Don’t Overlook Social Media in your Internet Marketing campaign!
Jul 18, 2019
10 min read
The rise of social media in the past decades
Since the inception of the internet to the introduction of the first social media site Six degrees back in 1997 to becoming an indispensable part of marketing for businesses globally, social media has come a long way in the past two decades and how!
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram have become social media magnates, helping build and strengthen personal or professional connections. But that's not the extent of how social media is being utilized.
Business of all scale; SME or large are leveraging from what different social media platform has to offer. While almost a decade ago, not many businesses were investing in building their online presence but now not having a social media page for your business, today would be unusual and a significant loss of opportunities.
While what was primarily focused on targeting private individuals to share their thoughts and connect with like-minded people, soon began to garner not just private but those of certain business sector. Take, for instance, spurge in the video games with the internet, made video and game developer realize how they can better connect and market their skills and expertise.
Similarly, Myspace proliferation became a ground for the fledgling brands to get the producer and big music agencies to notice them and give them a chance to showcase their talents in front of the world.
An example of how social media has evolved for business purpose is, when sensing the pattern, Facebook, which was initially only a student only website opened itself for businesses to attract and engage their target audience. The shift that has been brought into marketing with its unique approach has helped companies better understand their customers and market directly to them via organic marketing.
Such is the evolution of social media into a powerful marketing tool that 90% of businesses in the United States are invested in social media marketing.
Speaking of investment, it is expected that social media marketing spending will increase almost 10 billion from what it was in 2014, i.e., 17 billion US dollar in 2019. Considered the second most effective marketing channel, with 63% agreeing to its ability to strengthen the business's relationship with potential and existing customers, social media marketing has changed the entire marketing landscape and its operations.
While the foundation of building and strengthening relationship remains the same, the ones being addressed here have changed from individual to target audience. With the technology advancing and escalating usage of smartphone, making social media more accessible it should not come as a surprise that the total number of social media users worldwide, as of 2019 are 3.2 billion.
Do you know how much time is spent on social media daily? Per the Global Web Index 2018 report, a user spends 2 hours 22 minutes on a social media platform. Imagine the opportunities that businesses and brands can take advantage of from the data mentioned above. With social media changing the face of marketing, it is crucial for brands to plan and execute their campaigns through these various channels.
How will internet marketing without social media cost your business?
A subset of digital marketing, internet marketing comprises of several components necessary to ensure a brand’s success on online platforms, one of which is social media marketing.
With millions of users spending a considerable amount of time on social media, overlooking it would be losing out on the business and profitability, it has the potential to bring. But if you are still fishing for a reason, as to why social media marketing should be made an integral part of the internet marketing campaigns, then take a look at the ways your business will suffer if you do otherwise:
- Gone are the days when social media was only used for advertising the launching of the products. Now, as the platforms are evolving, not investing in social media means losing considerable traffic. Social media has the potential to drive more traffic than your traditional search engines.
- There are no other marketing techniques like social media that lets marketers take control of their brand, improve their social presence by interacting with the consumers, working on improving themselves with their apparent changes. By overlooking social media in your internet marketing campaigns, you would be hindering your growth and the possibility to bolster your position on the internet.
- Can you overlook the fact that despite being one of the most cost-effective techniques, social media has a broader reach, and that's not it. The audience being advertised by your services to are tactfully selected to be the respective field’s easily influenced ad crucial customer base.
After all, there must be a reason why 73% of marketers believe that social media marketing has been effective in steering the business ahead and boosting their sales.
How incorporating social media in your internet campaign help your business?
- Incorporating social media in your internet campaigns will make it look less like an ad and more like a story or conversation starter, giving your business a chance to connect with the audience on an emotional level.
- Unlike other marketing techniques, social media has the power to make a brand look less like a salesperson devoid of emotion and more like a person willing to provide them with valuable information.
- Most of the marketing platforms come with the advertisement that interrupts the thought process and perception of the audience about the brand but utilizing social media tunes out these ads and allows marketers to engage the customers in a more relevant manner.
- With social media, businesses can pique interest in consumers by starting a conversation around the brand or the product/services it is offering, thereby attracting new customers and driving revenue.
- Social media is a useful tool for enhancing customer experience, as users have the freedom to share positive/negative feedback, their experiences, their concerns, their suggestions, which a business can pick out from and use effectively to improve their services.
This is not to say that other internet marketing techniques are any less potent, but social media marketing is in a league of its own and going by the looks of it, shall continue to remain the same, helping the business expand with its unique and technologically advanced approach.
Potent social media strategies for SME and large corporations
One size fits all approach will never work when devising social media strategies. And just because posting and sharing have been the foundation of it, does not mean that social media entails just that. A robust social media strategies should consist of:
GOAL
Have you decided on what is your goals behind implementing the policy on social platforms? Is it brand awareness? Driving web traffic? Increasing online sales? Generating new leads, or just extending customer support? Have a clear understanding of what you wish to achieve out of the campaign and then devise a plan.
PLATFORM
Just because there are so many platforms does not mean you will benefit from all of them. Depending upon your scale and which platform your target audience is more active on, you should decide accordingly. Take, for instance, LinkedIn is right for B2Bs; Instagram is good for visual content primarily. Businesses that want to reach a wider audience should market on Facebook, while those who plan to share timely updates and relevant articles should utilize twitter.
CONTENT
While content is the king, not creating and optimizing it right on social media platforms can prove detrimental to the brand. Create content that resonates with the existing customer base and potential consumers. Furthermore, it is essential to have a periodically updated social media schedule to make sure everyone in the team is on the same page.
TOOLS
Take advantage of everything that is trending in your industry, depending upon the impact they are having on the customers. Social tools include Facebook love videos, Instagram stories, and other platform-specific tools which can help escalate your growth on social channels.
ADS
One of the social tools, advertisements are a common feature of social media platforms. It is not necessary that you have to run an announcement about your product and services, making it look intentional. You can run ads to grow awareness, and that might help enhance your audience reach, boost your sales. You can run webinars, promote giveaways and discounts, products, e-books, etc. To get maximum benefits out of your ads, you can create targeted advertisements, create multiple versions of it and an even better step would be to optimize it for specific metrics which could either reach, clicks, etc.
Realizing its significance and the intricacies involved in effectively handling social media platforms, an increasing number of businesses are turning to qualified and experienced social media marketing professionals to make sure that their campaigns are strategized in a manner that they extensively contribute to their business goals and objectives.
Saffron Edge, a comprehensive marketing solution provider with a dedicated team of social media marketing experts in New Jersey will ensure your brand stands out of the crowd on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, while you entirely focus on attaining your business objectives.
How to calculate Amazon ACOS? How can eCommerce brands reduce their ACOS of Amazon?
Source: Pexels Have you ever imagined that an online bookseller will one day turn out to be the second most valuable brand in the world? Yes, we are talking about Amazon, a leading multinational conglomerate and eCommerce company with a brand value of almost $254.2 billion (as of 2021). The company has almost 214.5 million monthly visitors to its websites, making it the most popular eCommerce company worldwide in terms of traffic. And not just this, the global advertising revenue of Amazon was expected to reach $26.1 billion in 2021, and the same forecast says it can reach up to $85.2 billion by 2026. You must be wondering why you see all these statistics about Amazon's growth and business. Well, the answer is simple - to guide you through the importance of using Amazon for advertising. Almost 9.7 million Amazon sellers are connected with this giant eCommerce platform, making it a perfect place for marketing your products and services. However, to efficiently advertise your products on Amazon, you need to constantly look after a crucial key metric to get better sales at a lower investment. That key metric is Amazon ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales). Let's learn about it in detail. What's Amazon ACoS, and How Can You Calculate it? If you are from a marketing background, you probably know what ACoS is. Therefore, when you talk about 'Amazon ACOS,' it is Amazon Advertising Cost of Sales for the advertising campaigns you run on Amazon. In simple words, you can say it is a metric that determines how much money you spend on advertising your products on Amazon versus the sales you make through it. To calculate it, you can divide the money you pay for the clicks from Amazon ads by the total number of sales you make from those clicks. Below is the formula to calculate it: ACoS =(Total ad spent / Total sales) X 100 Specifically, the ACoS value helps you understand how much money that you have earned by advertising your products was spent on running that ad campaign. For instance, let's say you run an advertising campaign on Amazon that has generated sales amount to $500. Now suppose, if the total cost of an ad campaign is $150, then the Amazon ACoS will be = (150/500)*100=30 So for every dollar you made through Amazon advertising, 30 cents have been spent on running the campaign. How to Calculate a Good and Break-even ACoS for Your Amazon Ad Campaigns Calculating the right Amazon ACoS (also known as benchmarking) is the process of improving the efficiency of your ad campaigns with the help of bid optimization or keyword analysis. However, a good ACoS value also depends on individual factors for every advertiser. The amount you can afford for the campaign (depends on your profit margin) and the amount you are willing to pay (depending on your advertising goals) are such factors. You can quickly determine what ACoS value will be perfect for your business through these steps: Calculate the Profit Margin of Your Product To find that, you need to subtract all the costs on the product (manufacturing costs, shipping charges, Amazon fees) from the product's price. Find Out the Break-even Point of Your Amazon ACoS Your break-even Amazon ACoS is equal to the value of your profit margin. The ACoS is part of the revenue you spend on advertising. Similarly, the profit margin is the part of the revenue you have received as a profit. When the value of your ACoS equals your profit margin, you are putting all your profit into advertising, which means you are breaking even! That's the point that decides whether you are making money or losing it! Determine Your Target Amazon ACoS The ultimate objective of advertising and selling your products on Amazon is to make money. For that, it is crucial to determine your target ACoS, which is the value at which you receive the profit margin you have targeted. Here's the way to calculate it: Target ACoS = Profit Margin (Before Advertising) - Target Profit Margin (After Advertising) How to Reduce Your Amazon ACoS for Your Business? There is a reason why business owners are inclined towards Amazon for advertising, and that reason is that it has been a paramount advertiser for years. According to Statista, Amazon's US ad spent value in 2020 was over $6.8 billion, still more than its four greatest competitors collectively spent. Touching a sales milestone with Amazon advertising is not that challenging. All you need to do is get your Amazon ACoS value close to or below the break-even point. It's alright even if you do not make any profits initially. At least your brand will reach the maximum number of people, and that's a little victory, too, right? In fact, many sellers leverage Amazon advertising to get more user reviews, to improve their rankings and brand awareness. It's not always about profitability; sometimes, it's all about brand presence and customer engagement. However, here are the three most straightforward ways to lower your Amazon ACoS: Prioritize the Right Keywords Be it a blog or an ad copy, keywords play a crucial role in making or breaking the success of a content piece. In order to get relevant leads that have the chance of converting, you must pick the right keywords for your product listings. But how will it reduce the ACoS of your ad campaign? Well, that's simple. You get more organic traffic by using suitable keywords relevant to your ad campaign and target audience. As a result, you do not need to lose your pocket and spend more money on advertising. You might not believe it, but a single ad can attract dozens of leads by simply stuffing the relevant keywords in your ad copies. Worried about how to choose the right keywords for your product listing? Follow these steps for that: Conduct Amazon keyword research using an Amazon-specific keyword tool, such as Sonar. Once you get your keywords, incorporate them into your listing. One good thing with Amazon ad campaigns is that you don't need to add your keyword multiple times, unlike SEO. One time is more than enough for your product to rank for that specific keyword. Well, that's it. Now, you can easily attract more genuine leads by adding the right keywords to your sponsored content. Be Proactive in Bid Management Look, not every product is evergreen. Some products are seasonal, and their sales vary based on different seasons. For instance, if we talk about most of the regions in India, there will be a higher sale of raincoats in July and August (rainy season). However, you can see a drop in their sales from October to January. Therefore, it is crucial to regularly check and manage your bids to optimize the cost spent on the ad campaign. You can analyze specific products and lower the bids for their ad campaigns during an off-season. Why spend an extra penny on advertising the products that your users aren't purchasing during that time? Instead, you can use that budget for high-demand products. In this way, by managing the bids, you can lower your Amazon ACoS and maximize the profits. Source: Pexels Optimize Your Page Content Do you want to make your customers feel disappointed in you for the wrong information in your product listings? Well, don't tell the answer, it's already clear. Nobody wants to make their customers walk away, be it eCommerce stores or brick and mortar shops. When you get leads through your ad campaigns, make sure you show the correct information to your visitors relevant to the keywords you have used. For instance, if someone searches for a casual polo t-shirt, your listing must contain information related to a casual polo t-shirt. Remember, if the product description and details do not match with the product itself, you might lose a good amount of genuine leads. Amazon recommends those products having relevant information and generating value for the customers. By optimizing your web page content, you can get maximum leads organically. Subsequently, you might not need to invest much in advertising for that purpose. Key Takeaways The stats and facts have already shown why Amazon is the perfect marketplace to advertise your product listings. Even most US marketers believe that apart from its promotional features, its robust performance and high ROI make it the best advertising platform' for lead generation. However, not everyone can leverage the benefits Amazon as an advertiser offers. It depends on how efficiently you manage the Amazon ACoS with proper bid management and keyword research. Moreover, the level of competition, type of products, and seasonality also influence the critical metric. But with the proper knowledge and optimized management, it could be as easy as ABC. All you need is a professional and efficient PPC campaign management company that knows how to deal with Amazon's advertising algorithms and tactics. Their team of experts can assist you with your marketing part to fulfill your business goals within the designated budget. After all, everything we want eventually is the accomplishment of our objectives, be it with assistance or without assistance. ...
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Does Marketing Automation Help Your Business In Enhancing The Efficiency?
Marketing has always been the stepping stone for any business and has maneuvered as the guiding path for better sales and revenues. This process of promoting a product or service rendered by a business firm includes advertisements, customer engagement, product delivery, and retention of customers. Add technology to this process, and you get marketing automation, a newer and efficient way out indeed. Speaking of marketing automation, it is a method that allows you to apply software and online tools to advertise and boost your business’ marketing procedurally. In 2021, the market for Digital Marketing Software in the United States Of America equals $20.8 Billion! There has been an exponential growth in the demand for cloud computing platforms, due to which there shall be rapid growth in marketing automation solutions. As it makes the tasks of your marketing team lighter and lessens the burden of repetitive actions, marketing automation is quite beneficial for your firm’s productivity growth and faster sales. 70% of marketers confess that utilizing marketing automation has improved their accuracy in generating targeted messages to customers. Many business leaders say that the most significant benefit of implementing marketing automation is saving more time. It has helped them in increasing their revenue, leads, and customer retention. To reduce the cost of manually targeting the right customer, many business firms undertake marketing automation as a consistent solution to nurture the right customer at the right time. Marketing Automation is rising, especially in sectors like healthcare, education, advertising, design, etc. The Global Marketing Automation Software Market is set to rise to $7.63 billion by 2025. Any person that runs a business knows how marketing chores could get troublesome and time-taking. And because of this, they feel much more secure and convenient in transferring them onto technology-reliant and data-driven resources that positively affect business efficiency. Source: Pexels As per a survey by Ascend2, 64% of the respondents say that marketing automation has enabled them to create successful marketing strategies. Another study by Invespcro shows that 91% of respondents consider marketing automation an essential part of their marketing success. According to well-known marketers and experts, the modern-day customer may expect more than just buying a product or service from your business. Statistics show that mere working on the basics wouldn’t help your business sustain for long. Marketing automation plays an imperative role in understanding your customers and their expectations from your business- what products they need, at what time, and via which channel. Being one of the fastest industries currently, the marketing function of a business firm enables you to ensconce yourself in the backseat while it continues to simplify routine operations. Ways To Increase Business Efficiency Via Marketing Automation With each passing day, the responsibilities of a marketing department increase with uncertainty. Fortunately, they’ve got the support of marketing automation tools that ease the multi-tasking and make marketing things happen in much less time. And if your business relies on these tools, this means you are in for a mechanized support structure to address your marketing needs and contribute more to your business operations. Further, here are a few ways that determine how it affects the efficiency of your business - 1. Time-saving Solution The word “automation” in marketing automation defines the process as a smooth and time-effective step that finishes off the marketing actions in minutes, which used to take much more time than this. If we consider advertising on social media, marketing automation has enormously contributed to it- scheduling live calls, posting product pictures, and enriching customers with detailed information about the brand. It will be an abash if you go wrong in not considering marketing automation as a crucial breaking point for increasing your business efficiency. For instance, think of manually monitoring customer’s reviews on your brand’s product. While most businesses take the long route to access this information, your firm can make a smart move and examine this information with the help of automation tools and online resources. 2. Streamlining Business Working Manually recording the marketing statistics such as customer viewing rate, lead generation, on-page time spent, and activities can seem like something you would refrain from. However, with the help of marketing automation, you can simplify and streamline your marketing operations with utmost precision. In addition, it will present a big picture of your business goals to the marketing department so they can integrate all actions with the help of high-end technology and leave no stone unturned. As far as your core business operations are concerned, they too can be well monitored via marketing automation tools. It means it is a plain sailing yet productive system for your business to enhance operational efficiency while your marketing department can keep track of it. Source: Pexels 3. Increased In Marketing Channels With the introduction of the latest software technology, a fair amount of marketing channels have been opened for your business. Marketing automation enables you to reach out to your present customers and potential matches via different sources and stages of the customer journey, starting when they land on your website. How it works- very simple. The marketing department of your business firm will be able to connect with the customers via email, phone calls, text messages on social media platforms, or tweet with a customized response. These points somehow ensure that the workload of the marketers is reduced, and they can focus better on creative ideas for your business, leaving the technology to take charge of the rest. 4. Efficiently Retaining Customers If you consider the cost of acquiring a customer by lead generation and nurturing, you’ll find that it is way more expensive than retaining a present customer. Here comes a significant benefit of marketing automation that aids your customer retention by retargeting actions and effectively addressing their concerns related to product expectations, ease in the purchasing journey for better brand performance. One can achieve customer retention by providing exceptional customer service to your loyal customers and setting a benchmark for your service quality. Research studies show that an individual shall remain a loyal customer if the business timely meets their expectations. You can include chatbots, online self-help tools to ensure that the customer doesn’t have to experience a long waiting time, as this could easily result in committing to another brand. 5. Measure Your Campaign Effectiveness Analyzing the success of your marketing campaigns would seem like an achievable feat if you skillfully apply a marketing automation system. The automated tools that your business will use can transform your marketing campaigns more responsive, decipherable, and sympathetic to your customer base. You cannot apply extensive research skills to all your marketing concerns, so marketing automation aids the analysis of the data to present intricate details about campaign success. Convinced to invest in marketing automation Saffron Edge will be your one-stop shop. With our extensive grip on different marketing automation tools, we aim at integrating your business’ repetitive tasks with state-of-the-art technology to reinforce better productivity and enhanced efficiency. Our expert teams strategically build e-campaigns to support your online business, reducing the time taken to finish off these routine tasks and achieve better results. Give us a call today, and feel free to connect with our team! ...
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Topic Clusters: Moving towards Smart SEO
Getting ahead of the curve and maintaining it is essential for companies looking to sustain their online presence and draw in targeted visitors in the ever-changing world of digital marketing. Topic clusters are one of the newest tactics that completely change how the material is organized and search engine optimized. As search engines become more complex and user behavior changes, more sophisticated and purposeful content-organizing techniques replace keyword-focused approaches. This in-depth tutorial will explore the history of SEO, the rise of subject clusters, their advantages, and how to implement this cutting-edge tactic. Evolution of Algorithms and Search Behavior The main objective for marketers and content providers has always been to rank well in search engines. However, due to changes in user behavior and technical improvements, the search engine optimization (SEO) field has seen substantial changes. Historically, SEO tactics centered on keyword optimization to boost search engine visibility. However, as search engines evolved, relying solely on keywords became inadequate for delivering valuable and relevant content to visitors. Changes in search behavior, including longer, conversational queries due to voice searches and larger mobile displays, have significantly influenced SEO tactics. This shift towards long-tail keywords reflects a desire for more precise and contextually relevant search results. Introducing Topic Clusters A new approach to content organization and optimization has emerged in response to these changes: topic clusters. A topic cluster is a tactical clustering of interlinked web pages centered around a specific subject relevant to a brand or business. This organizational framework consists of three main elements: 1. Pillar Topic: The pillar topic serves as the central hub or overview of the subject matter. It should provide a broad overview of the topic and act as a guide for navigating the cluster. 2. Related In-Depth Pages: These pages delve deeper into specific aspects or subtopics of the pillar topic. Each page focuses on a particular aspect of the overarching subject and provides detailed information and insights. 3. Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks serve as the connective tissue that binds the cluster. The pillar page links out to each of the related in-depth pages, and in turn, each in-depth page must link back to the pillar page, creating a cohesive and interconnected network of content. Want to reduce your CAC to half? Book a strategy call Benefits of Topic Clusters Embracing the topic cluster model offers a myriad of merits for businesses seeking to boost their SEO efforts and improve their online visibility: 1. Improved Relevance and Authority: Websites can demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the subject by organizing content around broad topics rather than isolated keywords. This holistic approach enhances relevance, authority, and credibility in the eyes of search engines, leading to better rankings and increased visibility. 2. Enhanced User Experience: Topic clusters facilitate a more intuitive and user-friendly browsing experience by organizing content logically and structure. Visitors can easily navigate between related pages, find the necessary information, and delve deeper into specific topics of interest. 3. Increased Traffic and Engagement: Higher search rankings and improved visibility translate into increased organic traffic and engagement. By providing valuable and comprehensive content that meets the needs of their ideal target audience, businesses can gain more visitors to their websites and keep them engaged for extended periods. 4. Greater Efficiency and Consistency: The topic cluster method streamlines content creation and optimization efforts by focusing on cohesive themes and topics. This systematic approach ensures consistency across all content assets and eliminates redundancy, making it easier for search engines to find, crawl, and index the website. 5. Enhanced Conversion Opportunities: Topic clusters can help nurture leads and drive conversions by guiding visitors through a structured journey of related content. By providing comprehensive information and addressing common pain points of users, businesses can establish trust and credibility with their audience, making visitors more likely to take desired actions. Successful Topic Cluster Examples Many brands have successfully implemented topic clusters to bolster their SEO efforts and establish themselves as authorities in their respective industries. Let’s explore a few notable examples: 1. Typeform: Typeform, a SaaS brand, has created well-organized and visually appealing topic clusters, such as their cluster on brand awareness. With an emphasis on aesthetic design and readability, Typeform’s clusters provide users with a seamless browsing experience and comprehensive information on relevant topics. 2. Help Scout: Help Scout’s topic cluster on email marketing exemplifies clarity and usability. Through an airy design and intuitive navigation, Help Scout has curated a valuable resource that addresses the diverse needs of their audience, from beginners to advanced practitioners. 3. Population Healthier: Athenahealth’s sponsored content published in The Atlantic, titled Population Healthier, showcases the versatility of topic clusters. With interactive elements and a strategic placement as sponsored content, Population Healthier effectively engages readers and provides actionable insights on healthcare topics. How to Create Topic Clusters Implementing topic clusters requires a strategic approach and careful planning. Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide to creating and optimizing topic clusters for your website: 1. Identify Pillar Topics: Choose broad subjects that resonate with your audience and align with your business goals, forming the core for your content clusters and overarching areas. 2. Perform Keyword Research: Conduct thorough keyword research to identify long-tail keywords and subtopics related to your pillar topics. Tools like Wordtracker can help you uncover relevant keywords and phrases that conform with your SEO content strategy. 3. Organize Content: Sort your content into clusters surrounding similar themes and topics. Decide which pages are the main content and which are detailed supporting pages, ensuring all content provides valuable insights into the broader topic. 4. Create Internal Links: Establish internal links between pillar pages and related in-depth pages to create a cohesive content network. Use consistent anchor text and strategically place links to guide visitors through the cluster and improve navigation. 5. Monitor Performance: Observe the performance of your topic clusters over time, monitoring key metrics such as search rankings, organic traffic, and engagement. Use this data to refine your content strategy, identify areas for improvement, and optimize your clusters for maximum impact. Conclusion In today’s rapidly evolving digital world, a business’s capacity to stay ahead of the curve is critical. By adopting cutting-edge techniques like topic clusters, businesses may improve their SEO, increase their online presence, and create audience-specific content. Utilizing performance assessments and internal linkages can help organizations establish authority in their sectors and attain sustained growth. Investigate our full-service marketing solutions for different industries to discover the possibilities of subject clusters for your company’s digital transformation. ...
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