Basic Digital Marketing

For every minute of the day, there are more than 100 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube. There is no hub of content creation more advanced and growing than YouTube, with billions of users regularly going to the platform to consume. Its’ online community is strong and in an era of increased emphasis on video marketing, YouTube has got the market covered. Unfortunately, for most brands, YouTube goes underutilized.

Any brand building a social media marketing strategy, of course, there are advantages and reasons to consider Facebook and Instagram. There’s opportunities there to advertise and increase leads but these are very populated, busy, and cluttered platforms. They also don’t have the algorithms or advertising support YouTube does. Every website should be investing in a YouTube video marketing strategy and here are just a few reasons why.

eCommerce product pages are secret weapons in SEO, as both a lead generation tool and a conversion method. Getting product pages right are a must. Prospective customers are arriving at your site ready to buy. If you have product pages properly set up alongside a customer-centric sales message, you’ve got a lot to gain. Here are 6 digital strategies to get you to optimized eCommerce product pages.

Video.

The average consumer spends 5.5 hours a day consuming video. Especially with social media marketing abound, video is an ideal way to communicate with your existing and potential audience. In fact, eCommerce sites like Amazon have seen an increase in purchases of 6-30 percent on product pages with video embedded.

Why half of Toronto businesses do not have a digital marketing plan in place is beyond us. Marketing online is seemingly a necessity to survive in today’s marketplace. Although far more businesses than half are engaged with Internet platforms, to fumble one’s way through social media or to have an informal strategy that’s not well defined is not a great idea.

Digital marketing has got so much behind it. You’ll find revenue growth awaiting, a whole new consumer base looking to connect with brands like yours, and so many opportunities to expand your brand and get it in front of qualified leads. To seek success offline is expensive and not altogether feasible for many people. Seemingly, the only reason why a Toronto business would not want to pursue a defined digital marketing strategy would likely be because they don’t necessarily know what to do with it.

Search engine optimization (SEO) strategies are all about delivering to your site organic traffic. How we do that is by getting your website ranked close to the top on the first page of Google.

There are on-page and off-page SEO strategies which can be used to accomplish this, with a variety of SEO tools making an increase in web traffic so much easier to arrive at. Through advanced SEO tools, you get more functionality in your analytics, more insight into the competition, and more power in your link building.

Something else you’ll notice about the SEO tools mentioned is their ability to assist with keyword research. Keywords are still so important to search engine optimization. After all, when a user searches something on Google, they’re using a keyword in their search query. As a brand, you want to ensure you have the right keywords to get you the traffic you want.

To succeed online, it can’t be emphasized enough that strong customer relationships are a necessity. Easy and efficient ways to connect with your target audience exist, thankfully. Cultivating an online community begins with recognizing the social channels available, learning how to interact with customers, and employing strategies to generate discussion. Here are nine ways to build an online community to spur your website towards being the success you know it can be.

Personality.

Humanize your brand by bringing personality to the conversation. Be fun and vibrant. While you don’t want to overshare, be inappropriate, or get too far away from what your brand’s about, personality is important to help let people know there’s someone real behind the computer and not just a corporate robot.

Tech’s been driving society for years now, and business in Toronto has seen many changes in recent decades because of the technology which has come and gone. Smartphones, iPods, social media, digital marketing channels, and how we interact person-to-person has all had an effect on business.

Data.

It’s easier than ever to accumulate data and analytics, which has helped digital marketing agencies in Toronto a great deal. Some data is more important than other data though and so companies are challenged to know which metrics are most important, how to process these analytics, and how to use this information to personalize content to your customer base.

There’s a lot of debate, these days, on what the best social media site is. Truth be told, each brand may have their own personalized answer based on where their audience is and what’s appropriate for them.

Analyzing current social media trends in digital marketing, Instagram is the #1 social media platform in the world right now followed closely by Facebook and Twitter. A huge social media trend that we’ve found is that while Instagram growth rates are the highest of all social media sites, Facebook and Twitter is growth is slowing down rather quickly. Although B2C brands still go to Facebook, waning interest means in 5-10 years’ time, Instagram might be where you want to invest your time.

In 2019, the top 3 social media platforms are Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter based on how marketers are using these sites. Approximately 94 percent of marketers use Facebook for social media marketing while 73 percent use Instagram and 59 percent are using Twitter.

Creating content for social media marketing for most companies is one-size-fits-all. You may be cutting down on the effectiveness of your digital marketing by doing this, however. Each social media platform has its own audience, rules, and trend on content engagement. Not every platform is equal to the next.

Building your social media strategy, approach each platform as if it’s its own unique digital marketing channel. Depending on where your target audience is, some may be more appropriate than others. Also, if your brand is naturally inclined to produce a certain type of content, you may be better suited to sticking to a specific social platform. For example, Twitter is very journalism-heavy and ideal for short text-based messaging while photos and videos are better suited to Instagram. Here are some general rules to social media marketing.

Any brand, business, or organization lives and dies by the leads it can generate and convert. Struggling brands need to get smarter with how they find leads. How to do this can be done in many ways. Here are 7 highly effective lead generation tactics we would recommend to any website or brand who are not generating the leads they want.

Use a quiz

For all the high-tech advanced digital marketing strategies we can suggest to generate leads, something as simple as a survey or quiz can help provide lead info. Consider creating a quick on an important subject and then, inside this quiz, ask for a user’s contact info. Encourage them to share it with friends on social media. This can be a huge lead booster!

To become a dominating brand, it takes a lot of effort, financial investment, and luck. Even corporations and companies who succeed, success is never guaranteed.

Did you know, more than half of Fortune 500 companies since 2000 have either gone bankrupt, were acquired, no longer exist, or fell off the list – it’s true. Some brands seem to have the Midas touch however all eventually come to be challenged by a market competitor.

In the past two decades, for many companies, the difference between success and failure in digital marketing. In digital marketing, you have elements like social media, video publishing, email newsletter, blog writing, web design, organic growth through search engine optimization, and more.

The benefits of SEO include ranking higher on search engine results, reaching more visitors, and generating organic momentum that can help carry a business to massive popularity among their target audience. If you’re operating a business online, search engine optimization is a smart strategy to implement.

The most effective way to drive traffic without paying for ads is SEO. Even businesses with small budgets can participate and help elevate themselves up to the level of the biggest corporate competition. It’s key to note that 32 percent of people end up clicking on the first Google search result. If you can get on the first page and up to the first result for relevant search queries, your company’s going to grow at a fast rate. Here are six SEO tips in 2019 to help grow your site user by user.

Simple site structure.

Don’t over-complicate your website design. You want a structure that’s easy for search engine crawlers to navigate. Pages, categories, sub-categories, internal linking, and headings are important. The more hierarchy you have, the easier it’s going to be for Google crawlers to search and classify your website according to the most relevant terms.

There’s a lot Amazon has done to become the top-selling eCommerce site in the world. It’s no coincidence. A lot of the investment has been made into eCommerce marketing. Not only has their marketing caused them to rise to become one of the most valuable brands anywhere but it’s also allowed them to keep that top spot likely for decades to come.

If you’ve recently started an eCommerce company or are seeking ways to improve your eCommerce marketing, Amazon’s marketing strategy is a smart place to look. Here is a little insight into how the corporation continues to prioritize customers to maximize brand awareness, lead generation, convert leads, and achieve record revenues.

Loyalty programs.

By building a community, you build value. Amazon Prime members spend almost twice as much annually as regular consumers. Use your eCommerce site to build a loyalty program, providing exclusive discount codes, promotions, and more. Consider using Amazon Prime as a model, judging what’s most appropriate for your brand.

Email marketing is a lead nurturing strategy, sales technique, and an overall excellent way to reach your customers. Through email, an eCommerce company or any brand can feature products, videos, and send personalized messaging straight to a user’s inbox. Judging what makes your email marketing strategy successful, there are several metrics to pay attention to. Here’s a quick list of the five most important email marketing KPIs to keep in mind.

Unique opens

Unique opens is how many people have opened your email. This gives you a clear picture on how much interest your email is generating on its’ own, prior to any open. It’ll indicate how enticing your subject line is and how engaged your customers are with your brand. If you find you have a low ‘unique opens’ or if it’s going down, some tips to get it up include expressing either exclusivity or time sensitivity in the subject line, using numbers in the subject line, and personalizing your emails based on geography.

More than half of all emails are opened on mobile devices. If you’re not already optimizing your email marketing for mobile, you’ve got to start. Desktop platforms are seemingly on a steady decline. The Internet is moving to mobile. Increase customer engagement and acquisition through these mobile-based email marketing strategies.

Subject line

So much focus for email marketing is placed on the subject line. Short, succinct, compelling, and informative, choosing what is most likely to engage your audience can be tough to think of. Be sure to invest the time to come up with a subject line you can be proud of and which will deliver the messaging you want in a click-friendly phrase.

In a time when digital marketing’s so focused on video, is it possible we could be moving towards a screenless world – some say so. Personal assistant voice-enabled devices are taking over. Amazon Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Google Home, and more are sold by the truckloads every day in Canada and the US.

This is changing the way we market, as Toronto digital marketers. Assuming this is where things lead in the years to come, we could potentially see a shift away from image and video, and movement happening towards meeting the requirements of marketing through voice.

Improve the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy by targeting the most successful, trending video marketing platforms in the world. As consumers are moving to video in big numbers, a lot of tomorrow’s marketing is likely to be centered on these platforms. Here are a few statistics to keep in mind, if you’re interested in video marketing.

Video accounts for 80 average of all consumer-based global Internet traffic.
Including the word ‘video’ in the subject of an email marketing message increases view-rate by 19 percent on average.
Slightly less than 50 percent of all Google searches are for videos relating to a product or service.

We all want more content to promote. It helps strengthen our websites, boosts our SEO, and provides us something to use on social media. That said, it takes time, effort, and money to get that content.

Content marketing is still one of the most powerful weapons there is in digital marketing. To keep pace with others in competition with you though, you may want to produce more content faster. This is natural however it can cost you. No one wants low-quality content – not you nor the consumer.

Persuading a customer to buy your product on eCommerce is the ultimate objective in digital marketing campaigns in this category. How is this done most effectively though, from a time, effort, and cost perspective – this is a question a lot of websites chase after. Through the following eCommerce digital marketing strategies, one can improve their conversion rates, increase consumer confidence, and achieve trust with your brand name.

Customer recommendations

Turn your customer reviews and testimonials on-site into recommendations relevant to the buyer. If you don’t have many reviews as of yet, consider recommendations as a substitute. Products with fewer reviews online tend to be purchased less because the perception’s there that they don’t have many customers or that there’s a reason these products are avoided. The more you can recommend, the more likely you can upsell or cross-sell.

Selling eCommerce on social media, you have a lot of competition. The challenge in addition to elevating yourself above your competitors is also how to sell to a group that doesn’t want to be sold to and which are not on these platforms for this reason. Well, here are 7 secrets we consider to be essentials to doing eCommerce marketing on social media.

Personalize.

Customers want to be spoken to as people – not numbers. This is true not only on social media but in any sort of digital marketing or customer service interaction. As you respond to customers, use their name, be positive, and be authentic. If you have the information available, pull up their record. Reference their past history with the company or make recommendations based on what you know.

In digital marketing, website owners don’t always achieve the impact they want with their CTAs. There’s a lot which can influence how a CTA performs and when done right, the results can be massive. When done wrong, a site owner could be unknowingly sabotaging their effort. Building awareness for a brand off-page and nurturing leads correctly on-page are a starting part of success with CTAs.

Let’s say you’re already doing everything right and yet, for some reason your CTAs aren’t generating the clicks you want. This could be a sign that something simple’s not being done. Conversion channels selected, how powerful and authentic your content is, and how you’re strategizing your CTAs could be the answer. Should you believe it to be an issue with your CTA strategy, here are 3 changes you can make to help elevate your brand and maximize conversions.

A cohesive brand narrative that you can sell in a logo, a photo, a video, and in your marketing materials starts with finding the story you want to tell.

Storytelling is so important as it allows consumers to connect as human beings to the products, services, and brands which surround them. A brand has little value, in this day and age, if all they are is a faceless corporation. Consumers want a story, meaning, and to know when they buy from you, they’re putting their money in a good place.

Think of your brand and its values, what makes it special, and who your customers are. Before circulating any SEO-driven content marketing or putting out your first social media post, know what impression you want to leave. Outside of what you sell or the industry in which you operate, a brand should aspire to be something of meaning to their customers or community. Nike’s an example, representing aspiration, inspiration, innovation, and inclusion for athletes. Nike’s tagline is ‘Just do it’ and it has nothing to do with shoes and merchandise, and yet it’s somehow so appropriate for the brand.

The rules of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites can be challenging to manage, as consumer behaviours can sometimes seem to change year by year. Regardless, mobile devices and digital tech has made it so that social media is unavoidable. Best practices are an excellent reference point to adhere to when digging into what’s expected on social media.

Best practices customized by any business should be done according to data. After all, digital marketing of any kind is driven by data. Analytics like this identify strengths and weaknesses, providing brands the chance to listen to their audience and act. Leverage the social media analytics you have to refine your approach. If you don’t already have a social media account, no problem. Ensure moving forward, you pay attention to the data. Monitor your competition’s social media and look how they’re interacting with followers, what kind of content they are using, and the result.

Though there are plenty of digital tools and tech out there handling analytics, Google’s main Analytics program is still preferred and used by many digital marketers. Large numbers of digital marketers and brands struggle with how to measure ROI through different sources and/or don’t know how to accurately measure data through non-traditional channels like social media. These are some of the top FAQs about Google Analytics that can maybe help.

You don’t need a multi-million dollar budget to generate significant returns in digital marketing. Many brands have built businesses off capitalizing on cost-effective opportunities to grow audience. Even in times of recession nationally and when a company has had their marketing budgets cut, there are still ways to spur growth in a consistent, long-term way. If you’re dealing with a slash in your marketing budget or are working with limited financial resources to begin with, here are a few ways to protect growth with a smaller-than-preferred budget.

Spend smarter.

Look at your digital marketing channels and spend smartly where ROI is highest. Although a small budget can seem inopportune for company growth, in a sense, all marketing has to do is to generate enough of a return on its main channels to justify continuing. Alleviate risk by spending smarter, according to what has the highest yield.

The National Hockey League is a marketing machine. As star athletes are building their personal brands through sponsorships and merchandise, the NHL is doing the same thing. NHL hockey cards, team jerseys, video games, and anything branded with an official logo is an exercise in marketing the organization’s been performing for decades.

Beyond the same merchandising and revenue-generating marketing the NHL has always done, they’re also starting to take the players and use their journeys or stories to sell more tickets, merchandise, and more.