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Tag: Marketing Strategies

  • How Press Releases and News Features Help Your Business | Entrepreneur

    How Press Releases and News Features Help Your Business | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In today’s fast-paced world, the competition in business has become tougher than ever before. In such a scenario, the importance of press releases and news features cannot be underestimated. These tools are essential for businesses of all sizes to gain media coverage, raise brand awareness and attract potential customers.

    Press releases are a form of official communication sent by businesses to the media to announce important news or updates related to the company, such as product launches, new hires or company milestones. A news feature, on the other hand, is a more in-depth story written by a journalist that tells the story behind a company or product.

    Related: 4 Simple Steps to Creating Powerful Press Releases

    How press releases and news features benefit businesses

    Press releases and news features can positively affect business income in several ways. Firstly, they can help to raise brand awareness. When a company sends out a press release or is featured in a news story, it is likely to reach a wider audience than through traditional advertising methods. This is because press releases and news stories are often picked up by multiple media outlets, giving the company exposure to a larger audience.

    Secondly, press releases and news features can help to establish a company as an industry leader. When a company is featured in a news story, it is seen as a trusted source of information, which can help to build credibility and authority in the industry. This can lead to an increase in sales and revenue, as customers are more likely to trust and do business with a company that is seen as a leader in its field.

    Thirdly, press releases and news features can generate buzz and excitement around a company or product launch. When a company sends out a press release announcing a new product, for example, it can create anticipation and excitement among potential customers. This can lead to an increase in sales and revenue, as customers are eager to try out the new product.

    Lastly, press releases and news features can improve a company’s search engine rankings. When a company is featured in a news story, it is likely to receive backlinks from the media outlets that publish the story. Backlinks are important for search engine optimization (SEO) as they signal to search engines that a website is trustworthy and authoritative. This can lead to an increase in organic search traffic, which can ultimately result in more sales and revenue.

    Related: How to Get Media Attention for Your Business, Brand, Book or Product

    Examples

    There are several examples of businesses that have successfully used press releases and news features to increase their income.

    One such example is Tesla, the electric car manufacturer. In 2019, Tesla announced the launch of its new Model Y SUV through a press release. The press release generated a lot of media coverage and excitement among potential customers. As a result, Tesla’s stock price increased by 4.9% in the days following the announcement.

    Another example is Tesla, again. In May 2020, Tesla’s stock price surged by 8% after CEO Elon Musk announced in a press release that the company would resume production at its California factory despite local health orders. This announcement was seen as a sign of Tesla’s resilience and ability to adapt to challenging circumstances, which boosted investor confidence in the company’s long-term prospects.

    A few additional examples of how press releases have affected stock prices involve:

    Amazon: In June 2018, Amazon’s stock price jumped by 3% after the company announced in a press release that it was acquiring online pharmacy, PillPack. This announcement was seen as a significant move by Amazon to expand its presence in the healthcare sector, which is a massive market with significant growth potential.

    Apple: In December 2017, Apple’s stock price rose by 1.8% after the company issued a press release announcing that it was acquiring music identification app, Shazam. This acquisition was seen as a strategic move by Apple to strengthen its music streaming service and compete with rivals such as Spotify.

    Related: How to Get Media Coverage for Your Brand

    Investing in news features and press releases can provide several benefits to businesses looking to establish their brand and increase their visibility. News features offer a cost-effective way to reach a wide audience and generate buzz around a company’s products or services. By leveraging news features, businesses can increase their credibility and authority in their industry, which can lead to greater customer trust and loyalty.

    Moreover, news features and press releases can provide valuable insights into the latest trends and developments in the market, which can help businesses stay ahead of the competition and make informed decisions about their business strategy. By investing in news features, businesses can also build long-term relationships with journalists and media outlets, which can result in ongoing coverage and exposure.

    Overall, investing in news features and press releases can be a smart way for businesses to achieve their marketing and branding goals while staying within their budget. By partnering with experienced journalists and media professionals, businesses can create high-quality content that resonates with their target audience and drives engagement and conversions.

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    Hanna Shanar

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  • 4 Things to Consider When Choosing a Marketing Agency | Entrepreneur

    4 Things to Consider When Choosing a Marketing Agency | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    As a business owner, you know that marketing your business is crucial for success. And because of this, you may be considering hiring a marketing agency to help boost your business.

    But with so many marketing agencies out there, it can be challenging to know which one to choose. Here are four key factors you should consider before hiring a marketing agency.

    1. Do they take the time to get to know you, your business and your goals?

    A good marketing agency will take the time to learn about you and your business — and especially your goals. It should take more than a 30-minute call before they send you a proposal that claims to meet all your marketing needs. A marketing agency that is worthwhile will spend time asking you questions and actively listen to your answers. A great marketing agency will have done their research on you, your market and similar businesses in the area beforehand and ask questions to get a good understanding of your target audience. And when they do present you with a proposal, it should be a detailed plan of action for achieving your specific goals.

    Related: 5 Tips for Finding the Best Digital Marketing Agency for Your Business

    2. Do you trust them?

    Treat the process of finding a marketing agency the same way you do when you are hiring someone new at your business. You want to get a feel for the people you will be working with at the agency as well as the agency itself to make sure they will mesh with the culture at your practice. After all, you will be working with them closely and long term. So, take the time to get to know them.

    A lot of agencies do the same things and can produce similar results, but how confident are you that you can fully trust them? If you end up needing to decide between two marketing agencies, trust may just be what gives one the edge over the other.

    Do the people you speak to seem genuine? Do they speak the same language as you when it comes to your values and philosophy? Are they responsive? Are they proactive? Do they have your best interest in mind when making decisions? Most importantly, does the company do what it says it will? These are all essential questions to ask yourself when considering a marketing agency for your business

    3. Are they specific to your niche?

    While it is not imperative, working with a marketing agency that specializes in your industry can be extremely helpful. A specialized agency that has specific experience working with a business like yours will understand the challenges and opportunities that are unique to your industry. They will have specific knowledge about industry trends, the technology and procedures specific to your business, and likely the major industry associations and regulatory agencies involved. They may even share their expertise by contributing to industry publications, which tells you that they are well respected in the industry.

    If you decide to work with a marketing agency that does not specialize in your industry, be sure to ask about their experience working with similar businesses and their understanding of the unique challenges you may face. The marketing agency I run with my partner Shawn, for example, caters to dental practices, which helps us anticipate our customers’ needs and better serve their interests. The dental practices we work with find it comforting that we are familiar with their day-to-day as well as the big picture.

    Related: 5 Things to Look For When Hiring a Marketing Agency

    4. Will you get the results you want?

    When it comes to marketing, it’s not just about high-level metrics like clicks, impressions and views. While these are certainly important, they do not necessarily translate into growth, ROI and tangible results. If high-level metrics are all a marketing agency talks about when they meet with you, then my advice is to run.

    A good marketing agency will focus on growth metrics that are relevant to your specific goals. Growth can mean different things to different businesses — growth in new clients, growth in revenue or ROI. Any of those are measurable and should be tracked, which is another important aspect when it comes to results. If the company is not tracking results, that is a giant red flag. Reputable marketing agencies track calls, forms and pretty much everything.

    Be wary of marketing agencies that promise quick results or guarantee specific metrics. Marketing is a process, and results take time. A good agency will be transparent about its process and provide regular updates on progress and results.

    Related: 6 Things to Keep in Mind Before Selecting a Digital Marketing Agency For Your Business

    Hiring a marketing agency will help you grow your business and reach more high-quality customers. Ideally, your marketing agency is a partner — part of your business. That’s why it’s essential to choose the right agency for your specific needs. A good marketing agency will take the time to get to know you and your business, be trustworthy and compatible with your values, have specific experience in your industry and focus on measurable results that align with your goals. By choosing the right agency, you can develop a marketing plan that will help you reach your target audience, grow your customer base and achieve long-term success.

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    Jackie Cullen

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  • How Documenting My Journey Online Brings Me Valuable Business Opportunities | Entrepreneur

    How Documenting My Journey Online Brings Me Valuable Business Opportunities | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been told to keep a journal. With the rise of journals, journal prompts, self-care and mental health in general, more and more people are starting to get into journaling.

    What if I told you that there is a way you can turn your thoughts and life experiences into something that allows you to build friendships, get high-paying jobs and lots of other opportunities?

    In this article, I will show you exactly how I did it at the age of 22 and how you can do the same, no matter how many followers you have online.

    Related: 4 Ways Documenting the Journey Has Become More Popular Than Celebrating the Outcome

    Where I document my journey and what I share

    I started documenting my journey toward the beginning of 2020. I created a brand new Instagram account and posted one thing I learned throughout that week. If you look at my Instagram posts, all of my captions are maxed (2100 characters), were written from the heart and weren’t trying to sell anyone on anything.

    In these weekly public journal entries, I would write about:

    And everything else in between. The goal of these posts was to document my journey authentically.

    As I did this, my journal started accumulating, I gained more followers, and opportunities began coming my way. Some of these opportunities included making new friends, companies approaching me for work, business opportunities, press opportunities and so much more.

    I’ll break down each one of them.

    Clients/customers/friendships

    As I would consistently post about my journey each week, occasionally, people would find my content and slide in my DMs. This would lead to a multi-day conversation, and before you know it, we are both on a Zoom call learning more about each other.

    As crazy as it sounds, I’ve met most of my best friends over long distances through Instagram. I speak with them multiple times a week, send them memes, and we all help each other out and try to add as much value to each other’s lives as possible. I’ve even met a few of them in person!

    As someone who grew up playing video games, I was used to having long-distance friendships, but I had no idea it was possible over social media.

    Related: How These Creative Go-Getters Used Social Media to Score Awesome Career Opportunities

    High-paying jobs and business opportunities

    About a few times a month, recruiters, managers or often CEOs themselves will reach out to me, admiring my work and offering me jobs.

    I already have my own projects going on, so I’d usually turn these down, but there were a few times when I did take the opportunity — and that opportunity opened even more doors for me. It also allowed me to expand my skill set. Some of these opportunities were part-time, full-time or contract work.

    All the offers I receive are amazing, but due to my limited time and energy, I can only do so much at once.

    Speaking opportunities

    I’m not going to lie. Getting my first speaking gig was complicated, but after I landed it and showcased my experience online, I’ve consistently gotten additional speaking opportunities as a result of consistently documenting my journey online.

    Another trick to get more speaking/workshop gigs is to make it easy to contact you. I do this by providing a convenient email address for speaking, press and all other inquiries.

    Natural press

    Similar to speaking opportunities, the easiest way for me to get a journalist to reach out to me for features/articles was to put myself out there by creating content and making it easy for them to contact me.

    I am almost certain that you’ve heard the phrase, “get two birds with one stone.” From my experience, documenting your journey online allows you to get ten birds with one stone. Not only are you creating a record for yourself and future generations to read, but you’re also positioning this information in a way where it brings tons of relationship and professional opportunities your way.

    If you do not have any followers at all, get started today — and be consistent. Your work will pay off in boatloads years from now.

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    Dejon Brooks

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  • How to Maximize Each Stage of Your Franchise Sales Funnel Using Video | Entrepreneur

    How to Maximize Each Stage of Your Franchise Sales Funnel Using Video | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Over the past decade, selling franchises has become an extremely competitive business, and any advantage that one brand can develop, cultivate and deploy can make or break annual sales goals. Now more than ever, video marketing and production is beginning to fill that void. According to an internal survey from Franchise IQ, 87% of its customers indicated that the use of video — especially testimonials — was an important factor in their decision to purchase a franchise opportunity. Why is that? Because videos create lasting impressions in the minds of current and future customers.

    For franchisors, the full version of the sales funnel is an important aspect of the brand’s marketing program and initiatives. From a comprehensive standpoint, it’s important to deploy resources that have a profound effect during every stage, including the top, middle and bottom of the funnel. Visuals — whether in print or video — are an incredibly powerful tool for conveying information and creating a connection with potential customers and franchisees —which isn’t surprising considering people spend a third of their time online watching videos.

    Here, we’ll look at the specific type of video content that can help franchisors maximize their sales funnel potential at each stage of the buyer’s journey. As you’ll see, video just happens to be one aspect of the marketing mix that can be initialized in all three sectors. Here’s how:

    Related: Connecting With Your Target Audience Through Video

    Top of the funnel videos

    At the top end of your franchise sales funnel, the most valuable type of video simply introduces customers and prospects to your brand. Videos featuring the brand’s CEO or founder are great for this purpose because they give viewers an understanding of who is behind the company while creating a personal connection. But the C-suite is by no means the only recommended option for spokespersons. It can also be effective to feature current franchisees that have developed and maintained a successful operation under the brand’s watchful eye.

    Additionally, this stage is also an opportunity to create videos that respond to the most common objections prospects may have about a particular franchise opportunity. Lastly, for the top end of the funnel, it’s recommended that brands develop videos that cover the many different candidate personas, for the purpose of establishing a personal connection with prospective franchisees. Ultimately, the top of the funnel is where brands should showcase their story, explained in simple terms that are easy to comprehend and evaluate.

    Middle of the funnel Videos

    As for the middle of your sales funnel, this is a great opportunity to focus on building trust between the franchisors and potential candidates. This is precisely where franchisee testimonial videos come into play. How so? Because this is the moment to demonstrate how real entrepreneurs have benefitted from becoming part of your growing franchise family.

    The middle of the funnel can also be a suitable time to feature videos that reveal the actual level of support candidates can expect from the brand. These videos can be extremely convincing because they show exactly whom the prospective owners will be working with on a day-to-day basis once they themselves become owners.

    Another effective middle of the funnel video includes the popular “day-in-the-life” montages, featuring typical routines at the office — or home office if it’s a remote-based concept. This is an opportunity for candidates to get a sense of what their own lives might be like as owners of the brand.

    One caveat here: Don’t skimp on the storytelling aspect of this stage. You don’t exactly want a movie-length segment, but it’s important for people to see something that truly reflects franchise ownership with the brand. Done right, this video can really paint a picture, convincing a candidate that they, too, can succeed as a franchise owner and enjoy a better life and future.

    Related: Why Franchise Brands Need to Start Utilizing Video Marketing

    Bottom of the funnel videos

    When it comes to the bottom of your sales funnel, this is the time to create hype about the impending discovery day. Why is this important? Because it’s the literal crossroads where potential candidates make their final decision on whether or not to join your growing franchise family!

    What might a good hype video look like? A great way to approach this stage is a video that demonstrates all there is to learn about being a part of the franchise family — especially the nitty gritty details like systems and operations. Quick jump cuts of interrelated scenes can not only be effective but entertaining as well!

    To close out examples of good bottom of the funnel videos, it’s important to round out the whole experience. Make sure your potential customers know they’ll soon be welcomed into the franchise family. A great example is a quick “sizzle-style” highlight reel highlighting all of the corporate employees working as a team. A “welcome to the family” montage might just be the emotional closer you need to get that candidate to sign on the dotted line.

    More and more, video content is proving its worth as an effective tool for engaging customers and increasing conversions. It can be a vital part of any marketing strategy, but it’s proven exceptionally effective for franchisors. By taking a comprehensive approach that breaks down the type of videos you should be creating at each of the three sales funnel stages, you can be sure that your strategy is well thought out and well planned. Video is indeed a powerful medium. It’s quite an effective way to demonstrate to prospects that they aren’t just buying into a concept — they’re buying into a family that cares about their success as an entrepreneurial small business owner.

    Related: How to Create a Digital Marketing Funnel

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    Trevor Rappleye

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  • How to Boost Your Brand With Social Media Storytelling | Entrepreneur

    How to Boost Your Brand With Social Media Storytelling | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In recent Entrepreneur articles, I’ve been talking about the power of brand storytelling through a three Rs approach and by considering your brand’s social identity. It may be easy to imagine how to tell a brand story in traditional media like TV ads or even print ads, but what about social media? Social media is an important part of most marketing communication strategies today. The average percent of marketing budgets spent on social media has increased from just 3.5% in 2009 to over 15% in 2021.

    Consider social media’s differences

    Traditional forms of digital marketing communication consist of well-crafted visual and verbal messages. That is a part of social media content, but it also involves listening and creating custom messages in response to consumers. Real-time discussions, scheduled brand posts, curated related third-party content, shared consumer-generated content and paid influencer content combine into a social media plan. While marketers can’t control all the brand messages, they can manage the conversation through storytelling. How?

    Related: 5 Reasons Brand Storytelling Is Critical to Your Marketing Strategy

    Search social communities for story insights

    Confirm that the brand is active on the social media platforms where current customers and prospective customers are most active. To tell the right stories, you must be in the right places. Once you identify the most active brand community platforms, study the content and interactions that occur on them. Each social platform is unique and comes with different expectations from users and brands.

    The most engaging and effective content on Facebook or LinkedIn is different from Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Social media listening can help you understand the differences by collecting data from brand social mentions and other relevant conversations. Also, research social platform algorithms to learn what each emphasizes in determining what content appears in a person’s social media feed.

    Social media can tell stories in multiple ways

    Research conducted by my colleague Michael K. Coolsen and I found that YouTube brand advertising videos that told a complete story received more shares and views than ones with less or no story development. Shares and views increased as stories developed with the greatest improvement in engagement with four and five-act stories following the five-act story structure known as Freytag’s Pyramid.

    However, much of social media takes different forms such as 240-character tweets, 15-second TikTok videos or Instagram and Pinterest photos. Even on YouTube, the popular 6-second YouTube bumper ads can present a challenge to tell a complete story. For these social media platforms, think of each post as a small part of the larger story.

    Plan the plot for a bigger brand story that leverages all five acts expressed in social media on a daily or weekly basis over a longer time. Schedule on a content calendar to ensure the right story is told in the right order to the right audience. YouTube bumper ads can also be scheduled so that individual users view them in a specific order over time.

    No matter the form or time, a series of social posts can take you on an emotional roller coaster where tension is created and then released, producing emotions that your audience will want to share with others. Below are suggestions on how to tell a story on social media in each act of Freytag’s Pyramid.

    • Act 1 — Introduction: Show your brand’s history, people and mission or vision. Or describe the background of your typical customer as the protagonist in a story.

    • Act 2 — Rising action: Simply posting the same promotion or benefit won’t draw or keep interest. Build up tension through obstacles leading to a big action, reveal or turning point.

    • Act 3 — Climax: Depict the brand or customer reaching a defining moment and discovering a solution or conquering a challenge with your product or service.

    • Act 4 — Falling action: If your story depicts an obstacle overcome, show the outcomes for the brand or consumer. If your story is about an opportunity seized, illustrate the benefits.

    • Act 5 — Resolution: Display the brand or customer winning in a final victory. Give a glimpse of the ultimate brand and customer goal or the “happily ever after.”

    Related: Win More Business by Copying Nike’s Storytelling Playbook

    Each of the five storytelling acts can be told through a combination of brand-created posts, shared third-party content, reposted consumer-generated content and paid influencer content. Remember to leverage the power of both verbal and visual communication to fully illustrate each act’s message and meaning.

    The way you release your brand stories into the world through social media matters. Be more strategic by researching social media platform differences, searching social media communities for story insights and considering the larger plot in your brand stories as told through a five-act story framework.

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    Keith A. Quesenberry

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  • Why Social Media Agencies are Still Worth It | Entrepreneur

    Why Social Media Agencies are Still Worth It | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Social media is a part of our everyday lives. In the past decade, it has taken over much of our time, from scrolling through the posts of family and friends to meeting new people and engaging with the world around us. But as we all know, social media is also the crux of the evolving online business world. As a business owner and operator, you know that marketing is essential for keeping your business afloat. Combining the two and staying up to date with where social media is going is critical.

    Why is social media marketing so important?

    Social media marketing is all about imparting your business’s influence on the consumer world. Content sharing, whether through photo, microblogging or video, is paramount to engaging with your current and potential clients. Social media provides a unique opportunity for clients to share your content with others, drawing more people towards your goods and services organically and through targeted advertising. Customer data reports are easier to collect online, meaning you can get more insight into your target audience, purchasing trends in your business and consumer activity at large so your business can stay relevant.

    Related: 8 Must-Have Social Media Marketing Tools For 2023

    Why do you need a social media marketing agency?

    Running social media takes a lot of time, energy and a specific set of skills that might not apply to every business owner. Rather than devote the time you could spend on your own craft set to social media, you can let a social media marketing (SMM) agency handle that for you. This means you and your company will have a more productive and profitable time in the day to work on what you love rather than what needs to be done to promote your business. Social media can also be unwieldy, so getting a professional in the field can help you and your business keep up with the best practices and get the biggest bang for your buck.

    What makes a good social media marketing agency?

    The baseline of hiring a social media marketing agency is having someone who will manage and post on your company/business’s social media accounts. This already sounds great, but this should not be where their aid ends. It should be where it starts. After all, literally, anyone can post anything online. What is important is catering to their strategy and combining it with other strategies to your business’s unique social media needs to bolster the purchase of your goods and services.

    1. Search engine optimization

    The social media marketing agency should post your photos, tweets and videos and include keywords to optimize consumer engagement. Agencies prioritizing SEO will be much more effective in getting people to see your content, no matter the social media platform.

    Related: 5 Ways to Change SEO Strategies in an AI Search Engine World

    2. Content-based engagement

    An excellent social media marketing agency should prioritize creating good content that targets a specific audience. SMM (social media marketing) presents the unique opportunity to engage with and create a community around your goods and services in real-time. This means that you need content that engages customers and community members who already follow your business, as well as potential new clients. Your SMM agency should be able to create or collaborate with you to create content that will draw your intended audience in again and again.

    3. A great production team

    Not every SMM agency will provide you with a production team for graphic and video content. This is inherently troubling, as visual content is the crux of most social media, including TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. If an SMM agency is meant to save you time and money, leaving the creation of visuals up to you or a third party feels entirely unhelpful.

    Keeping the ethos of your company in mind while choosing an agency is important. You want to feel like you are seen and appreciated by the agency you choose. Your agency is there to help you and work as a collaborator to further your business, not an entity with complete control over how your business is perceived. Social media marketing should be an extension of your business and, subsequently, your mission!

    We hope this has inspired you to take the social media plunge. With the right team behind you, there is nothing you can’t accomplish!

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    Morissa Schwartz

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  • How Marketing Automation Can Boost Your Franchise | Entrepreneur

    How Marketing Automation Can Boost Your Franchise | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    When running a multi-location restaurant or franchise, owners and operators don’t have an excess amount of time to think about marketing. And not all franchise marketing solutions are created equal. Many “canned” marketing programs save time but are built on brand recognition only and will do little to drive revenue and increase loyalty to a specific location. It can feel challenging to implement marketing unique to one location over another when there are many surface-level similarities. Luckily, times have changed.

    Marketing through the use of integrated technologies such as WiFi, texting and digital displays provides the option for full automation while providing the delivery of highly targeted marketing messages that result in greater guest traffic and drive higher revenue at each franchise location. No, this isn’t a science-fiction hypothetical — it’s a reality with the use of innovative, integrated marketing technology.

    By gathering valuable customer data through onsite WiFi, franchises can build a fully automated and personalized experience for each customer while understanding what works and what doesn’t for a business’s marketing strategy. This article will discuss what integrated WiFi marketing automation is, how it works for multi-location restaurants or franchises and how to implement highly targeted marketing campaigns that generate more revenue.

    Related: Evaluating a Franchise’s Marketing Program

    What is marketing automation, exactly?

    Centralized multi-location restaurant or franchise marketing automation is accomplished by synching a location’s WiFi to a customer’s device (through free WiFi access) and then collecting the customer’s valuable data. From there, customers are then filtered, organized and analyzed individually by artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the behaviors of a customer and what message would most likely appeal to them.

    The data gathered and retained over this process also continues to grow as much as the business desires and as much as the customer is willing to participate — as customers can also partake in surveys or other key touchpoints for gathering qualitative information. Even if a customer decides they don’t want to participate in something such as a survey, their schedule behaviors for frequency, time of day, day of week or month, duration of their visits and other data remain to help provide them an experience tailored to their wants and needs.

    Should a customer go to several locations of the same multi-location restaurant or franchise over the course of their weekly or monthly routine, that information will also be retained. This enables the business to see which location is most efficient for that customer and incentivizes their visit to specific locations. By incentivizing their visit with a coupon or offer code for a free drink, sandwich or another item, it can direct a customer to a specific location that needs to increase guest-flow efficiency, ultimately helping the bottom line for that location as well. With marketing automation through integrated WiFi marketing technology, routine marketing tasks can be handled without the need for human supervision or hand-holding.

    To accomplish all this, it of course necessitates a willingness on the business owner’s part to accept the technology and implement it across their multi-location restaurants or franchises. This way, data can be stored and disseminated across locations and ensure a customer going to a location in North Dakota on a Monday can get the same personalized message that day as they would on a Tuesday in California. While the idea of machine learning and other buzzwords can sound intimidating, intelligent AI in automated marketing means a closer and more personal relationship with customers.

    Related: 5 Ways to Freshen Up Your Franchise Marketing in 2023

    How will I see it enhance my business?

    If a franchise or multi-location restaurant owner wants to take the next step and provide an immersive, personalized experience for their customers, integrated WiFi marketing and automation are the best option. According to a report from PWC, 82% of consumers would share some of their personal information to receive a more personalized customer experience. A personalized experience was also noted by 87% of respondents to PWC’s survey as one of the most important elements of the buying experience to them — meaning, people want to have an experience that only they can have, not the same cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach many businesses take in messaging their customers.

    Using SMS messaging, email, social media and digital online displays, a business can send personalized messages that let their customers know individually that their wants and needs are seen and heard.

    For example, if a customer regularly purchases breakfast sandwiches and coffee in the mornings from a location, that franchise or multi-location restaurant can send an SMS message along the lines of, “Thanks for choosing us to start your day! Here’s a free coffee on us [link to post on social media for social gravity boost!]” Additionally, the AI in integrated WiFi marketing and automation recognizes that customer retention and re-acquisition are pivotal and will provide each customer type — including new, returning, regular and lost customers — an experience that best speaks to them.

    With lost customers vs. new customers, it’s important to remember there is a 60-70% chance of making a sale to a former customer — which, according to the book Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance, is much higher than the 5-20% chance a business has of converting a sale with a prospective new customer.

    Related: The Basics of Multi-Location and Franchise Marketing

    Marketing automation through integrated WiFi technology may sound and seem futuristic, but surprisingly, 76% of businesses have already adopted basic WiFi technology. However, most are missing out on the value of the integration of texting and digital displays for a comprehensive messaging solution. Inefficient spending of funds for marketing becomes a thing of the past with intuitive AI used in integrated WiFi marketing.

    In the digital age, businesses have an opportunity unlike any other time in history to make deep, lasting connections with their customers. Integrated and automated solutions allow WiFi and SMS messaging to engage the customer instantly and display on their social media and other online platforms to further the lines of communication and understanding between customer and business.

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    Stephen Gould

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  • The Art of Engagement: How Brands Can Use Interactive Content to Drive Customer Participation and Loyalty | Entrepreneur

    The Art of Engagement: How Brands Can Use Interactive Content to Drive Customer Participation and Loyalty | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Marketing has become a billion-dollar business across the United States. Statistics show that companies spent more than $250 billion on marketing services in 2021 and nearly the same amount on media advertising.

    Does that mean that brands need a substantial marketing budget to stand out from their competition? Not necessarily. By using interactive content, businesses of any size can increase campaign participation, customer engagement, and loyalty. Neither requires extensive budgetary commitments.

    Why engagement matters

    Thousands of brand messages are presented to American consumers every day, but only a few capture their attention and establish a connection. Creating this connection is the key to standing out from the competition and generating sales, revenue, and growth.

    To connect with a brand, customers need to engage with it. Driving engagement has become so important in sales and marketing that ‘engagement marketing’ has become a subdiscipline of marketing as a whole.

    Engagement marketing aims to trigger an interaction between a customer and a brand. A simple way to think of these interactions is to imagine a conversation between the customer and the brand they are interested in. In the context of digital marketing, that conversation could be initiated by clicking a link, reacting to a post, commenting, or sharing content.

    To understand the impact of engagement, it helps to compare the level of involvement on the consumer’s side to the limited engagement generated by traditional forms of marketing. Take traditional TV advertising, for example. A consumer may have watched and loved a commercial, but there are few options to engage with the brand. The viewer may decide to purchase the product instantly or visit a website shown in that commercial, but there is no direct opportunity to engage with the brand and build a bond before purchasing.

    The same lack of engagement opportunities used to make it harder to inspire long-term consumer loyalty. Of course, brands could send direct mail to customers to remind them of existing products. But again, there were few options to create a true exchange between brands and consumers.

    Related: 5 Ways to Build Killer Relationships With Customers

    How digital marketing channels support engagement

    Digital marketing has vastly increased the opportunities brands have to connect with their audiences by facilitating the use of truly interactive marketing strategies and tactics. Interactive marketing tactics focus on driving engagement by using visuals or videos that entice the audience to react to the content.

    Interactive content not only aims to stimulate a reaction in its audiences, but marketers also want their audiences to share those reactions. Sharing that reaction is effectively the start of a conversation between consumers and brands.

    Just like conversations between two people, conversations between customers and brands are more memorable than a simple nod or a quick hello exchanged between two people in passing. When it comes to making a purchase decision, that brand is far more likely to be at the front of the consumer’s mind than any other brand. As a result, your brand’s chances of making a sale are better, revenue increases and the business grows.

    But engagement marketing is about more than driving one-off purchases. Continued engagement between consumers and brands is also the key to creating long-term relationships and building customer loyalty.

    Loyal customers are more likely to make repeat purchases without additional marketing. They may also recommend a brand to family members, friends, and colleagues. These recommendations can generate substantial growth for any brand.

    Customer loyalty matters most when a problem occurs. Perhaps a product breaks or a service is temporarily disrupted. When that happens, long-term, loyal customers tend to be more understanding based on their existing brand experience. Brands can use the initial problem and turn it into another engagement opportunity by resolving the issue quickly.

    Related: 7 Excellent Reasons to Focus on Employee Engagement

    Maximizing engagement through interactive content

    Developing interactive content does not need to be high in cost or difficult. Some of the most effective tactics are easily accessible to small businesses and fledgling brands. These tactics include:

    • Polls, quizzes and surveys: most people love participating in quizzes and polls, and social media platforms like Instagram have made it easy to create simple polls and integrate them into content like reels and videos. Quizzes are another excellent option to engage your audience, and they allow you to share details about your product or service without appearing pushy.
    • Interactive videos: how can you make videos interactive? The simplest way to create engagement is to end videos or reels with a question or a call to action. However, using slightly more sophisticated software, marketers can integrate multiple-choice questions for viewers to answer directly on the screen.
    • Interactive blog posts: maintaining reader engagement can be tricky, especially if blog posts are longer. To make them more interactive, add clickable or expandable graphics and images. Making those graphics downloadable allows users to take something valuable away. Asking questions throughout and at the end of a blog can also drive engagement.
    • Personalized content: personalized content works especially well for eCommerce businesses. Asking customers if they are still interested in items in an abandoned cart, for example, is a great way of showing that the business cares about each individual purchase.

    Related: Work From Home: How Companies Need to Build Their Strategies and Maximize Productivity

    Conclusion

    Today’s consumers are surrounded by more advertising and marketing messages than ever before. To stand out, businesses need to engage prospective and existing customers through interactive content marketing tactics. Customizing content to drive engagement is cost-effective and, therefore, accessible to businesses of any size. Brands benefit from increased sales and revenue as well as long-term customer loyalty, all of which help drive sustainable business growth for years to come.

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    Jessica Wong

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  • Creative Ways to Market Your Business on April Fools’ Day | Entrepreneur

    Creative Ways to Market Your Business on April Fools’ Day | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    April Fools’ Day has been a favorite holiday with pranksters for centuries. Over the past decade or so, some of the world’s biggest brands have embraced the April Fools’ spirit in a bid to connect with their markets.

    April Fools’ Day also offers excellent opportunities for small businesses to launch fun, lighthearted campaigns that connect with their audiences. Sharing a joke is a powerful tool to create exposure and build rapport quicker than straight-faced marketing campaigns.

    Related: 5 Funniest April Fools’ Day Marketing Stunts

    How big brands have embraced April Fools’ Day

    From scratch-and-sniff iPads to the 111th birthday of YouTube, April Fools’ Day has captured the imagination of marketing teams worldwide. In the United States, some of the biggest brands have recently played jokes on their audiences, including Tesla, Google and Burger King.

    1. Google Tulip

    In 2019, Google launched a machine learning-based product allowing users to communicate with plants. Complete with its own website and landing page, the campaign was widely shared on social media and generated a lot of positive feedback from the public.

    2. Teslaquila

    Admire him or not, Tesla founder Elon Musk knows how to generate headlines. In 2018, he used April Fools’ Day to tweet a photo of himself holding a bottle of “Teslaquila,” a fake tequila brand. The tweet went viral and generated a lot of media coverage, which helped to increase Tesla’s brand awareness.

    The story does not end here. Since then, Musk tried to patent the name and launch a real tequila product. The result is Tesla Tequila. As it turns out, the name Teslaquila falls foul of industry regulations.

    3. Burger King’s Chocolate Whopper

    In 2018, Burger King announced the launch of the “Chocolate Whopper.” The burger featured a chocolate patty, raspberry syrup, white chocolate rings, candied oranges and vanilla frosting on a bun. Initially only a joke, the campaign generated a lot of buzz on social media and increased Burger King’s brand awareness.

    In 2021, the company took its idea beyond a joke, launching a Chocolate Whopper in some of its Asian markets. Because the product was launched on April 1, customers took it as a joke at first. But the limited-edition burger made it on the menu.

    Related: Volkswagen’s Name Change and Cauliflower-Flavored Peeps Are Among 2021’s Top April Fool’s Day Jokes

    How small businesses can replicate April Fools’ success

    April Fools’ Day marketing campaigns have great potential to benefit brands. The key to launching a successful April Fools’ marketing bid is to align it with your audience, brand personality, and overall brand messaging.

    Surveys show that April Fools’ jokes are particularly popular among younger consumers. They also tend to be received better by men than women. In addition, April Fools’ campaigns should not deceive or seriously mislead customers.

    So, how can smaller businesses tread this fine line to increase awareness without alienating customers? Here are three ideas any business can try:

    1. Create a “fake” or limited-edition product

    Think of a product that is just close enough to your company’s actual products to make it realistic, yet outlandish enough to get your audiences talking.

    For example, in 2019, T-Mobile launched a “Smartshoephone.” The product pretended to be a shoe that consumers could use as a smartphone. This campaign generated buzz on social media, resulting in shares and comments. Another option is advertising a product that is available for one day only.

    2. Put humor at the heart of your campaign

    April Fools’ Day is all about humor and pranks. Small businesses can use that to their advantage by creating a funny video or meme showing their brand in a lighthearted way. This is a great way to stand out and create memories.

    Netflix achieved that in 2016 by releasing a “docuseries” called John Stamos: A Human, Being. The series simply showed the actor eating various foods. It generated significant buzz on social media.

    3. Launch a contest

    Ask your audience to share their best prank stories or create a funny video related to your brand. With the right prize, this kind of contest can truly drive engagement. Snapchat led the way in 2018 by hosting an April Fools’ Day “Prank Challenge,” which invited users to share their best prank videos. The winner received a $50,000 prize, and the campaign generated significant engagement.

    Related: 2017’s April Fool’s Gags, From LOL to Nope

    Marketing tactics for April Fools’ Day

    Like any other marketing campaign, an April Fools’ Day campaign needs to be well-planned and well-considered to achieve the desired results. While this can be a time to try out new marketing tactics, brands can also choose to rely on the tactics and channels they already prefer. Here is a look at some of the most effective tactics for brands in 2023.

    • Social media marketing: Social media marketing channels are ideal for reaching a wider audience on April Fools’ Day. A fun and engaging post featuring images and videos can quickly go viral. Use hashtags and shareable content to increase the reach of your post.
    • Email marketing: A humorous email that uniquely highlights your brand is another great way to engage audiences. Personalize your email and match it to your audience’s interests to increase the open and click-through rates.
    • Influencer marketing: Identify influencers in your niche who have a large following and a sense of humor and approach them for collaboration. You benefit by increasing your brand’s visibility and credibility.
    • Guerilla marketing: If your brand personality is creative and unconventional, guerilla marketing tactics like a flash mob, a street performance or a creative installation will get people talking.
    • Product placement: Partner with a popular TV show, movie or video game and create a humorous product placement, even if it is just for a day. You will increase your brand’s visibility and credibility among your target audience.

    Be inspired by real life

    In some cases, life writes the best stories, and you do not need to travel far to find inspiration for your company’s April Fools’ Day marketing. The flexible workspace platform Vallist is one such example. The company opened its doors on April 1, 2020, just as the pandemic took hold. While the team may have launched during a time of extreme uncertainty, they could not have picked a better time for their product.

    In fact, their vision turned out to be somewhat prescient. The irony of launching when other businesses were forced to shut down was not lost on Vallist’s founders either. Thanks to sustained growth over the past three years, the company is now expanding and opening another flexible workspace platform in New York City’s Bryant Park on April 1, 2023. No joke, but the pun is fully intended.

    Related: How to Drive Major Sales on Minor Holidays (Like Today’s April Fools’ Day)

    Final thoughts

    April Fools’ Day gives brands a unique opportunity to reach audiences lightheartedly and memorably. Choose these creative marketing tactics to engage with your customers and increase brand visibility and credibility. Remember to keep your messaging aligned with your brand’s values and personality, and have fun with it!

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    Jessica Wong

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  • How Digital Marketers Can Prepare for AI-Powered Search | Entrepreneur

    How Digital Marketers Can Prepare for AI-Powered Search | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Both Google and Bing have had momentary setbacks in the rolling out of AI-powered search, but the writing is clearly on the wall. A seismic shift is coming to how we conduct online searches, and it’s going to throw all the old rules about SEO to the wayside in short order.

    For marketers, search engines have always represented the lifeblood for website traffic, qualified sales leads and generating online revenue. While search engine algorithms have evolved over the years, the advent of AI-powered search engines such as Microsoft’s Bing presents significant, if not revolutionary, changes to the way we’ll need to market to consumers going forward.

    How do AI-powered search engines work?

    AI-powered search engines use machine learning algorithms to understand the actual intent behind a consumer’s every search query — and then provide that consumer with relevant and highly personalized results. This means the way businesses optimize their websites for search (SEO) will inevitably need to adapt to the way AI determines the results it displays.

    With AI’s ability to understand the context and intent of a search query, it’s likely that the search results will become much more personalized as the algorithm “gets to know” that individual and shapes its responses accordingly. Ultimately, the algorithm will present different search results to a teenager in Des Moines than it will to a senior living in Florida, even though they’re both searching for the same commodity.

    The algorithm will know a host of pertinent information about the searcher before they input their request — their history of buying, their price-point tolerance, what’s represented a pain point in previous interactions. As the search engine knows more about each consumer, the results are going to be much narrower and more refined … spelling the end to random, incidental traffic coming to a specific site.

    It’s websites that provide high-quality content that closely matches the user’s intent that are likely to see increased visibility and traffic. Conversely, websites that rely on archaic or even spammy techniques — like keyword stuffing or low-quality content — will probably see a significant decrease in online visibility and traffic.

    What marketers need to focus on

    For marketers, the focus will be on providing high-quality, user-centric content that appeals to the interests of their target audience — now more than ever. They will also need to focus on optimizing their website’s user experience to provide a positive experience for the consumer. Those sites that remain clunky or unconcerned about navigation will not pass muster with the new gatekeeper, the AI algorithm, which will have learned not only from one particular consumer, but many consumers, which sites provide a better shopping experience.

    Another impact of AI-powered search engines on the digital marketing industry is the potential rise of “zero-click” search. This occurs when the search engine provides the user with all the information they need directly in the search results, without their need to click through to an actual website.

    Let’s say you are searching for a restaurant in a particular city. In the past, you might have typed in the name of the restaurant and the city and then clicked on a link to a review site to find out more about it.

    AI search, on the other hand, will consider your previous search history, location and other factors to provide more personalized results. For example, if you have previously searched for vegetarian restaurants in the same city, the search engine might prioritize vegetarian restaurants in its results. Overall, AI search engines can provide a more efficient and personalized zero-click search experience by providing relevant information directly in the search results page, without the need for the user to click on any links.

    We’re already seeing this when we input the name of a retail store, and Google, for instance, displays everything from the address and hours of operation to phone numbers and user reviews. AI search will further expand on the power while narrowing down the options based on user intent.

    How to capitalize on AI-powered search

    To capitalize on the coming of AI-enhanced search, brand marketers should focus on creating content that provides value to their target audience. This means creating content that answers questions, provides solutions to problems and delivers a positive user experience. By focusing on providing value to their audience, businesses can increase their chances of being featured in zero-click search results.

    Brand marketers should also focus on building their brand and reputation online. This means building high-quality backlinks, developing a strong social media presence and engaging with their audience on multiple platforms. By building their brand and reputation, businesses can increase their chances of being featured in search results, even if they don’t rank highly for specific keywords.

    We can also expect the rise of voice search to continue, with more and more users using voice assistants like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant to search for information. This means that businesses will need to optimize their content for voice search by focusing on conversational language and long-tail keywords.

    In conclusion, AI-powered search engines like Bing will have a significant impact on the digital marketing industry. Marketers will need to adapt by focusing on providing high-quality, user-centric content that meets the intent of their target audience. They will also need to focus on building their brand and reputation online to increase their chances of being featured in search results. With the continued evolution of AI-powered search engines and the rise of voice search, the digital marketing industry is set to undergo significant changes in the coming years.

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    Nicole Penn

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  • Why You Should Incorporate Twitter Unto Your Marketing Plan | Entrepreneur

    Why You Should Incorporate Twitter Unto Your Marketing Plan | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Social media has become an integral part of marketing strategies for most companies. However, despite its popularity, Twitter is often overlooked by companies in their marketing efforts. This is surprising, considering Twitter’s unique strengths and capabilities that can help companies reach and engage with their target audience. In this article, we will discuss how Twitter is often overlooked by companies in their marketing strategies and why it’s important to incorporate Twitter into your business’s marketing plan.

    One of the main reasons why companies overlook Twitter is that they perceive it as a platform primarily used for personal communication. They assume that Twitter is more of a social network than a professional network, and therefore, it is not a suitable platform for their marketing efforts. However, this assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. Twitter is an excellent platform for consumer marketing, with over 330 million active users worldwide, and more than 500 million tweets are sent each day. In fact, Twitter is often referred to as the “water cooler” of the internet, as it’s a place where people gather to discuss and share their thoughts on various topics, including brands, products and services.

    Related: Is Marketing on Twitter Worth It? 4 Ways to Leverage Twitter In Your Marketing

    Humor in Twitter marketing

    When talking about brands using Twitter in humorous and sometimes even raunchy ways for marketing, people often think about brands such as Slim Jim and Wendy’s, both of whom use memes liberally to “roast” their audiences, routinely using popular inside jokes to relate to a younger Gen Z audience. These strategies were popularized by Twitter user Jake Ryan (known as Santa Decides on Twitter) when he noticed this lack of brand engagement on Twitter and decided to do something about it.

    Imagine Santa Claus using Twitter to publicly announce which celebrities and brands were on the “Naughty” or “Nice” list. That’s exactly what Jake Ryan did on Twitter. He created a Twitter account using the persona of Santa Claus (yes, jolly old Saint Nick) to “decide” who is on the Naughty or Nice list, eventually working brands into his content to help market new products. His @SantaDecides account became a popular Twitter account by leveraging pop culture references and relatable humor. Jake used the account for entertaining and engaging content in a new way, quickly gaining over 250,000 followers on the platform.

    The account’s use of memes and humor also helped to humanize brands, making them more approachable and relatable to their audience, increasing engagement and loyalty. Jake was so successful, that he became the social media manager for several large companies and even collaborated with major brands such as Skittles, MrBeast Burger and Slim Jim. He also contributed to several viral content marketing campaigns for these brands alongside other online celebrities.

    Related: How Oreo, Other Brands Dominated Twitter During the Super Bowl Power Outage

    Twitter’s unique strengths and capabilities

    Companies often underestimate the power of younger buyers and audiences and aren’t often run by younger people, leading to a lack of understanding of Twitter’s unique strengths and capabilities. Twitter’s real-time nature allows companies to engage with their audience instantly, and its character limit encourages concise and impactful messaging. Additionally, Twitter’s hashtag feature enables companies to join conversations around relevant topics and trends, further increasing their visibility and engagement. Moreover, Twitter’s advertising platform offers various targeting options, including interests, demographics and location, enabling companies to reach their desired audience.

    Despite these benefits, companies find it difficult to measure the impact of Twitter on their marketing efforts. Unlike other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Twitter doesn’t have as comprehensive analytics tools, making it challenging for companies to measure the ROI of their Twitter marketing efforts, which can lead them to overlook Twitter altogether.

    While Twitter may not be as popular as other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, it still has a sizable and active user base. Moreover, Twitter’s audience is diverse, with users from different age groups, professions and interests, making it a valuable platform for companies to reach a broader audience.

    Related: How to Add Twitter to Your Marketing Strategy

    Tips for using Twitter more effectively as a brand

    As we’ve discussed, Twitter can be a powerful tool for companies to market to their audience. Here are some tips on how to effectively use Twitter for marketing:

    1. Define your target audience: Knowing your target audience is essential for creating effective marketing strategies. Use Twitter’s analytics to determine the demographics of your followers, and use that information to craft content that appeals to them.

    2. Use hashtags: Hashtags are a great way to make a brand’s content more discoverable. Do a quick search to see what’s trending, and integrate those tags into your tweets. Businesses often create hashtags for use to push their campaigns.

    3. Engage with your audience: Twitter is a social media after all, so it’s imperative for brands to engage with their audience. Respond to tweets and messages, retweet and like relevant content, and participate in Twitter chats to build relationships with your followers.

    4. Use visuals: Tweets with visuals, such as images and videos, tend to perform better than those without. Use high-quality visual material to enhance your message.

    5. Promote your Twitter account: Make sure to promote your Twitter account on your website, email signature and other social media channels to increase your followers.

    6. Measure your results: Use Twitter’s analytics to measure your results and determine what content is resonating with your audience, changing your strategies as the analytics dictate.

    Overall, Twitter can be a powerful tool for companies to connect with their audience and build their brand. By following these tips, companies can effectively use Twitter to market to their audience.

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    Stephen Emrich

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  • How to Make Your Higher Education Institution More Appealing to Prospective Students | Entrepreneur

    How to Make Your Higher Education Institution More Appealing to Prospective Students | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Since peaking in 2010, college enrollment has steadily declined each year. The period between spring 2020 and spring 2022 saw some of the sharpest declines yet, with a 7% decline in enrollment — a loss of roughly 1.3 million students.

    For many institutions of higher education, such losses can prove financially devastating, particularly for smaller schools that rely heavily on tuition dollars. In fact, a 2021 survey of higher education professionals found that 74% of colleges were facing financial challenges, with schools with fewer than 5,000 students facing the most significant constraints.

    2022 saw this trend continue, with several smaller colleges shutting down — some of which had previously served students for over 150 years.

    In the midst of this financial turmoil, few things can prove more crucial for your institution’s lasting stability than its ability to become more appealing to prospective students. So, here are a few tips to get started:

    Related: 3 Marketing Tips to Increase Enrollment Rates for Pre-College Programs

    Offer virtual tours, info sessions and more

    There are various reasons why campus tours and info sessions can be inaccessible to prospective students. Perhaps they live on the other side of the country, or maybe they work a job to help support their family and can’t attend during the times when scheduled on-campus sessions are available. In this case, going digital can improve accessibility for all.

    For example, Arizona State University provides online self-guided video tours for each campus location. The tours are available online or via mobile app, and prospective students can personalize their virtual tour experience based on their areas of interest. Curated tours that highlight popular campus locations are also available.

    While virtual tours and info sessions often became necessary during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, they continue to provide great value by helping more students get a feel for what it is like to be on campus. The flexibility to match a student’s available schedule will go a long way in getting them more engaged with your school and more motivated to apply.

    Of course, you can (and should) still offer tours and info sessions in-person whenever possible. Still, even these in-person events can take on a digital twist that expands your reach and makes them more engaging. Even something as simple as live-streaming an info session or posting highlights to social media can expand your reach and influence.

    Related: How Virtual Tours Can Elevate Your Marketing Strategy

    Let current students do the talking

    Social media can be a powerful tool for showing off your campus, classes and activities to prospective students. But the messages that come directly from your college aren’t going to be nearly as persuasive as the messages coming from the students who already attend your school.

    For example, Brigham Young University regularly hosts #MyViewFromBYU posts and reels on its Instagram account, in which current students are given the opportunity to “take over” the Instagram account as they share stories about their life as a student and their journey to the university.

    This is a great method to provide a more candid and casual look at student life at your institution of higher learning — and in a way that can feel more relatable to prospective students. Of course, social media isn’t the only place where this can occur. You could also feature blogs and videos from current students and alumni on your website or in other marketing materials.

    Alumni can be an especially powerful voice for making your institution more appealing to prospective students. Highlighting alumni success stories — be they in sports, business or the sciences — and their ties to your university can be an incredibly powerful testimonial for students who share similar goals.

    Related: 3 Digital Trends Shaping the Future of College Admissions

    Get personal

    When making the pitch for your institution, it’s important to remember that messaging shouldn’t necessarily be focused on the school itself. Rather, your focus should be on the student and the experiences they will be able to create for themselves while attending your school.

    For example, a case study from EAB that evaluated 1.2 billion student interactions found that student-focused recruitment copy increased response rates by 50%. Something as simple as using the word “you” and focusing on the student’s individual journey — rather than your “excellent curriculum” or “highly-trained professors” — can prove much more persuasive.

    Your messaging should also be personal and focused when it comes to parents. A study of 2021 high school graduates found that 48% ranked “parental influence” as one of the top sources of information they used to make their enrollment decision. Parents were actually the second most commonly cited source of information, only ranking behind college websites.

    Because of this, institutions of higher learning should also focus much of their personalized messaging on the parents of prospective students. Marketing campaigns that frame the institution and its benefits with a focus on the parents’ mindset can lead to more highly influential parent-driven conversations.

    To combat financial instability, institutions of higher education should focus on becoming more appealing to prospective students by offering virtual tours and info sessions, letting current students do the talking on social media, featuring alumni success stories and getting personal in their messaging to potential students.

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    Andres Tovar

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  • 4 Marketing Tactics to Drive Traffic to Your Shopify Store | Entrepreneur

    4 Marketing Tactics to Drive Traffic to Your Shopify Store | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    After taking the leap into the ecommerce world and launching your Shopify store, you’re probably looking for ways to attract new customers. Even with a great design and solid product offering, standing out in a crowded market can be challenging. Fortunately, you can take several practical strategies and actions to promote and drive traffic to your business. Depending on your needs and goals, these can include anything from social media marketing to paid advertising to email marketing campaigns.

    Shopify is currently the leading platform for ecommerce brands, and it powers nearly two million businesses’ online stores. It goes without saying, but competition in the ecommerce world is fierce; retailers looking to remain relevant and stand out need to establish a solid marketing strategy that will actually move the mark.

    Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level, it’s essential to prioritize marketing and make it a crucial part of your overall ecommerce strategy. Doing so can lead to increased sales, greater brand recognition and the development of a loyal customer base.

    Related: 5 Essential Shopify SEO Tips to Get More Organic Traffic

    1. Boost your search engine appeal

    To draw more traffic and give potential customers the best chance of finding you when they search for similar products, it’s essential to prioritize Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This strategy requires patience, time and ongoing effort, but it’s worth the investment.

    There are several key steps to optimizing your Shopify store. These include optimizing your store’s architecture, conducting thorough keyword research to identify relevant keywords for your business, refining your on-page optimization over time and implementing an effective link-building strategy.

    Remember that SEO is an ongoing process that requires continuous effort. Fortunately, Shopify offers built-in marketing tools, including SEO optimization features, to help you optimize for search engines. Moreover, you can enhance your SEO efforts and maintain a steady traffic flow by using various third-party SEO tools and Shopify apps.

    If you prioritize SEO and take the essential measures to optimize your Shopify store for search engines, you can gradually attract a larger audience, increase your sales and expand your business.

    2. Amplify your reach with digital ads

    Investing in paid ads is a highly effective strategy, particularly if you’re just starting out or facing challenges in gaining visibility through organic search marketing. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, like Google Ads, can be an excellent option for driving more traffic to your site as ads appear at the top of search results. In a PPC campaign, you set a maximum bid and only pay when someone clicks on your link. A well-targeted and well-written PPC campaign can immediately bring traffic to your Shopify store. However, it’s worth noting that your competitors and the ads platform determine the amount you pay per visitor, even though you control your overall spending.

    Another option for paid advertising is launching campaigns on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, the most common networks for paid advertising. To determine which platform works best for you, conduct different tests and analyze your ad’s performance.

    Having attractive visual content and persuasive copywriting that appeals to potential customers is essential to creating successful ads. Be creative! Successful advertising campaigns need that creative appeal to capture the attention of shoppers.

    Before launching your ads, consider the most relevant keywords for your business and target your ads to specific audiences to ensure your campaigns are effective. Paid advertising campaigns can inform potential customers about your Shopify brand and retarget previous site visitors, making it an effective tactic for attracting new customers and guiding shoppers back.

    Related: The 9 Best Shopify Apps to Increase Sales Available for Free

    3. Utilize influencer marketing

    In recent years, influencer marketing has gained immense popularity and has proven to be an effective way to market your Shopify store, especially for brands in the fashion, beauty and CPG industries. In essence, influencer marketing is a partnership between a brand and an influencer, and it is becoming an increasingly popular choice for brands’ marketing budgets. Finding an influencer whose niche audience aligns with your product or brand is crucial to begin with influencer marketing. You must also establish a relationship with the influencer, who will create their own content to help position your brand.

    Influencer marketing is highly effective for ecommerce businesses. Seventy-one percent of marketers find that it generates better quality customers and traffic than other sources. Consumers trust influencer recommendations because they create a direct communication channel and leverage the credibility and trust of public figures. In fact, 64% of marketers agree that influencer marketing is an enhanced form of word-of-mouth marketing, which is the most effective form of marketing.

    This personalized approach is particularly effective in today’s world, where so many brand choices inundate consumers. Influencer marketing is a highly reliable and direct marketing strategy, as recommendations from real people carry more weight than conventional paid advertisements.

    4. Master your customer referral program

    Referral programs can be an effective strategy where satisfied customers become brand advocates and receive rewards such as discounts or free products. You can reach a wider audience by incentivizing past customers to recommend your products to their network. This approach is particularly effective because people tend to trust recommendations from friends and family more than advertising. Word-of-mouth marketing is such a powerful tool that it can generate up to five times more sales than traditional paid advertising.

    Unlike customer reviews, a referral program involves direct word-of-mouth marketing where people share their positive experiences with your products with those close to them, generating new leads that are highly likely to convert. Several platforms and tools are available to create a customer referral program, such as Talkable, which offers an in-app referral program to help find brand advocates.

    To attract new customers to your Shopify store, you can use several strategies to promote your business and drive traffic, such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), paid advertising, influencer marketing and customer referral programs. Implementing these tactics can attract more customers, increase sales and develop a loyal customer base. Remember to be creative and invest time and effort into continuously improving your marketing strategy to stay ahead in the competitive ecommerce industry.

    Related: 12 Awesome Tips From Ecommerce Experts

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    Eric Netsch

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  • Why Medical Practices Must Embrace Digital Marketing | Entrepreneur

    Why Medical Practices Must Embrace Digital Marketing | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    There was a time when medical practitioners didn’t need to market themselves. New patients would choose doctors or other medical professionals based on location, availability, and most commonly, referrals. But unless you live in a small town, there’s a good chance this is no longer the case.

    Healthcare customers are more empowered than ever before. They have access to digital channels, which can be used in innumerable ways to decide how and where they will receive their healthcare. And if you’re not yet utilizing these digital channels, you’re undoubtedly missing out.

    Related: How to Improve Your Practice Management and Deliver a Better Patient Experience

    It’s a funnel, not a waiting room

    Medical practitioners often focus on the waiting room to indicate their success. If all the seats are full, that must mean your business is doing just fine, right? Sure — but what about the long term?

    The danger in using booked appointments as an indicator of successful marketing is that you lose sight of the bulk of the customer journey. If you can’t answer the question, “How did my customer end up in my waiting room?” you won’t be able to replicate that level of success in the future. You may enjoy a surge of initial bookings or annual visits, but if nothing fills up the rest of the funnel, those will eventually dry up.

    Today, the rest of the funnel is digital. Thanks to the internet, healthcare customers are more comfortable than ever researching their ailments before even consulting a practitioner. By the time a patient arrives at your doorstep, they have already spent significant time assessing their options. Your job is to ensure that their path always leads back to you. If you aren’t leveraging digital platforms, you’re missing out.

    Become a source of information

    With prospective patients using the internet to search for information about their conditions more now than ever before, it’s essential to become the source of that information. For medical practices and practitioners, content has now become the most valuable form of marketing you can include in your strategy.

    Patients are choosing practitioners based on the level of their perceived knowledge, so by creating content that answers their questions and gives them the information they’re seeking, you will instantly increase your credibility. If prospective patients feel you have the knowledge they seek, there is a far better chance they’ll book an appointment with you.

    Your prospects will seek out information on various channels, including social media and Google searches — so you need to ensure that your practice utilizes each of these channels.

    Your focus should depend on your company’s needs. If you’re just starting out, you’ll want to focus on ranking in search engine results. That entails optimizing your content, website and social media pages for search engine optimization (SEO). Once you’ve achieved that, you can start to spread your focus onto other digital channels.

    Related: Here’s How Healthcare Companies Have Embraced Digitalization

    Know your audience

    Marketing strategies in the healthcare sector need to be structured around the audience. Not all specialties are the same — and neither are the patients seeking treatment. Your marketing efforts and strategies should reflect that.

    A chiropractor, for instance, might limit the reach of their marketing efforts to about a 30-mile radius, as it’s unlikely their customers are going to travel for this type of care. A specialist cardiologist, on the other hand, may well see customers traveling to their practice from across the country, so their marketing reach should be far wider.

    Understanding the makeup of your customers from a geographical perspective will help you craft a digital and social media strategy that ensures you get in front of the prospective patients who will most likely make appointments with you.

    The landscape of healthcare has irrevocably changed. The balance of power through knowledge has shifted, and prospective patients are capable of gaining a wealth of information before they even step foot inside your practice. This very change needs to be leveraged by the healthcare industry to ensure that the funnel of patients continues to be filled, credibility is established through knowledge sharing, and providers are meeting patients at each touchpoint in their digital journey to the waiting room.

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    Sergio Alvarez

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  • The Logistical Nightmares of Trade Marketing — and 5 Tips to Escape Them | Entrepreneur

    The Logistical Nightmares of Trade Marketing — and 5 Tips to Escape Them | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    There’s no doubt that trade marketing is one of the most logistically heavy functional groups of the marketing world. This fact typically is ignored by other departments, which does nothing to ease the strain felt by your trade marketing team.

    Fact: Your trade marketing team has to deal with every internal group in your organization, (like sales, operations, finance, product, brand marketing, campaign marketing, shipping and many others). In addition to this, they must also liaise with a slew of external teams (such as printers, fabricators, installers, rentals, warehouses and more). This means that a single person in the trade marketing department might have hundreds of points of contact per task.

    Related: Top 5 Marketing Tips for a Successful Brand

    Trade marketing = sales tools

    Your entire brand should be aware that trade marketing = sales tools. In this scenario, without sales tools, your field personnel walk into the retailer with nothing but a pricelist, which puts them at a huge disadvantage compared to their competitors.

    What are sales tools? Here are just a handful of items that the trade marketing team can be entrusted to deliver to the sales teams working in the brick-and-mortar market:

    POP (point of purchase)

    Fixtures & displays

    Promotion marketing

    Digital activations

    Retailer Advertising & art

    Events

    Education

    Shop-in-shops and pop-ups

    In-market print and digital custom art

    For the brick-and mortar marketplace, the trade marketing team members can have many touchpoints through the entire life cycle of every single sales tool, from conceptualization, production and fabrication to distribution in the market.

    Example

    Let’s take one of their simplest jobs as an example and look at the logistics of a single custom art order for a retailer from the perspective of just two of the key players in a trade marketing team — the field personnel and trade marketing manager. The complexity of the task is staggering, and to do this manually requires a great deal of resources, time and skill.

    Custom art order process: field personnel

    Step one: Review and confirm the trade marketing budget, brand account planning and retailer selection.

    Step two: Approach retailer, negotiate deal for space and product, and get a sales commitment.

    Step three: Define supporting elements (education sessions, matching promotions, etc), determine delivery date, and confirm art deliverables (what art is needed to drive the sales goal).

    Step four: Measure and confirm space for production, relay all technical requirements and deal points to the trade marketing manager, prepare project details and steps, and communicate with retailer.

    Step five: Confirm final delivery or install details, conduct all post-execution reporting and follow-up to ensure retailer satisfaction.

    Related: Does Your Marketing Team Have These 9 All-Star Qualities?

    Custom art order process: trade marketing manager

    Step one: Review and confirm. This includes field personnel trade marketing budget, brand account planning, field personnel retailer selection, requirements to fulfill deal points, project details and cost, art selection and technical details (sizing, photos, retailer requirements).

    Step two: Identify any issues. The list of logistical issues to identify can be ridiculously long and complicated, varying wildly from project to project. Here are just four very basic examples of what a trade marketing manager might have to consider:

    Step three: Track progress. This includes communicating the actual time to complete the project and deliverables, confirming the actual delivery date, sending art to the production/design team, tracking timelines, confirming and approving final art with the retailer via field personnel, confirming correct material and accurate brand colors, as well as sending art to print for final use.

    Step four: Organize and dispatch. Arrange and dispatch shipping to the local install team, organize install team, ensure the contractor is ready to work on the specified schedule, check retailer requirements for final finish and health and safety, and put out any fires or issues in real-time during install.

    Step five: Finalize. Collect final photos of production from the install team, ensure retailers’ needs are met and that they are pleased with production, track and collect all costing for production, deduct final amount from budgets, maintain and update records of what image has been placed, at what time and location in a master list in case of recall of art (for example, a brand ambassador goes sour and their likeness needs to be scrubbed out of the market ASAP like Lance Armstrong). Collect and house all elements to reproduce the project (i.e., sizing, deal points, communications, decision making, costs, install details), collect and store all photography to send upstream to the brand team so they can have market examples (good and bad), and create a removal and disposal plan (if the retailer desires).

    Let me be clear: The above was for ONE simple job alone. The list of potential issues and complications is endless. Not only does the trade marketing team have to perform the physical aspects of the job, but they must also be communication gurus, and operational wizards — and be able to do it at scale.

    Related: The Formula To Sales and Marketing Success

    5 tactical takeaways

    1. Perhaps the trade marketing team deserves a little more respect than what they are usually dealt. What can your organization do to combat logistical complexity?

    2. Consolidate communication into an open, searchable platform.

    3. Stop using multiple ad-hoc platforms, and adopt ONE platform as your primary system.

    4. Require your field teams, vendors and internal team to operate inside your platform so all requests (i.e., timelines, budget, speed, etc.) are captured in the cleanest and fastest way possible.

    5. Ingest all filed requests and process them with very defined automated systems. Automate any step in the process that can be automated, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant.

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    Jamie Calon

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  • 5 Tactical Tips to Grow Your Brand | Entrepreneur

    5 Tactical Tips to Grow Your Brand | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    I was obsessed with bullwhips as a kid. Who wouldn’t want to be Indiana Jones? Unfortunately, the first time I managed to get my hands on one, I accidentally whipped myself in the face. While a bullwhip might not be the best toy for kids, it is the perfect analogy for how your business structure and its functional groups should interact.

    Image credit: Jasmine Holmes

    Let’s dig into the mechanics of the whip

    Whips generate force using the momentum (energy) of a loop traveling along a tapered strip of leather. As it travels, the energy is focused on an ever-narrowing structure. This amplifies the energy to drive the tip to over 30x faster than the initial motion in the handle. That telltale “crack” of the whip is a small sonic boom. Isn’t it crazy that 2,000 years ago, man was able to break the sound barrier with just a strip of leather? Over 1,900 years passed before scientists could mechanically reproduce it!

    Image credit: Jasmine Holmes

    Related: 5 Marketing Strategies That Will Boost Your Business

    How does this relate to your marketing structure?

    In many organizations, marketing is the most operationally challenging division, containing many complex issues. The best marketing structures are smooth, sleek and have results that break the sound barrier, regardless of what season, campaign or product is being marketed. To understand how to achieve that satisfying crack in the market, let’s go back to the start … the hand.

    The hand of the brand steward holds the whip. Traditionally, the brand steward was the CMO, with a singular focus on marketing. In startups, it is usually the founder. However, in progressive organizations, it’s the Chief Growth Officer. A CGO is a catalyst for cross-functional collaboration and sustainable growth while the marketing whip acts as an extension of the brand itself. So, when the brand steward brandishes the whip, the brand’s power and influence travel through each section, guiding all strategy and movement in the same direction.

    The whip handle can be compared to the brand itself, where management, market equity and brand fundamentals are stored (including brand ideology, identity, market positioning and culture). This is where brands establish a market presence, cultivate consumer perception and attract their target audience. With just the slightest movement, the brand steward inputs energy into the handle, which travels down the whip, amplifies and creates a loud crack in the market.

    The functional groups are the body (or thong) of the whip, through which the brand’s energy flows, amplifying in speed and power while traveling from group to group. Like strands in the whip, the groups weave together to support each other, maintaining the perfect balance to allow for creativity and productivity. Most importantly, they strengthen the entire structure. If one strand breaks, there’s no chance of making a loud crack. These groups are teams like sales, finance, creative, communications, trade marketing or any team that contributes to your go-to-market. Like bullwhips, better materials (i.e., your team’s skillset), get better results.

    Image credit: Jasmine Holmes

    The hitch is where the body of the whip gets thinner — the motion getting faster and faster until product launch — and all the efforts of the functional groups get focused into sales tools. Logistically, this can be extremely complex and time-consuming, with trade marketing teams having the least amount of time to execute their work. If trade, event and digital marketing fail, all previous work done by the functional groups above is null and void. Without sales tools, the brand and its ambassadors are dead in the water.

    The fall is where all marketing has been delivered in the form of sales tools into the digital and brick-and-mortar marketplaces. It’s the thinnest part of the whip, traveling at the fastest speed, with the most urgency behind it. Sales tools are designed to attract and engage the target consumer, including things like sales promotions, social media, custom art, POP, signage, displays and more.

    The popper is the intended effect: converting the target consumer! For a consumer brand like Nike, it’s the sale of their new line of shoes. For a non-profit, it’s donations. Sales tools should guide consumers towards the product and ultimately win the sale, creating that loud crack in the market. Each successful whip-crack adds value to the brand, making the next one faster and louder.

    If you listen to the echoes (sonic boom) of the whip crack, it’ll provide an inordinate amount of data and feedback on what was successful and what wasn’t. Those holding the whip should learn something new each time that contributes to their next GTM cycle — otherwise, they’re destined to make the same mistakes over and over.

    After the crack, the hand of the brand steward needs to follow through with the motion, (so they don’t end up whipping themselves in the face). This means taking post-sale action on the consumer, operational data, issues and market feedback received from the product launch, thereby readying the whip for the start of the next cycle.

    Image credit: Jasmine Holmes

    Related: How Collaboration Makes All Departments Revenue Generators

    Tactical takeaways

    One: Ensure the person holding the whip has a holistic understanding of your organization, with the ability to align departments and create sustainable growth.

    Two: Be confident in your brand’s vision and values. Make sure the brand is at the core of every functional group so all teams pull in the same direction with easy cross-collaboration.

    Three: Maintain a balance of skill and technicality between functional groups. Backfill any weak teams with the correct talent, education and tools.

    Four: Overcome tricky logistics with automated, streamlined pipelines to avoid bottlenecks.

    Five: Observe, analyze and act upon all insights, feedback and market data gained from cracking the whip.

    The best structures have clearly organized operational data and a defined automated process that produces smooth pipelines. It’s clear that the future of marketing begins with a system designed to streamline cross-collaboration, glean optimized insights from embedded metadata and enable instantaneous decision-making with purpose-built tools. You want people to hear the “crack” from miles around, and the sound should increase in volume and travel a further distance every time you brandish the whip. Get crackin’!

    Related: Ditch Those Silos! 3 Ways to Embrace Cross-Departmental Relationships

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    Jamie Calon

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  • 3 Ways AI is Changing How Startups Build Their Brand | Entrepreneur

    3 Ways AI is Changing How Startups Build Their Brand | Entrepreneur

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    In the competitive world of startups, big and small players are constantly looking for ways to innovate by working smarter and faster. With ChatGPT’s recent launch and many other AI-based software solutions, startups now have access to increasingly intelligent tools for a myriad of content, public relations and marketing use cases. However, when building a reputable brand that their audience can trust, understand and relate to, many startups are missing the mark.

    In this article, we will explore three ways in which AI can be used to not merely push out content but curate a branding strategy that deeply resonates with your potential customers, investors and overall audience.

    Related: Branding Is Indispensable. Are You Using It to Your Advantage?

    1. Automating customer and audience feedback

    One of the most important key indicators of business success, and frankly, the only metric that truly matters, is the feedback received directly from your target audience. Many startups have this approach backward and build their branding strategy based on what they think their market wants rather than listening to their market first. A key strategy to ensure success in 2023 and beyond is to automate ways to gather feedback and key insights from your target audience.

    There are many tools to do this, but the most important key is deciding which questions you need to ask before choosing a tool. To do this, come up with just 3-5 crucial questions that relate to the following foundational business fundamentals: the main problem your audience is facing, why they believe they are facing this problem, and the main solution or desired result they want to achieve.

    From here, you can then use an email or text automation tool to send these questions via a form to gather as much feedback as possible from your audience. This will allow you to uncover data and key insights that you will likely find crucial to use in your marketing campaigns, content creation and various PR efforts.

    Related: 3 Simple Steps to Automate Your Content Marketing

    2. Deploying data-driven copywriting

    This step relates and relies heavily on step one above because copywriting is only effective if the messaging resonates highly with your target audience. By automating your audience feedback in step one, you now have the insights to base your copywriting on. It is important to know that although this will allow your copywriting to be effective, it is not the end of the process. You must consistently track all the metrics from your content and copywriting efforts to receive further feedback on which stories, topics, and even headlines perform the best.

    Iteration is the name of the game here, and the best startups know this. By tracking which type of content performs the best, you can double down on what’s working and cull out what isn’t. This will put you leagues ahead of your competition, who doesn’t know what resonates with the market.

    Finding a message that resonates is fundamental in any successful marketing, content or public relations strategy and is the only predictor of new customers. Leverage this knowledge to iterate and improve your message until it sounds like music to your audience’s ears. Ignore this step; all your marketing efforts will invoke static noise, fall short and even annoy your audience.

    3. Honing in on customer personalization

    One of the biggest trends in startup branding today is personalization. AI enables startups to personalize their brand experiences for each customer, making building strong, long-lasting relationships with their target market easier. For example, AI can analyze customer data to determine their preferences and offer personalized recommendations. This not only enhances the customer experience but also helps to build a stronger brand relationship.

    The key with this technique and the others is to keep your focus on your customers, not your competitors or external distractions. The best quote relating to this principle is from Jeff Bezos, who stated that “The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer. Our goal is to be earth’s most customer-centric company.”

    Related: Branding Is More Than an Accessory: It’s the Foundation of Any Business

    If you focus obsessively on the customer and leverage AI to personalize their experience to a degree that they are absolutely delighted, you will easily dominate your competitors. The last thing you want to achieve is to come across as everybody else, boring your customer base and forcing their business elsewhere.

    AI is changing the branding game for startups in a big way that will only accelerate exponentially as we continue into 2023. By leveraging audience feedback automation, data-driven copywriting and customer personalization, startups can build a stronger brand, stand out in a crowded market, and solidify their roles as leaders.

    Lastly, it is vital to remember that using these techniques without an obsessive focus on the customer will defeat most, if not all, of the innovation AI provides. It is the startup that will use AI in combination with the fundamental principle of customer focus that will prevail.

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    Jaxon Parrott

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  • The Importance of Data in Outdoor Advertising | Entrepreneur

    The Importance of Data in Outdoor Advertising | Entrepreneur

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    It’s no secret that big data has changed the world. Capturing and processing information at scale have impacted every sphere of our lives, including health, wealth, business and leisure activities. Advertising is no exception, and marketers continue to discover how data empowers them to rethink promotional strategies. The enormous outdoor advertising market, which is projected to be worth $34.4 billion by 2027, is a prime arena for companies to apply data to boost their marketing activities.

    Discover how to optimize outdoor advertising and spur your company’s growth by harnessing and applying data in your marketing plans.

    Related: It’s Time to Shift Your Advertising Budget to Outdoor Media. Here’s Why and How to Do It.

    Using data in outdoor advertising

    All advertising strategies depend on specific criteria for success. To implement an out-of-home (OOH) campaign, marketers need in-depth knowledge of the target audience, recognition of the prospect’s media channel preferences and an understanding of consumer behavior concerning the product.

    Big data provides valuable intelligence on these issues, including what advertising methods work and which don’t. Analyzing data and applying the insights enables your enterprise to maximize specific OOH media, such as billboard advertising, digital out-of-home (DOOH) and even wild posting tactics.

    With the detailed analytics available and the right tools to use them, you can now optimize your outdoor campaigns beyond any previous capability.

    Related: Outdoor Advertising Is Conquering. Why Aren’t You Using It?

    Applying data analytics in outdoor advertising

    Data analytics is the processing and examination of datasets and the drawing of conclusions about the information they contain. Business intelligence derived from analytics enables you to create OOH advertising strategies focused on the needs and preferences of the people passing through each touchpoint.

    The types of outdoor advertising analytics you can generate include descriptive analytics and predictive analytics. The first interprets historical data to identify trends and patterns and determine what happened in the past, spot potential problems, or uncover opportunities for improvement. The second — predictive analytics — uses statistics and modeling techniques to project future outcomes and performance.

    Generating useful metrics and insights

    The intelligence delivered by data analytics allows OOH marketers to segment their audiences effectively, determine media placements and audience movement patterns, and use performance metrics to optimize their outdoor advertising campaigns.

    For example, location analytics add a layer of geographical information to datasets to generate more valuable insights. These might include audience saturation, the population’s purchasing power and brand affinities, and the product categories that usually do well in each location.

    Mobility analytics provide information about foot traffic, peak hours in specific locations, and the hours of highest demand. When you know in detail which consumers will be exposed to your advertising, your company is in a much better position to maximize its return on investment.

    Determining data validity

    It’s one thing to have access to a ton of data and quite another to know that it’s valid and you can rely on it to improve your campaigns. Bad data is a perennial problem, with Gartner estimating that poor-quality information costs organizations an average of $12.9 million annually.

    If inaccurate or unreliable data make their way into a company’s outdoor advertising analytics, the resulting poor strategy choices could be devastating for both the marketing department and the company as a whole. To ensure decision-making accuracy, you need to ensure you’re using data that has been validated. Companies can use first-party data that belongs to them, combined with second- and third-party data purchased from reputable suppliers. Examples of this type of quality data include Geopath’s impression numbers and their Insights Suite for audience measurements.

    Related: Marketers, Turn Your Data Literacy into a Data Superpower

    Benefits of data analytics in outdoor advertising

    Data analytics delivers multiple benefits for outdoor advertisers. The intelligence provides a 360-degree, unified view of the customer’s journey, including all their interactions with the company.

    Purchase insights: Evaluating OOH impressions in tandem with your website activity, social media engagement and digital chat records offers insight into customer needs and wants and helps you clarify the consumer’s typical path to purchase.

    Audience targeting: With analytics, you can see which customers contribute the highest percentage of your revenue. You can also identify customers with the highest lifetime value and those who consistently share positive information about the brand. This information enables you to define your “ideal customer” characteristics, which creates valuable insights for audience targeting based on these metrics.

    Customer personalization: Consumers these days typically expect highly relevant offers and messaging across all their media channels, not just OOH. Analytics insights support more personalized outdoor advertising designed for each target segment. This tactic benefits the customer journey and increases your chances of making a sale.

    Effective iteration: Analytics enables precise performance measurements across all your campaigns and marketing channels, including OOH. These insights allow you to identify real-time improvement opportunities and iterate your actions mid-campaign to achieve them.

    Accurate forecasting: Performance projections are complex because they include multiple campaign variables, but analytics enable you to examine past performance and make more accurate future predictions. Scenario modeling helps identify likely outcomes of an OOH campaign depending on external factors. This allows you to accurately forecast lead volumes and conversion rates and take more effective actions.

    Improved ROI: By analyzing the performance of each channel and platform, including OOH, social media, email, websites, smart TV and direct marketing, you can identify those performing best for any given market segment and customer journey point. Based on this data, you can reallocate your ad spend and improve your ROI.

    Organizations that use data-driven insights to inform their outdoor advertising strategies typically experience a 10% to 30% improvement in overall marketing performance. Data takes the guesswork out of outdoor and billboard advertising. It helps you optimize your marketing budget, improve your customer experience, and understand which channels, touchpoints, and strategies work. And insights like that are invaluable when it comes to increasing ROI.

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    Gino Sesto

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  • 3 TikTok Trends Brands Must Pay Attention To | Entrepreneur

    3 TikTok Trends Brands Must Pay Attention To | Entrepreneur

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    While there are mixed opinions about TikTok, there is no denying that it has earned a place among the top social media channels. Trends on TikTok shift quickly, but agile content creators can make money from their profiles.

    Not only was TikTok the most downloaded app in 2022, but also kids spent 62% more time watching TikTok videos than they did YouTube. In addition, it’s noteworthy that Gen Z is the app’s largest demographic, with at least 45 million users in that age range accessing TikTok at least once per month.

    At its current growth rate, TikTok has already surpassed Instagram in popularity and will also outstrip Snapchat. This means it’s essential for brands, content creators and marketers to stay on top of TikTok trends to monetize the roughly 95 minutes a day that the average TikTok user spends watching videos.

    Here are a few trends to pay attention to:

    Related: Looking for New Ecommerce Customers? TikTok Might Be the Best Place to Start.

    1. The platform is becoming a sales hub for both brands and influencers

    Research from ConvertSocial has found that sales through TikTok’s platform have increased by nearly 400%. One part of this massive surge in sales is because influencers are taking full advantage of advertising and sales opportunities, mainly where affiliate marketing and paid partnerships are concerned.

    Additionally, small businesses have also jumped on TikTok as a way to actively establish sales chains that are targeted to younger audiences. These small businesses are creating strong presences, developing their brand identity based on what appeals to these younger users and leveraging that to expand their customer base.

    One of the most important factors surrounding this impressive sales growth is that its primary user base has now aged into a bracket where it has considerable spending power. The 10-19 range makes up 32.5% of TikTok’s users, while those aged 20-39 comprise just under 46% of active users. This translates to more purchasing power and a greater interest in products and services with a higher ticket value.

    Related: 5 Ways That Gen Z Differs from Millennials That You Must Take Into Account When Promoting Your Business

    2. Over half of TikTok’s users are women with substantial purchasing power

    In a Statista survey as of January 2023, roughly 54% of the global TikTok user base identifies as female. With over a billion users and 670 million downloads in 2022, this is a huge market that most brands are leaving largely untapped.

    Believe it or not, only about 18% of marketers fully utilize TikTok as an advertising channel. However, there is an impressive pool of talented social media influencers on the platform who are willing to collaborate with brands to launch successful marketing campaigns, so marketers need to start taking TikTok more seriously to generate revenue.

    When you add that women either control or influence at least 85% of consumer spending and account for about $10 trillion of U.S. financial assets, brands should pay attention to what female TikTok consumers are interested in buying.

    3. TikTok monetization has yet to hit the saturation point for influencers

    Content creators and influencers are well-versed in using platforms like Instagram and YouTube for affiliate marketing and creating a sales funnel. These monetization methods have been done to death via webinars, blog posts, courses and how-to articles.

    However, the same is not true for TikTok, partly because it is still a relatively new phenomenon and partly because influencers’ methods to make money are more complex than those of Instagram or YouTube.

    For instance, most creators must either heavily promote their affiliate codes or frequently change a link in their profile to keep up with what they’re selling. On other platforms, there are more opportunities to place a clickable link somewhere, which makes the selling process more manageable.

    This dovetails with another trend: brand partnerships. Recent ConvertSocial data shows that TikTok bloggers’ income from brand partnerships has grown by 58% in the past year, which proves that the platform’s influencers are figuring out that utilizing the power of a brand alongside traditional affiliate marketing mechanics is a winning strategy for them.

    Related: Taco Bell Just Premiered ‘Mexican Pizza: The Musical’ on Tik Tok, Starring Dolly Parton and Doja Cat

    Here’s the forecast for TikTok’s marketing prospects

    In 2023, one of the best things a brand can do is take TikTok more seriously regarding its audience’s spending power. Most TikTok users can pay for goods and services they see on the platform, so brands can and should leverage this as a lucrative sales channel.

    However, it would also be irresponsible not to mention the concerns about certain regulatory risks that some governments, particularly the United States, have raised because TikTok is a Chinese creation owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance. While this has yet to stop over a billion people worldwide from using the app, it is a good idea for companies to capitalize on TikTok’s popularity with eyes wide open and plenty of protections in place.

    Overall, TikTok’s popularity is slated to continue its impressive rise, and the revenue-generating opportunities look pretty positive for the coming year. As the platform releases new advertising tools, influencers gain a stronger grasp of marketing mechanics, and more brands begin entering the space; tremendous opportunities await.

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    Ksana Liapkova

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  • 6 Powerful Brand Storytelling Tips For Marketers | Entrepreneur

    6 Powerful Brand Storytelling Tips For Marketers | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Storytelling is a powerful tool that marketers use to engage their target audience and create a connection between the brand and the customer. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s becoming increasingly important for brands to stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of potential customers.

    Research has shown that stories impact the brain more than dry, straightforward information. A good brand story captures customers’ attention and creates an emotional connection that stays with them long after the initial interaction. In this article, we will dive deeper into the world of brand storytelling and share six powerful tips for marketers to create compelling stories that will impact your bottom line.

    1. Know your target audience

    Before you start telling your brand story, it’s important to know who your target audience is. Understanding demographics such as age, gender, location and income will help you tailor your brand story to your target audience’s interests and needs. It’s also essential to identify the customers’ needs and desires and what they seek in a brand. This information can be gathered through market research and surveys.

    Once you clearly understand your target audience, it’s time to create a hook that will grab their attention. A hook is a sentence or two that will make people want to know more about your story. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, your hook might be, “Are you tired of feeling sluggish and unmotivated? Discover how our workout program can transform your life”.

    Related: 6 Ways to Get Customers Hooked and Raving About Your Brand

    2. Create a compelling story

    A compelling story is essential for engaging your target audience and creating an emotional connection. Your brand story should be unique and stand out from your competitors. A good story has a structure with a beginning, middle and end. It should also have a clear and concise message that is easy to understand.

    Some key elements of a compelling brand story include its origin story, mission and values and what sets it apart from its competitors. You should also include real-life examples and customer testimonials to give your story credibility and make it more relatable. People are more likely to connect with a story they can relate to.

    Consider using characters in your brand story that your target audience can identify with. For example, if you’re a travel brand, your story might revolve around a young couple seeking adventure and seeking an escape from their busy lives.

    3. Use emotional storytelling

    Emotions play a powerful role in brand storytelling. They create an emotional connection between the customer and the brand that is much more powerful than just a simple transaction. By tapping into the emotions of your target audience, you can create a story that resonates with them and stays with them long after the initial interaction.

    Examples of emotional storytelling include telling a personal story about the brand founder, highlighting how the brand has helped customers in the past and showcasing the brand’s impact on the community.

    Related: 5 Ways to Get to the Heart of Emotional Marketing

    4. Utilize visual storytelling

    Images and visuals are an important part of telling your brand story. They can help bring your story to life and make it more memorable. Use images that are powerful, emotional and relevant to your story. For instance, if you’re a food brand, you might use images of fresh, healthy ingredients and happy families eating together.

    There are several types of visual storytelling that you can use, including infographics, videos, images and illustrations. When using visual storytelling, it’s important to ensure that the visuals are high-quality and relevant to your brand story. You should also ensure the visuals complement the story and not overpower it.

    5. Inspire action with your story

    Stories are not just about capturing your audience’s attention; they’re also about inspiring them to take action. Whether you want to drive sales, encourage sign-ups or promote a particular cause, the key is to make your story actionable.

    • Communicate your call to action: Your story should have a clear and compelling call to action that inspires your audience to take action.
    • Show the benefits of taking action: Highlight the benefits of taking action, whether improving their life, solving a problem or experiencing something new.
    • Make it easy to take action: Make it easy for your audience to take action by providing clear instructions, links and other resources.

    6. Incorporate storytelling into your marketing strategy

    Once you have created your brand story, it’s essential to incorporate it into your marketing strategy. This can be done by integrating storytelling into your campaigns, such as email marketing, social media and advertising. It’s also important to measure the success of your storytelling efforts to ensure that they resonate with your target audience. This can be done by tracking engagement, shares and conversions.

    Continuously refining your storytelling strategy is also important to ensure it stays relevant and engaging for your target audience. This can be done by regularly conducting market research, tracking metrics and making tweaks to your story as needed. People are more likely to share stories that they can connect with and that impact them. Ensure your brand story is shareable by making it easy for people to share on social media and other channels. Encourage your audience to share your story by including a call-to-action in your story.

    Related: How to Use Storytelling to Sell Your Brand and Vision

    Remember, the most important aspect of brand storytelling is to be authentic to your brand’s values and mission. This will ensure your story resonates with your target audience and creates a lasting impression.

    These tips will help you create a powerful brand story that connects with your target audience and differentiates you from your competitors. Remember to reflect your brand values and not be afraid to take a stand on what is important to your brand. Good luck with your brand storytelling journey!

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    Murali Nethi

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