Every year, the digital marketing landscape changes drastically; however, e-commerce marketers continue to find email to be one of the most effective channels. Studies show that email marketing can generate an ROI of 4200% on average. In order to keep track of leads and move them through the sales funnel, you probably already rely heavily on email. Therefore, you need to know some of the best email marketing best practices, whether you’re a startup or a large business.
The success of email marketing is heavily dependent on its strategy, even though it has a high ROI. You may find that your email marketing efforts do not produce as desired results if you do not follow email marketing best practices. You can contribute positively to your sales team’s bottom line by using email marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy.
It doesn’t matter if you failed to get the most out of your email marketing efforts in 2021. To help you out, we have compiled a list of best email practices that you can apply in 2022. Different audiences require different approaches, making it essential to test which strategies work best for you. Below are a few best practices for email marketing.
Personalize Your Emails
Your email marketing campaigns will be more effective if you personalize them. If your email is not customized to the consumer’s interests or needs, they won’t even engage with it. Your emails’ open rate, reply rate, and click through rate improve when you personalize them. Additionally, to ensure deliverability and reach intended recipients, consider using a DMARC checker to validate your domain’s authentication policies, helping your emails avoid spam filters.
To know your audience more, you can try to utilize the email verifier software, which will automatically find and validate the most relevant emails for your campaign needs. In addition, prospects are more likely to make a purchase after reading your emails.
“The costs of acquiring customers can be cut in half by personalizing emails. Your email marketing campaigns can generate up to 760% more revenue.”
Personalized emails get higher conversion rates than non-personalized emails by 10%. Your sales cycle will be shorter when you personalize your email messages. As a result, you can develop a better relationship with your leads since you are able to provide them with relevant and helpful content.
Email personalization can help you improve customer retention and brand loyalty by showing customers that you care about them and positively influencing how they feel about your brand. With a measly 39% of businesses personalizing their emails, focusing on email personalization also helps you stay ahead of your competition.
You need to clean up your act in 2022 if you didn’t remove inactive subscribers the previous year. Ideally, you should do your email list cleaning at least twice a year.
Not doing so can lead to poor email deliverability. You’ll also be able to present a more accurate picture with your metrics since you won’t be affecting them with customers whose email addresses have changed.
If you are removing inactive subscribers from your email list, it’s a good idea to send win-back emails first. Take a chance – you may get a few subscribers who wish to stay on your list. After this re-engagement email, inactive recipients should be removed with a clear conscience from your list.
Make Use Of Welcome Emails
Do you think it is important to send a welcome email? Consider the following example. The average open rate for a welcome email is 80% – and the clickthrough rate is somewhere between 22 and 25%, according to GetResponse. The purpose of welcome emails, in addition to providing your new subscribers with a warm welcome, is to present relevant content at a time when your customers are psychologically ready for your company. If a new subscriber joins your mailing list, many email marketing services enable you to send an automated welcome email. Your welcome email should be relevant and evergreen to attract new subscribers.
You can use a welcome email to build brand affinity for your company and strike a chord with your subscribers. Introduce yourself and your company to new readers, showing them the journey from idea to launch. Your email should be personalized with a photo of your team and a handwritten signature. Keep in mind that it needs to be a professional email signature to build trust and maintain professionalism.
Below Mentioned Are Some Welcome Email Best Practices:
Give a brief introduction of your company and yourself.
You can use a welcome email to build brand affinity for your company and strike a chord with your subscribers. Introduce yourself and your company to new readers, showing them the journey from idea to launch. Your email should be personalized with a photo of your team and a handwritten signature.
Curate The Best Content You Have To Offer.
Unless you share useful tips and information with new subscribers as part of your email marketing strategy, they won’t have access to the backlog of your previous content. Curate a few of your most popular articles or messages in your first email to a new subscriber.
Provide A Discount Or Promotional Offer.
By offering a promotional discount, like 10% off their first purchase, businesses entice website visitors to sign up for their email list. You should follow up on that promise in your welcome email by providing a discount code and even providing a selection of products they can indulge in.
Send At The Best Time
A lot depends on the timing of your email marketing campaign. Sending an email at the optimal time can significantly boost open rates, clickthrough rates, and revenue per subscriber. According to online data, the best days to send marketing emails are Tuesdays and Thursdays. On the whole, it is better to send the email during the workweek, but these two days, in particular, will offer the highest open and clickthrough rates.
The time is equally important as the day of the week. In general, the best time to send an email is when your subscribers are taking a break.
However, you should still conduct your own testing to determine the best time and day to market to your target audience. Additionally, prioritize your email response time to ensure potential clients get the responses they need when they get in touch. In the end, it is critical to find that sweet spot in 2022 so that your emails appear at the top of subscribers’ inboxes when they check them.
Anybody can create an email marketing campaign that gets opened and clicked. Nevertheless, if you’re serious about creating a truly groundbreaking email marketing strategy, you’ll need to split test your campaigns.
In order to improve your 2022 email marketing strategy, you need to get hands-on and experiment with A/B testing. Measuring the results of your emails will help you discover what works and what does not.
Below are some email test ideas to get you started:
Try sending emails with both short and long subject lines.
Try both short and long email messages in different emails.
Different names of the senders (try using a company’s name or a person’s name.)
In the long run, testing will ultimately help you to understand your customers better, which in turn will lead to a more satisfying experience.
Test Emails Before Sending
Test your campaigns before you send them. That is perhaps one of the most important email marketing tips that small businesses must consider. A successful overall digital marketing strategy requires that you test your email marketing campaigns, even though it may seem like just another step. It’s surprising how easily typos or display issues can slip into your emails.
If you haven’t done so already, try previewing your content with your email marketing software once you’ve finished. Be sure to test your emails on desktop, mobile, and tablet and send them to yourself and a few colleagues.
Optimize Email Subject Lines
A well-written email is only effective if the recipient opens it. Because of this, writers need to make sure their headlines stand out from the clutter in their inboxes. Using all caps, exclamation points, or emojis can seem gimmicky. Instead, use these tips:
Limit the number of characters in your subject line to say more with fewer words.
Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Be clear about what your subscribers will find when they open your email.
In the subject line of your email, let readers know if you have a special discount or a sale ending soon.
The overuse of words like “free” can turn readers away and may negatively affect deliverability.
Create Drip Email Campaigns
Modern email marketers have access to powerful tools in marketing automation. You need a drip campaign to convince subscribers to act if you want to automate time-consuming tasks. Moreover, you don’t want to be spammy in your approach.
Subscribers are usually sent drip campaigns after they register with your newsletter sign-up form. Fortunately, there are many great drip campaign examples to inspire you.
A welcome email drip campaign is the most popular series. You can send a series of emails with different incentives to onboard new customers. It is possible to include a discount in the first email. Your loyalty program could serve as an incentive for them to join the next one. Finally, the third email introduces your team or who is behind your brand. You are humanizing and promoting your brand image this way.
When preparing your campaigns, making your emails open to everyone is the most important factor to consider. Regardless of your recipients’ demographic, ability, or device, you need to ensure your email message is understood. It’s easy to make a website look great by creating a great user experience by using easy-to-read text and clear graphics and by experimenting with typeface, size, and color.
A trend currently dominating visual and online design trends, Dark Mode, is one of the best ways to make emails more accessible. It is easier on the eyes and enhances contrast when used in dark mode, making lighter objects stand out more.
Consider The Following Email Marketing Tips For Accessibility:
In an email, add alternative text to images so screen readers can read them
In order to avoid seizures, animations should be flashing between 2 Hz and 55 Hz
You should aim for a minimum font size of 14px and a readable font style
For people with visual impairments, the color contrast ratio should be at least 4.5:1
People with dyslexia will have a hard time reading center-aligned text.
Use Confirmed Opt-In
Your landing pages or Facebook page can be used to set up a sign-up form to grow your email list. Make sure to send a confirmation email once they sign up. The best way to improve your delivery rate is to get your subscribers to confirm that they want to receive your emails again. You know they were serious about signing up since they confirmed their email address.
heir responsiveness and email engagement should increase as a result, especially when you regularly use an email list cleaner to remove inactive subscribers, ensuring better deliverability and more engaged recipients.
Plan A Smart Thank-You Email Strategy
Particularly for a business, gratitude is a valuable trait to have. This part will discuss some ways you can use thank-you words at various stages in your email marketing life cycle. As an alternative to sending a thank you word after someone becomes a new subscriber, you might consider combining a note of thanks with an order confirmation email.
Customers usually wait or expect a receipt against their purchase after completing the checkout process on your site. When they receive it, they are sure to open it and check the details. You can also send customers a thank-you message on their anniversaries or when they reach important milestones. It is certainly possible to amplify your brand’s engagement with customers by showing your appreciation, even if it does not directly lead to sales.
Conclusion
Due to new technologies, shifting regulations, and other factors, email marketing changes dramatically every year. As far as email marketing trends go, you’ll need to stay on top of them and adjust your plans accordingly in order to stay competitive. You need to use the best practice email marketing strategies to get one step ahead of your competition. We provided you with a list of the best email marketing tips that you can apply to your email marketing practices. After reading this article, you might find some inspiring and wonderful ideas for creating emails for your business.
We all love pizza or some kind of fast food. But what if your favorite fast food brand’s workers uploaded an unsettling video violating the health codes on social media – (there goes all your branding efforts down the hill)
Would you still be up to try that brand?
I don’t think so. The least you would do is stop going to that specific franchise.
Similar happened in the case of Domino’s where two workers uploaded a video on Youtube from Domino’s kitchen while preparing pizza and violating the health standards. The video went viral, and the company faced strong backlash over it.
With the right crisis response Domino’s averted serious consequences (more to the story).
While the advantages of social media are obvious, there are also some social media risks to be aware of. When something goes wrong, brands risk losing their reputations.
Companies must be cautious about what they publish online, and they must have a plan to address any issues that develop.
The key to effective social media risk management for brands consists of proactive monitoring, rapid response to negative content, clear social media guidelines, employee training, and crisis communication plans.
To maintain a positive brand image and minimize potential reputation damage, businesses need to understand how social media managers drive brand engagement and stay sharp at all times.
Did You Know! “Report finds 164% increase in cyber threats targeting brands” (ZeroFox)
Benefits of a social media risk management
Here are the key benefits of social media risk management strategies.
Safeguards brand reputation
Enhances data security
Brand growth and engagement
Mitigates legal risks
Customer trust:
Proactive crisis management
If you don’t have the right risk response strategy, then you can end up like United Airlines, where the passenger Dave Caroll’s guitar was damaged. When he took his case up to the airline, it refused to fix or replace his guitar.
In response, Dave wrote a song “United you broke my guitar”. The song got over 9 million views, and more importantly, United Airlines investors lost $180 million as the stock price dropped by 10% after the incident.
However, before moving to the risk management strategies, it’s important to know what kind of social media risks brands are open to.
Major social media risks for brands
It’s necessary for every brand, social media manager, community manager, customer services etc, to have knowledge of the risks that brands can face.
1. Social media security risks
Social security risks can harm your info and identity. Avoid sharing too much, weak passwords, or strange links. Stay safe with strong passwords, cautious sharing, and distrust of unknown emails. Just like locking your door, secure your online stuff!
Here are different kinds of social security risks for brands:
Reputation damage: Negative comments, reviews, or misinformation can harm a brand’s image.
Data breaches: Hackers gaining access to customer or employee data can lead to trust loss.
Phishing attacks: Employees might unknowingly reveal sensitive info to fake emails.
Social engineering: Scammers might manipulate employees for confidential data.
Account hijacking: Hackers taking control of a brand’s social media accounts can spread false information.
Inappropriate content: Sharing or being associated with offensive or inappropriate content.
Intellectual property theft: Competitors or others stealing a brand’s ideas or content.
Crisis mishandling: Poorly managed crises can worsen public perception.
Lack of control: Employees’ personal posts reflecting poorly on the brand.
Miscommunication: Messages being misinterpreted can lead to PR issues.
Did you know! “Up to 40% of social media users are estimated to have experienced some form of social engineering or phishing attack.” (GITNUX)
The CNN hacking case
In 2014, the official Twitter and Facebook accounts of CNN were compromised by a hacktivist group, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA). The hackers posted false information, which spread rapidly, damaging CNN’s credibility and potentially influencing the public.
CNN’s response
CNN’s initial response was somewhat delayed and lacked coordination, allowing the false information to gain traction. However, they swiftly regained control of their accounts, deleted the false posts, and issued clarifications.
What could have been done?
To enhance crisis management, CNN could have benefited from faster response times, clear communication strategies, and pre-established protocols for social media account security. This case underscores the need for organizations to proactively prepare for digital threats and have effective crisis communication strategies in place.
2. Legal risks
Social media legal risks encompass potential legal problems arising from online activities, such as copyright infringement, defamation, and privacy violations.
Here are different kinds of social media risks brands need to be aware of:
Copyright infringement: Sharing content without proper authorization can lead to copyright claims.
Defamation: Posting false or damaging statements about individuals or businesses can result in defamation claims.
Privacy violations: Sharing personal information without consent might lead to privacy lawsuits.
Trademark violations: Unauthorized use of trademarks can result in legal action.
Advertising regulations: Violating advertising laws or not disclosing sponsorships can lead to penalties.
Data protection Laws: Mishandling customer data may breach data protection regulations.
Contractual Issues: Breaching contracts with influencers or partners can result in legal disputes.
Employment matters: Employee social media usage can lead to HR and legal challenges.
Regulatory compliance: Not adhering to industry-specific regulations can lead to fines.
Misleading content: Sharing false or misleading information might breach consumer protection laws.
Managing social media risks effectively is crucial to mitigate these potential financial impacts and maintain a positive brand image, customer trust, and business growth.
Here are some major financial impact on brands that occur due to weak social media risk management:
Customer loss:
Poorly managed social media risks can lead to a loss of existing customers and difficulty in attracting new ones due to negative perceptions. This is why it’s crucial to keep track of TikTok analytics and analyze interactions on Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms to prevent this from happening.
Legal expenses:
Violations such as copyright infringement or privacy breaches can result in legal fees, fines, and settlements, draining financial resources.
Crisis management costs:
Dealing with social media crises requires resources for crisis communication, PR efforts, and reputation repair, leading to additional expenses.
Difficulty in ROI measurement:
Relying on misleading social media metrics can lead to misguided decisions and ineffective strategies. Measuring the actual return on investment from social media efforts can be challenging.
The British Petroleum Gulf oil spill: A risk management debacle
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is widely known, and social media has played a crucial role in magnifying and uniting public anger over BP’s management of the crisis in that region.
BP’s brand value has taken a hit of more than $1 billion as a consequence of the situation. Notably, the “Boycott BP” Facebook page has garnered the support of over 750,000 individuals.
Moreover, discussions surrounding “BP” have surfaced across various online platforms, including more than 9,000 blogs and over 23,000 tweets. Impressively, these discussions on Twitter have collectively generated approximately 49.5 million impressions.
4. Competitor risk
Social media risks related to competition involve potential negative impacts that arise from interactions and activities on social media platforms involving competitors. These risks can impact a business’s reputation, customer perception, and overall competitive standing.
Here are some social media risks related to competition:
Comparative marketing gone wrong:
While comparative marketing can be effective, it can backfire if not executed carefully, leading to legal issues or public backlash.
Customer poaching:
Competitors might target your customers with enticing offers or campaigns, attempting to shift their loyalty away from your brand.
Competitors might spread false rumors or disinformation about your products or services, impacting customer trust and potentially causing financial harm.
5. Innovation risk
While social media can be a powerful tool for innovation, it also comes with certain risks. Here are some innovation-related social media risks to be aware of:
Premature exposure:
Sharing innovative ideas or products too early on social media can lead to competitors gaining insight and potentially launching similar initiatives before you do.
Copycat competition:
Competitors might quickly replicate or modify your innovative concepts after seeing them on social media, reducing your competitive advantage.
Expectation management:
Overhyping an innovation on social media can lead to unrealistic customer expectations, making it challenging to meet those expectations in reality.
Critique and negative feedback:
Innovative ideas can attract critique and negative feedback on social media platforms, potentially discouraging further development or affecting your brand perception.
One of the best examples and case studies of crisis management that brands highlight is the Johnson and Johnson’s Tylenol incident.
In 1982, Johnson & Johnson faced a crisis when seven people in the United States died after consuming Tylenol capsules that had been tampered with and laced with cyanide. The company swiftly responded by recalling 31 million bottles of Tylenol, worth around $100 million. They cooperated fully with law enforcement and established a hotline to inform the public about the situation.
Johnson & Johnson also introduced tamper-evident packaging, which later became an industry standard. Their transparent and responsible crisis management approach is often cited as a model for effectively handling product-related emergencies.
Below are more details on this story and crisis management in this video of Retro Report.
Here’s a social media risk management plan tailored for brands for effective crisis management.
1. Risk identification:
Identify potential social media risks, such as reputation damage, data breaches, legal compliance issues, and crisis events.
2. Risk assessment:
Evaluate the potential impact and likelihood of each risk to prioritize them effectively.
3. Prevention and guidelines:
Establish clear social media usage guidelines for employees, including appropriate content and engagement practices.
Enforce strong password policies and enable two-factor authentication for all brand accounts.
4. Monitoring and alerts:
Utilize social media monitoring tools to track brand mentions, sentiment, and potential threats.
Set up real-time alerts for unusual activity or security breaches.
5. Data protection:
Implement stringent data protection measures, including encryption, secure data storage, and regular security audits.
6. Crisis response plan:
Develop a comprehensive crisis management plan with predefined actions for addressing negative events.
Assign specific roles and responsibilities for crisis communication and resolution.
7. Legal compliance:
Stay informed about relevant laws and regulations related to social media usage and advertising.
Ensure these tools adhere to strict security and privacy standards.
9. Incident handling:
Establish a well-defined incident response process to swiftly address social media-related incidents.
10. Communication strategy:
Develop a clear communication plan for addressing stakeholders, customers, and the public during a crisis. – Prioritize transparency and timely updates.
11. Regular audits:
Conduct regular audits of social media accounts, content, permissions, and security settings.
Tired of guesswork in SEO? Embrace the science of SEO split testing!
Discover how small changes to your website’s structure, keywords, and content can have a big impact on search rankings, organic traffic, and user engagement.
Let’s supercharge your website’s organic search results with our SEO split testing guide.
What is SEO Split Testing?
SEO split testing is the process of comparing different versions of web pages to measure their impact on search engine rankings. It’s like a controlled experiment, where you have a variant page with changes and a control page. By tracking the performance of each variant, you can identify the best performing webpage and enhance your website’s visibility in search engines.
The benefits of SEO split testing
Data-driven decision-making: You can make informed decisions based on empirical evidence on the effectiveness of different variations.
Improved user experience: Testing different elements can lead to a better user experience, resulting in higher engagement and improved rankings.
Increased organic traffic: You can attract more organic traffic from search engines by optimizing your website based on test results.
Better conversion rates: Split testing helps identify the most effective strategies to drive conversions.
Adaptation to algorithm changes: It allows you to adjust your SEO strategies in response to algorithm updates.
Stakeholder buy-in: A/B Split test results provide tangible evidence of the impact of SEO efforts.
Why should I split test my SEO strategy?
Below are the benefits of split testing the SEO strategy that might convince you to invest your time in them:
1. Improve Conversion Rates:
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) and SEO are closely related concepts. By split testing your SEO campaign you can increase traffic and conversion rates. You can fine-tune your SEO strategy to enhance user experience and boost conversions by testing various iterations of landing pages and calls-to-action buttons.
2. Optimize SEO Efforts:
By using split-testing, you can compare various iterations of your SEO strategy, including :
Keyword usage
Meta tags/descriptions
On-page optimization
Content organization
This practice allows you to identify which tactic produces the best outcomes. It assists you in determining the best strategies to raise your search engine rankings and increase organic traffic.
3. Keeping up with algorithm changes:
Search engine algorithms are always changing, so what works today might not work tomorrow. Split-testing enables you to modify and polish your SEO approach to conform to algorithm updates. You can make sure your website maintains its search engine optimization and visibility in the constantly shifting environment by being proactive and conducting ongoing testing.
4. Convince stakeholders and quatify Impact:
The impact of SEO can be quantified by measuring key metrics both before and after changes by performing an SEO Split test. This data-driven strategy offers verifiable proof of the efficacy of your SEO strategy, enabling you to convince stakeholders of the value of your optimizations and make wise resource allocation choices.
5. Refine user experience:
Split-testing SEO components can help you improve your website’s overall user experience. By testing various layouts, navigation structures, page load times, and mobile responsiveness, you can find changes that make your website more user-friendly
Factors to consider before performing the SEO Split test?
These several factors must be considered before performing an SEO split test.
Clear objectives: Define clear objectives for your test. What specific aspect of your SEO strategy are you testing?
Testing scope: Determine the scope of your test. Decide whether you’ll be testing a single webpage or multiple pages.
Sample size: Strive for a sample size that provides meaningful insights without being too resource-intensive.
Test duration: Determine the appropriate duration for your test within the time frame of changing dynamics.
Statistical significance: Establish the level of statistical significance you require for your results to be reliable. This helps determine the confidence level you need to make decisions based on the test data.
Choosing the right testing tool: Use a reliable, user-friendly A/B split testing tool with a solid track record.
Consistency in testing conditions: Make sure the testing conditions, such as the user demographics, devices, browsers, and traffic sources, are constant throughout the test.
Segmentation and personalization: Depending on user characteristics, decide whether you want to segment your audience or personalize the variations.
Data collection and analysis: Establish a clear plan for data collection and analysis to derive actionable conclusions.
Documentation and reporting: Document your test process, including the variations tested, metrics measured, and results obtained. This documentation will be valuable for future reference
How do you know if an SEO test is successful?
Keyword rankings:
When it comes to evaluating your SEO results, one important aspect to consider is monitoring your keyword rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). While rankings should not be the sole focus of your SEO campaign, they provide valuable insights into the performance and effectiveness of your targeted keywords. By regularly checking your rankings, you can track whether they are improving, declining, or remaining stagnant over time. If you find out that you are not ranking for the keywords you targeted, reevaluate whether it is worth continuing to focus on those keywords or considering alternative options.
Organic traffic:
Another way to see whether your SEO test was successful is by analyzing your website’s organic traffic. There are comprehensive tools like Content Studio that help you look for trends and changes in traffic volume, sources, and user behavior. Compare the data before and after implementing SEO strategies to identify any positive impact on organic traffic.
An increase in organic traffic serves as a strong indicator of the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. However, do keep in mind that organic traffic data is more important than overall traffic. It is because factors outside of SEO can influence overall traffic numbers. Conversely, a decrease in organic traffic suggests that your SEO tests are not working.
Backlinks:
Evaluate the quantity and quality of backlinks to your website. Backlinks from reputable and relevant sources can improve your website’s authority and search rankings. When implementing effective SEO practices, it is natural to witness an increase in backlinks. You need to assess whether the number of links and unique domains they originate from is growing, declining, or stagnant. However, quantity alone is not sufficient; the quality of backlinks also holds great importance. Low-quality backlinks can be detrimental to your website’s reputation, similar to having no links at all. Boost your business visibility in local search with professional services from Copify.
Check impressions:
Impressions refer to the number of times your website appears in search results without receiving any clicks. It serves as an initial metric to consider. This is because, when you begin optimizing for keywords, it’s unlikely that you’ll immediately land on the first page of search results.
Starting from lower pages means that even if your website appears in searches, there is a lower chance that it will be clicked. Knowing that you have begun ranking for those keywords will help you keep working toward the top of the page. You can use ‘Social Media Analytics’ by Content Studio to check your organic impressions. If it shows an increase in the number of organic impressions, your SEO tests are working if not better perform the tests again.
Bounce rate:
Another important aspect to consider when evaluating your SEO performance is analyzing the bounce rate of your website. The bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. By examining this metric, you can gain insights into how well your SEO tests are working. You should aim to have a lower bounce rate. This means that visitors find value in your content and are more likely to explore multiple pages on your website.
To improve your bounce rate, focus on creating high-quality content that is relevant, informative, and engaging. Ensure that your website is user-friendly, with clear navigation and intuitive design. Additionally, optimize your landing pages to align with the search intent of your target audience, delivering the information or solution they are seeking.
Conversion rates:
Tracking the number of conversions is one technique you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. Start with form submissions, purchases, sign-ups, and any other desired actions on your website. A rise in conversion rates indicates that your SEO tactics are effectively attracting visitors who are genuinely interested in your offerings. It signifies that your website’s content, user experience, and overall SEO optimization are aligned with the needs and expectations of your target audience.
To calculate the conversion rate, divide the number of conversions by the total number of visitors and multiply it by 100 to get the percentage.
This metric provides a clear indication of how well your website is performing in terms of converting visitors into customers or achieving your desired goals.
A/B Split Testing using Replug
Replug is a comprehensive platform for tracking and URL shortening. It provides many features to help you manage links and improve your marketing. Users can track link performance, shorten and customize URLs, and enhance the user experience.
It allows split A/B testing of various URL variations. By doing this you can determine their effect on click-through rates and overall performance.
Follow the steps given below using Replug and perform A/B split tests.
Once logged in, navigate to the Replug Links page.
Locate and click on the New Link button to initiate the process of creating a new link. Follow the subsequent steps provided to complete the link creation procedure.
Step 2
Before saving the link, activate the A/B Split testing feature by switching on the toggle button. This action will automatically set your destination URL as the initial A/B Testing Link with a weightage of 100%.
To include additional URLs for testing, simply click on the “Add Destination Link” button.
Step 3
You have the flexibility to assign different weights to each URL, as long as the total weightage adds up to 100%.
To simplify the process, you can utilize the “Equalize Weights” button, which automatically distributes the weightage equally among the URLs.
This allows for easy adjustment and optimization of the weight distribution for your A/B testing purposes.
Step 4
After enabling the A/B Testing feature, you are ready to save your branded link. Start engaging your audience by sharing your Replug Link
Now analyze link performance and keep using the best performing one.
Note: It’s important to note that the weightage assigned to each URL is not influenced by previous visits and does not have strict constraints.Whenever the short link is accessed, the final destination URL is selected based on the defined weightage, ensuring a dynamic and varied user experience. However, it’s worth mentioning that if your campaign type is CTA (Call-to-Action) and the specified link does not support iframe functionality, the link cannot be saved for A/B Testing. This limitation is due to the requirement of displaying web page content within another website using iframe. If the source website does not permit iframe inclusion, Replug displays a warning when creating CTA Campaigns.
FAQs
Does A/B Testing hurt SEO?
A/B testing itself does not hurt SEO. It can be a valuable strategy to optimize your website for better search engine rankings. When running A/B tests, it’s important to ensure that the changes you make align with SEO best practices and guidelines provided by search engines. By running tests you can improve your search engine ranking in Google search results.
Most common mistakes to avoid while running SEO split tests
No clear goals/ objectives
Simultaneous testing of multiple variations
Not collecting and analyzing enough data to draw statistically significant conclusions.
Not giving the test enough time to run and produce valid data.
Not documenting and tracking the modifications that were made and their impact on SEO performance.
Ignoring additional outside elements that could affect the test results.
What SEO elements can I test using split testing?
You can test various SEO elements to improve your website’s performance. Some elements you can consider testing include:
Page titles
Meta descriptions
Keyword usage and optimization
Headings and subheadings (H1, H2, etc.)
Content length and formatting
Navigation and site architecture
Calls-to-action
Linking strategies
Image optimization
Mobile responsiveness
URL structure
Site speed
What’s the difference between conducting a split test and an A/B test?
A split test and an A/B test are two different terms used to refer to the same type of experiment. However, the term “split test” is a broader term that encompasses any test where different versions are compared including A/B tests. In other words, it refers to dividing the traffic between multiple variations to measure their impact on key metrics. Whereas an A/B test specifically refers to comparing two versions: a control version (A) and a variant version (B).
Crafting friendly URLs holds utmost importance, as they significantly impact a website’s search engine ranking and overall user experience.
Whether you are a seasoned developer or a beginner, this guide will equip you with the knowledge and best practices to master the art of creating effective and user-friendly URL slugs.
What is a URL?
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is a web address used to identify and locate resources on the internet. It consists of several components, including the protocol (e.g., “http” or “https”), the domain name (e.g., “example.com” or “example.io”), and the slug (e.g., “keyword”) that identifies a specific resource on the website.
The portion of a URL that follows the domain name and any subdirectories is known as the URL slug. It is a human-readable and user-friendly text used to designate a particular web page. Keywords associated with the page’s content are frequently used in URL slugs, which makes them more descriptive and simple to remember.
URL slugs are vital for SEO. They provide a concise, descriptive, and user-friendly representation of a webpage’s content. This helps search engines and visitors easily understand your pages.
Moreover, including relevant keywords in the slug enhances search engine visibility and improves the user experience by allowing visitors to understand what the page is about before clicking. Well-crafted slugs also contribute to better indexing, readability, and shareability. This further increases the likelihood of attracting organic traffic and earning valuable backlinks from other websites.
Tips for writing SEO-friendly URL slugs
People often think URL slugs are a minor SEO element, but that’s not true. URL Slugs can significantly impact your website’s performance in search engine rankings and user engagement. Creating SEO-friendly URL slugs involves careful consideration of keywords, readability, and user experience. Below are some key actionable tips to help you optimize your URL slugs effectively.
1. Include your keyword in the URL slug
The very first item that comes to mind when discussing SEO is the keyword. In addition to the content, you must include your primary keyword in your URL slugs as well. Slugs are used by search engines to understand the context of your page content. As far as users are concerned, looking at the URL makes it easier for them to identify relevant content.
For example, if your focus keyword is ‘AI Tools for Social Media’, you need to incorporate these keywords in your URL slug, just like ConetntStudio did.
2. Keep them short yet informative
Try to keep your URL slugs short and informative if you want to make them appealing to both users and search engines. Imagine you run a website dedicated to a content curation tool. Instead of having lengthy URL slugs like:
This shorter version conveys the essence of the page’s content while being more user and SEO-friendly.
All that you need to keep in mind is that users are more likely to click on links with concise and relevant URLs, as they can quickly grasp the page’s content before visiting it. Moreover, shareability improves when URLs are shorter, making it easier for people to share your content on other platforms.
3. Use hyphens, not underscores, to separate words
Prioritize the use of hyphens instead of underscores. Hyphens serve as clear word separators that enhance the visual appeal and readability of your URLs. Search engines recognize hyphens as natural dividers between words. This enables them to interpret the content more accurately.
Visibly, the first version presents a tidy and simple URL that users and search engines can process without difficulty. The second version with underscores, on the other hand, seems cluttered and less user-friendly.
4. Make them lowercase
To ensure consistency and avoid problems with duplicate content, always use lowercase letters. Instead of something like “What-Are-Ctas-In-Marketing,” “what-are-ctas-in-marketing” is preferred. URLs are handled case-sensitively by search engines.
This means that “what-are-ctas-in-marketing” and “What-Are-Ctas-In-Marketing” are treated as two separate URLs. This might result in issues with duplicate content and weaken your website’s SEO efforts. Moreover, mixed-case URLs can make it more difficult for users to remember or share them correctly.
5. Keep it evergreen
Use content that will remain relevant and valuable over time when creating URL slugs. More precisely, avoid incorporating time-sensitive details such as specific years or dates in your URL slugs.
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Evergreen slugs help improve SEO results because search engines value content that holds its value over an extended period. You can prevent potential broken links and maintain the SEO authority that has developed over time by getting rid of time-sensitive elements from your slugs. This eliminates the need to update URLs with each passing year.
6. Use 1 domain and 1 subdomain
Maintain a clean URL structure by sticking to one primary domain and a minimal number of subdomains. This approach consolidates your website’s authority and prevents content fragmentation. Opt for “blog.example.com” instead of “example.com/blog.”
Moreover, a consolidated URL structure simplifies your website’s maintenance and improves link equity distribution. You avoid the risk of diluting SEO authority across multiple subdomains, ensuring that your primary domain gains maximum value from incoming links.
Source: SEO Sherpa
You can use subfolders instead of subdomains. Subfolders within the main domain consolidate link equity, making the website more authoritative and easier to rank. Many case studies have shown significant traffic increases when moving content from subdomains to subfolders.
Source: Andy Chadwick’s Twitter account (X) Tweet
Source: Stephen Kenw Chadwick’s Twitter account (X) tweet
7. Update old slugs but be careful
Always make sure the right redirects are set up when changing a slug to prevent broken links and maintain the SEO authority from the previous URL.
Because sudden changes can result in broken links and have a negative effect on user experience and search engine rankings, managing URL changes requires careful planning. You can smoothly direct users and search engines to the new URL while transferring the SEO value accrued by the old slug by implementing 301 redirects.
Your website will continue to be user-friendly and search engine optimized if outdated slugs are strategically updated. Furthermore, it aids in maintaining backlinks and search engine rankings while ensuring a steady flow of organic traffic to your updated content.
8. Match slugs to headlines
To further emphasize the relevance of your content, you must ensure that your URL slugs and page headlines are consistent. Both users and search engines will have an easier time understanding the purpose of your page if you align both elements.
This practice assists search engines in associating your content’s main topic with the URL, potentially improving your website’s ranking for relevant search queries. Additionally, users are more likely to click on links that display a clear correlation between the headline and URL, enhancing their browsing experience.
9. Use fewer page categories
Keep your URL slug structure simple by keeping the number of categories to a minimum and avoid keyword stuffing. Slugs that are clear and uncomplicated make it simpler for users to navigate your website and for search engines to comprehend your content.
Let’s take a look at a social media analytics tool web page. Rather than using a long and confusing URL, they chose a short and descriptive URL slug:
This direct method keeps things crystal clear.
10. Opt for HTTP protocol
Secure your website using HTTPS instead of HTTP because search engines prefer secure sites. HTTPS encrypts data exchanged between users and your website. In other words, it allows you to protect sensitive information from potential online threats.
This added layer of security instills confidence in your visitors and encourages them to engage with your content or even make transactions without fear of data breaches. It’s the padlock icon in their browser’s address bar that makes them believe that their connection is secure. This builds their trust in your brand, leading to increased user engagement, longer browsing sessions, and conversions.
Find a memorable domain name and pair it with a relevant URL slug. By doing this, you can enhance your band’s recognition and reinforce your website’s theme.
The combination in the picture above exemplifies how a cohesive URL structure can align with your brand’s identity.
When users encounter a radio domain name that resonates with their interests, such as “contentstudio.io,” they are more likely to remember and revisit your website. This instant recall plays a significant role in building a loyal audience base.
Adding a relevant URL slug like “/content-marketing” further enhances user engagement. It communicates the content focus, guiding visitors to the specific section they are interested in. This targeted approach saves users time and effort, fostering a positive user experience.
6 major mistakes to avoid while creating URL Slugs
As discussed before, URL slugs play an important role in enhancing your website’s SEO and user experience. However, there are common mistakes that can impact your website’s performance and rankings. Below are six major mistakes that you need to avoid when crafting URL slugs for your web pages.
1. Avoid stop words
Common words like “and,” “the,” “of,” “a”, etc. are stop words and they add very little to the meaning of a URL. Avoid using them in your slugs because doing so will lengthen them and make them less readable. For example:
The use of specific dates in URL slugs can result in out-of-date content and affect SEO. Rather than
“/product-launch-2023,”
use
“/latest-product-launch”
or
“/new-product-release.”
In this manner, you can avoid updating your URLs annually and ensure their continued relevance.
The biggest issue is that when you need to change the date from 2023 to 2024, you need to change the slug and redirect the old URL to the new one. This process can be time-consuming and may lead to broken links if not handled correctly.
Moreover, these URL redirects can be suboptimal. They may result in less link juice passing through to the destination URLs. This means that the SEO value of your old URL might not fully transfer to the new one. By leaving out numbers and using descriptive slugs, you avoid the need for frequent redirects and maintain a consistent flow of link equity to your content.
3. Avoid using special characters
Including special characters like question marks, exclamation marks, or dollar signs can cause issues with URL encoding in your slugs. Certain characters are replaced with encoded strings, making the URL less readable. Furthermore, some special characters may not be universally supported by all browsers and platforms, potentially causing compatibility issues for some users.
You can use hyphens to separate words in your slugs. Hyphens are considered word separators, providing better readability for search engines and users alike. Hyphen-separated slugs contribute to a cleaner and more professional appearance for your URLs.
4. Avoid trailing slash issues
Adding a trailing slash at the end of a URL can inadvertently create duplicate content problems for your website. Confusion and a negative effect on SEO may result from search engines treating URLs with and without the trailing slash as separate pages. Maintaining consistency in your URL structure is essential for mitigating this problem.
You can guarantee that users and search engines always access the preferred version of your content by consistently using one format for your URLs and implementing the appropriate redirects.
Making changes to your URL structure or slugs is a common practice, but it’s critical to handle these changes carefully to avoid broken links and maintain a consistent user experience. Setting up 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new ones is essential when changing a URL.
Users who are trying to access your content may become frustrated if you neglect to implement proper redirects. Broken links not only have a bad effect on the user experience, but they also give the wrong impression to search engines, which could lower the ranking of your website.
6. Avoid ranking cannibalization
Ranking cannibalization is a phenomenon where multiple pages on your website vie for the same keyword. As a result, there is internal competition in the search results. Concentrate on making sure that each URL slug targets a different and specific keyword or topic to prevent ranking cannibalization. Conduct keyword research and use different variations for each page.
You can improve each page’s content’s clarity and relevance in the eyes of search engines by allocating unique URL slugs to particular keywords or topics. This enables search algorithms to better understand the purpose and intent of your pages, leading to improved rankings for relevant search queries.
How to optimize URL slugs?
Your links will be easier to read, remember, and navigate with a well-optimized URL slug, which will increase click-through rates and engagement. This section will examine URL slug optimization using a practical example and the Replug Shortener campaign.
You’ll land on a dashboard. Create your brand here by clicking on the ‘New Brand’ button.
Step 3
Click on ‘Manage’ and select ‘Campaigns’ from the drop-down menu and fill in details to create your campaign.
Step 4
Once you’re done creating your campaign, select ‘Replug Links’ from the drop-down menu to optimize your long URL slug.
Step 5
Copy or edit the new link to your preference, select Update, and you’re done in steps 1 through 5.
How to change your slug in WordPress?
WordPress is known for its user-friendly interface and flexibility, making it a popular choice for website development. Changing a URL slug in WordPress is a simple process that can be done within the platform’s settings by following the steps below.
Step 1
Before starting you must ensure that your permalink structure allows for user-friendly URL slugs. Navigate to “Settings” and then to “Permalinks.”
You can choose one of the standard permalink structure types or create your own. However, it is recommended to use the”Post name” structure.
Step 2
Open the editor of the post or webpage and look for the “URL” section in the rightmost panel. Click on the automatically generated slug and edit it the way you want to. That’s it.
The strengthening of your website’s search engine optimization is one of the main advantages of using SEO-friendly URL slugs. Search engines can learn a lot about the content of your page when you use relevant keywords in the URL slugs of your URLs. The ability of the search engine to index and rank your pages for pertinent search queries is subsequently improved.
2. Increase shareability
Concise, descriptive, and simple-to-remember URL slugs are more likely to be shared on various platforms. Users are more likely to share valuable content with their friends, coworkers, or social media networks when the URLs are simple and clear.
When the reader comes across your URL, which is to the point (has the focus keyword), they can easily copy and paste the URL. The user-friendly and shareable URL slug allows others to access the same content quickly and effortlessly.
3. Enhance click-through rates
An SEO-optimized URL slug can also improve click-through rates (CTR) from search engine results pages (SERPs). When users see a relevant and well-structured URL slug that matches their search intent, they are more likely to click on the link, expecting it to lead to content that aligns with their needs. The user-friendly and keyword-rich URL slug assures the user that the page contains the desired information, thus increasing the likelihood of a click.
Let’s say someone is searching for “best smartphone deals”. He’ll click on a URL with a slug like “/best-smartphone-deals” rather than a generic one like “/products/abc123.”
Concluding remarks
URL slugs play a pivotal role in the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). These user-friendly, descriptive segments of URLs not only enhance the overall user experience but also significantly impact a website’s search engine ranking and visibility.
Optimize URL slugs with relevant keywords, using hyphens as separators, and keep them concise. In this way, you can signal search engines about your content’s focus and improve your chances of ranking higher in search results.
FAQs on URL Slugs
Why is it called a URL slug?
It’s called a URL slug due to its historical resemblance to the slimy, segmented part of a slug, reflecting its compact and descriptive nature in a URL.
What is permalink vs slug?
A permalink is the full URL of a webpage, while a slug is the portion of the permalink that represents the page’s content.
What is the URL slug parameter?
The URL slug parameter is the user-friendly, human-readable portion of a URL that identifies a specific page’s content.
As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, sales prospecting tools have become indispensable assets for sales teams worldwide. These tools empower B2B sales professionals to identify promising prospects, engage with them effectively, and close deals with precision.
By leveraging the best sales prospecting tools available, sales teams can optimize their efforts, capitalize on opportunities, and stay ahead of the competition. These tools also support a variety of prospecting techniques, allowing teams to tailor their outreach strategies based on audience behavior and engagement patterns.
In this blog post, we will explore a carefully curated selection of the best B2B sales prospecting tools for 2023. From customer relationship management (CRM) software to sales intelligence platforms and beyond, we will cover the gamut of tools that will redefine your sales prospecting strategy.
So, whether you’re a seasoned sales veteran looking to enhance your arsenal or a budding sales enthusiast eager to conquer the market, fasten your seatbelt as we guide you through the top sales prospecting tools that will revolutionize your approach and elevate your sales game in 2023.
Are you ready to discover the ultimate sales prospecting tools that will drive your sales success in 2023? Let’s dive in and explore the game-changers that will shape your prospecting journey and position you at the forefront of the sales landscape.
What is a sales prospecting tool?
Sales prospecting is the process of looking for potential customers or buyers and improving your sales pipeline. Its main objective is to arouse the interest of a prospect in your product until you can successfully lead them through the sales funnel and convert them into buying customers.
Sales prospecting tools introduce automation into repetitive tasks, helping save time and increase the efficiency of your sales representatives. Sales prospecting tools introduce automation into repetitive tasks, helping save time and increase the efficiency of your sales representatives, especially when paired with smart SaaS sales hiring strategies. With them, you can also generate more data, move faster, and effectively engage your clients in a way that would boost sales and close more deals.
There are plenty of sales prospecting tools on the market that you can use to achieve different tasks, such as:
Efficient lead generation:
Sales prospecting tools automate the process of finding and qualifying leads, saving time and effort for sales professionals. These tools leverage advanced algorithms and data analytics to identify high-potential prospects, increasing the efficiency of lead-generation activities.
Improved sales productivity:
Sales prospecting tools streamline workflows by automating repetitive tasks such as lead research, contact management, and follow-up communications. This automation frees up valuable time for salespeople, allowing them to focus on building relationships and closing deals. As prospects move further down the funnel, creating a clear and compelling business proposal becomes essential for sealing the agreement. Incorporating AI proposal writing into the process can further accelerate the path to closing deals by generating tailored proposals quickly and accurately.
Targeted and personalized outreach:
With sales prospecting tools, sales professionals can gather valuable insights about prospects, including their interests, needs, and pain points. This information enables personalized and targeted outreach, increasing the chances of engagement and conversion.
Enhanced lead nurturing:
Sales prospecting tools enable effective lead nurturing by automating follow-ups, scheduling reminders, and tracking interactions. This consistent and timely communication helps build relationships, keep leads engaged, and ultimately increases conversion rates.
Sales prospecting tools provide access to comprehensive data about prospects, including contact information, company details, and social media profiles. This data empowers sales professionals to make informed decisions, tailor their messaging, and identify the most promising opportunities.
Integration with CRM systems:
Many sales prospecting tools seamlessly integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) systems, ensuring smooth data transfer and a unified view of prospects. This integration enables efficient lead management, pipeline tracking, and collaboration among sales team members.
Data enrichment and accuracy:
Sales prospecting tools offer data enrichment capabilities, helping to fill in missing information, verify contact details, and update prospect data. This ensures that sales professionals have accurate and up-to-date information, enabling more effective prospecting and engagement.
Insights and analytics:
Sales prospecting tools provide valuable insights and analytics on prospecting activities, such as open rates, response rates, and conversion rates. These metrics enable sales teams to measure performance, identify areas for improvement, and optimize their prospecting strategies.
Scalability and growth:
Sales prospecting tools are designed to accommodate growing sales teams and increasing prospecting volumes. They offer scalability features that allow businesses to expand their prospecting efforts seamlessly as their sales operations grow.
Competitive advantage:
By leveraging the power of sales prospecting tools, sales professionals gain a competitive edge. These tools enable them to identify and engage with prospects more effectively, resulting in higher conversion rates, increased revenue, and a stronger market position.
How to choose the right sales prospecting tool
Choosing the right sales prospecting tool can significantly impact the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales efforts. Here are some key factors to consider when selecting the ideal tool for your business:
1. Define your needs: Start by identifying your specific sales prospecting needs. Consider factors such as lead generation, lead management, contact enrichment, email outreach, social media integration, analytics, and integration with existing systems (e.g., CRM). Understanding your requirements will help narrow down the options.
2. Evaluate features: Look for sales prospecting tools that offer essential features aligned with your needs. Consider features like lead scoring, data enrichment, email automation, social media prospecting, integration with proposal tools, and analytics. Prioritize tools that provide the functionalities most crucial to your sales process.
3. User-friendliness: Consider the tool’s user interface and ease of use. A user-friendly tool will minimize the learning curve and allow your team to quickly adopt and leverage its capabilities. Look for intuitive navigation, clear workflows, and a well-designed interface that aligns with your team’s technical proficiency.
4. Integration capabilities: Assess how well the prospecting tool integrates with your existing technology stack, especially your CRM system. For instance, if you’re using Salesforce, understanding how to implement a Salesforce ETL solution can help streamline data transfer processes, enhance integration, and maintain data accuracy. Seamless integration ensures smooth data transfer, eliminates manual data entry, and provides a unified view of prospecting activities across your sales ecosystem.
5. Scalability and customization: Consider whether the tool can scale and adapt as your business grows. Look for customization options that allow you to tailor the tool to your specific needs, such as creating custom fields, workflows, and reporting. Ensure the tool can handle increased prospecting volumes and accommodate the evolving requirements of your sales team.
6. Vendor reputation and support: Research the reputation and credibility of the tool’s vendor. Look for customer reviews, case studies, and testimonials to gain insights into their track record and customer satisfaction. Additionally, assess the vendor’s customer support offerings, including availability, response times, and support channels.
7. Pricing and ROI: Consider the pricing structure and evaluate the tool’s potential return on investment (ROI). Compare pricing plans, features offered at each tier, and any additional costs such as onboarding or training. Calculate the potential value the tool can bring to your sales process and weigh it against the cost. If your team works within strict project budgets, aligning your tool selection with solid project budget management principles can help ensure you stay financially on track while optimizing your sales efforts.
8. Free trials and demos: Take advantage of free trials or product demonstrations offered by the prospecting tool providers. Test the tool with real-life scenarios and involve key stakeholders to gauge its usability, effectiveness, and fit for your sales team’s needs.
9. Seek recommendations and feedback: Reach out to peers, industry professionals, and sales communities for recommendations and insights. Their firsthand experiences and feedback can provide valuable perspectives and help you make an informed decision.
By considering these factors, you can identify the sales prospecting tool that aligns best with your sales process, maximizes productivity, and helps you achieve your sales goals more effectively.
Here are some of the best sales prospecting tools:
1. HubSpot sales lead software
Consider HubSpot’s Sales Hub for robust sales prospecting. It offers automated prospect list building, real-time tracking, custom views for sorting prospects, automation for timely engagement, and automated email sequences for effective outreach. Explore Sales Hub to elevate your sales efforts.
Pricing: Offers a free trial, paid plan starts from 45$ per month.
2. Replug
Replug lets you create custom short links and enables you to generate leads and traffic to your website by including your branded message on any webpage.
With this tool, you can promote your product, event, or service by optimizing your link with personalized call-to-action, custom domains, powerful analytics, A/B testing, Deep Links and retargeting pixels. By doing this, you will increase your returns from your shared links. Replug now gives you deep analytics by tracking URLs which can help you increase sales by 500%.
Pricing: Free trial. Paid plans start from $19/month.
3. LeadFeeder
Leadfeeder is a B2B lead generation tool that recognizes the intention of the buyer through anonymous web traffic. It helps companies see how leads are generated, how they arrive on the website, and what their buying behavior and decisions are. LeedFeeder is also used by businesses to identify what visitors are looking for to directly advertise and engage them.
Price: Free plan with limited features. Free trial. Paid plans start at $77/month.
4. ContentStudio
ContentStudio is an integrated cloud-based content and social media management tool used by small, medium-sized, and solo businesses. It features content management functionality, automated publishing, social media monitoring, post-scheduling, and multi-user collaboration.
ContentStudio can help manage multiple social media accounts for users. It also offers a text composer, a search engine optimization tool, and suggestions for creating custom content.
Pricing: 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $49/month.
Snov.io is an effective tool for contract management and efficient cold outreach campaigns. It can help you discover more convertible prospects, verify contacts, perform lead progress tracking, and automate cold outreach.
With Snov.io, you can find email addresses anywhere – by companies, professional social profiles, or domains via the app or on company websites, search results, and LinkedIn using the Chrome extension. Besides, you will save time and increase your revenue through customizable campaigns and numerous integration options.
Pricing: Free plan. Paid plans start at $39/month.
6. Skrapp.io
Skrapp.io is an email finder tool that enables you to scrape email addresses from professional social media networks and websites. It comes with an advanced domain search feature that helps you discover the emails of employers and their companies.
This email finder tool can also be integrated with LinkedIn or Sales Navigator and find the details of your leads according to their name, email, address, company, and LinkedIn URL. The results can then be easily exported to your ESP, CRM, or file storage service.
Pricing: Free plan. Paid plans start at $49/month.
FindThatLead is a SaaS software used to find leads for businesses based on website traffic. It’s not only used as a lead-generating tool but also as a prospecting tool for cold campaigns and email outreach. On top of it, you can use FindThatLead to find the phone numbers of potential clients.
This tool comes with a domain search feature, email verifier, email campaign sender, and social search feature. FindThatLead is also available as an extension that can be easily integrated into your Chrome browser to deliver instant results on your current webpage.
Pricing: Free plan. Paid plans start at $49/month.
SendPulse is an email marketing automation tool. It can be used to schedule email campaigns, generate and segment email subscribers, launch marketing outreach using web notifications, SMS, and email, perform A/B testing, as well as to evaluate and track performance to collect actionable insights.
The platform offers a user-friendly interface for launching marketing campaigns, which makes it perfect for both beginners and professional marketers and organizations.
Pricing: Free plan. Free trial. Paid plans start at $9/month.
9. Mention
Mention is a social listening and monitoring tool that allows brands and agencies to discover the mindset and behaviour of their audience across the web and social media networks. It’s used by companies to monitor the comments about their product, obtain insightful analytics on the industry, and discover the impact they have on their marketing outreach.
Pricing: Free limited plan. Paid plans start at $29/month.
Owler is a tool that provides difficult company data and insightful news notifications for professional marketers, sales experts, and executives. It also helps businesses across the world to carry out fast market research and discover the latest industry news and updates that can be used to gain a competitive edge.
Pricing: Free plan. Paid plans start at $99/year.
11. Calendly
Calendly is a powerful software for scheduling meetings, group events, and one-on-one appointments with the aim of saving time, improving service quality, and accelerating sales. It removes the archaic method of scheduling appointments, interviews, and likes through emails and phones.
Pricing: Free plan. 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $8/month for every user.
Close.io is a sales engagement tool developed to help businesses generate higher revenue by attracting more leads. It automatically tracks every touchpoint with a lead and provides a visual timeline that enables your sales team to skip the back and forth associated with different tabs and apps and focus on the deal.
Pricing: 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $25/month.
13. Zoom
Zoom is a web-based video conferencing software offered as both a mobile app and a desktop client. It facilitates easy online meetings, video webinars, an app marketplace, chats, and so on. Zoom is a user-friendly platform that provides audio, video, and screen sharing/recording experience across Android, Windows, iOS, and Zoom rooms.
Pricing: Free plan. Zoom Meeting paid plans to start at $14.99/month.
14. Prospect.io
Prospect.io enables you to generate email lists, launch effective email campaigns, and measure outcomes. It can be easily integrated with different services such as HubSpot Sales and Salesforce. Salesforce data management will allow you to avoid duplicate emails, and inconsistent data and keep contact information secure.
Prospect.io also automatically discovers and verifies emails, phone numbers, and job titles of leads. It comes with a drip campaign feature that sends multiple emails with an inbuilt email template that will be filled with the information of the lead.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $89/month.
15. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an effective sales management tool that helps marketers close more deals and rapidly discover new prospects using specific and customized insights such as company updates and lead recommendations. The platform has made it much easier for sales organizations to effectively discover leads and manage their pipelines.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $79.99/month.
16. AngelList
AngelList is a platform for startups that makes hiring, job listing, and investing processes super easy. It’s a pioneer in online startup investing and an excellent choice for early-stage startups. AngelList features a directory of various companies that can be filtered according to organization type and employee size, as well as the stage of funding.
Pricing: Free plan. Paid plans depend on the company size and can be between $199 and $1,999/month.
17. NuovoTeam
NuovoTeam is a business collaboration tool for Android and iOS that offers the Push-to-Talk app for instant on-field connectivity. It facilitates hassle-free two-way communication over cellular or Wi-Fi networks, at the push of a single button. On-field sales representatives can leverage instant messaging, document sharing, location tracking, group calls and much more for instant team collaboration.
Pricing: NuovoTeam offers a business plan of $5 per user per month
Sales prospecting can be quite challenging, filled with different back-and-forth processes and activities, but leveraging the features of some of the tools provided above can help you or your sales team become more productive, rapidly connect with new and existing leads, and generate more revenue.
FAQs
Can sales prospecting tools integrate with my existing CRM system?
Many sales prospecting tools offer seamless integration with popular CRM systems. This integration ensures smooth data transfer, eliminates manual data entry, and provides a unified view of prospecting activities across your sales ecosystem.
What kind of automation features do sales prospecting tools provide?
Sales prospecting tools offer automation features such as automated notifications, email sequences, and follow-up reminders. These features help streamline and optimize prospect engagement, ensuring timely and consistent communication with potential customers.
How do sales prospecting tools enhance lead nurturing?
Sales prospecting tools enable effective lead nurturing by automating follow-ups, scheduling reminders, and tracking interactions. These tools help sales teams stay engaged with leads, build relationships, and increase conversion rates by delivering personalized and timely communication.
Can sales prospecting tools help with data enrichment and accuracy?
Yes, sales prospecting tools often provide data enrichment capabilities. They help fill in missing information, verify contact details, and update prospect data, ensuring that sales professionals have accurate and up-to-date information for effective prospecting and engagement.
Are sales prospecting tools suitable for businesses of all sizes?
Yes, sales prospecting tools cater to businesses of all sizes. They offer scalability features to accommodate growing sales teams and increasing prospecting volumes. Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, there are sales prospecting tools available to meet your specific needs.
Can sales prospecting tools provide insights and analytics?
Yes, sales prospecting tools often provide insights and analytics on prospecting activities. You can track metrics such as open rates, response rates, and conversion rates to measure performance, identify areas for improvement, and optimize your prospecting strategies.
QR code is the bridge between your online and offline marketing efforts. Nurturing your consumers through the marketing funnel by giving them the correct information at the right time is the key to a successful marketing campaign.
Technology is meant to complement traditional print marketing and advertising instead of replacing it. The most successful and engaging marketing campaigns have one thing in common: integrating digital marketing approaches with conventional advertising.
What is QR Code?
QR are 2D barcodes that are scanned through smartphone devices through cameras or their QR code scanning capability.
The strategic use and placement of QR codes with access to the updated and relevant information can be the most significant asset.
Why does QR code marketing matter?
The QR codes were used by a Toyota subsidiary named Denso in 1994. They helped in tracking the vehicle parts and streamline the manufacturing process.
This allowed the fast-decoding process and thus called Quick Response Code.
Back when it was introduced, there was a minimum number of people leveraging this technology. With a tiny number of use-cases, marketers predicted the QR code trend not to last too long.
Fast forward to 2020; the pandemic catapulted the QR code adoption not because of its versatility but for the fact that it was a safe, hygienic and cost-effective solution.
Not just that, it also gave an option to collect data from the traditional marketing campaigns.
Is QR code marketing here to stay?
According to Bank My Cell, there are 6.648 billion smartphone users globally, which means 83.40% of the world population owns a smartphone. With the growing rate of QR code adoption, they can help increase brand awareness, increase sales and enhance customer engagement with the brand.
Modern way to create QR codes is through URL shorteners. Tools like Replug, Bitly and other allows users to create custom shortened URLs without needing to know anything about HTML. When sharing these shortened links, users just need to scan the link with their smartphone camera. This method is great because no technical skills are required, and any recipient can access the shortened URL.
How can you use QR codes for your marketing goals?
Increase social media following:
Social media presence for any business is no longer an option. It’s a necessity. You can use QR codes on the products for your marketing material to direct users to your social media pages like Facebook, Instagram.
This is a great way to maximize reach on social media networks. You can also ask them for a review of your product or tag them in the user-generated content with your product.
Get app downloads:
If used strategically, QR code marketing can be one of the fastest ways to increase app downloads and drive users into the mobile app marketing funnel. Burger King used them during 2020 MTV VMAs to let viewers download the Burger King app. These ads encouraged the viewers to scan the codes to download the app and avail various discounts.
You can use the QR code to direct viewers to a page or website with detailed information. The information not covered in the print ad, such as product description, pricing list, dates and time, the procedure to place an order, can be communicated via the code. The luxury brand, Burberry, introduced sustainable labeling where they outlined the product attributes through this.
QR codes can be used on marketing materials from billboards, print ads and business cards to direct users to webpages. This helps marketers to build email lists by asking users to sign up to avail certain offers. This will be a good strategy to boost your email marketing strategy.
Enhance the user experience:
You can improve the user experience by offering them valuable and necessary information in the QR code—for example, an instructional video to set up the product or printable sheet or link to the recipe on food products.
Increase leads: QR codes can be strategically used for lead generation according to the kind of business. For example, a real estate agency had to sell a large office building. They used these to generate and track leads.
You can use QR codes for establishing product transparency through product packaging. This will help you to win your customer’s trust. It will increase the customer’s loyalty and engagement which is why they are more likely will stick to the brand.
Share contact details: With the vCard QR code, you can share your contact details such as email, work address, phone details, location etc., with your customers. The dynamic one gives you the freedom to edit the information many times without reprinting the code.
Personalize the experience: With the flexibility to embed multiple content formats into QR codes, brands have attracted customers with personalized shopping experiences. JC Penny on Christmas released “Santa tags”. The idea was to allow the giver to record a personalized message played when the recipient scans the code.
Increase post purchase engagement: Avail the opportunity to engage your customer after the purchase. QR codes for rating and review pages are the one way to go about it. You can also link these to discount coupons for their future purchases, so they continue shopping with you. The Amazon QR codes drive repeat purchases and thus increasing the website traffic.
Get reviews and feedback: According to writers block hive, 86% of people said they trust online reviews as much as they believe in word of mouth. You can use a QR code to ask for product reviews and build the customer’s trust by providing them with the information they are looking for.
1-Restaurant Menus: With the pandemic, restaurants looked for safe and hygienic options for their customers. From menus to payments, restaurants used QR codes to design a contactless experience for their customers.
QR code menus lower the printing price and are also more convenient to update about the availability of items, price, details etc., without reprinting.
One cannot deny the effectiveness of OOH advertising. According to Dash Two’s study, 71% of consumers said digital billboards are more appealing than online ads. Pairing the billboard with a QR code strategically can drive consumers to take action and thus getting you data.
Walmart, during the 2020 holidays, when their sales are supposed to be high, didn’t observe the shoppers due to the covid-19 pandemic, they launched virtual billboards at places where they did not have brick and mortar stores.
These virtual stores allowed people to scan and buy the products on the spot from their online stores.
Visitors scan the code next to a painting, and they get a series of stories about the artwork, its history and the painter themselves.
The intriguing stories about war, deception, insanity, love and romance added to the experience of the museum visitors.
4- Recycling:
PepsiCo used an integrated hydration platform with QR codes in their soda stream style dispenser. For single-use plastic, PepsiCo used an integrated hydration platform. Other companies are embracing this innovation as well. Waste Direct, a leading waste disposal and recycling service in the UK, is leveraging QR codes to simplify waste management for convenient waste collection scheduling and more.
The users can bring their bottles to fill them with still or carbonated options. Thus, replacing the vending machine with dispensers that use QR code stickers. The system was launched in schools and offices, but it was later expanded into public places.
Add a call for action next to your QR code: A QR code is like the door opening into the experience your customer wants to have. But if there is no sign on the door, nobody will enter. A compelling call to action is therefore necessary.
QR code Placement: Make sure your QR code is strategically placed in a well visible place where your target user can notice it and quickly scan it. It should be set against a bright background to increase its readability.
Brand your QR code: Make sure the QR code reflects your brand identity. Branding is an essential part of it as well to generate more scans. Make them more attractive by customising them with brand colours and logos.
Mind QR code proportion: While using it on the marketing material or packaging, make sure not to distort the ratio since it can make the scanning difficult.
Minimize the number of QR codes: If there are multiple QR codes on the package or your print ad, it’ll confuse the audience, and thus you’ll miss the opportunity. Ideally, you should go with one goal per QR code, but if you want to give them a holistic view of your product, then you should create a universal link and direct them to the information they are looking for.
Use interactive landing pages: When linking your QR code to the video, file or landing page, make the content accessible on a smartphone and mobile-friendly.
High-quality QR code: Make sure you use a high-quality QR code with well-maintained whitespace so it is easy to read and scan.
Track data: Once your QR code marketing goes live, keep track of data. This data will tell you about your best performing and underperforming campaigns, and you can optimise them accordingly.
Benefits of dynamic QR code:
Editable: You can edit your dynamic QR code’s content at any time, allowing you to print your active QR codes, and you can still change the content at any time.
Data tracking: You can track data of your dynamic QR code addresses, contact numbers, and names; you can follow the number of scans, time of a scan, location of the scan and even people used it to scan it.
Cost-effective: A QR code generator is very cost-effective, and some platforms even offer it for free
Choosing a QR code generator:
Making the right choice of a QR code generator is the prerequisite of leveraging QR code marketing for your business. There are unlimited free QR code generators available, but make sure to choose with:
What are the data points you can get from QR codes?
QR codes are easy to use and are a great tool to analyse users’ click behaviour. They offer multiple data points such as time of the scan, location of the scan, times it has been scanned etc. With the right messaging and strategy, you can ask your users for email addresses, contact numbers and names.
Is there any expiration date for QR codes?
Some QR code generators offer a limited period or a limited number of scans. Once that is over, your QR code expires. However, some QR codes provide a lifetime of free access, and there is no limit on time or number of scans. In this case, you only have to make sure the URL is not broken.
How can we use QR codes in marketing?
QR codes are one of the most widely used tools for marketing by brands and businesses of all sizes.
You can use QR code for:
Directing customers to your website
Getting App downloads
Share the business and contact details with potential clients
Share the address and location
Building email lists
Encouraging customers to leave a review
Engaging the customers for post-purchase
Personalized marketing tools the marketing
Sending prompted SMS and emails
Access AR for marketing
How to promote QR codes for your business?
There are various ways in which you can promote QR codes:
Include QR codes on the packaging
Include QR codes on marketing material both online and offline
Include QR codes in email signatures
Include QR codes on your business cards
Stick QR codes on tables, doors and signage where it can grab customer’s attention
Want to tap into the latest content marketing best practices to ensure you’re doing what’s best for your business? Then, you are in the right place. In this piece, we dive into the latest content marketing best practices for 2022 that are a must-do.
Content marketing is one of the most critical marketing strategies for companies today. After all, content is king. The right content can help you win new customers, expand your company’s reach, and generate more leads. But inappropriate content can backfire and hurt your brand more than anything else.
Here are some Semrush stats and facts of 2021 that you must know before developing a content strategy for 2022.
High-performing content types in 2021 were videos followed by blog posts, success stories, and case studies.
The top channels for AI content distribution were organic social media, email marketing, paid social media, and organic search.
The top 5 content marketing challenges in 2021 were attracting quality leads with content, promoting content, creating content that resonates with the audience, proving ROI of content, and improving the SEO performance of the content.
Below we have discussed each of the content marketing best practices. We’ve also shared tips to help you put them into action and overcome the challenges. Ready to up your content marketing game? Let’s dig in:
1. Increase Use of AI-Technology
AI Technology is becoming a significant game-changer, and it will add more innovation to the business practices in the coming years. For example, AI-based content generation tools like Vondy, Jarvis, and Sonic help put out larger quantities of content with lesser effort.
But the negative side of AI tools is that they can affect the authenticity of the content.
How to Make the Most of AI Tools?
Google AI is getting smarter day by day, and it can detect AI-generated content. However, using cheap AI will surely cost you as Google will not rank such articles. Here’s what you can do:
Do not completely generate a piece of content as user-generated content has a higher value.
Write a piece of content and improve the content structure using an AI writing tool.
Use AI tools such as Grammarly to refine your content.
Many keyword research and content analysis tools, such as SEMrush, Aherefs, etc.., give you a better idea of what keywords to use and perform better to rank Google SERP. However, it’s always good to explore other options as well. If you’re looking for different solutions, Semrush alternatives can offer unique features and pricing models that may better suit your needs.
Tools like answerthepublic.com and Sparktoro.com help determine what the audience is talking about.
AI is not confined to automatic writing but also other technologies. For example, the use of AI-based chatbots is increasing, and by 2023 it will drive $112B in retail sales. In addition, as AI, machine learning, and Natural Language Processing grow, chatbots will become more used as 24/7 customer service agents.These advancements also play a crucial role in managing high call volume, ensuring efficient and timely responses to customer inquiries
Here’s a statement of SEO expert Eli Schwartz on AI Technology
Source:contentmarketinginstitute.com
2. Use of AR and VR
Since 2017, augmented and virtual reality use has doubled as 85 million people used VR/AR technology in 2021. It is expected that the market size of the VR industry will grow up to $300 billion by 2024. Also, VR and AR enhance user experience so that they will become an integral part of the content marketer’s strategy and content.With innovations like Apple VR, companies are pushing boundaries, making these technologies more accessible and immersive for consumers and businesses alike.
Why Incorporate AR and VR into Your Content Marketing Strategy?
Augment Reality
3D imaging and AR have become a popular part of the e-commerce industry. Incorporating AR tech gives customers higher visibility on how the products will fit the actual space. Evolve your content strategy to evolve the customer’s shopping experience for years to come. 71% of consumers believe AR technology will positively impact their purchase decision.
Hybrid Events
The pandemic has given businesses a long break from hosting in-person events. Now that doors of streaming events live have reopened, 93% of marketers plan to invest in virtual events as it is allowing them to reach a wider audience. It’s believed that a hybrid solution of both offline and virtual events is the way to go in the future.
If you are a start-up or if it’s your first time hosting an event, then holding an online webinar or live session would be suitable for you. However, a hybrid strategy is better for more prominent companies as virtual events significantly drive traffic and leads. Do invest in a good microphone and camera setup.
3. Incorporate Data Driven Content Marketing
When people think content, they often think creative. But in reality, great content marketing is a blend of both creativity and data. A proper data-driven approach to a content strategy can help brands avoid wasting resources by trying to connect with the wrong audiences in the wrong places. Data can help identify target audiences and their trending topics, channel-specific preferences of potential customers, and the influencers most relevant to those groups.
The difference between good and great will be a brand’s ability to leverage data-backed insights. Data insights empower content marketers to create more impactful content. Be sure to incorporate data-driven analysis into the following areas of your content strategy.
Deliver data-driven content marketing using the below tips.
Go for Hyper-Personalization
Customer hyper-personalization goes beyond simply addressing them by name. Instead, it caters to their wants, needs, and preferences. Hyper-personalization creates unique interactions with each customer by using data, analytics, automation, and artificial intelligence.
In doing this, marketers cater content to each buyer’s persona, using targeted products, marketing channels, and language. Brands such as Amazon, Netflix, Stitch Fix, Naked Wines, WES, and VI Trainer already using hyper-personalization strategies effectively.
Trust cannot be manufactured. An influencer’s fan base is as powerful as a friend’s recommendation when endorsing a product, service, or business.
In addition, real stories shared by real people have an impact. Considering all these factors, you will see higher sales and better-qualified clients.
Understand what your target audience discusses and to whom they listen. For example, if you create joint content with other companies and people in your field with a broader audience, your content marketing will be most successful.
These brands attribute their social media following gains according to their influencer strategies. Over a single year, GNC credited social influencer targeting with over 380,000 new Facebook fans.
In the B2C and D2C spaces, influencer marketing is now established, and the days when influencer marketing was a dirty word in the B2B sector are now long over.
More B2B businesses will embrace influencer marketing and sponsored user-generated content this year, two of the most successful marketing methods.
Content creation requires more than intuition. The aim is to create content that’s accurate, relevant, and based on user needs. It’s possible to test your content’s effectiveness using A/B tests.
Through A/B tests, you can gain insights into user behavior and what elements influence vital metrics. Conversions, bounce rates, customer confidence, and revenue generation are some metrics. Revenue increases are a more tangible metric than something subjective like visitor experience.
Best URL shorteners include features such as creation of branded links, A/B testing of landing pages, traffic routing, traffic analytics, etc., that amplify your content marketing campaigns. Get a URL shortener, create branded short links and use the content that gives you the most traffic and conversions.
[BrandedLinkCta]
4. SEO Content will Win
In 2019, Google processed over 3.5 billion searches daily. Now in 2022, it’s 8.5 billion searches per day. Translation: everyone will race for the search engine results pages (SERPs) to rank better for improved brand awareness and organic traffic.
We have a comprehensive guide on how to publish content that ranks, but here are some quick tips to get you started:
Content Optimization
Target long-tail keywords or key phrases with less competition to rank better
Answer frequently asked questions. Perhaps they’ll land you in Google’s Featured Snippet.
Structure your content based on questions asked by the searchers. Get these insights from the ‘People also ask’ and ‘Related searches’ sections.
Not to forget, focus on quality now more than ever. “It will become more difficult to crush it with SEO because the competition will be stiffer, but we’ll see a major increase in the quality of content that brands publish.” Odak comments.
So what’s quality content, again? First, it’s content that solves your audience’s problems–thoroughly answering their questions. Second, the content reflects expertise, authority, and trust (E.A.T.).
While building your brand’s authority takes time, for instance, by consistently creating content on specific topics to help visitors, you can work on improving your expertise right away. How? By interviewing subject experts.
Let’s give you an example: for this piece on how you can grow your YouTube subscribers, we reached out to someone who’s done it so that we can share actionable advice with you. See? Doesn’t that make the guide even more trustworthy?
Mobile Optimization
It doesn’t matter how great your website content is. However, suppose it isn’t optimized for mobile. Then, You are about to lose out on a massive part of your audience. Content marketers will probably continue to pay close attention to this trend as most searches will come from mobile devices.
Voice search is expected to rise as apps like Siri or Alexa have become popular in asking about any random query.
One of our top content marketing best practices for 2022 is to answer questions with long-tail keywords.
Significance of Core Web Vitals
Algorithms and search engines have improved and are more sophisticated. Strong web vitals contribute to better search engine results. All content marketers should optimize speed for desktop and mobile, images with the proper tags and labels, and even a site map.
These technical elements must contribute to the visibility of your content, just as a wall hook or picture hanger contributes to a painting on your wall. A big mess is inevitable if you do not follow the proper structure or fundamentals. Don’t let this happen to your content! Instead, implement technical SEO tactics to maximize your content visibility.
5. Prefer User Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) has become an essential component of content marketing strategy in today’s era when customers are ready to talk about your services and products online. In UGC, users create content about brands.
The Nielsen Consumer Trust Index reports that 92% of consumers trust organic, user-generated content over traditional advertising.
Ways to Use UGC
Reviews
User reviews show potential customers that your products and services are reliable.
Video
You can connect with your audience through videos in ways that other media cannot. In addition, you are much more likely to gain sales from user-generated videos since they are more likely to go viral.
Gamification
It is another way to create UGC and engage users. Gamification aims to allow users to earn rewards and recognition for completing specific tasks.
Holiday Season Content
During the holiday season or other special events, consider great ways to incorporate UGC into your content marketing strategy. Businesses can engage with customers at an emotional level in several ways. For example, Starbucks runs the #RedCupContest every year during the holiday season and invites its fans to take part by sharing their personalized coffee cups across social media to win Starbucks gift cards.
This alone reveals how marketers value reusing content. Essentially, content repurposing helps you get more eyeballs to the content you create. Not everyone in your audience might be a reader, for example. So you can always take the blog post’s content and make a video of it for the video-lovers in your audience.
Repurposing helps keep your content bank full to the brim. With your content pool complete, you can consistently grow your online presence and support your community-engaged while saving time.
How to Repurpose Content?
It’s easy to assume that content repurposing involves copying and pasting content from one platform to another, from your blog to a Medium publication. But that’s not what it is about.
Content repurposing is creatively tweaking and reusing content you’ve created in different formats to use on other platforms. For example, curating medium-length articles on the same topic idea into an eBook by developing a narrative for them, so they’re all arranged. Then, reading them is easy for the reader (and makes sense too). Capeesh?
Now follow these two steps to start content repurposing today:
One, look at your content performance metrics
Example: dig them out from Google Analytics. If a piece on evergreen content is doing relatively good or a video has impressive views, consider repurposing it. But hang on. Why look at this metrics? So you know that you’re recycling content that’s popular with your audience since it resonates with them.
Two, decide which format you want to recycle content into
You can always turn blog posts into videos, Facebook and LinkedIn posts, Quora answers, and Twitter threads. You can get exciting stats from your written content into social media graphics or present steps in a LinkedIn carousel.
Also, you can do the exact reverse. For example, if you write Quora answers addressing different questions people have on the same topic, you can put them together into a blog post. Similarly, you can take all the social media stats graphics and package them into an infographic for your blog.
Diversifying your content will allow you to reach different audiences.
To achieve success, companies need various content types across all marketing channels. The human brain is receptive to images, increasing the likelihood of consumers engaging with them more quickly. As a result, consumers will continue to be attracted to visual content, particularly infographics.
Well-created infographics can be a great source of helpful information.
Infographics allow consumers to engage, gain information, and understand quickly what you are presenting simply by a glance. Visual learners will particularly benefit from infographics.
Visually appealing and informative content contributes to a more engaging customer experience and improves message and communication.
It can convey information using graphic representations of data or knowledge in less time.
Infographics are essential for content marketing because, as the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words.
Infographics are graphics that provide a visual representation of data or explain a concept. They are typically used to communicate important information quickly, and 45% of marketers who leverage content marketing use them.
According to 56% of content marketers, it’s the most effective marketing type.
Most marketers will invest the same amount in infographics over the next 12 months.
Information graphics are popular because of their shareability, aesthetic appeal, informative nature, and ability to provide helpful information to the reader.
8. Personal Brands will Take Over
For businesses, personal branding has been the talk of the town lately. That translates as having a brand identity and a voice while letting your employees take the online stage.
This comes with multiple benefits: it shows your work culture, helps you grow brand awareness as people come to know your employees, employees share behind-the-scenes content, and many other things.
Having an online presence also means you can keep a pulse on your target audience’s likes and interests and maybe even source content ideas from them. It also means you can grow your authority, promote content and grow an online community.
If you’re not ready, simply bring your social team forward. SEMrush’s Diana Richardson is famous in their Twitter circle.
How to grow your Online Presence?
Pick a Platform
This could be a social media channel or a Q&A community like Quora or Reddit.
Create an Action plan
Answer: How do you plan to engage on the channel? What content will you share with your audience? How much time will you invest? Who’s going to be involved? Don’t forget to jot down precisely what you stand about so people can see your human side.
Be Consistent
When all’s said and done, consistency is what’s going to take you to success. Show up regularly, share value, and focus more on ‘giving’ than ‘taking.’
9. Video Marketing is going to be big, including Live Streaming
People are in love with videos, and whether it’s a virtual event, a social media live streaming session, an informal Zoom coffee hour, live audio streaming, or a pre-planned webinar series. And marketers are already making the most of it in a zillion ways. In 2022, videos will be the leading source of internet traffic (82%). Furthermore, 93% of marketers say videos are essential for their marketing strategy. While, 86% of marketers believe videos will be a crucial source in getting leads.
Video Trends to watch out for in 2022
Short-form videos will be the significant video trend.
Using interactive videos will increase.
CTA’s in videos will increase leads.
Live streaming videos, such as Vlogs, Webinars, etc., are becoming an essential part of content marketing strategy.
Using videos as a storytelling approach in content marketing connects you with your target audience. People watch live streams 10-20 times longer than on-demand content. You know what that means, right? So you got to invest in video marketing if you already haven’t. But don’t worry, you don’t have to break the bank doing so.
DIY video creation tools can help you create videos from templates. Thus, making the job easy to do, quick and cost-effective. Besides using a DIY video tool to create intro videos, customer testimonial videos, client onboarding tutorials, etc. Therefore, considering going live is a must. Exclusive AMA sessions, masterclasses, fireside chats, live tutorials, and sharing behind the scenes content are some ways to engage your audience with live video.
How to start with Video Marketing
The following steps will help:
Get Started with a Plan First
How many videos do you aim to create? What content will you cover? Who will you target, and at which stage of the buyer’s journey?
You’ll need an action plan covering where you want to stream (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn), what content you want to protect, and how you’ll engage your audience.
Don’t forget that you need a content sharing plan for videos and live streams.
Get your Gear
We’ve already suggested InVideo as a video-creating tool. Just make sure your video specs are correct since each social platform has a different requirement.
If you’re planning to create a video by recording your screen, plenty of AI tools and Loom alternatives can make the process easier and more professional. For live streaming, most social platforms already offer free built-in options. The key is to choose the platform where your target audience spends the most time and start creating from there.
Suppose you find yourself divided between two or more platforms. Then consider live streaming on multiple platforms. How? By simulcasting using a tool such as Vimeo that supports it.
Suppose you are ready to shell out some money. In that case, it’s a good idea to get some low-cost live streaming tools, including a microphone, camera, or even a tripod and an encoder.
Prepare an outline and Shoot
The script is also a crucial part of the video content. Whether it’s a live stream or template-based video for your social media, you need to be careful with your words. So, an essential step is to work on your script. Then, once ready, start creating.
10. Audio Content
Audio content is as popular as video content. Instead of a video ad, real human voice-based interaction builds trust among consumers. The number of voice assistants users is continually growing. Therefore, optimizing content for voice search has become a necessity. It’s no hidden truth that the trend of Podcasts will keep growing. Apps like Clubhouse (audio chatroom) provided new ways to reach out to customers.
What to Do?
Set up your podcast as it offers an excellent opportunity for marketers to reach out to new audiences.
Optimize content for voice search.
Use good audio tools like Audacity’s Levelator tool to adjust audio levels in segments and ensure that your content is of top quality. This saves you time, so you don’t have to do it yourself!
11. Targeted Content that Resonates with your Audience
Last year also taught content folks the significance of creating content that resonates with their audience and helps them through their buyer’s journey (the awareness, consideration, and decision stages).
The Creative Marketing Alliance’s Director of Content Strategy, Kenneth Hitchner, notes, “Structured content that addressed a specific part of the buyer’s journey will go mainstream. More companies will adopt this style to reach their prospects along the sales funnel no matter where they are.
This type of content program is long-term cost-effective — remember, this content is slowly replacing your ad budget, which is gone once it’s spent — at three critical things:
Moving future customers down the sales funnel in a way that makes them believe it was their idea,
Drive content engagement, which is a new-fangled word for ‘involvement’ that breeds commitment, and
Connecting the marketing team with the sales team, blaming others for shortfalls.
How can you get to know your Audience in-Depth?
Four ways to learn about your audience:
Talk to your Customers or Target Audience
Ask your sales team to get you connected with your loyal customers. So you can ask them about the challenges they face, how they prefer to consume content, and so on and on.
You can also share the same survey with your connections on social media. But remember: take the time to study the study to create better content.
Take to Social Listening
Surf through hashtags to uncover what troubles your target audience and what sort of content they prefer to consume.
Analyze Google Analytics
This lets you see what content gets the most views (therefore, resonates with your audience), your target demographic, and other details to polish your content strategy.
12. Improve Content Experience
Next up on content marketing best practices is a better content experience or making it easy for your audience to enjoy your content. Visitors need to stay on your site, love the content you’ve created, and enter your sales funnel.
How to improve the Content Experience?
Good page design involves a few fundamental things: readable font size and type, optimal use of white space, and a good color scheme. Medium, for example, is designed with content experience on the front with everything from the font type and size, white space, design elements used, navigation, and so on.
Interactive content is one that your audience can engage with.
That doesn’t mean you create the next Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. A Netflix interactive film about a game developer, Stefan, who had to decide (that users made on his behalf) to develop a game.
Quizzes will also do instead. Women.com credits over half of its engagement to online quizzes, which helps it dominate even BuzzFeed!
Other ideas for interactive content include sliders, timers, calculators, tools, and interactive visuals.
Last, make it easy for readers to consume content. While the design does half the job, the way you format your content and write does the rest. We know that lengthy content may rank first on SERP, but most readers likely move on towards something shorter and digestible.
Hitchner applauds storytelling as he states, “we’ve come a long way from keyword stuffing.” As search engine algorithms continue to advance, so will online marketing content.
Start connecting people to brands through the story. It will drive engagement and cut through the noise by helping others.
Follow these tips to make your content easy to read,:
Write short sentences and paragraphs
Use active voice and get rid of fluff words
Get straight to the point or use the BLUF (bottom line up front), giving the essential details first.
13. Community Building will continue its Upward Trajectory
Last year saw the rise of personalization in marketing, Money Heist trending, and creative ways to make the most of chopped marketing budgets. One such approach included community building. Whether it’s a content community or a customer community, the benefits of both are unparalleled.
According to the 2022 Community Industry Trends Report, 87% of community professionals say that community is essential to their company’s mission.
So how can growing an engaged community help you? If it’s a content community, you can:
Welcome guest posts to keep your content pipeline full and
Pool subject experts or request community members to connect you to experts in their network
Here’s Shopify’s Content and SEO Lead, Kameron Jenkins, leveraging the content marketing community on Twitter:
On the flip side, a customer community delivers the following benefits:
Better learn your target audience’s pain points to create targeted content.
Source user-generated content to share on your marketing channels
Improve customer journey and trust as customers or customers-to- learn about the humans behind your brand, your values, processes, and more.
In short, online communities can help enhance brand awareness and credibility, giving you the most bang for your buck.
How to start an Online Community today?
Now that you know how fruitful an online community can be, how do you start one?
Starting a community is no rocket science and doesn’t require you to invest early. However, you might need to later on. For example, host giveaways for keeping your community engaged.
Take the following steps:
One, decide whom your target audience is by selecting whether you’d like to start a customer or content community.
Two, pick a platform. Slack is a great paid platform for starting a community. Facebook and LinkedIn groups are free to make. Similarly, Twitter chats are free to start. Or, if you’re an email marketing enthusiast, create a newsletter to grow your community.
Here’s an inside look at Christina Pashialis’ paid Content community:
Third, prepare an action plan, answering questions like,
What will your community be about?
How will you promote it?
How do you plan to provide value to your audience and stand out from similar communities?
What steps will you take to keep your community engaged?
Once done, get started.
Alternative plan: if it’s a content community you are after, join one. How? Look for relevant Facebook and LinkedIn groups. The Content Marketing Lounge on Facebook, for example, is a valuable community for content marketers. Are you looking for social media marketers in the community?
We have a Facebook community named ContentStudio.io Community (Marketing Strategies, Tips, and Hacks).
There’s a lot to be excited about, from working on establishing your online presence to creating an engaged community, repurposing content, and polishing your storytelling skills. Focus on these content marketing best practices to stay competitive and updated with the market.
It is funny how very few people know about content remarketing. Some confuse it with usual content marketing, but it is actually a separate technique that has its own aims and practices involved.
Don’t worry, you are on the right foot steps as this walk-through and guide is what you need to begin with content remarketing.
What is content remarketing?
Content remarketing is a strategy of targeting to bring back and re-engaging with people who have already visited your website or have been past customers of your brand.
What is the goal of remarketing?
With this strategy, marketers strive to capture the attention of your site’s visitors to make them come back to your website and complete an action they didn’t make during their first visit. This can be anything from purchasing your product to subscribing to your newsletter. Content remarketing is like that second chance you needed desperately.
What are the benefits of remarketing?
Remarketing helps you to:
Increase brand recall and branded searches.
Turn abandoners and bouncers into leads.
Improve the repeat visitor rate and engagement.
Improve SEO
What’s the difference between remarketing and retargeting?
The two terms can confuse many as they are very interrelated.
In general, the goals of both are focused on targeting and converting potential clients that have bounced from your socials or website.
But what really makes remarketing different from retargeting?
In the beginning, remarketing was thought off as sending just email campaigns to re-engage with customers to inform about discounts, trial expiry or to follow up potential clients, whereas retargeting involved paid advertising.
However, with the evolution of internet and social media both have evolved though the goal is still the same.
Retargeting still involves paid advertising to target and convert potential clients. While, remarketing involves reaching out or following up to past customers or potential clients through various channels that may be Instagram, Facebook, Email, SMS or Whatsapp etc.
Generally, the key medium of remarketing strategy is still email. Both strategies can be used in conjunction, where emails are sent with a paid advertisement.
Further in-depth study of the both terms makes one thing clear that they are not the same.
According to Neil Patel, a famous digital marketing expert,
“I see remarketing more as an umbrella term for marketing to the same prospect multiple times, whereas retargeting really is targeting online ads at the same traffic again and again.”
So it’s safe to say that retargeting ads and remarketing emails are actually two sides of the same coin. However, retargeting is more of a subset of remarketing which only targets website traffic, while remarketing is more concerned with getting back to past visitors using personalized content mostly confined to emails. The image below will develop a better understanding of the subject.
Now that the difference between the two is clear. Let’s move on further.
What are the different types of remarketing?
Remarketing is categorized into 5 types. The five types are
Standard Remarketing
Email Remarketing
Dynamic Remarketing
Video Remarketing
Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
When to use remarketing?
Use remarketing strategy for
Up-selling products and services
Cross selling
Special offers
Re-engagement campaigns
Customer support campaigns
Inventory update campaigns
Follow ups such as cart abandonment or trial expiry etc.
The right tools and channels for content remarketing
You can create personalized content using these different channels that can be used for remarketing are
Facebook ads
It’s an analytics tool by Facebook containing a pixel code that can be put on your website. A pixel is a small box that is placed on a webpage. When someone visits the page, the pixel is able to collect information about the visitor. This information can then be used by other websites to target that person with ads. In remarketing, an advertiser places a pixel on their website. When a user visits the site, the pixel is able to track everything from their web browser’s cookie to their IP address. This data is then used to track people who have visited other websites or viewed certain content. The advertiser can then use this information to show them relevant ads across multiple websites. For example, if a user has visited Amazon and viewed an item for sale, an ad for the same product could be shown on Facebook which would drive more purchases for the advertiser.
The Google Display Network is a web-based advertising network run by Google. The network allows advertisers to place text, image, video and Native ad units on websites and mobile apps.
One of the best things about using GDN for remarketing is that it gives you a lot of reaches. You will be able to find your tagged site visitors on the network several times per day across many different sites. In general, you will be able to connect with the people you tagged several times per month.
The first step in remarketing is to create an audience of users that you will be remarketing too. This can include people who visited specific pages on your website or read your blog, but you will have to group
them into separate audiences depending on your goals.
By grouping your tagged site visitors into audiences, you will be able to reach out to only certain people and persuade them to come back to you.
Another benefit of grouping your audience is that you can bid more aggressively. Consequently, this will lead to more impressions and higher ad positions. Some pages on your website such as the pricing or product pages are way more valuable than your blog. By selecting those who visited specifically your product and pricing pages, you can write follow up mails to them.
In order to define your audience, create a new remarketing list on GDN and define which website visitors you want to include and which you want to exclude. Don’t worry about cookies and such, because Google will take care of them itself.
Yet another great idea is to group your blog audience by the posts they read. So, for example, if you have articles on three different topics, create three remarketing lists for each of these topics’ visitors.
Once you have your remarketing lists set up, you must decide on your audience membership duration. In remarketing, this refers to the number of days you follow a user around. This means that setting your audience membership duration to 30 days will make your site visitors see your ads for, you guessed it, 30 days.
The problem with deciding on the “right” audience member duration is that there is such a fatigue which results in overly aggressive remarketing. Many experts believe that being too “creepy” with your ads may result in the loss of ROI of your campaigns or can even damage your brand. This is why so many marketers advocate for shortening audience membership duration, even though the reality seems to be different.
Fortunately, remarketing has shown to be way more effective. In fact, they stay effective even after ad fatigue starts setting in and viewers are more likely to engage with remarketing campaigns.
This brings us to the fact that being bold with your remarketing is the way to go. Set your audience membership duration for longer time (something like three times your average sale cycle length). Having more impressions means a higher conversion rate and can help you fight ad fatigue.
Prior to Google ads and Facebook ads, emails were the original form of remarketing. With email remarketing, you can take advantage of existing customers who’ve visited your website and email them with targeted offers. By targeting specific segments of customers who have shown interest in your product or service, you can increase the likelihood of success with your campaign.
For example, you might use an email remarketing list to send out emails to past customers with discounts on flights or hotel stays.
Another way to use email remarketing is to show ads to people who have already looked at your website. This allows you to broaden the pool of potential customers, while also reducing the cost of running an ad. While email remarketing can be a powerful tool for reaching out-of-the-people, it does require some preparation and maintenance.
First, you’ll need to create a custom audience that’s carefully selected so that you don’t run into any false positives. Next, make sure that your campaign doesn’t overreach by carefully monitoring performance and experimenting with different tactics until you find the one that works best for you.
Look at the example of Tarte Cosmetics remarketing email.
The “Ends Soon” call to action button creates a sense of urgency and persuades the customer to click and reach directly to the meaningful content.
Email remarketing is the practice of sending out an email to people who have previously expressed interest in your product or service. It’s a great way to reach out to customers who were previously interested in your brand, but may no longer be actively using it. Remarketing allows you to keep them in the loop and possibly re-engage with them. There are two types of remarketing lists:
1. Remarketing lists for customers who’ve already completed a purchase. These are referred to as Customer Lists.
2. Remarketing lists for people who have shown interest in your company in some way, but have never purchased from you (yet). These are referred to as Leads Lists. Remarketing is a very effective way to keep in touch with existing customers and generate new ones.
In addition to GDN and Facebook, you can also use Replug (a platform for link shortening, tracking, optimization, and deep analytics) which is quite valuable for content remarketing. You can use other platforms as well to send personalized messages and ads to your past visitors on the respected platforms.
Using Replug, you can create a retargeting pixel campaign and add relevant tags to track for any short URL. Here’s a preview of it.
Here are the best practices in content remarketing for you to use:
Ads that push to “hard” offers: The best way to get your ads working is to promote your best offers. If you have a bestselling product, make an ad for it, because this will make it sell even better and will help you get your other products selling too.
Conversion path analysis: Do a conversion path analysis and figure out which pages the user usually visits before converting. Once you know what these pages are, target them with your ads.
Ads that push to content: Your content may be even more important to visitors than your products. This means that it may be better to target an article in your ad rather than promote a product page.
Social shares on your blog content: Analyze your blog content and see which content gets the most shares to social media. This will give you a general idea of what kind of content people are interested in and you will be able to target your ads at those articles on your blog.
Email segmentation: Segmenting emails lists depending on specific actions taken by the customer when making the purchase. Depending on the actions, you can send more information and a personalized email using CRM with email marketing software to target specific segments.
Reengage with inactive subscribers: There are a lot of people that subscribe to emails but remain inactive, reengaging with such potential customers by reminding them at the first place that why they subscribed the email. Adding an CTA within the email can encourage them to complete the journey.
Below is an example of American Giant who sent an remarketing email to its subscriber by including the product they browsed previously.
20 tips for remarketing
Lastly, to give you more ideas about how to retarget your ads and remarket your content, here are twenty examples from the past:
1. The right link
One of the biggest mistakes you can possibly do is sending your customers to the wrong place. Imagine you posted a picture of one product, but linked to another one. The person who clicks on the link wants to see the product in the picture, but once they see something different, they quickly lose interest. Instead of doing this, act like Kelley Blue Book on Twitter – link the corresponding product that is in the image you attach to the post.
2. Customer buying window
A common misconception in remarketing is that you have to retarget potential buyers with ads for the product they haven’t bought. In reality, there are many customers who can’t afford certain products and have simply browsed through your catalogue before and viewed these very products. As Rob Weatherhead, the owner of Agent Wolf, says, you must retarget these individuals only for a certain amount of time while their interest is still present. If they don’t convert during this time, it means they either decided not to purchase your product or bought something similar elsewhere.
3. Separate landing pages
This is a mistake done not only by those who practice remarketing but also by many experienced marketers. Instead of linking their ads to separate landing pages, they simply link them to the homepage which is a big turnoff for many consumers. Neil Andrew, Marketing Manager at PPC Protect Limited, recommends creating separate landing pages for your ads and always linking to them.
4. Cheap alternatives
Philippe Côté-Léger, Marketing Director at Lab Urbain, believes that using Facebook and Google is not mandatory. You can follow suit and make use of cheaper alternatives that can prove to be just as effective as Google and Facebook. For example, a content discovery network like Outbrain offers inexpensive CPC.
5. Dynamic remarketing ads
This is one of the simplest yet overlooked tips. Using dynamic remarketing tips is essential for getting the best results.
For example, Ryan Scollon says that dynamic remarketing ads allow him to show ads with products that customers have viewed before. This makes the ads way more interesting instead of leaving them generic. The only thing to keep in mind when designing dynamic remarketing ads is that your imagery must be on point to capture the attention of your target audience.
6. Email promotion
Learning Success Systems has been implementing this technique into their strategy for quite a while now. They match their retargeting campaign with email promotion making it twice as effective. There is no logical explanation for why this works so well, but it has been proven to be successful for many businesses. Perhaps, people remember their emails once they see the ads.
7. Reviews
Karen Sahetya, the founder of Brand Central Marketing, says that one of the best ways to build social proof is to use reviews for retargeting and remarketing. Those who viewed your products but didn’t make a purchase are more likely to buy once they see that others have had a positive experience with your brand and with some particular products of yours. It is the equivalent of someone considering buying a car in real life and a friend telling that person about their positive experience with this model.
8. Social proof
This is very similar to the previous example, but it is still quite different. Let’s look into this practice with the help of Birchbox. They have successfully integrated social proof into their retargeting ads. You can either send those who click on the ads to reviews of your products or include quotes from your past customers about your brand into the ads themselves among other things.
9. Audience segmenting
Audience segmenting is crucial for your digital remarketing campaign. Separating your targeted audience into those who have converted and those who haven’t will allow you to show corresponding ads to different individuals. This practice has been proven effective by many businesses that used it and Evoke Strategy LLC in particular. Its co-founder Devon Vocke says that audience segmenting has always helped them make their campaigns more effective.
10. Best offer
Displaying your best offer is essential for attracting the most attention. One of the best examples of this is Handy’s home cleaning retargeting banner that appears after a customer views other similar websites with home cleaning services. Making such ads catchy is also very important. They have to have bright colors, a promotional offer, and a call to action that stands out and speaks to the audience.
11. Prioritizing users
Joe Castro from Elevation says that prioritizing users that are close to completing a purchase is crucial for achieving more conversions. Those who added products to the cart or went as far as to get to the billing stage are more likely to purchase something than those who simply visited your homepage or product pages. Be ready to invest more in targeting the former ones and offer them free shipping or something similar to get them to convert.
12. Potential clients over sales
Instead of focusing on making a sale, nurture potential clients. Take WordStream, for example. The company offered a free assessment instead of a discount for their products. Consequently, many customers let their guard down because they weren’t pressured into purchasing. WordStream offered a service of value related to what their customers wanted based on what their remarketing “sensors” detected. Always think of customers first and sales second.
13. Urgency
Many marketers know of this simple characteristic that always works. Creating a sense of urgency will motivate your customers to complete the action you want them to faster. For example, Expedia uses urgency in their retargeting ads to prompt users to book travel from their site. Expedia uses irresistible deals with a last-minute offer and this works like a miracle. This is credited to the fear of missing out that most people experience when they see such ads.
14. Interesting & relatable
It has been said before, but it will never be old: make your ads interesting and relatable. There is also a great example of this technique. Mazda and Merchenta worked together to create ads that would attract more potential customers to test drive their cars. Merchenta built customized ads that were based on geographic radius matching individuals to the nearest Mazda dealership. The ads displayed the nearest dealership houses that had the specific Mazda car models that customers viewed online. This, in turn, raised the chances of these people visiting the saloon and test driving the car.
15. Frequency cap
Using a frequency cap can prevent overexposure. As Kyna Garrett from Strike Social points out, social media ads are everywhere, so applying a frequency cap can prevent potential customers from being overwhelmed by your ads. In fact, overexposure can be very damaging to your brand, so it is important to determine the right frequency (which is also not that easy). Find the perfect balance by testing different frequencies and then use the one that works best.
16. Avoid spammy ads
Patric Kreidler from Power Digital Marketing talks about something very closely related to the previous example. Such ads as pop-ups, countdown ads, ads with sound on autoplay, and so on are seen as spam by many users and usually ignored. Moreover, they often lead to viewers associating them with a bad experience. Obviously, no brand would want that, so avoid using such ads at all costs.
17. Emotional connection
It has long been proven that ads that create an emotional connection in viewers are way more powerful than usual ads. For example, Think Engraved uses cute pictures in a combination with cute statements to draw a smile or make the viewer laugh. This draws in potential customers and hooks them onto what else the brand can offer. You can also add an extra something to such ads to make them even more appealing (e.g. a discount or a gift).
18. Videos & slideshows
What can be better than visuals that “speak” to the audience? Images are so common that most ads get lost even if they have a stunning design. This is why videos and slideshows are now becoming so popular. However, you must remember to keep your slideshows with no audio and disable autoplay on your videos. Otherwise, they can become annoying.
19. Relevant sites
Thomas Budnik from Auto Accessories Garage says that including only those sites that are relevant to your brand will ensure that you don’t waste your money for nothing and target only the relevant audiences. Before letting your remarketing campaign go live, check that only the relevant websites are included or the irrelevant ones excluded.
20. Content messaging
Last but not least, Robb Hecht has adopted a social content messaging strategy to help his remarketing efforts. This simply means that you use a special framework that breaks down your ads and serves them to customers at different stages of your sales funnel.
Bonus Tip: Raising your click-through rates will reduce your click prices. This way, you will be paying for a greater volume of clicks, but they will cost you several times less. Just remember to have image ads rather than text-turned-image ads.
Final thoughts on content remarketing
All in all, content remarketing is one of the best techniques to use in your online marketing strategy, and you will definitely get something useful out of it. Make sure to read this article carefully again to refresh your memory about what content remarketing is and how to use it properly.
Guest blog post by Kristin Savage who nourishes, sparks, and empowers using the magic of a word. Along with pursuing her degree in Creative Writing, Kristin was gaining experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in marketing strategy for publishers and authors. She is a regular contributor to Best Essay Education and WOWgrade.
Facebook retargeting ads is a marketing strategy used for selling your products or services on Facebook while focusing on a very definitive consumer base. It is observed that only 2% of people are inspired to buy your product on the first go. Whereas, the rest of the 98% audience could be converted via retargeting. The approach Retargeting or Retargeting Pixels is to attract the users who have visited your website but haven’t explored or bought your product yet.
Fortunately, with the evolution of brand marketing, this can easily be done with the help of a ‘Retargeting Pixel. Retargeting pixel is just a snippet of code which when added to your website, drives traffic towards you by promoting your brand on social media platforms.
The beauty of this technology is that it only brings tailored audiences; people who are familiar with your product but chose not to perform any operations during their first visit.
So, basically, it assists the users in making a decision by highlighting your key features to them, all in a very convenient way.
How Do Retargeting Pixels Work in Replug?
Replug can configure Retargeting pixels of social media platforms for your businesses in very simple and easy steps. A step by step demonstration has been given below
Step 1: Log into your Replug account and “Create a Brand” which you wish to advertise. Add the name of your business and your company’s official website.
This can be done by clicking on the + New Brand button as shown in the GiF below.
Create a new campaign by clicking on the + New Campaign button.
Note: You can choose multiple options here i.e. Brand, Campaign Name and Campaign Type.
Step 3: Select the brand you created among all your listed brands in Replug.
Step 4: Now type in your campaign name and select “Retargeting Pixel”as your campaign type and click next.
Step 5: In this step, you are required to add your retargeting code.
Select the social network where you want to run your campaign. Type your script name and your pixel ID and add your script.
Note: You can check the option redirecting to the original website so that the user may be redirected to the original website in case he/she enters an invalid URL.
Your script added in the previous step is selected automatically now. You can create as many scripts as you want for different platforms and save your campaign.
Recap: Creating Facebook Retargeting Ads Campaign Using Replug
Step 6: Now, you just need to shorten the link for the Facebook retargeting ad campaign created and whenever a user visits the link, your selected pixels will be fired.
Maximize on Your Facebook Retargeting Ads using Replug
Replug makes it very easy for you to create Facebook retargeting ad campaigns as you want in a minimal amount of time. You can select all kinds of social platforms by adding your own custom networks.
All you have to do is add retargeting pixels and you’re good to go. You can also track the traffic brought in by this campaign in the analyticssection and monitor all your campaigns.
FAQS
Here are some quick faqs that can help boost your retargeting efforts.
How much of Facebook ads you should be retargeting?
It is recommended by sources that frequency of ads should be 2 to 3 for a week while 20% of the total marketing budget should be allocated for Facebook retargeting ads.
What is the minimum audience size for Facebook ads?
Minimum audience size is 100 but it mostly depends on the businesses and size of businesses. Ideal audience size to start with retargeting is 30K to 50K. You need to test what size best suits your business as you don’t want to end up going for larger audience size but not targeting the right people.
When should I use retargeting ads?
Retarget when your website or page is getting minimum 100 visitors. Retargeting allows you to connect with users that have connected with your brand in some sort or way.
What is the best way to target Facebook Ads?
Here are some tips that can help you make most of Facebook Ads.
Target audiences that meet your business needs (saved audiences, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences).
Combine unique audiences.
Utilize Facebook insights and keep an eye on recent purchase behaviors.
Repurpose your unicorn content for ads.
Last and most important, retarget Facebook ads using Replug.
Do you know which is the most popular platform globally to promote your small business?
You might think of Google or Facebook. It was true till 2021.
Google had been the most popular online platform for more than 11 years. However, in July 2010, Google Pulled ahead of Yahoo. Till then it reigned in the top spot for more than 11 years. Moreover, even Facebook couldn’t get ahead of Google. Microsoft came up with its default search engine, Bing, but still couldn’t get ahead of Google.
But things have started to shuffle. And COVID played a huge role in digital disruption.
TikTok is the new reigning champion of the internet.
Yes, you read it right.
Till 2020 TikTok was the 7th most popular internet platform. Google was on the top, followed by Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix & Amazon.
Source: Cloud Flare
But, in 2021, TikTok jumped to the top.
Now TikTok is available in more than 150 markets in more than 75 languages. The platform has surpassed 2 billion monthly active users. In addition to that, according to a report, 1 in 4 TikTok users can’t be found on any other platform.
This highlights the radical shift for your digital consumer to ‘watching’ instead of ‘reading’.
TikTok is continuously getting more popular with its trends, memes, music, and endless cultural fascination. Cloudflare’s data suggest that TikTok has become a ubiquitous part of digital consumer’s daily life.
Source: Cloud Flare
Why does your business need to be on TikTok for 2022?
TikTok is the most visited online platform with more than 1 billion monthly active users. Therefore, the platform is worth considering to include in your strategy for 2022 for growing your small business.
Its popularity is not going away anytime soon. Due to TikTok’s rising popularity among its users and small businesses, other social media platforms are upgrading their strategies to compete for consumers’ preferences. That is to say, Instagram has officially announced that it will focus more on the video content approach.
TikTok’s competitor Instagram announced the reels featured in 2020. Subsequently, Instagram’s head Mosseri admitted that their biggest competition is TikTok. He said in his video, “There’s some serious competition now – TikTok is huge”. The fact that the world’s popular social media platforms are admitting the popularity of TikTok certainly tells you the worth of the platform.
Therefore, many business owners have now started to realize the major TikTok marketing opportunities they had been missing.
Understanding TikTok Platform for Small Businesses
TikTok focuses on the user experiences through a personalised feed. Therefore, the unique user experience of the platform makes it to outstand from its competitors.
Further, the features to shoot, create, edit, customise videos with effects, sounds, and filters within the app; give users a complete experience from creating videos to publishing those. The whole journey takes place within the same app.
Moreover, the app listens closely to the feedback they get from its users. For example, if certain trends and features are popular among its users, TikTok creates the editing features accordingly to create more content. Thus, users spend more time on the platform.
Similarly, if there is negative feedback on the content or any feature, the platform quickly adjusts it to users’ likings and preferences.
In a press release by TikTok, they explained how their algorithm works. They also explained what increases the performance of your content for better organic reach. According to them, different factors contribute to the video’s performance, which includes the interests the users have selected.
The factors which contribute to the performance of your content are as follows:
User Interactions: How many people have viewed, liked, commented, shared, and followed your content? If a viewer has watched the complete video, the algorithm will consider it good content and push it for greater reach. On the contrary, if viewers are skipping your video, it will limit its reach. Pro Tip: Make valuable, trending, and entertaining content for your viewers
Video Information: The captions, hashtags, and sounds play a significant role in reaching the relevant audience. Pro Tip: Include relevant hashtags, engaging captions, and popular sounds from the TikTok library.
Device & Account Settings: This includes your language preference, location, and device settings according to your audience. Pro Tip: Add overlay text on videos, set language preferences, use integrations to drive sales.
Location of Video Viewer & Video Creator: Where is your viewer located? What are the location settings of your business account? TikTok for marketing your small business will accelerate your digital marketing efforts for your business.
Understanding TikTok Audience for Small Businesses
“Does TikTok has my target audience? Isn’t TikTok just for Gen-Z?”
These were convenient thoughts to skip TikTok from your marketing strategy. However, when Facebook and Instagram started, those were also considered platforms for ‘young’ people. Businesses didn’t see any value in promoting their businesses on these platforms. Fast forward to 2022, now these platforms serve as marketing tools for millions of businesses.
Certainly, TikTok is moving in the same direction. The platform started with Gen-Z but is now growing with every second. It is more popular than Google. Therefore, it is safe to assume, everyone is on the platform, including your target audience and potential customers for your small business.
With Facebook, Instagram and YouTube’s examples, we have seen that small businesses and personal profiles that get in early are rewarded from brand awareness to brand recognition. This also helps to establish brand credibility in the short-term and long term.
Is TikTok Marketing Right for Your Small Business?
TikTok offers you to play around with creativity and authenticity. TikTok’s algorithm offers exposure for your small business to a huge audience. This audience determines the success of small businesses it can attract.
Many small businesses gained success and grew into popular brands through TikTok. Creativity and authenticity helped them win the algorithm. TikTok has a huge audience, and the exposure it can give to your small business is not possible on any other platform.
If you want to engage the TikTok community, invest time to create valuable and entertaining content. Finding the best time to post on TikTok for your business will help you get the most engagement to the content you produce. This will help you build brand awareness and help you get new customers while retaining the older ones.
Source: Marketing Science
TikTok’s video-focused approach will help you tell your brand story in a creative, authentic and budget-friendly manner. The content produced and published on TikTok can be shared on different social media platforms while driving traffic for the sales at the same time.
How Did TikTok help Businesses Grow? [Case Studies]
TikTok is changing the marketing landscape for small businesses to grow and drive sales. Even its tagline “Don’t make Ads, Make TikToks” offers a unique strategy for small businesses to grow. Small businesses have always been looking for ways to grow. The fact is consumers are smart in detecting ads, and that’s where TikTok comes in. Every business needs a customised TikTok marketing strategy according to the goals they want to achieve and their target audience.
TikTok is always working on initiatives for small businesses to grow. Their ongoing efforts small businesses convert their traffic into sales. They even released a series titled “Small Wins” to help small businesses use TikTok strategies for their digital marketing. The series featured various small businesses from across the globe. These success stories and strategies used by small businesses are great examples for all the other business owners who want to grow their small business using TikTok.
We are sharing 4 case studies of small businesses from the tech, beauty, interior design and training industries who promoted their small business through TikTok
Acome is an Indonesian tech retailer. They provide high-tech products for electric, smart, autonomous and hybrid vehicles. For their TikTok strategy, they created content to showcase their products in a fun but relatable way. The marketing team of Acome, tapped into a wide range of formats for their video content, such as unboxing, hacks, announcements and hilarious skits. However, creativity, authenticity, and recognizable brand identity stayed consistent.
They also collaborated with TikTok creators for promoting their business while also giving creators creative liberty with the few guidelines. Their collaboration with creators, from telling a story to doing a prank just to promote their products in a subtle manner.
Source: TikTok (@Acome)
Digital marketing supervisor of Acome, Anas Prambudi, stated that they combined their brand’s selling points with user’s daily life. They used the content to add value to their customer’s life while pitching their product.
Acome has now more than 290K followers and has seen a boost in their business since they included TikTok in their digital marketing strategy to grow their business.
Josh & Matt Designs is a home décor small business run by Melbourne-based duo Josh & Matt. This hobby-turned-venture started during pandemic lockdown when they were living inside a simple home with no décor. They started creating videos about the fun projects they were designing and creating for their home. What started as a simple project was discovered by the TikTok community and gained them more than 260,000 followers. Josh & Designs is now a small business that converts its traffic into buyers on its online store. It all started with TikTok.
In an interview with TikTok, they said that they started the account only to share the décor they were creating their small home during the lockdown. “During lockdown in Sydney, our home was nothing but a tiny white box. We were like; we need some art that could match our style. So, we started experimenting and creating DIYs with different types of material and showed it to TikTok, and people loved it”.
Source: TikTok (@joshandmattdesigns)
Josh & Matt were a bit apprehensive and unsure at first, but then, after a few weeks, they started seeing traction from people who were interested in their content that it turned into a small business eventually. You can apply their strategy for your small business as well to build brand recognition and sales.
Yakitori Don is a Tokyo-based chicken joint that gained its popularity through TikTok. The restaurant’s owner Hiroaki Higaki used to make videos with funny skits about the restaurant industry and life at a restaurant.
A lot of people appreciated his videos because of his relatability with people who have worked at a restaurant. Relatability and humor were the secret success formula for Yakitori restaurant. He was discovered by the TikTok community, and people started visiting his restaurant more because of his popularity.
Source: TikTok (@Higakiyakitori)
His strategy worked for him in driving more customers to their restaurant and thus increasing sales. They now have more than 184,000 followers and are now accelerating their organic success through paid media ads.
Girls That Invest is a community for women who want to learn about investing. Their TikTok strategy comprises of sharing tips, aspirational and informational content related to investments. This content helps them drive traffic to their Masterclass, online courses and podcast about investments.
Source: TikTok (@GirlsthatInvest)
Girls That Invests used BioLinks to redirect their TikTok traffic for digital products and podcasts which helped them to get to the #1 Podcast in the world in the business category.
Source: BioLink Landing Page of GirlsThatInvest
They started their TikTok journey in September 2021, and within four months, they gained 25,000 followers. Thus, driving more traffic to their website through adding relevant services in their bio link.
How to Promote Your Business on TikTok?
Develop a Brand Story
Sales and creativity are co-related.
Seth Godin once said, “People don’t buy products. They buy stories”. Your audience connects well with your brand through a story.
Have you crafted your brand story?
Your brand story can be derived from your mission and vision statements. You can strategize the content formats in which you can tell that story, such as hacks, tips, humorous content or engaging TikTok creators and community through a challenge.
TikTok community thrives on authenticity, creativity and joy. The lesser flashy ads, the more authentic and relatable feel it will give out to its users. Your brand story will be the best way to connect with your audience and can share your mission with them.
Connect with TikTok Community at all Stages of Your Sales Funnel
According to a report, 75% of US consumers want to support small businesses by promoting and buying from them. This is the best time for small businesses and brands with consumers on a human level, outside the advertising models. TikTok is the perfect place to connect with your consumers through relatable and non-flashy, budget-friendly content.
The community on TikTok is always looking for inspiration and discovering new things such as your brand, small business product and services. According to the data from TikTok, some statistics show why it is important to connect with the community.
67% of TikTok users agree that TikTok content inspired them to shop from a small business even they weren’t looking to shop
66% of TikTok users agreed that TikTok helped them to make a decision to buy something
Source: TikTok Marketing Science
Optimize Your TikTok Profile
Your target audience will discover your account based on their interest preferences. Therefore, it is important to optimize the profile with a location setting, using keywords in the info section and using the relevant link in the bio.
TikTok only allows you to add one link in the bio, but you can use Replug’s bio-link feature to link to multiple platforms and websites using a single link.
Use Hashtags
There are a lot of small business conversations already happening on TikTok. From social media tips and strategies to branding small businesses, hashtags cover an ocean of conversations. Do hashtag research for your niche and your small business. These hashtags will help you from reaching new customers to driving sales on the platform.
Source: TikTok (_tattilashes)
The view counts of each hashtag show how small business conversations are popular on the platform.
For example, #smallbusiness has 33.8 billion views on TikTok, #Entreprenuer has 12.8 billion views, #smallbusinesscheck has 10.2 billion views, #supportsmallbusiness has 3.1 billion views. The popularity of these hashtags shows that small businesses are growing on TikTok as they are already getting a lot of attention from the TikTok community.
Use TikTok Business Account
TikTok Business account is designed for commercial purposes. It is a great tool for small businesses to see how their content is performing, the demographics of their audience and analytics. The business account also offers a variety of features and tools such in-built content management platform and music library. The data and analytics feature will help you see how your audience is interacting with your content and how you can optimize for the best results.
Source: Medium (The Startup)
Increase Your Sales Through TikTok with Shopify Integration
If you are a business owner, we know your primary goal is to increase sales of small businesses. The primary goal of any small business is to increase sales. TikTok’s partnership with Spotify enables small businesses to create shoppable ads. Shopify’s integration will allow the worldwide community to buy products from small businesses.
More than 1 million users of Shopify can now promote their small business and e-commerce stores on TikTok and sell their products.
Shopify integration with TikTok will allow small businesses to set up the TikTok Ads Manager, identify their customers from the TikTok audience and drive more sales.
The process to synchronize merchandise inventories and payments for your small business with TikTok is very user-friendly. You’ll be able to create videos, ads and optimize your content for the marketing campaigns through TikTok and won’t need to be overwhelmed by video editing tools.
In addition to all these benefits, you can track the performance of your campaign through pixel setup — this will help you allocate marketing budgets accordingly while increasing your returns on investment.
Use Bio links to Drive Traffic to Other Platforms
TikTok is a great tool to drive your traffic to your website, YouTube channel, or other channels. One of the most effective ways to do this is to use bio-link to your advantage. Although TikTok only allows you to add one link in the bio, you can use Replug bio link feature to your benefit
With this feature, you can house all the important links within one link. The bio-link will divert your TikTok traffic to other platforms. This is one of the best hacks for small businesses to grow on TikTok.
Example 1:
For example, Dwayne Johnson has a bio-link on his TikTok profile which directs his audience to a home page where they can find links to all his social profiles, online shop, affiliate links to his products, and recent news and interviews.
Source: TikTok (@TheRock)
Example 2:
Similarly, Ed Sheeran uses bio-links in his profile to promote his recent song releases across different platforms and his concerts. The separate page for all his links helps his audience to listen to his latest hits on different music platforms like SoundCloud, Apple Music, Youtube etc.
Source: TikTok (@EdSheeran)
If Ed-Sheeran and Dwayen Johnson are using the power of bio-links, what’s stopping you from promoting your small business and brand with bio-links?
Bio-links is one of the most effective and essential tools to use for your sales funnel. According to a study by Parse.ly
Strategic bio-linking can increase traffic by 10%-15%
This can increase many folds if you are using the TikTok marketing strategy and re-direct the traffic to other platforms as well.
Use TikTok Ads Manager
What is the quickest way to market on TikTok? – TikTok Ads!
TikTok’s advertising platforms offer you the complete journey of creating an effective marketing campaign – from creating video ads in seconds to launching them. In addition to that, small businesses are always looking for affordable marketing tools and strategies. Irrespective of the size of your business, TikTok ads manager is simple to use and do all the heavy lifting for you, from creating video ads to adding soundtracks in TikTok Ad studio.
Source: TikTok (@Mercedesbenz)
Mercedes Benz is a luxury brand but it has been using TikTok advertising to target the viewers through challenges and TikTok Ads.
TikTok ads appear on the “For You” page. It is curated according to the interests of each user. The ads appear for almost 9 seconds. After 9 seconds the video freezes to the last frame with a clickable Call to Action.
If you include paid advertising in your digital marketing plan for 2022, then TikTok ads are one of the best platforms to invest in. You can also try Facebook ads and Quora ads as your paid marketing strategy.
Collaborate with TikTok Creators to Communicate Your Small Business
You can rev up the results of your marketing campaigns by collaborating with TikTok creators. Therefore, TikTok has a creator marketplace that gives you access and information about a diverse pool of influencers, content creators and storytellers. The marketplace will help you understand the right fit for your products and niche.
The huge following of these content creators and influencers will help you accelerate the growth of your small business. Thus, bringing you buyers for your small business. With TikTok marketplace, you can choose which content creators would go best with your brand’s voice.
TikTok is partnering with Virtual dining and GrubHub to turn viral videos into meals. Thus, the platform’s community will be able to order through the platform. This is a great opportunity for small businesses in the food and beverages industry.
Source: TechCrunch+
Longer Videos on TikTok
TikTok videos get viral because they are quick and snappy. Last year TikTok introduced the feature oflonger videos for the creators. The longer videos received over 5 billion views globally. Hence, the creators and small businesses used the feature to share long-form content such as podcasts, vlogs, and tutorials. Small businesses can leverage this feature to their benefit to increase brand awareness and customer retention.
Wrap Up:
I hope this helps you create a great Tiktok marketing strategy for your business. Follow for more strategies and updates on Tiktok Business.
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