Every business relies on its marketing. Healthy, strong digital marketing produces leads, turns this into sales, recruits and retains customers, and builds a long-term brand. For small businesses with limited resources however, prioritizing how you spend your time and effort on marketing’s key. Here are 14 digital marketing essentials that are crucial to keeping you in the game.

14 Essentials in a Digital Marketing Campaign Crucial to Leads and Sales

Powerful content
Content should have impact. Don’t waste anyone’s time. Write blogs, pages, and social media posts that have value. Include photos, videos, graphics, or animations when/if appropriate. The more powerful the story is, the more likely you can move a prospect to become a follower or customer.
Influencer marketing
Influencers have built-in audiences ready to consume their content. Partnering with relevant influencers gets your brand’s name out there, instantly making new fans.
Data
Go to your sales agents, customer service agents, and customer service logs. See what’s making your audience happy and what’s made them disappointed, if anything. Use this info in a campaign that’s solutions-focused.
User-generated video
User-generated video marketing is a great way to tap into an existing fan base, giving them opportunity to participate in a contest while helping promote your brand through their channels.
SEO
Do not underestimate the power of showing up on Google’s first page for a search query relevant to your brand. Do your research and invest in a long-term SEO strategy. Your brand awareness literally will zing straight up.
Analytics
Every digital marketing campaign should have a way to assess whether it’s a success or failure. Measure ROI along the way. Identify metrics like response rates, click-throughs, website traffic, social media impressions, and more. Adjust your tactics accordingly, if you deem it necessary.
Consistency
In any messaging or brand representation, be consistent. Know who you are, what you do, and the goal. Present a professional image with logo, contact info, and other pertinent information. Consistency establishes authority and reliability.
Copywriting
Learn how to write excellent marketing messages, blogs, and website pages. If you can’t, hire copywriting professionals to do so. A powerfully worded, to-the-point blog can be much more effective at helping a brand than a generic digital advertisement.
Personalization
Personalize email marketing messages, social media messages, and any sort of customer communications according to where the customer is in their journey with you brand.
Multi-channel marketing
Take to social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and others. It must be easy for customers to find you. A multi-channel digital marketing campaign filters leads down through channels that all lead back to your bottom line.
Maximize audience reach
The more people who can see you, the more likely you will be to grab leads and sales. Once you know the audience you’re targeting, go to the platforms and take the opportunities to reach a majority.
PPC
Pay per click advertising on Google is not something we generally recommend as it doesn’t produce any sort of long-term bump in sales or momentum however if you need a jump to get started, PPC is a strong way to drive traffic.
Email campaigns
Marketing’s job is to sell – sell you on an idea, a brand, or a product. Curate an email subscriber list, using it on a regular basis to drive website visits and nurture leads who may not have been ready to buy on their first exposure to you.
High quality visuals
Photos and videos should be of the highest quality. No one wants pixelated images populating their website. Visuals draw the eye in. They create interest where there may not have been before. Get creative. Even on a limited budget, there are plenty of photos and visuals out there which may line up with your brand that you can purpose on your site, social media, and emails.
Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1067-14-essentials-in-a-digital-marketing-campaign-crucial-to-leads-and-sales.html

Video marketing trends show video only getting bigger, as Internet speeds get faster and consumers’ appetite for visual content continues to grow. The most important trends happening around video marketing seem pretty basic right now however they are worth knowing. In a decades’ time, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and others may be entirely video-centric. Here’s what’s going on around video currently.

12 Trends in Video Marketing that are Shifting Budgets, Creating Engagement, and Delivering Results!

Affordable

Video is cheaper and more affordable than most people think. On a smartphone, one can produce high quality video that can be edited down into something meaningful to share.

Video email

Within the next decade, it’s likely video responses to customer service inquiries may be sent via email as the next generation of personalized digital marketing. Testing has already shown us this makes the customer feel more valued and is a more effective method of communication.

VR

Virtual reality is just beginning to roll out on Facebook, providing users a chance to create 3D avatars via Oculus headsets. VR’s marketing potential for video marketing is high, offering photo-realistic user universes for things like product demos although admittedly we aren’t quite there yet.

Customer contact

Producing video is currently time-consuming and can be expensive. In time, video’s likely to become more common as a customer contact method. Can you imagine communicate by video rather than email or phone – this might be our future.

Facebook Watch

Facebook Watch is growing in a big way, creating another pathway to video marketing ads. This VOD service offers original content that may be a way for brands to advertise ahead of Hollywood-quality TV series and films. Alternatively, another method of connecting to followers with video on Facebook is to use its Live Video feature.

Short-form

Especially on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, short videos of 60-90 seconds have high engagement for businesses. Long-from video doesn’t produce the same results, although on YouTube it’s the exact opposite with longer videos of evergreen content having the most value.

Live video

Live video is still growing on social media, with Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram each having different features relating to it. Live video is more intimate, very engagement-friendly, and may provide a deeper connection to audience who can participate with live text reactions.

No more script

Although you may want to prepare some basic bullet points for a live stream, live video, or ephemeral video production, the videos that really resonate are those that come with no script. A lot of them, as you’ll find, are based on the interaction between creator and the audience member.

Influencer marketing

YouTube has really cornered the market on video influencer marketing however other social media platforms are building out their own communities slowly but surely. In a few years’ time, there may be much more of a battle between social media brands in terms of retaining key influencers and providing an upward trajectory for new vloggers.

Video testimonials

Video testimonials are powerful word-of-mouth recommendations for a brand that legitimizes them, gives them authority and awareness, and is a hit particularly among local-based digital marketing. This is because would-be customers are more likely to watch a video than read paragraphs of text.

More YouTube

More adults watch YouTube than primetime television daily. By 2021, 80 percent of Internet content will be video. If you aren’t already building on a YouTube account for your brand, you may want to start.

No more corporate videos

Highly polished corporate videos aren’t in anymore. Consumers want authentic, honest, transparent videos. Live video breaks down this sort of constructed professionalism and offers honesty that speaks directly to the audience.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1066-12-trends-in-video-marketing-that-are-shifting-budgets,-creating-engagement,-and-delivering-results.html

You need it and you need it bad. Without it, you won’t get far. You’ll be punishing yourself by failing to follow through with it. If there’s one thing you invest your time and money in this year in digital marketing, make it content marketing. Here’s why.

Why You Need Content Marketing If You Want Clicks, Sales, and a Following

More than 70 percent of consumers would rather learn about a company, brand, product, or service through an article rather than an ad. Content marketing is the act of writing and distributing high quality blogs and articles that support your website. Under the right guidance, content marketing can help drive leads, conversions, SEO rankings, social media followers, subscribers to an email campaign, and more. Companies who use blogs regularly receive on average 55% more visitors to their website and 97% more backlinks.

These numbers aren’t the only areas that content marketing breeds success. There are roughly 600 million devices out there with some form of ad blocking software installed. This means the advertisements you worked so hard to craft aren’t even being seen. With content marketing, you’re using articles to cut through this barrier to messaging. Articles aren’t ads and they aren’t sales. Articles in a campaign have some value to them that can keep on giving and giving for weeks, months, and sometimes even years.

Just because you’ve launched a content marketing campaign, let’s be clear in saying success isn’t guaranteed. Why content can fail is because it lacks the two necessities – a long-term commitment and high quality content. The commitment is because content isn’t going to up numbers overnight. It builds momentum over time. Thereby the payoff isn’t as instantaneous as other methods of advertising. Secondly, the content needs to be high quality, unique to your website, valuable to your customers, and be written well. Unfortunately, not every brand owner can deliver that.

So assuming you do all this right and launch a strong digital marketing campaign supporting it, what results will you see? For a more immediate pop in your numbers, the responsibility will fall on you to get the word out. If you have social media accounts set up, post the article link on these platforms. If you have an email marketing campaign ongoing, here’s another opportunity to advise your audience on what’s the latest on your website. Wherever is justified, an article link means more people will see it and get clicking.

Content isn’t going to immediately produce a spike in your analytics though. Therefore, it’s important to establish metrics to track. If you don’t know how to measure your success, how will you know whether content marketing’s working – you won’t. From big corporations to small businesses, content’s used every day to establish legitimacy, build connection, and foster growth. More brands need to see the value in content creation and publishing. Every day you don’t put effort in a digital marketing strategy based around content, you’re losing ground to your competitors.

Speak with the experts in content marketing, maximizing its reach via email and on social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, reddit, and elsewhere. Unlimited Exposure are here to help. Do content right and see more clicks, revenues, and follows! Increase your investment in content and in time, you could easily see it paid off ten-fold. The importance is not in just doing content, but doing it well. Do it up with Unlimited Exposure.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1065-why-you-need-content-marketing-if-you-want-clicks,-sales,-and-a-following.html

AI bots exist all over social media, helping brands spread their message through automated means. These bots have not only helped brands promote but they have also allowed for better customer service, improved brand-customer interactions, and less necessity for human intervention.

Should Bots be a Part of Your Social Media Marketing – Why the Answer Might Surprise You

Social media bots are still a controversial subject. Some see them as meaningless spam. Then, others couldn’t do without them. Bots are accounts that are automated and controlled by coding. Social media bots are essentially algorithms that use AI to automate responses, carry conversations, and build relationships. You make the code, set up the account, and let it run.

In social media marketing, bots are used to answer or send direct messaging, to help humans locate information online, like posts on your behalf, and/or can follow users on your behalf. They can be used to help grow audiences and have done so effectively in the past decade, on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and elsewhere.

The ultimate purpose of social media bots and AI isn’t to replace humans. It’s to support your brand’s growth by connecting customers with the answers to the questions faster and more efficiently. Social bots are used every day by organizations in health, finance, retail, travel, and entertainment. Some consumers don’t like bots. They find them annoying, meaningless, and are turned off by them. Regardless of what one may think about them, from a consumer or brand perspective, they’re already being used successfully to power several benefits.

The advantages of social media bots are that they can be programmed to act as customer service agents, they can answer simple questions, they can be used to deliver content, they can send personalized messages, they can send order notifications, they can help with real-time analytics, they can collect information from consumers, and social media bots can also help increase sales when done right. Although we call them ‘social media bots’, they can also be applied in email marketing and on your website.

Now let’s be clear in saying that things can go wrong with a bot. There are risks. If your bot is automatically following users or re-tweeting messages tagged, the bots don’t understand context and thereby, they could be promoting something you don’t want to promote. They can unknowingly promote something that doesn’t reflect your personal views or your brand’s positioning. This could mean damage to your credibility or reputation. They can also inflate follower counts on social media, skewing marketing data a bit.

There are companies using social media bots and AI for good. Vodafone has a question-answering social media bot ready to refer a user to a human operator if they have questions unanswered after an interaction. SnapTravel has an AI helping users find hotel deals based on budget, destination, and date. Lyft chatbots allow a user to request a ride from anywhere. There are so many other companies using artificial intelligence in digital marketing. Even at a basic level, they can provide significant value.

Join us in strengthening your brand on social media, email, and on your website. Contact Unlimited Exposure today. You don’t need to know how to code or how to do anything fancy. We’ll help set up everything, ensuring you receive customized AI support to make more sales, leads, conversions, and success, success, success!

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1064-should-bots-be-a-part-of-your-social-media-marketing-%E2%80%93-why-the-answer-might-surprise-you.html

It may seem counterintuitive to do so but brands who want to sell more would benefit from communicating the opposite in their messaging. Authoritative advertising isn’t how it’s done anymore. Consumers don’t want to be ‘sold to’. They want an interaction, to know the brand they’re supporting, and an experience. They want an identity that they connect with. Short-term sales pitches – wrong approach! Creating conversation is where to invest your time, money, and attention.

Say Bye to Short-Term Sales Pitches and Hello to Creating Conversation with Customers

A conversation between a brand and a consumer doesn’t focus on sales. It focuses on sharing information and education, having fun, and creating meaning. Consumers better understand a brand’s mission through two-way conversation. Social media marketing is built off conversation. Authentic, less sales oriented digital marketing can spur major sales for brands who do it right. Static advertising is boring and its purpose is transparent. It treats the customer like a number. Unfortunately, this only ends badly for the brand who chooses to go this way.

Think about what happens when you make a social media post on a product or service you’re selling. If all the message is is, ‘Please buy my product!’ there’s not a whole lot for a user to say. What about if you ask a question? When you leave it open-ended, this is one way to involve a consumer in a conversation. Alternatively, what if you posted a how-to blog post or an instructional video on how to use a certain product without ever directly selling it to the user watching – this could work.

Give your user a reason to leave a comment, to like, or to share. The best way to create engagement is to be engaging! Influencer marketing is one example of this. A person is clearly selling you a product yet because the presentation is so fun and engaging, the average user might not necessarily notice that it’s a direct marketing message. An influencer’s also providing value. They may open their message with a sponsorship but going beyond the ad, there’s meaning for the user to sink their teeth into.

A major conversation starter, as it turns out, is video. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are powerful platforms on which you can share video. Do you know what the most effective marketing video there is – one that tells a story. Storytelling does not emphasize a sale. It emphasizes communication. Tell a story about what how a product or service impacts a customer’s lifestyle. Tell a story about how your company came to be. Tell a customer’s story. Storytelling can be funny, informational, or emotional. Video marketing is a perfect medium for telling a story in this vein.

Short-term sales pitches live and die by what happens in that moment. They serve no long-term purpose. Bottom line is that it’s a weak strategy. As a brand or business owner, see yourself as a consumer first. What would motivate you to connect with your brand? If you’re not giving it already, start. If you focus on communication, sales will come. It’s a given. Brands who communicate with their audience best are unsurprisingly those which sell the most.

Contact the experts in digital marketing at Unlimited Exposure and see the success you deserve. In our experience, it’s communication-first marketing on social media, email, video, content marketing, and in website design that wins the day. The facts back this up. Connect with your audience today.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1063-say-bye-to-short-term-sales-pitches-and-hello-to-creating-conversation-with-customers.html

Do you want your content to go viral? There’s no sure formula that will guarantee a viral post. Daily, there’s more than 4 million hours of content uploaded to YouTube and almost 700 million tweets made on Twitter. That’s a lot of content trying to get attention. We live in an age where consumers experience an onslaught of content from the moment they wake. How do you cut through all this noise and actually get your content marketing viral – here’s your answer.

Make Your Content Viral with Share-Ready, Engaging Headlines, Text, and Video

There’s nothing more important than your headline, like it or not. A bad headline and no one’s going to click it. One estimate suggests 80 cents of your marketing dollar is spent after you’ve written the headline. Developing a clickable headline can take time to find. Let’s say you’ve written the greatest article of all-time. It won’t count for anything without a headline. Instead of writing your content first and then the headline, do the opposite. Writing to a headline, your content is more likely to be effective.

When in doubt, look to the people who are doing it best. Buzzfeed is probably best at getting content to go viral. They’re essentially a hub of viral content, pulling from stories from all over the Internet. The average Buzzfeed writer generates 25 headlines per article, slowly wittling this down to the right headline for the article. You don’t need to go this far with headline writing but the expectation is always going to be for a high-impact headline. Don’t be afraid to do some A/B testing in your digital marketing to find the right headline for you.

Another thing to consider in putting together viral content is in knowing the platform. Different social media sites prefer different headlines. Analyzing the most viral Facebook content marketing, you’ll find the most common phrases to come up in headlines are ‘Will make you’, ‘Can we guess’, and ‘This is why’. Comparatively, on LinkedIn looking at the most popular viral posts, you’ll find the most common phrases to be ‘The future of’, ‘X ways to’, and ‘Need to know’.

Another general rule to go by is that longer headlines tend to work well, particularly on social media marketing sites like Facebook and Instagram. User engagement tends to peak around fifteen words so this is where you want to aim your content for.

A major reason why content goes viral has to do with timeliness and tribalism. First off, a piece of content will be commenting on something newsworthy. These posts can help get you looks although they pose no long-term value. Content marketing that goes viral will also capitalize on tribalism. Social media users have ideologies and the platforms themselves can be very emotionally driven.

The last thing we want to mention is the importance of video. Video content marketing does particularly well on Facebook where the average video reaches 12% of total page audience compared to 7% on links and 4% on status updates. Ideal subject matter for a video is a how-to and a tips-based video, and the ideal length for a viral video is 60-90 seconds. It almost goes without saying but even on a video, the headline counts.

Write out some options. Look at what other viral posts are using. Mirror it in your content. Give yourself 5 headlines to use. Choose what you think will resonate the most. That’s the first step to going viral in content marketing.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1062-make-your-content-viral-with-share-ready,-engaging-headlines,-text,-and-video.html

Customers come to your online store, have a browse, and leave without buying. This is a part of the game. This is browsing. Customers in checkout, with products in their baskets and ready to buy, leaving in great numbers is a much bigger problem. Have you ever seen people drop their baskets in a store while they’re waiting in the line to be checked out and they just leave – it’s alarming to see and on an eCommerce site, it’s equally worrisome.

Is eCommerce Shopping Cart Abandonment a Problem – Here’s Your Solution!

According to estimates from 2017, up to 77% of shopping carts in eCommerce are abandoned before the customer pays. What this tells us is that eCommerce marketing is a lot better at cultivating leads and getting them to the website but may not necessarily product a sale. So we ask, how can you prevent shopping cart abandonment? Here’s a little bit more insight into why shoppers abandon carts and the dynamics of surviving in the eCommerce space.

Being realistic

No eCommerce site is going to achieve 100% conversions. It’s just not going to happen. So be realistic with what you can achieve conversion-wise. Do you want to know the average conversion rate for eCommerce sites – it’s a measly 2.9%. It’s not much but it also bears remembering this is an average. Some sites achieve much higher.

A lot of consumers will use your eCommerce site for research with no intention of buying. These users aren’t ever going to convert. So it’s important to understand what’s a healthy conversion rate and to realize shopping cart abandonment is a part of the online shopping website experience.

Top reasons people abandon carts

Consumers demand a lot from their eCommerce experience. The top reasons why shoppers abandon their carts has to do with not being ready to purchase the product, unexpected shipping and handling costs or shipping costs that are too expensive, the item is priced too expensive, or the user wants to compare prices with other sites.

When putting together eCommerce cart abandonment marketing, you can provide solutions early. Present the price of every product along with shipping and handling information. No surprises. Consider offering ‘free shipping’ to first-time shoppers to those who sign up to your subscriber list. Think about the ways you can break down or eat at the barriers preventing your shopping site from thriving.

eCommerce companies who do it right

Any time a consumer spends money online, that company makes for some version of an eCommerce site that you can pull inspiration from. Netflix is one example of a site with clear pricing, clear CTAs on every page until the sale is closed, and which doesn’t ask for any unnecessary information. Amazon, the world’s biggest eCommerce site, also presents similar simplicity.

Compare your site’s checkout process to theirs. How does it match? If checking out is overly complex for whatever reason, you may want to start making moves to simplify, simplify, and simplify some more. The easier it is to purchase your products or services, the easier it will be to convert.

High-performance, results-driven eCommerce marketing focused on conversion targets cart abandonment with ease. Don’t panic if you have cart abandonment issues. It can be fixed. Choose Unlimited Exposure today, speak with a representative, and let’s get you set up with the solutions you need to maximize the potential of your incoming leads!

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1061-is-ecommerce-shopping-cart-abandonment-a-problem-%E2%80%93-here%E2%80%99s-your-solution.html

Audio-visuals are videos, webinars, live streams, and similar forms of content. More marketers are tapping into audio-visuals because they’re finding this is the type of content consumers appreciate the most. It’s what gets the most engagement, attention, and love. Combine a high-impact audio-visual with images – a la GIFs, infographics, data visualizations, or photos – and you’ve got the perfect B2C digital marketing strategy ready to unload results!

Audio-Visuals are the Fastest Growing B2C Marketing Content There Is – Here’s Your Start

Out there, a lot of content’s competing for the same eyes. Quality stands out. High quality, customized audio-visuals can be a big hit with audiences. They don’t require anyone to read or make any effort other than to sit and watch. For this reason, YouTube continues to build as a platform, live streaming is growing in a big way, video streaming channels are expanding, and there’s no shortage of ways to connect to an audience through visual means.

Visuals are more important than ever, going so far as to even drive how some campaigns are delivered. Audio-visuals can help to define what a brand’s about, the tone and style of communication they can expect to receive, and contribute value that no blog or social media post can. If you haven’t begun with using images or videos in digital marketing, start. You’ll see the difference immediately in engagement and how the content’s consumed.

Don’t make audio-visuals more complicated than they need to be. Any visual content should have only one goal. Define what it is. Don’t target multiple goals. The messaging itself to the direction of the visual, it should all build towards a singular objective. When all these things are together in harmony, you’re all the more likely to accomplish what you set out to.

For example, let’s say you’re selling a product through a lighthearted, fun message. You’re not selling your brand, you’re not selling complimentary products – you’re not doing anything except selling this one product. The end-goal isn’t brand-building here. All you want to do is to make a sale. Your goal might be different from this but ultimately what is meant is that you should have something simple to aim for. From beginning to end, your messaging should be clear.

The next thing we want to mention about audio-visuals is that they need to appeal to your audience’s preferred method of communication. When you build your customer personas, recognize where they are. Are they on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter? Do they prefer images, videos, or infographics? What’s their preferred tone? You can’t speak to all audiences simultaneously. You’ve got to segment and chase after the audience you want. The world’s successful brands appeal to distinct audiences and they exploit that appeal.

No audio-visual is going to work across every channel. When you publish on an Instagram marketing campaign, it’s going to be different in form from YouTube marketing. The length, the tone, the focus, and more may need to be changed. The visual strategy you use may pull from the same place in terms of your branding being the same. The messaging in a nutshell may be identical. The way it’s presented however may need to be varied platform to platform, to maximize the potential out there for lead generation and conversion.

Tap into video marketing and more from the top digital marketing experts at Unlimited Exposure. We can help in elevating your brand to where it needs to be, connecting you to an engaged, active audience on social platforms.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1060-audio-visuals-are-the-fastest-growing-b2c-marketing-content-there-is-%E2%80%93-here%E2%80%99s-your-start.html

 Multicultural digital marketing isn’t discussed as nearly as often as it should. According a recent report, marketers are underspending on multicultural media in a big way. This has left a major opportunity open for brands willing to take this angle and chase this demographic.

A Beginner’s Guide to Multicultural Digital Marketing and Capitalizing on Rising Demographics

‘Multicultural’ consumers make up roughly 40 percent of Canada’s population. Spending on multicultural ads in North America last year totaled $25.9 billion. In that, $17.94 billion was for Hispanics, $7.2 billion aimed at black communities, and $722 million directed at Asian populations. Spending on these populations is set to continue to rise roughly 4.5% year over year in 2019 and 2020. These populations are not only growing but they’re underserved in many ways by contemporary marketing standards. Here’s what we mean.

Some brands are noticeably marketed towards a specific racial, ethnic, or cultural background. Many products and brands enjoy consumers of all backgrounds. There’s nothing wrong with this however some brands clearly benefit from marketing towards a specific culture. For example, Asian grocery stores exist from the Pacific to the Atlantic and in these stores, products are marketed directly to Asian populations. There are different music organizations and brands in sports which market specifically to those of an urban background. If/when there’s a chance to reach a specific cultural demographic, take it!

As with any digital marketing will tell you, you’ve got to go where the audience is. Multicultural digital marketing is spending predominantly on video ads directed at streaming services and television. There are also sports sponsorships, influencer marketing, and branded content marketing. Exploring culturally relevant media as opposed to general media, a brand runs an opportunity to resonate at an emotional level with audiences craving brands to connect with. Although one can gather these cultural demographics in general audiences, appealing directly to them is what will boast the best rewards.

Did you know multicultural audiences are using messaging apps, digital video, and streaming audio in larger numbers than the average population – it’s true. They’re connected to tech and media in a big way. To any brand that wants to reach them, the opportunity’s there. A great place to start may be through influencer marketing and/or partnering with other brands who already have a built-in audience. This way, you can activate your brand through emotional, intimate connections. If a consumer already trusts a brand and said brand recommends something, the consumer is more likely to trust this recommendation than the average ad.

Here are some more figures to keep in mind when building out your Internet marketing plan multicultural-style.

• 52% of Hispanic-Canadians spend at least an hour a day on social media and are 5 times more likely to share content compared to non-Hispanic whites.
• 90% of black Canadians live in a household with a smartphone, a full 6% more than the general population. They are also more likely to use said smartphones for social media, streaming, and audio-visuals.
• McDonald’s launched an ad campaign targeting African-Americans in March 2019, involving a new Instagram campaign under the account @wearegolden. More and more, expect large multi-national corporations to be coming forward with targeted campaigns like this both in the United States and in Canada.

Up your digital marketing game and capitalize on multicultural marketing trends with Unlimited Exposure! Contact a representative today to find out more information on how to work SEO, content marketing, email, social media, and more.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1059-a-beginner%E2%80%99s-guide-to-multicultural-digital-marketing-and-capitalizing-on-rising-demographics.html

Influencer marketing is a big digital marketing trend that brands and marketers like to hook to, exploiting it for what they think is going to be massive ROI. They’re not entirely wrong on the expectation of ROI as study after study demonstrates how powerful influencer marketing is. In a sense, it’s a combination of a celebrity endorsement with casual word-of-mouth marketing. It works.

What is Influencer Marketing Fraud and How it Cost Brands $1.3 Billion in 2019

Unfortunately, this has also brought about the rise of fake influencers who will take your money and offer nothing in return. In fact, more than $1.3 billion in 2019 will be lost by brands investing into fake influences. Needless to say, influencer marketing fraud is something that’s running rampant in the world of social media marketing. Here’s a little more about where these fake influencers are coming from, how to spot them, and what to do to ensure your money’s spent well.

How influencer marketing works

Influencer marketing is centered around the influencer. This is someone with a social media account and who is popular. They likely have a lot of followers, likes, shares, and are considered influential in their category of the market. These accounts are typically run by individuals. Sites such as Instagram and Twitter are swamped with influencers. You become an influencer once you begin accepting offers to promote other peoples’ products. So as a brand, if you jump to influencer marketing, you will pay a popular social account to post about your product or branding in order to show you to an audience you may not otherwise be able to access.

It’s easy to appear as an influencer

Though there are a lot of excellent influencer marketing opportunities out there, at a micro and macro level, there are still a lot of people who are hoping to appear as influencers. On sites like Instagram, you can buy followers and engagement. What this does is artificially inflate how popular an account is. Most people won’t be able to tell the difference. Thereby, they think they’re getting an influencer for their marketing dollars but what they’re actually getting is fake. This may become apparent when an influencer marketing campaign doesn’t generate any return.

How to spot fake influencers

Bots are rampant, as are fake followers. All accounts have them, regardless of whether they’re paid or not. It’s unavoidable. If an influencer pays for those bots or fake followers, that’s different. Red flags of fake influencers include if they have accumulated their followers very quickly, if certain posts have way more engagement than others, and if they have a lot of followers but comments and likes are hard to find. If you know what to look for, you can easily detect an influencer that’s not actually an influencer but it requires due diligence.

No guarantees

Just because your influencer marketing campaign doesn’t usher a return does not mean the influencer’s fake. Sometimes, brands pick the wrong influencer in the wrong category. Other times, a campaign simply doesn’t resonate with an audience. There are unfortunately no guarantees when it comes to digital marketing, social media, and working with influencers.

If you’re interested in pursuing influencer marketing, we recommend going with an agency experienced in how to maximize influencer exposure. Speak with digital marketing experts Unlimited Exposure today for more information on how an influencer may be able to help your brand reach new audiences, better leads, and more conversions.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1058-what-is-influencer-marketing-fraud-and-how-it-cost-brands-$1-3-billion-in-2019.html

Want success on social media? Have you not even created your first social account yet? Achieving success takes time. Everyone’s been in your shoes, staring down at social media sans account. Whether you’re a corporate brand or are promoting yourself, here’s how a Toronto social media marketing expert would build social media from unknown to full-on success.

See How an Expert Builds a Social Media Presence From Unknown to Mass Success

Create and keep updated your accounts

Create accounts on the platforms you want to focus on and ensure all information is accurate, updated, and filled in. This will help you establish credibility and transparency to anyone you communicate with.

Identify your expertise

Be open on your social media accounts about what type of products, services, or subjects specialized in. Let consumers know from the get go who you are and what kind of content they can expect from you.

Set up a social media posting app

If you are using multiple social media accounts and intend to post regularly, as you should, sign up for a posting app. This is a social media marketing necessity! There’s Buffer, Hootsuite, and several others that connect to social media networks, allow you to cross-post on different platforms, schedule posts, and more. It’ll save you lots of time.

Share content regularly

No one is going to look at your account unless a post resonates with them. Do not over-post but post regularly. For most brands, this will be 3-4 times a week. Carefully choose what you post. Acknowledge there will be days you won’t post anything and that’s ok. You don’t want to have your audience fatigued or annoyed at you for posting too much.

Curating engaging content

This is where social media meets content marketing. High quality content created by you is necessary to establishing an audience of social followers. Be unique, exciting, add engaging statistics or tidbits, include powerful images, and give them something they can’t find anywhere else.

Stay positive

To build the best impression of a brand, stay positive with your posts, comments, and customer interactions. Avoid anything religious, racial, political, or subjects which could be considered offensive to a part of your audience. The opinions you voice on a branded social account will forever be associated with your brand.

Engage with others

Don’t just post on your account. Respond to comments. Engage with others. Join communities focusing on specific topics of industries. Jump into appropriate discussions on brand-favored subjects. Don’t be afraid to be human and have real conversations, as long as it’s appropriate.

Consistent tone

In multi-channel digital marketing, a consistent tone across every platform is absolutely needed. Your voice, images, and tone should be defined and repeated. This will help control people’s perceptions of your brand, protecting you against damage or threats to your brand.

Connecting with influencers

A great way to instantaneously boost your social media reach and get that big success you’re chasing is to use influencers. Influencer marketing can get you clicks, followers, and brand recognition without you having to do much other than to spend money.

Creating a brand in social media isn’t easy but every successful brand on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and elsewhere have done it. Do you want social media brand awareness? Speak with a representative at Unlimited Exposure and we’ll connect you to the advanced strategies you need to get you from unknown to known in a matter of weeks.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1057-see-how-an-expert-builds-a-social-media-presence-from-unknown-to-mass-success.html

Email is an often overlooked marketing medium to communicate with customers and generate strong ROI. Despite the perception that email’s not as much a priority as social media or other marketing channels, email’s directly responsible for billions of dollars’ worth of sales every year. Crafting a successful campaign relies on boosting key metrics – open rate, click-through rate, conversion rates, and more.

Customize Your Email Marketing Message Using This Basic Email Skeleton

Push email subscriber sign-up

For email to work, you need subscribers. Provide a sign-up box on your website and encourage sign-ups whenever appropriate. After a customer’s signed up, send them a confirmation and provide some insight on how often they can expect marketing messages from you. By setting expectation, you ensure you maximize the chance of an open, click-through, and sale.

Choose a striking, simple image

Image attracts the eye. After your email has given their click, quality images can help to enrich the email. That said, be careful about how many you use. It oftentimes only takes one or two, unless you’re sending a larger eCommerce email with multiple products featured.

An unexpected subject line

Every email marketing message deserves a quality, not-boring subject line. This is what will determine open rate, more than anything. Be a bit ‘out there’ with it. Make your email feel less about promotions and product, and more about the customer.

Be purposeful and add value

You don’t want to send an email that doesn’t have a clearly defined purpose. The reader wants value. This can be done in a number of ways, such as emphasizing a new product or offering discounts. Or, alternatively, advertise a blog on your site that you know has received a decent amount of clicks or a piece of content that’s instructional or educational.

Identity what action you want them to take

If it’s not obvious what’s expected from them, a reader’s unlikely to click on anything. With your Call-to-Action, be direct. Your CTA should also be easily seen in the email marketing design. A cluttered visual design is only going to make this worse so choose what you put in wisely.

Look at your analytics

Study your analytics and see what people are engaging with most. The open rate is arguably most important but there’s a lot of data you can cull together from a campaign. You may discover certain days of the week or certain times of day are best to send an email. You want to find the sweet spot on what to send, when to send, and how to structure your visual design. For inexperienced brands, it can take sometimes months to figure this out.

This is your basic email skeleton. Now it’s what you do with it!

These are just the necessities to what we would call a successful email marketing campaign. Be creative with what you do with your email messages. Email can drive sales in a big way but you still face the challenge of cutting through the noise.

Ask yourself, if your email was sitting in an inbox with 50 messages unopened, would yours be the first one your subscriber clicks? If you’re unsure, you may need to re-think and come up with something better. A well-structured email marketing campaign delivers value and ROI. Need help? Speak with a representative at Unlimited Exposure today for more information.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1056-customize-your-email-marketing-message-using-this-basic-email-skeleton.html

Creating followers, fans, and buyers of a brand sits front and center with digital marketing campaigns. To arrive there, real and non-incentivized customer reviews can play a role. These testimonials, when used right, legitimize and promote your brand.

There are many brands out there relying on customer reviews – including retail, restaurants, and hospitality. In this era of eCommerce, online shopping, tech, and software companies are also relying on customer reviews to generate buyers. What business isn’t in the business of acquiring customers? Boost your brand reputation, get your momentum on the upswing, and spur your existing customer reviews to generate more revenues.

Customer Reviews via Digital Marketing May Be Your Ticket to Creating More Buyers For Your Brand!

The more useful reviews, the better

Even if they’re negative, the more reviews to your name the better. This is because review algorithms tend to rank according to volume. That means, the more reviews, the more likely your brand is to be seen. Solicit quality reviews from your customers. That is, from people who are actually using your product or services.

Improve the customer experience

When you receive a negative review, use it as an opportunity to see into what’s wrong about products, services, or customer service. If there’s an opportunity to improve on something, you can oftentimes find it in these reviews. Discover gaps in consumer education. Troubleshoot problems as they come up. Negative reviews don’t have to be a terrible thing.

Always respond to reviews

Whether it’s a negative or positive review, always respond and ensure the customer feels heard. When customers don’t see any responses to reviews, it signals to them that you’re ignoring feedback, don’t care enough to pay attention, and could communicate you’re hiding something. In any case, respond and if there is an issue, apologize and work to resolve it in a timely manner.

Identify and eliminate fake reviews

Fraudulent reviews can happen with both positive and negative comments. Flag them, remove them if you can do it yourself, and work to preserve your brand’s reputation online. Allowing fraudulent reviews to persist can have a huge ripple effect across your customer base.

Analyze the data

In digital marketing analytics, we find out a lot about a brand’s customers. Ask yourself, what are reviews saying? Focus on specific issues or comments. For example, maybe your customer service’s off the charts but your shipping sucks. If that’s the case, you know what to fix. These reviews contain so much data for you to work from.

Word-of-mouth marketing is alive!

This is word-of-mouth marketing in the new world of the Internet. Any time a review is left, this extends out and people see it. Any time your brand engages with a customer, encourage them to leave a review of a product, service, or to share you on social media. There are specific email marketing and social media marketing strategies that make an art out of asking for a review or share. Honest reviews from your client base give you a stamp of approval and adds a lot long-term into strengthening your brand’s presence in the marketplace.

Do you want to grow your brand bigger? Capitalize on customer reviews, feature them, encourage them, and use them. This engagement can organically grow your business, just like SEO, email, and social media. At the same time, you’re building relationships with users that will further establish connection and loyalty.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1055-customer-reviews-via-digital-marketing-may-be-your-ticket-to-creating-more-buyers-for-your-brand.html

Own your corner of the marketplace online. Take any advantage you can get. One of social media’s most underdeveloped digital marketing opportunities is live streaming. Facebook live streaming, Twitter’s Periscope app, and Instagram all have platforms. Simple, inexpensive, and engagement-friendly broadcasts can get you that edge over the competition you want.

A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Live Streaming

Live streaming isn’t going anywhere. It’s only going to grow in the years to come. Currently, over 20% of the videos posted to Facebook are live streamed. For brands looking to compete, digital strategies for live streaming is not limited to anyone. You can set up a page today and begin streaming, gaining potentially 1,000s of watches. The average live video on Facebook gets viewed for 3 seconds which doesn’t say a lot about quality of the video but what it does communicate is that there’s plenty of curious eyes and ears interested in having a look.

There are plenty of ideas for how to do a live stream on social media, ranging from doing a live tutorial or how-to video to doing a Q&A. The great thing about Facebook is you will also have a video stored there indefinitely long after the live stream is done, allowing followers who missed it see what you did. That could mean bigger numbers for your next live stream, if you promote it right. Plan your live stream around answering the questions, ‘Why do people follow us on social media?’ and ‘What value are they receiving from these live stream videos?’

Unlike what you’ll post on YouTube or other video sharing platforms, live stream isn’t a sit-and-watch. It’s real-time engagement. Anyone watching may send comments, likes, or share your video. Don’t hesitate to acknowledge them and anyone watching. Ask a question to users, encourage them to leave comments, and interact. Did you know Facebook Live videos will generate as much as 10 times the comments as non-live video? That’s a huge jump!

Creating live videos for social media marketing brand development, you don’t necessarily need to have a concrete plan for it as long as it’s engaging. User-sourced questions, responding to comments, and engaging is fun and doesn’t necessarily need a theme. If you have a growing audience, this is a nice way to interact with them and build some familiarity. You don’t want to create meaningful videos though. Have something of a purpose, be it a Q&A, an interview, webinar, store opening, product release, or something similar.

It also bears keeping in mind that live streaming alone isn’t going to win you enough ROI. It shouldn’t operate exclusive of other strategies. A multi-platform digital marketing plan should supplement with live video or incorporate it as one of several strategies. Do keep in mind the majority of people who will watch your video will do so within 24 hours of it airing. After that 24 hours has passed, take a look at your analytics report and see who watched it. This data can determine how to proceed with live streaming on Facebook and help you determine whether you’re getting enough return.

Talk to a social media marketing expert today and get connected with a long-term digital marketing plan. Live streaming is only one part of that. Facebook Live is a huge marketing opportunity! If it suits your brand, hit it up and see those numbers come in.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1054-a-beginner%E2%80%99s-guide-to-facebook-live-streaming.html

Are you using these 11 web design trends? They may not all be application to every website however in the balancing act of aesthetics and functionality, any website can learn a thing or two from what’s trending in the design landscape toady. Increase user engagement and conversion rate, and most importantly, inspire action from your prospects!

11 Top Web Design Trends to Duplicate in Your Website to Revitalize Your Look

Irregular grids

Grids in web design have long been popular, giving pages a theme and making navigation easy. These days, traditional grids have gone more neutral and irregular, using white space to make content pop and using less text than ever.

Prioritizing mobile

Now that the majority of website traffic worldwide is from mobile devices like smartphones and with Google Search establishing a mobile-first index, mobile responsiveness and the implementation of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is needed to reach the most users possible.

Micro-interactions

Micro-interactions on social media is anything liking, offering animated hearts, and other similar ‘reactions’ as opposed to ‘comments’. Micro-interactions’ appearance in web design helps legitimize eCommerce products, pages, and brands. In eCommerce marketing, they’re becoming ever more important.

Triggered animation

Scrolled animation triggers create excitement, interaction, and engagement. Animation triggers that are simple, educational, or minimalist are best. Be sure not to over-use these. The more interaction in a website’s design between site and user, the better.

Bold fonts with bright colors

Bold fonts help a user focus in on what they’re reading and makes skimming easy. Bright colors also guides the eye along. Creating clear linear lines on a page can help content be seen and CTAs pop. Large typography is in!

Responsive design

This isn’t necessarily mobile-based. A responsive design ensures your website’s ready to be seen wherever – mobile, tablets, TV, wearables, desktops, small windows, large windows, etc. A website’s that not already responsive is at a disadvantage. Responsive design’s already used successfully in various email marketing designs and elsewhere.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

AI and machine learning are rising in popularity although a lot of these apps and software are struggling to gain mainstream attention. Even so, AI-based web design has been on the market since 2014 and as the algorithms continue to advance, expect web design to under some interesting changes in the decade to come.

Scalable vector graphics (SVGs)

Say goodbye to PNGs, GIFs, and JPGs. In a few years, it’s going to be all about SVGs and unpixelated vector images. Scalable without losing any quality, SVGs don’t affect page speed when animated and can play a big role in having a multimedia experience in web design.

Top v. bottom sticky elements

Note how users read up to down on smartphones rather than left to right on a desktop. Sticky menu items are moving to the bottom of the site as opposed to the top of the site, for this very reason. In website design, navigational menus are being seen increasingly bottom-based.

IoT connectivity

Connecting to the Internet of Things is on an upwards trend. Everything from our refrigerators to wind turbines are being hooked up. APIs allowing web design to connect to these devices are here although it is unclear how far this trend may get in the years to come. Regardless, if your brand’s interested on maximizing the interconnectivity of consumer-surrounding elements, web design’s one way to potentially get there.

Apps

Web design is incorporate apps into its design at an increasing pace. Things like animated transitions, push notifications, and splash screens provide convenience at a click. For brands who want to build a long-term relationship with their users, this is a way you can tighten that.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1053-11-top-web-design-trends-to-duplicate-in-your-website-to-revitalize-your-look.html

As a creative, why do you even need to market yourself? Can’t an artist just exist? Well, no. If you’re serious about actually surviving on your art, you got to get the word out. There’s a lot of marketing lessons learned by artists, musicians, and creative types of all kinds that are worth repeating.

8 Lessons Learned in Digital Marketing by Creatives, Artists, and Musicians

Be real

If you’re promoting your brand personally and/or if your brand is partly centered around your personality, be real. Use your real name, get out there front and center, and don’t be afraid to show a little of yourself. People don’t connect with brands, they connect with people.

Be authentic

The #1 rule for a creative professional is to be authentic. We’re all unique people. If you think you’ve a voice, use it. In a world where there’s so much artifice, no-filter authenticity stands out. There’s a saying, ‘Be hated or loved, but don’t be boring.’ This sort of applies here. Boring is the death of any brand.

Find your following

Not everybody’s going to like you, sorry to say. Just because you care about your brand doesn’t mean that passion’s going to bring everyone to you. That said, if you’re passionate about your work, you’ll find an audience – even if it’s a small one. The goal in social media marketing isn’t always to boost your numbers to the highest they’ll go but it’s sometimes to get your brand acknowledged and known by the smallest, most important audience you’ll have.

Always provide value

The more value you give to your customers, the more attention you’ll receive. Blogs, videos, interacting on social media, and more. Put out different forms of high-value content so that consumers in your neck of the woods begin to trust you. If you’re an artist, this means being productive and engaging with the people who are following you.

Price is value

The way you price your product, services, or brand communicates a lot to consumers. A high price, for example, indicates a higher quality and more luxurious item. You may choose to offer lower pricing temporarily to build trust in the marketplace, or offer a permanently low price to advertise yourself as ‘affordable’. Regardless, know that where you price your brand is going to say something.

You are your platform

If you don’t believe and promote yourself, no one else will. Don’t be dependent on any one platform like Instagram. What happens if Instagram disappears or falls out of favor? These sites aren’t to be ignored but this is to say simply the only thing you can count on to hang around is your website. Use it as your hub. Promote on social media, all the while connecting and directing people to your site where you know you have the most control.

Word-of-mouth

Word-of-mouth means your customer’s so into you that they are willing to tell their friends about you. You can subtly encourage word-of-mouth marketing by offering contests or incentives to those who share your brand on social media, email, or who recommend someone to you.

Invest in email marketing

Email’s a direct line of communication. It pops up on a person’s computer, tablet, and smartphone. It’s personal and meaningful. If you haven’t already, start an email marketing subscriber list. Even if your website goes offline for whatever reason or something happens with your social media, you have a way to connect.

These are just some of the ways creatives, artists, and musicians have struggled with digital marketing. You are your own salesperson. Sell, sell, and sell some more. If you don’t care and aren’t passionate, don’t expect others to flock to you.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1052-8-lessons-learned-in-digital-marketing-by-creatives,-artists,-and-musicians.html