Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends of 2020

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Marketing is one of the fastest-changing professions today. With that, you never want to find yourself stuck in a rut or using outdated strategy. As the end of the year approaches, it’s the perfect time to research up on the digital marketing trends to come. With that, here are our predictions for the top 5 trends in digital marketing for 2020:

Conversational Marketing 

Conversational marketing, including live chat and chat bots, will continue to be an important factor of digital marketing in 2020. AI-based technology uses instant messaging to chat in real-time with customers and site visitors. Many customers actually prefer interacting with chat bots. They are responsive 24/7, give answers promptly, accurately recall your entire buying history, and never lose patience. These virtual assistants offer outstanding customer service by meeting customers’ expectations and automating repetitive tasks. 

That doesn’t mean other conversation strategies should be forgotten. While direct messaging may take more effort, it offers a way to get more personal with customers. It’s also a way to streamline customer service and assist in sales. Through messaging apps or private messaging on social media, brands are building stronger connections with their customers. These forums offer the convenience of text with the immediacy of a phone conversation, all in an environment the user is already familiar with from talking with friends. This technique works best when you encourage users to message you by providing your handle or username, and incentivizing them with an exclusive deal or coupon code.

Mass Personalization 

Increased data collection and advancements in technology have already had a huge impact on the level of personalization that is possible between brands and consumers. Today consumers are constantly flooded with marketing messages from multiple channels to the point where they have learned to completely ignore them. Traditional advertising has lost almost all traction and companies must adapt to remain relevant. When customers have endless options for websites and social platforms, customers are looking for what’s most personal. Personalized marketing messages can forge a real connection between brands and their customers. 80% of consumers said that they’d be more likely to do business with a brand that provides a personalized experience. This doesn’t just mean changing the name of your emails to fit the person you’re addressing. Improvements in technology such as AI combined with increased data collection and insights from social media and other sources have made it possible and easy to hyper-personalize everything from content to design to product recommendations and everything in-between.

Video Marketing

Video marketing was one of the top performing tactics of 2019 and it’s only expected to increase in value in 2020. Video is by far the most popular way consumers learn about new products today, and this goes far beyond just YouTube. Video can be utilized across all social platforms, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter especially. With the growing shift to mobile, marketers don’t have to worry about reformatting long sales pages or emails. Videos can present the same information, if not more, in a format that works regardless of device. 

Video content is also a great driver of SEO. A study found that if a site includes video, it’s 50 times more likely to show up organically in search results. Since video content has been such a driver of traffic, Google detects that, and thus pushes pages that includes video higher up in the rankings. 

Here are some video marketing statistics to keep in mind when creating your marketing strategy for the coming year: 

Shoppable Posts and Social Commerce 

Social commerce refers to buying products directly through social media posts or ads, meaning users don’t have to leave the app to make a purchase. This is a trend that started on Instagram in 2019, but is quickly spreading across a variety of channels and is extremely valuable for online stores. For the longest time, online businesses were struggling to find ways to get their social media followers to visit their websites, and now they don’t even have to. At least 54% of people on social media use it to research product purchases. Shoppable posts accomplishes the long-time goal of selling directly on social media and decreases the chances of sales abandonment. 

If your business uses Shopify it’s extremely easy to create shoppable posts. Linking accounts (such as Instagram) is simple or you can install plugins (which is better for Snapchat). If you don’t have a Shopify account, you may have to create stores in additional places to qualify. Pinterest is another platform that should be considered, as it was one of the first to offer shoppable posts. 

Consumer Privacy

Over the past year data privacy has increasingly become a concern for consumers after learning of multiple security breaches on search engines and social platforms. Consumers taking ownership of their data and property rights has been a growing trend in 2019 and is expected only get stronger going into 2020. Not only are consumers’ concerns growing, but new legislation, such as EU ePrivacy, is getting passed that prohibits the practice of certain data tracking. As privacy increases in importance, traditional data tracking strategies will likely no longer be a suitable way to pursue leads and revenue. People want to know they can trust brands, and that their personal data is safe. Instead of being complacent, digital marketing teams should get strategic to reinforce their commitment to privacy so they can earn the trust of potential customers.

Final Thoughts 

The upcoming 2020 digital marketing trends utilize both human and automated intelligence. Both are being used to create more personalized experiences for consumers. No matter the trends, the goal remains the same – getting people what they want, when and where they want it. The increasing technological abilities to come in 2020 are only making that easier. 

More From Onimod Global 

To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here!

Leveraging the Holidays to Market Your Brand

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Whether liked or not, the entire holiday season remains the most important time of the year for both brands and consumers. Even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the two largest shopping days of the year, the opportunity to generate monumental profits exists long after. During this time many consumers are open and willing to try new brands. Companies with strong brand equity have greater ability to capitalize on this opportunity. Leveraging the holidays to market your brand can set you ahead of the competition now and even after the season is over. 

Optimize Your Site 

Site optimization for the holidays can be done in many ways. The first is by adding holiday-themed graphics to your site. Consider things such as:

  • Updating your logo with festive detail 
  • Use “holiday” or “winter” colors across your site 
  • Creating a banner 
  • Shape special offers as gift boxes

Here are some examples: 

Source: Little Guy Logos 

Next, make sure your payment process is smooth and streamlined. Make your payment process as simple as possible. Consumers don’t appreciate when it’s difficult to add something to their cart or a lengthy checkout process. Make sure your payment system is as polished as possible before it’s too late. There should also be diversity in your payment options. If you already offer a variety of credit card and PayPal payments, consider adding Apple Pay if you haven’t already. Accepting all forms of payment may put you a leg up from your competition. 

Lastly, make sure you’re paying attention to site speed and mobile-friendliness. Page load time is always important, but especially this time of year. Consumers have even less time and patience than usual. They’re not going to stick around for a slow site when they can probably find the same thing elsewhere. This is especially important if you do decide to add holiday decorations and graphics to your site. Make sure you A/B test everything to ensure it’s not slowing your site. Delivering mobile-friendliness is also crucial this time of year. If you haven’t already shifted your focus to responsive design, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to pull that off before the end of the holidays. But better late than never, and it’s something to keep in mind for next year. 

Utilize Social Media 

Engagement on social media is at its peak during the holidays. Brands should use that to their advantage by creating shareable content and interacting with other users as much as possible. Here are some ways you can increase engagement during the holidays: 

  • Contests: Create a holiday contest where users provide and share their own content with you for a chance to win products or deals. This is beneficial because you can in turn re-share their content on your own page, instead of always having to create your own.
  • Video Content: Videos have the highest engagement rate out of any type of online content. If you have holiday commercials, that should definitely be shared on all social platforms. Consider creating different promotional videos for the holiday deals you’re offering as well.
  • Tip Sharing: Content that focuses on pain points and solves customers’ problems has the opportunity to gain a lot of visibility because those are the kinds of things they’re directly searching for. Creating and sharing blog posts on those topics across all platforms brings best results.
  • Interactive Campaigns: If your holiday marketing strategy has a particular theme or center subject, encourage followers to share similar content. For example, if your holiday commercial features a puppy, ask users to share with you pictures or videos of their own pets. This can create a cute thread that will attract the attention of those that may have not been aware of your brand.

 

Stay Cohesive and Maximize Reach 

Your holiday strategy should be included in your off-page efforts as well. The main goal should be to maximize reach to potential customers and inform them about your products, services, promotions, etc. This can be done by offering bloggers or influencers your products for them to review on their platform. Work to get some of your content featured in related guides on other sites. Make some type of event for people in your niche. There are endless ways that this can be accomplished. It just takes some work and creativity. It’s also important to remember that not everyone is going to be onboard with your pitch. Don’t get discouraged if someone turns you down. There are a lot of people online. Just move on and keep pitching! 

Final Thoughts

As the space becomes increasingly competitive, these strategies are most effective when started early. We are getting late into the season now, but this is something to keep in mind for next year. You can start building up your marketing strategies throughout the year to maximize reach and hopefully capture more consumers. 

How Onimod Global Can Help

Even the best e-commerce sites can need help with digital marketing, especially around the busy season. At Onimod Global, we’re experts in all areas including SEM, SEO, social, web dev, automation, and analytics. With our expertise and unique cross-channel digital marketing campaign strategies, we can power entire corporate marketing departments, or provide custom solutions for local businesses. We are your 24/7, in-house marketing partner. 

Learn more about what we do, take a look at some of our work, or start your conversation with us today!

CMS vs CRM: Which Does Your Small Business Need?

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Customer relationship management (CRM) tools and content management systems (CMS) are two types of software used for sales and marketing. They’re often mistaken as similar or interchangeable tools, but in reality, their purposes are very different. They include different functionality and focus on different aspects of how your business connects with customers. CRM is all about managing customers and clients, while CMSs are for managing websites. If you’re wondering whether your small business needs a CRM or a CMS, the answer is probably both, but when you need to adopt each one may vary. 

What is a CMS and how does it work? 

A content management system is likely the first thing you’ll need when first setting up your business’s website. Your CMS will be the central hub where you create and manage all the content of your website. A CMS provides a graphical user interface to create and publish website content without having to use HTML. They usually have pre designed website templates or themes to choose from, but you can also create and customize your own designs. Many of the best CMSs for small businesses will include content creation and editing tools that allow users to publish blog posts or articles and provide cloud-based storage for managing digital assets, like photo and video files. Some systems have more capabilities than others. It just depends on what you need and the prices you’re willing to pay. WordPress is one of the most commonly used and reasonably priced systems. Ranging from $3 to $25 per month for hosting and premium themes from $29 to $49. More advanced systems typically range from $45 to $79 per month. 

Basic CMS Features: 

  • Custom domain names: Most CMSs allow you to create a custom domain name that’s in line with your company. 
  • Web hosting: You can store your site and site data directly in the CMS or integrate it with a web hosting platform. 
  • Content creation: The core function of a CMS is the ability to create digital content for a website without needing to know how to write code. Most CMS tools include a graphical user interface that includes a content editor. Often times it’s as simple as just using drag and drop for photos, videos, etc. Most tools also have content scheduling and automatic publishing capabilities. 
  • Ecommerce capabilities: Many systems allow you to set up a catalogue of products and integrate a payment portal. There are also ecommerce specific software that include order management tools, as well as integration with accounting software to make it easy to run your online store without the hassle of complicated shopping cart software.
  • Site editors: Many CMSs include different template and style sheets that can be installed, making it easy to change the layout and feel of your site whenever necessary. 
  • Content libraries: Content such as images and videos can be stored directly on the CMS and some even come with additional stock images for free use. 

The Best CMSs for Small Business: 

 

 

What is a CRM and how does it work?

A customer relationship management tool organizes and manages customer data. It allows for sales and marketing teams to keep track of leads, customers, and accounts, while making sure they’re all getting contacted at the right times. For small businesses it’s not whether or not you need a CRM, but when it should be implemented. This can vary from business to business, but the more your customer base grows, the harder it gets to keep track of them without one.

Basic CRM Features:

  • Lead and contact management: CRMs give you the ability to distinguish between leads, customers, and accounts, allowing users to link contacts with the right accounts and deals. It’s the primary place information about customers is kept and should contain all customer history, including past deals, communications, and sales activity. 
  • Sales pipeline management: This allows you to manage the sales process from every stage and assign tasks to specific team members. Most small business CRMs include multiple ways to view your sales pipeline, allowing you to customize the process, activities, and stages included as you work to close a sale. 
  • Email management: Emails can be integrated into CRMs, allowing for campaigns and follow ups to be sent directly from the system. More advanced systems have the capability to set up drip campaigns. Which automatically nurture leads through your sales process, sending a series of emails over time designed to qualify and convert them into customers.
  • Reporting and analytics: Most CRMs have the ability to generate reports on almost every aspect of the sales process, as well as configure dashboards providing analytics the process at a glance. This can be used to identify sales opportunities that need to be contacted, determine valuable accounts, or indicate which salespeople are best performing. 

For small businesses specifically, the most important features to look out for are cloud-based management, pipeline management, and contact profiles. You want your entire team to be able to access your CRM solution from any device at any time. If your business has a sales team it’s important to also be able to control the data that is accessed and shared. It’s equally important to have a process that guides people from lead to conversion without forgetting any steps. This includes sending out automatic emails based on behavior, making follow up phone calls, and offering free trials, which can all be accomplished through pipeline management. Lastly, each lead that shows interest in your business should have their own customer profile that includes full name, email, phone number, social media links, and any other important or relevant information. 

The Best CRMs for Small Business: 

 

 

Final Thoughts 

As previously mentioned, it’s no longer a question of customer management systems OR customer relationship management. A recent survey found 92% of small businesses either already use both a CRM and CMS, or are planning on implementing a CRM within the next two years. Each tool plays a role in attracting users, generating leads, and converting them to customers. Finding the right time to implement one or the other and which platforms to use all depends on your business and your ultimate goal. 

More From Onimod Global 

At Onimod Global we’re experts in all areas of digital marketing from SEM and Web Dev to Social Media and Content Marketing.  Take a look at how we’ve helped other companies, and learn more about what we can do for you!

We Are Ten! Celebrating a Decade of Innovative Digital Solutions

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Onimod Global is officially 10 years old! We’re celebrating a decade of providing expert and innovative digital marketing solutions for our clients. Working with companies of all sizes, in many industries across the globe has given us the opportunity to develop and perfect many different digital marketing strategies. 

We’re thankful for you, our wonderful clients, for putting your trust in our expertise, and allowing us to grow and perfect your marketing business goals year after year. With an innovative vision and a lot of hard work, Onimod Global quickly became one of the Midwest’s, America’s and the Globe’s fastest-growing digital marketing & SEO companies. Now spanning across six continents, our clients come to us – and stay with us – due to our proven business goal satisfaction rate and unique consultative approach. 

Over the last 10 years we have learned a lot about the changing face of digital marketing, but these are our core digital strategies we wanted to share with you. 

 

Our Core Digital Strategies:

SEO

Search Engine Optimization has always been our core attribute and the pillar of our digital marketing strategy. SEO has become vital in achieving long-term visibility for websites, especially with the continued expansion of new internet and search engine users. We’ve learned how to develop search engine optimization campaigns that drive organic traffic through increasing natural rankings across all major search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. We accomplish this in a variety of ways. Some of our best practices include improving website crawlability and indexability, developing high quality content, and implementing proper metrics. 

Crawlability describes the search engine’s ability to access and crawl content on a page. Indexability refers to the search engine’s ability to analyze and add a page to its index. While these two elements are not mutually exclusive, it is extremely beneficial to have both for a site. If there is an issue with either, it prohibits search engines from analyzing and adding pages to their indexes. This ultimately makes it more difficult for your site to come up in search results. Our strategy starts with making sure that is not the case. We make sure there are no dead or broken links and that a site’s robot.txt file is properly updated. Following fixing all technical issues we start focusing on content optimization. Rankings continue to improve when quality content is consistently added to the site. This includes practices such as dropping relevant keywords into appropriate site places, using video and images when possible, and blog sharing. 

While these elements are extremely important, consistently measuring success is just as, if not more important. How will you know if your efforts are effective if you never check your progress? Measuring SEO success goes further than just tracking traffic and conversions. Time on page, pages per visit, bounce rate, scroll depth, and backlinks are all data points that give valuable insight to SEO performance.

SEM

Paid advertising across all search engines and social media platforms has become one of our specialties. Over our 10 years of SEM work we have become a trusted Google Partner, meaning we are a digital marketing company that is trusted by Google and excel with their products. We have learned to optimize our SEM strategy in a number of ways. A few of these include utilizing keywords and negative keywords, landing pages, and A/B testing all efforts. 

Finding relevant keywords and correct match type is essential for any paid search campaign. Irrelevant or low search volume keywords can result in a low quality score, which can prevent your ads from getting shown in search results. Generally, we suggest using on optimization for conversion match type, but it can differ depending on the campaign’s objective. Finding effective keywords takes a lot of trial and error. You want to use as many words or phrases as possible that align with what users are actually searching for. The use of negative keywords is important as well. You don’t want your ads firing for searches that are completely irrelevant to your services. We consistently watch the searches our ads fire for, ensuring we don’t waste budget on something that will never turn into a real customer or lead. 

Landing pages are something we suggest almost 100% of the time. Sending PPC traffic to a homepage can be a huge mistake. We believe that every search request is an opportunity and users are always looking for immediate solutions. If a user has already went as far as to click on your ad, make it easy as possible for them to actually convert. Sending them to your homepage means they will have to spend even more time searching through your site for what they actually want. If they don’t immediately find it, they’ll likely bounce and search elsewhere.

A/B testing is something that is widely underutilized when it comes to all aspects of websites and campaigns. You never really know how something is performing if it has nothing else to be compared to. We try to create different variations of ads and landing pages with various headings, keywords, body copy, placements, etc. To get clear results from tests it’s important to remember to only change one factor at a time and let it run long enough to gain accurate results. 

Social 

Mobile and social media have now established themselves as indispensable parts of the marketing mix. We utilize social media marketing to create social synergy for our clients. Social synergy is all about having visibility in the social spaces your consumers are searching, interacting, and engaging. The reason creating social positioning is so crucial is because it is now a great driver of leads and sales. An integrated social media platform can enhance marketing campaign effectiveness, help improve brand building across the enterprise, and make a real impact on sales and the bottom line. Integrated social capability brings another great benefit by keeping the enterprise updated with the latest innovations in social media. Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are constantly innovating and updating their collaboration tools, content-sharing formats, etc. With integrating social capability, customers don’t need to change business functions in sales or marketing to catch up with these changes.

We help our clients leverage the power of their content to elevate their audience and customer base in dramatic ways. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. For content to be effective it must be consistent and high quality. We create and stick to monthly content calendars that guide our blog and post topics, which tags are used, where everything is shared, etc. Not only should the content you’re sharing be consistent, but it should have a purpose. Content should be based on questions potential customers might search for. The more direct and detailed the answer is, the better it will rank. It should also be actionable. Inform your audience about specific steps to take or resources they need to carry out the advice you’re giving. Content should always include a clear and a strong CTA, because the end goal is driving sales. In today’s much-hyped world of social media marketing, integrated social capability can make a direct and positive impact on the business.

What We Do Best 

We have a lot of digital strategies and solutions, expanding further than just SEO, SEM, and Social. But what we really do best is being our clients’ true marketing partner. Onimod Global can power entire corporate marketing departments or simply provide custom solutions for local businesses. We’re here for our clients 24 hours a day and live for the moment they’re in a pinch and need our help. We excel in customer service and serving as our clients consultative marketing team, delivering custom digital solutions client by client. 

Again, thank you to all our clients over the last 10 years, as without you, we would not be where we are today. 

More from Onimod Global

Learn more about what we do, take a look at some of our work, or become a client today! 

Black Friday Digital Marketing Tips

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In 2018, 14.8 million online sales were processed on Black Friday, making it the most popular shopping day of Thanksgiving weekend, including Cyber Monday. Black Friday is one of the most important, if not the most important day of the year for businesses, both online and physically. Last year, 89 million consumers shopped both online and in-store. This year, it’s predicted that 61% of consumers will Black Friday shop online, and online spend will surpass $12 billion. Focusing on digital execution is becoming essential for Black Friday success, no matter your business. As Thanksgiving is right around the corner, now is the time to evaluate your current position and start preparing your digital marketing strategy for not only Black Friday, but the general holiday season. 

Preparing for Black Friday 

Do Your Research 

Research your competitors’ deals. If you’re offering a 20% discount and they’re offering 50%, which would you choose? You want your deals to have real value. Consider increasing the deal amount or adding additional offerings to ensure it will attract consumers. Of course you don’t want to go so low it affects your profit margins, but you want to offer something that will pull shoppers away from the competition. 

Evaluate Site 

When shoppers are already presented with so many different options, they’re not going to wait around for a slow or low performing site. 46% of shoppers have said they’ll never return to a slow website. Going even further, Google reported that for every one second delay in page load time, conversions can fall up to 20%. While there can be many causes of a slow site, these are the most common: 

  1. Heavy Page Image: Optimizing images will allow the pages on your website to receive bytes faster, and this makes your page more efficient with a faster load time.
  2. Large Files: We highly recommend a JavaScript compression or a minimization tool to help decrease your download size.
  3. Plug-Ins: Enabling caching with a plug-in allows pages on your site significantly faster. This saves you copies of pages with the same request, which allows your server load in a much more efficient manner.

It may be beneficial to get a professional digital audit, to ensure your site is performing at its best for Black Friday. 

Make Sure Tracking is in Place 

There are a variety of tracking and attributing tools and strategies. Google Analytics is one of the easiest to implement and includes a URL Builder Tool to assist you in the process. This will allow you to monitor performance beyond just sales numbers. These additional insights will allow you to be even better prepared in the future. 

If you already have analytics tools in place, analyze last year’s data. Have you tweaked your site based on those insights into how your holiday traffic behaves? Analyze what and what didn’t work in the past. Which of your products were most popular? Were most of your visits from email marketing, or did visitors find your site organically? What were they searching for? Use these insights to better plan this year’s strategy. 

Black Friday Digital Marketing Tips 

Start Early 

In a report by AdWords, 61% of holiday shoppers begin searching online for their purchases prior to the weekend of Thanksgiving. Consider creating a Black Friday landing page and letting it run all-year-round. If a shopper is doing early research for the deals they want to take advantage of on Black Friday, yours could be one of the first they see. If you keep that landing page up all year round, it will allow for continuous SEO work. By the time it gets close to Black Friday, and the searches get higher, your page will likely rank much better than those that just released their pages a few weeks prior. 

In addition to a specific Black Friday landing page, include the usual promotions and email blasts. Email marketing is an important aspect of Black Friday, but it needs to be done tactfully. The subject line is one of the most vital aspects, as if it doesn’t grab readers’ attention, it’s likely to remain unopened or marked as spam. Timing is also everything. Schedule your emails based on time zones or peak of online email users. 

Utilize Social Media 

Social media is becoming a great tool for ecommerce. The amount of users that purchase products via social media ads continues to rise. Both paid and non-paid social posts can be effective to create awareness for your sales. Include Black Friday hashtags in your posts so prospects searching for deals will easily find yours. Make sure to include a strong call-to-action in every post as well. Whether it be to visit your site or request more information on the sale. It’s additionally as important to engage with your audience. Don’t leave any comment unanswered. It always looks better when businesses are prompt with responses to questions or concerns. 

Initiate Referral Programs 

Consumers trust other consumers. Recommendations and referrals are some of the strongest forms of advertising. Take advantage of that and consider implementing a Black Friday referral program. Referred customers can actually be a great driver of brand loyalty and striking profitability than any of your other clients. The key is the reward has to be too good to pass up. If it’s not worth it, no consumers will care enough to put in the effort. There are a variety of ways to create enticing rewards without hindering profitability. 

Add a Countdown/Timer 

Shoppers can be indecisive. They often take their time to price shop and compare deals before making a final purchase. A countdown timer can add a little pressure to the situation and may be just the push a shopper needs to make a quick decision. It’s beneficial to include one for every product with the specific date and time the deal ends. Timers can be effective in more places than just product pages. Consider adding them as banners to landing pages, in promotional emails, or even social media pages. 

Personalization 

It’s no secret that serving highly tailored and personalized messages to each potential customer can drastically increase the chances of them converting. In fact, 63% of shoppers expect their purchase history to guide personalized experiences from brands. When it comes to Black Friday here a few ways you can try to make your marketing efforts more personalized: 

  • Include the recipient’s name in email blasts. 
  • Offer different deals to different customers. For example, existing or loyal customers are offered larger discounts or better deals. 
  • Include recommendations on product pages based on users past purchases and buying behavior. 

Black Friday is basically the kickoff to the holiday shopping season, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start your efforts long before Black Friday. Most of these strategies include detailed planning and targeting to be effective, which usually isn’t something that can be accomplished in a few days. It’s never too early to prepare for Black Friday. 

How We Can Help 

Even the best ecommerce sites can need help with digital marketing, especially around the busy season. At Onimod Global, we’re experts in all areas including SEM, SEO, social, web dev, automation, and analytics. With our expertise and unique cross-channel digital marketing campaign strategies, we can power entire corporate marketing departments, or provide custom solutions for local businesses. We are your 24/7, in-house marketing partner. 

Learn more about what we do, take a look at some of our work, or start your conversation with us today!

B2B Paid Search Tips

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The B2B conversion funnel can be very different than that of B2C. The purchasing decision and sales cycle as a whole can take much longer. First, because there is more than one decision maker. When purchases are made, they’re usually signed off by multiple stakeholders. Once they do sign off, contracts need to get sent through legal departments as well. The average B2B sales cycle is  84 days, meaning it could be a long time before the company is actually using your product or service. B2B marketing can seem a little more complicated than B2C at first, but with the right strategies and tactics in place, it can easily be simplified. 

B2B Paid Search Tips:

Multiple messaging points across the funnel

Because there are usually multiple people that have to approve the purchase decision, it’s important to have relevant messages for the appropriate audience at each stage of the funnel. Those that are in the early exploring stages are likely to respond to upper-funnel messaging, that don’t require a strong push to sell. As they get further into the funnel and are looking for specific reviews or comparing costs, they are usually more inclined to convert when presented with a strong CTA. 

Branded and competitor keywords 

If you don’t organically rank number one for your brand searches or aren’t well-known in your industry, bidding on your branded keywords is a must. Even if you are, bidding on branded keywords can have many benefits, especially when targeting B2B searchers. It gives you full control over your message and allows you to direct users to the ideal landing page. 

It’s expected to have generic keywords relevant to your services, but you might want to drop in competitor-based keywords as well. CPCs may be higher than branded keywords, but they are often cheaper than generic. When a user searches for a competitor, they’re likely just looking for what they have to offer. Bidding on their keywords gives users more results and alternatives. This can be especially beneficial if you’re not well-known organically. Since your target market may not be aware of you yet, bidding on competitors they are searching for will get you immediate visibility. 

It’s important to keep a close eye on your keyword performance. If CPCs for competitor phrases are getting too high, or soaking up all your budget without producing conversions, you may no longer want to bid on those phrases. A/B test many sets of keywords, find which perform best, and allocate your budget appropriately. 

Tracking and attribution 

The most difficult part of running B2B paid search can be tracking and attributing your leads, clients, and sales back to specific campaigns, audiences, keywords, etc. Identifying where sales and revenue come should be clear with an ecommerce strategy, as long as tracking is set up correctly. Tracking and attribution for lead generation campaigns can get a bit more complicated. They key is collecting data from multiple sources, then bringing it back together to get a clear picture of performance. 

There are many different tools and strategies to track and attribute paid search performance. A simple way to track performance is by directly dropping UTM data into a URL. If you’re unfamiliar with this practice, Google’s URL Builder Tool is a good place to start. This strategy allows developers to pull the data through the website form completions, pull that into your CRM, then complete the attribution process separately. 

There are many attribution models. The most popular used on Google are data-drive, time-decay, and position-based. Data-driven uses the publisher’s machine learning algorithms to precisely calculate and assign partial credit to different touch points in your funnel. While this is an effective strategy, there are volume requirements. Those Being 15,000 clicks and 600 conversions over the past 30 days and 10,000 clicks and 400 conversions per month. The other models may be better for businesses that have smaller volume. 

Time decay assigns credit to different touch points through the funnel, giving more weight to the most recent touch points, and less for the older ones. This may be most beneficial for highly competitive B2B spaces, as closed deals hold more importance than initial leads. Position-based attribution assigns 40% credit to the top of the funnel, 40% to the bottom, and 20% to the middle of the funnel for a conversion. Since this strongly emphasizes top and bottom funnel interactions, it makes sense for businesses where initial leads are just as important as closed deals. 

Re-Marketing 

In B2B, it’s especially important to nurture leads once they have entered into the sales funnel, but with relevant messages. You don’t want to serve these prospects with top-funnel messages that are no longer apply to them. That’s why you should create re-marketing lists for every stage of your sales funnel. The messages should differ slightly based on where the prospect left off in the sales funnel. It can be beneficial to create separate landing pages for re-marketing campaigns as well. This allows you to craft your message and specifically target those that have seen the original ad, but didn’t initially convert. These strategies can be used for post-purchase marketing as well. It’s always more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. There are plenty of opportunities to turn first-time purchasers into long-term, loyal clients. Consider cross-selling, up-selling, renewing, limited offers, etc. 

Conclusion 

At first glance, B2B marketing can seem much more complex than B2C. Longer sales cycles and multiple purchase decision makers can seem intimidating, but it just requires a different outlook. Take a holistic look at your firm’s entire sales journey. Collate the relevant data for every touchpoint and start crafting the campaigns that will fit best, ultimately driving more leads and sales. 

Sometimes, even B2B companies need outside help. At Onimod Global we are experts in all aspects of SEM. With our expertise and unique cross-channel digital marketing campaign strategies, we can power entire corporate marketing departments, or provide custom solutions for local businesses. If you’re struggling with paid search, SEO, social media, automation, web dev, or any other aspects of digital marketing, Onimod Global is here to help. 

Learn more about what we do, take a look at some of our work, or start your conversation with us today!

The Top Tips and Benefits of Content Marketing

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The use of content marketing has grown exponentially in recent years. While the vast amount of content on the internet can be a positive, it’s also left the market extremely saturated. This means that the use of content is much less effective than it was in the past, which is not a positive. This doesn’t mean it should be abandoned, there are still many benefits to content marketing. It just means the content used needs to be valuable, relevant, and correctly leveraged. 

What is Content Marketing 

Content marketing is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on creating and sharing valuable or relevant information on a consistent basis for the ideal buyer persona. The goal is to build relationships with customers, drive organic traffic, increase conversion rates, and ultimately capture more sales. It’s important to know that content marketing is not promotional content. The modern consumer is hyper aware of sales pitches or anything in-genuine. Consumers prefer being educated and informed about products and companies, and are much more likely to believe other consumers over a company. 

Content Marketing Benefits:

Higher rankings

One of the number one things you can do to increase your search engine rankings is add more content to your site. Search engines, Google especially, likes to provide users with results that deliver exactly what they’re searching for. Consistently adding relevant, keyword rich content in the form of blogs or landing pages is the best way to provide that experience. Having more pages doesn’t always correlate to more traffic, but having more quality pages indexed can grant you more opportunities to rank for more search queries. 

Brand credibility

Having high quality content on your site immediately increases your perceived expertise, authority, and trust of your company. Users thinking highly of brands that they feel are answering their questions and providing useful and relevant information. Higher domain authority strongly correlates with higher search rankings. So yet again, producing consistent quality content will help increase organic traffic for all pages of your site.

Drive sales 

The first goal of your content should be to deliver some kind of value to the reader. After that has been done, you can use any remaining space to tactfully promote your product, service, or brand. Content can inspire requests for more information, trials, downloads, consultations, and sales. Highly targeted content can be one of the best ways to speed up the sales funnel, as long as it’s done right. Your content should never seem like a promotional advertisement. 

Content Marketing Tips:

Your content should be the answer 

Content should be based on questions potential customers might have. The more direct and detailed the answer is, the better it will rank on Google or other search engines. Most companies are well aware of their customers’ problems and pain points. This can be transformed into tutorials, how-to-guides, etc. For a piece of content to be effective it needs to be actionable. Inform your audience about specific steps to take or resources they need to carry out the advice you’re giving. Your answers can vary according to audience demographics. If you know your audience is split, segment your content strategy to target each group directly, instead of writing generically.

Use images and videos whenever possible 

HubSpot’s 2016 video marketing statistics report that adding videos to landing pages can boost conversions up to 80% and that users are 64% more likely to buy something online after they’ve watched a video about it. You can integrate videos into blogs or create them separately as their own entity, like a “vlog.” When people only spend 8 seconds deciding whether or not they’re interested in a piece of content, it helps to be visually stimulating. So even if you can’t include a video, images can be just as effective. 

Create and stick to a content calendar 

For content to be effective it needs to be consistent. The best way to ensure you’re posting regularly is by laying everything out in a weekly or monthly content calendar. It should be more detailed than just reminders to post. Include things like what your blog topics will be, what tags you’re using for each post, where everything needs to be shared, etc. This way when the time comes you’re not scrambling to think of content ideas. There are a number of tools that can assist with content calendars. CoSchedule, WordPress, and Asana are a few editorial calendar and project management tools, but it can be done a basic spreadsheet as well. 

Make sharing your content easy

This is one of the easiest tips to implement to a site. Social sharing buttons should fit in with the site’s theme and be prominently placed throughout blog posts and web pages. If the sharing process is complicated and time-consuming, no one will do it. It should be a simple, one-step to share process. There should be options to share to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other platforms that seem fitting. 

Always include a CTA

Strong call-to-actions are necessary in any marketing strategy. It’s unlikely users will go to your homepage, browse to other pages, or end up where you want them to be. They need to be told what to do with a quick link to it. Whether that be liking/following a social media page, sharing a post, subscribing, requesting more information, etc. It’s beneficial to A/B test your call-to-actions as well. Try different locations, colors, copy, etc. It’s important to make sure the CTA doesn’t interrupt the flow of content, though. It should seem like the natural consequence of the content. It should also be clear and easily clickable. 

No matter your ultimate marketing goal, content is always a valuable addition. It works, and that’s why it’s so widely used today. The key is to ensure it continues to work in a saturated market is by leveraging new and innovative tactics, like setting clearer content marketing goals and A/B testing various content. 

More from Onimod Global 

Sometimes, outsourcing your content marketing is the right choice. At Onimod Global we’re experts in SEO, social media, and content marketing. We create visibility for companies in the places their customers are searching, interacting, and engaging. Take a look at how we’ve helped other companies, and learn more about what we can do for you!

With Mobile Traffic Rapidly Rising, Why Are Desktop Conversions 93% More Valuable?

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A recent study done by AccuraCast has shown that mobile traffic is rising rapidly, however desktops are still preferred for transactions. The study discovered that while 60% of ad clicks in the last 12 months have come from mobile devices, desktops convert 60% more. Consumers use their smartphones for everything, yet they’re still not comfortable converting from them. This phenomenon is starting to raise many questions for marketers and advertisers. Are mobile ads driving the right traffic? Does mobile ad spend even have real value? 

 

Results 

For this study, AccuraCast analyzed 10 million clicks across 100 ad accounts over a 12-month period, comparing click and conversion trends between mobile and desktop. It was discovered that mobile ad clicks have increased by 11% from last year (49% to 60%), and mobile ad impressions rose by 6% (45% to 56%). Mobile conversions also rose 10% this year (39% to 49%). 

Source: AccuraCast

While mobile traffic increased significantly and conversions rose slightly, it was discovered that the overwhelming majority of conversions still come from desktops. Desktops convert 60% more than mobile users, and desktop conversions are worth 93% more than mobile. 

Historically AOV for desktop transactions has been higher than mobile devices. This has been found by multiple other studies and reports. As a generalization, consumers browse on mobile devices, but tend to go back to desktops to make final purchases. 

 

Issues with Mobile Conversions 

AccuraCast believes the reason for higher mobile impressions but lower conversions lies deeper in problems with the mobile user experience. These include issues such as: 

  • Low quality apps and/or sites driving traffic but not conversions. 
  • Low performing landing pages that make transactions difficult. 
  • Ineffective ad placements that lead to worthless clicks. 

 

Takeaway Recommendations 

 

1. As mobile visitors continue to rise, so should the quality of your mobile site and/or app. 

Mobile interfaces continue to improve, and users are expecting them to. Being mobile friendly is important across all industries. This means some companies should consider designing for mobile first, instead of desktop site. If you design mobile first you can leverage the larger screen real estate available on a desktop platform as a second step. It’s important to understand we are not suggesting this because desktop is dead. As the study has shown, it’s not at all, it’s still very important. But it’s far easier to take a mobile UI to the desktop than to take a desktop one to a smartphone.

 

2. Desktop still remains at utmost importance. 

To reiterate, data continues to prove conversions happen on desktops majority of the time, so you must continue to pay attention to your desktop site. Most consumers use more than one device when making a purchase. For example, someone may browse a store on their mobile phone, then go to their desktop to actually make a purchase. Because of this it’s smart to offer users on mobile devices the option to provide contact information, save shopping carts, or implement other functionality that allows them to defer the actual completion of a conversion to a later time. 

The rationale is that users may not want to deal with complicated forms or enter their credit card information on mobile devices. Following up with them later lets them come back on a desktop and convert at a more convenient time for them. If you adopt this strategy, it’s recommended to test it thoroughly to see which system gets the best results. 

 

3. Compare your site’s behavior to industry norms. 

If the average percentage of mobile visitors is 60% and your site is only at 35%, that may indicate an internal issue, such as a slow mobile site. Check how you compare to industry norms. If there’s a large delta, take the time to perform an audit to understand why. 

 

Final Thoughts 

For years now, industry experts have advised businesses to speed up and simplify the mobile user experience. As it’s been heavily forecasted that conversions and revenue from mobile devices will be growing rapidly. The results of this study show there’s still some distance to go. However, the desktop and mobile devices should not be seen as mutually exclusive channels. Most shoppers use multiple devices to make purchasing decisions. 

 

More from Onimod Global 

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The Importance of Diversity in Digital Marketing

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Society is more diverse and inclusive than ever before. With that, consumers are demanding that marketing pay attention to and represent people as they really are: A huge varied spectrum of race, bodies, gender, and socioeconomic classes. As these standards have rapidly changed over the past few years, some companies struggle to keep up. Today, companies that fail to make a real effort to create better representation in their marketing, are likely to fail in many other areas of business as well. But there is no clear-cut formula to representational diversity, it can be a fine line to walk, and mistakes can easily be made. It’s created from the ground up, by a team that’s fully engaged and committed to the process. 

 

What is Diversity? 

The term diversity is widely used and tossed around today, but many are unaware of what is means on a practical level. In this context, diversity means 4 things. First, creating spaces and media inclusive to minority races, people with disabilities, people outside the gender binary, and more. Then it means fully acknowledging and representing these groups of people in marketing campaigns. When they are represented in campaigns, it also means following established best practices for using language about race, gender, disabilities, etc. Lastly, it means completely avoiding harmful stereotypes and not using said race, gender, disability, etc. as a punchline. 

 

Why Does Diversity in Digital Marketing Matter? 

Many small brands have a very tight and focused marketing persona, which can work in some cases, but as a brand grows it needs to evolve to appeal to a full range of customers. A shallow and out-of-touch message will produce poor results and an array of other negative side effects. For example: 

  • It may be offensive. Lack of diversity or addressing a group in the wrong way can potentially offend future and even current customers. 
  • Missing out on potential customers. People are much more likely to buy from brands that they feel are addressing them directly and that they can relate to. 
  • Your message may be uncomfortable. Changing to a more diverse marketing approach can be difficult, but not doing so, especially when your competition is, can be even more difficult to explain. 

Not only does diversifying your marketing efforts help to avoid these negative outcomes, it also helps to produce many positive ones. Several studies have shown: 

  • 80% of marketers agree that using diverse representation in marketing helps brand reputation. 
  • Millenials and Gen Z consumers prefer media with diverse casts, view ads with diverse representation more favorably, and are more comfortable with brands taking social stances.
  • Aiming products and campaigns at previously unserved markets can create great new revenue streams, as the story of Fenty Beauty’s expanded foundation range shows.
  • Diversity and representation are top drivers of engagement with content and Black millennial audiences have actively asked for more in surveys. 

 

How to Better Incorporate Diversity in your Marketing: 

As we said, there’s no one-size-fits-all, clear-cut formula to creating instant inclusivity and diversity in a company. It’s grown organically from an internal philosophy that rewards, celebrates, and values it. This is something that takes long-term effort and commitment. 

Diversity has to start with the team and diversity-centered hiring practices. If you haven’t yet fully embraced that yet, it should be the first step to work on. If you don’t have representation on your marketing staff, representation in your campaigns will suffer. Companies that already have a diverse team established should make sure those members are taking control of projects, especially the ones aimed at the group they’re a part of. 

When it comes to developing actual campaigns, outside perspective is essential. Consider hiring remote workers or outside consultants who aren’t immersed in your brand every day to get the most honest feedback. Make sure diversity is in the ideation process. It helps to include many team members throughout the entire process. Making empathy your ultimate and overall goal is important. Your customers should feel like they can relate to your ads, even if they are edgy.

These aren’t one-and-done tricks to score some easy points. It’s critical to approach diversity as a constant process rather than as an achievement.

 

Common Mistakes/What to Avoid: 

 

  • Using team members as a token representative to pander a certain group or to rubber-stamp marketing materials as “certified unproblematic.” 
  • Taking stances on social issues out of your brand’s depth. 
  • Getting defensive when or if your marketing is criticized for lack of sensitivity, inclusivity, or diversity. 
  • Using victim/hero language in the context of people with disabilities. 
  • Not completely aligning your practice with your message. 

 

Final Thoughts 

Today, brands can play an important role in social conversations and movements. When advertising is well executed it has the potential to shift the mindset of the public and help shape the viewpoints of the world. Companies that champion diversity and keep it at the forefront of people’s minds will be leaders in creating change. Change can be uncomfortable and takes time, but it’s happening whether brands like it or not. Those that embrace it stay ahead of the curve, and those that fail to do so are seen as out-of-touch and irrelevant and will slowly fall to the waste side. 

 

YouTube’s New “Video Reach” Campaign Capabilities

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Earlier this week YouTube launched a new way to run video ad campaigns. Advertisers can now upload three different types of videos under one campaign, and it apparently cuts campaign costs by more than 20%. In the announcement, YouTube said they’re constantly working on better ways to help companies achieve their marketing goals—whether that’s to build awareness, shift perceptions, or drive a specific action. It should be a simpler and more effective way to drive reach while meeting target audiences in the places they’re watching.

 

Video Reach Campaigns 

Before, advertisers would have to make 3 separate campaigns for each video ad type. Now, they can use 6 second bumpers, skippable in-stream ads, and non-skippable in-stream ads in a single campaign. From there, Google’s machine learning will automatically serve the most efficient combination of these formats to help reach your audience at scale.

Bumper Ads: Non-skippable ads, 6 seconds or shorter that are shown before the video the user wishes to view. Bumper ads use target CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) bidding. You pay each time your ad is shown 1,000 times.

Skippable In-Stream Ads: The ad plays before, during, or after other videos and viewers have the option to skip after 5 seconds. These can appear on YouTube watch pages, on videos on partner sites, and apps in the Display Network. You have two bidding options, CPV or CPM. With CPV you pay when a viewer watches 30 seconds of your video (or the duration if it’s shorter than 30 seconds) or interacts with your video, whichever comes first. CPM bidding means you pay based on impressions. Skippable in-stream ads use CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) bidding, so you pay each time your ad is shown 1,000 times.

Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads: The non-skippable video ad is an ad format that may appear pre-, mid-, or post-roll while viewing partner content. They can be 15-20 seconds long and viewers must watch the ad before they’re able to watch the selected video. A smaller, 300 x 60-pixel ad may also be shown next to YouTube videos that show non-skippable video ads on desktop. They are sold on a CPM basis, and may generate higher CPMs than other ad formats on YouTube.

 

TrueView for Action Campaigns

For companies looking to build a full-funnel strategy, YouTube recommends using the video campaigns alongside a TrueView for action campaign. TrueView campaigns are built to drive leads and conversions by adding CTAs, headline text overlays, and an end screen to video ads. In the announcement, YouTube said that soon, TrueView for action ads will extend to the home feed, giving advertisers the opportunity to capture more high value leads. 

 

Masthead on TV Screens 

YouTube also announced it will be bringing mastheads to their fastest growing surface, the tv screen. According to YouTube, their daily watch time tops 250 million hours a day. It will be available as a reserved placement for advertisers to ensure brands can drive the visibility they need on the dates that matter most. They can be purchased on a CPM basis, with audience targeting capabilities, and cross-screen or single-screen Masthead buying options. YouTube believes the rich audio and visual experience brought by the TV screen will create an upper-funnel drive greater than ever before. 

 

Final Thoughts 

Some companies have already started adopting the new campaign strategies. Ford, being one of them, has reported strong results. In alpha tests, the automaker lowered their campaign cost over 20% compared to their past YouTube campaigns. These new capabilities take advertisers’ guesswork out of creating comprehensive campaigns that utilize a series of ads. YouTube is becoming a stronger and more strategic partner by focusing more on marketing objectives rather than media. 

 

More From Onimod Global 

To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here!