Over 50,000 new apps were submitted to the iTunes App Store in the month of January 2016, according to an App Store Metrics report. Technology is changing and growing every day as individuals become more connected to software, apps and devices. With this innovative digital landscape, marketers must remain flexible and willing to adapt to new digital strategies. As more brands enter the digital space and fill the online environment with more noise and distractions, successful marketers will be those who are willing to take risks and craft compelling content.
Here are our top 5 tips for standing out while marketing online:
1. Thoughtfully Develop Content and Communicate on Social Media
Are you struggling to develop an effective content marketing strategy? Duane Forrester, SEO expert and senior product manager for Bing’s webmaster program, has many easily implementable tips for using content to improve your SEO strategy. Here are Duane’s best content and social media marketing tips:
- Before you implement your content marketing strategy, identify the keywords you want to have associated with your website. Keywords help you identify a niche market, focus your vision, understand your audience and create inspired content.
- While it may seem attractive to have a broad portfolio of content and publish articles on a frequent basis, Duane recommends businesses avoid offering thin material spread over many topics. Instead, he recommends writing fewer pieces of content and focusing in depth on select key topics. When you write in a strong, honest and clear voice, you deliver more useable content to your followers.
- Use social media to build a community following and engage with other industry thought-leaders. This communication helps you gain links to your site from respected industry leaders, which increases your credibility. 80-90% of the content you share on your social media platforms should be created by individuals outside of your company, preventing your social sites from looking like a constant sales pitch.
2. Apply Enterprise Gamification Tools
Are you looking to build employee morale and create a more positive outlook towards internal business processes? Enterprise Gamification is an interactive strategy, which uses game-like principles to increase engagement. Here are our tips for applying gamification tools in your organization:
- Use gamification programs to create organization-wide agreement on goals and missions. Allow employees and management to work together on outlining company expectations. This communication can help organizations visualize their overall progress towards goals and identify weak areas.
- Develop continuous employee engagement by implementing incentive programs. These systems help employees track their advancements and receive immediate feedback from management. These programs often give employee rewards or encouragement for participating in extra training sessions or meeting their personal goals.
- Engage with your customers and website visitors by creating customer rewards or loyalty programs.
3. Ensure Your Website has a Mobile-Friendly Design
Surprisingly, only about 11-18% of websites are currently considered mobile-friendly. Responsive web design is intended to create the best viewing experience for all users on all devices. This design uses flexible grids and layouts to ensure a website appears clearly on mobile devices, tablets, desktops and laptops of any size. Consider these valuable benefits of responsive design:
- Mobile friendliness is now a ranking signal, meaning Google boosts the organic rankings for mobile-friendly sites when an individual completes a search on a mobile device.
- Responsive sites showcase your creative content for maximum visual appeal. This is a more cost-efficient approach than developing a separate mobile site.
- Your customers value their mobile search experiences. 50% of healthcare buyers use mobile devices to research products and 27% use tablets. Check out our mobile search behavior infographic to learn more.
4. Identify Promising Leads with Predictive Analytics
Looking to turn your leads into loyal customers? Predictive Lead Scoring uses data analysis to identify promising leads and evaluate their potential for conversion. Here are three reasons to use predictive lead scoring:
- Predictive lead scoring takes into account an individual’s behavioral and social information, demographics, third-party information, overall patterns and other factors to determine the likelihood of a lead becoming a customer. The more detailed data available, the better your sales teams can target potential clients.
- Of equal importance is identifying leads that are unlikely to convert to customers, which saves your sales team from wasted efforts.
- With a deeper understanding of your audience, you can create specific content to appeal to your intended audience. Increased prospect knowledge will improve the efficiency of the sales process.
5. Stay Flexible and Open-Minded Towards New Strategies
While our recommended digital strategies remain important today, keep in mind that consumer behavior and technologies are constantly evolving. As consumers adapt, you need to update your marketing approach as well. The first four tips in this post include technologies and strategies on the Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing, which tracks marketing trends as they move from innovative concepts to the plateau of productivity. Check out the Hype Cycle to familiarize yourself with the marketing trends that could become main stream in the next few years.
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