Why Content as a Service is the Digital Marketing Industry’s Next Step

The importance of content marketing is being emphasized everywhere, and for good reason. Modern-day buyers want high-quality advertising that isn’t too hefty, and companies who deliver in all of their departments fare better than those who ignore or avoid the trend. As time goes on, consumers demand better content, and companies that create it will be rewarded. To make sure your business is creating the kind of content your audience wants, you’ll want to become a part of the content as a service marketing sector.

Before you join the group, go over what your existing content is, where it resides, and how easily it can be reformatted to fit other devices and platforms. A thorough analysis could bring about the realization that a lot of your content is locked up and segregated, creating the potential for inconsistency or redundancy in your company’s ideas.

Once your review is over, it’s time to start following the rules of content as a service. Organizing all of your content is difficult if you go about it alone, but it’s a breeze if you accept the help of companies created to do just that. You can use the services of Contentful, Prismic, or another similar business to simplify the process of creating and distributing content. They allow users to store all content in one location and put it wherever they need it to go. That way, your content will look great on any platform you choose.

Why exactly is fitting content to different platforms so important? Because social media is only getting bigger, better, and more popular. With the drastic increase in digital platform usage, new features are being developed and released every month - including features for marketing. More people will see your content, and when it’s optimized to fit the site it’s been posted on, your target audience engages with it more. If you want your revenue to rise, it’s practically mandatory to be present on several social media sites.

Not only do consumers want optimized content, but they also want it to be highly personalized. Those who are advertised products and services they haven’t shown any interest in tend to ignore ads in the future. However, when ads are relevant and somewhat personalized, more than 75% of consumers are willing to pay more than they originally anticipated. Personalization stems from understanding your customers and applying their previous behaviours to the new offers you give them.

Your company can use content as a service programs in combination with tools like Optimizely to cater to each of your customers and eliminate the pressure of churning out creative content on the daily. You can even track the success of your efforts and make major changes to content on many platforms at a time with content insights functions.

Keeping up with the ever-changing trends of Toronto content marketing requires flexibility, learning, and willingness to take risks; content as a service is no exception. With the help of special tools and programs, a little personalization can go a long way.

Source: http://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/483-why-content-as-a-service-is-the-digital-marketing-industry%E2%80%99s-next-step.html

How to Become a Better Salesperson and Generate More Leads

Still getting used to modern day marketing? You’re not the only one. Fortunately, no one is doomed to continue down the dead-end path of poor advertising. Making changes doesn’t come naturally to everyone, though, which is why we’re here to help. There are many easy ways to improve your marketing strategy, and you’re about to find out what they are.

No matter what you’re trying to sell, direct your content towards the way your audience is acting now rather than the way they’ve acted in the past. No era is exactly like the one before it, and technology is speeding up the pace of our world now more than ever before. If consumers start to spend more time watching television, put out more commercials. If consumers continue to favour their smartphones, dedicate your time and money to mobile app development and mobile ads. The marketing world won’t change to suit your needs; you as a marketer must adapt to it.

Even though automating things is easy and inexpensive, it doesn’t pay off nearly as much as connecting with your customers does. Take the time to reach out to your audience members before setting up emails and responses that are triggered by a specific time or action. Use the tools only after you’ve connected with the people you’re selling to and your marketing campaign is far more likely to succeed.

Speaking of tools, excited new companies tend to use them incorrectly. Gaining access to marketing tools is helpful only when they’re used the way they’re supposed to be used, and in the appropriate situations. Don’t grab every tool you can find and start using them for everything. Only use tools when necessary, and even then, make sure the context in which you’re using the tool matches its purpose. Evaluating when and how to use tools can be difficult, so it’s a good idea to avoid using tools built for one platform on another platform as well as compare one tool to another before deciding which one is best for the job.

Focus on putting out content consistently. The quality of your content should either be on par with or slightly below its quantity. Frequently posting content means not everything has to be an attempt to sell or promote. You can use content to strengthen the bond you have with your audience. Tell them more about your company, put a charming caption on a photo, or simply write a sincere message to your followers. You’ll be seen more as a human entity and less as a cold corporation that way.

Lastly, do everything you can do accommodate the changing market while remaining yourself. Your company should maintain its goals and values no matter how advertising evolves. Take note of your surroundings. Look for trends in your target audience and come up with ways you can play into those trends with your next marketing campaign.

Being attentive and adaptable is the best thing you can do when advertising. The solutions that result will almost always be positive.

Source: http://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/481-how-to-become-a-better-salesperson-and-generate-more-leads.html

Can Adding A Chat Function To Your Online Business Increase Revenues?

Marketing is becoming more innovative than ever thanks to the fast pace of technological advancements. You’re probably trying all kinds of different things to get your customers hooked, but have you ever considered using a chat service? Both Viber and Messenger can help companies simultaneously interact with members of their target audience and promote their products. If you use the chat feature well, your loyal customers could become the main providers of social proof for your company. 

Chat extensions increase your business website or app’s reach to a surprising degree. Messenger and Viber each have their own way of integrating things like videos, music, and fast action apps. Viber did it first, giving users access to gifs, Spotify, Vice, and more. Messenger followed suit a year afterward, employing chat extensions like Kayak and Swelly to increase reach and customer satisfaction. 

So how can you do the same? It’s certainly possible, as several other brands have done it. We’ll go over which companies have dipped their toes into the pool of chat marketing, as well as how they did it and the results they’re seeing from it. Prepare to find out what chat marketing can do for you.

Kayak followed in Viber’s footsteps with the Kayak Travel Planner on Messenger. It gives users the ability to organise trips by collecting possible dates, locations, accommodations, and rental services for travel, which users can then share with others to vote on. A final decision is made based on those votes. The great thing about Kayak’s chat feature is that it effortlessly immerses itself in the experience, maintaining a presence in the conversation without users consciously thinking about it. Kayak becomes part of the trip, and customers inherently trust the company more. 

Swelly is a social voting robot that users of either Viber or Messenger can use. Users can choose between two related photos and send their vote to their contacts to compare responses. The robot then tells the user how to make their own two-image Swells and directly receive the data they collect. With hundreds of original Swells circulating, users with similar interests can give and take recommendations on certain hotels, restaurants, products, and other commonly purchased goods and services. 

Booking has become an extremely active platform for travel-related reservations all over the world. The service is part of Viber’s chat extensions, which allows users to easily select hotel rooms and stay durations and book it as soon as they’ve confirmed the criteria. Booking’s good reputation has begun to take the power away from sites found in organic search results, directing customers towards a brand they know they can rely on. This has made it an unexpectedly influential brand. 

Messaging apps are the next big trend in marketing. Companies shouldn’t ignore it, either: in the era of social media, social proof is sought out and deeply trusted. We follow the advice of those we know and those who are similar to us. Find a way to get your company involved with messaging apps and app development services for greater success.

Source: http://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/476-can-adding-a-chat-function-to-your-online-business-increase-revenues.html

SEO Ranking Factors That Don’t Involve Keywords

Although keywords are important for SEO, they’re not everything. Filling your content to the brim with keywords may help you rank a bit higher, but it won’t keep your customers interested in your content. It’s fairly obvious when articles are written solely to increase organic search visibility, after all. Instead, put the emphasis on quality. 

Why shouldn’t you put the majority of your effort into SEO keywords? Simple: keyword stuffing is unattractive, noticeable, and sometimes punishable. Your focus should be on the final product, not the parts that make it up. Customers like, share, and interact with well done content, all of which naturally bump up your search engine ranking through generating trust and authenticity. 

The best user experiences come from content that’s intriguing, valuable, applicable, and credible, according to Google. And Google is a great source, considering it’s the most widely used search engine in the world with more than 4.4 billion searches every day. The quality check team uses the data they collect to make suggestions to the rest of the organization about how search engine ranking can be improved. To pass the quality check team’s test, your content must include six main things: quantity, expertise, links, accuracy, contact information, and user experience. 

Meeting Google’s quantity standard means consistently creating content with at least 2,000 words. This content should clearly demonstrate an understanding of the topic it’s about, and should also include a good number of links to reputable websites. Putting your contact information wherever needed and updating it whenever necessary adds to your credibility and accessibility. The reader’s overall experience is dependent on the previous factors as well as business website theme, page layout, loading speed, and tab setup. Put time and effort into every facet of content writing to rank higher in Google search results. 

Something many companies that focus on machine-based SEO forget is the need for their content to be more useful to users than that of their competitors. Taking large chunks of a few different web sources to form a Frankenstein post is rarely effective. You need to add an element of uniqueness to your content if you want to beat out your rivals. Find satisfactory content, rewrite it with a few improvements, and seek out users to gain exposure. You can make content better by simply increasing its length, explaining things more clearly, and giving overt instructions that your readers can follow. 

You can boost your credibility by properly utilizing links, source references, testimonials, and customer reviews. Although you want to be relatable, personal experience alone won’t keep your readers around. Pair it with up-to-date data as a form of proof to make yourself more believable. Combine data and experience in a way that helps and appeals to your customers. Use multiple sources and arrange the facts you’ve gathered from them in a sensible, cohesive manner. Consider adding visual information, like a photo or video related to the topic. If you have the right amount of facts, opinions, and eye candy, your post is likely to succeed. 

As we’ve touched on a bit in the previous paragraphs, each user’s overall experience is extremely important. If you have credentials relevant to the content you’re creating, place them in the appropriate spots to demonstrate your knowledge on the subject. In the case that you don’t have or need credentials, insert positive customer reviews and past situations that prove your point. 

Get your profile out there to have it seen by as many customers as possible and strengthen your role as an authority figure. You can also guest post on the websites of large corporations and influencers in your industry. Whatever you post, include at least one backlink in it. Your customers will trust you more if they have indirect confirmation from other sites that you’re legitimate. 

Accurate information and solid data are necessary inclusions if you want to bump up your SEO ranking, but don’t forget about how your readers will respond to consuming 2,000 words of just that. Add enjoyable visuals whenever applicable. Photos and videos are the most attractive kind of information to 21st century consumers because they’re so easy to take in. Finally, put a good amount of effort into your conclusion, and consider putting a thought-provoking question after it. Your audience will feel encouraged to interact with your content more. 

Don’t just drop your keywords into every open space of each post you create. Quality content has become the new SEO standard; keywords are only one element of it.

Getting to the Top of YouTube Search Results

While everyone is concerned with ranking first on Google’s search engine results page, it’s also important to give some thought on being among the first results on the YouTube search page. Video content is highly preferred among consumers so it needs to part of your online strategy. Through a month-long cohesive process, your company can rank number one in your YouTube keyword-related searches. Let’s take a look at how it’s done! 

Before you do anything else, go over your website’s best-performing pages. YouTube employs SEO strategies just as Google does, though these strategies are different. Choose a popular piece of content that could benefit from a few changes. You should also explore the page to determine if it could be successfully turned into a video, the subject’s videos on YouTube are viewed often, and the Google keyword search results for that subject turn up videos. 

Reviewing the high-ranking videos on Google and YouTube can help put your video in an ideal spot. Investigating the YouTube search results for one of your major keywords can give you an idea of how well your video would perform. Ten thousand views on the first few videos that show up is a good indication of your potential to create videos and rank high. 

In some cases, the view count of the video you’re looking at can be skewed. If a large company with many followers posts a video on a social media platform, it’s likely to blow up. To avoid basing your conclusion on an uncommon occurrence, examine the view counts of the first three to five videos related to the keyword you’ve searched. If the view count is high even after taking all factors into consideration, check to see if videos appear in the Google search results for your keyword. If yes, you can safely assume that a high-quality video you create would get attention and could be discovered through both YouTube search and Google search. 

The next step is planning your video. Considering you only have to base it on one source and that source is something you created, it shouldn’t be too difficult. But there are a few things you should keep in mind when converting written content to video format. Optimize your video by first developing an attention-grabbing, 15-second introduction. Make the video a good length to rank higher; YouTube tends to put shorter videos near the bottom of the search results. When your video is drawing to a close, wrap it up by encouraging viewers to like your video, subscribe to your YouTube channel, and follow your company on social media. Your audience will take more interest in you if you give them a handful of easy, low-commitment options. Hiring a video production company or videography company is always a safe bet and it will be well-worth the investment. 

Now that you’ve finished the creation process of your video, make a thumbnail with colours, fonts, and images that will intrigue your target audience. Insert the link to your video above your webpage’s fold so readers can find it and be rediregected to it quickly. If you do all of the things outlined above, your video will have a better chance of ranking high and being seen. 

For the best results, place the link to your video above your page’s fold, but below your article’s introduction. This is simply to give the viewers a bit of information about the topic before they jump right into a video about it. Providing context will help boost your view count, make more conversions, and keep your audience watching more of your video, if not the entire thing. 

If you’d prefer a different process for creating a video introduction, consider the three “P” framework: preview, proof, preview. Tell the viewer what the video will be about, explain how it works and will help them, and expand upon the video’s content. Better yet, you can covertly outdo your competitors by delivering more information than them, or simply by delivering it in a more comprehensible manner. A setup like this makes it difficult for viewers to turn away, as it’s brief, informative, and authoritative. Most will stay for a decent length of time upon seeing an introduction like this and will only navigate away from the page if the video is low-quality or uninteresting. A good thumbnail will only strengthen the effects of this second method. Go for something with a small amount of text, colours that will catch the eyes of your viewers, and a couple images that are relevant to the subject matter. 

There you have it: a guide to creating SEO YouTube videos. If you follow these guidelines, you’ll be happy to see how high your videos and any video content will rank in just one month. 

11 Ways to Improve your Email Marketing

Marketing emails are a great way to increase conversions, but they can be tricky to start. How do you know if you’re going about it in the right way or not? Sometimes, it’s not that obvious. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of ways to improve your email marketing campaign.

1. Before you do anything else, cut down your list. This might sound like marketing blasphemy, but a shorter list doesn’t mean less success; it means narrowing down your email recipients to those who truly want to purchase your products. Get rid of those who never open your emails, and allow those who’ve lost interest to unsubscribe efficiently. Additionally, deliver your emails during non-peak hours so your prospects can give you their undivided attention. 
2. Make your subject line brief and interesting. A long subject line can discourage even your most devoted subscribers from opening your latest email. Your email’s introduction should be a sentence that expands on the two- or three-word subject line and holds the reader’s attention. 
3. Putting the email recipient’s first name at the beginning of each message is more powerful than putting their full name, their name with an honourific, or no name at all. Address them the same way you would address a friend. Go one step further by making the words around the name - the ones that will be seen when unopened in the recipient’s inbox - more interesting. 
4. Never fake concern or care with well wishes. Most customers don’t believe what you’re saying, and you could be putting something much more useful for both you and your customer where that empty phrase went. Instead, make yourself stand out. Tell your potential clients why and how you’re different from your competitors. When they see the value in choosing you over someone else, they’ll be more willing to become a customer - perhaps even a loyal one. 
5. Let your clients know that this is about them, not you. Putting your company up on a pedestal will only exhaust them, or worse, drive them away. Give them the relevant information while centering the message around them. 
6. Don’t list product features in your marketing emails. Most of the time, your clients will research a product they like on their own time rather than taking the time to read your list of its capabilities and aesthetic qualities. Show a high-quality image of the product and perhaps one feature, nothing more. 
7. Be clear and simple in your message by avoiding fancy acronyms and complex terms. These words are usually meaningless to your target audience, so using basic language in a charming way will be more beneficial to you. While you’re at it, be realistic about what your product can do. Saying it makes things easier won’t interest many of your readers. Giving specific examples of how it makes things easier creates more sales in the end. 
8. Although you want to rise above the competition and prove yourself to your audience, don’t make impossible claims. Calling yourself number one in the biz might seem like a good idea, but your clients are less likely to trust you. Most consumers have been conditioned to associate impossible claims with arrogance and dishonesty, neither of which you’ll want your company to appear to have. 
9. Put yes-or-no questions into your marketing emails. Structure them in a way that doesn’t require your client to devote a great deal of time or energy to your cause. Make these questions intriguing and customer-centric. Better yet, use these questions to start a conversation. Generating natural back-and-forth exchanges gets your customers more involved in your business. 
10. Limit your calls-to-action to one per email. Slipping too many into one message can be frustrating or overwhelming for your client, so simply requesting a reply or a click on a link will suffice. Never give them off-hours tasks to complete; nobody likes homework. Asking your clients for too much decreases the probability of them doing what you want them to do. Make your requests simple and minimal. 

11. Once you’ve started implementing these strategies, experiment with them. Play around with your requests, word count, language use, text format, and visual information; then collect the open rates, response rates, and conversion rates of each version of your emails. There’s no magic formula, but one setup may work better than another. 

Email marketing becomes easy when you know what to do and what not to do. Be open to testing out different strategies, using our list as a guideline. With some practice, you’re bound to find the right format for you.