Posts Tagged ‘Online Marketing Tips’

Sales Enablement: Helping Customers Discover Your Product

1. Using social media to sell your products

Although social media is all about awareness and engagement, businesses can also promote their products and help customers in the phase of product discovery.

55% of respondents who discovered a product through social media proceeded to purchase later on. ~ Mary Meeker, Internet Trends 2018 Click To Tweet
social media purchases
Source: medium.com

In this report, Facebook tops the social media channels where people find out about new products. Use this opportunity to make it easier and faster for your audience to move down your sales funnel.

Easy-to-Digest Content, Ads, and Stories

2. Omnichannel marketing

Omni, which means ‘all or every’ is about managing customer experience in all channels whether offline or online. The idea is that the customer’s journey may start in one channel and move to another seamlessly towards the end point—your product or service.

With the help of a Social Media Virtual Assistant, you can reach and interact with your audience anytime through the use of email marketing, online advertising, social networking, and other platforms because nobody today shops exclusively through a single medium.

3. 24-hour stories impacts how people consume content

Stories are visual content in a vertical format that lasts for a day and first became popular on Snapchat and later on copied by Instagram and Facebook.

These stories are easy to create, fun, engaging, authentic, and don’t last long so there’s that sense of urgency to consume them before they’re gone.

Social Media Stories Growth
Source: bufferapp.com

This means more and more brands will use this in-the-moment style content vs. overly produced, pre-packed content.

Currently, 400 million people are consuming Stories on Instagram on a daily basis, while Facebook is trying to integrate Stories to our daily routines. Click To Tweet

4. Growing social media ad spend across marketers

One of every four Facebook Pages now use paid advertising as part of their social media marketing strategy.

But always consider not relying too much on one platform, either for organic or paid growth. One recommended way to do this is to just boost your top performing organic content.

Marketers increased social ad budgets up to 32% in 2018. Facebook accounts for 23% of total U.S. digital ad spending. Click To Tweet

5. Invest some time in creating great content

In our blog Why you need to hire a social media manager for your business, we discussed how a social media VA can help you increase conversions by sharing your content on social media.

social media content share
Source: bufferapp.com

6. Join more communities through LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn is already making a huge push toward becoming a connection nurturing network among executives and younger demographics entering the workforce. It’s also constantly updating its groups in an aim to drive more community.

LinkedIn reports that likes, comments, and shares on the network increased more than 50%. Click To Tweet

Engagement and Influencer Marketing

7. Love and care about your social community

Connecting with your audience, responding quickly to customer inquiries/requests, and addressing issues are just few of the reasons for using social media marketing.

Businesses that monitor and participate in conversations with their followers and potential customers can expect more loyalty form their fans and develop deeper and longer relationships.

8. Working with influencers and micro-influencers

Working with the best influencers can be expensive so this is where micro-influencers (ordinary digital citizens) come in. Try tools like Mavrck, Neoreach, and Traackr to find key micro-influencers so you can test the waters of influencer marketing on a budget.

instagram follower counts
Source: medium.com

Example: a food brand may see better results by using a rising food blogger (micro-influencer) with 30k followers than a celebrity chef who may ask for 20x of the budget.

Facebook Groups are a hot spot for engagement and a place to focus social media efforts in 2019. Click To Tweet

Social Media TV, Videos, Podcasts, and Live Streaming

9. Highlighting video content marketing

More on social media tips for business – The launch of IGTV by Instagram was one of the biggest social media trends of 2018. And according to Statista, more than 50% of digital videos are now viewed on mobile in vertical video format.

Among the top picks of marketers are: Live video or live streaming, interactive video, short videos, and vertical videos.

Video Marketing Impact to Customers
Source: medium.com

10. Share authentic stories and important moments

“Stories create a more transparent and meaningful relationship. That means less of static updates and more behind-the-scenes, raw, and intimate stories.” – Anna Crowe, Assistant Editor of Search Engine Journal

Business owners will need to tell more stories and moments that matter to the people, and not their brand. You can take your best-performing posts and evergreen web content and create one-minute videos or convert them to blog posts.

One-minute videos get 400 – 500% more reach on LinkedIn compared to Facebook. Click To Tweet

Messaging Apps, Automation, Chatbots

11. AI and automated messaging for customers

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automated messengers for customer service support means that the expectations about the response time are increasing. Huffington Post reported that 60% of the Millennial population are the quickest adaptors of chatbot-based customer experiences.

12. Understanding how people use messaging apps

People widely use private messaging, whether it’s simply about reaching their families or staying in touch with their favorite brands. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and WeChat hold a large percentage of the messaging market.

messaging apps
Source: medium.com

13. Personalized, Private messaging, and chatbots

Facebook Messenger and chatbots are one of the most effective ways to reach and build audience engagement—it’s email blasting done via messenger.

“Businesses that market via Messenger earn 60 to 80 percent open rates within the first 60 minutes.” ~ Kristi Kellogg, Founder & CEO of Dazzling Digital

Many experts predict that by 2020, more than 80% of all customer service interactions will be powered by AI bots. Click To Tweet

The Importance of Trust and Transparency in Social Media Marketing

14. Making customers comfortable in sharing their data

Because of recent data breaches on some platforms, building trust with your audience is now more important than ever. Be transparent and prompt enough to update your customers on a recent change or admitting your mistakes and working on to resolve issues.

15. Earn and keep the trust of your followers

Finally, always aim to capture the trust and confidence of your customers every single day. With all the fake news and privacy disasters this past year, it’s imperative that you ensure people that their personal online privacy is in good hands.

Interested to start working on how to improve social media for your business? Reach out to us and we can discuss your social media marketing strategy and overall business objectives.

Our experienced social media virtual assistants (VA) can help you with sharing posts, lead generation, increasing your followers, customer support, and promoting your brand so you can continue to thrive online and make an impact this 2019.

Virtual Assistant Talent is a top-notch virtual assistant staffing agency helping professionals from different industries such as the real estate, insurance, small business, coaching/consulting, and executive leadership.

CALL US at 1-866-596-9041 and discover how our highly qualified and trained virtual assistants can help in your everyday tasks and objectives.

Reference:
www.searchenginejournal.com/
blog.bufferapp.com/
medium.com/
www.martechadvisor.com/



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Last Updated: September 12, 2018

Online Marketing

Top 13 Reasons Why You Need to Incorporate Video Marketing to Promote Your Business

What is video marketing? It is a marketing strategy that uses videos to educate and convince people to purchase a product or service. It is also one of the most profitable marketing tools to date. Fee...

Before, business owners and marketers shy away from using videos because they take a long time to make and required special software.

Nowadays, there are a lot of sites and software with editing tools that can be used for free. Some also include free effects and transitions to make your videos more fluid and attractive to viewers.

Videos can be informative as well as entertaining. As long as you’ve made videos that effectively represent your brand or business, your products or services will sell out quickly.

If you haven’t started using videos yet, here are 13 points to explain the importance of video marketing for your business.

1. Builds Trust with Your Audience

Trust makes conversions and sales happen. The concept of content marketing is not about selling but creating long-term relationships. Once you’ve established trust, people will come to you not just for information but for the products or services you’re offering.

When you’re in a brick and mortar store, it’s easier to build trust with customers through personal interaction. It’s quite difficult when you have an online store. Some costumers are still skeptical about making online purchases because of fraud and scams.

Build trust with your prospects first by introducing your brand or company through a video. Put up how-to videos or content-filled to keep your audience engaged. Once your audience understands and remembers your brand, you can publish videos promoting your products or services.

2. Explains Products or Services Effectively

Explains Products or Services Effectively on the Video

A video can explain a variety of topics easily. It can show steps on how to use a newly launched product or discuss in detail how a new service is fulfilled and who are involved in the process.

Always remember to make videos with the intention to keep your audience engaged. When making a video, focus on one topic only. Throw in questions to trigger curiosity and include references for further reading. Inject some humor to excite your audience and avoid long texts and talking nonstop.

Want to simplify a complicated service? Show the process through an animated video. Live demonstration can work but animations are more fun and engaging. This way, customers remember your brand and recall more information about your products or services.

3. Gets More Social Shares and Web Traffic

Social media platforms have revolutionized from still pictures to moving ones. In fact, videos are found to generate 1200% more shares compared to text and images on social media.

The sharing potential offered by video marketing can effectively multiply your visibility and help you reach the audience you’re looking for. And given that your video will reach your potential consumers organically, the impact will be higher.

This is why video marketing is so powerful. It can capture a wide audience that will continue to share your video until it reaches your desired audience. Make sure to also use your website as landing page to increase traffic into it.

4. Boosts Your Conversions and Sales

There’s no denying the fact that online marketing can help you make money but some strategies don’t make sales as high as video marketing. If you know how to do video marketing properly, it will increase conversions and lead to sales.

Videos are visually pleasing and can trigger a variety of emotions. With a product or explainer video, you can build a connection with your audience. Once you’ve earned their interest and trust, your audience becomes customers.

5. Engages with Mobile Users

Video Strategy: Engages with Mobile Users

Mobile phones or smartphones are not only used for communication but also for entertainment or just to pass the time. In fact, people are getting obsessed with smartphones that they spend breaks burying their faces on mobile screens.

A big chunk of these mobile users also watch videos through mobile. The increase in mobile usage and video streaming is so dramatic that social media platforms like Youtube and Facebook incorporated ads into videos.

As the number of smartphone users grow, so as your video audience. Having a wide audience doesn’t guarantee conversions or sales though. An enticing video content still plays a big role in making your viewers consume what you’re offering.

6. Engage All Types of Audience

Even then, ads are usually short and straight to the point. Will you read a 300-word billboard ad or a lengthy facebook post without an image? I guess not. Your audience is a mix of the busiest, the laziest and everyone in between. Make sure your video content will engage a majority of your audience, especially the laziest ones. Consumers already know what they want, all you have to do is make them take action.

7. Viewers Want More Videos

We are living in the golden age of videos. They are so accessible that people just scroll through social media, find a random video and get sucked into a black hole where they end up watching video after video.

Information hunting has become easier as well because of videos. Customers are watching more videos to find products and make purchasing decisions. For example, you want to remove hard stains from your bathroom walls; you can easily find a demo video in YouTube that also includes recommendation for tools and products.

You don’t have to convince your audience to watch your videos. Just put your videos out, add relevant tags or interests, and your audience will do the rest. People want things to be comprehensive and videos can achieve that.

8. Search Engines and Social Media Love Videos

Search Engines and Social Media Love Videos

Videos drive organic traffic into your site and increase the time spent by visitors. An effective way to do this is by uploading your videos through YouTube and sharing them in your social media accounts.

YouTube is owned by Google which means all videos uploaded into it are also tracked by Google. It also affects your site’s search ranking so the more relevant and optimized the videos are, the higher the search engine rank.

People also love watching random videos on social media and they share anything they find entertaining. A fun video post that includes a link to your website will convert into website clicks which can potentially turn visitors into customers. Give potential customers the way to take the next step.

9. Rank High in YouTube

Rank High in YouTube

Information hunting is not only done through search engines like Google, you can also do it through YouTube. People use YouTube to search for educational or demo videos.

How-to videos in YouTube can teach anyone, anything from simple hacks to complicated web programming. A study shows that searches for how-to videos went up 70% in the last couple of years.

10. Get Unbelievable ROI

Return on investment (ROI) is the ratio of profit made in a financial year as a percentage of an investment. Entrepreneurs use it to see if their investment on a business is successful or not.

Although high quality video production involves a lot of money and time, it also produces a big payoff. 52% of business owners state that video marketing gives the greatest ROI in marketing so you’re assured that you’re putting your buck at the right place.

If you’re a start up or you don’t have the resources yet, you can use a smartphone or point-and-shoot camera to take videos and edit them using free editing tools. You can then upgrade to high quality or even animated ones when you have the funds. As mentioned earlier, video content matters more than aesthetics so get that all polished first before going for the upgrade.

Polish video content

11. Ads in Videos Work Wonders

Video ads are rocking social media platforms. Facebook learned that 74% of the total Ad Recall (the number of people that remember the ad) can be achieved within the first 10 seconds. So long as you’ve made sure your video is fun and engaging especially on the first 10 seconds, people will remember you, watch till the end or make the purchase. That right there is the importance of video marketing for your business.

12. Upgrade Your Email Marketing

Let’s be honest, emails can get boring and are not convincing enough. Why not incorporate your videos into your emails? Adding a video into your email can increase your click through rate by a whooping 96%. More clicks mean more conversion and more conversion increases sales.

13. Maximize and Recycle

Creating videos can be costly and time-consuming that’s why you have to find other ways to use them. How do you do that? For example, you want to repurpose your existing videos for other video marketing strategies. You can post an announcement on social media that you will do a talk about it and an episode or video will be posted at certain intervals and your audience can comment their questions for further discussion.

Video clips can also be turned into GIFs and teaser videos that you can use in other marketing strategies. You can use a GIF on a new social media post and a teaser video to promote a blog post or landing page.

Video marketing is proven to be one of the best marketing strategies. With the increase in demand for videos, you may eventually find it difficult to keep up with it.

Don’t miss out on a great business opportunity; don’t let go of video marketing. If you’re too busy, you can hire for technical virtual assistant. Let an expert video marketer bring in more conversions and sales while you reap the benefits of video marketing for business.

Looking for virtual staffing agencies or have questions about virtual assistant services? CALL US at 1-866-596-9041 and see how our highly qualified and trained VAs can assist in your everyday tasks and objectives.

We would love to hear if these tips worked for you! If you have questions or any Content Marketing related success stories, please leave a comment below.

References:
Yumyumvideos.com
Tarproductions.com
Business2community.com
Ngdata.com
Strategiccfo.com

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Last Updated: December 4, 2017

Real Estate Tips

How Effective is Craiglist Ad Posting for Business

Craigslist is every business’ venue to list and post their products and services for free. This is also a good way of free exposure while widening your market reach and potential customers especia...

Last Updated: November 27, 2017

Online Marketing

Top 5 Reasons to Use Social Media Marketing in Your Business

As soon as you start reading this article, whether you use social media or not, your competitors are already prepping to share a piece of content all over the world in a matter of seconds. Why is that...

1. Increase traffic and brand recognition

Your social media presence paves the way for new customers to access your brand and content easier while making you more familiar and recognizable for existing customers. The social media networks you create are new channels for you to build reputation by increasing your visibility online.

For example, a Twitter user could get interested about your company after just seeing your hashtag retweeted by his friend. Or, an online buyer might check out your website after seeing your promo posted on multiple networks. It’s all about making use of every opportunity you can get to broadcast your brand in the internet world.

2. Build a following and brand loyalty

A conclusion from a report published by Texas Tech University stated that a strategically designed social media plan could prove influential in encouraging consumers into being brand loyal. Businesses should take advantage of the tools social media gives them when it comes to connecting with their audience and building a following.

According to the report, brands who engage on social media channels enjoy higher loyalty from their customers. Furthermore, another study published by Convince&Convert found that 53% of Americans who follow brands in social are more loyal to those brands.

Convert visitors to customers

Related: Smart And Creative Ways To Promote A Business

3. Convert visitors to customers

Did you know that every post you make on social media platforms is an opportunity for customers to convert? Whether it’s a video, an image, or a blog post, what you share online is a chance for them to react and/or take action.

You will have access to new customers, recent customers, and old customers, and the great thing is, you’ll be able to interact with all of them simultaneously! Remember that each of their reactions could lead to a site visit, and eventually a conversion.

However, not every interaction with your brand results in a conversion. But keep in mind that every positive feedback increases the likelihood of an actual conversion. The opportunities you have on social media alone are very valuable.

4. Decrease marketing costs

 

Decrease Marketing Costs

According to Hubspot…

84% of marketers say that 6 hours/week on social media helps generate traffic. Click To Tweet
In fact, if you hire a virtual assistant (VA) or remote worker to spend just one hour a day developing your content and syndication strategy, you could start seeing the results of your efforts.

You can also go for paid advertising through Facebook and Twitter. It is not that pricey depending on your goals and can be a valuable investment. For example, a VA can go over your page insights and develop a strategy for you and once you get a better feel for what to expect, you can increase your budget or time allocation for the efforts.

Additionally, the VA can consistently monitor your social media account, reviewing and responding to prospective customers and existing customers inquiries, comments, and concerns, escalating important things that come up for you to address and take action as needed. VAs can also create and populate dashboards for you to monitor the traffic and measure the activities and success of your social media.

Using virtual assistants saves you up to 76% in labor costs vs. office-based employees. Click To Tweet`

Further, virtual assistants can be a highly cost effective alternative to utilizing PR firms or marketing agencies depending on your business needs and budget.

5.The sooner you start, the better

The sooner you start your social media marketing, the sooner you will reap the benefits. You will see your network grow rapidly as your followers tell their friends, their families, and so on. The earlier you start, the sooner you’ll be able to start establishing your presence and growing your audience. And, with the feedback you get in the social media marketing process, you’ll know if there are issues right away and take steps to resolve them.

Studies have shown that…

Consumers appreciate those who respond to good feedback & also to complaints AND make things right. Click To Tweet
So make sure you are all ears when it comes to this, as social media is the most viral marketing ever—word gets out faster than before.

Now is the time to start growing your network. If you don’t have the time or expertise to do so, you can hire a VA to start inviting connections, creating, writing, and posting content and engaging in conversation and follow up with your audience or customer base.

The important thing is you build your online presence and make it easier for prospective clients/customers to find you, and interact with you. This opens the door and increases your market exposure to create more opportunities in delivering your message and unique selling points for increased sales conversions of your products/services.

 

References:
www.forbes.com
www.contentfac.com

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Last Updated: January 3, 2018

Online Marketing

5 Ideal Ways to Market your Business Online During the Holidays

The holidays are really one of the busiest times of the year but also the best times to gain extra revenue for your business. While you need to have some pre-planning and creativity, you can ensure a ...

Last Updated: October 3, 2019

Outsourcing

How A Virtual Assistant Can Help You With Technology Challenges

As technology advances faster, companies are also working to be at the top of the competition. As market competition gets tougher and tougher, entrepreneurs tend to focus more on how to get customers ...

Last Updated: September 2, 2016

Online Marketing

Smart And Creative Ways To Promote A Business

Starting up your own business is sensational, and promoting your enterprise is a challenge. How can you promote your business and bring your brand in front of potential prospects when you are on a sho...

Last Updated: October 3, 2019

Online Marketing

What Infographics Can Do For Your Business

More and more businesses are using the influence of information graphics or what is commonly known as infographics to educate people, clients and sell their products and services. If you notice, infog...