Digital marketing is constantly evolving because there is this undying need to enhance the return on investment. The more information a firm can supply a customer with minimal investment the more ongoing business the customer will do with that firm. In the early days of personalization, data was used to group people together based on their personal preferences. But that process still required a certain amount of generalization and guessing on the part of digital marketing professionals.

In recent months, personalization has evolved into the much more efficient individualization. This means that instead of dealing with trying to group a target audience into segments, you are dealing with individuals. Not only has this idea proven to be much easier than personalization, it has also proven to significantly increase ROI.

Instant Results

With personalization, a marketing professional had to wait and see how a group would react to certain content and then speculate on how similar people would react to that same content in different situations. With individualization, the content is delivered to an individual and their response is immediately recorded. There is no guessing and there is no waiting for results. Marketers know right away whether or not a subject likes the content they are reading and how effective the call to action really is.

Wide-Reaching Promotions Are A Thing Of The Past

Before individualization, marketing experts would create promotions that would try to attract certain types of consumers. The problem is that those promotional campaigns were put out to a broad audience to try and appeal to certain parts of the target crowd. With individualization, the marketer already knows what the individual wants and can create promotions that will be much more effective and a lot less costly to the client.

Redefining The Shopping Experience

Big data makes it possible to collect valuable information on millions of individuals. With that information, marketers can provide each consumer with a customized shopping experience that will entice the consumer to come back to the retail website and buy more products. By focusing on the individual, marketers can offer much more pertinent information to consumers that gives consumers the options they want without all of the unnecessary extra data.

Cross-Platform Marketing Becomes More Efficient

Marketing professionals know that consumers buy from many different computing platforms, but there was never an effort to focus on a uniform experience across platforms for the individual. With individualization, consumers get customized experiences across all computing platforms that contain information that the consumer wants without forcing the consumer to wade through irrelevant information.

The advent of big data makes it possible for digital marketing professionals to focus their efforts on appealing to individuals instead of market segments. This significantly increases the return on investment for the client, and it makes it possible for digital marketers to put each individual consumer in a world of their own where they see only the products and information that interests them.

The online retail world has become a battleground with everyone lining up against Amazon. Over the past few years, the Amazon business model has proven to be so successful that Amazon is now one of the largest retailers in the world. As Amazon continues to gobble up market share, it is having a significant effect on other online retailers and the way they market their businesses.

Innovation Is Essential

Prior to Amazon, all a retailer had to do was put up their website and they would usually attract some sort of start-up audience. But since Amazon has become dominant, it has become increasingly difficult for other online retailers to attract business.

Amazon is forcing other retailers to innovate the way they do business and the way they look for new customers if they want to combat Amazon. The fact that Amazon is also a collective of small online retailers makes it even more important that small businesses find new ways to attract business or they will not be around for very long.

Niche Advertising Is Important

Any small online retailer can pretty much assume that their general "we sell products" marketing message is going to get lost among the loud Amazon chatter. Because Amazon is so dominant in the general retail marketing world, it becomes more important for smaller retailers to find a niche they can exploit. While Amazon also does niche marketing, it usually leaves that up to its affiliate retailers. If you have a strong niche marketing message, then you can be heard through the Amazon din.

Customer Service Is Key

Any online retailer who does not post a customer service phone number or who does not respond immediately to customer service emails will not survive in the world of Amazon. Early in its existence, Amazon made a point of developing a reputation for excellent customer service. As the company has gotten bigger, that customer service quality has dropped. But it is still at a point where any online retailer who is not offering the Amazon basics of customer service is going to have a hard time surviving.

Bigger Is Better

If you are an online retailer trying to stand on your own against Amazon, then you need to at least appear to have a massive operation. You need to show customers that you have shipping and warehousing options that will decrease the possibility of running out of product. How can a small business do that? By teaming up with wholesalers who have multiple shipping locations.

When an online retailer teams up with a blind dropshipper, the retailer can put that dropshipper's locations on its marketing as though they were the retailer's locations. Amazon has convinced consumers that only large retailers can provide the highest level of service, and small businesses need to find ways to increase their appearance or be bowled over by Amazon.

There has always been competition in business, and the competition Amazon offers is no different. As a global retail power, Amazon can make life miserable for its smaller competitors. But any online retailer who understands how to survive in an Amazon world can put together an offering that will attract customers and generate revenue.

Interestingly, blogging started out as a way for individuals to share their experiences or opinions on a topic with their friends online and the greater public. Today, however, businesses have realized the usefulness of blogs to bring in customers and enhance their online presence. Blogs can serve multiple purposes from a marketing perspective, all of which point to its advantages for any business.

Blogging for SEO

The real reason so many businesses, big and small, blog is because they want to enhance their online presence in order to distinguish themselves from competitors that are also vying for customers. When a consumer searches for a business in your industry, naturally you want to be one of the top few results, and more importantly, you want your business to appear above your competitors. Very few consumers are browsing through page after page on a search engine’s results. Appearing on the first page, and preferably at the top of that first page, is crucial. The field of SEO, or search engine optimization, is dedicated to making a certain result appear at the top of a page of search results.

Today’s technology allows search engines to use advanced formulas to calculate how often your site is updated with new content as well as evaluate the quality and the source of the content you post. Constantly updating a site is difficult outside the context of blogging, making blogging a valuable SEO tool. Unique high-quality content via the form of blog posts added to your site on a regular basis will help your site’s SEO.

You’re the Expert

A blog allows you to demonstrate your company’s expertise of your particular industry or line of work. It provides a measure of legitimacy for your site in that a consumer will see your blog and not only gather more information than what could possibly fit onto your site but also gain an understanding of your professionalism and commitment to your field via your writing style and article topics.

Blogs also provide a unique opportunity for you to offer tips and advice to your consumers, depending on your business, that will humanize your company and create a more and helpful personable front. Providing free tidbits of information will generate goodwill towards your company as well as demonstrate your knowledge, which in turn presents a convincing reason for an individual to become a customer.

Staying Up To Date

A blog demonstrates to your audience that you are committed to staying up to date on the latest developments in your industry and implies that your business is using the most current technology or methods. It portrays your business as thriving as it has the resources to update a blog on the regular. It shows that your business is active and implies responsiveness if a consumer were to reach out and contact you.

Your website is one of your most powerful marketing tools, but it can only be maximized when you understand how to use it properly. Here is a page of tips you can use to turn your website into a qualified lead-generating machine.

Remember Your Phone Number

Not only is it hard for prospective customers to contact you when you do not put your phone number on your website, it also makes your company look suspicious. By simply including your contact phone number in a prominent spot on your website (usually in the header of each page) you can add legitimacy to your company and get your phones ringing.

Include Plenty of Contact Forms

Each page of your website should have some kind of contact form that your customers and prospects can use to get on your marketing email list. Whether you are asking people to sign up for a newsletter or requiring their email to get online support, be sure to include a form on every page and include a check box to allow people to opt-in to your marketing emails as well.

Publish Testimonials

When a customer tells you that they are extremely happy with your product or service, ask that customer for a one-sentence testimonial you can publish on your website. You should also ask if you can publish the contact's photo, email address, and website address to let prospective customers know that your testimonials come from real people.

Make Product Videos

While you want the videos on your website to look presentable, you do not need to spend thousands of dollars making videos to entice people to buy your products. You can make your own videos with a high-definition video camera and the experience gathered from seeing how your competition makes effective videos for their website.

Get Industry and Website Seals of Confidence

Be sure to post on your website that your connection is secured using a security certificate. If your industry has seals of approval for quality or if you can get seals of approval by joining a standards organization within your industry, then do so and display those seals of quality with pride.

Be Creative with Your Layout

When you choose a digital marketing company to build your website, make sure you check that company's work to confirm that each site is different. If your website is made using a template that looks like hundreds of other websites, then it will be difficult to get people excited about doing business with you.

Have a Plan

Everything in business and marketing goes better when you have a plan. What kind of leads do you want to collect? Are you looking for people interested in a certain product, or are you interested in people who want to utilize your online support? Pop-up forms and the forms on your website can be calibrated to appeal to the specific type of prospect you are trying to attract to get you leads you can really use.

You work hard to generate traffic for your website, but you need to remember to take advantage of that traffic when it shows up. You can gather a steady stream of sales leads through your website when you use the right tactics, and develop strong marketing plans to reach out to any target audience that you choose.

 

When a business starts a Facebook page, the real purpose is to engage its target audience and expand its customer base. When you increase your Facebook engagement, you can save money on the costs of boosting posts and you can increase the effectiveness of your Facebook advertising.

Too many companies treat their Facebook page as a one-way street that only supplies information to a target audience, but does not create meaningful conversations with that audience. It is time to change your perspective on Facebook and increase engagement to get more out of your social media efforts.

Offer Viral Content

One of the best ways to get more out of your Facebook page is to offer content to your audience that it will want to share on its own Facebook pages. When you start working with a digital agency on managing your social media pages, you will be told that all of the content you share on social media should be pertinent to your business or your company specifically. But that does not mean that you cannot share the latest viral videos that help put your business in the spotlight.

If your company sells shoes and there is a video starting to go viral about shoes, then you need to share that video on your page. As long as the video does not act like an advertisement for your competition, then it will do wonders for your social media engagement.

Remember To Push People Towards Your Website

Remember to create your own Facebook hashtag and put it on all of your posts. Also remember to include a call to action on everything your post that will inspire your audience to go check out your company website.

A company hashtag on Facebook can become a marketing gold mine when some of your content goes viral. If you include a call to action in some form on every post, then those viral posts could turn into significant web traffic.

Offer Variety

You have to put a little work into your Facebook content if you really want to increase engagement. Instead of just posting text posts or pictures, you need to offer some variety and develop other types of posts that people will want to read. Videos, infographics, and customer contributions (such as a video of a customer using your product) can be great ways to change things up and make your Facebook page more interesting.

Experiment With When You Post

Successful digital agencies are constantly tracking the progress of every marketing plan they develop because a change in data could be part of a significant discovery on how to get better results. If you want more engagement on your Facebook page, then change the time of day you post and keep track of the results. Eventually you will find that magic time when your audience is most likely to interact with the content you post.

A business Facebook page is only effective if you actually use it properly. Throwing up a post every once in a while is not going to help you maximize your Facebook page. But when you do take the time to find ways to better engage your audience, you will start to see the many benefits of effective Facebook marketing.

There are plenty of social media platforms for businesses to choose from, but only a select few will get the kind of results that make the effort worth it. The big social media platforms most businesses use are Facebook and Twitter, but there are other platforms that are growing quickly and have a lot to offer to businesses looking to expand their customer bases.

Instagram is a social media platform that is constantly evolving and becoming more popular each week. There are millions of users on Instagram, and the platform hopes to keep adding users at a rapid pace. Instagram used to be used primarily by younger consumers, but it has become a desirable social media platform among digital agencies ever since its demographic expanded considerably. You need to learn how to use Instagram to help your business if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

Maximize Your Bio

You only get one chance to make a first impression and that is why your Instagram bio has to be a winner. Offer your target audience information it will want to read using language it finds comfortable. This is where knowing your target audience becomes critical as a well-designed bio can mean the difference between success and failure on Instagram.

Use The Business Profile Feature

People who will interact with you on Instagram know you are a business, so it is a good idea to use the business profile feature to give as much information as possible. Take advantage of all of the information you can offer and be sure to include your physical address, phone number, and email address. Also remember to include your company's website address in all of your Instagram profiles.

Choose The Right Profile Image

Instagram is a visual social media platform, so it is important to choose the right images for everything you do. If your company has a mascot, then this would be a preferable image for your profile because it is accessible and fun. If you do not have a mascot, then put your company's logo in to help reinforce your online brand.

Have A Purpose In Mind

Instagram is an effective platform, but it is limited in what it can do for your business. It is important to examine this platform and create specific goals you want to achieve to help increase revenue. Goals such as advertising products and enhancing brand recognition make sense with a social media platform that is based primarily on images.

Be Consistent With Your Images

When you are choosing images for Instagram, be sure to choose images that have a similar style. For example, if your company colors are blue and gold, then make sure all of the pictures you post feature the colors blue and gold. Some companies use simple images, while others like to post busy pictures. Either way, you need to be consistent if you want to build an audience.

Instagram is a rapidly growing social media platform that is starting to reach millions of people from a variety of demographics around the world. You need to start working with a digital agency that understands Instagram to help you develop effective Instagram policies that will grow your customer base and enhance your revenue.

Google has gotten so used to dominating the Internet that it has insisted for years that Google+ was the next great social media platform. There is nothing inherently wrong with Google+, but it simply has not caught on with the public in general. There are several niche audiences that utilize Google+ quite a bit, but most people have no idea what Google+ is or how to use it. Most Gmail users don't even realize that they get a Google+ account when they sign up for Gmail. That is a good indication of how unpopular Google+ has become.

If a business patron wanted to review their favorite business on Google, they had to do so through their Google+ account. Since most people have no idea what Google+ is, that meant that Google was diluting the importance of its local business review function by not getting nearly the amount of traffic it should be getting. After years of business owners begging for a solution, Google has finally come up with an answer to the Google reviews issue.

Customers No Longer Need A Google+ Account

From now on, anyone with a Google account of any kind can write a review that appears on the business' Google profile. You can sign up for a Google account using any email address, and you can now leave reviews without having to figure out how Google+ works.

All people need to do to review a business is to be logged into their Google account and find the business using Google. A prompt will appear next to the business name to write a review, and the customer can rate the business and write a review. Needless to say, the volume of business reviews on Google has soared, and Google's local business feature has become much more powerful.

Increasing The Reviewing Audience

To give you an idea of how many more people are now able to fill out Google reviews for local businesses, it is estimated that the number of people now able to quickly write reviews has grown from around 200 million up to around 900 million. This expansion of the review audience is a critical component for the success of many businesses around the world.

The Process Is Simple

If a customer already has a Google account, then they are probably automatically logged in by Google each time they go online. If a customer does not have a Google account, then it takes seconds to sign up for one and be able to do reviews. A process that used to be so confusing that it caused customers to not leave reviews that could help their favorite businesses to succeed, has now become something that takes seconds for anyone to do.

To get more Google reviews, all you need to do is recommend that your customers log into Google and look up your business. Now that Google+ is no longer involved in the process, any customer can easily log into a generic Google account and leave a rating and review for your business. Since you no longer have to explain how the process works for leaving Google reviews, you can start inviting your customers to leave good reviews about your business and help to start increasing you company's revenue.

People who use the Internet without ill intent have become addicted to online reviews. Every marketing expert knows that word-of-mouth is the most effective type of advertising a company can get, and online reviews are treated like word-of-mouth by a large majority of Internet users. It is estimated that 84 percent of all online consumers trust online reviews and use them as part of their decision making process.

As more companies catch on to the importance of online reviews, there has been a growing trend of companies abusing the Internet to get positive reviews those companies do not deserve. In the terms of service for many websites, there is hidden a clause called the "non-disparagement" clause. In general, these clauses say that any user who posts a bad review of the website online will be fined. These gag orders have gotten so bad that now even apartment complexes and office buildings are including them in their lease agreements. If you don't like your office building and you post it on social media or on Yelp, you could be fined.

The Result Of Non-Disparagement Clauses

There are two primary issues with non-disparagement clauses. The first is that customers do not get an accurate feel for the real feedback being offered about a company or website. If negative reviews are punishable by fines, then people are not going to leave negative reviews or they will remove their negative review to avoid having to pay the fine.

The other problem with non-disparagement clauses is that website owners do not feel that they have to market their website properly or treat customers with respect to get good reviews. Digital marketing experts dislike non-disparagement clauses because they discourage website owners from realizing that they have to utilize a professional marketing company to get the best possible results. In other words, non-disparagement clauses make website owners lazy.

The Consumer Review Fairness Act

There are two routes the government could have taken to solving this problem. The first would have been to declare non-disparagement clauses unconstitutional because they infringe on the public's first amendment right to free speech. While this would seem the easy way to solve the problem, it would have required action on the part of the Supreme Court that may have taken months to initiate.

Congressman Leonard Lance decided to pursue the other solution available to the government and that was to make non-disparagement clauses illegal. In December 2016, Congressman Lance and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan signed the bill that would become the Consumer Review Fairness Act once it is signed by either President Obama or President Trump after Trump is inaugurated.

Back To Normal

Once the Consumer Review Fairness Act is made into law, the business of digital marketing can go back to normal. Digital agencies can get their clients to focus on website quality again, and take the necessary steps to achieve premium customer satisfaction. Website owners must start to put the focus on themselves to improve their websites and develop reasons for customers to leave positive reviews instead of negative ones.

Businesses were forcing customers to give the business websites positive reviews and no one ever realized it. By the time the practice of using non-disparagement clauses was brought to light, the federal government was already working on a solution. At some
point in 2017, website owners will no longer be allowed to infringe on the first amendment rights of their customers and those owners will have to earn every positive review they get.

 

For years now there have been ongoing efforts to get people to patronize small, local businesses over the big box retail chains. In a 2014 article, Business News Daily ran an article that indicated that nearly 80 percent of all consumers would consider paying as much as 14 percent more to buy products from small businesses. This encouraging information shows a trend that has continued to this day.

As much as consumers are willing to buy from small businesses, there still needs to be a marketing effort to bring customers to those small business. Small business need to get online and make sure that consumers know what types of products those business have for sale, and give them good reasons to want to support local companies.

Offer Value

The message for small businesses during the holidays needs to focus on how the small business offers value over a large company. Keep in mind that almost eight out of 10 consumers would pay more to patronize a small business, but you still have to give consumers a reason to buy from you. Free extended service plans, accessory packages at discount prices and a pricing special for buying more than one product (buy one / get one at half price) will offer value that many big box retailers will not touch.

Decorate The Website

A small business' website is one of the company's most powerful marketing tools, and that tool needs to be decorated for the holidays to get people's attention. A strong visual impression on consumers who visit your website will inspire them to check your offerings and visit your online store (if you have one).

Get An Online Store

If you do not have an online store for your small business, then the holidays is a good time to start one. When you work with a professional digital marketing agency, you will realize that adding an online store to your website is not only easy but it will generate enough revenue to possibly pay for itself before the holidays are over.

Become Very Active On Social Media

During the holidays, consumers appreciate businesses that offer immediate answers to their questions and concerns. If you do not have a social media manager, then you can start a relationship with a good digital agency to help monitor your social media pages. When consumers have questions for your company, they either use your company email address or your social media pages. The more active you are taking care of your customers on social media, the more they will want to frequent your store.

Social media is also where you will broadcast your pricing specials to all of your customers and bring in new clients. You can use your social media pages to announce specials for your online store and your brick-and-mortar location that will help you to compete directly with the big box retailers.

Small businesses can make a big impact during the holidays if they just take the right approach. Customers want to buy from your small business, but you still need to put in the marketing time to make sure that your revenue is growing as it should be. Get involved with a reputable digital agency prior to holidays and you will find your small business competing with the big box department stores.