real estate marketing

Six Types Of Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas For Homebuilders

/in , , , , , /by

There is a good reason why YouTube has become the second biggest search engine – digital video is the new home of action for marketers. Through real estate video marketing tips, homebuilders and other real estate professionals have discovered an easy way to engage with the audience and increase conversion rates online. You can use videos for every marketing effort for your property, from neighborhood guides to virtual tours.

As a homebuilder, there are several types of videos you can use in your real estate video marketing strategy. Here are some few essential ones you should consider.

6 Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas For Homebuilders

Listing videos

Listing videos have become the go-to videos in real estate marketing. Showing off all the properties that you are selling in an engaging video is a great way to impress new leads that are just learning about your offers. Additionally, you will grab the attention of prospects in the middle of your sales funnel who are considering picking a unit from you. Fortunately, recent technology has enabled the creation of videos that showcase the units without embedding slideshows in the sidebar.

Interview videos

Buyers who have purchased from you in the past, sales teams that have sold your units, and other professionals in the real estate arena can make suitable candidates for your interview videos. The key to making highly effective interview videos is to ensure that all your interviewees provide information that is relevant to your target audience.

Live question and answer sessions

You can hold periodic Q&A sessions with your followers on social media, as well as prospects from your email marketing lists. They can send their questions through online chats, and you can answer them through live sessions. You can also use past webinars as bait to attract more people to register for your live sessions.

Home buyer advice videos

You can also have short videos where you explain different ways that homebuyers can save when purchasing their next home. Some ideas for video topics include ways to determine a good mortgage provider, how to researching a neighborhood, and how to get the best deals. You can intertwine your message, or ways you offer solutions to buyers as a homebuilder, with your sales promotion

Special offer videos

Special offers are used as a means of getting people to take action, such as register for your email marketing or free consultation on a number of home buying issues. Incentives that special offer videos may include are a chance to buy a home at a discounted offer or an additional fixture for the winning home buyer. Also, be sure to include a call-to-action in your videos to generate leads.

Neighborhood videos

Every buyer is concerned with the neighborhood’s access to amenities, infrastructure, and security among, other things. As a result, neighborhood videos provide a preview of these factors by visually taking the audience around the neighborhood.

New construction model video tours

It is helpful to show your potential clients model video tours of the units being built. The model tours show the floor plans, expected roofing, and other fixtures that will be in the home. The potential client will not have to leave his or her desk to obtain detailed information about the house being constructed.

Virtual house tours

Virtual house tours are simulations of a house that showcase the features, spaces, and fittings of the house. It is much like having an open house on the Internet. Potential clients are able to go through every detail of the house like they are moving from room to room. Virtual tours makes it easy for you to reach as many people as possible and create a high engagement with prospects without requiring them to come view the house.

Real estate video marketing is the new medium through which to capture leads and engage customers. You should strongly consider having video marketing as part your marketing plan.

Ready to learn more about real estate marketing? Check out this article here.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

mobile optimized website

The Importance of Having a Mobile Optimized Website

/in , , , , , , , , /by

More and more people are using mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to surf the web. At this point in time, more people are using their mobile devices to perform searches than they’re using computers. Roughly 60 percent of organic search engine visits occur on mobile devices in the U.S., according to Statista. This means that if you have a website, then you should consider optimizing it for mobile use. In fact, not having a mobile could actually be detrimental to your marketing efforts.

What is a Mobile Optimized Website?

You need to understand the differences between a mobile friendly site and a mobile optimized site. A mobile friendly website accurately displays on smaller screens. It usually appears as a smaller version, although it may not always work perfectly on touchscreen tablets. It should, however, still be functional. Mobile friendly websites also have features such as text-based phone numbers or email addresses that can trigger direct calls or email messages via mobile devices or slideshows and image rotators that function without Flash support.

While a mobile friendly site helps ensure your site functions on mobile devices, mobile optimization goes a step further. A mobile optimized site reformats itself for mobile devices. It not only makes sure to properly display on smaller screens, but also makes the site much easier to navigate. It reformats content, displays larger navigation buttons and optimizes images according to screen size.

25 Website Must Haves

The Benefits of a Mobile Optimized Website

Responsive design helps ensure the mobile optimization of your website. This tends to cost more to develop, but it ensures the mobile optimization of every aspect of your website. This will provide significant benefits over the long run. The following benefits result from a mobile optimized website:

Improve your user experience

User experience is essential. If you don’t provide a good user experience, visitors will leave and they won’t return. The mobile experience is much different from the computer experience. Visitors need to be able to read your web pages with ease, click links without zooming in, and navigate your site on a smaller screen. Without mobile optimization, users often struggle to read or navigate websites on mobile devices.

Improve website speed

When you optimize your website to meet mobile standards, then your website should load quickly. Websites that aren’t properly optimized for mobile often take a while to load, especially when they use Flash elements. Mobile users simply aren’t going to spend time on your site if they can’t get your pages to load. By improving the speed of your site, you’re more likely to keep visitors on your site for longer periods.

Increase user engagement

A mobile optimized website increases the likelihood of engaging your visitors. This is because visitors will spend more time on your site navigating through content. They will also be able to interact with your site, whether it be by liking content, clicking on CTAs, or even contributing to your comment sections.

Learn more about mobile with these Mobile Marketing Strategy

Increase average time on site

When you provide a good user experience to mobile users, they will end up spending more time on your website. The longer they spend on your site, the more likely they are to convert or return again later.

Improve your mobile SEO

A few years ago, your mobile SEO wouldn’t affect your regular SEO. However, due to how many mobile users there are now, Google has begun factoring a website’s mobile SEO into their regular SEO. This means that if you don’t have a website that’s optimized for mobile use, it will actually hurt your SEO.

Attract more local customers

Mobile SEO is extremely important to local SEO. Many people will perform search queries on the go when they are looking for a specific business. These people want to buy. If they are near your physical location and they find your website while doing a mobile search, they’re more likely to drop in and make a purchase. Poor mobile SEO will translate to poor local SEO, thereby potentially hurting your ability to attract local customers.

Grow Your Business With Mobile Optimization

Considering how many people use mobile devices to perform search queries and explore the web, the importance of a mobile optimized website can’t be overstated. If you do not optimize your website design for mobile use, you risk losing a significant part of your target audience.

Website Redesign Checklist
New call-to-action
video marketing

What We Can Learn from Viral Video Marketing & Examples of How It’s been Successful

/in , , , , , /by

Viral video marketing entails creating and disseminating video content with the goal of broad online sharing. It is a subset of viral marketing that uses videos to generate excitement and raise interest in a specific product or service. When it comes to creating content, going viral is the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, there’s no blueprint for viral video marketing. You could spend tens of thousands of dollars on a 30-second video jam-packed with visual effects, hilarious dialogue, and well-known actors, and it still might not go viral; yet, some random person might upload a ten-second video of their cat and somehow it gets seen by a billion people within a day.

Although there’s no perfect formula for viral video marketing, there are certain things that you learn from successful viral videos from the past. Copying these videos won’t help make you go viral, but learning what made them successful can help you improve your video marketing in general. The following are a few things worth learning from some of the most successful viral videos in the past:

1. Know Who Your Audience Is

One of the most popular ads in recent years is the Dollar Shave Club video. In this video, the owner introduces viewers to the concept of the Dollar Shave Club by walking through his factory. The video is notable for its humor and extreme directness. It goes so far as to use swear words in the dialogue, and even the title of the video has a censored swear word in it. They know exactly who their audience is or else they wouldn’t have been so bold. It might turn some people off — but those aren’t the people they were trying to reach.

2. Invest In The Production

It is possible to make video content on a small budget these days, especially when considering how affordable video equipment has gotten. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put money into the production of your content. High-quality production does not go unnoticed. Just look at the Old Spice Man video. On the surface, it’s relatively simple — a man talks to the audience in a humorous tone to sell Old Spice deodorant. However, the backgrounds are constantly changing all within one shot. He starts in a bathroom, transitions onto a boat, and ends up on a horse at the end. It’s the high-quality production of the video that sells it.

The Power of First-Person Experience Videos

3. Get Their Attention

If your video isn’t interesting off the bat, the viewer isn’t going to stick around to watch the rest of it. This means that you need to grab their attention within the first 10 to 15 seconds of your video. The Poo-Pourri video is a good example of this. For most, the idea of a Poo-Pourri ad sounds kind of boring, yet it starts off with a hilarious line of dialogue that captures your attention right away. It then transitions into a music video, at which point the viewer has likely committed to watching the video all the way through.

Types Of Marketing Videos You Should Use

4. Evoke Emotions

You want your video content to stick with someone after they’ve seen it. To make sure it’s not instantly forgettable, you need to evoke emotions from your audience. This can be in the form of humor or even in the form of empathy. Take Budweiser’s ad Someone Waits For You At Home. Within one minute, it establishes a loving relationship with a dog and its owner that everyone can relate to. At the end, the dog is waiting for its owner, who may or may not return — a message against drinking and driving. It’s a heart-tugging cliffhanger that leaves an emotional impact on the viewer.

These are a few things that some of the most successful viral video marketing examples of the past have in common. While using these tips won’t ensure that your videos go viral, they will help to greatly improve their quality as well as their effectiveness. At the very least, they’ll put your video content in a much better position to go viral.

A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE MOBILE MARKETING TECHNIQUES
mql vs sql

The Differences Between MQL vs SQL

/in , , , , , /by

One of the biggest challenges businesses face is the lack of communication between their marketing teams and their sales teams. It’s not uncommon for a marketing team to use a variety of strategies to convert a lead and then move on to the next one, assuming sales will pick up where they left off. However, not all leads are the same. Some leads need to be nurtured further and aren’t ready to be engaged. Without any kind of communication with marketing, your sales team is more likely to engage leads that aren’t ready to make a purchase yet while missing out on leads that are. This is why identifying leads as MQL (marketing qualified leads) or SQL (sales qualified leads) is important. But how exactly do you determine whether a lead is an MQL vs SQL?

The Difference Between MQL(marketing qualified leads) vs SQL (sales qualified leads)

Not all leads are of high quality. Just because someone is visiting your website doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a good prospect. You won’t want your sales team wasting time trying to engage with someone who might only have a passing curiosity in your products or services. That’s why you’ll want your marketing team to identify leads who are MQLs. An MQL is a lead that has been identified as someone who is likely going to become a customer, which means that they have value to your business.

Similar Article: A Brief Guide to Sales Lead Generation

However, just because they are likely to become a customer does not mean your sales team should engage just yet. They are likely still in the beginning stages of their buyer’s journey and are still doing research on their own. Trying to close a sale at this point may push them away. It’s only once the lead has taken actions that indicate that they are likely going to make a purchase that they become an SQL. It’s once they are an SQL that your sales team can engage with them.

mql vs sql

Determining MQL vs SQL

The most effective way to label leads as MQL or SQL is through the use of a lead scoring software. Lead scoring software allows you to designate points based on certain qualifications. For example, you can assign a point for downloading an eBook or watching a video on your site. It’s not just specific actions that you can assign points to either. You can assign qualifying points based on demographic information, company information, social engagement, and email engagement as well. You can even assign negative points. For example, if you’re a local business and the lead fills out a form that indicates they live outside of the country, then negative points can be assigned. This ensures they don’t get mislabeled as an MQL.

You will need to determine at what point total a lead becomes an MQL and an SQL. This will require input from both your marketing and sales teams. As to how to decide on how many points to assign to certain qualifications, you’ll need to make use of your analytics. For example, you might find that leads who download a specific whitepaper are more likely to go on and make a purchase. As a result, you’ll want to assign more points to this action.

 

Knowing where your leads are in their buyer’s journey is essential to knowing when to engage with them. As a result, using lead scoring to identify your leads as MQLs and SQLs will help to increase your sales team’s success rate. However, in order for your lead scoring system to be effective, your marketing team and sales team are going to have to work together.

lead generation tips
use tiktok to reach engagement group

How Much To Advertise on Instagram And Why It ‘s Worth The Cost

/in , , , , /by

As many businesses have realized, visual content engages leads much more effectively than written content. The reason is simple: humans are visual creatures and process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. It’s no wonder why social platforms that focus on visual content are growing in popularity. Take for example Instagram, which as of 2018 had almost one billion active monthly users. Studies have revealed that the engagement rates of brands on Instagram are ten times what they are on Facebook. If you’re not leveraging Instagram to advertise your brand, then you need to begin doing so. The following are a few questions you might have about getting started on Instagram.

How Much To Advertise On Instagram?

First of all, using the basic features that Instagram offers is free. This means that you can post content without having to pay for it. For example, you can just post images or short videos on a daily basis with basic captions. While you can get a lot out of the free features of Instagram, to really increase engagement you’ll want to invest in Instagram ads.

When setting up an Instagram ad, you’ll only pay for the number of clicks your ad actually gets. You bid how much you’re willing to pay per click. This determines how competitive the ad will be (a higher bid means a more competitive ad). You can also set limits on how much you spend per day, meaning that you’ll never go over budget. As to how much you can expect to pay per click, most Instagram ads run somewhere between $0.50 and $1 a click. However, in more competitive industries, that CPC (cost per click) rate can certainly be a lot higher. You can also pay on a CPM (cost per mile), which focuses on impressions. On average, it costs around $5 to $6 per thousand impressions.

Similar Article: Social Media Solutions: Understanding The Importance of Social Media Engagement vs. Following

How Can You Use Instagram Effectively?

The following are a few tips on how you can use Instagram ads effectively:

Know your audience – Instagram ads lets you define your audience (including by age, location, language, interests, behaviors, and more). Not knowing who your audience is will make it more difficult to define the right audience to advertise to. As a result, your ads will not be very cost-effective.

Choose your placement – You can choose where your ads will be placed, such as on Instagram feeds, Instagram stories, Facebook feeds, Facebook instant articles, or on the right column of Facebook. You can even choose to target certain devices (such as mobile devices) or operating systems.

Find influencers – Tagging influencers or reaching out to them to see if they want to promote your brand can help to lower your ad costs significantly due to the number of relevant followers they’re likely to have.

Track your relevance score – Facebook has a relevance score that you should track to identify how efficiently your budget is being used.

What Makes Instagram Worth the Cost?

The following are a few of the main reasons why it’s worth investing in Instagram ads:

Target specific leads – You can target specific demographics in specific locations, thereby making your ads more effective at engaging a target audience.

Reach a massive audience – Not only can you target countless users on Instagram, but because it’s owned by Facebook, you can run your Instagram ads on Facebook as well

 Use outside links – While you can’t include clickable links, you can include any link you want in the caption (users just have to copy and paste it). This means you can drive viewers to any landing page you want.

Create longer videos – Instagram limits videos to 15 seconds in length unless you’re using Instagram ads, in which case your videos can be up to 30 seconds long. There are many social channels that you can advertise on, but Instagram is one of the most effective at generating user engagement. This is especially true if you invest in Instagram Ads. When looking into how much to advertise on Instagram ads, understand that you’re only paying for clicks or impressions, making it a very cost-effective strategy.

social media marketing

Strategies and Trends for Effective Digital Advertising

/in , , , , , /by

Every business, regardless of its niche or size, relies on marketing to build brand awareness, reach a target audience, foster customer relationships, and increase sales. But marketing is broad and relies on several networks, platforms, and systems. Digital advertising, for instance, is a form of marketing that is constantly evolving and proving to be quite effective when combined with other forms of digital marketing.

What is Digital Advertising?

Before a customer purchases a product or service, they often go through three critical stages, namely: the awareness stage, the consideration stage, and the decision stage. During these stages, they take their time to understand the business, the team behind it, and how that product or service stands out from the competition.

If a prospective customer doesn’t know of your product or service, you can bet they won’t consider you for business. Therefore, digital advertising plays a critical role in the awareness stage. It ensures that your product or service has a name in the market.

Digital or online advertising relies on various platforms such as social media, search engines, mobile apps, and websites to build brand awareness, engage audiences, and drive desired actions or conversions.

Digital Advertising vs. Digital Marketing 

Many people use the phrases digital advertising and digital marketing interchangeably. And while the two are related, they mean two different things. Simply put, digital marketing is an umbrella term that encompasses all marketing efforts using digital platforms or channels. It involves various strategies and activities to promote business, build awareness, and drive conversations.

Digital marketing may include offline and online tactics such as Search engine optimization, email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, etc.

Digital advertising, however, is a subset of digital marketing, specifically focused on promoting products or services using online advertising channels. It often involves paid placements or ads designed to reach a specific target demographic.

If you are keen enough, you have probably seen a steady change in how businesses advertise their products and services. These changes or trends are no accidents or coincidences. Rather, they are a result of careful adaptation to the evolving digital landscape and the ever-changing consumer behaviors.

Today, for instance, you will find personalized, five-seconds video ads instead of random 5-minutes videos. Ads are also becoming more dynamic, with some incorporating variables such as the current weather, location, or time of day to enhance the user experience and increase the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Here are the other digital advertising trends to keep an eye on:

  • Interactive ad formats: This is a technique where you involve users or viewers in the ad experience. Standard procedures include incorporating polls, quizzes, interactive videos, or mini-games to encourage user engagement and participation. Another advantage of interactive ads is that you can collect critical data and insights into the audience’s behaviors and preferences.
  • Behavioral targeting: Random ads aren’t effective in engagement and conversion since they don’t speak to the interests and preferences of the target audience. By tracking online interactions and user actions, such as previous purchases, website visits, and search history, it’s possible to deliver personalized and more effective ads.
  • Mobile dominance: The number of mobile users in 2023 is estimated at 6.8 billion, representing an average annual increase of 4.2%. These figures are pushing marketers to rethink their ad campaigns with a specific focus on optimizing them for mobile screens and utilizing mobile apps.
  • Intelligent advertising: AI and automated algorithms are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in digital marketing. Today, AI in digital marketing enables cost-efficient ad placement across multiple channels and allows for precise user targeting.
  • AR and VR Integration: Several companies, such as IKEA, Adidas, and Volvo, increasingly embrace AR and VR technologies in their advertising campaigns to demonstrate products and provide virtual try-on experiences. These technologies increase engagement and boost conversion.

Ways of Advertising Online

Digital or online advertising comes in various forms. However, they are often categorized into two main groups: display ads and native ads. Display ads are the digital evolution of flyers and billboard ads. They feature an ad copy, images or graphics, and a CTA. Examples of display ads include:

  • Popup ads: These are often considered very annoying since they interrupt browsing and require the user to take the specified action or manually close them. Popup ads are still in use, but there are ways you can make them less disruptive.
  • Video ads: include video commercials, TV ads, and Facebook and YouTube ads. Modern video ads across social media channels are highly engaging, personalized, and interactive.
  • Banner ads: These are image-based ads often displayed to the side or above the web content.
  • Rich media ads: Rich media ads may feature text fields, scroll or swipe functionality, and even 360-degree rotatable images.

Native ads, on the other hand, are designed to blend seamlessly with the platform or content used. And as the name suggests, native ads should speak to the audience in a way that makes sense to them. Examples of native ads include:

  • Paid search ads: As a website owner, you pay Google to rank your web pages on the first pages of the Google Search Results Pages (SERPs).
  • Social media ads: You pay your favorite social media platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram, to get posts to rank higher in the platform’s algorithm and appear in the feeds of non-followers with similar browsing or shopping habits.
  • Promoted listings: You pay a listing site to rank your business at the top of the platform’s search results page.
  • Sponsored content: You sponsor a podcast or video, and the owner features your business or displays an ad letting the audience know about your business.
  • Influencer partnership: You pay or partner with a social media influencer who creates awareness for your brand. This technique is powerful, but you need a solid influencer marketing strategy to make this work for your business.

Bottom Line

Now that you know how online advertising works, its examples, and its benefits, it’s time to put everything into action. Typically, you want to have a plan or strategy for how you’ll drive your digital advertising campaign.

This involves understanding your goals and KPIs and knowing your target audience, distribution channels, content materials, and budget. If you are new to digital marketing and online advertising, seek expert help from an experienced and reputable digital marketing firm.

Free Marketing Consultation
Omnichannel Personalization

Omnichannel Personalization: Creating a Seamless Customer Experience

/in , , /by

As customers become more connected, their expectations for a seamless and personalized experience continue to change. Nowadays, customers use multiple channels to research, compare, and purchase different products, creating a complex web of touchpoints that businesses must navigate. That’s where omnichannel personalization comes in to help businesses deliver unique experiences to each customer, regardless of where they are in their customer journeys.

In the sections below, you’ll learn more about omnichannel marketing and personalization, including tips for creating a seamless customer experience that drives loyalty and revenue.

Understanding Omnichannel Personalization 

Omnichannel personalization is a customer-centric marketing approach that uses data and technology to create a more personalized and relevant shopping experience for customers. It involves collecting and analyzing data from multiple channels, including online and offline interactions, to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences.

This marketing approach enables businesses to create a consistent customer journey that meets varied and unique customer expectations. By providing a more personalized experience, businesses can increase customer loyalty, reduce churn, and drive more revenue.

What Makes Up Omnichannel Marketing and Personalization 

Over the years, disruptive technologies such as Machine Learning, big data, and data science have given rise to hyper-personalization. Here, businesses are expected to deliver cross-channel experiences tailored to the customers’ needs, behaviors, and preferences. Below are the key factors you should implement if you are looking to provide the best possible customer experience.

1. Marketing Automation 

Marketing automation involves using software to automate repetitive tasks such as social media posting and email marketing. It saves time and helps provide a more personalized experience for customers. Benefits of marketing automation include increased sales productivity and a reduction in marketing overhead.

Companies using marketing automation to nurture prospects see a significant increase in qualified leads, which results in larger purchases. A survey by Annuitas Group found that businesses that use marketing automation see up to a 451% increase in qualified leads. These leads also make purchases that are 47% larger than the non-nurtured leads.

2. Customer Data Collection 

Collecting relevant customer data is crucial to refining your marketing strategy and improving the customer experience. This data can be quantitative, like website bounce rates, or qualitative, like customer reviews. With the right analytics tools, you can gather information about demographics, customer behavior, and brand sentiment.customer data collection

Customer data collection helps retailers better understand their customers and provide an omnichannel experience. To do this effectively, you need a robust customer data platform to gather, store, and analyze the available data.

3. Optimized Website Design

When optimizing your website design, you should create web pages that work well on mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. If your website isn’t responsive, it won’t display properly on smaller screens. Always ensure that your website provides a consistent experience to every customer, regardless of which device they use to view it. You should also prioritize website navigation design to ensure users can easily browse your website, find what they’re looking for, and easily make purchases.

4. Social Media Integration

As the name suggests, social media integration extends your marketing efforts by directing your social media followers to your website or app. It’s also a way of making your social platforms more accessible to your target audience and customers. Brands must integrate all their customers’ social media networks into their omnichannel setup.

Ecommerce brands, for instance, can use social media integration tools to import and display user-generated content on their ecommerce sites automatically. This can help build trust with potential customers and drive conversions.

5. Multichannel Analytics

Multichannel analytics is a process that merges data from different sources into a single location. This makes it easier for businesses to monitor sales across multiple channels. For instance, if a business owner owns three online stores, they can aggregate the data from each store into one location with the help of multichannel analytic tools.

By doing so, they can understand their customers and their behavior on the website, which can help them plan effective promotion campaigns that are more likely to convert. Multichannel analytics also allows businesses to track the effectiveness of their omnichannel marketing strategy, so they can optimize performance while reducing cost.

 

Website Redesign Checklist
New call-to-action

 

Benefits of Omnichannel Personalization 

Personalizing customer experiences and prioritizing their needs and expectations can greatly impact your business. Below are some of the key benefits of embracing a customer-centric marketing approach.

1. Enhanced Customer Experience 

Omnichannel marketing enables businesses to offer customers personalized experiences tailored to their preferences and behaviors. By leveraging data from multiple touchpoints, brands can send customized messages, showcase relevant products, and provide exceptional customer service. A seamless and personalized experience boosts customer satisfaction and improves loyalty.

2. Increased Sales and Conversions  

Personalized customer experiences increase the likelihood of converting prospects by providing relevant and timely interactions. By catering to each customer’s unique preferences, businesses can improve the customer journey and encourage purchases. Omnichannel marketing and personalization have been shown to increase annual sales and customer lifetime value, directly boosting business growth.

3. Lower Customer Acquisition Costs

Creating a personalized omnichannel experience helps retain customers and reduces customer acquisition costs. By providing relevant interactions, businesses can increase customer loyalty and target their advertising spending more efficiently. This approach helps companies optimize their marketing budget and reduce the cost of acquiring new customers.

4. Cost Optimization

By analyzing customer behavior data, brands can identify the most effective channels to reach their target audience. With this knowledge, businesses can optimize their marketing stack, streamline processes, and reduce costs associated with operating multiple channels. Omnichannel personalization helps to optimize resources, reduce waste, and ensure efficient use of budgets while delivering a seamless customer experience.

Getting Started With Omnichannel Personalization 

Implementing an omnichannel marketing strategy is a complex process requiring technological and organizational alignment. To get started, you need to get buy-in from top management, set measurable goals, and build a strategy around those goals. You should also conduct a data inventory to understand the available data and how to use it to achieve your objectives. Additionally, it’s important to establish an internal governance model for executing your omnichannel strategy before creating a roadmap.

To simplify the implementation process, you can start small by focusing on the most valuable use cases and existing touchpoints. This approach is more practical and essential as the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds continue to merge. By taking small, manageable steps towards omnichannel personalization, you can gain a competitive edge and improve customer experience across all touchpoints.

 

 

Free Marketing Consultation

 

 

OTT Marketing 1

8 Reasons to Invest in OTT Marketing

/in , , /by

OTT marketing is a form of marketing in which ads play during the streaming of content provided via high-speed Internet connections. Because it’s so important to stay on top of the latest trends in order to avoid falling behind your competition, OTT marketing is something every business should explore. As new technologies emerge, new marketing opportunities tend to present themselves. For example, the rapid adoption of streaming services, from Netflix to Hulu, over the past few years has led to the growth or OTT marketing (over-the-top marketing). Of course, that’s not the sole reason why you should consider implementing an OTT marketing strategy. The following are some of the major benefits of investing in OTT advertising:

1. Reach A Huge Audience
2. Target Your Audience More Effectively
3. People Will See Your Ads
4. Improve Engagement
5. Obtain Better Data
6. OTT Campaigns Are Flexible
7. You Can Test Your Campaigns
8. OTT Ads Are Cost-Effective

1. Reach A Huge Audience

It’s estimated that there will be close to 200 million streaming viewers within the next few years. This means that you’ll likely be able to reach a huge part of your target audience via OTT advertising. Not only are streaming channels, incredibly popular, but more streaming platforms are launching every year; both Disney and Google recently launched their own channels. Additionally, users have the ability to stream content on these platforms from almost any device, including TVs, computers, smartphones, and tablets.

Integrating Social Media & SEO Efforts For Enhanced Search Engine Results

2. Target Your Audience More Effectively

OTT advertising essentially combines the effectiveness of TV ads with the ability to target specific audiences that digital marketing tends to provide. For example, OTT marketing allows you to target viewers in specific areas using GPS data. You can also leverage behavioral data based on the platform viewers are using as well as the content they are streaming. Additionally, you can also target viewers based on demographics.

3. People Will See Your Ads

OTT Marketing2

Whereas people often change the channel when watching something on cable whenever there is a commercial break. people who are streaming content rarely do this. This is because they can’t just flip back to the stream they were watching after the commercials have ended. Switching streams is inconvenient and most people are too engaged with the content that they are streaming to constantly switch back and forth. Because of this, people who are streaming content are more likely to watch the entirety of the ads that are shown. In fact, it’s estimated that roughly 98 percent of OTT viewers watch the entire ad that’s shown to them. This means that your OTT efforts are more likely to have an impact on their intended audience.

4. Improve Engagement

Many streaming platforms allow their viewers to choose between OTT ads during content breaks. This helps to personalize their experience; however, it also means that they will likely be more engaged with the ads that play since they chose to view them. As such, OTT ads are a good way to get your message across more successfully.

5. Obtain Better Data

When it comes to traditional TV advertising, viewing data is based on larger sample sizes. OTT marketing provides much more helpful data in terms of who is watching your OTT content. Some of the data that you’ll have access to includes what demographics were watching your content, what it was that they were watching, exactly when they were watching it, and from what device they were streaming on. All of this data is invaluable in regards to adjusting your OTT campaigns for better results.

Also Read Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

6. OTT Campaigns Are Flexible

You’re not locked in when you pay for OTT advertising. Many platforms allow you to start, stop, and resume your OTT campaigns at any point in time. This means you can manage your campaign settings and the commercials you’re running in real-time to obtain better results. As a result, you can leverage the data that you’re collecting on your OTT campaign to make improvements.

7. You Can Test Your Campaigns

Because OTT campaigns are often flexible, you can test your campaigns by targeting different audiences and ads to see what works best. Think of it as a form of A/B testing except for OTT marketing.

8. OTT Ads Are Cost-Effective

Instead of paying for the placement of your ads, you’re paying for actual ad views. Because you’re also able to target specific audiences more effectively, your ads will also likely result in a higher ROI. As a result, OTT ads are actually very cost-effective, especially when you take into account the fact that OTT ads engage viewers and can be adjusted throughout the campaign as well.

These are some of the main benefits of investing in OTT marketing. Although traditional TV advertising can still be effective, OTT marketing is an excellent way to reach your target audience and to complement your existing and future inbound marketing efforts.

Digital Communication Tools to Help Build a Human Brand

/in , , , , /by

Whether you’re a brand looking to establish a human connection with your audience or an individual seeking to engage with peers and build professional networks, leveraging these digital communication tools will undoubtedly enhance your ability to connect, collaborate, and succeed in the digital age.

The success of your brand depends on much more than just convincing a potential customer to try your product. While in the past the customer experience has been based around the product being offered, these days, you need to look at the big picture. It’s not just about the customer experience in regards to your product. It’s about the emotional connection that they are able to form with your brand.

Customers don’t just want a product, they want a relationship with the brand that is selling them that product.  You need to focus on fostering an emotional connection instead of just trying to build awareness for a certain product. Fortunately, building an emotional connection with your audience is easier than ever before with the number of digital communication tools that are at your disposal.

The Importance Of An Emotional Connection

Customers are human beings. They have hopes, dreams, and feelings. In a world where their product choices are practically limitless, they will want much more out of a brand. They do not want to engage with a corporation. Customers want to engage with a brand that’s relatable on a personal level. Their desire for connection in such a world is not surprising. A brand that is able to touch them emotionally is going to make them more engaged.

There are many ways that you can do this; reinforcing the beliefs or perspective of your audience, supporting the goals or perspective of your audience, or challenging your audience to do greater things.

Creating a Brand with Social Listening and What Tools To Use

How Digital Communication Tools Can Help Foster An Emotional Connection

Engaging on an emotional level with your audience is easier than it’s ever been, as long as you make the effort to do so. The following are just a few ways that digital communication tools can help you to connect with your audience emotionally and to build meaningful relationships with them:

  • Video content – When it comes to content, few other forms are able to engage audiences on an emotional level like video content. There are numerous reasons for this. First of all, people consume visual content much more easily than written content. Secondly, you can use actors or even real figures that audiences can relate to on a personal level. Thirdly, you can emphasize certain emotions much more effectively through the production of video, from the look of how it was filmed to the type of music that’s used to how the video is edited.
  • Segmentation – Segmenting your leads and customers based on the data you’ve collected (via opt-in forms, surveys, and more) will provide you with valuable insight into who your audience is and how you can connect with them. It also allows you to personalize your content much more effectively, which will make it easier to drive engagement.
  • Social interaction – The use of social channels makes it easy to engage with your audience directly. Direct interaction makes it easier to build meaningful relationships. You’ll have a bigger emotional impact on those who witness the interactions on social media as well.

How to Improve Your Social Signals for SEO

Building a human brand will help you build long-term relationships with your audience based on real emotional connections. Use the digital communication tools available to you to emphasize emotion in your marketing efforts. Doing so will help your audience relate to you on a more personal level, thereby driving engagement with your brand.

Free Marketing Consultation
smart goal examples for marketing

Digital Advertising Trends!

/in , , , /by

Regardless of its niche or size, every business must position itself in the market to become profitable. And with digital advertising trends coming up every now and then, it takes considerable effort, time, and resources to design an ideal marketing strategy that will work for your unique business.

As a marketer or business owner, digital advertising is crucial to the continuous growth of your products or business. But many do not know that keeping up with the most recent digital marketing trends often means spending your resources to update processes, upskill employees and acquire new systems and inventories. This explains why marketing takes a significant portion of the budget in most companies.

If you are considering updating or revamping your digital advertising strategy this holiday season, there’s a lot you stand to gain. Besides staying ahead of the competition, you also have the potential to reach new customers while building brand awareness. Here are some digital advertising trends you can implement in your business.

Personalization is Key

Before advertising any product or reserve, you must know who you target and why. Most businesses often run their digital advertising campaigns in silos without a keen understanding of their business, customers, and marketing goals.

For instance, if you advertise some digital products, you must first highlight the goals you want to accomplish. These goals should complement your overall marketing goals and be detailed enough to show who you want to target, when, and how often.

To streamline your digital advertising campaigns, you should have a personalization plan. Personalizing your digital ads means giving your prospects what they want when they want it. This helps optimize your campaigns and increase the chances that your prospects will take the desired action.

But how can you incorporate personalization into your digital advertising? Here are a few tips to consider:

  • Create in-depth customer profiles. Before you can target any of your prospects, you should group them accordingly. You can use AI technology to implement lead scoring and effectively segment your target market for proper personalization.
  • Leverage user data. A lot is nested in the user data collected in the various prospects’ touchpoints. A simple site visit, for example, can give many clues and insights into how the prospects interacted with the website and what needs improvement. You can then use these clues to create a winning video advertising campaign.
  • Use dynamic retargeting to re-engage your audience. Modern personalization techniques allow marketers to show certain ads to certain visitors, increasing the accuracy and effectiveness of digital advertising.

Video Ads are On the Rise

Video ads don’t particularly fall into the category of digital advertising trends since it’s been on the market for quite some time. However, this isn’t to say that video advertising is no longer relevant. In fact, recent statistics from Wyzowl show that 91% of businesses will use video as a marketing tool in 2023, up from 86% in 2022.

If you are wondering why the numbers favor video ads, you must first note that videos have a higher engagement than any other piece of content. Most people love visuals, and marketers are rethinking their digital advertising strategies to reflect this trend.

It’s worth noting that video advertising isn’t simple and often involves lots of creativity and expertise if it’s to make a huge impact. Here are some video advertising tips you can deploy to take your marketing to the next level.

  • Ensure the videos are relevant. You can have the best video ads in the world, but if they are irrelevant they will not convert. Relevancy in the digital advertising niche means different things to different people. But you can simply put it – the videos should speak to your prospects’ problems in a relatable, timely, and persuasive way.
  • Use user-generated video ads. Incorporating user-generated videos into your ads may seem impractical, but it’s easier than you think. All you need to do is ensure the video is edited for length and relevancy.
  • Use first-person experience videos. As the name suggests, first-person videos do away with voiceovers and spokespeople, centering the experience on the customers, business owners, founders, etc. The goal is to showcase some sense of presence, ownership, and authenticity of the brand.

Mobile Optimization

Mobile optimization is one of the digital advertising trends of 2023 that’s proving quite effective in the content marketing niche. With more people using their smartphones to access the internet, it’s becoming increasingly necessary for marketers to adapt their techniques to reflect this trend.

The other reason why a mobile-first marketing strategy is crucial is that new technologies such as AR and VR are predominantly app-based, making smartphones and mobile experiences the absolute winner.

By optimizing content for mobile, marketers and business owners can increase the visibility of their products and brands, helping drive the conversation. Using video content as an example, here are a few mobile optimization techniques you can implement:

  • Use square and vertical videos. Most videos with an aspect ratio of 4:5 are ideal for smartphone users and would work best for social media channels like Facebook and Instagram. For YouTube videos, an aspect ratio of 16:9 is ideal.
  • Keep the videos short. The video ads should be short and engaging.
  • Feature the brand or product message early. Since the video is short, ensure you feature the brand early enough. This ensures prospects know what you are promoting as soon as the ad plays.

Make Digital Advertising a Breeze

Digital marketing is one of the highly dynamic fields, and as a digital marketer, you need to stay up to date with the latest digital advertising trends. The three tips we highlighted above are just a few of the many, so feel free to research and try different techniques before picking the best.

Besides being on the lookout for new digital marketing trends, it’s crucial to constantly review your digital marketing strategies to know whether they are effective. You can seek expert help when monitoring your digital marketing strategies to ensure you have the upper hand.

 

Dan Gartlan helps companies of all kinds drive their business initiatives and achieve their goals. He does this with strategic marketing programs that deliver results. As President of Stevens & Tate Marketing, he has over 20 years of experience across various industries. He continues to share and build brands nationwide.