EIC Social Media Team
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Posts by EIC Social Media Team
5 Secrets to Gaining Trust in Marketing
Sep 21
Gaining trust in marketing is a great step in keeping clients close.
A marketing agency needs to have the trust of brands they work with. That’s tough to do in the modern business world where companies are used to everyone being out for themselves. So how can you make sure that the brands you deal with day in and day out know you are in their corner? Here are 5 secrets to gaining trust in marketing.
Be a Brand Advocate
Do you want to convince a brand that you are behind them 100%? Be a brand advocate. Take every opportunity to praise the partnership, and show that you really understand and believe in the values and mission of the companies you support.
Put the Team First
Rather than making an effort to prove to the brands you work with that you are a marketing genius, bring your team and theirs together, and show that you are happy to share the limelight. When a brand knows that you’re not out for personal glory, that makes trust come easier.
Be Willing to Make Sacrifices
Do you want to prove to the client that you are putting their company first? Sometimes it means doing what is best for your client, even ahead of your own interests. While such an action may not be advantageous to you in the short term, the long-term benefits of proving your loyalty are worth it.
Honesty — The Best Policy to Gaining Trust in Marketing
Always be upfront and honest with the client. If at the end of the day, you have followed through on your promises, you are now in a very small group of people who actually live up to their word. People want to work with companies that deliver and are always reliable.
Help Clients Stay Ahead
You probably see most brands spending their time putting out fires. In part, this comes from a lack of communication. Help your clients stay ahead of issues by communicating well. If you think a factor hasn’t been considered, present the idea before just agreeing to do things the way the client asks, getting paid, and then telling them later that there was a better way.
When an agency follows these 5 steps, clients know where they stand, and gaining trust in marketing leads to long-term business relationships.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on September 21, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Marketing Strategies. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Know the Value of Your Email Subscribers
Sep 14
Learn the value of your email subscribers and how to create the best email content.
In the marketing world, everything comes with a cost, and that includes your email subscribers. It’s easy to dismiss the costs of getting someone to opt-in to receive emails because the cost is usually already paid or covered by someone else.
At the same time, we always want to get a good return on the investments we make. If you don’t know what a subscriber costs you, and you don’t understand the lifetime value of that subscriber, then how do you know if your subscriber efforts are worth it?
How Are Your Email Subscribers Acquired?
There’s another important factor that goes into the equation to determine whether or not your email subscription efforts are panning out. You have to break email subscribers down into categories by how they were acquired. After all, you may find great success getting high-value subscribers on your website—even though there may be a higher cost involved—whereas asking someone for an email address when they make an in-store purchase really costs you very little, but it may also provide customers that are of little value, and who like to only shop in-store anyway.
Therefore, it is important to determine the value of subscribers from each point where you meet them and ask them to opt-in. Then you may determine to focus your efforts on methods that produce more valuable subscribers, even if those methods are slightly more costly. After all, what is 20% extra in costs for customers that have double the value?
Increasing Value Through Email Content
Then, of course, you need to make sure the emails themselves increase the value of the subscribers. Personalized content, emails with links to video content (which have a higher CTR and conversion rate), and properly timed and carefully crafted email campaigns, can all help to boost individual consumer value. If the quality of your email campaigns are not what they should be, then the value of your email subscribers are decreased, and it doesn’t matter how you found them.
In the end, marketing still as to be about creating value, finding where that profitability is, and focusing efforts on improving what is working.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on September 14, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Digital Advertising. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Site Search Is Vital to E-Commerce Success
Sep 7
E-commerce success is dependent on the capabilities of your site search.
If you are operating an e-commerce site, you know how competitive the industry is. One thing that is vital to every one of those sites is an on-site search feature. This allows customers to search for exactly what they want without having to browse. Some customers may even leave if they can’t quickly search for and find a product. Here are a few more reasons that the function of your on-site search is so important to e-commerce success.
E-Commerce Success Tip #1: Intent to Buy
Many people wander onto e-commerce sites simply to window shop. However, when a person uses an on-site search, it is a signal that he or she is ready to purchase a specific product. In fact, research points to 50% better conversion rates when a guest on an e-commerce site uses the search bar.
E-Commerce Success Tip #2: People Like Simplicity
The fact is that if it is too tough to find the right product on your site, a consumer has plenty of other easy shopping solutions available. Because of this, you need to be sure that your search is accurate and provides enough options for the consumer to find what he or she wants the first time. Of course, you can’t make the search so complicated no one wants to use it in the first place. Thus a balance must be found.
E-Commerce Success Tip #3:Search Results Options
You may set your search to provide the best match or most popular selections, but you should give your guest more options. What if this particular consumer is on a bargain hunt? You need to allow for the results to be sorted by price. What if the consumer wants only the latest and best products? It may be a good idea to allow for sorting by the date the item became available or by the ratings of other customers.
In the end, your search results need to help a consumer to quickly find the desired product. It needs to be an intuitive process so that even a first-time guest can search effectively. And you want to be sure that there are always results, even if the consumer searches for a very specific product that you don’t sell. Be sure to provide alternatives. Search results can make or break a sale.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on September 7, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Digital Advertising. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Content Personalization Is Customer-Specific
Aug 31
Great content personalization is customer-specific.
Content personalization is a vital part of digital marketing. Consumers expect it to one degree or another. However, what your particular customers want from personalization could be very different from consumers looking for something in another industry. That means you need to understand the right way to provide content personalization for your audience.
Going by Demographics
Demographics are probably the most common way to personalize content, even though it may not be the most effective. Basically, we take a group, let’s say Millennials, and then make generalizations like, “They are always on their phones.” So the way we personalize content for this group is to market to them on mobile devices. Remember that recent surveys show nearly three-quarters of people who shop online get upset when they are suggested products that are not actually relevant. So be careful about overgeneralizing because it leads to alienating at least part of your audience.
Email Marketing Needs Content Personalization
What is the difference between spam email and an email marketing campaign that puts the individual customer’s name in the subject line and first sentence of every email? Nothing — at least not in the consumer’s mind. Email marketing is great, but it has to contain real personalization, like recommendations based on search history, previous purchases, item left in the cart, etc. Research shows a 41 percent increase in CTR for personalized emails.
Behavioral Advertising
This is where you really get down to genuine personalization. When you observe what a user is looking at on your site, what results in an interaction, what sales have been made, what has been saved for later, then you get a real idea of what that one consumer in particular likes. Take a page from Amazon’s playbook. You shop for a product. They suggest two more that go with it. You make a purchase. You get a list of suggestions for next time. You add something to the cart, but don’t buy it. You get an email when it goes on sale, and the email also contains some other suggestions in case that wasn’t exactly what you were looking for.
Content Personalization in digital marketing needs to actually live up to its name, and be more personal, rather than the generalizations of using demographics.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on August 31, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Digital Advertising. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
A 4-Step Mobile Approach
Aug 24
If you want to stay a step ahead of the competition, then you need to take a mobile approach to your next marketing campaign.
At this point, the fact that the world is mobile-driven is difficult to deny. Mobile-ad spending increases exponentially from year to year, and with valid reason. Projections for the next four years have mobile e-commerce spending at 45% of the market. Is it too late if your brand doesn’t already focus on a mobile approach? Not if you follow these 4 steps.
Entering the Mobile Channel
The first thing to take a look at when getting into mobile is optimization. Is your website optimized for mobile? Are your ads optimized for display on devices, screen sizes, and resolutions of all kinds? This will allow you to focus on things such as media buying in the proper place. You can’t get into mobile and not be optimized for it.
Mobile Targeting
Now it is time to find out what your target audience is doing on mobile so that you can put your ads in the right places. That could mean social media, specific apps, or even SMS marketing. Do you know the mobile behavior of your consumers?
Mobile Approach to Targeting Locally
Mobile searches are very often focused on the location of the person performing the search. That means marketing for mobile users is often about catching them in the right place. Targeting your ads to localized areas is a great way to reach the primary mobile audience. Contacting consumers at the right time and the right place is the recipe for conversion.
Leverage the Data
One of the best features about mobile campaigns is the ability to see measurable results. Use those results to your advantage. Focus on the types of campaigns that are working for you. Reexamine campaigns that are not performing as expected in order to discover what went wrong.
If your business is not already taking the mobile approach to advertising, you’re behind. However, that doesn’t mean you should sprint in without knowing what you are doing. That’s the equivalent of throwing away your precious ad dollars. Following the steps above can help you ease into the world of mobile advertising in a way that gives your campaigns value from day one.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on August 24, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Mobile Marketing. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Competitive Intelligence — Where to Find the Right Data
Aug 17
Gather the right competitive intelligence in order to achieve marketing success.
Football teams spend all week reviewing the tapes from an opponent’s recent games to find weaknesses and look for ways to win. You need to be that competitive to survive in the modern business world. Of course, businesses don’t release videos of their most-recent brainstorming session, and corporate espionage is just wrong, so what are you to do? Here are a few ways to gather the right competitive intelligence.
Competitive Intelligence Tip #1: Check the Analytics
Some information about your competitors is public knowledge. Other information might be a little more difficult to get ahold of, and businesses try to keep analytics on that list. However, if you get to look at some of the numbers, important things to look at include:
- Keyword Success
- Conversion Rates
- Success of Individual Product Lines
Competitive Intelligence Tip #2: Look for New Products
You can’t stay ahead of a competitor without knowing what their latest offering is. As new products are released, keep yourself up to date and see what you can do to one-up the competition. Sometimes it is all about adding a new feature or two that a competitor doesn’t have as the reason for releasing a product a little later.
Competitive Intelligence Tip #3: Watch Promotions
It is as easy as joining a free mailing list. Now you have access to every sale or promotion a competitor runs. Run better sales at the same time, similar sales when your opponent is between sales, or try to anticipate the next promotion based on recent history—and then get ahead of the game.
Competitive Intelligence Tip #4: Watch the News
You can set a Google alert for any news on your main competitors. If anything negative happens that you can capitalize on, you will be ready to do so at a moment’s notice. If a competitor does something game changing, you can react immediately, even if that means heading back to the drawing board.
The fact is that your competition is probably seeking intelligence on your company. If you are not playing the game as well, you are far more likely to lose. Hopefully, you now have what you need to get some competitive intelligence started up if this was not already something you do.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on August 17, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Dating Mining, Internet Research. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Turning SEO into Conversions, Not Traffic
Aug 10
Start increasing sales by focusing your SEO on conversions instead of just traffic.
When you check your site rankings, they are the best they have ever been. Your traffic is showing it as well with your pages getting the most hits they have ever received. There’s just one problem. You’re not selling any more than you were before. What’s wrong? This is what happens when SEO tactics are focused on traffic instead of conversions.
The Mistake Marketers Often Make
The problem is that we often see traffic as the goal of SEO, and forget that traffic has value only when site visitors take action. Could part of the problem be content? Sure. But if the site content was already performing okay, and increased traffic doesn’t lead to more conversions, then the quality of the traffic is most likely the issue. So how do you focus your SEO efforts on the right kind of traffic?
Keyword Selection Is the Key to SEO Conversions
One of the reasons marketers may fail to convert with SEO efforts is that they are targeting short-tail and highly competitive keywords. These may be keywords that are very relevant to the industry, but are still very vague. For example, a window cleaning company may focus on keywords like “window cleaner” or “window cleaning.” But every window cleaning service in the country is fighting over those keywords. Winning that battle may not even gain you a customer. What if you wash windows in Saint Louis, but the search engine user lives in LA? That’s not going to result in a conversion.
This is where long-tail keywords come into play. If that same company uses the keywords “window cleaning service in Saint Louis” or “Saint Louis window cleaners,” now the traffic is not only less competitive, but also is targeted toward people in the right area for a sale.
Making the Change from Short- to Long-Tail Keywords
As you can see, your short-tail keywords become the basis for the long-tail ones. Think of those general and competitive terms as the main heading. You’re going to target the subheadings. You’re still on the same topic but getting more specific. Don’t forget to add things like location if you provide a location-based service.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on August 10, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under SEO. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Target Your Current Customers by Upselling
Aug 3
Upselling your products and services digitally to existing customers can vastly improve your business.
If there is one target audience that doesn’t get marketed to enough, it’s the existing customer. After all, he already likes your product or service enough to have made a purchase. Why is this person not at the top of the list for future digital campaigns? Sometimes it’s just because we need to be pointed in the right direction. Here are a few tips for upselling digitally.
Upselling Complimentary Items to Regular Customers
A good place to see this tactic in action is at a bar. The bartender may put a glass upside down in front of a customer to let him know he has a free drink coming. This may keep someone in the bar longer, and also result in more paid drinks. How can you do this with your business? Start a rewards program. For example, a restaurant may offer a free entrée for every X number of visits. A salon may offer a free haircut after a particular amount spent. A clothing store may offer a coupon with a discount percent based on the total purchases made in a three-month period. There are all sorts of ways to upsell to a customer simply by saying, “We’re going to give a little back.”
Recommended Relevant Products
This is an aspect of upselling where Amazon puts almost every other company on the planet to shame, and look at what it has done for the online superstore — and the idea is simple. Every time a consumer makes a purchase, adds something to the cart, performs a search, or looks at a product, you gain valuable data on what the person wants or needs right now (or perhaps in the near future). Then it becomes all about leveraging that data to recommend other products a customer may want, and especially to market new products that could be relevant to a customer’s interests.
Create Value for the Consumer
Obviously, the point of upselling is to make more money, but what if you could also leave the consumer happier? That’s a win-win. Be sure to offer products that will enhance other things a customer purchased. If someone buys a TV, offer an HDMI cable, a Blu-Ray player, or a high-end universal remote. If the consumer buys the remote, suggest some batteries.
By upselling to your customers, you make more money and provide good service at the same time—a recipe for marketing success.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on August 3, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Online Sales, Sales. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Social Platform Ad Updates You Need to Know About
Jul 27
Social media ad updates can change the way you market your products or services.
Social media is constantly becoming more business-friendly. Social advertising efforts seem to be springing up from just about every service. Here are some of the most recent ad updates from some of the most popular platforms so you can make sure that you haven’t missed a new offering that is critical to your brand.
Facebook Ad Updates
Facebook is constantly adding updates and staying in the forefront of social advertising, so we can’t address every update in this article, but these are a few important ones. First of all, Facebook’s lead generation suite has added video. Video is also now a part of the Atlas platform, and the Your Business Story tool that lets you share the tale of how your brand came to be. In short, Facebook loves video.
Instagram’s New Offerings
Owned by Facebook, Instagram is never far behind in the social advertising revolution. Some upcoming features for Instagram will include business profiles, more analytics for a brand’s posts (without having to pay for a sponsored post), and mobile access to Instagram ad purchases.
Twitter’s Efforts to Keep Up
Twitter may be struggling, but it’s still a huge player in social media. Maybe some of these updates will help the giant to recover a little. The first big change is an update to the news feed algorithm. Twitter is also trying to team up with Google. They even plan to offer some better services, like direct-response ads and improved metrics.
Other Social Platforms
LinkedIn continues to set precedents in B2B marketing. Sponsored ads are the method of choice, along with sponsoring posts from company pages.
Pinterest is making it easier to target the right audience by increasing the number of interests and keywords that an ad can target.
Finally, Snapchat—which technically isn’t social media as much as it is instant messaging—has teamed up with Nielsen to improve both sponsored ads and how audiences are measured. This may add some legitimacy to their ad services, as currently Snapchat is not considered a long-term marketing solution by most companies.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 27, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Social Media. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
E-Commerce — How to Personalize User Experience
Jul 20
Personalizing the user experience of your e-commerce site can help increase your sales.
It is easy for everyone to agree that the number one player in e-commerce is Amazon. They figured it out and ran with it. They developed the concept of an online store that literally sells just about everything. And yet they don’t make that concept seem too overwhelming, even for a customer who wants to buy only some Styrofoam cups and a package of stirrers for the break room at the office.
What is Amazon’s secret? Personalization that leads to solid product recommendations.
So how can your e-commerce site follow suit? Here are 3 simple rules about personalization for an e-commerce site.
1) Know Your E-Commerce Platforms
Plenty of technology is available today for online stores when it comes to personalizing your site for consumers. Getting to know the different management platforms can help you see which ones provide the specific user experience that you want customers to have on your site. The key is to be willing to invest the time to go over each platform and its features so that you make the right selection the first time.
2) Know Your Customers
Don’t forget that the client who prefers your site to a giant like Amazon does so for a reason. So you don’t need to provide the exact same experience that Amazon does. Instead, with your specific industry in mind, focus on providing a better experience than your direct competitors—since most online stores do not have the diverse product list of a site like Amazon.
3) Know Your Boundaries
There’s a fine line between recommending a good product to go along with what is already in a person’s shopping cart, and sounding like a drive-thru employee asking everyone, “Would you like fries with that?” Making recommendations should feel like a natural part of the shopping and checkout process. However, it is possible to go too far and infringe on a consumer’s privacy. For example, some expectant mothers were surprised to get maternity coupons from Target due to a campaign that was based on the shopping behavior of customers. Keep suggestions helpful without scaring off consumers.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 20, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Online Personalization. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
