Choose from six in-depth workshops that will sharpen your internet marketing skills SMX Advanced pre-conference workshops are conducted by the world’s leading subject matter experts in SEO, SEM, social and digital. All workshops will be held on Monday, June 12 at the Bell Harbor Convention Center in Seattle. You’ll pick one workshop for a full day of actionable tactics you can use to improve your campaigns right away! Keep reading for workshop previews. Each workshop provides: In-depth instruction from respected search and social media marketing leaders; Intimate learning and networking experience with like-minded professionals; Actionable takeaways that you’ll put to use immediately. BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! Advanced AdWords Training with Brad Geddes: AdWords is at the core of many companies’ digital campaigns. Inefficient PPC campaigns can have a drastic impact on your bottom line. This intensive AdWords course will teach you best practices and advanced concepts and strategies that are based upon a decade of research and testing. Mastering Social Media Advertising with Search Engine Land’s Ginny Marvin and guest presenters: Designed for paid social media marketing practitioners and managers, you’ll take a deep dive into getting more out of paid social — from advanced-level learning on creative strategies to efficiently managing all your paid campaigns. Learn more. Search-engine Friendly Mobile Design & Development with Shari Thurow and Bryson Meunier: Gain insights on how to establish and develop a “natural” mobile SEO strategy — increasing your mobile search engine visibility and conversions. Advanced SEO Training with Bruce Clay: Get a detailed overview of critical ranking and placement techniques to overcome competition for top search engine rankings for desired keywords. Mastering Google Analytics with Andrew Garberson: Leverage Google Analytics as a powerful analysis and reporting tool for search marketing. Gain more meaningful data and insights to accelerate your performance. Content Marketing Mastery with Casie Gillette: Specifically designed for in-house marketers and consultants, this workshop helps you create better content marketing programs by identifying content gaps, utilizing data to make more informed decisions, and hearing how experts create effective promotion strategies. SMX workshop participants rave about their experiences: “Honestly, much better than any conference I have attended as it provided a full eight hours on a single topic that I value – instructed by a very credible player in the PPC/SEM world (Brad Geddes).” – Sam, First Bank Holding Customize your SMX Advanced experience AND save: All Access and Workshop combo: Get the complete package for only $2,795, a savings of $600 compared to on-site rates. Or, if you’ve registered for an All Access Pass and would like to upgrade with a workshop, just pay an additional $900. Workshop Pass: Just looking for a one day workshop intensive? You can do that too for just $995, a $200 savings compared to on-site rates. If you’re just interested in attending the SMX Advanced conference June 12-14, that’s fine too! For only $1,895, you’ll get full access to all conference sessions, keynotes, clinics, networking activities, WiFi and hot meals.
5 ways your merchandising strategy is affecting SEO performance
How does your merchandising strategy affect SEO? Columnist Stephanie LeVonne describes the various challenges that can arise if you overlook the importance of communicating your merchandising strategy with your SEO team. When optimizing an e-commerce website for SEO performance, you’ll often notice that the product being sold (i.e., the bread and butter of the business) is generally not a focal point in the SEO discussion. After all, SEO recommendations aren’t necessarily based on a brand’s product mix, but rather a strategy is developed based on the holistic needs of the website. While it’s important to understand the product and how it’s positioned in the marketplace (luxury product, discount product or something else), that’s typically where the conversation ends. Often SEOs liaise directly with marketing managers, and because of this, there’s generally little discussion around the merchandising strategy and how it can affect SEO. Below are five common, yet overlooked, scenarios which detail the importance of communicating your merchandising strategy. Challenge 1: Inventory issues & negative reviews What does inventory management have to do with SEO? Turns out, a lot. While I think it’s safe to say that most brands use a live inventory system, meaning that stock-status is updated in real time, some companies haven’t yet adopted this technology. And for this reason, order fulfillment can become a real challenge. One consequence of having loosely managed inventory is overselling merchandise. While this is undoubtedly a huge problem, it may not seem like one that affects SEO, until of course, we examine the trickle-down effect. Essentially, orders that cannot be fulfilled will need to be refunded in a timely manner. While this might not seem like a criminal offense, telling someone that the sweater they ordered for Christmas is now on back-order probably isn’t going to make them a brand advocate any time soon — especially if this is their first interaction with the brand. While some customers might call to voice their concern, many will likely take to social media or Yelp to air their grievances. What was once a problem with fulfillment has now turned into a full-fledged issue of reputation management. Challenge 2: Out-of-stock products & schema markup Perhaps your brand has implemented “stock” schema markup which allows you to display whether products are in stock or out of stock directly in the SERPs. This nifty little enhancement gives consumers information at the tips of their fingers, without ever interacting with your landing page. Going back to the inventory management discussion, the real problem begins when products that are frequently going out of stock aren’t updating their stock status on the back end as they are replenished. This can result in incorrect “out of stock” messaging appearing in the SERPs. In the most extreme cases, depending on how your products are set up in your CMS, one color variation going out of stock could trigger all instances of the product to appear completely out of stock. Not only will you lose sales, but your traffic will likely take a hit as well. As a best practice, continually check the appearance of your schema markup on a regular basis. If worse comes to worst, you can always temporarily disable the schema until you get a handle on the situation. Challenge 3: Product variants & canonical tags One common issue that many websites face is URL confusion (i.e., multiple products or pages competing against each other in the SERPs). In the case of many e-commerce sites, these are often products which are identical but differ in color. An easy way to mitigate this issue is to use color swatches on each page and ensure that when a color is selected, it does not generate a dynamic parameter in the URL. Color swatches allow for consumers to browse all variants of a product — and since only one URL is created, you reduce the chance of duplicate content. Source: Nordstrom.com While this would be deemed a “best practice” rather than a strategy, there are still some websites that create individual URLs for each different color of a product and each different size. For instance, if you offer the same shoe in red, gray and black, and it’s available in six different sizes, imagine the number of pages that would generate! (Hint: It’s a lot) Another common scenario that can have major implications is the following: Product goes out of stock and page is taken down, and product comes back in stock and new page is created. Firstly, let’s address the fact that taking down a page or removing it from your navigation does NOT mean it’s gone. In fact, that page is likely still live and being indexed, especially if it’s in your XML sitemap. Without a solid canonical tag strategy in place, you will inevitably create pages and pages of duplicate content. If this is an issue for your brand, it’s essential to make sure you have canonical tags in place. Ideally, you should try to have one product page where users can select multiple colors. In the event that the product goes out of stock, you could change the on-page messaging to say something like, “This product is temporarily unavailable — check back soon” rather than remove the page in its entirety, especially if there is a slim chance you will remember to reinstate it. Challenge 4: Never-ending sales Whether your brand plays in the luxury space or targets the bargain-savvy shopper, you understand the power of a good promotion. Sales generate a sense of urgency which entices consumers to buy now. With many retailers trying to take advantage of unofficial holidays (think “national ice cream cone day”) it’s easy to get overzealous with your promotional calendar. Running promotions too frequently can cause consumers to become immune to your messaging and tune you out. Rather than take out their credit cards, consumers are more apt to debate the necessity of the purchase — and even delay the sale if they know they can expect another in a few
Essential Search and Social Media Promotion Tips for News Content
Essential Search and Social Media Promotion Tips for News Content Lee Odden on Apr 17th, 2017 Content Marketing, Online PR, Social Media Serena Ehrlich BusinessWire Marketing and PR greatness must include equal parts intelligence, creativity and a focus on results. But there’s one more important ingredient necessary to help you stand out: enthusiasm. Serena Ehrlich from BusinessWire has all of these characteristics and at the Digital Summit LA conference, she shared a cornucopia of practical advice about media relations and promotion of news content with zest and gusto. Here are a few highlights. Serena EhrlichIt’s common sense and supported by research that industry media is a source of news and trusted information for buyers of every kind. Consumers and journalists have changed right along with the technology used to discover, consume and engage with content. Therefore, it’s essential that marketing and communications professionals empathize with their audience to understand their preferences and give them what they want. Because newsrooms have shrunk and journalists are overwhelmed with bad pitches along with a news cycle that runs 24/7 it’s a challenge to stand out. But no fear, you can really increase your chances of successful media pickups by following a few news release tips from Serena: Include usable support data Be interesting Be relevant to target audience Be catchy Include quotes Include multimedia Of course, outbound media pitching isn’t the only way journalists can be exposed to your news content. Search engines and social networks can deliver thousands of additional readers that are actively looking for information that your brand has to give. That means making sure news releases and newsroom content is optimized for the right keywords and promoted through social media. Serena suggested using Google Trends to find keywords to add to your release headlines to increase opens, which is great. You can also use tools like keywordtool.io, Moz Keyword Explorer or if you have a Google AdWords account, their Keyword Planner. (we’ve covered press release optimization extensively here in the past in case you want to venture that way) Serena brought up that since journalists are increasingly judged on the traffic or page view performance of the articles they write, be sure to let them know when they cover your story, that you will share what they write across your social networks. If they know you’ll help promote the article, they might be more inclined to use you for the story and again in the future. When it comes to social media promotion, Serena stressed the importance of earning trust. How do you do that? Here are her tips: Share smart content: – News releases and coverage – New ideas – Stats and data – Ask provocative questions Share happy content: – Case studies – User generated content shares – CSR content – Employee life Share negative-fix content: – How can you solve this pain point? – Share consequences Social networks are where people spend their time, period. And to engage with customers, brands need to be where the customers are. To help you promote your news content where people are actually spending time, Serena shared these tips for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and YouTube: LinkedIn Tips: Professional Competition – Link with coworkers: Trigger LinkedIn’s algorithm by sharing updates simultaneously – Include contact information in your release: LinkedIn promotes people mentioned in news releases – Use LinkedIn blog opportunities to reach new audiences and drive traffic via company blog teaser – Write content that includes the 6 Ws, you, lists, hacks, psychology, careers, talent and multimedia Twitter Tips: Smart, Clever, First – Format: 118-character count – include a headline, link, comments – News content types to post on Twitter: Stats, releases, coverage – Don’t forget to use relevant hashtags – up to 3 – Include up to 4 images, GIF or video – Join hashtag chats – Add Influencers to Twitter lists – Create RT DMs groups – people you can reach out to for mutual sharing of content Facebook Tips: Personal, Smart, Visual – Increase Your Reach – Facebook parses content by type – Facebook matches word use in updates – Use free audience targeting – Upload video in early afternoon Use Facebook Live for reach: – 10 minutes in length – Include surprise material – Comment pinning pending Be sure to try Facebook Notes for the SEO value Reddit Tips: Passionate, Smart, Informed – Reddit has a large audience with 45,000 targeted communities – Share links to drive traffic, but be sure to participate with the Reddit community first to build relationships (don’t just dump your links) – Only share relevant information Instagram Tips: Fame, Recognition – Instagram is a visual social network, so be sure to use high quality or interesting imagery – Showcase behind the scenes, physical products, physical locations – Highlight employee engagement On Instagram, be sure to: – Sign up for a business page – Drive traffic via URL in profile or Stories – Be descriptive – Use hashtags (up to 30) – Like other people’s images to increase interactivity Pinterest Tips: Showing off + Smart – Pinterest is the most aspirational network – It is very focused on B2C, but there are opportunities for B2B – Extremely high CTR On Pinterest, be sure to: – Fuel the smart board – Be hyper-targeted – Be descriptive – Use hashtags Snapchat Tips: Unvarnished Truth – 71% of Snapchat users are 18-34 years old. – Users have an average of 15 friends – To maximize your impact on Snapchat, buy a geofilter! On Snapchat, be sure to: – Provide VIP/exclusive access to content – Be highly relevant with real time discussion – Include offers and coupons – Consider takeovers YouTube + BizWireTV Tips: Video News – 33% of YouTube searches are for news – YouTube TV is launching in 2017 On YouTube, be sure to: – Create content for all sales funnel steps – Determine what your audience watches in long form and shorten it – Create a video of text
Online Business Marketing Strategy For The Holidays – 5 Must-Dos
Are you prepared for the most difficult online vacation marketing season to date? Online shopkeepers with a bulletproof marketing strategy stand to triumph large-scale. As a good Internet Marketing coach, here at JoseFrancOnline, we’ve been preparing our clients to rise above the competition and get the results that they want this season. So, there are five tips-off to make sure that you cross the Q4 finishing line in splendor. Make adaptations for increased costs and competition while selling your makes in quarter four. Assess past historic trends on a commodity by commodity basis and optimize for future commodity inclusions. Render specials such as free ship for early vacations such as Black Friday and Thanksgiving. All kinds of patrons use all kinds of machines to find what they are looking for. So, you want to residence yourself in as many of those as possible. Then you want to optimize your makes so that you can be found for the keywords they are sought for. On pinnacle of that you wish to allocate enough fund make room for a seasonal CPC growths so you aren’t left behind contestants. Policies in compliance. Make assured that your up to date with all the current plans of the engines in the mart never submitted epitomes that have graphics, watermarks, or expression in them. The pricing that is submitted in your data feed has to befit perfectly with the pricing on your page. And make sure that you’re not utilizing any unauthorized expression including health or medical says or things like free ship in the language of your commodity datafeed. Take care the content and the SEO on any website and take care of the contents that’s in your datafeed. Now, when you optimize for those slice you want to pay attention to the commodity, the gathering, and the application. How’s the commodity use, who uses the commodity, and what is the product. Those are five tips-off for success this vacation season. Do you have a tip-off you’d like to share? We’d love to hear from you. Purchase helping products here! As found on Youtube
Ad Tracking Success
It’s no secret that there’s a lot of money involved with affiliate marketing. This is only true however, for those who are serious and hard working on their affiliate program. The biggest part of succeeding depends on your perseverance and determination. Even the best of affiliate programs won’t prosper if you don’t build the business on a solid foundation. Nothing happens if the banners and links you place on a website just decorates the pages. The affiliate must convince visitors to click on the banner or link then proceed to the program to buy products. Affiliate marketing can be easy if you have planned your campaign well and have taken the right steps towards success. Choosing the right product and designing your website with banners and the right material are keys to making things happen. An ad tracker is a software program that will allow you to trace and monitor every click that is made by visitors through your referral link. To make things even better, you know exactly where you placed the link. You can either use a service provider or purchase ad tracking software. With ad trackers, you can monitor the progress of your campaigns, even advertising offline. If you have several affiliate accounts, this tool can be very good to have. Each and every decision about Affiliate Marketing you make should be well grounded in facts. By using an ad tracker, you’ll be able to generate traffic reports for your personal sales page. Armed with the proper knowledge and an ad tracking software program, you’ll have no problems succeeding in the affiliate marketing world. It can be tough to get started – although once you start making money you’ll be glad you took the chance! My Best Wishes José Franc Admin of josefranconline.com
Selling through your Home Business Online
Consider Opening an Online Home Business. It is easy to open an online store just sell through the more trusted websites. Online shopping is becoming a mainstay of American commerce and more people are comfortable with making purchases from Internet Home Business. If you have something that you are passionate about selling, Before you start an online home business, do some research online and check out your potential competition. If you have a business idea in mind, it is worth the time and effort to see what else is being sold in your category of products. If you have no idea what you want to sell, you’ll also want to head online to search out what would be most profitable to sell. When you make the selection of what you are going to sell, remember to think a niche. A niche is a small category of products that meet the needs of a specific group of people. Your online home business shouldn’t have a “Wal-mart” approach where there is a little bit of everything for everyone. Online commerce is all about small categories of interest. There are so many things to choose from, you have more success when you cater to a small and specific group of people. The best place to start with finding a niche is thinking about your own interests. When you sell to a niche that you know well, you are more likely to know what products will be of interest to those people. You can sell to your clientele based on your own experience. Moms Working in a Home Business Many Wahms start an online home business because they have homemade products to offer. One example is handmade baby clothes and cloth diapers. Many Wahms have found success with putting their sewing skills to work and selling their wares online. Other popular handmade online stores include bath and body products, candles and gift baskets. This does not mean that you can’t have online store success if you don’t make your own products. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of Wahms who have success by opening stores stocked with store-bought inventory. Whatever your choice, whether handmade or store bought, there are many options for hosting your online store. These options depend on how comfortable you are with web design. Many companies, like Yahoo, offer store websites that are very user friendly and simple to set up. They can cost anywhere from $30 to $200 per month for the storefront services. Many Wahms also find success with eBay stores, which allow them to sell in auctions or in a fixed price format. Look At All Of Your Options Before You Choose Your Online Home Business Hosting Remember that the quality of your hosting will reflect the quality of your business. The last thing you need is your entire website going down due to cheap hosting. The best choice is to find a reputable host that will provide you with a storefront and hosting for a reasonable price. Don’t try to pinch pennies on this aspect of your business. You could end up out of business in no time. Once you’ve found a place to host your online home business, you’ll need to drive internet traffic to the home business. One of the easiest ways is to trade banners with other Wahm online home business. Many Wahms support each other in their online efforts. This form of networking is a great way to introduce your products to customers who already look to support Wahms. You can also advertise using pay per click advertising and work on your website so that it increases in page ranking for certain search terms. Keep your customers coming back with an easy to navigate website, simple ordering techniques and good customer service. Even though most of your business will be done online, it’s a good idea to get a business phone line and put that number on your website. This way customers can feel confident in purchasing from you because they know they can speak to a real person if there is a problem with their order. If you follow these tips you will be successful selling online no matter what type of online home business that you open. My Best Wishes José Franc Admin of josefranconline.com
10 easy steps to help your business flourish on Facebook
Whether your business is new to Facebook marketing or just in need of a refresh, columnist Will Scott’s Facebook tips will help you build a vibrant and engaged Facebook presence. If your business isn’t making itself visible on Facebook, then you’re missing out on one of the most cost-effective places to meet new customers. Everyone is aware of the popularity of Facebook, but not as many people appreciate the opportunities available to businesses that develop a social media presence. With social media, you have unprecedented control over your brand image, and you can put your message in front of the users who are most likely to be interested. Use these simple tips to take advantage of the internet’s most popular social media platform. 1. Flesh out your Facebook page Even if you already have an engaging and user-friendly website, take some time to completely fill out a Facebook page for your business. Include pictures of your storefront and staff, to make your business trustworthy and relatable. Your Facebook presence gives you a foot in the door with social media users who are looking to learn more without leaving their social media app. Be sure to include contact information, hours of operation and a link to your website. 2. Schedule frequent and consistent posts Once you have pictures and information about your business, an active page should also have relatively frequent posts. Try to post original content at least once a week, but prioritize quality over quantity. Posting several times a day might annoy your fans, causing them to unlike or unfollow your page. When you post blog updates or other business announcements, Facebook posts allow you to amplify that message to a wider audience. Direct social media users to visit your blog or special offers page. 3. Learn about your customers Once your page has attracted some attention, the Audience Insight tools gather quantitative information about the people who like and visit your page. Learn more about their demographics, and use that information to reach out to new groups. If your page is attracting more middle-aged women than expected, for example, then you may want to include posts that are particularly relevant for those potential customers. You can also make a point of reaching out to customers in other age groups to explore untapped markets. 4. Pay attention to — and encourage — reactions and comments Pay attention to the posts that get reactions and comments. Comments generally indicate a higher level of engagement because it takes more time to type a response than to simply hit “Like,” though the variety of new reactions provide more information than the older “likes.” Depending on your target audience, you may want to elicit a wide range of reactions to make your brand more relatable. Be careful about responding to negative comments, but invite dissatisfied customers to call or email directly. When your business does engage, interaction should be succinct and professional. 5. Post content that gets shared Even for a business page, social media can feel like a popularity contest. When more users share your post, your message goes a lot farther, hopefully generating leads for your business. Of course, not all popular content will be appropriate for your brand. Be especially careful of posts and links that could have political implications or alienate potential customers. It’s best to avoid controversial subject matter and stick to your area of expertise. 6. Stay engaged If your business replies quickly to messages on Facebook, then others will be able to see that your page is active and responsive. Make sure your posts are relevant to your target audience in order to get a response, and try to focus on things that readers will genuinely find useful or newsworthy. Present yourself as a resource for timely and interesting industry news. Consider engaging with your employees through their social media pages, too. 7. Connect with the community Stay relevant by posting information about local festivals and other regional news. If your business is connected with charitable organizations, then social media gives you an opportunity to highlight that connection. Post photos of your employees when they volunteer with local non-profits, and show the community how your brand has a positive impact. As a bonus, when you have an active Facebook page, other businesses and profiles can link their posts and thank-you announcements to your page. 8. Post and share events Create Facebook events for your next big sale. When events are happening in the community, you can draw attention to those as well. Many businesses fail to leverage events as opportunities to promote their social media page. Given the number of people on Facebook, creating an event page can also increase the turnout for your real-world event. Facebook events make it easy for users to invite friends and see how many people plan to attend. 9. Pay for advertising Once you collect a few hundred fans on Facebook, you’ll notice that your posts don’t seem to get as many views as they should. Your posts don’t necessarily get 50 times more exposure when your page has 50 times more followers. This gives new pages and startups an advantage when they first develop a following, but larger business can still have a big impact on Facebook. Paying for advertising allows you to target people with interests relevant to your industry. You can also target specific demographics and areas to maximize your advertising dollar. 10. Build social media into your SEO budget Like updating your website for search engine optimization, social media is a long-term project for your business. You may not have anyone experienced or qualified to manage your social media presence, and few businesses can afford to hire a new employee for this highly specialized job. Many managers have a hard enough time keeping employees off of their personal Facebook pages. Creating engaging content takes time, and the simplest option is often bundling social media maintenance with other SEO services. Final thoughts Maintaining an online presence
How To Act About Voice Search
Generation Z and early Generation Alpha will likely be the last of us to type. Keyboard users are a dying population. Who is the next generation? Voice users. If you spend time with young kids, you’ll notice that they favor voice assistants over keyboards. And who can blame them? People rarely turn down easier ways of doing things! Marketers need to be thinking about this shift, because voice search will have a significant impact on content discovery through search. Although currently there is no simple or precise way of identifying voice vs. non-voice queries, “Okay Google” queries are becoming far more common in search query reports for our clients, and they’re even showing up as rising terms in Google Trends. To be successful in this shifting landscape, marketers need to start fine-tuning their strategies across media and content types, including text, image and video. For website content, it may be in your best interest to have specific natural language pages that come from CRM (customer relationship management) exchanges so that search engines can index them and return more accurate information to consumers based on past conversations. Queries like “best running shoes” will start to fade, and hyper-specific requests tailored to that individual, like “Okay Google, I need a size 10 and a half running shoe with a 5-star rating that’s on sale in-store on Newbury Street,” will start to increase. For images and videos, traditional SEO factors such as naming, tagging, descriptions, titles, transcripts and where the assets reside will continue to be crucial to help map natural language queries to the best content. So if you’ve optimized toward head terms like “running shoes,” you may want to revisit the core value propositions of your products and work toward always winning on specific and critical points of differentiation. You can then optimize toward these specific attributes, because it’s unlikely that someone is going to use “Okay Google running shoes” as their voice search query. What are people actually talking to Google Voice about? The first step in pivoting your strategy to account for the rise in voice assistants is to understand how people are using them. The good news is that all marketers who run paid search can see all the things people are saying in voice when they receive an ad impression. You can download the raw data from Google AdWords Search Query Report and filter for “Okay Google.” Technically, I don’t think the activation line “Okay Google” is passed in every time there is a voice query. Also, I think many instances of “Okay Google” queries are from individuals who got a bit impatient and said the activation phrase multiple times, thus logging it. However, at this time, filtering by the activation line is the only way to clearly identify a voice query from a typed one, although some voice queries are easy to identify when looking at mobile-specific queries. Overall, it’s clear that a class on “How to Speak to Voice Assistants” would go a long way. Although I’m sure all the voice assistants would love to be your friend, they are simply not there, and there’s a specific way you need to speak to actually get what you want. That fact, however, doesn’t seem to prevent people from attempting to shoot the moon. Below are examples of real voice queries, and I find them to be hysterical, but also very informative. If you invest heavily in paid search, this data can be extremely valuable for many areas of your marketing, including your digital strategy, product development, and brand communication, which brings us to point one: 1. Consumers talk to their assistants like they’re people, not programs Overly complicated queries with multilayered requests are hard for assistants to answer. “Okay google go get the number for Ken Gop for me in San Bernardino California and also Dallas please” Close, but not quite. I don’t think Ken Gop is a real person. I looked into it. 2. Consumers are struggling with the basics of using voice assistants Consumers specifically struggle when Google Voice is already on and they don’t realize it: “you know I don’t like asking it it creeps me out, okay google when does tempe marketplace close?” Not bad, but I doubt Google will give you the closing time if you call it creepy. To be fair, voice assistants commonly join the conversation without being invited. My favorite moments during work meetings these days are when someone who has placed their phone on the conference table unexpectedly has their voice assistant join in after believing it heard an activation phrase. 3. Consumers who appear to understand voice functionality tend to get specific, sometimes disturbingly specific “okay google find the closest place my seven year old son can get white skinny jeans” C’mon brands! Where is the organic content that showcases 7-year-olds’ skinny jeans? Creating content with as many characteristics and dimensions as possible is going to be important for voice assistants. When I talk to my voice assistant, I’m going to ask for jeans that are 32w 30l, dark, on sale, high ratings — and if you serve me an ad that gives me anything but that, I will leave. I simply don’t have the time to click around. I’m a millennial after all. 4. People get personal and honest with their voice assistant “Okay Google, I want to get him trashy pajamas for Christmas.” Poor guy. So, Kohl’s… ouch. Google thinks you have the trashiest Christmas pajamas. But if there are sales to be had, I can’t blame you. In all seriousness, this highlights an important point for brands, especially as voice integration becomes common everywhere: You don’t want to be discovered for bad things. For example, when using Alexa to browse Amazon to buy pajamas, I’ll say, “Alexa, I want to see the highest-rated pajamas that are on sale.” In return, I’ll receive a list of 10 pajamas, and they look great. Then I will ask, “Which of these pajamas has received the
5 Luxury Marketing Strategies – increase your conversions
There’s a reason Gucci doesn’t do infomercials for tiger print duffels. That Equinox doesn’t offer a discount for January first’s newly health-obsessed. That anthropomorphic Hamsters break dance in front of Kia Souls instead of Range Rovers. Advertising for luxury brands tends to focus on, well, luxury. The happiness they inspire. The quality. The sheer opulence that becomes a piece of one’s life when he or she buys free-range leave-in conditioner infused with dolphin tears, or an ornate bottle of some top-shelf botanical cordial. Whether you’re storyboarding a TV spot or building out an ad group, your target audience needs to feel as though your product or service is a physical manifestation of luxury. Now, this sort of strategy (creating the appearance that your product embodies some specific quality or trait) is not exclusive to luxury brands. Taco Bell, for example, is most certainly not a luxury brand, but their marketing efforts (and new product development), are wholly focused on the late-night munchies-sufferers among us. The language and images used in Taco Bell’s marketing materials speak to these consumers; there’s very little pomp, just an often-entertaining reminder that there’s no better place to shove eleven cheap tacos made out of Doritos and meatstuff into your face hole. The ad above exemplifies this perfectly. Cheesy neon signs. Colloquial language. An assortment of various corn or flour vessels oozing tasty mysteries. Now that you’re sufficiently hungry (or repulsed) let’s switch gears and refocus on advertising for luxury brands. Check out this text ad for Rolex, arguably the world’s most recognizable luxury watch company: Notice the language used. “Timeless” and “luxury” and “performance” and “prestige.” There’s an undeniable sense that a Rolex is opulence incarnate and an implication that if you manage to wrap one around your wrist, you are elite. Now, you may not be as recognizable as Rolex, but we can show you how to leverage the same tactics and then some (I’m looking at you, notably bland CTA) so that you can use PPC to grow and market your luxury brand. Luxury Marketing Strategy #1: Account-Wide Negative Keywords The first, and easiest, strategy for marketing your luxury brand is classic “addition by subtraction.” You’re probably already incorporating negative keywords into your optimization routine, but did you know you can save time by uploading them at the account level? Account-level negative keywords are a simple addition to your AdWords efforts; all you need is a CSV file loaded with negative keywords. From there, you simply upload the file in the Bulk Upload tab of the Shared Library and then apply it to as many campaigns as you’d like. Doing so has a handful of benefits, but the most important for marketing luxury goods and services is the ability to weed out unqualified traffic. Think about it. Say you sell shoes hand cobbled by the finest artisans in all of Montana. While the keyword “shoes” will certainly yield traffic, and some of those searchers may very well be interested in buying your exceptional kicks, the overwhelming majority of that traffic falls outside of your target demographic. This becomes even more of an issue as you begin to consider keywords with modifiers. “Cheap,” “sale,” and the dreaded “free” are all words that, when appended to a query, ostensibly eliminate a searcher as a prospect. Account-wide negative keywords ensure you never bid on terms you have no interest in paying for (on purpose or accidentally). Luxury Marketing Strategy #2: Make Bing a Priority For the majority of search marketers, AdWords is the end all be all. Bing and other networks (Yahoo Gemini among them) tend to exist in their arsenal complementarity, if at all. Generally speaking, this is a bad idea. For luxury brands, it’s a cardinal sin. What does that 30% mean, exactly? 160 million unique searchers. 5 billion monthly searches. But perhaps most important to your business is the fact that Bing allows you to reach 59 million people who aren’t reached on Google. Yes, for the most part clicks on Bing are cheaper than they are on AdWords. This is awesome. But the network’s real value is the fact that you can get an additional 118 million eyeballs (a third of which have are attached to six-figure incomes) on your luxury goods. Luxury Marketing Strategy #3: Elevate Your Ad Copy Expanded Text Ads are now our reality, and there’s never been a better time to market your high-end product using the power of paid search. With all that extra space comes the ability to differentiate yourself from the rest of the SERP with language instead of relying solely on brand recognition. After all, even when you’re bidding on branded keywords, there’s a good chance you’ll be competing with third party distributors and your direct competitors. The copy you use in your text ads will be the difference between earning a prospect’s click and watching them scroll on by. But what does better ad copy look like? Great question! As you can see in the column on the left, STA (what used to be called Standard Text Ads) placed tight restrictions on your ability to say anything compelling in your ad copy. How can you stand out from the competition when everyone’s pigeonholed into using the same five-ish sentence fragments? Off the top of my head, hiring a commercially motivated haiku writer was the only plausible solution. Today, though, with the addition of a second headline and more space in the description (plus the URL pathways), you can parlay your brand’s unique sales proposition without truncation. You can wrap it in enticing, alluring, wholly irresistible copy. Don’t just tell your prospects to buy now: tell them why they have no other choice. Check out this text ad for Chanel. What do you notice? In the good ‘ol days, this is an ad that would fly in the face of best practices. Today, though, I’d say it represents an interesting A/B test. Now, are this ad’s headlines great? No. They lean so heavily
Internet Marketing in the cognitive age. The Big Data.
We define marketing strategies to achieve business objectives. We analyze the behavior of our audience, find how it interacts with our brand, define the strategy and launching a series of actions to achieve the objectives. In this process we must make many decisions based on data. Decision-making in current marketing We are aware that we will never have all the information we need to get our decisions right. The number of variables that affect the outcome is so great that it would be impossible to achieve. That is why we try to stimulate the best decisions possible based on the data we have. To do so we have multiple sources of data, so many that we have troubles to assimilate all information and become it into knowledge for the company. In the context of online marketing we typically handle data file such as: surveys, databases, campaigns, web, social networks, etc, but this is only a small part of the data that we are capable to take into account to stimulate the best possible decision. Use big data to optimize marketing strategies The more unstructured the data source is, more difficult the analysis is. We are talking about big data, of its three V’s: data that are created at a great Velocity, are unstructured (Variety) and are generated in large quantities(Volume). When we talk about inserting big data in decision making, the most sensible recommendation is for the company to take control of the data it currently manages( Basic data ) to continue to optimize the online channel( Small data) and to consider the Step or not to the big data. In this context of the analysis of the big data, its used only for make business decisions (in terms of marketing, patently its applications are numerous) is when cognitive technology takes on importance. Big data and cognitive computation Including unstructured data in decision-making is very complicated. If we add that 80% of the information collected has not been encoded in language( so our systems can read it) and is in formats that our systems are not able to interpret, it is “invisible” info for our company. What is cognitive artificial intelligence or cognitive computing? Seeking for sources of information to illustrate this article, the definition that I liked the most was Cognitiva (IBM partner): Definition of cognitive computing “Cognitive computing is described as a new type of technology system that understands the world like humans do: through the senses, learning and experience. Cognitive systems continually learn through each interaction and with each new part of information and thus gain value and knowledge over time.” What are the phases of the functioning of cognitive technology? Understand Watson has the ability to read the equivalent of 1 million volumes per second. The more information he process, the more powerful his response will be. This technology reads the data and construes it use the natural language, in addition to understanding them, is able to detect intention, feeling, etc. To understand us, it would be the evolution to the nth power of the listening software in social networks. To reason Once you have processed the information, you group the data according to their relevance, then utilize a series of algorithms to stimulate hypotheses so you can compare them with the actual data you know to determine which is most likely. When you come up with this most likely hypothesis, it also gives you the contentions on which it is based in order to be allowed to evaluate the answer. To learn Based on the decisions made and their results, Watson discovers. And with each interaction it becomes smarter. This is how humans become experts in one area. We understand, reason and learn. Applications of Cognitive Technology to Internet Marketing As you have seen in the video the applications are immense. From medicine, to overseeing an oil rig,… is something incredible. But what if we could use this data in marketing decision-making? What would happen if we could combine our present sources of information with this technology and all that “invisible” info? Optimize paid media campaigns, by analyzing structured and unstructured data to detect these components that most influence the acquisition decision and using them to launch targeted ad. This is applicable to all manner of campaigns: showing, Adwords, social ads, etc. Know and understand our audience: being able to interpret all kinds of data, we can take what is spoken in social networks and blogs about our product and brand, calls received in the bellow centre, …( any source of information that contains feelings of our audience) and investigates it. For: Define your audience profile. Know the reasons to choose one product over another. Find out what they are looking for (to launch a product that fits their needs). Knowing the impact of an external factor( period, for example) on buying behaviour, Improve the conversion of our website: Identify the most common client travels and interactions (micro conversions) that most influence your purchasing decision. Develop automated systems that allow natural interaction with our audience. This is directly related to the posts I have written about chatbots and also with the ability of brands to influence our audience in surroundings where brands have limited access. Develop a smart product advisor. You insure the possibilities are almost endless.