The Customer Experience Is Key: In Every Channel And At Every Interaction

Effectiveness should be based on marketing goals and business objective. All channels are useful for different purpose. To have an effective marketing strategy, you need to be multi-channel. Since customers are present everywhere. Based on my experience this is how I can categorize channels into the funnel: 
Customer Acquisition - Search and Social
Branding or Awareness - Display, Video, and Social

Search

Search Advertising commonly used for acquisition based campaigns. This is most common advertising method for lower funnel acquisition strategy. Search advertising helps in finding right customers looking for services or product using keywords. Google, Bing and Yahoo Gemini are the popular search advertising platforms. 
Ex: Company A is offering plumbing services. Business can show ads for people who is typing "plumbers" in search engines. This helps business to show results on top of organic results. So A can reach customers by showcasing the services when customers are looking for it. Text Ads are the commonly used Ad formats in Search Network.

Display

According to Forbes, 90% of marketers and agencies now say online display ads are good for branding. Because customers see your logo, service offering in ads. Most of the display ads are of the upper funnel. Awareness based campaigns. This helps customers in remembering the brand in case they require any service. This advertising nowadays marketers are using for remarketing. People come to your website and added a product to cart but did not buy due to various reasons. You can retarget with the same product and show him more often. 
Ex: You might have seen various ads from Amazon with products you visit.  This type of advertising is called dynamic remarketing.

Video

According to Forbes, 70% of agencies say online video is an efficient brand-building alternative to television--and 20% are moving some TV dollars to online. This format of advertising can be used for explaining about a brand or product. Few products cannot reach customer through images or text ads. When introducing new product or service video ads are worth trying. As a marketer, you need to be present everywhere. 
The statistics prove that your target audience is watching video
92% of B2B prospects consume online video
4 billion videos are viewed on YouTube every day
About one-third of shoppers will purchase a product after seeing a video ad

Social

Advanced targeting options on Facebook, and Twitter like self-reported interest helps marketers to reach specific consumers. According to Statista, 1.7Bn active users are there on Facebook, brands can engage with them answer their queries and enhance their experience with the brand and develop a healthy relationship with customers. 

Overall in Consumer Decision Journey

In Trigger; Display Ads is the most effective and acts as a stimulus. Interactive display ads increase consumer's purchase intent (Source: Adobe study). In Initial Consideration and Active Evaluation; Search is the most efficient. Since 88% of consumers research products and services before making a purchase. (Source: ZMOT macro study, Google). In Moment of Purchase; Display Ads again if we considered off-site re-marketing and consumer re-targeting. In Post-purchase Experience; Social combined with Video is the most effective because people tend to share their experience (especially Generation C).



How to Rank any Local Business Website?

If you own a local business or run an SEO campaign for one, you'll know that it can be tough to drive through lots of traffic to your website.

More often than not, the total traffic potential isn't huge but it's dominated by a few big players - especially within the search engines. It's not always feasible to create giant pieces of content that could perform well on social media because this often brings through a ton of irrelevant traffic, especially if you're promoting a local plumbers website!

What you need is a sustainable flow of relevant traffic from the search engines that can result in leads.

Well, I'm going to show you the steps that I take to rank any local business, and believe me, I've done this a lot of times. Local SEO used to be the main area of speciality for me and it's constantly evolving. If you want to stay ahead of your competitors, follow these steps:
 

Localised On-Page Optimisation
 

On-page SEO for local businesses conforms to some pretty old school SEO tactics. There’s quite a large weighting towards the on-page content in the local search listings, so it’s important that, where possible, you squeeze the most value out of your content.

Here's a quick checklist to follow for local on-page SEO:
  • Try to add your City/Region, plus a relevant keyword, within your landing page title tag.
  • Try to add your City/Region, plus a relevant keyword, within your landing page H1 tag.
  • Try to add your City/Region, plus a relevant keyword, within your landing page URL.
  • Try to add your City/Region, plus a relevant keyword, within your landing page content.
  • Try to add your City/Region, plus a relevant keyword, within your landing page image ALT attributes.
  • Embed a Google map with your business marker into your landing page.

NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number)


Consistency is key here. You need to ensure that you have your full NAP across your whole website (i.e. every page). Furthermore, you must use the exact same details/format when you mention your address on other websites (i.e. local citations).

You’ll also want to use Schema.org markup on your NAP to give the search engines all they need to display your company information correctly.

Here's the code that I use to add in NAP information to local websites with Schema.org markup (just adapt the areas in bold to suit your own business:

http://schema.org/LocalBusiness
">
COMPANY NAME

http://schema.org/PostalAddress
">
ADDRESS LINE 1

CITY
,
REGION

POSTCODE/ZIP
PHONE NUMBER



 

Local Reviews


Local reviews have a direct impact on local search rankings, so you’ll want to spend some time acquiring them.

It’s worth mentioning that this doesn’t just mean Google reviews. You’ll also want to focus on getting reviews on your Yelp page (they’re used by Apple maps), along with other local directories. Your first priority should be Google reviews though.

To begin with, you’ll want to capture any low-hanging fruit by getting in touch with your existing customer base and see if they’d be interested in leaving you a review. You could incentivise them for their time (maybe a discount, etc.).

Another useful tip is to set up a page on your website that gives simple, step-by-step instructions to your customers on how to leave a review for you (make this as simple as possible). This URL (e.g. yourdomain.com/review-us/) could be sent through to your customers in an email, along with a voucher code or some other incentive.
 

Google My Business


If you haven’t already, you’ll need to claim your Google My Business page.

I won't go into all the detail of setting this up because there are tons of articles online showing this, but here are the key things to remember:
  • Add a long, unique description that’s formatted correctly and includes links.
  • Choose the correct categories for your business.
  • Upload as many photos as possible.
  • Add a local phone number to your listing.
  • Add your business address that’s consistent with that on your website and local directories.
  • Upload a high-resolution profile image and cover photo.
  • Add your opening times/days (if relevant).
  • Get real reviews from customers (I’ll come onto this).

Link Building & Citation Building


Link building within local SEO campaigns is incredibly important and it’s also something that’s often overlooked.

Compared to standard SEO campaigns, local SEO relies much more on links from other local websites that are really relevant to your business. It’s less about getting links from high authority websites (although that obviously helps) and more about getting links from websites local to you that are talking about similar things to what you do.

This means that local directories are a useful resource for link building, especially when it comes to building citations.

“A citation is an online reference to your business’s name, address and phone number (NAP).”

These citations don’t even need to be linked, as long as they’re referencing your business NAP consistently in the same way.

Here are a few ways you can get local citations:
  • Use a service like WhiteSpark and get them to find and upload local citations for you.
  • Go through the extensive list of citations on the Moz website and manually submit your citations.
  • Use a tool like Ahrefs, Majestic or Open Site Explorer to run competitive link research and find citations that your competitors have gained.
  • Set up alerts through Mention or Google Alerts to track new mentions of your competitors’ NAP listing.
To support your citations, you'll need to build some good quality links from local websites as well. Here are a few of the strategies that I use to build local links:
  • Go to Meetup.com and search for a list of local events relevant to your industry. Find those that have websites and contact them about sponsorship (most of the time you’ll only need to put on a lunch for them). If they accept, you’ll get a link from their website (local to you) and their Meetup.com page (highly authoritative, local link). Here’s an example.
  • Create a local resource from public data (here’s 30 different data sources) and reach out to local press to get coverage. That’s exactly what Krystian Szastok did and he got some amazing results (you really should read this case study).
  • Run your own local meetup or event and bring through links from the local event page.
  • Sign up to press request services to get quoted in local publications (huge potential for high authority, local links).
  • Run an AMA on Reddit (within a relevant subreddit to your industry) and within other local communities.
  • Line up interviews and columns within relevant online publications.
  • Give a discount to local organizations for your products/services in exchange for a linked mention on their website.
  • Enter local awards (or start your own if there aren’t any!).
  • Spend time dedicated to local PR outreach to get online and offline coverage in local news.
  • Run regular competitive link research and capitalize on any new opportunities that your competitors have gained.
  • Offer scholarships (you get links from local universities) or offer jobs to students (you can get links from their careers pages).

August 15, 1947 – First Independence Day of India

Nehruji and Gandhiji at All India Congress Committe (AICC) meeting in July 1946.Mountbatten arrives at Delhi airport and is been received by Nehru and Liaquat Ali on March 25, 1947.

Nehru along with Mountbatten on the first Independence Day in Delhi on August 15, 1947.
Mountbatten swears Jawaharlal Nehru in as Prime Minister of India on August 15, 1947.After swearing in as the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru gives his first speech holding an Indian flag on August 15, 1947.
today, August 15, 2015, India is celebrating 69 years of Independence. Indian flag is seen flying on top of the Red Fort, New Delhi, where the Prime Minister of India gives the speech on every Independence Day.
source:desicololors



10 future and emerging technology trends in Digital Marketing.

We are at the edge of an evolutionary period, where marketers are evolving and thriving like never before. Brands are trying to reach out to relevant customers to build effective and relevant relationships. They are banking on social media, advertising, search, mailers, videos, podcasts and mobile technologies to create winning strategies and achieve real-time connections. Marketers are experimenting on various new methods to reach out to their target audience. Here are 10 emerging technology trend predictions that will pave the path to innovative transitions in Digital Marketing and eventually shape its future.

10) Automation tools.



Automation tools in marketing will give marketers an incredible intelligence layer in order to sift through Big data and draw insights. Also, the rise of predictive analysis platforms will help Digital Marketers to do what every sales person will want to achieve - but at a larger marketing scale. Marketing will not just revolve around creating campaigns and tracking behavioural activity of prospects. Future marketing platforms will deliver full-circle recommendations across all key customer touch points. However, there may be a few challenges that marketers will face while using the automation tools of the future. The first being integration, where marketers will have to deal with abundance of technology while being hesitant to choose the right technology that adapts to their ever-changing marketplace. The second will be prioritisation issues which lies in finding out the best starting points to propel a business forward.
The next-generation of marketing automation tools will be offering powerful open APIs ('Application Program Interfaces’) that directly lead to establish and drive more conversions. Also, application interfaces will change considerably.

9) Advanced Content creation tools



Various online and offline advanced content creation tools will emerge with brainstorming, topic generating, headline generating (similar to Portent Content title generator) tweaking, content creation, proofreading and plagiarism checking features. These tools will have access to an inbuilt content discovery portal/platform with an interface like Buzz Sumo that will find real-time trending content from influencers worldwide. This will help save research time for bloggers or marketers or content researchers.
This is how these tools will work. They will first take a few pieces of various content that is trending real-time, written on similar topics, based on intent. Then, using the existing content, the tools will guide the bloggers/marketers in the entire process of crafting a blog or a white paper or a case study right from scratch. After the creation process, the tools will allow the content to be shared across numerous social networking sites. This article/blog will be provided with sharing tools where users can also send their article as a mail to their friends/colleagues/customers.

8) Visual Storytelling



Infographics will become the forefront of media and marketing and will be incorporated into content strategies.
As Infographics will be easier to synthesise and recall, they will create an engaging user experience and captivate audience through their visual appeal, with its power.
Various tools to generate infographics from text will emerge in the coming years. Also, curated motion graphic video software featuring animation, sound effects and narration will be on the rise Thus, with salient ideas and live data visualisations, infographics will be very popular among content marketers. There is also a high likely chance that with new formats or tools, users will be able to engage or interact with infographics to learn more about a particular topic that is being covered/displayed in an infographic. The modern infographic will have HTML5 elements (similar to the HTML5 infographic featuring Dribbble) and videos and motion graphics will be integrated on the same. This will signify the evolution of interactive infographics, marking a significant change in design and visual storytelling.

7) Micro-targeting and Finer Hyper Segmentation



Hyper Segmentation is one of the powerful marketing techniques in order to reach the audience and it opens up a new world of possibilities. Search engines and social networking sites will provide a storehouse of information and wealth of data to Digital Marketers who will look to more closely target customers of their niche. The niche will consist of a very specific group of customers in a particular segment, within a defined demographic and who are prone to a specific behavioural activity. Emerging softwares will automatically identity influencers and predict people’s future behaviours and attitudes with intelligent signals. It will also predict the potential customers for a company’s product/service or people who are more likely to buy the product and give a positive review/rating/response.
The features of these softwares will range from developing a custom segmentation model to fit the marketing challenges for a product and also identify marketing targets across multiple dimensions.
All this information will help in aiding for micro-targeting and hyper-segmentation which can dramatically create an impact, when it comes to improving sales.

6) 24/7 Webcasting channels by popular Brands



To boost exposure, popular brands will start live-streaming their channels online to the world every minute of the day and will keep their followers entertained, by capturing their attention with an uninterrupted viewing experience. Through webcasting, brands will use technology to showcase and promote their products/services and announce their product launches. This will help to build in awareness. Also, they will be able to reach and contact any user remotely, provided the user has access to the Internet. The user also will be able to interact with the organisers and presenters who are conducting the live-streams. Some of the webcasts may also be accessible through a paid- subscription basis and brands will advertise their streams to their targeted audience on social networks, emailers and search engines.
Brands will also have access to a wide range of real-time analytic tools similar to YouTube Live that provide statistics to track user participation and performance.

5) Artificial-intelligence search



Search engine optimisation will become obsolete as search engines will continue to change and modify their algorithms. Also, text-based content that is displayed on websites and webpages will become the least important media that will be produced. Search engines will strengthen its artificial intelligence abilities with improvement on context or relevance. Furthermore, traditional SEO will become less effective and social networks will establish new identities, improve usability and engagement, integrating themselves into popular search engines.
The concept of Attention banks will slowly come into picture on search engines. i.e. when a user clicks an ad, he/she earns rewards or services in return. A fine example of this will be a mobile phone company which provides free airtime in exchange for viewing their ads.

Search engines will be able to further visualise user intent accurately and provide holistic information. This is all possible with the mechanism that remembers what the users are searching and also providing recommendations, based on predictions.

4) Next generation Proximity and Micro-location Marketing



Proximity and Micro-Location marketing will involve marketing to specific customers who are nearby - a geographic radius of roughly 100 meters. Geo fences will be set-up and marketers will be able to deliver a wide range of value-added services over a Wi-Fi Network. This will help in generating higher ROI for advertisers.
Also, LTE Advanced, a new form of LTE will offer device-to-device proximity (LTE Direct). Mobile apps will be able to broadcast their own services and also monitor mobile application services on other devices.
The next generation GPS technology will be in high-precision and will help in locating a customer’s presence within a specific proximity of a merchant space. Then, a tailored customised message will be sent to the person to his/her phone.
This sort of technology will help all types of industries from hospitality to retail to museums and sports avenues.

3) Intelligent virtual assistants



Virtual/Digital assistants like Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana who are interacting on a daily basis with users, will be evolved and may eventually become advisors.
Virtual/Digital assistants will also anticipate future actions. For example, for a birthday party or an anniversary that is coming up, the virtual assistants will recommend and suggest the best shopping destinations/restaurants that are nearby, to shop, visit or dine.
Advertising will become predictive as more data will be fed to these systems. These virtual assistants will play a huge role in marketing, monitoring every user interaction. They will suggest investment opportunities, integrate with CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) to deliver the right solutions easily and will also help in making a proposal. They will serve as a point of convergence of user-profiling data and will very soon (by amassing an in-depth knowledge of user’s keywords or search terms), become pivotal to marketers who will want to target people through behaviours/interests.

2) Virtual spaces



Technological advances in virtual reality will open up to new opportunities for marketers. Virtual shopping areas or Virtual stores, may be accessible from wearable devices like Google Glass or VR platform headsets, Mobile phones and Computers. Marketers will be able to simulate a virtual-shopping store that will showcase their products in three-dimension and at the same time get customers make their purchase decisions to buy the product. A good example of this will be the virtual shopping website. This will give customers an experience of actually being in the retail store on a computer screen. Imagine a bookstore or a grocery store where we can browse or go through all the products with a feeling that we are actually there, right from our homes or offices. This illusive technology will promise to change the way companies innovate constantly and will serve as a breakthrough in marketing, ultimately creating a big impact in sales. It will also provide the unique advantage to companies who will evaluate concepts and test new ideas in virtual stores under different competitive prices and promotions.

1) The Internet of things (IoT)



The Internet of things (IoT) uses sensor technology which connects objects to their virtual representations. The Internet of things is constantly expanding and Intel predicts that there will be about 200 billion devices on the Internet of things by the year 2020. According to the all new BI intelligence report, the Internet of things will be the world’s massive device market and will result in $1.7 trillion in value to the global economy in 2019.
Challenges will emerge along with the requirement of data analyst roles in companies that will be looking to build enhanced analysing systems.
Nevertheless, the Internet of things will proliferate year after year and objects like cards, key chains/locks, coffee makers, ceiling fans will all be connected to the internet.
Thus the future of digital marketing will not lie in creating ads that are viewable on smartphones, tablets, TVs etc. It will be contextual to the types of new products and smart devices like refrigerators, bicycles, wearable technology devices (Google Glass) that fuel ad marketing.

Traffic Tactics that won't Cost You a Cent

Are you constantly banging your head in frustration on not receiving all the internet traffic you would like to get to your web site? Are you tormented from information overload listening to all the latest free website traffic tactics and not being able to understand any of it? Are you dejected of people trying day and night to harassing you to max out your credit card and get loans for Google clicks, and in the process loose your credit score? Are you stupefied by the way your website just dropped out of the Google search results? Or are you just too broke and all you have to rely on is getting some free website traffic tactics?

Search engine optimization or SEO is the hottest way to drive targeted traffic to your website. Maximizing the benefits of a well optimized website will yield lots of earnings for the marketer. However, optimizing your site might cost you thousands of dollars if you are not skilled in this area.

But to tell you the truth, you can essentially get information on low cost SEO anywhere in the Internet. But only several really show you how to work out an affordable search engine optimization endeavor. And those few that really inform include this article.

1. Link exchanges

One cheap SEO method that can get you best results is through link exchanges or linking to and from other web sites. Depending on the websites that you would like to exchange links with, this tool could even cost you nothing at all. Contact the author or owner of the web site you want to have a link exchange with. You will be surprised with the eventual spiking up of your page ranking using this means of getting your website optimized.

2. Write or acquire key word rich articles

Writing truly informative and keyword-rich articles is one surefire way to make your Internet business more visible than ever. It's either you write your own articles or you get them from article directories that allow you to post these articles on your website as long as you keep the resource box or the author's byline in tact. Just don't stuff your articles with keywords that even idiots would get bore of reading them. The readability and freshness of your articles will still be the basis of whether your writers will keep on coming back to your website or not.

3. Catchy Domain Name

What better will make your target visitors remember your website but with a very easy-to-recall domain name. Something sweet and short will prove to be very invaluable. Registering your domain name is not for free. But creativity is.

4. Organize your site navigation

Providing easy steps in navigating your site is one way to make your visitors become at ease with your site. This, in turn, will improve the flow of traffic to your website.

Low cost SEO is always evolving like any other approach in information technology. There are many methods that can very well land you on the top ten rankings of Google or on any other search engines. Some may cost a lot but there are methods that can give you the same results at a low price or you can even do on your own such as those mentioned above.
Submitting these articles to various article directory listings will provide more visibility for your business as long as you keep your resource box in tact to create for yourself numerous back links.

These methods, if employed properly, will not only make your web site popular but will make you achieve your most desirable result - higher conversion rate.


Unknown Facts About APJ Abdul Kalam

Why We Love Abdul Kalam (And You Should, Too!)

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam or all the more famously known as APJ Abdul Kalam is a standout amongst the most compelling identities of India. This previous president of India is a great deal more than only a political figure. He is a researcher, mastermind and a young symbol. Without a doubt he is in genuine sense "the rocket man" of India. In spite of the fact that his life is an open book, there are couple of obscure realities about him which the greater part of us don't have the foggiest idea.



1. Kalam as a researcher in DRDO

Kalam joined Aeronautical Development Establishment of Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) as a researcher. His first accomplishment in his profession was outlining a little helicopter for the Indian Army, however he stayed unconvinced and disappointed with the decision of his occupation at DRDO.

2. Kalam was a part of nation's first atomic test 

Kalam without partaking in its advancement, test site planning and weapon outlining was welcomed by Raja Ramanna to witness the nation's first atomic test Smiling Buddha as the delegate of TBRL. 

3. Kalam was censured for lazy methodology towards his Presidential post 

Kalam was judged for inaction as a President in choosing the destiny of 20 out of the 21 kindness petitions. As indicated by the Article 72, of the Constitution of India, the President of India has the ability to concede absolve, suspend and transmit capital punishments and drive capital punishment of convicts on death column. Be that as it may, he didn't have any significant bearing those forces on the leniency petitions of the 20 convicts. 

4. His badgering at New York air terminal 

The most offending day for each Indians when previous President APJ Abdul Kalam was twice subjected to badgering at New York's JFK Airport by the US security officers. Dr Kalam was compelled to take his coat and shoes off for security checking for explosives. At that point the 80-year-old Kalam was in the United States in September to go to a progression of occasions and the occurrence occurred on September 29 at the season of his returning home from New York. Subsequent to sitting down in the flying machine, authorities of the JFK Airport came inside and requested that check the President at the end of the day. Air India powers alongside all the Indians emphatically challenged the egregious demonstration. 

5. Kalam the stalwart 

A large portion of us don't have the foggiest idea about that Dr. Kalam is an inconceivable author and has composed numerous persuasive books. 2020- A Vision for the New Millennium, Envisioning an Empowered Nation, Ignited Minds, My Journey, Developments in Fluid Mechanics and Space Technology, The Luminous Sparks, The Life Tree, Mission India, Children Ask Kalam, Guiding Souls, Indomitable Spirit and Inspiring Thoughts. These books are treasure for every Indians. . 

6. Pokhran-II tests discussion 

The discussion that drifted around Kalam's part as an atomic researcher is the absence of solid and true reporting of the yield of Pokhran-II tests. K. Santhanam, the executive of the site test, freely announced that the nuclear bomb was a "failure" test, and condemned Kalam for issuing the wrong report. Be that as it may, Kalam released the cases and, a key partner of Pokhran-II, R. Chidambaram additionally affirm these cases as wrong. 

7. Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant issue 

Kalam was additionally decried by common gatherings over his stand on the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant, where he supported setting up of the atomic force plant without talking about the circumstance with the neighborhood individuals. 

8. The Youth Icon 

In 2003 and in 2006 he was assigned for the MTV Youth Icon of the Year recompense. 

9. Some piece of a rousing film 

I Am Kalam which was released in 2011 is a helpful Hindi film. Here Kalam is depicted as a to a great degree positive impact to a poor however brilliant Rajasthani kid Chhotu, who renames himself Kalam out of appreciation for his godlike object. 

10. The grants and respects 

The Government of India has respected him with the Padma Bhushanin 1981 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1990 for his work with ISRO and DRDO and his part as a logical guide to the Government. APJ Abdul Kalam has gotten India's most elevated regular citizen respect, the Bharat Ratna, for his hugely valuable commitment to the exploratory examination and modernization of resistance innovation in India.