Digital marketing consists of a lot of strategies. In fact, it's a holistic approach to do different types of marketing activities across different online platforms. These methods get upgraded on a regular basis as new technologies emerge across the globe. Therefore, digital marketing has grown significantly over the past few years. If you are new to this field, you may want to read the basics of digital marketing explained below.
1. Invest in machine Learning and Artificial intelligence (AI)
First of all, the artificial intelligence (AI) will be quite popular in the coming years. Machine learning is another important part of digital marketing.
In the near future, social media bots will play a great role as far as connecting with potential customers is concerned. So, you may want to give more importance to social media if you want to communicate with your customers in an effective manner. According to experts, about 85% of customers will interact with bots to get the information they need.
2. Share your videos on Social Media
In 2019, make sure you share your business videos across different social media platforms. Unlike the images or written content, a good video is more effective as far as grabbing the eyes of the visitors is concerned. This is really important if you are going to market on the leading platforms, such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook.
According to the latest research, 80% of people like to watch videos on the internet. They don't want to read articles or blog posts that much.
3. Optimize your sites for Mobile Devices
In 2019, your marketing strategies should be focused on mobile technology as well. According to the latest Google algorithm, your site should be optimized for mobile phones or you may get a penalty from Google.
Nowadays, mobile phones are one of the most popular devices across the globe. The new year will grow the mobile video consumption by up to 30%. On the other hand, the demand for desktop computers and laptops will continue to decline.
4. Consider Mobile apps
In the world of digital marketing, mobile technology is the latest innovation. As a matter of fact, it's one of the most effective digital marketing tools in the here and now.
With the help of this cellular technology, you can compete with your competitors to stay ahead in the field. Without any doubt, if you have a mobile responsive website, you can grow your business to a large extent.
So, you may want to tap into the mobile apps as well. One such app is Whatsapp business. According to a source, mobile apps have generated $88 billion, give or take, in recent years.
5. Focus on the Customer Experience
For your business, customers play the same role your blood plays in your body. Therefore, it's important that you work on the consumer experience. This will help you increase your sales over time.
If your customers are satisfied with your products or service, they will keep coming back for more.
So, these are the tips that you may want to consider to improve your digital marketing campaigns in 2019.
DSDM is an ideal resource if you are interested in digital marketing training in West Delhi. You can check out their courses on DSDM.in.
3 Ways to Help Better Position Your Business for Market Success
Finding your business niche is the first step of defining your brand. If you don't understand how to position your business in the market place or know what you're selling and why, then you won't be able to effectively market your business.
It's important to find your business niche so you can:
• Differentiate yourself from your competitors;
• Optimize your website for the right keywords;
• Have a clear message on all marketing materials;
• Develop new ideas or products that appeal to your target market.
Here are 3 ways to make finding your business niche easier:
1. Narrow your focus.
You've heard the saying "Go big or go home?" Not in this case. To stand out from the competition and attract more visitors to your website, you need to be very specific about what you offer.
For example, business may offer a variety of marketing services. However, they wouldn't get very far if we only used the keyword "marketing services" on their website or put that term on their business cards.
Instead, they promote a number of different services on their website, marketing materials and in the real world such as Brand & Marketing Consulting, Website Development and SEO.
Get focused and you'll find your business niche or niches.
2. Define your target market.
You'll hear this again and again in marketing advice: finding the right audience to target is crucial.
Many business owners make the mistake of trying to be everything to everybody, or launch a website filled with content that doesn't speak clearly to the people they want to reach.
Think about who wants what you're selling. Is it entrepreneurs? HR professionals? Stay at home dads? Tech-savvy millennials?
Once you're come up with your target audience, you can narrow down and define your business niche even more. Plus, you'll be able to craft search engine-optimized content that will engage and inform exactly who you want to be buying your products or services.
3. Know the competition.
It's essential to know what kind of competition you're up against when you're defining your business niche. Start with Google.
Search the keywords people might use to find your business. If you see pages and pages of results and a lot of PPC ads (those are the paid ads that appear to the right and sometimes above the organic results), competition is high for that keyword or keywords.
You'll probably want to narrow down your niche even further, or find another niche to target. For example, if your niche is corporate fitness training but there's a lot of competition, brainstorm some other keywords to optimize your site for - maybe in-office corporate training, executive fitness training and corporate weight training.
The trick is to find the balance between low-competition keywords that have a decent search volume. If you're the only one using a specific keyword but nobody is searching for it, you're not going to get the results you want.
Once you have defined your business niche, you'll be able to market your products or services more effectively.
You'll know your focus, target market and competition, which will make differentiating your brand and defining your unique selling proposition (USP) much simpler.
A good brand strategy takes time, and ideally some professional help to ensure you've got everything you need for a clear, concise and compelling brand message.
Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.
If you are new to Social Media and online marketing or find it overwhelming and confusing, my monthly group coaching program, AMPLIFY! Business Academy http://amplifybusinessacademy.com/ is a perfect way for you to incrementally learn the best strategies and tactics to help you grow your business online.
In my previous article, I talked about how you can plan your business startup. I defined a business plan as a written description of the future of your business. This is a document that indicates what you intend to do and how you intend to do it. I further explained that if all you have is a paragraph on the back of an envelope describing your business strategy, you have written a plan, or at least the beginning of a plan. I also said that a business plan consists of a narrative and several financial worksheets.
I mentioned that the 'writing of a business plan' as one of the pivotal steps involved in setting up a successful business. By now you should understand the need for writing a business plan. Writing a business plan, for a traditional brick and mortar business, will probably take a lot of time. It may take up to 100 hours or even more. For obvious reasons, a new business needs to carry out a lot of research before a business plan can even be developed.
For an online business, a detailed and in depth business plan is usually not necessary unless you are trying to combine your online business with a traditional business. For most online business startups, the detail involved with planning a traditional business is not required. However, it would still be beneficial to you if most of the topics were still covered, even if only briefly. Having a written plan in front of you will help you to focus on important aspects of the business.
You may not have thought much about your competition or outsourcing some of your work, but things like that will impact your ability to make a profit. And you will find this especially so in the beginning phases of your business. Even you are just opening a lemonade stand in the front yard, you will still need to know what Susie is selling her lemonade for on the next street over!
So, although a detailed business plan may not be required for an online business, I am going to include it here so you can at least look at and consider each section and determine yourself if it applies to your business.
Here I shall be discussing the basic steps involved in writing a business plan:
1. Executive Summary: The first step involved in writing a business plan is the executive summary. Here, include everything that you would cover in a five minute interview.
Explain the fundamentals of the proposed business: What will your product be? Who will your customers be? Who are the owners? What do you think the future holds for your business and your industry?
Make it enthusiastic, professional, complete, and concise.
If you are applying for a loan, state clearly how much you need and be precise in how you are going to use it. Also include detail about how the money will make your business more profitable, thereby ensuring repayment of the loan. 2. Business Description: After the executive summary, you need to write a short description of the business you are going into. You need to give a general description of the industry your business belongs to. You will write about your company's mission statement, goals and objectives, business philosophy, as well as its legal form of ownership (sole proprietor, corporation, LLC, etc.).
Describe your most important company strengths and core competencies. What factors will make the company succeed? What do you think your major competitive strengths will be? What background, experience, skills, and strengths do you personally bring to this new venture?
3. Marketing Analysis/Strategy: The next thing to write (after the general description) should be your marketing strategy. For new or existing businesses, market analysis is an important basis for the marketing plan and will help justify the sales forecast. Existing businesses will rely heavily on past performance as an indicator of the future. New businesses have a greater challenge - they will rely more on market research using libraries, trade associations, government statistics, surveys, competitor observations, etc. In all cases, make sure your market analysis is relevant to establishing the viability of your new business and the reasonableness of the sales forecast.
4. Location: Writing down the location of your business is very important. Locations with greater customer traffic usually cost more to buy or rent, but they require less spending for advertising to attract customers. This is especially true of retail businesses where traffic count and accessibility are critical.
If an online business, you need to go into detail how you will attract customers to your website. General statements like "I will use Face Book ads and email marketing" will contribute almost nothing to helping your cause unless you have detailed statistical analysis of tests you have conducted or of another similar business you have been associated with. If you do not have any data upon which you reference your estimates, it could show lack of proper thought to the remainder of your business plan.
5. Competitive Analysis: Business by nature is competitive, and few businesses are completely new. If there are no competitors, be careful; there may be no market for your products. Expand your concept of competition. If you plan to open the first roller skating rink in town, your competition will include movie theaters, malls, bowling alleys, etc.
6. Management and Operations: Because management problems are the leading cause of business failures, it is important to discuss management qualifications and structure. Resumes of the Principals should be included in supporting data. If your business will have few employees and rely heavily on outside professionals, list these key people and their qualifications. If you are seeking financing, include personal financial statements for all of the principals in the supporting data section.
7. Personnel: The success of any company depends on their ability to recruit, train and retain quality employees. The amount of emphasis in your plan for this section will depend on the number and type of employees required.
8. Projected Financial Statements: These statements are usually helpful, but not necessary. You will develop and describe your strategies for the business throughout your Business Plan. In the financial section, you will need to estimate the financial impact of those strategies by developing projected Income Statements, Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow Statements.
It is usually recommended that these projected statements be on a monthly basis for at least the first twelve months or until the business is projected to be profitable and stable. Activity displayed beyond the monthly detail may be in summary form (such as quarterly or annually). The forecast period for most business plans is two to four years.
9. Summary Section: This section is where you will be able to attach or explain any detail not applicable to the previous sections. This section should be used to provide the financial statements of the Principle's involved in the business and any other data you think an investor would be interested in seeing.
The main thing to remember in this section is not to provide new data, but to explain in detail data that has already been provided and to provide the support for that data.
When you sit down to compile all of the elements of your business plan, make sure you have each section able to stand on its own merits. This means you should not reference other sections sending the reader (your potential investor) back and forth between sections.
Do not try to write your business plan in one sitting. As I mentioned in the beginning, for a traditional brick and mortar business, it could take in excess of 100 hours to compile all of the information needed into a comprehensive but yet understandable document. For online businesses, probably not that long. But your final product should be well thought out, well documented and easily understandable.
On my website, http://www.bobthibodeau.com, I am helping those who are new to Internet Marketing not make the same mistakes I (and countless others) have made getting started. I also help those marketers who are struggling in an area of getting their business going. I offer no promises - just plain, straight forward training and assistance for those who are serious about making a serious, online income.
Most Internet Marketers fail online because they do not know where their business is going or how they are going to get there (to whatever their end point goal is - usually making money online). Many newbie Internet Marketers may experience a little success at first, but eventually they will fail. They will fail because they do not have or use a solid business plan in the development of their online business. Most people just starting out in Internet Marketing treat this business as a "hobby." It is something they do in their spare time.
Most of these online entrepreneurs run after the hype and eventually close down their online business. This is almost always due to the lack of sales. They thought it would be "easy" to get sales online. The ideas behind these websites were great, but the people who conceived the idea failed to see the potential of the business venture.
To build a solid online business you need to think like a business owner. You are only going to turn your creativity into money by using the resources that are available to you. Whenever you are faced with a challenge in your online business, you should devote time to plan and analyze a strategy to overcome the challenge and succeed. 90% of the people who are investing in business ventures do not do this - and it leads to their failure!
One way I found that will help you plan the content for your website is by using what is called a "10x10 matrix."
10x10 matrix
Open up a new excel file and brainstorm 10 things that you are passionate about. Write these 10 things in the first row - going across the top. These things would be the ones you would do for free and enjoy doing it. Your day job may be that of an office manager but you love vintage cars. Over the years you have learned a lot about vintage cars through magazines, videos and real life experiences. People come to you and ask for your advice on the subject of vintage cars. You really know a lot about vintage cars and you could talk nonstop for hours if provided the opportunity. You may know how to buy vintage cars and you are able to advise others on what vintage cars to choose that will suit their style.
Or you may be an avid golfer. If that is the case, then you need to write down 10 things that you can teach others on how to improve their golf game under the cell "golf."
These things should be short like "warming up"; "driving range" (start with the wedge and move backward to the driver, with 10 shots each); there is the "sand bunker practice"; there is "chipping",there is "putting"; there is staying cool in hot environments etc.
Write 10 things UNDER each main subject you wrote in the cells on the first row at the top. Some categories may not have 10 things you can think of and some may have more than 10.
Now that you have brainstormed a lot of potential topics, you need to see if these topics are being used in search engines on the Internet. You do not want to create content that no one reads about!
You can use Google keyword planner to see the list of related keywords in your niche. You can also see the amount the advertisers are paying for a particular keyword.
If you are creating a blog with the articles related to the keywords, you can use Ad-sense ads in your articles. This will allow you the possibility to make money from each blog post! You will need to build a website to do that (and that requires a small financial investment as well).
Use each sub-category to write an article and post that article to your blog site. Combine all of the sub-categories that you have turned into articles into an e-book that you can offer for sale or use it in a Give Away to build your email list. The possibilities are endless!
If you are not good at writing articles but you enjoy creating videos - use video blogging! You can create a YouTube channel and upload you videos to this channel. You can directly monetize your videos on YouTube. Once you have sufficient subscribers, you can ask for donations or provide premium content for a fee on your channel.
If you like to write articles then you can create an e-Book containing premium content and sell it on your website. I would recommend you use a merchant account from Click-Bank. Click-Bank is an online retail outlet that showcases over 10,000 digital products from vendors around the globe. More than 100,000 active affiliates promote the products of the vendors for commissions.
It is possible that you could receive a lot of sales within a short span of time. To do this, you need to encourage your affiliates to promote your product by providing them various promotional materials which they can use that are related to your product.
Remember to make your business scalable because you will get a lot of customers who are willing to buy more products from you in the future. So you will be building your list while making money! The best of both worlds!
You can even create Joint Ventures with some of the other marketers and make even more money selling your products in the future. Joint Ventures take many forms, such as Give Away events or just emailing a promotion from your JV partner to your list and they mail their list about your product.
You should always create a business plan based on facts and figures. You need to track and modify your campaigns continuously to stay ahead in this very fluid and very competitive business. Do not treat this as a hobby or your will only have a hobby. You can only have a business if you treat this "as a business."
You can receive additional information from my blog located at http://www.bobthibodeau.com I post several articles there each month that will help you to establish and grow your Internet business quickly (and cheaply)! Although I cannot guarantee you I have the answers to all of your problems, I have been "around the block" a few times and probably have experienced what you are going through. Come over to my blog and look around, leave a comment or ask a question.
