5 Big Things to Expect from Digital Marketing this 2020

It’s been a long hiatus period, but I’m back, and I’m here to tell you about what digital marketing will look like this coming 2020.

Some digital marketing trends from the past few years may not be as relevant now, and some marketing strategies may not be as effective in the upcoming months. There are even more options now on how to connect to your current and new audiences, promote products, or strengthen brand loyalty.

As a marketer, it is important to keep yourself informed of whatever it is to come this year in the dynamic world of digital marketing. Here are some things that you can expect in 2020.

Who Run The World? Chatbots.

You can expect for chatbots to be used by more businesses this year.

It’s no wonder that chatbots have become popular over the years. Known as “conversational agents”, they are software apps that copy human speech for interaction, used especially in the sphere of customer service.

In digital marketing, the benefits of using chatbots are that they boost customer satisfaction and save time and costs (hiring someone to monitor and interact with your users can be expensive!) Chatbots can answer questions real-time, which customers tend to be appreciative of. Who wouldn’t like personalised, fast service?

Did You Get My Message?

People are becoming more inclined to talk and transact via private messaging, so companies should seize this chance to expand their customer engagement channels.

We’ve entered a time that messaging apps aren’t chained to personal uses anymore. WeChat Pay has made it easier to pay online, while WeChat, Venmo, and PayPal have offered a venue to transfer money. Facebook Messenger makes it easier to transact with people in the Marketplace thanks to their automated bots.

Hi, I’m BERT.

SEO is still as relevant as ever and is still ever-changing. Google’s recent BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) update in 2019 has especially made an influential impact on SEO.

Why? This update is said to affect roughly 10% of searches and is used to better understand the intent behind these queries; an improvement on Google’s natural language processing.

Google calls it their biggest leap in five years.

But you cannot optimise for BERT, because there’s nothing to optimise for there. The same thing should be done to rank: write great, original, and relevant content for your users. The more you can cover a topic and answer your users’ concerns and queries, the better. After all, BERT is meant to connect a query or question to an answer.

Ready, Aim, Ad Target!

Another thing that’s bound to improve this year is ad targeting. People will largely ignore online ads that have nothing to do with them, but if you give them something tailored to their interests? They are going to convert.

Plenty of companies have caught on to this trend and their strategies are likely to include ad targeting. Digital marketing tools and advertising platforms have gained smarter targeting capabilities, so seize this opportunity as well. Aim for your target audience, and fire relevant ads their way.

The Bottomline of it All: It’s All Getting Personalised

Note how all of these points to one thing: personalisation. It’s the new marketing for 2020 and likely the future, too.

Tailor your message for your audience. Make their every contact with you relevant to them, whether online or offline. Every experience they have with your brand should be all about them.

Big brands have excelled in this game of personalisation- think Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify. If you’ve used any of them, then you know that they send out customised messages at the right time and right place.

Keep this in mind when you’re drafting up your digital marketing campaign this year: personalisation is the new game.

Is Facebook the Best Social Media Marketing Platform for You?

The digital era flourished when we entered the 2010s, the decade that pushed social networks to prominence- like Facebook. Digital marketing expanded to include social media, and so Facebook marketing became a thing.

A huge thing, in fact, that the social network is considered one of the essential tools to have if you are a social media marketer.

With digital marketing expected to be especially more personalised in the future, Facebook will be an ideal channel for modern marketers to use.

Facebook Marketing: Worth the Investment

If you’re a marketer but haven’t incorporated Facebook yet into your marketing efforts, I’m telling you now that it should be at your arsenal. Facebook is one of the top internet game changers and a major industry player. Hard to believe that it had its humble beginnings as a small startup where Ivy League college kids share photos.

All Content Available

All content forms can be shared on Facebook: text, photos, videos, live videos, and Stories. This makes it easier to build your brand image and market your business.

With nearly 2.45 billion monthly active users (nearly ⅓ of the world’s entire population), this is the biggest social media platform with the most diverse audience- in age, demographics, gender, education, and income. A wide user base like this helps you in reaching out to your desired audience and even find prospects, too. 

Facebook Pages

A popular marketing tool that people utilise is Facebook Pages, which are free and easy to set up. Much like a personal profile, a Facebook page holds the information for your brand. People can “like” your page and “follow” it for more of your updates. The more followers you have, the bigger the visibility your brand has on the social network.

Facebook Groups

Marketing became even easier with the introduction of Facebook Groups. Not only do you get to put audiences who are interested or belong to your industry, Groups also have a high level of engagement, useful to offer you product or services to potential customers.

Facebook Ads

Facebook gathers so much demographic data about its users, that it is one of the most impressive targeted advertising platforms. With Facebook Ads, you can put out relevant ads to people who are likely to purchase your service or products. You’re able to make ads that can target people living in particular areas, of a specific age group, a relationship status, interests, and virtually anything that is on a user’s profile.

These ads can range from offers, leads, canvas, videos, carousel, and more.

Because you can customise and choose who can see your ads, Facebook Ads are unarguably more powerful than Pages or Groups.

Like we said, personalisation is the future of marketing, and Facebook is doing a good job at it.

Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Facebook Marketing

There are only two reasons why you should not consider Facebook for your business:

1. You don’t have a social media advertising budget,
2. Your business cannot advertise on the platform due to its policies. Tobacco companies, for example, are prohibited from using Facebook ads.

Other than these, Facebook is a channel you must include in your marketing campaign. It’s not just a powerful platform, it’s incredibly flexible- that’s why a lot of businesses in different industries and types are using it. You have plenty of marketing options that you can tailor to fit what your business needs.

Content Marketing from 1700s to Now

Content is king, and it will always be.

If marketers had a dollar every time they’d be told “write good content!”, plenty of us would be millionaires by now! No matter how many updates and changes there will be in digital marketing and the search industry, relevant and original content is a staple.

Over the years, what determines “good” content has changed. Before Google’s Panda and Penguin updates in 2011 and 2012 perspectively, the web was proliferated with low-quality sites and spammy content.

But how did we reach this point? Who, where, and when started content marketing?

1700s: The Formula of Content + Promotion

If we consider the combination of content and promotion as to what is considered content marketing, then our story begins in the 1700s: when Benjamin Franklin published the first annual Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1732 to promote his printing business.

This was one of the earliest idea emergence of creating a copy to advertise a product or business. Even way before the internet came to be, marketers used customer experience, relevance and even storytelling for their content. While the end goal was to generate sales, the approach was not to sell to the people, but to talk them. It’s a useful tip for today.

1990s: The Birth of Computers

Towards the end of the 20th century, the introduction of computers changed the landscape of content marketing. In 1994, the first online blog was made, and four years after, Microsoft launched its first major corporate blog.

Sponsored content sprouted from the ground following the advent of the first blogs, but that’s all that they were then: sprouts. The goal of most content marketing back then was to get people to visit businesses’ real-world locations.

Content marketing and blogging weren’t anything big and popular back then, although that was bound to change in just less than a decade.

2000s: Getting More Digital

Personal blogging flourished in the 2000s; the birth of bloggers who would become influencers. There was at least one blog for any topic you could imagine at that era. Of course, since people had gone online, businesses followed suit.

E-commerce experienced significant growth at the turn of the century. It was this decade where marketers started understanding how content, relevance, keywords and ads can help them generate traffic and leads.

2010s: The Digital & Social Revolution

The immediacy of producing, sharing, and consuming content was even easier thanks to search engines and social networks by the 2010s. And so, content marketers grew in number and importance. Besides blogs, content was also in the forms of articles, eBooks, and white papers.

Marketers began optimising their websites and content for search engine- essentially the birth of SEO. Aiming to rig the system to their favour, marketers also utilised a lot of blackhat SEO techniques. Content quality went down the drain as keyword stuffing, invisible text, link manipulation, and bloated metadata became a common sight online.

But like mentioned at the beginning of this post, Google penalised these websites that used blackhat tactics. The search engine aimed to please the consumers because that’s where the value is. 

What is Content Marketing Now?

There’s a lot that’s changed but the key takeaway of what constitutes as good content marketing is that content should be written for your human audience- natural-sounding, human-like, and of course, relevant.

Make sure that your content marketing and SEO work seamlessly together. One cannot work well without the other; you need both. There are plenty of digital tools at your disposal to create rich, original content that users will love.

Effective Video Marketing - Ways to Do it for Free

Videos are a great way to increase online engagement and speed up brand awareness. Don't hide your videos by producing without promoting. Any way that you can encourage people to find your video, is a step in the right direction. And it doesn't have to cost you any money.

1. Embed videos in your blog - It might sound obvious, but even though you're uploading videos to YouTube, you should still write a blog post and intro to the video and embed it into your blog. Remember to include in the title that a video is included, and include a good description.

2. Add a keyword-rich title - The title of your video should also include some keywords that help search engines find it. A keyword-rich title is the best thing you can do for every blog post, video or not.

3. Write descriptions - Don't forget to include a description of your video when you upload it. It's important to use the space you have to its full potential to include a link to your website and any products you are promoting.

4. Share your videos - Sites like YouTube, Flickr.com, Vimeo.com and others allow you to share all your videos. The more eyes on your video, the better. Don't disable the ability for people who like your video to embed it into their own blog or website. This will give you more exposure.

5. Cross-link to other videos - When you write any blog post that is relevant, you can add the link to the video at the bottom as other information that your audience might want to see.

6. Ask people to share your videos - In every video you create, ask people to like it, share it, and tell others about it. The more you ask, the more likely it is to be shared.

7. Keep comments open - Always let people make comments on your videos. Yes, in some cases you'll get spam, and from time to time people will be mean or disagree, but that's part of the process. How you respond will make a huge difference in how you're perceived.

8. Repurpose videos - You can cut up longer videos into shorter quick videos to share with your audience, and even turn videos into blog posts, or transcribe the videos, add to them and turn them into an eBook or report.

5 Productivity Techniques Every Entrepreneur Should Know

The amount of time we have available every day is limited. Not every entrepreneur can put in 18-hour days -- personal obligations and family life take up time, making it important that we maximize the time we do have allocated for business. 

Here are five time-wasting habits that many entrepreneurs are guilty of. Eliminate these and watch your productivity increase.

1. Trying to do everything yourself. You have to learn to delegate if you are ever going to be productive. All entrepreneurs are guilty of this at some point, especially in the beginning. You think you can handle everything -- but as tasks and responsibilities stack up the weight on your shoulders becomes unbearable and everything collapses. Delegating those tasks to other people that handled them more efficiently made a significant impact. You can’t do everything yourself, and the sooner you realize this, the better off you will be.

Source: UNSPLASH

 2. Saying ‘Yes’ to everything.One of the hardest things to do is say no. Personally, it took me a while to learn that it was physically impossible to try to accommodate every request that was presented to me. This circles around to point number one above -- I thought I could do it all. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. If I received a request for a quick 15-minute chat, I would squeeze it in.

3. Waiting for perfection.Perfection doesn’t exist, and if you sit around waiting for it you’re going to miss the boat. When people are hung up on a task they will often say they are trying to perfect it before moving on to the next one. They are simply procrastinating.It’s important that you understand perfection is a unicorn you most likely aren’t going to encounter. Imagine if companies such as Uber and Airbnb waited to expand into new markets until they perfected all of the working components of the business. They would still be sitting there wasting time, scratching their heads, waiting for something that wasn’t ever going to happen. Look how fast both companies have grown because they were extremely productive.

4. Allowing distractions to constantly interrupt your day. Distractions will only interrupt your day if you let them. You have to create a work environment that provides you with some distraction-free time, allowing you to stay 100 percent focused. Every entrepreneur is going to have different distractions to deal with. Here are a few of things I do to eliminate some distractions:

No personal text replies: When I’m working I don’t reply to personal texts. It’s a time suck, but it also tells the other person that your work time isn’t valuable. Just because someone is bored at his or her desk or on a day off, it doesn’t mean you have to entertain them. When you ignore work-time texts and begin to reply to them in the evening when you are done, you will notice your mid-day interruptions will decrease significantly.

Airplane mode: If I’m working on something extremely important that requires complete focus I’ll switch my phone to airplane mode. When I simply silence my phone I still see the notification icons and I’m apt to pick it up and check emails and messages. Airplane mode prevents this and allows me to fully focus.

Block off calendar time: I have specific time blocked off on my calendar every day. When you get into this habit, you know without a doubt that you have a period of time without meetings, conference calls or distractions. This time will quickly become your most productive daily block of time.

5. Constantly refreshing your email inbox. If you are constantly refreshing your email inbox, you are pissing away valuable time. It can become quite addictive. I suffered from this myself, and had to create a system to check and respond to emails that wouldn’t dig into my productivity.

I check my emails at set times every day and I also have someone screen them. The screening eliminates a lot of wasted time deleting junk, unsolicited requests and spam. When I do jump into my inbox it’s in and out, as I know everything waiting for me requires my attention and I fire back replies and address each one without having to waste time identifying the emails that are important. It’s a habit that isn’t easy to break, but once you do develop a system that works for you, the time saved will be very noticeable.

Quick Thoughts on Updating and Rebuilding Your Website

There are no rules when it comes to updating your business website in a regular manner. Deciding on whether to update, redesign or re-engineer your site should depend entirely on your business goals, objectives and economic considerations. It should not be dependent on a superficial time frame not based on facts.

A variety of factors can make a redesign worth considering rather than rebuilding it.

• For example, you have new branding and color standards this year, and you need to make sure your new look extends to your website. Moreover, your bounce rates - few converts from visitors - are extremely high. A well-thought-out redesign can turn this around.
• Another example is, your business has grown and you will need to have new products and services. Your website’s design may need to reflect that change. 
• Lastly, your customers complain about your site looking outdated, not working or too slow.

Source: UNSPLASH

 
What developments might be required to re-engineer any website from scratch?

• Making it adapt to mobile device screens. Fixing this is an absolute must in today’s mobile-driven world. Anyone in your company should be able to learn and use your content management system (CMS) to update your site. 
• Keep things simple: If your site takes forever to load, you need to re-engineer the back end. Nobody puts up with long waits anymore.

Customer opinion and feedback give you the kind of insights that convert visitors into customers. Start by asking what they think of your proposed design and if it appeals to them. Then,

• ask about the problem they’re looking to solve
• ask if the information they need access to is easy to find in the new design. 
• after you relaunch the site, ask them again if they like it. If they say no, address their concerns through incremental design enhancements, which your new site should allow you to do without starting over.

In short, you want to follow the lead of sites like Apple.com and Amazon.com, which rarely undergo complete facelifts. Instead, their sites evolve over time using an iterative process that results in near invisible refinements that have the bonus of maintaining the user experience that customers know and like.

Ways to Be Productive When Your Internet Connection Is Down

While internet connection is necessary in accomplishing a lot tasks concerning your  business, the absence of it shouldn't stop you from being productive. Yes, you read that right. You can be productive even if you're online. How? Read these tips.

Read articles - offline. This requires preparation. You will need to download an app that will allow you to store the articles you wish to read. If you like reading from hard copies, have your favourite magazines on stock so you can read them whenever your WiFi's cut.

List down all the blog topics you ought to write for the whole month. You can skip the keyword research until the internet is back. Use the questions frequently asked by your clients as the basis of the blog topics you're planning to write. If you're done with the list and the internet is still out, create an outline for each  of the posts in your list.

Take advantage of the downtime to talk with your co-workers, family and friends. This a good way for you to de-stress and become happier and more productive. Interactions with other human beings can make you feel recharged and more passionate about what you do when you get back to work.

Make some phone calls. Got a list of your clients whom you need to thank or follow-up? Call them now. If you don't have clients to call, contact your parents, doctor or friends whom you haven't met and spoken to for a long time.

Take a break and relax. Studies show that taking breaks increases the productivity level of human beings. When you're able to rest and relax, you become more alert and focused on the things you need to accomplish. Rest also allows you to work quicker than before.

Marketing VS Sales - Four Top Issues Between Them That Must Be Solved

photo owned by mobile tech create

The Battle Royale  seems to be unending between the sales team and marketing team. While there's no exact reason for this conflict, it should  be resolved as it results to issues that can affect the flow of profit to an business. Keen to know what these issues are? Read on.

Marketing campaigns are considered unimportant by sales people. This can be caused by lack of communication and proper discussion of the goals of each of the marketing campaign. For better results, an  outsider's view and some fine-tuning are needed.

Sales people don't share with the marketing team the created content. There are times when the sales people lack the ability to bridge the gap between the target audience and the content. Discussion of the content's main purpose can resolve this issue.

Marketing campaigns don't provide quality leads. This can be attributed to conflicting metrics and miscommunication. The sales team can help the marketing people by forwarding questions - from prospective clients - that are key in creating marketing campaigns for attracting quality leads.

Marketing people don't work side by side with sales people after the former have handed over the information to the latter. In most businesses, there isn’t enough accountability for lead generation, nurturing and conversions. The key to solving this is working together through the entire buying journey of current  and potential buyers or customers.

Understanding the Efficiency of Your Business Website Today

To evaluate and understand the efficiency of your website, it will be helpful to visit the website of another business or company. You might want to take note of the following questions as you continue browsing the entire website:

1) Did you get confused about the website’s design?

2) Was the purpose of the website clear to you?

3) As a visitor, do you understand where the website owner wants you to go?

As you answer these questions, think of your own business website too. Unknowingly, you might be sending the wrong signals to your visitors and causing them wander away from the path that you have designed. However, there are times when spending too much time on your website to perform appropriate evaluation won't help. Therefore, you will need help from the experts.

If you're in the process of creating your business website from scratch, here are three important points which you must bear in mind. Use them as your guide in the creation of website copy, landing page forms and social media posts.

1) Find ways how you can attract visitors to use your website as much as you do.

2) Keep in mind your target audience or prospective customers as you build your website.

3) Have a test run for your website and request for honest feedback for improvement purposes.

Here's a video you might find helpful. (Note: I don't own this video. All credits to the owner/publisher)

Content Marketing: Key Points to Remember

In this fast-phased age, people are consuming increased amount of information from the internet. If you don't want your business to be left behind, you must be quick in creating content that can catch the attention of your target audience.

Once you have already defined your niche, choosing the topics to write about becomes easier. As you do your research, always keep your target audience in mind. Your writing style is another factor to think about. Never write in a way that you are just educating your readers. Rather, write in style that you can walk your readers through the process of learning something important to them.

Try your best to express your thoughts in simpler words and briefer sentences. This way you provide easy-reading materials. Have a list of all the information you have in mind and arrange them according to their importance. Keep a conversational tone that can make your readers feel relaxed. In fact, you can get them hooked by relating stories or adding humor to your content.

You can and might need to write about a topic that has been used many times by different authors. If you fear that it won't be noticed, aim at presenting your content in a different angle - a more interesting or informative one. Be creative and put yourself in the shoes of your readers. Use facts so that people will find you trustworthy.

Cost-Effective Promotional Products: Make Your Brand Known Today

Does business promotion always have to be expensive? Certainly not! You can always promote your brand with affordable marketing materials. Specifically, these are the small items used on a daily basis. They serve as a constant reminder of your products or services to their users. Thus, your brand is habitually refreshed in their memories - talk about subliminal advertising.

Notepads and pens are the most common company giveaways distributed any time of the year. They can be used at home, in the office and in school. Almost everybody needs a handy notepad and pen all the time. Notepads can be designed and cut according to your customers' preferred appearance and sizes. Pens, on the other hand, can be made of different colors, shapes and styles.

Another example of cheap promotional products that can be used in homes, offices and schools are calculators. Whether you want them keychain-like or as big as a pocket book, their mass production won't cost you a fortune. You can print your emblem and business details either in front or at the back of these items.

Travel mugs are also great giveaways for your customers. Nowadays, most people look forward to receiving one as their use has been a trend especially to office workers in the recent years. Stainless or plastic, so long as they are creatively designed, your target market will surely be happy to use and flaunt them wherever they go.

Last in the list are bags. They are the most familiar yet the most functional and in demand of all the promotional items ever produced. Bags could be walking advertisers for your business. Wherever their owners take them, there goes your brand being introduced to more and more people.

Tips on Producing Video Testimonials for Your Business

Video testimonials are one of the latest advertising methods that can entice more customers to your business. It is, in fact, a convincing means to gain the trust of potential clients as they see real people talking about real problems and real solutions. However, not any kind of filmed testimonial will do. As an entrepreneur, you must aim at producing quality ones for your business to bag that promising sales increase.

The process starts from having definite customers who must be willing to talk about your product or service. This will not happen unless you ask them directly. While some benefit from choosing their loyal clients only, some business owners request testimonies from all their customers. This is in line with their objective to learn from the positive and negative reviews of their clients for improvement purposes. If this is a strategy that you want to try, you can select which customer testimonials to record and use for the promotion of your brand.

No one wants to get faked especially when it comes to looking for answers to recurring concerns. Be professional in providing names, company names, job titles, locations and other information that customer interviewees will permit to share. This will provide credibility to your video. Thus, more viewers will get interested.

Give your customers the freedom to talk about any of your products. If there is a specific product that you need to promote, kindly ask them to limit their review to it. Although you must not put words into their mouths, you must give them a guideline on the flow of the entire review. You can instruct them to talk first about themselves, then their concerns and how they came across your product. Make them share in details their situations before they got a hold of your product. Let them share too the positive changes they have enjoyed after their first or two consecutive purchases.

A professional camera and other cutting-edge pieces of equipment are perfect for the production of video testimonials but they are not a requirement. As a starting business owner, you can make use of a decent handheld camera or web camera to get the ball rolling.

While the objective of your filmed testimonials is to encourage viewers to take advantage of your offers, it must not be too pushy and or salesy. This type of approach arrests the interest of people and so they must appear as natural as possible. Let the great qualities of your product be upheld in the entirety of the video. Use simple words that easy to comprehend. Ensure that they carry your sales message direct to the point.

Four Things to Remember When Writing Press Releases

Writing press releases is very important to business website owners. The use of press releases is ideal for getting the attention of popular websites towards your own website.

There are some software that you can use should your skills fail you to write them properly. Paid or unpaid, these software can help you make your announcements more attention-grabbing.

Generally, the two elements that most press releases contain are sensational titles and exceptional copy writing skills. Sensational titles or headlines would definitely get the attention of anyone. Display of copy writing skills in providing helpful information, on the other hand, keeps readers hooked and prodded to respond to any call to action.

Have a powerful start - Grab your reader's attention with the message that you are going to share. Creatively incorporate your message to your title. Perhaps, you have just found an excellent tool that can solve the concerns of internet marketers. Then, you can place the name of the tool on the title.

Be precise - A press release is just like any news. Thus, it has to be as clear and as trustworthy. All the parts of it must then adhere to a single fact. Never place anything there that displays even a small hint of contradiction - this could ruin your business promotion.

Use layman's terms - This means use of ordinary language that is easily understood by all types of readers. To inform people is the goal of any press release. With that in mind, never use language that could not give your readers even a clue of what you are talking about. If you are reaching out to people in a particular niche, it is best to use terminologies to which they could relate to and better understand what you are offering them. Along with the words that you are going to use, you need to adhere to proper formatting as well.

Make it news worthy - Writing press releases is the same with writing news articles. Although the former have a specific goal when it comes to business promotion, they still need to be supported with hard facts and not mere insights. Additionally, this implies that whatever you include in them are based on current events (or thing that are about to happen) and not historical details.

The Importance of Incorporating Emotions in Your Marketing Campaign

One of my new favorite books that is based on human emotions discusses the use of emotional intelligence which I have written about in previous articles. By making a person know more about their own emotions that person can then predict why other people feel the way they do.

Everything comes from experience. A positive experience will yield a positive feeling. In contrast, a negative experience will yield the negative emotion that they do not want to feel again.

If you think about your past you can see why you enjoy certain activities while you stay away from others. For me I love martial arts. It has instilled a thought process that I follow-on a daily basis. It is something that has grown into a passion. The reason this occurred was because of my first martial art instructor.

Let me give you a small piece of history. I had heart surgery as an infant. This stopped me from many activities like contact sports. I was not able to enjoy the same sports as my friends. By the time I was twelve my mother decided it was time to allow me to do martial arts. She actually closed her eyes and pointed to a name in a phone book. She didn't know how to choose an instructor. When she spoke with the instructor he explained how I could still do martial arts even with my medical problems.

When I started I feel like this was a turning point in my life. It became such a positive emotion that it caused a butterfly effect in my entire life. This can be done when you are working with clients. Give them a good feeling. Give them positive emotion. Give them enough information that they want to feel strongly about what they are about to do.

How do you build positive emotions in people? First find out how to relate to someone. Figure out what makes them tick. Ask questions. The more questions you can ask someone the better you will be able to understand where that person is coming from.

A clear example could be if you ran into a person like me this is what you would find. I love my family. Everything I do is to further my family. Because of this if a person wanted to sell me something they would want to make me understand how it would help my family. Each person has something that they can associate positive feelings toward.

Use these emotions to bring out the most positive influence. This happens in any form of marketing you are in. Think about your product. Now write down all of the different ways it can help people. Now that you have these written down when you speak with a potential client and they hit upon one of your points you can then persuade them why your product can help them in that specific area of their life.

Three Invaluable Steps to Accomplishing Your Mobile Marketing Goals

There are certain concepts that you should follow in order to successfully market to your mobile device audience. If you look around you, it is quite obvious that anyone and everyone uses a mobile device everywhere they go. So, now you have to customize your marketing efforts to fit mobile devices.

One thing that you can count on is the fact that people are not going to stop using their mobile devices (not ever). With that in mind, you need to figure out the best and most effective way to get your message to them on their mobile devices. There are a few different concepts that you should keep in mind and if you follow those concepts, you won't go wrong. In fact, you will actually achieve greater success than ever before.

Be instantaneous: People want what they want when they want it. That generally means that they want it now. When it comes to a mobile device user, the need for instantaneous information (or instant gratification) is even more pressing than it ever was before. The information is truly at the person's fingertips and they are so used to clicking and getting the information that if it doesn't happen that way, they will move onto the next business and person who will have the ability to give it to them quickly. Of course, this can definitely work to your advantage as well. If the mobile device user wants information quickly, you can be the person to supply them with it. Not only are you capable of giving your mobile device users what they want and need but you can get it there at lightening speed as well. You can give your target audience what they need in small, meaningful increments. That is just they way that they like it and expect it to be delivered to them.

Use a simplistic approach: Sometimes, the simplest approach is the approach that works the most effectively. Since your target audience members are coming to you because they need information that is valuable to them, you have a responsibility to give it to them in a form that works for them and that works conveniently with their mobile devices. It is possible that you may have a website that is optimized for mobile devices in addition to your regular website. If you need to do that and you see positive results for your business with your interactions with your mobile device users, it will have been well worth it. Your approach should be simple and straightforward. You will start to see how well it works for your business.

Make the relevance clear: It is critical to your success that you share content that is appropriate, clear, and concise. Sharing content that seems to come straight out of left field really won't do you any good. People on the other end need to be able to relate to what you are sharing and to understand that you have the ability to solve their problems. That needs to be your first priority. You must always keep in mind the marketing principle, "What's In It For Me?" (WIIFM). In other words, no matter how wonderful you and your business are, if you are not able to solve the other person's problems, you won't get anywhere at all with them.
Conclusion

You must consider marketing for your mobile device users in this day and age and you must make them one of your top priorities. Whatever content you share with them, they will be able to see and use immediately, which is a huge plus. Since their devices are always with them, they will get what they need from you very quickly. However, to give you a word of caution, it is important not to inundate them with two much information. You must make it comfortable and easy for them to receive and absorb your information. Mobile device users represent a large percentage of your target audience and if you are loyal to them, they will be loyal to you.

Quick Insights on Generating Leads for Your Bussiness' Growth

Leads are an essential growth component of every business. A constant stream of leads is one element of many that creates sustainability within a small business. Leads can come from many places. A business owner should have at least three different places that generate lead flow. One of the first places I like to see leads come from is your website. The site should be optimized and search engine friendly. Positioning your website to be on the first page of Google will produce qualified prospects who want what you sell. The only thing the prospect will need is more information to make a buying decision.

Advertising is another way a business owner can generate a lead. Understanding how to leverage the strategic side of marketing can help achieve phenomenal results. Too many business owners are quick to say direct mail, social media, radio or TV doesn't work. It was not the medium (tactical side of marketing) that failed you; it was what you said and how you said it (the strategic side) that failed you. Once the business owner understands how to effectively convey the value they provide, generating a lead is a breeze.

Prospecting is the act of generating leads without advertising. Prospecting could involve calling a target list or foot canvassing in a specific area. Do you have marketing materials? Prospects need time to make an informed decision at the speed their brain can process information. You telling them everything during a sales visit will not always be enough. A marketing piece (leave behind) that can support the prospects decision-making process will move them along the sales process and ultimately compel them to buy.

Having sales collateral allows your information to be shared with someone the prospect knows who may need your product or service right now. Where I see small business owners over look an opportunity in their marketing material is their business card. Offer more than just your contact and website info. Provide a link on your business card that leads to a video or free report that can educate and move a prospect along the sales process.

When you don't have a lot of money to spend on creating leads, networking is an excellent solution to create new opportunities to obtain new business. Attend networking events and engage contacts strategically. Your goal is to connect with the people in the room who have relationships with referral partners who are already doing business with your potential clients. Please do not attend these events looking to sell to the people in the room. Go with the goal of getting connected to your target. The power words here are strategic alliance. Please don't be selfish, once someone has offered to introduce you to someone in their network, be sure to ask them, "How can I help you?"

Achieve a Successful Product Launch with These Tips

A product launch that nobody knows about is not good for your business. Therefore, it must be carefully planned.  You will need the help of your employees, other professionals and service providers for it to be successful.

Here are five steps that are essential to staging a grand product launch.

Create a calendar. A calendar of events will allow you to promote your product launch creatively and extensively. It will also allow you to reach the right audience at the right time.

Contact a group of publicists. Members of the press and bloggers can help a lot in your publicity campaign. Contact them at least a month before the main event.

Incorporate mystery. Tease people’s curiosity by inviting a mystery guest to your product launch. It would be best to invite a celebrity because people love hanging out with someone famous. Additionally, set up an enticing offer or reward for a limited number of people who buy your product even before its formal introduction to the public.

Organise a soft launch. A soft launch is like a final run-through before the big day. Invite your family, friends and business partners. Make sure that all your employees are present too. A soft launch can reveal any flaws in your preparations or anything you may have overlooked during the planning stage.

Prepare an impressive venue. It is not enough to have an organized and themed venue. Make sure that your venue is at pace with the trends in promotional marketing. For example, consider setting up a media wall instead of a traditional backdrop. You can use two or more media walls as advertising banners and as background for a photo opp (photo opportunity) after the product launch proper. If you want to know about the other uses of a media wall, read the detailed infographic below from SK Displays.

Promote Your Exhibition with These Four Easy Steps

So you're having an exhibition. Do you know how many people are expected to turn up? Do you know how to persuade people to take part of your exhibition? Check out these four ways that will help promote your event.

1. Social media - Social media is a highly valuable tool for any artist. Once you've got exhibition dates confirmed, make sure you announce this across all of your social media channels. Create an event and invite people to it. Don't overdo it though - if people see you constantly posting about an event, they'll get sick of reading about it and will be put off. Make sure your posts contain enough relevant information to attract people to the event and make sure you mention any freebies or special offers on at the event. At the exhibition itself, have your phone / laptop / iPad or whatever with you and make sure you regularly post about it. Take photos and upload them with comments on how well the day is going. Let your followers know if your day's going well. Get connected with others you meet and make sure they know you're actively on social media.

2. Personal invites - Even though it's still a good idea to announce your exhibition across your social media channels, people love receiving personal invites. It's something that people just don't do that often anymore, so people get excited when they receive one. Draw up a list of contacts, friends and family and get your personal invites written out. To save both time and money, it's a good idea to keep your list reasonably short. Send your invites to the people who you really want to turn up at your exhibition. A personal invite can be more persuasive than an email that's composed and sent to loads of people at the same time. You should send your invites out a good few weeks before your exhibition to give people plenty of notice.

3. Email - It's still a good idea to send an email announcing your exhibition, as well as using social media and personal invitations because you can reach lots of people very quickly. You might have a lot more email contacts than people who you can send invites to, so make use of these contacts and send them emails inviting them to your exhibition. Make your email concise, informal and friendly. Keep to the point, but remember to include all of the key details. A good idea is to ask people to reply to you saying whether they'll be coming or not. Include some photos so people can be reminded of you and your work and can get a taste of what the exhibition's going to be about.

4. Text - If you've used the above three methods, you should probably keep texting for reminding people about your exhibition. Compose a short, friendly text letting people know your exhibition's coming up and remember to send at a time when everyone's going to be awake - if people are woken up in the middle of the night by their phone going off, they're probably not going to take that much notice of your text. Use your phone to keep in touch with people on the day of your exhibition. Fire off another text on the day and have your phone with you so you can reply to any queries or arrange any special appointments with people.

Business Directories 101: Top Three Factor to Consider When Enlisting Your Business

There are many benefits that come with listing your business on the business directories. One of the benefits is that you get to increase your sales. Research studies have shown that over 70% of people search online before buying a given product or service. This means that when your name shows up in the search results you have high chances of getting calls from customers thus increasing your sales.

Listing your business also shows that you are a legit and reputable company. Since many business directories have to certify that the information you give is true, many people tend to trust you thus you have more customers.

Business directories are usually divided into different categories and all you need to do is to list your business in the category that is ideal for your business. The categorization aids in ensuring that you reach your target customers.

The final advantage is that by listing your business you let people know about your business and what you do. To make it easy for people to understand what you do, you should ensure that you post your name, address, photos and a brief review of your occupation. If possible, you should also post a video.

For ideal results when listing your business you should consider a number of factors:

Quality sites: For your business to be visible to many people you should list it on a high quality directory. Before you list your business you should do some background checks and find the domain authority of the directory. If your business targets a given group of people, you should list your business on a site that is specific to your target market.

Consistency: Although, duplicate content is highly discouraged online, you should always ensure that you post the same information across all the web directories. This prevents people from thinking that you are talking about different businesses. It also prevents people from feeling that you don't know what you are talking about.

Spam: While you should submit your content to many directories in order to reach many people, you should avoid being spammy. This calls for you to avoid submitting your content to hundreds of directories at the same time.

Must-Know Information About Creating Copy for Mobile Marketing

People are constantly checking their email accounts and social media accounts. This becomes easy because they carry their own smartphones, tablets, and e-readers everywhere. People are constantly checking their email accounts and social media accounts. This becomes easy because they carry their own smartphones, tablets, and e-readers everywhere. This an incredible opportunity for entrepreneurs to reach all their potential clients 24/7. In line with this, entrepreneurs must make copy for mobile marketing that will engage and compel readers to buy.

Visual Contents are Indispensable

Mobile users prefer consuming information in the form of visuals than text. Make sure that your business is on top of this trend. Post infographics in your website. Infographics allow users to read through your content and get all the important information in a jiffy. In fact, users even use neatly published infographics as  wallpapers in their mobile gadgets.

Short Text is 'In'

There's no way users will enjoy reading a lengthy text  even though it is incorporated in a visually appealing infographic. Mobile users  are generally on the go. They want to pick up information quickly while commuting, working or multi-tasking. So, create concise and powerful content. Otherwise, readers will skip your post and will search for another post that's much easier to read.

Email Marketing is Linked to Mobile Marketing

People are usually signed in their email accounts when browsing the net through their mobile devices. You must take advantage of this for the effective promotion of your business. Create an email campaign that is concise. Include a specific call to action that will tell readers what to do next as quickly as possible. This is consideration of the fact that mobile users are always on the go.