Tag Archive for: Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing: Marketing Rose Bowl-style

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When the Hawkeyes played in the Rose Bowl in 1986, the first “laptop” computers weighed 12 pounds, the QVC network was new and the World Wide Web was still three years away.

Fast-forward to the wired age of 2015 and it’s a whole new world. With our noses glued to our ever-present screens and our attention splintered in a thousand different directions, collective events such as the Rose Bowl become a huge opportunity for connecting with customers on a personal level.

So businesses of all kinds are jumping on the Rose Bowl bandwagon with tools and tactics that weren’t even on the radar back then. For example, the University of Iowa’s athletic department proudly announced that it doubled its loyalty program’s membership for the mobile app, Hawkeye Rewards, after this year’s perfect regular season.

Travel agencies had their social media posts and ads prepped and ready to launch within minutes of the announcement.

Even businesses with only a glancing relationship with football were congratulating the team on their Facebook pages, creating Rose Bowl-themed specials, and tweeting their prognostications for the big game.

Marketing Micro Events

Most events won’t generate the kind of hype that a trip to the Rose Bowl does, but smaller, local events can be a good opportunity to promote your business and create community. A pizza joint near a high school can geo-target on hungry smartphone toting fans looking for a bite to eat after the game or event with coupons and deals.

Employers with positions to fill easily can target job fairs, industry events and even competitors. Businesses that hold seminars or trade shows can promote their events on LinkedIn and Facebook or through targeted behavioral ads.

Many of these tools allow granular targeting to the level of employer and even job title.

Events also can be a great source of content for future marketing campaigns. Businesses can create videos, slide shares or webinars and use those assets to acquire even more prospects and leads.

Targeting is Not a Penalty

Unlike the big game, targeting is practically a necessity in digital advertising because it helps you hit the audience most interested in your messages. Bonus: Nobody gets hurt and there’s no penalty.

Most people now expect businesses to anticipate, or at least recognize, their preferences and interests. For Iowa fans looking for tickets to the Rose Bowl, the more information they could find, the better.

Marketing analytics can identify which consumers followed the team page, visited related websites, purchased team apparel or mentioned their favorite teams on social media. The same methods are applied to identify customers with an interest in specific topics, products and services so you can provide relevant information and content to the right people.

Here’s one cautionary note: Don’t get cute. Consumers react badly to clickbait headlines such as “Rose Bowl Canceled” only to be taken to a page selling them something totally irrelevant. Not only will you not make the sale, you’ll likely lose whatever cyber trust you ever had with your audience to begin with.

In the meantime, enjoy the big game and good luck finding that coveted Rose Bowl apparel this year. Happy New Year and Go Hawks!

 

H/T: The Gazette

6 Digital Marketing Stats About the Holidays Worth Checking Out

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‘Tis the season for digital numbers that give folks an idea of what’s about to happen during the holidays. Check out six we found particularly interesting:

1. According to Salesforce Social Studio, Black Friday social conversations—via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, etc.—are up 20 percent over last year.

2. DataRank, part of Simply Measured, pulled 77,000 #BlackFriday tweets from Nov. 1 through Nov. 22. In its study, the company examined positive sentiment versus negative sentiment around the hashtag and found the following:

    

3. Walmart has appeared in 38 percent of the tweets about retailers, DataRank said, which made the big-box player No. 1 in that regard. Best Buy was second, appearing in 26 percent of such Twitter messages, while Target drew 23 percent. Here’s a full look at DataRank’s merchants-based findings:

    

4. Millennials will spend on average $352 on holiday shopping this season, per Ypulse, which surveyed 1,000 Gen Y consumers. Their primary gift-giving recipient will be dear ole Mom (84 percent of the time).

5. According to November research from AYTM Market Research, 47 percent of U.S. Internet users said holiday promotions before Nov. 4 were effective in getting them to make purchases. Twenty-five percent “somewhat agreed” that such promos worked, while 29 percent disagreed that the ads were effective.

6. Researcher eMarketer projects a nearly 6 percent gain in retail holiday sales this year, with e-commerce continuing to grow in the double digits.

Non-holidays bonus stat: Monetate analyzed 7 billion online shopping experiences in the third quarter and found that social networks’ conversion rates came in at 1.3 percent, representing a slight lift year over year.

H/T: Adweek. Getty Images.

7 Ways Black Friday Is Different From Cyber Monday

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It’s easy to lump Cyber Monday into the Black Friday fold, but this $3 billion shopping holiday has some unique traits of its own.

When discussing late-November sales, we frequently refer to the “Black Friday season.” This is because the big day itself has morphed into something bigger, even absorbing Thanksgiving. We often rope Cyber Monday into this term, too, as retailers tend to roll one day of sales into another at this time of year.

But Cyber Monday exhibits its own unique traits outside of Black Friday, starting with the fact that it’s outpacing the “main” shopping holiday in savings. Cyber Monday saw more Editors’ Choice deals than Black Friday in both 2014 and 2013.

So what makes Cyber Monday so special? Read on to learn a little more about everyone’s second-favorite shopping holiday.

Cyber Monday Has Happier Origins

Pinning down the origin of the term “Black Friday” is not easy, but the current prevailing theory goes like this: Philadelphia police negatively coined the term in the 1950s. Apparently, hordes of people would descend upon the town on the Friday after Turkey Day, ahead of the annual Army/Navy football game on Saturday. Stores would take advantage of all the extra business by promoting big sales, and cops were stuck with long, busy shifts that left them dreading the date.

Black Friday didn’t come into its more widespread, awesome reputation until the 1980s. But Cyber Monday’s origins are much more recent; the term was coined by the National Retail Federation in 2005 to describe the Monday after Thanksgiving, when people continued to shop online after returning to work. And nothing makes anyone happier than goofing off at work!

And There Are Fewer Ads

Before you’ve even thought about where to find the best deal on a turkey, you’re no doubt aware of the upcoming Black Friday sales. This is because retailers (and intrepid deal sites) have been posting Black Friday ads far in advance, sometimes as early as the beginning of October. However, we see comparatively fewer Cyber Monday ads — possibly because retailers know that shoppers will check out those sales anyway.

According to a recent DealNews survey, 85% of consumers said they’ll be shopping on Cyber Monday, up from 76% in 2014. Compare that to the 53% of people who said they’ll shop on Thanksgiving. Too many Cyber Monday ads might discourage even more Thanksgiving shoppers.

In-Store Doorbusters Go Bye-Bye

Along with fewer ads comes a dearth of doorbusters. Cyber Monday is an online shopping holiday, after all, so there’s no reason to go knocking down the doors of your local Sears to score a $5 toaster. Of course, “doorbusters” in general are dying out. In-store shoppers have long been frustrated by the concept of low-stock items that sell out in seconds, and retailers are listening. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to find so-called doorbusters listed online on Black Friday.

Cyber Monday Has the Most Online Sales

We’re not talking about coupons here; by “sales,” we actually mean goods sold. Cyber Monday is the biggest online shopping day of the year, and Adobe has estimated that it’ll reach $3 billion in sales for the first time this year, a 12% increase over 2014. Compare that to Black Friday, which is expected to generate $2.7 billion in online sales, and Thanksgiving, which will do $1.6 billion.

Why are shoppers still eager to spend funds on Cyber Monday, even after Black Friday? According to Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst for forecast tech consultancy Forrester Research, it’s because “customers had fewer negative associations with Cyber Monday than with Black Friday.” See? Everyone loves shopping at work.

But Fewer Mobile Shoppers

That same Adobe report we mentioned above revealed that Thanksgiving is projected to become the king of mobile sales in 2015. For the first time ever, mobile devices will overtake more traditional computers on Thanksgiving to drive the majority — 51% — of online visits, representing 29% of online purchases that day. This mobile mania won’t last, though; both Black Friday and Cyber Monday are expected to see more traditional online traffic.

Some People Are Totally Shopping at Work

And you thought we were joking! While not a federal holiday, the Friday after Thanksgiving is a public holiday in 24 states. By Monday, everyone is back at work and almost certainly browsing sales at their desks. To be fair, a wonderfully industrious 56% of shoppers claimed they didn’t shop at work last year in our survey.

Sadly, these hardworking shoppers may miss out on the best bargains. Last year 67% of the deals we found on Cyber Monday were posted before 5 pm ET. That means bargain hunters will have to log on during business hours to snag the best sales.

Fashionistas Love Cyber Monday

The Black Friday season is like the Olympics, with different shopping events on each shopping holiday. Where Thanksgiving and Black Friday are better for electronics, Cyber Monday shines in soft goods. Clothes and shoes are especially awesome buys, with retailers busting out Black Friday-beating coupons in several cases. Beauty products are another oft-overlooked, but awesome, Cyber Monday category.

Should you not be the sartorial sort, you can always stock up on toys, or shop for a new major appliance. Better yet, book a killer hotel deal on Cyber Monday; you’ve probably had enough of those visiting relatives at this point.

In the end, if you’ve been ignoring Cyber Monday, it’s time to give this hardworking holiday another shot. With billions of dollars under its belt, this shopping extravaganza is here to stay!

H/T: DealNews.

 

 

5 Reasons Your Business Marketing Is Incomplete Without SEO

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Search Engine Optimization is a tool to increase your visibility in the digital space. Organic Search Engine Optimization or SEO, is absolutely vital to achieve long term search engine visibility for your website. It is treated with high regard in the online marketing sphere because it increases your chances of reaching relevant prospects and proves to be an efficient marketing strategy by targeting the user intent. If you delve deeper into the science of SEO, you will surely find it to be very effective and proficient tool which brings good results in no time if implemented well.

When we compare both outbound and inbound marketing services, we get to the conclusion that inbound marketing tends to bring in interested parties who are looking for information based on your business. This is exactly what SEO tends to do. If your business is looking for more ROI with minimal investment, ensure that SEO forms the part of your marketing initiatives. Rather than embracing outbound techniques that are interruptive in nature, SEO is customer-centric and the message is only presented to the prospects when they need them.

Here are 5 reasons that will prove why your business needs the best SEO services:

1. SEO Brings Traffic

Within 3 months of consistent and high-quality search engine optimization efforts, your business could see an unbelievable difference in the way your online visibility gets positively affected. The main aim for any SEO initiative is to help you in gaining valuable rankings on search engines that could result into more click-through-rates and more traffic.

SEO also focuses on on-site optimization that brings greater visibility on search engines. It is beneficial to have optimized tags and web pages to help you in increasing the click-through-rate for your website. More relevant traffic to your website means more conversions and revenue.

2. Measurable ROI

SEO offers quantifiable results for all kinds of business’ sites. So, you don’t have to worry about measuring the ROI of your SEO. The agencies providing search engine optimization services are capable of scaling almost all the aspects of their SEO campaigns, such as traffic, conversion rate, revenue and more.

Detailed analytics report helps in getting accurate information of all the visitors of your site and their journey in the conversion funnel.

In the case of e-commerce websites, SEO agencies helps by short-listing people who used a particular keyword that you are targeting.

3. SEO is Cost effective

SEO has earned the reputation of being one of the most reliable and cost-effective marketing strategies due to the simple fact that it only targets relevant visitors who are searching for the goods and services or any information that you are providing.

In complete contrast to outbound marketing, where you target several people you don’t even know whether they are interested in your brand, SEO methodology only targets interested audience and that’s why it is cost effective as it saves you from spending hugely on outbound such as newspaper ads, tele-commercials, billboards, cold-calling and more.

The traffic generated by SEO is more qualified than other marketing strategies.

4. Increased Site Usability with SEO

When you implement the various factors of SEO into your website, it will make your website user-friendly and the focus would be on making it more navigable. Not only does the user will find it easy surfing through your website, but it will also help you in getting a better ranking on search engines.

The principles of SEO tend to rearrange the website’s links and architecture and this will make your website user-friendly. The users find it easy to find out more information on your website, which boosts the engagement rate of your website, lessens the bounce rate, and could increase conversion rates for your website.

5. Brand Awareness

SEO is the most cost effective way to enhance your brand awareness. Undoubtedly, SEO will help you in gaining more exposure and click-through-rates, but the best things that SEO could do is to redefine your brand with some great content. You could definitely try and get better rankings with extensive SEO, but what will retain the visitors on your website is your content.

Search engines factor the quality of your content in their SERPs and have released some strict algorithms that help them in considering only those websites that fulfill the user intent. Every search request is an opportunity; each action on a social site is an opportunity. Having the correct brand, product or service positioning is essential.

For further expert advice and services in SEO contact Onimod Global today.

 

Ref:  Lifehacker  Onimod Global

Why Video is an Effective Digital Marketing Component

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Marketers are getting increasingly aggressive on the digital front. They are implementing innovative techniques to make their offerings more visible and appealing to the masses. To this end, it is time we seriously consider video as a new medium.

According to a blog quoting a comScore report, 64% of the visitors may purchase a product after watching a relevant video, while a Forbes survey reveals that 75% of executives watch videos

1. Classifying viewers

Your viewers are not going to be all of the same age and with similar interests. Your offerings, however, must be relevant to all – from fresh graduates to the veterans. So, you cannot expect one video to strike the same chord in every viewer’s mind. The trick is to understand the preference of different sections of your audience, and create different videos to target them simultaneously.

2. Getting a great videographer

A skilled videographer, who understands your requirement, is going to be your best friend in making appealing videos for your digital marketing activities. A good videographer can:

  • Capture and highlight the aspects of your offerings that your target customers should know and understand
  • Advise what kind of video you need – brand story, company introduction, customer testimonial, product demo, etc.
  • Make the video uniquely related to your offering by including actors or real people, animation or real videography, or a combination of various suitable components
  • Tell a story from the emergence of problem to its solution, and the result in the short video

3. Utilize social media to the fullest

For a successful video-based digital marketing campaign, presence on YouTube and other digital media is essential. The post says that 91% of the video snippets displayed on search result pages are from YouTube. Share your videos through Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media, with backlinks to your website brand page. Similarly, your website should offer links for sharing the video through various social media. By utilizing social media, you actually gain by leveraging every viewer’s reach.

4. Making a viral video

There is no particular trick to make a viral video. However, you can analyze all the popular viral videos to determine what makes people like them more than other videos. Presence of an influential personality is always helpful. Besides, most viral videos have an unusual or odd approach to story-telling. Focus on humor, children and/or animals, a tone; they are more likely to strike the right chord in your viewers’ minds. Besides, subtle reference to a current incident also works often.

5. Monitor video performance

Regular and frequent releases are good, but you also need to monitor the performance of your videos. Some of the common performance parameters are:

  • Number and type of viewers
  • Time spent on a particular video
  • Number of views per viewer
  • Click-through rate

6. In-house vs. professional studio

Depending on budgets and other factors, you can choose to hire a video production company or have an in-house team for the production. Usually, large organizations have an in-house team for video production. However, you can rely on video companies to produce highly appealing and effective videos for your digital marketing campaign.

So, consider videos a vital component when you think of digital marketing. All you need is to take the first step to enter this domain with conviction in order to reap the benefits.

Why Video is an Effective Digital Marketing Component

H/T: Martech Advisor

2015 Digital Marketing Stats: The Good, the Bad and the Intriguing

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We look at the 2015 stats that show great leaps forward and hurdles still to be overcome for digital marketing

A decade or more ago, digital marketing, or internet marketing as it was more frequently referred to back then (see digital marketing Vs internet marketing), used to be a wild-west like frontier. Opportunities were everywhere, and there were also plenty of people getting it horribly wrong. In the past 10-15 years things have changed markedly, and in general things have been getting a whole lot better for digital marketers.

 

the good the bad and the ugly

 

Much like the past 15 years, 2015 so far has brought plenty of good news for digital marketers; increasing digital ad budgets, increased focus on content and SEO has given them plenty of opportunities to show their worth and marketers. The stats that have come out so far from various studies and compilations this year demonstrate this clearly. However, they also show there are problems with digital marketing that companies are still not overcoming. Big data has been a big trend for a few years now, but it is clear that many businesses are not able to turn data into insights effectively. Accurate measuring ROI remains a problem for many, whilst some are still failing to get tangible results from Social Media.

That’s why we thought we’d present some of the best and worst of digital marketing stats of the year thus far. The good show how fast digital marketing is growing and getting ever more effective, whilst the bad stats demonstrate the challenges that still remain.

All the surveys and research that generate these stats often throw up some interesting tidbits of data that are often fascinating. We thought that we’d add these intriguing stats into our compilation for good measure.

Good

  • Content marketing in 2015 generates 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing, but costs 62% less. (Source)

 

  • Content creation and management now claim the second-largest share of digital marketing budgets. (Source)

 

  • 28% of marketers have reduced their advertising budget to fund more digital marketing. (Source)

 

  • 84% of top performing companies are using or plan to start using marketing automation by 2015. (Source)

 

  • 73% of B2B marketers use video as a content marketing tactic, and 7% of marketers plan on increasing their YouTube marketing.
    71% of companies planned to increase their digital marketing budgets this year (Source)

 

  • 78% of companies now say they have dedicated social media teams in 2015, up from 67% in 2012 (Source)

Bad

  • 62% of companies did not agree with the statement ‘we have the analysts we need to make sense of our data’ whilst 63% did not agree with the statement ‘we have a good infrastructure in place to collect the data we need’. (Source)

 

  • 70% of marketers were not confident in their companies ability to measure the return on mobile ad spend. (Source)

 

  • 52% of Americans think that most online shopping sites need improvement, whilst 79% of Brazilians2 and 87% of Chinese people think this. (Source)

 

  • 83% of consumers reported that they have had a “bad experience with social media marketing.” (source)

 

  • The top three social networks used by B2B marketers are LinkedIn (91%); Twitter (85%); and Facebook (81%). However, just 62% of marketers say that LinkedIn is effective, while 50% say the same for Twitter and only 30% of B2B marketers view Facebook as effective. December 2014 (source)

 

  • 20% of companies said Digital Marketing is very much separate from the rest of their marketing/advertising efforts, whilst only 14% said they were a ‘digital first organisation. (Source)

 

  • 91% of people have unsubscribed from company emails they have previously opted into. (source)

 

  • Only 8% of companies have an email marketing team, despite the fact it is often rated as the platform the delivers the highest ROI of any digital marketing tactic. (source)

 

  • Almost half–48%–of all emails are opened on mobile devices. Yet 39% of marketers say they have no strategy for mobile email, and only 11% of emails are optimized for mobile (source)

Intriguing

  • 15% of Google searches have never been searched for before. (source)

 

  • 60% of all Internet activity in the US originates from mobile devices and about half of total Internet Traffic flows through mobile apps. (source)

 

  • 50% of all mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results, and 61% of those searches result in a purchase. (Source)

 

  • The most followed brand on Twitter is Facebook (source)

 

 

H/T: Smart Insights.

9 Compelling and Fun Digital Marketing Stats From the Past Week

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With summer largely in the rearview mirror, marketers are attending conferences and generally revealing more media- and brand-related data. Here are nine of such stats that caught our eye last week.

1. During a Re/code podcast, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said that more than 75 percent of his digital publisher’s views for all content come from non-BuzzFeed networks. More specifically, he shared that Facebook video produces 27 percent of the views and Snapchat brings in 21 percent.

2. PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel told an audience at Dmexco that about 40 percent of Germans use ad blockers, a significant spike from the estimated 10 percent of Americans who block ads. Publishers are rightfully scared of the phenomenon, especially since Apple’s IOS9 system became available last week. It allows developers to sell ad-blocking apps on it for iPhones.

3. Also speaking at Dmexco, Amy Cole, head of brand development for Instagram EMEA, made the case for brands to buy ads on Instagram, citing data from 400 Nielsen studies covering two years of campaigns. Per Cole, 97 percent of ads have generated “significant” ad recall, with the average campaign boosting recall by 17 points.

4. JD.com, China’s largest business-to-consumer site, has more than 600 million users and 373 million people who purchase straight from the site.

5. Anonymity app Whisper touts more than 10 million users, 10 billion page views a month and a whopping 1 million app users every minute.

6. Remember Lauren Conrad from MTV’s Laguna Beach and The Hills? A decade after the shows, she’s a bona fide media mogul, with multiple clothing lines, bestselling books and her own lifestyle brand. What’s more, she’s a social-media star, with about 4.4 million followers on Instagram, 3.5 million on Twitter and 1.9 million on Facebook.

7. Monetate, which has access to more than 7 billion shopping experiences from its customer base, found that during the second quarter, traffic to e-commerce sites also increased 30 percent year over year. The digital marketing company also said that sales conversion rates jumped 46 percent over the same time period—largely driven by mobile shoppers.

8. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders live-tweeted last Wednesday night’s Republican debate. As Digiday reported, analytics company Socialbakers found that Sanders received 452,000 interactions—entailing retweets, replies and favorites—on his tweets that day alone. Compared to his average interactions of 36,700 per day over the previous month, according to Socialbakers, that’s a huge uptick.

9. Speaking of h-u-u-u-uge, on the other side of the political aisle, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accrued more than 7.5 million Vine loops (the mobile app’s views metric) on his account, but he hasn’t used the video platform since 2013.

And a bonus stat that’s really not about digital marketing: Hampton Creek is a packaged-goods startup that focuses on data to create new foods, which are intended to be more profitable, environmentally friendly and healthy. Last week, Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick told an audience at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference that his team taps into data from more than 400,000 species of plants.

H/T: Ad Week

Our Top 8 Digital Marketing Stats From the Last Week

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Big digital players released second-quarter earnings numbers last week, and many other enticing interactive statistics came to the forefront. Here are the eight most interesting, data-driven developments we came across:

1. Researcher eMarketer predicted Monday that Instagram advertising will be worth $2.8 billion in sales by 2017, but that estimate could be low if the Facebook-owned platform would start running desktop ads. Per comScore, 22.8 million people logged onto Instagram in June via desktop computer compared with 81.8 million on mobile devices. But since Instagram ads only run on smartphones and tablets, it would seem the digital entity could grow revenue even more than eMarketer’s projections, as the social giant still sits on a big audience that hasn’t been monetized.

2. For the past several months, brands like Land Rover have tested Pandora’s Sponsored Listening ads, which offer consumers an hour or free music in exchange for watching a video promo. Per Pandora, those pilot ads boosted purchase intent by 30 percent and brand awareness by 12 percent. The Oakland, Calif.-based digital company opened sponsored listening to all brands today.

3. On Thursday, Marchex will release a study based on 24 million consumer-to-business mobile phone calls. The tech vendor, working with local business researcher BIA/Kelsey, will estimate that mobile click-to-call actions—in which Web-connected consumers call up shops, bars and restaurants on their smartphones—will enable $1 trillion in commerce this year.

4. Microsoft’s devices-and-consumer category for revenues during the second quarter were down 13 percent year-over-year, underscoring a tech giant in flux. But there’s good news, too: The Redmond, Wash.-based company’s commercial cloud business grew 88 percent to $8 billion in sales in Q2.

5. Yahoo’s Q2 earnings last week also was a mix of good news and bad. Its mobile, video, native and social ad revenue was up 60 percent over last year to $400 million, helping CEO Marissa Mayer offer her investors the company’s best revenue growth in nearly a decade. But, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based player is spending a lot of money and actually took a loss, overall.

6. During June and July, Mondelez tested interactive, e-commerce video promos and got a 220 percent boost in awareness, and engagement went up 88 percent. Let’s look at an example from the company’s Women’s World Cup campaign. An image of U.S. player Alex Morgan popped up in the bottom left corner of the ads. Hovering over Morgan for a few seconds opened an overlay on the video letting people watch other clips, shoot a virtual soccer ball, follow a Twitter hashtag or clickthrough to buy snacks at Walmart, Target and Amazon.

7. Chubbies, the men’s shorts brand, posted an LOL-minded video on Facebook on July 19 featuring dudes walking around in summer attire that’s way too small. With little paid advertising, the e-commerce startup’s clip has been viewed 903,000 times on the platform.

8. The 20th Century Fox movie The Revenant, a western thriller that doesn’t premiere until Christmas Day, already is garnering huge buzz online. A teaser for the film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is directed by Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, is closing in on 20 million YouTube and Facebook views after 10 days. Check out the clip below:

H/T Adweek

Understanding the Real Meaning of “Community” for B2B Digital Marketing

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B2B businesses often approach social media marketing with an attitude that “bigger is better.” They eagerly believe that the more followers, the better. The more likes, the better. The more tweets at more times in the day, the better.

However, effective B2B digital marketing is not a clear-cut numbers game. In fact, smaller numbers are sometimes better because that means you’re targeting the right attention for your blog and social media. Why? The reason that smaller is better comes down to a hot digital marketing topic for social 2015: community.

What Is Community?

The standard definition of a community is a group of people with similar backgrounds and goals. In digital marketing, however, community refers to the small but potent group of fans and peers that make up your client base and B2B business network. Infamous marketing thinker Seth Godin refers to this kind of community as a tribe, or a group of people who connect with each other because they share an idea and a leader.

Successful B2B digital marketing doesn’t strive to add zeroes to your follower counts. Instead, its goal is to attract and engage your tribe — the people who are actually paying attention and actively seeking information. And if you do it right, you might find yourself adding zeroes to your follower counts anyway… except this time these followers will represent targeted prospective customers rather than empty seats.

The Social Media Marketing Podcast recently interviewed Jared Easley, co-founder of the industry-leading podcasting conference Podcast Movement, about creating a community. In the interview, Jared talked about how he used Facebook to build a community of followers who eventually funded his $11,000 Kickstarter campaign. This may not be the best way to raise money for your B2B business, but it does go to show the power of uniting your tribe to achieve a specific goal.

How to Identify Your Community

Building your community starts with understanding who makes up your community. Take a look at your customers and the customers of your competitors. Where do they spend their time online? When you’ve identified these demographics, it’s a simple matter of researching their social usage by income, age and gender, or medium preference. Armed with the knowledge of where people spend time online, you can target people who are most likely to be a good fit for your community.

Another great way to build your community is to use your personal network and your established customers. When you speak to them in person or by phone, ask them where they spend time online. Carefully monitor which links they share on their LinkedIn profiles. Keep a list of brands, publications, and sites they mention to paint a comprehensive picture of how your tribe prefers to spend time online.

How to Connect With Your Community

As the members of your community start to become more obvious, connect with them strategically. Some of these strategies may entail a large initial time investment, but building your community will pay off in the long term.

Then consider your customer’s day-to-day life and technology usage. How many tweets or LinkedIn posts will they see and engage with in a meaningful way? How much content do they want from you? How much content is too much for them? Make note of the best times to post and plan your B2B digital marketing strategy accordingly.

In B2B digital marketing, quality trumps quantity. Even a modest social media following can help you reach your sales goals if they represent a dedicated, engaged population. Find your community first, then guide your digital marketing efforts according to what they need.

For more up to date industry news, follow our blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.

H/T: Business2Community.

3 Digital Marketing Blunders Small Businesses Make Right off the Bat

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You’re busy supporting your customers and running your business. Taking even 10 minutes out of your day to devote to a blog post or social media updates is a challenge.  The new, holistic approaches to internet marketing–thanks to changes by Google and other search engines in the last 12 months–are enough to make anyone’s head spin, let alone a small business owner or manager who wears many different “business” hats everyday.  No matter your goals for your website and social media profiles, avoid these common pitfalls when repositioning or establishing your company’s digital presence.

1. Overpaying for a Website

A problem plaguing so many companies in the early 2000s has seen a resurgence as more and more small to medium-sized businesses have upped their online game, web designers are taking advantage of a business owners’ lack of know-how to cash in big for a minimal amount of work. Business and networking are breeding grounds for this practice and it’s taking a toll on business’ search engine visibility and the basic functionality of their websites. With so many easy-to-use, cost-effective methods of creating beautiful, functional websites, there’s no reason for nail salons and painting companies to drop $3,000-$10,000 on a website in 2015. Don’t fall for a sales pitch and a smile.

2. Quitting Early on Social

Everyone who’s tried to create a social media profile has experienced the frustration that comes with a stunted or non-existent following. As with many endeavors, people tend to approach a new project with enthusiasm and then give up when they don’t get the feedback they want. Try searching YouTube for “My First Video” and you’ll see what I mean. However, for better or worse, Facebook is becoming a major player in small business marketing and even if people aren’t finding you via the social network, your potential customers will certainly check to see if you’re keeping up with your profile. There’s no magic formula to success on social media, but there are a few Facebook tips and tricks for small business owners to gain traction and establish themselves without dedicating too many resources to your efforts.

3. Demanding Instant Gratification

The “give it to me now!” mentality of the online world does not apply when marketing a small business – sorry. As with any marketing effort, the work takes time and results aren’t immediate. Instead of focusing on “going viral” or getting 100,000 viewers to your website, redirecting your digital marketing team to establish your authority on search results in your industry and generating viable leads will show dividends in the long run. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen if you have the right team.

One thing about digital marketing is that it’s always changing and developing as technology and consumer behavior changes. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage to any business owner. An advantage because everyone needs to constantly educate themselves on new marketing trends. When something new arises, everyone starts at the same level. On the opposite end, it can be a disadvantage to those who don’t care to learn. Business owners who are content with their existing methods and plan to steadily run things will end up falling far behind. Sticking to what you always do, will get you what you’ve always gotten.

For expert advice on how to increase your online reach, strengthen your brand equity, help achieve stronger business results and generate greater profitability, contact Onimod Global today.