Email Marketing Tips for Small Business Owner

Email marketing is a great way to reach your customers where they are without spending a lot of money. But it’s a big responsibility, too—people don’t give their email addresses to just anyone. Thinking about starting a company newsletter? Here are some tips to keep in mind.

Make it easy to subscribe. 

Post a signup form on your homepage, blog, Facebook page, and wherever else your customers and fans are already active. You might want to collect names and birthdays (for a special offer or gift) or invite readers to join groups, but don’t go crazy with the required fields. A too-long subscribe form might scare people off.

Tell subscribers what to expect. 

Whether you plan to send company updates, letters from the president, e-commerce sales, daily deals, or weekly tips, it’s important to tell your readers what to expect and how often to expect it. Give them as much information as possible on your signup form, so they can decide whether they want to be on the list or not.

Send a welcome email.

 It’s always smart to remind people why they’re on your list and reassure them that good things are in store. You might even send new subscribers a special offer or exclusive content, as your way of thanking them for their loyalty.

Design your newsletter to fit your brand. 

Your email campaigns should match your brand’s look and feel. If you’re using a template, you might want to customize it to include your company’s colors and logo in the header. If your emails are consistent with the rest of your company’s content, then readers will feel more familiar from the start.

Make it scannable. 

Your subscribers are busy people who get a lot of email, so it’s safe to assume you don’t have their undivided attention. Instead of one long block, break up your content into short paragraphs. Include subheadings and images to guide readers through your email and make it easier to scan, and add a teaser to the top of your newsletter to tell subscribers what’s in store. If you’re sending a long article, consider inserting a “read more” link so people can get to the rest when it’s convenient for them. Your subject line should be to-the-point and easy to digest, too. You might even want to a/b test subject lines to see which ones perform best.

Cost Effective 
Buy Email credit at cheapest rate here

Landing Page Optimization

 Start Converting Visitors to Leads With Landing Pages

The goal of landing pages is to convince the visitor to provide you with his or her information in exchange for a high-value offer.  They are the best way to convert a person into a lead. Most small and medium-sized businesses have very few--if any--landing pages on their sites. Research has indicated that 62% of businesses using landing pages have less than 6. Even though they’re not optimally positioned to capture contacts, these companies still have to try really hard to increase their website traffic.

This is really pointless if you don’t have the means to capture contact data.  Way too many people are concerned with their organic rankings on Google while forgetting about the sales aspect of their business.  Isn’t the point of your website to get your visitors to buy your product or service?

Why Do I Need Landing Pages?

Obviously the ultimate goal is to have the visitor purchase immediately, but this is actually even rarer than you think--96% of first-time visitors to your website aren’t ready to buy. It’s a prime reason why you need landing pages. The next best option is to generate a lead by capturing  visitors’ contact data and adding them to your sales funnel. You will now have the opportunity to email them and nurture them down your sales funnel by continuing to market to them via email, phone calls, or social media to influence them to buy from you.  The more landing pages you have, the more opportunities to generate leads and fill your funnel.

A landing page needs a form to capture contact data for a website visitor. In most cases, you do not want to include your main navigation bar at the top of the landing page so the visitor’s only option is to complete the form. Not including the navigation bar has been shown to increase conversion rates by as much as 100%.
Creating a Landing Page

All of your content on the landing page should be contained above the fold.  This means that the visitor should not be required to scroll down to see any of the page content. Effective landing pages will also contain an image that is relevant to the call-to-action button that drove the visitor to the landing page. The text should be very direct and easy to read.

Landing Page Tips:

•     Use a compelling title that is relevant to your CTA.
•     Place all of your content above the fold.
•     Keep your opening and closing paragraphs to 3-5 sentences.
•     Use bullet points to clearly display your value propositions.
•     Add a compelling image that is clearly relevant to your offer.

Here are 5 Simple Steps to Creating Landing Pages That Convert

How to Use Landing Pages

A landing page is typically linked to an offer. An offer can be advertised through a call-to-action button on your site, a link in your on-page text, a PPC ad, or even a QR Code on a billboard or a piece of print marketing material.  The point is, you can link to a landing page from just about anywhere and you will want to because landing pages are so effective.

The design of your landing page is extremely important and affects the conversion rate of your forms.  The look, headline, and text must all be relevant to the offer to obtain a high conversion rate.  Design does matter, but that doesn’t mean you need a graphic designer, especially if you use marketing software such as HubSpot, which allows anyone to easily create landing pages.

All too often, we see the cardinal sin of PPC when people link their campaigns to their homepage instead of a landing page.  Another benefit of using these pages, aside from  capturing the data, is that most software should capture visitor data and segment it for you, so you know the exact source of your visitors and new leads. If you are not able to track this data, you will never know how successful your campaign is and you probably need to look into a software such as HubSpot that tracks it for you.

Start building landing pages today and build lots of them--companies that increase their number of landing pages from 10 to 15 receive 55% more leads. Your Contact Us page is technically a landing page, but it does not qualify someone as a lead, so start creating some offers or link your ad campaigns to your newly designed landing pages. 

AdSense Application Common Mistakes – Read Before Applying For AdSense

AdSense is great option for publishers to monetize their website with. However, AdSense is known for very strong policies which are enforced strictly. The aim of this article is to share some common issues, which can be avoided and often result in disapproval of your AdSense Application.

Who can apply to AdSense?
Prospective AdSense publishers must own unique online content to monetize, which complies with the respective product-specific content policies. You can find more on our AdSense policies in a dedicated post on our blog. Additionally, AdSense publishers need to be at least 18 years of age. Lastly, in some locations, including China and India, Publishers need to have owned their sites for at least 6 months. Google has taken this step to ensure the quality of our advertising network and protect the interests of their advertisers and existing publishers.
How does the application process look like?

In most cases, prospective publishers sign up using the application form. However, if a publisher is primarily interested in monetizing his YouTube content or hosts his websites with one of our API partners, Blogger for instance, the AdSense application should be initiated using the respective web interface of the service they are using.

The application process consists of 2 stages, an initial check and a detailed content review.


How to avoid the most common mistakes in your AdSense Application?
There is a number of steps one can take to increase the likelihood of passing the initial application stage.

Payee/Contact Name: This is the name in which you’ll receive your AdSense Payments. Applications with an incomplete name will be dis-approved. For corporate/business accounts, you should enter the name of the company or organization in the “Payee Name” field.

Address: Enter the complete detailed mailing address in this field. Incomplete address would mean dis-approval. Make sure you enter the zip Code as well.

Email Address: Double check your email address as this is the email ID on which all communication regarding your AdSense account will be sent. Also, you will be using this email ID to login into your AdSense account.

Under Construction/Difficult Site Navigation: In order to be approved, your website must be launched and contain enough textual content for our specialists to evaluate. Websites that are under construction, don’t load, or have non-functioning links, will not be approved. Double check the URL on your application and make sure it is entered correctly.

Site Ownership: Make sure you own the website you are submitting and have FTP/Backend access to the website using which you can edit the HTML code on the website, which will be required to place the AdSense ad codes.

Unsupported Language: AdSense supports 38 languages at the moment. You can find a complete list by clicking here. For websites, which are not supported via AdSense, you cannot use AdSense on such websites.

What is the Second phase of the application process?
Once applicants pass the first stage, they need to implement the ad code on their websites. AdSense’s team of specialists then review the respective websites and makes the final decision on whether to allow the applicants into the AdSense program.

Please bear in mind that Google only reviews the website if the website on which the ad code has been placed and the website the applicant applied with, match.

Before completing this stage, applicants have full access to their AdSense accounts, but they see a red warning informing them that they are still under review.

Additionally, the ad slots on their sites only show blank spaces instead of ads. If approved, live ads will start showing in their existing ad units.

Please note that this process only applies to publishers intending to monetize their online property using AdSense for Content. Publishers only wishing to monetize their YouTube videos, for instance, are not effected. This means that they will continue to see the red warning, but it will have no effect on their ability to show ads.

What to do when your Application is disapproved?

If an application gets disapproved, the applicant is always being notified via email. This disapproval email specifically explains why a given application has been disapproved and provides precise instructions on what to do next.

Designing A Facebook Fan Page

Despite its privacy issues, Facebook clearly has a key role in global Internet activity. It has become a kind of universal social network, being used for both personal and business needs. For many individuals, companies and organizations, Facebook has become an integral part of their branding strategy and promotional campaigns.

Facebook provides many tools for maximizing the effect of your presence on the social network, most of all by means of business pages, also known as fan pages. Using a variety of applications and Facebook API tools, one can get creative not only with the page content, but with the design, too.

In this post, we’ll give you an idea of how to use Facebook for your business and self-promotional efforts. Below, you will find best practices for custom Facebook fan page designs, with various approaches to creating an attractive, descriptive and engaging Facebook business page. In addition, the selection of tutorials and resources for Facebook fan page development might help you get started with your own effective Facebook presence.

By the way, it’s been two years since Smashing Magazine’s Facebook fan pagelaunched (now with 18,500 fans). We have worked hard to integrate discussions, useful tips and give-aways to make the fan page more appealing and engaging.

Showcase Of Well-Designed Facebook Fan Pages Link

GIANTS OF THE INDUSTRY LINK

Big brands demonstrate the best use of Facebook by far. Getting millions of fans may not seem like a big deal for Coca-Cola or Victoria’s Secret, but these companies managed to create fan pages that engage users on a much deeper level than by just asking them to click the “Like” button. An interesting trend seen across this category is of large companies taking Facebook to a new level, putting it at the center not only of their social media campaign, but of their entire online presence.

Starbucks
Currently with the number one fan page for a brand on Facebook (with almost 8 million fans), Starbucks takes a distinctive approach, focusing less on loud entertaining apps and more on high-quality content and beneficial offers for its fans. Starbucks has learned how to effectively use status updates and how to share a lot of interesting, useful and engaging material aside from its product updates. The company also offers a couple of interactive apps that not only are fun (e.g. the Instant Story tab) but that offer tangible benefits (e.g. discount coupons, and functionality that allows fans to manage their Starbucks accounts right in Facebook). The fan page also has an interactive map that links to the company’s regional Facebook pages (just as BlackBerry does, as we’ll see). With no unusual visual indicators on its fan page, Starbucks demonstrates that functionality is at least as important as aesthetics.

Facebook pages as landing pages

Using Facebook pages as landing pages are becoming increasingly popular due to the fact that Facebook reviewers give internal Facebook pages way more credibility than external URLs. I've seen my fair share of pages affiliates use and i have to say there quite half ass. You may think i'm a dumbass and say "you idiot those pages are only for bait and switch/cloaking", but no that's not what i'm talking about, i'm talking about actually making Facebook pages your REAL landing page. I've seen a few and they are pretty weak in the design department. (without outing well designed affiliate pages) Here' are some examples of exactly what you can do with a Facebook page. Get the right designer your design split test may very well turn into a double ROI! Take the exact same aspects you apply to normal landing pages and do the same in Facebook. Be sure to KEEP IT SIMPLE, Facebook already has enough distractions going on; notifications, photos popping up everywhere, etc… so bring them in with a focal point, have a clear headline, and call to action to lead them to step #2. It may just help your next Facebook campaign get approved a lot easier.Here's some inspiration!Resources!Tons more examples and tutorialshttp://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/07/designing-a-facebook-fan-page-showcases-tutorials-resources/Resources to design your page with ease 1. Page Mundo (Industries #1) 2. Wix Facebook Page Builder

Free Courses that will help you succeed in Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a uniquely bizarre industry. A large proportion of the experienced, highly successful affiliates out there have absolutely no relevant credentials from places like universities, academies or business schools. Think about that for a second. There are a vast number of people making hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars in profit a year in IM, and they basically never went to school.    That’s nuts! So why is that? A lot of it comes down to the unique characteristics of these individuals such as perseverance and outlook on life, but also due to the knowledge that experience has bought them. A lot of this experience comes from buying data. Not buying courses, diplomas, info products or WSOs -- buying data. But – don’t take this to mean you shouldn’t absorb knowledge from every single faucet available! Many of the top affiliate marketers I know will read books constantly.    They read articles of note, keep their fingers on the many pulses throbbing in this industry by tapping into authoritative blogs/feeds, and* they constantly look to improve what they know about virtually everything.* Now, you may or may not know this, but online courses are currently booming. There is a venerable plethora of free information out there – but the catch is a lot of it is dilute and not worth your time. You may notice that a lot of marketers tell everyone to read books on copywriting. This is because there are a tonne of good books, and they provide absolutely* invaluable information.* With so much information around, surely there must be some other courses worth our time. Better yet, courses that will make us better marketers, right?    You bet your ass there are. But more importantly, there are courses that will help you become better at business as a whole. Want to tell your friends that you’re an entrepreneur? Or put it on your LinkedIn profile? Hell, even say so on Tinder? That’s not going to happen if you hide under a rock and just upload banners and hit F5 all day. Below is a list of online courses that are completely FREE and are worth your time. These are the most useful courses around that are applicable to Internet entrepreneurship and marketing, taught by some of the most accomplished professors at the best schools in the world. If you are serious about making marketing work, have free time on your hands, or just want to increase your knowledge (always a good thing), consider checking these out.  

Coursera/Duke: A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior

https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon Length/Start date: The course ran this spring and all materials are available. It's designed to last eight weeks. Time commitment: Seven to 10 hours a week, and no background is required other than a "curiosity about human nature." Why you should take it: People aren't always rational. They do unpredictable things that are often baffling to those who try to think rationally. The course is taught by Duke's Dan Ariely, author of the best selling "Predictably Irrational" and one of the most prominent scholars studying this through the lens of behavioral economics. The idea is to introduce students to the range of cases where people make decisions inconsistent with standard economic theory, which assumes rational decision making, and think about how insights about that sort of behavior can be applied.   #### Udacity: Introduction to Statistics

https://www.udacity.com/course/st101 Length/Start date: Self-paced Time commitment/preequisites: The time commitment is entirely up to the student, though those looking to complete it should set themselves some goals. No prerequisites are required other than basic algebra. There is a programming track which uses Python, however. Why you should take it: Statistics and data analysis are at the core of just about everything in business. Knowing how to read data and pull insight out of it is always useful. This course provides a tool-set that would be valuable to just about anybody. This course is designed to teach the basics of extracting meaning from data, visualizing it, and understanding the relationships in data with math. The course is taught by Udacity CEO and Stanford Research professor Sebastian Thrun, who founded Google X, the company's research lab, and helped develop driverless cars and Google Glass.   #### MIT: Introduction to Microeconomics

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics...icroeconomics/ Length/Start date: Self-paced Time commitment/prerequisites: The course is taken entirely independently. It's the first economics course undergraduates take, so no background is needed there. Some basic, single variable calculus is required, but no more than you'd learn in a high school calculus class. Why you should take it: Economics has a bad reputation, but it's absolutely vital. This introductory microeconomics class is one of the most popular that MIT has made available, and is taught by Jonathan Gruber. He's been teaching there for 20 years and is an extremely prominent economist who helped design Massachusetts' groundbreaking health-care reform. Economics, and microeconomics in particular, are about how we make the best decision given scarce resources like money or time. That's useful in itself, as is this course as background for more advanced work.   ####Wharton/Coursera: An Introduction To Financial Accounting

https://www.coursera.org/course/accounting Length/start date: Runs ten weeks Time commitment/prerequisites: Six to eight hours a week, and no background in the area required. Why you should take it: Learning the basics of accounting and how to read a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow is incredibly useful for just about anybody. The course is also designed for students with no background in the subject, and the only math requirement is knowing how to add and subtract. As the professor puts it, accounting is "the language of business." The course is also offered by one of the most prestigious business schools in the country, and taught by one of Wharton's senior and most highly regarded faculty members, Brian Bushee, a 13-year veteran of Wharton and former Harvard Business School professor. "You will not only better understand what people in the business media are talking about," the course description says, "you will also be able to notice when they don’t know what they are talking about!"   #### Wharton/Coursera: An Introduction to Marketing

https://www.coursera.org/course/marketing Length/Start date: Nine weeks long Time commitment/prerequisites: Requires five to six hours a week. Though no formal prerequisites are required, this is an MBA course, so a business background helps. Why you should take it: Wharton has one of the highest-ranked marketing programs in the world, and this course is team-taught by three of its stars: Peter Fader, David Bell, and Barbara E. Khan. Anybody interested in starting a business needs to learn how to relate to customers and sell their products, so this is an absolutely essential course.   #### Udacity: How to Build a Startup

https://www.udacity.com/course/ep245 Length/Start date: Self-paced Time commitment/prerequisites: Students are free to pace themselves, and Blank suggests that they have at least some idea of the business they want to create. Why you should take it: This course is a bit unusual, in that it's not produced in partnership with a university or traditional professor, and it's not about a traditional academic subject. It's a practical and thorough guide to how to create your own company by successful serial entrepreneur Steve Blank, based on an approach he's been using and teaching for years. It takes would-be entrepreneurs through everything from developing a viable product to figuring out how they're actually going to make money.   #### Harvard/EdX: Introduction to Computer Science

https://www.edx.org/course/harvard-u...r-science/1022 Length/start date: A new, graded course starts January 2014. An older, self-paced version is already available. Time commitment: Eight problem sets, each of which will take an estimated 15 to 20 hours to master the material and complete, two quizzes, and a final project. Why you should take it: Though the course is difficult and time consuming, it's also a very thorough and rigorous introduction to the basics of computer science. It's designed for people who have no computer programming experience, to convince them to major in it. Students learn computer science theory and concepts in languages including C, PHP, JavaScript, SQL, CSS, and HTML. A good EdX alternative is MIT's introductory course, which focuses more narrowly on the Python language. Udacity also offers an introductory computer science course, which also focuses on Python.   #### UC Berkeley/EdX: Software as a Service

https://www.edx.org/course/berkeley/...e-service/1136 Length/start date: Lasts five weeks Time commitment/prerequisites: No estimated time commitment listed. Proficiency in an object-oriented programming language like Java, C#, C++, Python, or Ruby is required. The basics of Ruby are taught at an accelerated pace with that assumption. Why you should take it: This is one of the more advanced courses on the list, as it requires prior knowledge of programming. Still, if you have enough background, this course is definitely worth it. Software as a Service (SaaS) and agile development are more than just buzzwords in the tech world, they're essential.   #### EdX/MIT: Innovation and Commercialization

https://www.edx.org/course/mit/3-086...ialization/880 Length/start date: Runs for 13 weeks Time commitment/prerequisites: 12 hours a week, and no prerequisites required other than an interest in the subject. Why you should take it: It’s one thing to talk about coming up with an innovative product, but it's another thing entirely to do it. The same goes for making an existing company more agile and quicker to come up with new ideas. This course takes an intelligent look at how innovation happens in the real world, rather than how people talk about it in meetings. It's taught by Eugene Fitzgerald, who came up with important innovations in his own right during his time at AT&T's Bell Labs and later; and Andreas Wankerl, who runs the Innovation Interface at MIT and Cornell.   #### Wharton/Coursera: An introduction to Operations Management

https://www.coursera.org/course/operations Length/Start date: Eight weeks long Time commitment/prerequisites: Five to seven hours a week. The course is "designed for business students and executives," but there are no academic or math requirements. Why you should take it: This is the second course in Wharton's "MBA Foundation Series," which teaches a lot of what a first-year student enrolled at the school would learn. Anyone who has hopes to rise from being an employee to managing or running a company needs to learn some of the key principles behind analyzing and improving business processes, boosting productivity, and meeting higher standards. The professor, Christian Terwiesch is a multiple award-winner for his teaching at Wharton, and wrote one of the most popular textbooks on operations management.

Online Marketing Platform: Getting High Retention Rate For F2P Mobile Games

Online Marketing Platform: Getting High Retention Rate For F2P Mobile Games: Three things you need to do in order to build a profitable free-to-play mobile game. Free-to-play games are consistently ranked amon...

What’s More Effective for eCommerce – Email or SMS Marketing?

Many years ago there were many retail and tech experts writing articles on how the brick-and-mortar shops are going to be hit and effected by the introduction of the internet and ecommerce – oh how they were right.

Recently we have seen many retail and tech experts writing about the shift from desktop to mobile (including us here) and how it will affect ecommerce and retail marketing – oh how they are being proved right.

Mobile-first means that you start the design and thought process for mobile first.

In business mobile-first is not exactly a new terminology. Google has been calling themselves a mobile-first company for several years now; however, it is not just businesses that are mobile-first now, the majority of people are too.

This is because our device preference to carry out many activities such as checking email, shopping, banking and looking at social media, has changed from the desktop to the smartphone.

The old ecommerce marketing plan would have looked something like this…

• Get a website
• Put web address on everything we produce and anywhere we can
• Create loads of Google ad campaigns
• Send loads of email campaigns every other day

So has the mobile-first revolution changed this ecommerce marketing plan? Have we seen the end of the ecommerce marketing email?

Well the first 3 stages are still pretty much in full swing however the email campaign stage is under threat, as the recent email stat figures from Experian Marketing Services do not make good reading for the marketing channel.

If you are a retailer then this is probably no surprise to you, as I am sure you have probably seen your engagement and response rates through email fall over the last few years.

Many brands and businesses in the ecommerce and retail world have turned their attention, like their consumers, to the mobile. SMS marketing has proved a big hit not only for retailers and ecommerce sites but their customers too – producing some amazing responses for retailers.

Mobile marketing shouldn’t scare you, it should excite you – and if you are new to the mobile marketing world, here are 5 tips on writing a successful marketing message.

However remember this 3 things and your mobile marketing adventure should be a fruitful one…

Make it personal. Make it relevant. Make it on time.

Secret Sauce for Digital Marketing Success

What’s the secret sauce for digital marketing success?

I did a podcast interview on Friday — I’ll share the link through my social networks and with my email subscribers once it’s live — and that was one of the questions asked. I was a little flummoxed because, to digital marketers, that’s like asking the secret to life.

It’s a big question with lots of different answers from different people.

For me, it was easy to come up with 3 things that make up the secret sauce for digital marketing success.

1. Analytics
2. Content marketing
3. Engagement

Simple, direct, to the point.

I guess I could stop here, but Google requires a minimum of 300 words for SEO so I guess I’ll just expand on these 3 things a little bit.

Analytics

Sure, analytics are a cornerstone of digital marketing success, so they go in my secret sauce in big doses.

You can’t just use any old analytics to make the secret sauce for digital marketing success. You need the right analytics, the metrics that make a difference in your market performance. You can pitch metrics like fan/ follower counts in the trash because that’s what they are — garbage. Sure, in the old days when organic reach existed on Facebook and Twitter wasn’t a stream whizzing by so fast no one could possibly read it, the number of fans or followers you had made a little bit of difference. Today, the impact of what we call vanity metrics is pretty close to 0.

And, don’t just focus on bottom of the funnel metrics — things like sales, leads generated, and email sign ups. Sure, bottom of the funnel metrics tell you how well you’re doing at moving folks all the way down the funnel where the cash register starts ringing, but they’re not very good at showing you what you need to do to get more folks down the conversion funnel.

Having too small a number at the bottom of the funnel may be because you didn’t pour enough folks into the top of the funnel — create enough awareness. The solution is to create more awareness by doing some advertising (maybe a little PPC campaign or some Facebook sponsored posts), reaching out to influencers and asking them to share positive things about your brand (I get free stuff like this all the time from folks hoping I’ll mention something about their brand in my blog or on my social networks; trips to Jamaica, front row seats on the 40 yard line at the Redskins games, cool clothes, etc), or maybe creating a contest that encourages customers to share about your brand (through user-generated content, for instance).

But if your problem is that your product doesn’t make it past the consideration stage, you have an entirely different problem on your hands. You’re not making it into their consideration set. Now, the solution involves figuring out why folks don’t view your product very favorably. Maybe you’ve had some problems with product quality or maybe your customer service folks just aren’t doing a good job of addressing customer issues, or maybe you’ve really pissed off an influencer who’s bent on damaging your brand.

See, once you get past the bottom of the funnel metrics (or, I guess technically before), the questions just seem to multiply.

Start your analytics plan by understanding your KPIs. That’s a good starting point. Now, think of all the activities that support your KPI’s and add metrics to assess them to your list. Finally, create goals for each metric, establish a system for collecting and analyzing the metric then getting it to the decision-maker who needs the information — preferably visually.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a big part of the secret sauce for digital marketing success. Google made sure of that.

In the past, digital marketers played lots of games to get their websites to rank well, bringing with it a wealth of organic traffic from searchers looking for their brands. Searchers For most sites, organic search is still a major traffic source, but Google shut down most of the gamesmanship that went into creating that river.

Now, content is king — as it probably always should have been. Content is now the driver determining your ranking on search.

How much does ranking impact digital marketing success?

Take a look at this from Chitika, showing that a full third of clicks belong to the site in position 1. Also note that almost all (91+%) of clicks go to links on the first search results page.

Producing high-quality consistent content produces digital marketing success by getting you on the first page.

But that’s not all. Great content builds your reputation as a trusted provider — which translates into more conversions. Hence, content marketing is both a top of funnel and bottom of funnel strategy.

Because content marketing is so important for digital marketing success, add metrics representing content marketing to your analytics plan. You’ll need metrics including which posts perform best, which headlines perform best, demographics related to folks who read posts (to ensure you’re reaching your target demographic — new to Google Analytics), and even the progression from content down the funnel to sales (with Google’s funnel available in Analytics). A/B testing helps create a fuller picture of how content impacts your digital marketing success.

Engagement

It’s not enough to just upload content to already crowded social networks and create more pages on your website. You need to fire up your target audience for digital marketing success. That means engagement.

Engagement involves using digital technologies to find, listen, and mobilize a community to support a brand or issue.

Notice this definition starts BEFORE you see any consumer actions, so it involves more than getting clicks, likes, shares, follows, etc.

Engagement involves creating a community in the first place, then listening and responding to them with content that mobilizes them to promote your brand. Engagement amplifies your message, enabling you to reach many more folks than you might otherwise, but, more important, engagement adds an element of trust to your communications. And, that’s important for digital marketing success.

Think about it. You might not rush out to buy that new widget just because you saw a commercial or a post from the company on Twitter. But, when your friend Sally shares the message, you’re much more likely to buy because you know Sally and trust her. You figure she wouldn’t share something if the product wasn’t any good. Even strangers have more ability to promote purchase than brands.

Don’t believe me.

Remember the old Blockbuster stores? You’d wander the shelves looking for a movie to rent. Often, someone would walk past, see the titles you were looking at, and recommend something or warn you not to waste time watching a particular movie.

And, verbal communication isn’t required. You might order a particular dish or visit a particular restaurant after seeing the food on other diners’ plates. Restaurants with outdoor seating entice dinners with not only the image of delicious food on diners’ plates, but the aromas — we’re hardwired to respond more to visual and olfactory clues, than auditory ones.

Creating engagement also drives your target audience down the hierarchy of effects — a fancy name for a process driving more folks into your conversion funnel and increasing the chances they’ll move all the way through the funnel to conversion.

At its highest level, the hierarchy of effects creates evangelists — in this case evangelists aren’t promoting a particular religious belief, but promoting a brand. Evangelists keep the brand top of mind by mentioning it frequently, but they go well beyond simply sharing information, they encourage others to buy and defend the brand when others say harsh things about it. They craft user-generated content and answer questions to improve the user experience of other consumers.

When I was back in my doctoral program, I did a project looking at the Disney community. Evangelists in that community increased park visits by:

• creating a norm supporting multiple visits to the parks each year
• encouraging visitors who were on the fence about visiting the parks
• answering questions to speed visitors through the lines at the part, where to stay, and how to get there
• deflecting detractors who said bad things about the parks
• providing valuable feedback to Disney to improve the parks

Digital marketing success

That’s all you need for digital marketing success.

Period.

Now, you might disagree with me. And that’s fine. Just add it to the comments below.

If you think about it, I think you’ll find everything else that makes digital marketing success falls into one of the three buckets: analytics, content marketing, and engagement. Try it.