Influencer Marketing – A Powerful Tool

April 2, 2020 in Digital Marketing

Influencer Marketing – A Powerful Tool

We all at some point might have gone through this stage where we buy a certain product just because it is endorsed by some big celebrity. Just the fact that the name is associated with the product or service, one can suddenly see a surge in your website traffic. This is known as influencer marketing. Though it isn’t easy to really bring on board a celebrity yet if compared to an unknown person/non-celebrity, it has more impact.

The idea is to rope in create brand awareness and affinity through an individual. Even the name of a brand or sharing of some content related to your brand by a celebrity or someone influential is all part of influencer marketing. A really powerful tactic, but trying to figure out the best influencer can be really difficult. One wrong or right decision can change the entire scene. The influencer’s relevance to your market target, your efforts and ideas and if how much he/she can influence is all that matters.

Targeting Influencers

In the social media realm, one can find both niche as well as large influencers who can actually have an impact for your brand. Now, who you want to reach out to ultimately depends on your goals, which could be:

To Increase awareness: Everything comes down to your goal. If you want to create or build awareness about your brand or product/service, it actually makes more sense to go after large influencers. Roping in large influencers automatically gets you a lot of star power and a very large following. It’s very important that you keep both your company’s and the influencer’s brand in your mind as you identify relevant influencers. One should also be sure about the fact that the influencer’s personal brand should not contradict your own.

To Drive sales: If there is already some buzz regarding your brand or maybe if you are targeting a few distinct markets, then you can think of reaching to niche influencers. These influencers operate within a semi-isolated section of a larger vertical. Now, that you’ve developed your list, here are some tips for engaging with influencers:

1.  It isn’t necessary but it does help to get a personal introduction to a large influencer. So, when you have a mutual connection with a large influencer it actually helps decreases the initial hesitation of your initial contact and the probability of the influencer earnestly considering your request does increase.
2.  Keep things real. Take your time, do your research to understand you’re influencer better and their passion. This lets you not only build a more personal relationship, but also helps you form one which is beneficial for both sides.
3. Don’t over expect because that is the reality. Although, your incentive doesn’t always have to be monetary, but it’s important to have one. For e.g. if you are targeting say a fashion influencer. Even providing exclusive information about your product can help you a great deal. While you get the benefits, the influencer reinforces the position of the product/service as a fashion expert with exclusive information. You can consider the various offerings by the company’s and determine whether any of them can be beneficial to your target influencers. Sharing a few incentives you could potentially offer:

• Promoting the content by the influencer
• Free products (you get the rights to review those products)
• Access to data or information
• Collaboration on content creation

Whoever you’re working with, be it large or niche influencers, or maybe a combination of both, keep in mind that strategy is the key. Do build relationships with the right influencers and in the right time because that way influencers would be sharing with their networks around the same time so you can enjoy maximise the profit and impact.

April 2, 2020 in Digital Marketing

How to Generate Business Leads through Inbound Marketing?

Almost all of us have faced this or something similar. Imagine treating yourself with the first bite of a delicious chicken burger after a hectic day and the phone starts ringing. You are welcomed by this familiar voice of none other than a telemarketer who starts off by greeting you and then moves on the most important question, “This is regarding the new telephone plans.”

 The whole purpose of writing this was to discuss inbound lead generation in detail.  So, that you do not end up being that company who is majorly known for making boring, interrupting cold calls that everyone hates. Let’s understand this one by one to know the entire concept in detail:

Lead – A lead can be defined as a potential sales contact, which can be an individual or an organization having interest in your goods and services. It isn’t that typical cold call which makes no sense to you, rather you get to know about someone with whom you have already had communication with. For e.g. a vendor at a jewellery fair or exhibition trying to catch the attention of the prospective customers. Hence, every time someone enquires about more info regarding the vendor, it could mean a new lead. The efforts by the company towards getting leads can make or break their success.

Lead Generation – It is a marketing process through which we attract or try to capture the interest of potential prospects who would warm up and eventually turn into buyers. It is a very effective method and used across the world for better results.

Need for lead generation – Now that you have applied the lead generation techniques, the individual or organization has initiated or taken that very important first step that implies their natural interest towards your product or service. Simultaneously you also try to form a good bond with them. This makes it easier for the individual or company to finally become a buyer.

Qualifying as a lead – So the way to generate leads is through information collection. Below discussed are some ways which make them qualify as a lead:

• We share a lot of personal information while applying for a job. This assures one that due to these info one stands a better chance. Since, you have taken out time and filled the form shows that the person is genuinely interested in the job. This automatically qualifies him as a lead.

• Content say for e.g. webinar, ebook etc cannot show direct interest like a coupon. Thus, you might require more information to better understand the customer’s interest.

• This might not have a lot of info but yet if someone has taken out time to share his name and email address on your online coupons that shows the interest of the person in your company.

Generating Leads – Following are the components of lead generation:

• Landing page is a web page on which a visitor visits for a certain reason. Though it can be used for various purposes, it is frequently used to attract leads.  
• Forms are mainly a series of fields that collect information.

• Offer can be better defined as content on the landing page that has enough value to capture the interest of the customer who willingly shares his/her information in exchange.
• Now coming to CTA or call-to-action which is in the form of a button, an image or message. This calls the visitors to take some action. In this case, it could be to redeem the offer or fill the form etc.

All these components, when put together, can be used on various promotional channels to drive traffic and link to the landing page which can in turn help in start generating leads.

Buying Leads – It is true that, it can be tempting for salespeople and marketers to buy leads rather than generating it. It is easier and less time consuming despite the fact that they are really expensive. That’s where the temptation to buy leads comes in.  So why shouldn’t you just buy leads?

To start with, the leads bought by you are completely unknown. They don’t know you. They never came searching for you. So, messages sent to them are unwanted and that in other words means being intrusive. Since they have not indicated an interest in your product, service etc or visited your website, then it is real simple- you are interrupting. Hence, by not opting to receive your messages has increased the chances of it being labeled as spam. This can be really scar.  If by any chance it reaches the black list, it is very difficult to get out of it. This also harms your IP reputation and email deliverability. So, opt for generating and not buying leads.

April 1, 2020 in Digital Marketing

Best E-Commerce Marketing Strategies

Those of you who are in the e-commerce business will agree to the fact that as your business starts growing you learn so much. You have gone through all the ups and downs. At times, you want to give up; it isn’t the bed of roses that you thought. Though with every step, you grow and learn something new. So, keep trying because there is no rule book or mantra for instant success. Here, I am sharing few of the strategies that I hope can help your business in some way. Good Luck!!

1. Content Marketing – We have heard this a hundred times, hear it once again. Content is King!! Content marketing mainly consists of SEO, blogs, photos, videos and almost everything. So, with the opening of your e-commerce store, have a blog too. Update it regularly. It can be weekly, daily, monthly or biweekly. With increase in content, the probability of more pages and keywords coming in the search engine’s index will automatically increase. When you launch your store, make a proper content plan, at least for a year. As the number of content increases, more people will connect to it. This helps in building a list of links naturally. 

2. Market Research and Analysis – Once you have planned to set up your business, identify your target audience. It is completely fine if you do not have a product but one should be aware about the people who could be the potential customers. Based on the target market, you will have a better idea regarding what could be the demand for your product. Demand is a very crucial factor. The whole motive behind all the efforts and time goes waste, if there aren’t a considerable amount of people willing to buy it.

For e.g. if you are selling everyday wear jewellery, your target would be women who are looking for light weight jewellery with a contemporary twist in design and that too in an affordable price.

If you are selling a shampoo for that makes hair silky and shiny, you very well know that there are customers who have dry and dull hair problems.

It is all about giving solution to a problem or fulfilling their want. Be very clear about what the target market wants before starting any other marketing technique because that is how you will make your customers keep coming back.

3. SEO – Link Building – There are several ways to build link. Through your content, manually, guest posting etc and these may have their pros and cons. You can also try by emailing the link of the content to the website owner, figuring out broken links to content which is very similar and through resource pages and relevant directories. Do remember not to overdo it.

4. PPC – Facebook Ads – They are cheaper than Google Adwords or other types of PPC. With the wide network of users and technology that helps them know about the interests, biodata and likes, Facebook Ads are targeted brilliantly. You can easily drive traffic to a Facebook page or some other website.

5. Email marketing – As soon as you have set up your store, start collecting emails. Email marketing is a great way to attain more customers. When you get someone’s email id that shows their consent in accepting content from you. The only problem is the fact that it isn’t easy to convince people to give you their email id. Your content should be fresh and interesting to make the readers glued to it and waiting for more. 

6. PPC – Google Adwords – By using Google Adwords, you can choose keywords that you want to highlight. That way people who might be looking for your product will, only they will be able to see your ad. This is a valuable way to drive the customers to your website or store. For e.g. if you are guitar seller and you use a related keyword, people who search for guitars only they will be able to see your ad. You can opt for the bid as per your choice. With a relevant website and a higher bid, the frequency and the ranking of the ad automatically increases. Thereby making Adwords so important and influential. The truth is, keywords aren’t the only means to search. Hence, one has to keep optimizing the ads. Through Adwords, one can test if things are running smooth or not and get you some sales too. It might cost you a little more though. One gets the scope to learn more about the market and customers. While you wait for things to take shape, you can interact with the customers as well.

7. On page optimization for SEO – Optimize your pages; this has to be the priority. Before you build any links, before you do any kind of off-page SEO, you need to make sure your pages are properly optimized. One can keep the following points in mind:
   1. The content should be long and explained in detail.
   2. Try to start the title with the keyword you are targeting and use the keyword in the first 100 words.
   3. Without sharing of your content, there is no use working hard on content.
   4. Use different keywords in the body of the page.
   5. Use multimedia – images, audio and videos.
   6. Make sure that the site loads really fast.
   7. To describe the product or page use urls that are SEO- friendly.

8. Link Building – Guest posting & Articles – When you write articles or blogs for another website is known as guest posting. It is a great way to add to your customer list is through guest posting. If done in the right manner, this can bring a huge traffic and you could see a boost in your search engine ranking as well. Just make sure that the website is related to your product or service. Try and utilize the places or platforms where you could find potential customers. Try and reach places where you could find people belonging to your target market. Thus making them aware of your presence. Always opt for websites that are authentic and reputed which has a huge list of regular visitors.

9. PPC – Product Listing Ads – PPC or product listing ads are the ads which show the actual image, price and a promotional message of the product. They have been recently introduced and showcase specific listings in your search results. Compared to traditional ones, these ads are cheaper and gets you more sales.

10. Social Media Profiles – With more and more people spending majority of their time on social media, there is no other way but to join it. One has to keep interacting with customers and promoting oneself on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. Gone are the days when interaction was restricted only till the stores. These days with social media on a boom, one should mark their presence everywhere. Plan a content strategy. It is not enough to have people follow or like you. Keep sharing and positing content that will interest the customers.

11. Comparison Shopping Engines – These websites collect the information of the product which includes pricing, from participating retailers and display the information on a results page after the customer makes a search query. Thus, customers can better analyse the price of different retailers, options, service etc. The best part being the visitors of these websites, who are already in the mood to buy the product and are just looking for the best deal that they can get. At times, this strategy works and sometimes it doesn’t.

12. Pinterest – It is just not any other social media platform, it is way beyond that. The third most popular social networking site, the majority buys of a product come from pinterest as compared to other social media platforms. People share images on their boards. This is great for products where visuals matter a lot. for e.g clothes, jewellery etc. You can either share it with others or keep pinning stuff you like and have people share and follow these bulletin boards. You can also organise campaigns and contests to attract customers through pinterest.

13. Growth Hacking – It can be explained as a business position where through the amazing techniques and tricks in your business, you turn your customers into brand ambassadors. You can try this in ecommerce too. The more the buzz, the better for your business.

14. Product Reviews – If the motive lies in creating brand awareness about your product, you can definitely use product reviews. One can easily boost traffic through it. Though, once it is over, there won’t be much traffic. You can also ask experts or a blogger to write a review for you. Choose a website that has a good number of followers and a decent blog size. A good option for products that are low-cost.

15. Related industries – Here, we are talking about industries that are complementary to yours. Look for such industries and partner up with them. You could either be a part of their blogs and vice versa, post on each other’s social media profiles and not to forget sell your products too

16. Contests and Giveaways – You can also try organising interesting contests and giveaways. They offer you a great chance to get a lot of followers, subscribers and create awareness. Try and get in touch with blogs that are related to your niche and have a good following. You can approach blogs in your niche to see if they are willing to host giveaways. In this case, it’s always best to only target those blogs that have a decent following. They key to conduct a successful contest is by asking people to follow you on different social media platforms and sign up for your email list. Make sure that you have content ready for this huge number of people from the e-mail list and sign ups.        

17. Affiliate Marketing – A technique used by companies to sell their products by signing up companies or individuals to market their product for a commission. There are plenty of e-commerce giants like Flipkart, Amazon etc who have many affiliated interest specific websites. So, if you have really high margin on your products, you should definitely try this. You would then pay that website owner a commission, usually between 3-10% of the sale. The best part being, you don’t have to be a pro in it. Many service providers have their own software for this. Hence, you do not have to get into the nitty-gritty. You just have to provide them with the links for your websites and that’s it.

18. Forums and Q & A sites – One can utilize Forums and Q & A sites to targeted customers too. One should use these platforms to build authority and the trust of the customers. Once your successful in this, there is no more waiting. Take it easy while sharing links. Do not bombard people with several links at one go, unless your product actually solves the customer’s problem. Just to remind you, forums can be really time taking. Hence, venture into it, only if you can actually put in that much of time and efforts.  

19. Video Marketing – Being a giant search engine in itself, You Tube needs no introduction and not to forget it is owned by none other than Google. So, marketing your products on You Tube has to be done. You can videos that talk about your products, their benefits, reviews etc. Just ensure that the description and title is keyword optimized and share the link of your website. One can also check for the keywords related to your market which are being searched a lot.

Conclusion

We have shared so many strategies that you can use for your business. Start with the ones that suit you the most. This might take some time, effort and care. Thus, be very careful and go step-by-step. Though there is no magical formula but you can still have a good content strategy, Great social media presence, good PPC base and the best utilization of some of the other strategies to get that perfect winning combo!!

April 1, 2020 in Digital Marketing

Best Customer Acquisition Methods

Now that you have started a new business, you would definitely want to promote it on the internet. With new techniques and tools coming every other day, it is easy to get confused. Here, we are sharing a few methods that are still relevant and can help you a great deal in attracting customers.

Guest Blogging – The best way to create a good fan following or base. Once you figure out the perfect platform where your potential customers might be reading and following, keep posting content regularly to create customer base quickly. Through effective use of guest blogging one can boost website traffic. Being on a powerful website with a good fan base, it is easier to establish authenticity and authority easily. It is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to promote as well as create awareness about your brand.

Social Media – It is an effective way to acquire customers. A majority still claims internet to influence their purchasing decision. With the increase in users, it gives a brand a direct chance of interaction with its customers. It helps generate exposure for your brand.

Influencer Marketing – As per this technique, industry influencers promote your products and services to their audience. It requires a lot of studying and research to get this marketing strategy right. It helps get a lot of publicity for your brand. There are a lot of bloggers and journalists who follow influencers and cover their blogs or tweets. When an influencer promotes you brand, it automatically brings in more credibility. It puts your products directly in front of the customer who is willing to buy it.

Forum Marketing – This is a platform for website owners and online business owners to share their views with other users. It not only helps in link building but even acquiring customers. One needs to position one’s business as a solution provider while using forums to promote oneself.

Email Marketing – It is an integral part of marketing strategy and is used from time to time to acquire more customers. Despite the fact that there are so many other techniques, email marketing is still prevalent and widely used. It helps attract leads, grow and build consistent and loyal customers. One gets complete and autonomous access to the customers too. Here, you can narrow down narrow down your target audience, unlike social media where the views and interests of the audience is diverse. This gets you closer to people who are actually interested in buying. This way, one gets easy access to the customers and you can be in touch with them anytime.

Cold Pitching – Calling up prospects and trying to get in touch with them is an age old marketing technique. Similar to this is the online equivalent cold pitching, which is as useful. It might not give you 100% results, but with time it will cover up the cost of the efforts. It is totally free and one doesn’t need to spend huge amount. Someone without much experience can start doing it too.

Case Studies – These are stories which we share on our website regarding the ways through which we helped our customers’ business become successful. This also helps to get a lot of new customers. Potential clients go through these studies to know more about you and your product or service. It helps convert readers to customers easily. Prospects that are skeptical can be convinced and one can attain customer confidence too.

It not only helps generate leads but even highly qualified customer base. To convert leads generated from webinars to paying customers is way easier as it already prepares them towards the premium offers of your product or services.

Affiliates and Partnerships – If you are looking for a marketing technique to reduce the customer acquisition cost and simultaneously boost sales, then go for affiliates and partnerships.  This is not only cost- effective but leaves the marketing and follow-up aspect to the affiliate marketer which makes it a lot easier for you. Your role is to just create the product and rest is done by them.

PPC Advertising – Those with a good cash flow coming in, go for pay per click to bring in more customers. Some commonly used PPC are Facebook paid ads, display ads and Google Adwords. It boosts the sales, doesn’t require much efforts and gets one a lot of customers as well.

Conclusion

That’s it. Though there are many techniques but these are the most effective and prevalent ones. Hope this helps you to get a better and clear idea towards customer acquisition.

April 1, 2020 in Digital Marketing

Top 14 Business Apps to Improve Your Efficiency

Still struggling with hundreds of unread mails, irritating invoices, client meetings and other important stuff?  Gone are the days when work meant doing everything manually, but now things have changed. Thanks to the advent of technology, life is easier. Whether you are at the office, travelling or doing anything, you don’t have to worry about work. Send important documents, conduct meetings, manage business, talk to clients on the go etc. No need to worry, just use these apps to grow and run your business smoothly.

• Evernote – Ideas can arrive without notice or appointment. Honestly speaking, it isn’t possible to carry a paper and pen everywhere. So, will you let go of that awesome idea? No…never. That is why you need the app Evernote. It is an app that makes sure users that you don’t have to remember each and everything. You can organize, share and store photos, voice notes and text. You can keep a tab of all your interesting and unique ideas.
• Google Drive – Bulk papers and files are the biggest headache for most of the offices. Keeping a tab of everything manually is next to impossible. Though, with the new Google Drive app one can easily port and edit files from PC to tablet to smart phone. You can easily store any type of file through a virtual drive app. This app is hugely popular in most of the offices. Due to thefac6t that it lets you store files online, one can access it from anywhere with an internet connection.
• Bump – Remember the time, when one used to get thousands of visiting cards printed. At times, you might have no card or no time to get one printed. Thus gives a very bad impression in front of some client or higher authority. Forget the worries, use Bump which allows one to ditch those traditional and boring business cards in favor of the virtual ones. Just by bumping two smart phones together, you get all the information like files, photos, contact details etc.  
• Expensify- With heaps of files and work overburdening you, it becomes so difficult to manage expenses. You can use it for almost all the virtual platforms. Start using, Expensify. It is an app which manages your business expenses effectively. It helps one submit expense reports, scan receipts and quickly share information like contact info, files, photos etc without any hassles.
• Skype – Hectic schedules and busy lives do not permit us to be everywhere. If possible, we would have made our clowns. Though you do not have to miss the opportunity just because you couldn’t reach on time or be there. Now get in touch with your clients whenever you want to. With the use of Skype, one can easily connect with anyone through almost any device. Make presentations, discuss creative brief and make important changes in documents. The list is endless.
• Square – With the Square register app, one can get a credit card reader dongle free. Next, you just have to plug it into a headphone jack on your iPhone and swipe the credit card to start with your payments. You can also fill in the credit card info manually. Square just takes a cut from each payment and you are all set to carry on your business because if your business doesn’t accept credit cards, that is going to be a lot of trouble for you.

• YouSendIt – Now known as Hightail is the most efficient way to collaborate on creative projects. From client to team, everyone can easily access presentations, documents, video and much more from anywhere. It also helps you store files to shared folders and sign documents. Whatever changes occur, it gets updated instantly.
• BuildFire – It is a great platform and allows anyone to create apps easily. You don’t have to be a coding expert to do it which is what makes it unique and interesting. Thereby not having to shell out a huge amount to hire digital designers. It is a boon for the small business or a start up where the budget is limited.
• Showpad – This is a sales and marketing app which helps gather activity reports on the user’s content and provides business insights as well. You can make and access notes, allows annotation of documents.
• Asana – Through this app one can easily run the entire business without much trouble. It is simple, easy to use and keeps a tab on the work as well as results. Be it projects, notifications, tasks and conversations etc; go through anything that you want. Best part it comes for free!!
• Base CRM and Sales Tracking – It can be really confusing and difficult to use some tools. Though Base makes sure that you can keep a tab on all the conversations. With a single clip, one can track each and every lead, get leads from social networks. Start organising your mails, calls, tasks, and save all interactions at one place. One can customize the sales stages and even make your team mates share deals, notes along with the info of your contacts.
• Splashtop – Forgot that important file on your desktop? Relax. Now access your desktop anywhere and anytime. It is the most secure, easy to use and fastest app to access your Windows or Mac computer through your Android phone or tablet. You can access your emails, documents, media library and applications etc.
• MightyMeeting – It is an ideal business app, which helps one share as well as store their presentations. Just because you are not at a certain place doesn’t mean you cannot make presentations, distance should not be a hindrance at all. With this app, you can show the presentation straight to anyplace you want.
• MailChimp – This app is all about providing online marketing solutions which would help send mails, track results and mange subscribers. With easy drag and drop feature, create campaigns that match your style. Through this you can send mails at the right time to the right person. No matter where you are, you can send files or campaigns, check reports and make some changes in the notes.