marketer, you've got to differentiate between the unavoidable (having a mobile presence) and the absurd (SEO is dead!). Here's a list of some of the most popular predictions for 2014. Google Hummingbird will force marketers to write conversationally. The days of flooding web copy with keywords and rising to the top of the search results have been over for a while, but an even more important shift will happen in the next year. Rather than publishing a blog post about any random topic, content marketers will have to tailor their posts to their followers. Google Hummingbird made it clear that conversational writing will be rewarded, and it would be downright silly for Bikini Marketers to ignore that. Mobile marketing will become more important than ever. MCommerce is growing 200 percent faster than eCommerce, and 63 percent of consumers say they will shop on their phone more frequently in the next few years. Still not sure if mobile marketing is for you? In Q2 of 2013, sales made on mobile phones and tablets accounted for $4.7 billion. If you haven't already, 2014 is the year to create your mobile marketing strategy. High quality content will separate successes and failures. Google Hummingbird made it clear that the search engine is tired of being duped by keyword-rich, poor quality content. Websites that pay for links or, even worse, steal other people's content will surely be knocked down a few pegs if they continue trying to dupe the system. Brick-and-mortar businesses will invest in location-based content marketing. Targeting consumers through their GPS-enabled smartphones is expected to become mainstream by the end of 2014. This content marketing strategy allows businesses to identify each shopper's preferences and location. When a consumer is near the store, the system simply sends them a deal based on the stored demographic information. This is either the greatest marketing tool ever invented or the end of privacy as we know it. Only time will tell. Shorter content will be in demand. From Twitter's 140-character limit to Vine's six-second max platform, web users are becoming more inclined to shorter content. That doesn't mean, however, that you can churn out 100 words three or four times a week and see your ranking rise in search results. There are too many competitors waiting to take your place for you to risk disappointing your customers with poorly put together content. Remember, don't ever sacrifice quality. Social media will be hotter than ever. The Content Marketing Institute predicts that 87 percent of B2B content marketers will use social media in 2014. Even better, social media marketing budgets are expected to double in the next five years as more marketers realize the importance of social media. Multi-screen content is a must. Consumers have spoken, and they want multi-platform content. Americans are on their phones or tablets for an average of 158 minutes each day, according to analytics firm Flurry. Further, video consumption on smartphones and tablets increased by 133 percent from 2012 to 2013. Why would you only create your content for one platform when consumers are on multiple? More brands will interact with social media followers. For the most part, businesses now know that if they're not on social media, they're losing customers. What's important to realize now is that having a social media profile isn't enough. Consumers today aren't shy about sharing reviews on social media, both good and bad. If you ignore either type of post, your brand is going to come across as uncaring or inattentive, neither of which will build your reputation. There will be another wedding of the century. Move over, Will and Kate, there's a new royal couple in town. SEO and social media have been going hot and heavy for the past few years, but they're finally making things official. Google Plus and Google Authorship make it impossible to ignore the union any longer. From now on, you should think of SEO and social media hand in hand. And one we hope isn't true… Earned media coverage will replace guest blogging. Google's recent crackdown on poor-quality content means it's on the lookout for serial spammers. Guest bloggers who mass email websites to publish their content or shop the same post around can seriously depreciate a site's SEO rank. For some, the reward just isn't large enough to justify the risk. |
| 8 Effective Ways of Measuring UX Posted: 01 Jan 2014 02:00 PM PST
Ever wonder why your site has a lot of visitors, but not enough transactions, purchases or inquiries? In this post we will look at both marketing and UX metrics at a slightly different angle. The post will be particularly interesting for those of you who want to grow your online revenue and not concentrate on just generating a lot of traffic! Conversion is the key. Don`t get me wrong, traffic is always a good thing, but traffic alone can only get you so far. User Experience Has a HUGE Role to PlayIn his ever-so-popular book Don't Make Me Think, Steve Krug provides a simple definition for usability: "It really just means making sure that something works well: that a person of average ability and experience can use the thing—whether it's a website, a toaster, or a revolving door—for its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated." In the end, all different usability definitions tend to come down to some fairly common themes:
Usability itself is just one block of a large UX iceberg, as seen below, and a part of the overall user experience of products, either physical (watches) or online (websites)  UX iceberg UX metrics can be a powerful tool for evaluating the performance of virtually any type of product and is best used when combined with marketing metrics. Sound simple enough? Well, in the end it really is simple. You just need to be on the lookout for the right signs and measure the right metrics. Before diving straight into the list, let's take a quick look into some mistakes people usually make. (You don't want to be guilty of these) Typical Mistakes When Collecting Metrics
Marketing managers tend to obsess over figures, but are often not putting second thought into their numbers. Ask yourself if you really know the value of a single visit on your website. Can you put a number on a single visit even if people don`t buy anything?
You should never obsess over numbers; instead you should look at the big picture and how the whole system (website itself, customer support, sales, management etc.) works. Bad marketing data was thoroughly examined by Marketing Experiments in 2012, and the current situation has not improved much. In the study they came to the conclusion that:
Lack of Context in the Metrics Unless you run a content-heavy site then, the number of monthly visitors is not giving you any real insight. Dig deeper and try to find out how people are really interacting with your site. Are they leaving comments, clicking on items and thinking about what's in their cart, or something completely different? Do user tests in order to find out how they think. Marketing Metrics vs. User Experience MetricsDuring the recent years at Trinidad Consulting we have noticed that a lot of businesses are guilty of putting UX metrics together in the same pot with online marketing metrics. While some of them may overlap, many are in fact very different, and some are essentially the same but carry different meanings. Don´t get me wrong, there is nothing bad with marketing metrics. Both metrics are ways you can measure the success of your business, either directly or indirectly. When it comes to measuring user experience however, traditional metrics are flipped on their heads; and instead of page views, bounce rates, and various other indicators; we will be looking at external and internal metrics in the form of ratios. In the end, tweaking the usability and user experience portion of the website will have direct consequences to other areas of your business as well. External Metrics#1 Customer Support Performance Why is it that as marketing managers we tend to look at just our figures, but neglect other key areas such as customer support performance? This metric is fairly easy to measure, but it does require good communication between the different departments. If you are making some radical changes to your website, service, or product it is natural to experience a short phone support peak in the first 2 weeks, but based on our experience, after the 2 weeks have passed, you should start seeing a slow but steady decrease in incoming calls and emails.  Customer support is often under direct fire, hear them out – illustration drawn by Trinidad Consulting´s UX designer Norman Niklus Tip: Make sure to check in with your support staff from to time to see if their workload has either decreased or increased and identify the current main issues. #2 Online vs. Office Visits The aim of your website is to decrease the workload of other communication channels you may be using. For a store who mostly sells their goods online it can be very frustrating to deal with complaints and questions in an office environment, i.e. it`s often easier to solve problems online and not come face to face with complaining customers. This means your website must be designed in a way which allows people to find their answers as swiftly as possible. If it`s not possible to find an answer to the question quickly enough then chances are your support staff will be under fire! Internal metrics#3 Form Usage Good forms are the number one indicator of good information architecture. In the perfect world they are simple, easy to understand and user friendly, requiring only the essentials. Conversion expert Tim Ash recommends keeping forms to only the essentials. Some examples of bad forms can be seen on baddonationforms.tumblr.com and badforms.com.  Bad forms are conversion killers Tip: If you have the chance to use auto-fill settings in your system then go for it! In fact, you can easily measure the time your visitors spend filling forms out or dropping the process. The shorter the form, the better the conversion! You can also measure the success rate based on how many times your customers got error messages upon pressing the submit button. A/B and multivariate testing can help you find the right solution here. #4 How is the Back Button Used (Rapid or Seldom) Do you know how much the "back" button is being used and when? Turn to Google Analytics/Visual Website Optimizer to see how people are browsing your site. If your clients are pressing it multiple times at places where it doesn`t make sense then chances are the architecture of your website is broken, i.e. visitors are not encouraged to move forward or they can`t, something in the site architecture is blocking them. Of course, usage of the back button is perfectly normal in most cases, but if analytics show you heavy usage along with no transactions made then you need to look more into it. If the usage of the back button is very high then you should verify your findings with some user tests to see if you are faced with a real problem or you are experiencing ordinary behavior. Quite often there are surprises. The same applies to using the search bar on the website after fiddling around in the menu and also when visitors are using Google to search for articles/products while they are already on your website. #5 See How Pagination and Page Search are Used In the pursuit of page views, website owners have developed a nasty habit of writing long, paginated posts and slicing content into chunks, often frustrating the hell out of their visitors—especially if they are viewing the site on a mobile device. Our experiments have shown that this will result in a quick decline of interest after reading the first page, but things tend to change when you start using infinite scroll instead. Turn to your website analytics to see if your customers have left elsewhere after clicking on the first and second pages of the article. Pagination usage shows you how relevant the search results are for your visitors. From a usability standpoint there is no point in having slideshows on a page when the content can be scrollable instead. Mashable and AskMen.com have both been guilty of splitting content across multiple pages, but Mashable has also given the reader the option of having a full list view as seen below.  Always include a show as list option on your websites In the end, scrolling a few times is easy, but if you want to have a quick overview then a list is more appropriate. If you insist on a slideshow then make sure to give the users an option to scroll down and see the whole content at once. There has also been a lot of chatter about pagination on Smashing Magazine. #6 Navigation vs. Search Turn to your analytics to see how your customers move around the site. Try to see if they are using links for navigation or if they are opting for site search instead. Navigation vs. search ratio shows you which pages are perceived to be friendly by the visitors. #7 Visitors Who Made the Purchase vs. Visitors Who Quit the Process One of the key indicators on whether the changes have had any effect is the number of purchases completed, compared with people who chose to leave their credit cards in their wallets. This is conversion rating at its finest. #8 Random Visitors vs. Visitors Who Bought Something The number of visitors will not tell you anything unless you are willing to dive further into the details, which in this context would be the average cost per visitor. Keep in mind that this is no longer a UX metric, but you can use it to directly measure your overall business performance. The fact is unless you are focused on content marketing and advertising, you should be looking at the sheer number of sales generated, because in the end, that`s the only metric that matters. ConclusionHopefully this post has given you some essential information about UX specific metrics. If you want to be better than your competitors, you always have to be one step ahead of the curve. Study the latest UX metrics and you will get there. If you read this article then you are already ahead of the curve since most marketing managers even today ignore UX (thinking it is something IT guys do) and have not yet realized its potential. Remember
I also recommend the book Cost-Justifying Usability by Randolph G. Bias and Deborah J. Mayhew. I contains more insights and metrics to implement. Although written for UX designers, with the aim of helping make selling UX design easier, the authors dissect several types of companies and recommend metrics for each and every one of them. It also has loads of case studies to learn from. Go get it! |
| How Mobile Apps Have Changed The Way We Do Business Posted: 01 Jan 2014 10:00 AM PST
Mobile applications have fundamentally overhauled the basic principles that govern humanity's ability to conduct monetary transactions. The cellular platform has facilitated drastic advancements in marketing potential. This guide outlines the transformative effects that can be attained through this outlet of virtual promotion. Creates Unprecedented EfficiencyWith intuitive mobile apps, consumer response times are nearly immediate. This replaces the need to wait for a public reception to build. The process of attracting notice has been drastically condensed by the quickness of these interactive interfaces. In fact, time consuming processes can now be instantaneously handled. Money transfers used to be a source of lag in financial operations, but mobile apps have allowed them to be tackled behind the scenes like second-nature. Funds show up within seconds, and vital memos are distributed with the same stunning speeds.
|
Fosters Instant Connections
| You are subscribed to email updates from Popular Articles | Business 2 Community To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
