More video sharing platforms are popping up with every year that passes. Video is the future of content. There’s no arguing that. As Internet speeds increase and tech advances, there will be more video conferencing and video communication than ever before.

From a marketing standpoint, now’s a premiere opportunity to create and post videos that resonate with your audience. Interested in learning more about video marketing? Here’s some expert advice to get you started.

Must-Read Expert Advice on Video Marketing for YouTube, Facebook, and Social Sharing!

Using your analytics

Before you post your first video, all the data you’ll need to judge a video’s performance on will come from its analytics. Note who’s watching it and monitor engagement levels between multiples. You may have some videos that are runaway hits while others struggle. Within months, you can drastically improve a video marketing campaign just by following the basics of what analytics are saying.

Short videos

Unless it’s necessary, you can get away with posting short three or four minute videos without complaint. If you’re looking to feature a product or promotion, you may even choose to do a couple minutes or less. Customers don’t have time to sit around and watch a 10-minute video. Edit what you film and see how short you can bring it down.

Using YouTube to make money

You may choose to start a YouTube channel connected with your brand but that doesn’t necessarily promote your product at every opportunity. Many YouTube channels, at a certain point, can be used as a way to make money. Receive YouTube advertising money or consider selling advertising spots, once you have enough subscribers. For more social brands, there’s may be a real chance to monetize a video social platform like this.

Beyond YouTube

YouTube is the #1 video marketing platform in the world but it’s far from the only one with literally hundreds of millions of active users consuming content. There’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram video sharing and marketing opportunities to devour. Also, embedding your YouTube videos on other sites like reddit can help to get the word out.

Be entertaining!

YouTube is no different from having a commercial, an infomercial, or being on late night TV promoting a brand. Don’t be boring and dry. Be outrageously entertaining! Tell a story. Share something meaningful. Do it right and you can really get people talking.

Technical SEO stuff

Just like you would optimize a blog post for SEO, you have to take the same approach to video. Ensure you have an attention-grabbing headline, keywords are in the title and description, and the video’s properly tagged. Ideally, you want to make your video as search-friendly as possible.

High quality sound

If you film a high quality video and the sound is garbage, no one’s going to want to watch and it’s going to be an obvious fail. If you’re recording voiceovers, ensure you use an outstanding microphone and that the sound is crisp, easy to understand.

Update your videos from time to time

As the weeks and months go by, you may find opportunities to update your blogs, videos, and social media. No worries. You don’t need to replace the old video necessarily. Instead, make a video response or consider a ‘Part 2’. Alternatively, if you have a video that’s performing really well, build from it. It’s a brick-by-brick process but long-term, almost any brand can have a successful video marketing campaign simply by following their numbers.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1041-must-read-expert-advice-on-video-marketing-for-youtube,-facebook,-and-social-sharing.html

With no expiration or time sensitivity to it, evergreen content is content that continues to be relevant for an extended period of time. From the moment you publish and it’s live, evergreen content begins getting clicks, and on and on it goes. To build a site with enough content momentum to get traffic to your brand for potentially years, here’s exactly how you do it.

How You Can Leverage Evergreen Content to Continue to Drive Traffic FOR YEARS!

Why to make evergreen content

There are 5 key reasons why evergreen content should be a priority, no matter the category your brand is in. Evergreen content will drive sales prospects, continually drive traffic to your site, improve search engine rankings and help tremendously with SEO marketing strategies, help to position your brand as an authority, and provide you with a growing collection of content to post across social media.

What’s the best type of evergreen content?

Evergreen content needs to be always relevant and fresh for the reader. Not all content is. A lot of content that goes trending is relevancy with a deadline, sometimes lasting as little as a few hours. To build evergreen content, it needs to have value. Lists, tips, how-to and instructional content, product reviews, and videos in this same vein contributes a value that can span six months, a year, two years, or longer. This is what you want to work with as a starting point.

How to make an article or blog ‘evergreen’

If you want to have an article on your site that has long-term value, there are several ways to do this. Answering frequently asked questions about your product or services will provide you evergreen content. Providing industry tips that you know will be relevant six months from now, instruction videos or explanations, or an explanation of common industry concepts all work. Consider, any time you write something, how a reader a year from now will feel looking at it. If something feels dated, they’re going to click off and go to someone else’s site. We want their attention to remain on you!

Examples of evergreen content

 “How to Take Care of Mice” is a great evergreen article because it’s information that is not ever going to change.
 “The Ultimate Guide to Checking your Oils in a Car” is another great example with information any new car owner can consume.
 “7 Easiest Vegetables to Grow in your Garden” is an article that isn’t going to expire, potentially for decades, serving only to add more momentum to a website’s growing article base.

Choose topics that are relevant to your business, obviously. Try to choose topics that have not been written about 100s of times already. If you have something unique to say about a subject, this is a great opportunity to do so. The more unique your content is, the more value it is. Add to that if it’s evergreen and you have a winning content marketing formula!

What is not evergreen content

Evergreen content is not news article which are only newsworthy for a brief period of time, any statistics or reports you know will go out of date within a year, articles focused on pop culture trends which evidently come and go daily, and any current trends. Although these articles can be purposeful in some instances, they aren’t evergreen content.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1040-how-you-can-leverage-evergreen-content-to-continue-to-drive-traffic-for-years.html

Updated algorithms on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo have made SEO more complex and complicated than ever. Add to that key influences on SEO algorithms like site structure, site speed, whether a site is mobile optimized, and the quality of one’s content marketing, and you have a varied web of things that can play a role in where you rank.

A lot of marketers and brands get caught up on the details, leaving behind general SEO basics. Unfortunately, it’s usually the basics that will sink you or sabotage a campaign. If you’re missing even one of the basics, this can have a negative draw on your search engine optimization. Needless to say, these are 3 things you’ve absolutely got to get right. No excuses!

Don’t Let Your SEO Campaign Move Forward without These 3 Keys to Great Content

High quality, engaging, and unique content.

Content makes or breaks a campaign. If it’s all paint-by-numbers, low quality, and stuff others have written about, you’re not in good company. Some general tips to creating effective SEO content marketing is to write for the people and not for search engines, to write long and meaningful articles, and to forget about keyword density. Remember, you are competing for clicks. Build content that is comprehensive, that takes a different spin on a subject, that fills in content gaps others have forgotten about, or on content formats that aren’t widely explored.

Using a comprehensive sitemap.

Search engine crawl bots are searching your site to index the content. If you want to get everything indexed, build a sitemap. Sitemap websites get crawled up to 5 times faster. All a sitemap is is an outline of what pages are available on the site and essentially indicates to crawlers where to go. It’s simple but it really gets an excellent result when it comes to SEO. While creating a sitemap, ensure there isn’t any duplicate content. Search engines won’t know which one is original and it can be detrimental to your SEO rank. Keep track of your information and don’t create any unnecessary pages that don’t need to be there.

Writing jaw-droppingly excellent headlines!

Headlines count for a lot. Consumers oftentimes decide the worth of a piece based strictly on headlines. Beyond the wit, humor, and/or style expected, you also want to put in keywords. You will also not want to publish any article without a headline. Another rule – don’t write a headline that’s short or too long. The most compelling headlines are those that are creative, catchy, and which touch upon your keyword in just the right way. Here are some general headline-writing guidelines for SEO-friendly content marketing.

 A headline starting with a number is the most effective headline writing strategy for consumer preferences.
 ‘Reader addressing’ headlines, such as ‘What You Need to know About…’ are extremely persuasive.
 How-to headlines are instructional, informational, and direct. For users searching for straightforward information, these are a winner.
 Questions in your headline are an effective way to address common questions about your brand, products, services, or trends ongoing in your industry.

SEO’s always evolving. These 3 basic elements haven’t changed, despite the many algorithm updates. If you want to outrank the competition, make sure these 3 things are in place. Missing any of these will have an effect.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1039-don%E2%80%99t-let-your-seo-campaign-move-forward-without-these-3-keys-to-great-content.html

You may be nervous about tapping into email marketing automation and you’re not alone. Automating anything sounds bad but not only will it save time and money, it also works with the right messaging.

5 Email Marketing Messages for eCommerce to Instantly Increase your Click-Throughs

For eCommerce businesses using email to sell product, there’s significant opportunity here to acquire leads, convert those to sales, and cultivate repeat customers, but again you need the right messaging. By programming these messages into your eCommerce email marketing campaign, you’ll be ready to leverage your subscribers to generate more revenues.

Welcome message

When someone joins your email subscriber list, set up a ‘welcome message’ to send right away. This is the first email your subscriber will receive from your brand. It’s first contact. Explain things such as how often email messages will be sent, what kind of content they may find, any advantages or benefits to being a subscriber, and how to contact if they have a question. In addition to a website link, include social media links and maybe, a special discount as a thank you!

Abandoned Cart message

If someone has visited your eCommerce store, put items in a shopping cart, and then left prior to completing a purchase, set up an automated email message that encourages them to follow through on their decision to buy. Include something like a special offer, like a discount on their purchase or a ‘free shipping’ coupon. In the meantime, you can figure out why people are abandoning their carts and hopefully fix the problem.

Cross-selling messages

If a customer’s made a purchase from your eCommerce website, an automated message suggesting related products or services can be effective at cross-selling. Identify groups and pairings. This isn’t easy to set up with the right email marketing client. A discount and sense of urgency related deadline can also help to increase those conversions.

Birthday message

Everyone loves free stuff and discounts, especially on their birthday. Set up an automated message wishing them well on their birthday, with a special offer attached. This sort of stuff deepens the relationship between brand and consumer, and helps to get you awareness. Acknowledging birthdays has been shown to increase loyalty, sales, and is an effective brand advocacy approach.

Re-Engagement messages

If you aren’t getting clicks, ask yourself why. Subscribers that aren’t opening their emails affect deliverability. This means future messages make it to fewer inboxes overall. For brands seeing negative CTRs, re-engage subscribers or remove them from your list. How often you send re-engagement emails can vary. If someone hasn’t opened an email from you in 6-12 months, consider sending them a message asking why. You don’t want to be too quick to pull the trigger however you also don’t want these people bringing your email marketing campaign either.

eCommerce email marketing can verge on annoying when too many messages get sent. Automating helps to prevent that. It keeps track of where each subscriber is at and sends them appropriate messaging relevant to their unique consumer experience. If you aren’t already engaged with an email marketing client capable of automation, get it done. It saves time and money. You’ll be shocked by how much of a difference messages like these can be in your marketing campaign. Who doesn’t want to sell more product? Well, email marketing’s one way to do it.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1038-5-email-marketing-messages-for-ecommerce-to-instantly-increase-your-click-throughs.html

If your web design isn’t jiving with your SEO, that could be a problem. Too many brands unknowingly sabotage all the work they put into their SEO with poor web design. If you’re inexperienced with SEO or web design, to rank high on search engines like Google and Bing, design on the back-end and site infrastructure is just as important as what you put on the page.

Where’s your Organic Traffic? How Aspects of your Web Design Could Affect SEO ROI

What do SEO ROI analytics say about how well your strategy is working? If numbers are low, the problem may be with the design of your page. For example, is your bounce rate high? That’s indicative that people are clicking but they’re not necessarily finding what they came to your website for. Are certain pages performing better than others? Is there a spike somewhere in referral traffic? These are signs your SEO is working. Are you noticing any difference between devices? Is your website mobile responsive? If not, you could be giving away a lot of traffic on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.

Web design is all about connecting the dots. That’s how easy it should be to navigate. The navigational menu should be intuitive, as should the site infrastructure. Subtle design choices influence SEO in a big way. The impact all this has on site speed is also something to be noted. Slow websites aren’t going to rank well on SEO, even if your content marketing is top notch and keywords optimized. You want your site to be easy to crawl, use, read, access, and find. When any of these elements are out-of-place, this makes your SEO targets more difficult to achieve. Recommendations with your web design for SEO include the following.

 Drop down navigation menu items should always link to the main category with a site architecture that is easy to navigate and with URLs properly labelled.
 Incorporate alt-text options for image uploads to ensure any image booked on your website’s classified by search engines and not ignored.
 Ensure redirects are properly written so that they lead to the correct location.
 Ensure a mobile responsive web design is implemented, allowing your website to be aesthetically optimized across any and all devices.

Look at what your analytics are telling you. They will say everything you need to know about website design success. If you’re losing prospective customers along the way, your analytics will tell you plain and simple. It’s not all bad news though so don’t be discouraged! Analytics communicate where improvements are to be made. Use this as a guide when re-designing your site. Look at the pages that are over-performing and under-performing. See if there are similar elements. There might be something there.

Today’s SEO strategies generate organic traffic slowly building over a matter of weeks. Search algorithms dictate a lot about success in SEO digital marketing. If you’re unsure about how to implement a strong SEO plan, consider hiring an agency. An experienced, expert-level web design and SEO team knows what they’re doing in connecting design elements with site optimization techniques.

Consumers need to trust your website and if there are unexpected components at play or if the website isn’t delivering what’s promised in your content-based optimization strategies, that’s a problem. Find an agency that works for you. Looking for SEO in Toronto? Hire Unlimited Exposure.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1037-where%E2%80%99s-your-organic-traffic-how-aspects-of-your-web-design-could-affect-seo-roi.html

Before there was Instagram, there was Pinterest. Still going strong, Pinterest is an image-driven social platform with over 100 million active users. In terms of reaching audience, Pinterest is a promising social media marketer’s playground. Here are some of the secrets of Pinterest marketing, from the experts who use the platform on a daily basis reaching literally hundreds of thousands of people.

Tips, Tricks, and Secrets on How to Use Pinterest in your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Interesting, high quality content

To succeed in social media marketing, you need your posts to be high quality and interesting. Publish images people want to see and engage with. There’s a lot of noise online. Don’t simply add to it. Be unique. Think of your followers and build a niche you know they’ll love. Your photos should also always align with the link you associate them with.

The basics of a Pinterest post

Three things make up a successful Pinterest social post – an eye-catching headline that’s easily searchable, a high-resolution image, and engaging copy. Ensure your image is properly sized, appropriate for your brand, and specific to your Pinterest audience. Just like with Instagram, no one’s going to click on a Pinterest post that doesn’t immediately catch their attention.

Keyword optimization

Pinterest builds off keywords and topic selection. Pinterest’s also integrated with Facebook and Google Search, making the audience you can reach very, very big. Pinterest users rely on searching to find their next favourite post. Images should be properly tagged with the right keywords, for this reason. The average user spends 15.8 minutes on Pinterest. Compared to other social media marketing platforms, that’s not long. Look for themes and pictures that aren’t featured heavily and where you can make an impact.

Are Pinterest Ads worth it?

For some brands, they may choose to go the paid ad route with Pinterest. This allows you to pay to promote public pins. You’ll be charged any time a user taps and enlarges, repins, saves a pin, or clicks. Cost-per-click campaigns like this can be effective on social media although they’re expensive and generate no momentum long-term.

Video pins

Video pins target mobile users where there’s a big collection of users. Most Pinterest users come to the platform on their smartphones, after all. Animated GIFs work well on Pinterest. You can tag these with a blog post, product, or website link. Brands utilizing these types of pins have recently seen a rise in ‘repin to pin’ ratio by almost 82 percent. Still images aren’t enough. Use Pinterest-specific video.

Pinning at the right time

Successful social media marketing relies on posting at the right time. The best time to post on Pinterest is between 2 pm and 4 pm on weekdays, 5 pm on Fridays, between 8 and 11 pm on Saturdays, or between 8 pm and 1 am. Also, certain topics perform better depending on the time of year. Holiday-based pins obviously perform between in December, as an example. It’s important to do your research into what time of day and what time of year is most recommended to post on a certain topics.

Pinterest is a great social media platform, well worth the time and effort to maximize it. As wonderful as other social media sites may be, Pinterest’s still up there with the best of them. Promote branding, products, or services as needed, and find a whole audience creatively engaged and ready to communicate with.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1036-tips,-tricks,-and-secrets-on-how-to-use-pinterest-in-your-social-media-marketing-strategy.html

Search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click advertising (PPC) both have their place but which is better for your business – well, this depends. PPC pops a number in the immediate but SEO provides long-term momentum that you’ll never find paying for every click unless your budget’s bottomless.

SEO or PPC, Which is Better for your Long-Term Digital Marketing Strategy – see the answer!

The primary difference between SEO and PPC is that SEO relies on organic traffic that you don’t need to pay for while a PPC strategy essentially pays Google to prioritize your web page at a higher search engine rank than it deserves. PPC is pretty self-explanatory, in this sense. You pay them, you give them the ad, and they post it relevant to your audience.

SEO’s a little more complex, relying on algorithms to rank your website. SEO relies on website quality, the quality of your content, whether you are mobile responsive, and product or service ratings and reviews. With SEO, everyone wants to get to the top spot on search results. In fact, more than 50% of people will click on either the first or second search result when searching a term.

Thankfully, if you pick the right SEO keywords, you can accomplish a lot with this. As you zero in on certain keywords and incorporate location-based keywords, you can find SEO strategies to successfully get you to top spots. It’s not all keywords though. A lot goes into ranking websites. Google wants the best, most accurate search results and they invest a lot into getting this, considering factors like backlinks, site speed, image optimization, and language markup to decide the quality of your website.

When discussing which is more preferable between SEO and PPC, it depends on the brand and their objective. Both can generate amazing results! PPC advertising can be great to create immediate awareness. That said, it can be very expensive. If you’re inexperienced or target the wrong keywords, your money can also be wasted trying to get customers through this method. Comparatively, SEO takes time to build but the momentum it generates is more sustainable. Subsequently, SEO’s not necessarily as expensive as PPC when one factors in the support it provides to email, social media, and other marketing channels.

SEO works when you’re seeking long-term credibility, authority, and a regular supply of sales. Advantages of SEO include being a low-cost digital marketing strategy, more permanent results, and more engagement. While PPC results are consistent as long as you keep spending, when you conclude your campaign, there’s nothing further to gain from your marketing. Comparatively, SEO’s ROI will continue to climb higher and higher for months on end and possibly years depending on how you structure your campaign and what you’re doing to maintain it. Here are some questions to ask yourself about which option’s the best one for you.

 What size is your digital marketing budget? If you can’t commit $10/day minimum for PPC, SEO’s more cost-effective.
 How expensive is a cost-per-click in your industry? If it’s too costly, SEO may be the way to go.
 How competitive are organic search engine rankings? If there’s a lot of competition locally, you’ll have to be smarter about how you spend your budget and where.

Both PPC and SEO are wonderful digital marketing strategies but we’re always going to favor SEO’s power as a long-term momentum generator. Speak with a representative at Unlimited Exposure for more information on how SEO can help your brand.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1035-seo-or-ppc,-which-is-better-for-your-long-term-digital-marketing-strategy-%E2%80%93-see-the-answer.html

Within the next year, Netflix is going to see an increase in competition – in a big way – with new platforms launching and existing competitors beefing up their content offerings. HBO Max, Apple TV+, Disney+, DC Universe, Comcast’s unnamed service, and others are readying to go to war with Netflix.

Is Netflix Marketing Strategy the Answer to Competing with its Massive Competition Readying for Launch

Subsequently, Hulu, Amazon, and YouTube are already firmly established as streaming services. There’s also streaming components in development at NBC, ABC, CBS, FX, Showtime, and elsewhere. It’s no secret that every week, Netflix has another show pulled from its archives further reducing the platform to its homegrown collection of content.

Naturally, you may think things don’t look good for Netflix. You’re not entirely wrong. We simply don’t know what’s going to happen once these services have launched and the uncertainty surrounds Netflix’s market share being threatened.

That said, Netflix is way, way ahead of competitors in their marketing and content development. There’s a lot of advantages to the Netflix brand as they are firmly established as the go-to streaming service in North America. On a digital marketing level, how Netflix approaches promoting a show like Stranger Things says a lot about where they’re headed.

Stranger Things is an excellent case study for Netflix marketing because it is one of their most successful original content brands. The third season of Stranger Things launched in early July, achieving the biggest 4 day opening of any Netflix original series.

The success of this launch is attributed not only to the quality of the product but in the marketing. Teaming with brands like Coca-Cola and Nike, Netflix got the word out in a big way that a new season was on the way. Here’s a few bullet points on how Stranger Things marketing made a difference in its opening numbers.

Creating a need

The first season of Stranger Things was released in July, 2016 receiving strong reviews and slowly generating popularity. In response, a second season was launched around Halloween 2017. Anyone wanting more Stranger Things had to wait a year and a half for more of the product.

Waiting for the new season built anticipation that no doubt helped the numbers early on. Anticipation is key as Netflix has several shows with big audiences that they can wait and build that desire to see more. They are ahead from other platforms, in this way.

Storytelling

The first time anyone heard anything about a Stranger Things third season was through a commercial released a year prior for the fictional Starcourt Mall which features in the series. Highlighting the importance of fun, immersive storytelling video marketing, a third season was not overtly promoted with the release of this commercial.

All it was was a quick wink, keeping customers engaged and open to more content from this established brand. This would be followed by several countdown-esque teasers and trailers, continuing to cultivate anticipation releasing singular details with every piece of content rather than giving everything all at once.

Mainstream big brands

Stranger Things is a family-friendly show that a person of any age can watch. Targeting a more general audience, Netflix used America’s biggest brands to get the word out. They created essentially collectibles with custom Nike collections, custom Coke cans, custom Whoppers at Burger King, released an H&M clothing line, Lego sets, and special Baskin-Robbins Stranger Things-themed flavours.

This is one of the first times Netflix has used a high number of other brands to promote their own. While some of the competition has the financial resources to do the same, with these big international corporate brands, not all do. This type of corporation-based influencer marketing ultimately produced about 75 tie-in products to generate buzz offline for Stranger Things, supported with a mix of trailers, teasers, and content online.

Competition’s picking up

The battle between streaming services ahead is going to be come down to the uniqueness and quality of content and the franchise brands built from these, the different actor brands and entertainment brand partnerships a platform like Netflix is able to cultivate and sign, and the marketing and financial resources a platform is willing to dedicate to getting the word out.

Influencer marketing, email, YouTube video marketing, and social media sites all have an incredibly, incredibly important role to play. We won’t count out Netflix just yet. That said, the competition’s getting hotter. Can Netflix survive – absolutely, that’s a near guarantee. Will Netflix stay on top – this remains to be seen. Game on.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1034-is-netflix-marketing-strategy-the-answer-to-competing-with-its-massive-competition-readying-for-launch.html

Social media marketing is easily the most competitive category of digital marketing. The rules change, trends move quickly, and what works now may not work the same six months from now. This summer, there’s a lot of new social media data coming out highlighting how users are behaving on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Here’s the most important social media marketing statistics to keep in mind when building your social media plan.

8 Social Media Statistic for Summer 2019 You Can Use to Improve your Marketing

77% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they follow on social media

Consumers familiar with a brand on social media are more likely to buy from it compared to a brand that isn’t on social media. Do yourself a favor and register accounts across popular platforms relevant to your audience. Start building brand awareness through social media marketing.

45% of consumers are more likely to research a product when a brand’s employee posts about it

Especially if you’re a small business, get your employee base engaged and encourage them to speak about your brand on social media. Amplifying your brand’s reach, consumers tend to investigate products after they hear about them shared from the perspective of an employee. Consider this strategy by offering an incentive of some kind to employees to share and speak positively about you.

47% of marketers struggle to develop strategies

If you’re struggling to build an effective, high-performance social media marketing plan, you’re not alone. A lot of marketers struggle to plan and oftentimes will launch social media accounts with no strategy whatsoever. There’s no faster way to waste time, effort, and money than this! Know your objective and strategize on how to get there.

Community groups on Facebook and LinkedIn are becoming more important

The future of social media, as stated by Mark Zuckerberg himself, is going to be far more private than today’s landscape. We are already seeing this with private Facebook groups. For brands, this may mean an opportunity to connect with users in these subset groups and to develop marketing specific to these groups.

67% of consumers will spend more on a brand they follow on social media

If a consumer follows a brand on social media, they are more likely to buy from said brand and spend more on them in the process. The more you grow your social media community and nurturing these leads, there’s a high likelihood in turning these followers into buyers.

63% of marketers believe social media listening is growing in importance

Creating accounts and posting is not enough. Listening to your audience is a necessary component to growing social media. Don’t let complaints go unanswered, negative reviews unaddressed, and work to identify conversation trends on social media surrounding your brand.

71% of marketers find social media data helps other categories

Social media analytics tell you a lot about your customer base and how to engage with them. This data can help a lot of other digital marketing channels, providing insight on how to deliver email marketing campaigns, market offline, and get people visiting your website.

50% of consumers follow brands to learn more about products or services

Social media is an education tool, as much as it is a promotional and community-building one. Consumers connecting with brands on platforms like Instagram or Facebook are seeking information on products and services. Consider this when you post, ensuring you’re linking to relevant products or services.

To maximize your social media reach on sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Reddit, and other online communities, partner with Unlimited Exposure today.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1033-8-social-media-statistic-for-summer-2019-you-can-use-to-improve-your-marketing.html

Promos, sales tactics, and coupons don’t work today like they did with audiences fifty years ago. Telling a story and sharing your brand’s narrative, authentically and openly, matters a whole lot more. Some estimates suggest when a brand tells their story well, they can increase value on a product or service by up to 20 times over. From video to social media, storytelling in digital marketing encompasses a lot. Here are a few different storytelling types to compel your future customers with.

6 Storytelling Types Used in Content-Based Digital Marketing to Reach your Ultimate Sales Numbers

Short videos

Fresh, inventive videos are trending in digital marketing because of their effectiveness at appealing to consumers. Deliver your message in short ads of 6 to 12 seconds. Don’t bank on attention spans being longer than that. Use short videos like this on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Don’t hesitate to experiment with slightly longer videos to see what works for your customers.

Data-driven storytelling

There’s colossal amounts of Internet data being generated every second. Customer data can show you ways to create visual, engaging, and targeted stories appealing to your customers. Collecting data is almost a necessity in this day and age, for companies. Find out what works at engaging your customers. Remember, the type of story you tell a 4-year old won’t be similar to what you tell a 34-year old. The tone, visuals, and details will be different. When in doubt, go to your data.

Customer stories

92 percent of people trust their peers more than they trust a traditional advert. Tap into this by creating videos and content marketing that share true customer stories. Seek out users to share their stories for an incentive of some kind. Invite influential customers to write guest blog posts. Shoot videos that focus on the customer rather than a product or service. Customer-centric storytelling is a win-win, giving your audience a platform while maximizing word-of-mouth.

Philanthropy

Consumers want to know your values, how you conduct your business, how employees are treated, where you source product, and what’s important to you. Philanthropy can be a very influential element of storytelling, communicating to your customers what your values are and what your company’s purpose is to the community. Take the focus off of making a buck, promoting product or services, and ‘acting business-like’, and show the difference you want to make.

Non-traditional social storytelling

Private messaging apps like WhatsApp, via email, SMS text marketing, and industry-driven messaging platforms may be areas to look into to tell stories. Crafting engaging narratives and connecting with prospects on a personal level can have significant benefit in creating lifelong fans or customers. Non-traditional, off-the-beaten-path storytelling platforms and sites should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Many brands may not find anything that appeals to them while others may come up with some impressive ideas.

Immersive tech-driven storytelling

Next year, it’s estimated more than 200 million VR headsets will be sold worldwide. That’s a lot of consumers looking for VR and AR immersive storytelling opportunities. Take your brand, convey your message, and look for ways to do so in fun way. Virtual reality is engaging, attracting, and trending. A sensory experience like this goes beyond simply being promo and creates an experience ready to be had. Although immersive VR storytelling is still in its infancy, this is an area to keep track of in the months and years ahead.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1032-6-storytelling-types-used-in-content-based-digital-marketing-to-reach-your-ultimate-sales-numbers.html

An entangled web of endless complexities. That’s digital marketing in a nutshell. Everyone’s an expert and there are literally hundreds of strategies one can push to resonate with your audience. While there’s always lots of advice to give on digital marketing, you really need to trust who’s giving it. There are a number of strategies that either don’t work, never worked, or shouldn’t be used. As a small business or brand looking to make a good impression on interested parties, marketing strategies like these should be avoided.

6 Outdated Strategies in Internet Marketing you Need to Leave Behind – See our List!

Generic video

If you’re going to do video marketing, make it mean something. Don’t use stock content, generalized business language, and overproduced background music. Over 91 percent of consumers have watched a video about a brand they care about. Consumers know what’s a good video. Create video content that’s unique and which accurately represents your brand.

Print marketing

Everyone is on the Internet. Why would any brand, other than perhaps a grocery store, ever use print marketing? You shouldn’t. Brochures and flyers don’t work today like they used to. Also, it’s expensive. Use that money to formulate your logo, graphic design work, and Internet marketing ads instead. You’ll find graphic design-friendly digital marketing, replacing print advertising, to be faster, more effective, and cost-efficient.

Promo-only social media work

If all you’re doing is posting promotional-only social media posts, that’s a waste of time. You’re going to lose customers. 77 percent of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they follow on social media. To get them to follow you, you’ve got to give them something of value. Overly promotional social media brands end up abandoned. Instead, use posts that create conversation, which drive engagement, and which are fun, informative, and/or friendly.

Appealing to every single person on Earth

No brand reaches and resonates with everyone. Every person is unique. Cater to that instead of focusing on being everything to everyone. Instead of releasing a general one-size-fits-all messaging, personalize it. Over 50% of eCommerce customers become repeat buyers with a brand because of personalized shopping messages either through email, social media, or elsewhere. Addressing a customer by their name when you send a promotional email isn’t enough. Pay attention to their shopping habits and their on-site behaviours. Go further.

Not using email

Email marketing is a powerful outlet to reach customers. Even though the general population’s more hyped about social media doesn’t mean they don’t use email every day. Email’s far from dead, as a potential digital marketing revenue-raising tool. In fact, it’s cost-effective, easily managed, and quick to reach clients through this method.

Not accumulating data

Customer data is valuable. Like, extremely valuable! So many brands use their analytics only supervising a few numbers. That’s a big mistake. You’ve got to move past and find new ways to accumulate data. The more you know, the more you can target these same customers and customers like them. Don’t make the mistake of using basic metrics and not looking at more.

There are dozens of digital marketing success stories out there from brands who’ve thought outside-the-box, who’ve gone above the basics, and who’ve partnered with agencies to get them there. If you’re looking to better your ROI, you’ve got to avoid the dated and go with trending, new, effective digital strategies. Considering a digital marketing agency in Toronto? Speak with Unlimited Exposure. We can help.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1031-6-outdated-strategies-in-internet-marketing-you-need-to-leave-behind-%E2%80%93-see-our-list.html

Instagram is a digital marketer’s dream, with instant access to millions of people ready to communicate and connect with brands. Instagram marketing is growing, as brands seek new ways to make use of the platform and to reach the most amount of people. Looking ahead a little bit, there’s a lot to look forward to.

What Does the Future of Instagram Marketing Look Like in 2020 and Beyond

Instagram is expected to continue growing for the foreseeable future, accommodating more users and bring more social media marketing opportunities to it. For the vast majority of Toronto digital marketing agencies, Instagram is very much being seen as the most competitive battleground there is. Twitter’s struggling to stay popular except for in a small collection of industries and interests, LinkedIn’s great for B2B marketing but doesn’t have the built-in B2C appeal, Facebook continues to be in the news for privacy breaches and issues with its news content, and sites like Snapchat continue to struggle to break through to the next level. Instagram’s succeeded where others have failed, supplanting Facebook as the #1 social platform.

So what does this all mean for digital marketing? If you haven’t yet established an Instagram presence, do it now. No matter what industry you’re in, an Instagram account is a must-have if you’re invested in your success online. Among the Instagram tools that are expected to see increases in marketing value, where a lot have focused on is in Instagram Stories. Instagram Live is also growing although few brands are using the live stream element. Shopping tags, checkouts, and IGTV are all proving to be undercurrents where some brands may find success as well.

Some continue to associate Instagram with a younger crowd but just like what happened with Facebook, more and more people from different backgrounds and demographics are coming to the platform. Instagram marketing can be a success for any brand but it takes some effort to figure out how to appeal to your audience there. Instagram Stories is very appealing across the board but what about IGTV? This sort of long-form storytelling isn’t tremendously popular on Instagram. Even so, it’s a feature that could work for a segment of the user base. It’s all in differentiating between your audience and the total user base.

So many people continue to be enthusiastic about Instagram because it’s an evolving platform. Facebook’s more or less always going to be Facebook. Although they continue to try to add features and new things to get excited about, they haven’t generated the type of buzz they’re seeking. Instagram, on the other hand, continues to develop and evolve in very natural ways. Strong Instagram numbers are a focus any and every business could have. The potential’s significant. Here some general Instagram facts and figures to keep in mind when weighing whether to join or optimize your presence on the platform.

 Instagram has more than 1 billion monthly active users, with more than 500 million using the platform every day.
 71 percent of Instagram users are under the age of 35.
 Instagram is the second-most engagement-friendly social media platform, second only to Facebook.
 An estimated 83 percent of Instagram users have discovered new products or services on the platform.
 The average time spent on Instagram is 53 minutes, compared to Facebook’s average of 58 minutes.
 71 percent of businesses in the United States are already on Instagram. If you don’t have an account, you’re missing out!

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1030-what-does-the-future-of-instagram-marketing-look-like-in-2020-and-beyond.html

Are you looking to get the most from your SEO digital marketing campaign? A lot of people hear about search engine optimization and they think it’s not something they have to pay for. Unfortunately, they find out the hard way how wrong this attitude is. A weak SEO effort provides you a weak result – the same thing can be said about various other aspects of digital marketing. If you want results, it’s going to cost either in time, money, or effort.

Those Who Pay More for SEO Receive Higher Satisfaction, According to Study

A recent study analyzing clients of SEO services found that those that spent more were more satisfied with the results than clients who spent less. The average American small business spends approximately $497/monthly on SEO. Consider this to what your budget is for SEO and subsequently, the results you may or may not have experienced. Let’s be clear, if you’re completely satisfied with your SEO numbers right now, don’t change a thing. Just keep going. If you’re not happy with what you’re seeing though, it’s likely a case of not doing enough.

A study like this may communicate a message of, ‘if you spend more, there are bigger results achieved.’ This isn’t automatic though. Even on a small budget, you can do a lot if you’re willing to work. You need to know how, which means you need to hire a Toronto digital marketing agency that knows what they’re doing with your money.

The #1 expectation small businesses have when they hire an SEO service provider is that their efforts will attract new customers. Normally, it certainly would. After all, successful SEO gives a website high-ranking pages. When someone searches for a term related to your business, your website pops up on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. This is essentially free advertising for your products or services. More exposure, in turn, should equate to more leads.

In a sense, an SEO agency will pay for itself over time as you attract customers to your website. What’s even better is that this ‘free advertising’ doesn’t ever have to expire. If you continue to maintain your high-ranking positions on search engines everywhere, you can keep funnelling customers to your website. That said, SEO isn’t easy. Achieving these results isn’t easy nor is remaining in the position. In fact, more than 70 percent of businesses who have hired an SEO agency this year are unsatisfied with the results and have a campaign that isn’t meeting expectation. If you don’t want to be included among this 70 percent, be careful with who you choose to partner with.

Complicating SEO marketing strategies is that the algorithms are constantly changing with updates done annually. What works now may not work five years from now. It becomes an art interpreting your analytics and keeping your ear to the ground, predicting what you need to do to keep generating new customers. Ultimately, if you’re willing to pay an agency to have the resources you need to actually achieve your success, the sky’s the limit.

Hire Toronto’s Unlimited Exposure for SEO services in Canada. Specializing in SEO, social media, digital marketing, email, video, and more, you’ll have the experts on-hand to help guide your website to the highest possible search engine rank. If you want success, it’s there for the taking. Receive higher satisfaction with an agency you can trust. Speak with a representative today.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1029-those-who-pay-more-for-seo-receive-higher-satisfaction,-according-to-study.html

Targeting SeniorsDigital Marketing in is Easy With These Practical Outreach Strategies

Seniors don’t get their fair shake in digital marketing. So much focus is on users in their 20s and teens that older audiences are consistently ignored by a lot of the talk and trends. Regardless, they exist and seniors are using the Internet in bigger numbers than ever before. Businesses targeting seniors have a lot to gain by chasing seniors.

Targeting Seniors in Digital Marketing is Easy With These Practical Outreach Strategies

Here are two statistics to keep in mind. More than 25 percent of people over the age of 75 are using tablets regularly, and more than half of seniors between 65 and 75 have social media profiles. Senior populations are plugged in way more than we think they are and they’re ready to spend their money. If you have products or services appropriate for a senior audience, here are a few results-driven digital marketing strategies to put to use for yourself.

They like personalization.

As it turns out, younger and older audiences are like in the sense that they enjoy content personalization and a tailored user experience. The difference is older audiences appreciate more communication and connection. Customer service and personal contact count. With a senior digital marketing strategy, ensure your messaging is consistent and easy-to-digest, incorporate offline media such as local papers or flyers, and it doesn’t hurt to use CTAs which encourage a single-click action or telephone call. Build connection!

They’re more loyal and less likely to explore.

The older a person is, the less likely they will move away from the websites and apps they use regularly. In digital marketing, you must educate, inform, and present your brand to a senior member of the population first. Start slow and build awareness. Consider online and offline community resources, location-based blogging, free tips and advice, discounts, and more informational content.

Go beyond influencer and word-of-mouth.

There’s a lot you can get from focusing on influencer marketing for seniors, like using family members, local news, and offline authorities. That said, contemporary seniors generally know these tricks and strategies. Move past them by focusing on mobile-friendly digital marketing, streaming content and video content, and social media. There’s a high amount of seniors regularly tuned in and open to smartphone marketing, YouTube video marketing, and social media marketing. This use is only growing. In the future, this is going to be where brands market towards senior demographics.

More education.

Older audiences require explanation, clarity, and guidance. If they don’t understand you, they won’t hang around to find out what you’re on about. With your content, keep things simple wherever possible and always clear. Common barriers to buying for seniors include misconceptions relating to Internet safety or purchasing online, wanting an offline more personalized experience, and being uninterested in change. The less you sell and the more you educate or inform, the more you can cultivate that lead and eventually capitalize on a sale.

YouTube.

YouTube is such an untapped hub of activity among senior Internet users. Increase sales by focusing on senior video marketing i.e. tips, advice, education, etc. Here are the facts. Seniors in their 50s, 60s, and 70s are watching more online TV and YouTube, and this number’s only increasing. About 15 percent of seniors 50-59 watch a video on YouTube every day. Comparatively, 33 percent of those aged 60-69 watch a YouTube video at least a few times a week – which is identical to 30-49 year olds. Do not be afraid to lean on video marketing when trying to reach segments of the senior populations.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1028-targeting-seniors-in-digital-marketing-is-easy-with-these-practical-outreach-strategies.html

We go to bed and we set our smartphone beside ourselves. We go to work, we take our phone. We leave the house to go pick up some groceries on the weekend or to run some errands and we take our cell phone. It’s with us wherever we go, acting as our watch, our alarm clock, our notebook, and smartphones continue to be a major social tool allowing us to stay in touch with friends at the press of a thumb.

Creating Mobile-Friendly Content to Capitalize on Smartphone Consumer Trends

From a marketer’s perspective, smartphones are a goldmine. Here’s why. Over half of all website traffic globally comes from mobile devices, surpassing desktop usage. Digital marketing success involves going where your audience is. If they’re on mobile, the focus needs to be on creating mobile content to reach said audience. Here are a few simple ways to take your website or marketing materials and to flip them to become more mobile-friendly.

Text that can actually be read on mobile devices.

Optimize your text. On desktops, it’s common to follow an F-shape in web page design where your written content is set up in an ‘F’ across the screen. On a mobile device, 68 percent of smartphone users look to the center and top half of a mobile page while 86 percent look across the upper two-thirds. This is where your text should sit.

You also want a headline that doesn’t take up the whole of the screen, have a summary at the start, and use images, sub-headers, white space, and simple words. Unlike a desktop user, you don’t know where a person will be when they are reading your page. It could be on a bus, at work, in the washroom, or at the kitchen table. They may only have a few seconds to glance. That’s why your text needs to instantly capture attention.

Images and videos make content more readable and eye-catching.

Use a diverse collection of images. Think screenshots, graphics, infographics, memes, and anything else which can provide a visual punch. Just make sure the images are embedded mobile-responsive so that they adapt to screen size.

Psychologically, we know a user’s eye is more likely to look at an image than text on the same page. If you want to maximize your results in mobile-responsive smartphone marketing, use compression on your images or tools to create pre-optimized images which will ensure your loading times don’t increase.

You can’t do it without a mobile-responsive design.

Look at your pages on a smartphone. Do they look attractive to you? Is the most important information readily visible when you open a page? Is the design responsive in the correct way? There’s a lot of work to do on the back-end in terms of preparing a web page for an optimum presentation.

If you aren’t already working with an experienced web designer, consider partnering with one who knows specifically how to help with attractive mobile-responsive design. If you don’t know where to start when it comes to what a web page should look like on a smartphone, visit your favourite websites and see what the structure of their site looks like. Note what information or images pop up first as the page loads.

Smartphone users are out there by the millions, ready to be captured as leads. Do the work and win big sales. Partner with Unlimited Exposure today to begin on your journey towards mobile-responsive web design and digital marketing.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1027-creating-mobile-friendly-content-to-capitalize-on-smartphone-consumer-trends.html

About 65 percent of the world’s most successful social media marketers are using a mix of approximately 65 percent of self-created content and about 25 percent curated content. Curation has become more important for brands looking to succeed online. Thankfully, it’s inexpensive to do and can build significant value if you do it well.

Content Curation on Social Media Will Make Your Customers Love You More!

Looking on social media, you’ll find a lot of people sharing content that isn’t self-created. Much of social media is exactly this. From a business perspective, it might seem dishonest to take someone else’s content and posting it to generate your own awareness. Curation isn’t about passing off someone else’s work as your own though. It’s about sharing something that is passionate, relevant, and meaningful to you and your audience. All you need to do is find it, aggregate it, and post it.

The most difficult part of social media content curation is actually choosing the right content to share. There are a lot of ways to get it wrong. If you’re not following your brand’s personality, relationships, culture, and values, that’s a recipe for a waste of time when it comes to content curation.

Let’s say you have found the perfect piece of content ready to be curated by your brand in a post. The next step is to create a headline that differentiates your article from the one you’re curating. Then, add an image to avoid copyright issues and to add some originality to what’s being posted. Include a link in the body text to the original article, mentioning the author and citing it. Take an interesting, useful, and engaging quote from the original article. Lastly, input a call-to-action at the bottom of your curated post to provide readers a next place to go or an additional resource to expand their knowledge with. It’s that easy. Here are 4 reasons why you may want to consider content curation.

 You’re positing yourself as an industry expert and thought leader, with an authoritative voice.
 Content curation makes a brand appear less promotional and more like they are participating in a community.
 You’re giving your audience something of value, which they’ll appreciate if it informs or entertains them.
 You’re generating goodwill among your audience.

In social media marketing on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, you’ll notice roughly five curation strategies. ‘Aggregation’ involves taking the most relevant content from a single location, re-incorporating it into a new article. ‘Distillation’ takes a topic and reduces it to its’ core concept, as almost a sort of simplification. ‘Elevation’ involves taking a large amount of daily content and tracing a theme, insight, or trend from them. ‘Mashups’ involve taking an original point of view by merging different topics. Lastly, ‘Chronology’ is a timeline of curated information, bringing multiple sources into one.

How you find the best content to share on social media is to identify the most compelling, timely content. Search top blogs, websites in your industry, social media influencers, and trendy individuals. Try to monitor relevant sites and see if there’s anything you can re-use in your social media. Just remember, when using content curation in digital marketing, add something unique and of value to what you’re about to post and credit your sources. Leveraging social media marketing tools, there’s a lot you can do with content curation. Your customers will like you all the more for using these strategies.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1026-content-curation-on-social-media-will-make-your-customers-love-you-more.html

 Creating your very first digital marketing campaign for your brand is an opportunity to make a splash. There’s a lot that goes into making a marketing success though. It takes not only time, money, and effort, but also luck. The more you have the elementary working parts where they need to be however, the more likely you are to succeed and in a big way – luck or no luck. Here’s a little guidance on how to plan a digital marketing campaign for beginners.

Are You Creating Your First Digital Marketing Campaign – Here’s All the Working Parts

Outlining the marketing goals.

If you know what you’re looking to achieve, you know what to target with every decision you make surrounding a digital marketing strategy. Think SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Your goal can be anything from to gain 20 customers a month to selling 10 units per week. It can be based around sales, customer satisfaction, or profits as well. Just know what it is.

Know your budget.

Before you get deep involved with any sort of campaign, you need to know how much you’re putting in to get things going. Major digital marketing categories you may want to invest in includes website design, email marketing, social media marketing, PPC campaigns, event marketing, or video.

Assembling market research.

Get to know in detail the market you will be selling to. Understand what makes your brand, products, or services different from the competition. Understand why your price is what it is. Consider market dynamics like seasons, the alternative products available, and know your key market.

Audience personas.

Write out different target audience personas as part of the process of understanding what to make with your digital marketing campaign. Define details like age, job title, job responsibilities, gender, salary and disposable income, education, location, goals, what types of content they like, what promotions they are most likely to enjoy, their fears, their motivations, and common objections you’re likely to run into during the sales process.

KPIs.

If you know the objectives you’re chasing, tie those to the appropriate key performance indicators. Digital marketing KPIs use analytics data and data software to accumulate a wide array of information, from views to bounces, time spent on a web page, likes, shares, engagement, and more.

Do you know what you don’t need?

You don’t want to spend time or money on anything you don’t need to in digital marketing. Agencies are so valuable for this reason. They oftentimes know where to spend what and how much, without sacrificing anything you don’t need to. Analyze the list of digital marketing channels – email, social media, SEO, PPC, landing pages, eCommerce page design, blogging and content marketing, press releases, events, direct marketing, coupons, and more. If there’s anything you don’t need, abandon it and save your money.

Your team.

If you are fortunate enough to have a team of employees or partners to rely on, ensure they acknowledge their responsibilities and have the resources required to do their job. Let’s say you have written the most amazing blog. If your team doesn’t know how to promote it in email, on social media, and on your website, it could come down to a complete waste. Survey every person’s experience and knowledge, and ensure they know what’s expected for them to do.

Are you ready to get going on your first digital marketing campaign? We’re so excited for you! Have any questions or you want the assistance of an agency? Don’t hesitate to give a representative a call at Unlimited Exposure today.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1025-are-you-creating-your-first-digital-marketing-campaign-%E2%80%93-here%E2%80%99s-all-the-working-parts.html