In March 2014, the Baymard Institute, a web research company based in the UK, reported that 67.91% of online shopping carts are abandoned. An abandonment means that a customer has visited a website, browsed around, added one or more products to their cart and then left without completing their purchase. A month later in April 2014, Econsultancy stated that global retailers are losing $3 trillion (USD) in sales every year from abandoned carts.



Clearly, reducing the number of abandoned carts would lead to higher store revenue — the goal of every online retailer. The question then becomes how can we, as designers and developers, help convert these “warm leads” into paying customers for our clients?

Before Cart Abandonment

Let’s begin by looking at recognized improvements we can make to an online store to reduce the number of “before cart” abandonments. These improvements focus on changes that aid the customer’s experience prior to reaching the cart and checkout process, and they include the following:

• Show images of products.
  This reinforces what the customer is buying, especially on the cart page.
• Display security logos and compliance information.
  This can allay fears related to credit-card and payment security.
• Display contact details.
  Showing offline contact details (including a phone number and mailing address) in addition to an email address adds credibility to the website.
• Make editing the cart easier.
  Make it as simple as possible for customers to change their order prior to checking out.
• Offer alternative payment methods.
  Let people check out with their preferred method of payment (such as PayPal and American Express, in addition to Visa and MasterCard).
• Offer support.
  Providing a telephone number and/or online chat functionality on the website and, in particular, on the checkout page will give shoppers confidence and ease any concerns they might have.
• Don’t require registration.
  This one resonates with me personally. I often click away from websites that require lengthy registration forms to be filled out. By allowing customers to “just” check out, friction is reduced.
• Offer free shipping.
  While merchants might include shipping costs in the price, “free shipping” is nevertheless an added enticement to buy.
• Be transparent about shipping costs and time.
  Larger than expected shipping costs and unpublished lead times will add unexpected costs and frustration.
• Show testimonials.
  Showcasing reviews from happy customers will alleviate concerns any people might have about your service.
• Offer price guarantees and refunds.
  Offering a price guarantee gives shoppers the confidence that they have found the best deal. Additionally, a clear refund policy will add peace of mind.
• Optimize for mobile.
  Econsultancy reports that sales from mobile devices increased by 63% in 2013. This represents a real business case to move to a “responsive” approach.
• Display product information.
  Customers shouldn’t have to dig around a website to get the information they need. Complex navigation and/or a lack of product information make for a frustrating experience.

Unfortunately, even if you follow all of these recommendations, the reality is that customers will still abandon their carts — whether through frustration, bad design or any other reason they see fit.

After Cart Abandonment

The second approach is to look at things we can do once a cart has been abandoned. One tactic is to email the customer with a personalized message and a link to a pre-populated cart containing the items they had selected. This is known as an “abandoned cart email.”

The concept is pretty simple. At the right time, a customizable email is sent, complete with a personalized message and a link to the customer’s abandoned cart. Of course, this approach assumes that the customer has submitted their email address — effectively, they’ve done everything but paid. Abandoned cart emails represent one last attempt by the merchant to convince the buyer to check out.

In September 2013, Econsultancy outlined how an online cookie retailer recaptured 29% of its abandoned shopping carts via email. This is a huge figure and one we might naturally be skeptical of.

To get a more realistic perspective, I asked my colleagues at Shopify to share some of their data on this, and they kindly agreed. Shopify introduced “abandoned cart recovery” (ACR) in mid-September 2013 (just over a year ago at the time of writing). Here’s a summary of its effectiveness:

• In the 12 months since launching automatic ACR, $12.9 million have been recovered through ACR emails in Shopify.
• 4,085,592 emails were sent during this period, of which 147,021 carts were completed as a result. This represents a 3.6% recovery rate.
• Shop owners may choose to send an email 6 or 24 hours after abandonment. Between the two, 6-hour emails convert much better: a 4.1% recovery rate for 6 hours versus 3% for 24 hours.

It’s worth noting that the 3.6% recovery rate is from Shopify’s ACR emails. Many merchants use third-party apps instead of Shopify’s native feature. Given that Shopify is unable to collect data on these services, the number of emails sent and the percentage of recovered carts may well be higher.

Given the statistics, abandoned cart emails are clearly an important part of an online retailer’s marketing strategy. Luckily, most leading e-commerce platforms enable merchants to send custom emails, either in plain text or HTML. Knowing how to implement these notifications is a useful skill if you are designing for e-commerce, and they represent added value to your services.

Conclusion

While there are many tactics to persuade customers to buy, inevitably some people will get to the payment screen and decide not to continue. Any tactic that helps to seal the deal is certainly worth considering, and given the small amount of work involved in implementing an email to recover abandoned carts, it’s a great place to start. Designers and developers are in a powerful position to help their clients increase their revenue, and being armed with tactics such as the ones outlined in this article will hopefully enable them to offer a wider range of services.

The secret to successfully building a good website is similar to how the Wright brothers invented the first airplane.

Before the Wright brothers came along the common belief was that the way that you’d be able to get an airplane to fly was to create a large enough and strong enough engine that would be able to propel the plane to fly. And so most adventures focused most of the energy on building more powerful and stronger engines for the plane to get the plate actually take off. But with the Wright brothers did instead was they tried to come up with an airplane design that was as late as possible that was a sensually as close to a glider as they could make it so that all they would need was a very small and light engine and because the glider design was so efficient I would only require a small engine to propellant and posit to fly which as it turns out was the correct way to go about it and that was the reason that they were the first people to effect the airplane.

In many ways that’s the same story as to how many people try to generate traffic to their website.

One of the problems I see quite often is companies and businesses that spend money on Google Adwords, Facebook advertising, Yelp, SEO and other traffic generating mechanisms. They spent all of this money and time and effort getting traffic to their website and then they get upset or confused when they don’t generate that much business from their efforts.

What they might not realize is that the relationship between traffic and the design of the website is very similar to how the wright brothers invented the first airplane.

While many people focus on how do to get people to come to their site, they fail to realize is that the most important thing is having a website that converts. In this analogy your website is the airplane design and the engine is the traffic to your site.

If you do not have a well-designed, well-developed, clearly thought out website then all of that traffic is the same as having a really giant engine strapped to a skateboard.

So the first to successfully generating traffic to your business is creating a website that is well-designed, has a strong call to action that is proven to successfully convert traffic into leads and leads into customers.

Then once you’ve worked out the conversions on your site you can go ahead and pay for Google Adwords, Facebooks Ads, etc…

So the question to ask is, does your current website have liftoff? And if not, why not? It’s the single best thing you can do for your business’ success.

A lot of businesses provide very similar products and services. How do you identify one provider from another? The answer is branding. Branding of products and services is what differentiates a business or even its website from those of its competitors. This may sound elementary but often companies neglect to understand the importance of branding and identity. A brand is the representation of products or services, their characteristics including customer experiences and the values associated with them. When people use a product or service, they remember their experiences whether it be good or bad and these experiences are what get associated with that product or service. This association is what is helped by way of branding.

For this product or service representation as branding to work, it is imperative that websites feature how companies see themselves, what their end customers think about their company, and how companies want future clients to perceive them.

Branding is not Just About Having a Good Looking Logo

A company logo or a product logo is just the tip of the iceberg in branding and identity. Other facets of a well-designed brand experience and brand website include quality imagery, relevant and up to date content, ease of use, consistent colors, relatable emotion and character, consistency, and a memorable user experience.

Quality Imagery – The majority of website visitors are extremely visually focused and nothing can catch their attention better than a well-placed and relevant image of the product or service offered by a website. Quality, relevant and fresh imagery is what helps people associate emotions with brands.

Relevant and Up-to-date Content – Website viewers initially look to find out what a website is all about and if it can answer any of their wants or needs. By providing clear, relevant, and updated content, the proverbial phrase: “beating around the bush” can be avoided.

Ease of Use – It is very irritating to get lost inside a website and not know where to go or what to do next. Clear, familiar, and intuitive navigation makes it easier to promote a product or service or to hopefully close a sale.

Consistent Colors – Color is not just aesthetics, it also serves to trigger subconscious associations and emotions. Blue for example symbolizes trust; green for health, nature or environment; and red for energy and enthusiasm among others.

Relatable Emotion and Character – A website’s character and personality have to be in line with what the company stands for. If a company is all about trust and security then site viewers must be able to relate to this when going through the company’s website.

Consistency –  Setting a consistent look and feel throughout a website and its pages in terms of typography, colors, visuals, and layout not only helps to make a brand memorable but also makes web pages load faster

Memorable User Experience – Website viewers now use a bevy of platforms and devices to browse websites. Mobile compatible websites leave a positive impression on site visitors.

Conclusion 

Branding in web design is so much more than a company’s logo and tag line on a website. Branding is a well thought out strategy to help people associate a product or service with a value – to increase brand equity through a well-designed website. Brand equity adds value to a company’s product or service and thereby allows them to charge more compared to competitors; gain higher market shares; get higher positions on browser search results; or become a leader in their specific niches.

A Brand is MORE than a Name or a Logo 

A Brand is EVERYTHING, and everything is a Brand.

A Brand is your STRATEGY for EXPERIENCE.

So what to do? 

Brand is no longer what the ad agency says about your product or service but what customers say, share and experience about your company. That means how your retail staff interact with customers or how your marketing team creates conversations at your events is more important than what's said in an advertising campaign. This is the reality of the sharing economy today. Experience is only real when shared and if customers aren't sharing your brand, you might as well be invisible. 

Here is a branding manifesto for today's sharing economy:

1. Engage your Audience through Visuals
   65% of online audience are visual learners.
2. Keep your Tone Friendly
   73% of customers stick with a brand because of friendly customer service.
3. Colours Bring Life
   Colours increase Brand Recognition by upto 80%.
4. Flaunt the Typeface
   For the past 50 years, Helvetica has dominated design.
5. Whitespace Sells
   Whitespace increases the perception of information by 20%.
6. Establish your Brand's Voice
   45% of a brands image can be attributed to Who Says It and How It Says It.
7. Invite Trust
   54% of people don't trust brands.
8. Be the Market Leader
   Top brands outperform the stock market by 120%.
9. Focus on Content Strategy
   49% of brands do not have a documented content strategy.
10. Personalisation is the Key
    74% of online consumers expect a brand's web content to be personalised.

Okay but what do customers what out of a brand? 

Eighty percent of companies think their brands have superior experiences. Unfortunately, only eight percent of their customers agree. It’s time for brands to tackle the experience gap – the gap between how consumers want to experience brands, and what brands are actually doing.  It’s not just a marketing imperative; it’s a business imperative. 

Here are the best brand experience principles:

1. Invite participation.
   Great brand experiences are design-driven: simple, accessible, easy and inviting to the participant.
2. Build around users.
   Brand experience learned it from the web: people want their experiences to be relevant and feel customized to their needs. Even delivered at scale, experiences should “fit” the user.
3. Make it shareable.
   Experience sparks recommendation; experiences should be designed to tap into technology as well as our primal human desire to share.
4. Create community.
   Beyond fueling recommendations and referrals, experiences should be designed to connect people around brands—to leverage the few to inspire the many.
5. Make it useful.
   It should go without saying: any experience should add value to people’s lives.

And here are the top trends that people term as "great brand experiences":

1. Honesty and transparency are valued
   “The sales staff were knowledgeable and helpful [in] understanding my needs and aspirations. They were also prepared to provide better prices and throw in extras. A great and pleasant experience.”
   
2. “[The] benefits of the product are exaggerated 
3. during purchase, but claim settlement is complicated 
4. and slow… We [had a] very bad experience and 
5. will hardly choose this company again.”
6. Individual treatment and respect are expected
   “One dealer in particular inquired more about my personal needs to help look for what I really needed. He showed me the features and benefits of each car. Asked if overall price or monthly payment was more important. Took me for a test drive and also told me I could return it no questions asked in 30 days”
   “When they put your name and number into a computer system and you have a different person calling you back every day for weeks, it’s rude and completely impersonal” 
7. “Above and beyond” experiences are remembered (so are their opposites)
   “She sent me a thank you card mentioning something I had said while I was there. She actually listened.”
   “I was in the showroom looking at the vehicles and no one would approach me. So as I walked past a desk I took down the phone number. Then I called the number to get [the salesperson’s] attention... You should have seen his face when I waved to him.”

Finally, here are steps to better the brand experience:

1. Map the overall brand experience.
   Assess all the touchpoints that add up to brand experience to understand gaps, white spaces and areas for improvement. From a customer journey perspective, this is an invaluable step toward “plugging the holes” at which people defect or get distracted.
2. Improve existing experiences.
   Do the work of elevating existing experiences, with particular attention on drivers with the highest levels of impact, like customer-facing staff, partners and other people that represent the brand.
3. Invent and innovate.
   With so few truly differentiated experiences, brands have a huge opportunity to stand out and be special. Look at the tremendously low current performance scores for the extra, discretionary experiences brands create—and take advantage of that white space.

Branding is Dead. Long Live Brand Experience.

Wait... What???

Welcome to the sharing economy...

…a world where everything 
 gets shared

…everywhere

all the time… 

Today, 
 every conversation 

…every moment

…every story

…creates an experience

…which becomes your brand

So what works Today? Branding? Brand Experience?

Branding is…

…Tell ‘em you’re cool

…Tell ‘em in a BIG way

…Keep telling ‘em

…but Branding doesn’t work 
 like it did 30 years ago

Branding is dead…

Long live… Brand Experience

Brand Experience is…

…customer storytelling

…stuff worth talking about

…creating value

…creating events

…creating memories

…joining the dots

…reconnecting communities

…asking “what’s broken”?

…fixing pain points

…taking risks

…creating touchpoints online

…and touchpoints offline

Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

which means… 

your brand is what people say about you and…

you can’t always be in the room…

they will soon forget what your brand said but they’ll always remember how you made them FEEL

FROM BRANDING TO BRAND EXPERIENCE

Traditional marketing was a Branding based approach: positioning, awareness, campaigns. 

In the 21st century, marketers need to focus on Brand Experience 

FROM OUTSIDE TO INSIDE
 

Branding use to start outside the company: agencies celebrities, campaigns. 

Today however, Brand Experience starts inside with the intersection of your people, culture and metrics.

Welcome to TODAY!

Content is king.
It’s the king of SEO, and it’s the king of every great website, blog, infographic, Twitter account, and Facebook page out there. Excellent content drives traffic to your site. It’s as simple as that. No image, blog post, video, or anything else that has ever gone viral has contained content that is anything less than excellent – be it excellently funny, excellently informative, excellently shocking, excellently entertaining, or excellently silly, they have all had one thing in common: excellence.

So, what makes excellent content?
Well, it depends on the medium, but in this post I am going to be focussing on written content and blog posts in particular. I like to think that I know a thing or two about how to craft together some excellent content for my worldwide audience. I didn’t learn the best practices of the craft overnight, but through years and years of hard work and writing literally hundreds and hundreds of blogs on all manner of subjects.

And so now you can take advantage of my experience as I detail for you some of the very best tips for crafting excellent content that I have picked up along the way, which will hopefully help to make your journey towards excellence a lot shorter than mine was – if only someone had been so kind when I started out.

1. Make It Positive

Positive content is infinitely more shareable than negative content. This may actually seem counter-intuitive – if you read the news, then you may think that negativity was a necessity. But marketing content doesn't work like that. People like to read and to share positive posts from businesses’ websites. Indeed, finding the perfect tone for your content is essential for it to be enjoyed by your following, and for them to feel that other people in their networks might enjoy it too.

So, what is the right tone for your blog?
Well, it’s all about finding the right balance between formality and informality. You, of course, want your content to be useful and informative for your readers, but ideally it should also be entertaining to a certain degree as well. In a sense, the perfect tone for your blog will probably reflect the tone and the style of your favourite teachers at school. Do you remember them? They somehow made what might otherwise have been some very dry information come alive, didn’t they. You may well even remember some of the things that they taught you even now. They did this by inserting a sense of fun and enjoyment into their content, and that’s exactly what you should be doing, too, no matter how serious or informative your post may be. Which brings me onto my next point.

2. Make It Practical

Aside from being positive, excellent content is almost invariably practical for the user to some degree. This of course makes sense when you think about it, and perhaps goes some way to distinguishing why the news we read seem to make its success out of being negative, whilst blogging is all about positivity. The news are simply there to spread the word of current events and affairs, whereas a blog post should have real, useable value for the reader.

Quite often you will find that posts will take the form of this one, where some practical and actionable tips are being offered for those that discover them. Indeed, this clean and clear simple style can be a great place for you to start out when getting to grips with crafting some excellent content for your blog. Think about your audience in relation to your product or service – what sort of thing do you think that they all have in common? Can you come up with a list of some great tips that might be useful to them all?

What’s so great about this is that your readers will have something of genuine worth that they can take away with them after they’ve finished reading your post. They can apply it in their work or lives, will see some great results in return, and will remember you and your blog for it.

3. Evoke Emotions

If you can hit on an emotion in the reader then you’re onto a serious winner, and the chances of your content going viral significantly increase. High arousal emotions are the best ones to target, and in fact sometimes the odd negative emotion can actually be of benefit here if used well. So, what are the high arousal emotions and how do you tailor your content to target them?

• Awe: If you can inspire awe in your readership, then they won’t be able to resist hitting that share button or leaving a comment or reply. Awe can be inspired by of a story, a real event, or even from an impressive list of tips or links.
• Surprise/Shock: Try and find something to write about that goes against people’s expectations in a manner that surprises or even shocks them, and they’ll just have to read on. Find new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking about things, challenge assumptions in your writing and prove those notions wrong – indeed this last point leads me onto to a negative emotion that inspires engagement…
• Anger: If you manage to mount a serious challenge against some common assumptions, then you’re almost certain to tick a few people off, and what you’ll find is that they’ll start tweeting about you, sharing your post on Facebook, leaving lots of comments and perhaps even a few blog posts will be written in reply. This of course is great for generating traffic to your website, but you must of course be careful with it. Don’t just be contrary for the sake of it. Remember, you must still be writing positively even if you are inspiring a negative emotion, and you of course must still be practical. So, inspiring anger works, and there’s nothing wrong with igniting a healthy debate about something, but don’t make yourself unpopular, and always check your facts before challenging established conventions.

Some Final Thoughts and Tips

Creating excellent content is a matter of practice and experience, but hopefully the tips I have provided for you above should save you some time when trying to find the right path that will work for you. Experiment a little, find what sort of posts arouse the most engagement from your following, take note, and recreate those sorts of posts again.

When it comes to formatting your posts, it also pays to follow a few conventions of style. Firstly, give your post a very ‘clickable’ title, something short that shows the reader instantly that what you’ve written has value for them. And then, once you’ve done that, do the same with your subheadings. You want to format your posts so that the content is easily scannable for readers, so lots of subheadings, lots of paragraph breaks, and a few bullet points are always good as well.

Finally, when you sign off on your post, make sure that the last thing that you do is ask for your readers to take some sort of action.

Ever seen a sales page for a major marketing training course? Did you notice the dozens of testimonials? There’s a reason the guru used up all that valuable space on their sales page: Testimonials are a marketer’s secret weapon.  There’s a mountain of marketing studies to back this up, but I’ll stick to just three of the choicest examples.

Example #1 from the B2B market
The B2B Content Marketing Report’s 2013 Survey, found customer testimonials to have the highest effectiveness of ANY other content marketing tactic. And that’s not according to just a few members – 89% of those polled said testimonials were effective. Even podcasts, considered to be THE sleeper content marketing tactic, got a mere 23% of marketers saying they were effective.

Example #2 from the B2C market
Nielsen’s Global AdView Pulse report found the rate of trust among consumers also puts testimonials at the top of trusted information, second only to “Recommendations from people I know”.

Example #3 Testimonials are a very close second to a personal recommendation
Search Engine Land found 72% of the consumers they surveyed said they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 52% said positive online reviews make them more likely to use a local business.

With stats like that, I know you’re eager to find out how to get some testimonials for yourself. But before we delve into how to get testimonials, here are few tips for what separates great testimonials from so-so ones.

10 essential elements of a great testimonial

1. It’s from a real person. 99.9% of you don’t need to be told this, but just in case one of you was tempted to write a fake testimonial, because you heard on some forum it was okay, let me remind you: It’s not okay.
2. It’s not perfect. The person giving the testimonial doesn’t have to sound like an advertisement or look like a model. They don’t have to say things that perfectly align with your marketing strategy. Your production values don’t have to be Hollywood material. Keep it real to keep it believable.
3. It’s specific. A 200% improvement sounds like it could be marketing hype. A 187% improvement has clearly been measured.
4. It’s authentic. Don’t force people to give testimonials. Don’t make them read a script, or do anything they wouldn’t naturally do.
5. It’s comparative. While you shouldn’t force people to say things, you can give them some helpful guidelines. Asking them to describe what their experience of something was like before and after using your product is a good way to frame a testimonial. For example, “Before I used Sparkle Car Wash, I had to wash my car once a week during bug season. Now, I only have to wash my car about every six weeks.”
6. It hasn’t been edited. This leans on the point about not sounding like an advertisement, and not forcing people to say things they wouldn’t naturally say.
7. It’s been given with permission. What’s the single best way to take a customer who used to love your brand and turn them into someone who will never trust it again? It would be to use their words without their permission.
8. It describes benefits, not features. It’s nice for someone to say “I loved the 500 horsepower engine.” It’s better when they say, “Now I can pass whomever I want on big hills.” To honor the rule of not putting words in people’s mouths, you might have to give them another “framing question” for their testimonial, like “what’s your favorite thing about the Mustang GT Fastback?”
9. Get video testimonials when you can. A study of how to use testimonials to boost conversion rates had four segments – page A with no testimonials, page B with a text (written) testimonial, then page C with no testimonial and page D with a video testimonial. Adding a testimonial lifted response in both cases, but the videos blew the text away… by nearly ten-fold.
10. Place the testimonial near a part of the checkout process where people tend to bail. Even the best testimonials won’t help you much if they’re hidden away for no one to see. So don’t do that – put your testimonials out on all the places where people need them most. For ecommerce sites, this is the order form, or possibly the product pages. For B2B sites, it might be on the contact page or on a form for a project brief. For both types of companies, it couldn’t hurt to sprinkle a few testimonials on your home page, or in the navigation column of your blog.

How to get great testimonials

Now that you know what you’re aiming for, here’s how to get it:

1. Get the timing right. This applies to any testimonial, but with video testimonials, when you ask is especially important.
   
   I saw one marketing expert get video testimonials from people immediately after they had seen a presentation by her. Many of the people coming out of the talk were energized, excited and just basically blow away by what they had learned. More than half the people that were asked to give a testimonial did. They just stepped away from the flood of traffic, got under a decent light and a stable background, and were recorded for 5-20 seconds while they described their impression of the marketer.
   
   The timing was key – the marketer would not have gotten anywhere near the enthusiasm or willingness to give those testimonials if she had asked the next day, or even a few hours later.
   
   Key takeaway: When asking for video testimonials, ask at the right moment. If you can get the moment right, less-than-perfect production value won’t matter.
    
2. Use the Reviews tab in Facebook
   You’ll need a Facebook page set up as a local business to apply this tip, but if you are set up that way, this a great way to add a reviews feature to your Facebook presence in a snap. Facebook’s instructions for how to do this are easy to follow.
   
   
    
3. Have a plan in place for when you get the glowing email from a client or customer
   Just as the best time to ask for a video testimonial is when your client or customer is thrilled, the best time to ask permission to use someone’s words is when they’ve just sent them. The next time you get a glowing email from someone, have a reply ready that asks if you can use their words on your website (or elsewhere).
   
   Something like this might work:
   

   “Claire,
   Thanks so much for those kind words! Would you be open to letting us quote you on our website? I could identify you as the AOK Marketing Manager, or just identify you as Claire S. from Somerset New Jersey.”

   
   Giving people a choice in how they are identified often makes them more likely to say yes. If they seem even a little uncomfortable, and they have a website, offer to link to their website. Often the incentive of a link is enough “pay” to get people on board.
   
   If that first script doesn’t work, try this: “I would really like to share your success with my other clients. Would that be okay?”
    
4. Make the most of LinkedIn LinkedIn offers an endorsements feature for people you’re connected to. If you’ve gotten any endorsements on your profile or your company page, you could potentially use those endorsements on your website or other materials. Again, it’s always nice to ask permission first, so get an email out to people who’ve endorsed you… before they see themselves quoted on your business card.
    
5. Make it easy Contact forms are ready-made tools to collect testimonials with. You can add a separate page for people to submit testimonials to, of course, but so long as your contact form has a field that’s long enough for 3-4 sentences of type, it can serve double duty. Perhaps a call to action added to your navigation column might increase testimonials, too. It never hurts to ask.
    
6. Hold a Facebook contest These can be for video testimonials, essays, or just quotes. The benefits of contests are that you can easily frame how you want your testimonials to be delivered.
   
   The drawback is that you are, in a sense, paying people to leave a testimonial. There is a little bit of inauthenticity to contest testimonials. However, I’m including the technique here because it is widely used for getting testimonials, and it certainly does work.
   
   What do you think? Is holding a contest a bad way to get testimonials? Are there other way to get testimonials that I missed?

 When it comes to visual content, your customers expect something very different compared to just a few years ago. It is now supercharged by mobiles and visual social media networks.

It used to be OK to have a static website gallery, post text to your social channels, and use corporate photos and videos online. Now, readers depend on visuals to figure out whether your content is worth their time.

Expectations of consumers have changed too. They no longer have time to click through to an image or link to see what your content is about. They make split-second decisions based on the visual content provided.

So whether your content is being consumed within social channels or on your website, visual content remains a powerful tool – but only if done correctly.

In short, the rules of visual content have changed.

Why should you use visual content?

Just take a quick look at these 3 snack size facts about the visually wired human.
In a visual content format :)

Below are new rules of visual content marketing. Break them and you risk losing your customers.

1. The law of the recent

When we go online, most of the content we consume is from today, or at best yesterday.

Content from last week is practically unreachable unless you’re looking for something specific. And content from last year has become history so ancient, it might as well be obsolete.

Skeptical? Test it.

Go to your favourite social network. Open it up and take a look at your home feed. Can you find a post from last week in the first 25 updates?

Notice something else? The only way you can tell how recent a post is, is by the time stamp on them. Posts from today will either have the time they were published visible or tell you how long ago the post was made. E.g. an hour ago, five hours ago, yesterday.

In order for your content to be relevant, it has to be recent. The best way to do that is by time stamping your content or featuring topical events.
Honda has created a social hub on their website where they curate and display recent customer content.

2. The law of authenticity

People are more likely to trust a referral from a friend or relative than a company.

In fact, research has shown Millennials are even more likely to trust a complete stranger than a company. It’s why user-generated content is considered far more compelling than any content a brand produces.

Photos and videos from your customers tell the real story of your brand and are far more effective.
NZone is an extreme sport (skydiving) company. Customers who share personal pictures of their experience increase authenticity and can instil trust for anyone considering making a purchase.

3. The law of credibility

The law of credibility states that your customers must be willing to stand by your brand by publicly aligning themselves with it.

In layman terms, if your customers are posting images and sharing their experiences, they should be linking back to you or tagging you in their social media updates.

Think about it. What would you trust more? An image or video shared by a company showing how happy and satisfied their clients are? Or the same thing shared by one of their customers?

Dole is an international brand which markets and distributes fruit including pineapples, bananas and paw paws. They often get their customers to share content from events or at home consuming the product.

4.  The law of relevance

Visual content needs to be presented in context. It has to be relevant, informative and well organized.

So if you’re selling a product online, you need to provide corresponding visual content for it. Make sure you place relevant content in the right place.

For example if you are selling  particular line of clothing not only do you need to place photos of that on the right web pages, you also need to place the correct user-generated photos on the right webpage, which in this case may involve your customers with those clothes in a real life situation.

Superette is an on-line retailer. They take care of this law by linking customer photos to their products.

5. The law of the caption

A picture may be worth a thousand words but a caption or headline can often bring it further to life.

There’s no denying that we process visual content faster than text-based content. But a simple caption is often required to tell a visual story more effectively.

A caption also helps you communicate your brand’s identity. For example if your brand focuses on making things easy and fun for your customers, then the caption can be humorous.

The Press, a daily newspaper, ran a photo competition and asked their readers to submit their best backyard cricket photos for a World Cup promotion. One user submitted the image below with a caption that made a photo infinitely more interesting.

6. The law of social

Your customers expect to be able to interact with your visual content – whether it’s on your social channels or on your website.

Make it easy for them by providing them opportunities to comment on your content, share them easily on their preferred social networks, and even email the content to their friends if they want to.

The law of social doesn’t end here though. Your customers also expect you to acknowledge their efforts. If they’ve left a comment, reply to it. If they’ve shared on social media, thank them for it. Find a way to make it worth their while and they’ll continue giving your visual content the same attention.

Interislander – a ferry service ran a photo contest that asked their customers to share their favourite Interislander memory on their website or Instagram and tag them.

Needless to say, the competition was a huge hit!

7. The law of personality 

For too long brands have been bland and boring. Think stock photos.

Thankfully, the recent developments in visual content make it easy to bring a brand to life.

The right visuals, including photos, videos, infographics, and e-books can add depth to your brand story and reinforce your culture.

One of the easiest ways to do so is to give your customers a “behind the scenes” look. Show them what goes into making or marketing your brand, post pictures from office events, maybe even how you brainstorm.

The more your customers know about the culture of your company, the more your brand’s personality will shine through.

The Queensland Opera does this brilliantly. From pictures of their costume designs, rehearsals, and makeup – they keep their fans and followers engaged.

8. The law of consistency

Apart from engaging customers, the role of visual content is to reinforce your brand. For that to happen, your content needs to have consistency.

This isn’t strictly a new law, but it’s worth reinforcing. We’re not referring to publishing visual content consistently. It’s more about elements in your visuals that tell your target market that the visual is from your company – even if you’re not linked or tagged in it.

You can do this by using the same:

• Fonts and colours as your website
• Images in your company’s social media accounts and profile page headers
• Design element like a background, banner, or logo.

Customers should be able to recognize the content is from your brand at a glance.

All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby team, have their photos naturally branded. Whether their visuals are from their own team or from fans, they all include the All Blacks in one form or another.

9. The law of resilience

Content never sleeps and neither does your online presence.

Visual content is not a campaign that ends in a few days or weeks. It’s not a one-off thing. It’s an on-going strategy.

Make creating, publishing, and maintaining visual content a key part of your marketing strategy.

Jucy, one of tourism’s top content marketers, has created an on-going visual content, much of which is from their customers.

10. The law of quality

With cell phone cameras getting better and better by the day, customers have learned to take great photos and videos themselves.

And with the numerous filters available through Instagram and others, it’s possible to source high quality content from your customers.

The good news is, you can use that content and combine it with your own in-house efforts to help with your marketing activities.

Dilmah, a renowned tea company, encourages its tea drinkers to share their best photos with them for a chance to win awesome prizes like a 10-day trip to New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

A photo submitted by one of Dilmah fans. Source: Dilmah Tea in the City Photo Competition

Visual content – a vital part of your content marketing strategy.

There’s no denying it. Visual content is a vital part of any marketing strategy.

The days of the old website photo gallery are far behind us. When done right, visual content can drive traffic to your site, increase page views, lower bounce rate, and convert website traffic into sales.

Use these new laws of visual content to up your marketing game and grow your business. Ignore them and you risk becoming obsolete.

How do your current visuals compare against these new laws? Are they giving you the results you want? Or are you struggling to create visuals that would interest your customers?

Follow these tips to help you create clear, concise, lively writing that captures your e-mail readers' attention.

E-mail marketers use many strategies to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns, but one area often overlooked is what fills the page--the copy you write.

Whether you're a seasoned writer or a novice, it's always important to strengthen your editorial skills and make sure your e-mail marketing communications contain valuable information. Good copy helps your readers understand your offer--and how to respond. The following copywriting tips are ones that pros know well. Keeping these "commandments" in front of you when you write will help you create compelling copy that engages your readers, conveys your business message and creates effective calls for action.

Commandment #1: Know your audience. 

Who is this e-mail going to? Picture the average person on your list. Give them a name, even. Think about what their day is like. Think about what's important to them. What are they passionate about? How old are they? What products or services have they purchased from you in the past and why? The more you know about the audience you're writing for, the more targeted and relevant your copy will be.

Commandment #2: Determine your value proposition. 

Know the answers to these questions: Why should your customer buy your product or service? What's in it for them? Why is your product better than the one down the street? What are your key differentiators?

Commandment #3: Find a unique selling proposition. 

The more your offer stands out from the competition, the better your chances of getting a response. Rosser Reeves, author of Reality in Advertising, defines the unique selling proposition as a promotion that offers "something that competitors do not, or will not, offer." He also says, "The proposition must be strong enough to pull new customers to the product."

Commandment #4: Establish an objective. 

What's the purpose of this e-mail? What action are you trying to get the reader to take? You need to be clear on this before you start writing. If the answer isn't clear to you, it certainly won't be clear to your reader.

Commandment #5: Use a compelling subject line. 

The subject line is what gets your e-mail opened, so don't write something quickly just before sending. You have to convince your readers that they really need to open your e-mail. The best word you can use to get the reader's attention is you. The word you says that the message is about them. Other great words for subject lines (and headlines) include new, exciting, exclusive and introducing. Also, try to keep your subject line to 50 characters or less, including spaces.

Commandment #6: Write a great headline. 

If the subject line gets your reader to open the e-mail, then the headline gets them to read further. Consider using some of the buzzwords mentioned in commandment #5 in the headline so it'll grab readers with an obvious "What's in it for me?" message. Here's a question to ask yourself: What if my customers only read the headline? Will they know enough about you and what you offer?

Tip: Write five to 10 different subject lines and five to 10 different headlines to see what works best. Also, you may find that it's easier to write a subject line and headline after you've written the body copy.

Commandment #7: Avoid weasel words. 

When writing headlines, subheads and body copy, don't use words that avoid a direct command, aka weasel words. These include may, maybe, hope, wish, try, but, could, perhaps and strive. Instead, use words like will and can to describe what your product or service will or can do for your reader.

Commandment #8: Don't use passive voice--write in the present tense. 

Passive voice weakens your message. It's best to avoid it. Here are a few examples to help you see the difference:

"Our company was chosen to receive an award" vs. "Our company received an award."
"We have had 15 new products arrive" vs. "Fifteen new products arrived."
"Ten new designs were created" vs. "We created 10 new designs."

Commandment #9: Include a customer quote. 

Do you have a great customer quote that you can include in your e-mail? A brief and convincing quote can add credibility to your campaign. The more real you can make the person to your readers, the better. Including their name, what city or state they live in and even a photo, if it fits your campaign, is a great way to communicate the value of your service.

Commandment #10: Keep your copy clean and concise. 

After you write your first round of copy, read it out loud. Also, have someone else read it to see if they understand the message and the call to action. As you edit, cut unnecessary words and consolidate ideas. See if you can get your text down to 30 to 50 percent of what you started with. Also, include bullet points and possibly subtitles to make it easy to read-and, more important, easy to scan--as most readers scan a page before deciding whether or not to read all the details.

Great copywriting is within your reach. Keeping these tips in mind when you write will greatly improve your copy, making it easier for readers to understand and respond to your e-mail campaign. Good, thoughtful writing will ultimately improve your success as an e-mail marketer.

What's in a name?
A lot, when it comes to small-business success. The right name can make your company the talk of the town. The wrong one can doom it to obscurity and failure. Ideally, your name should convey the expertise, value and uniqueness of the product or service you have developed.
Some experts believe that the best names are abstract, a blank slate upon which to create an image. Others think that names should be informative so customers know immediately what your business is. Some believe that coined names (that come from made-up words) are more memorable than names that use real words. Others think they're forgettable.

In reality, any name can be effective if it's backed by the appropriate marketing strategy. Here's what you'll need to consider in order to give your small business the most appropriate and effective name.

Enlist Expert Help to Start

Coming up with a good business name can be a complicated process. You might consider consulting an expert, especially if you're in a field in which your company name may influence the success of your business. Brand identity consulting firms have elaborate systems for creating new names and they know their way around the trademark laws. They can advise you against bad name choices and explain why others are good.
The downside is cost. A professional brand identity consulting firm may charge a lot to develop a name. The cost generally includes other identity work and graphic design as part of the package for brand identity development. Online naming services that charge little do exist, but spending a reasonable amount of money early for quality expert advice can save you money in the long term.

What's in a Name?

Start by deciding what you want your name to communicate. It should reinforce the key elements of your business. Your work in developing a niche and a mission statement will help you pinpoint the elements you want to emphasize in your name.

The more your name communicates to consumers about your business, the less effort you must exert to explain it. According to naming experts, entrepreneurs should give priority to real words or combinations of words over fabricated words. People prefer words they can relate to and understand. That's why professional brand identity consultants universally condemn strings of numbers or initials as a bad choice.
On the other hand, it is possible for a name to be too meaningful. Common pitfalls are geographic or generic names. A hypothetical example is "San Pablo Disk Drives." What if the company wants to expand beyond the city of San Pablo, California? What meaning will that name have for consumers in Chicago or India? And what if the company diversifies beyond disk drives into software or computer instruction manuals?

How can a name be both meaningful and broad?

Descriptive names tell something concrete about a business - what it does, where it's located and so on. Suggestive names are more abstract. They focus on what the business is about.

Consider "Indtour," a name that was developed by a brand identity company to help promote package tours to India. Though it's not a real word, the name is meaningful and customers can recognize immediately what's being offered. Even better, "Indtour" evokes the excitement of foreign travel.

When choosing a business name, keep the following tips in mind:

• Choose a name that appeals not only to you but also to the kind of customers you are trying to attract.
• Choose a comforting or familiar name that conjures up pleasant memories so customers respond to your business on an emotional level.
• Don't pick a name that is long or confusing.
• Stay away from cute puns that only you understand.
• Don't use the word “Inc.” after your name unless your company is actually incorporated.

Get Creative

At a time when almost every existing word in the language has been trademarked, the option of coining a name is becoming more popular. Some examples are Acura and Compaq, which were developed by naming firm NameLab.

Coined names can be more meaningful than existing words. For example, "Acura" has no dictionary definition but the word suggests precision engineering, just as the company intended. NameLab's team created the name Acura from "Acu," a word segment that means "precise" in many languages. By working with meaningful word segments (what linguists call morphemes) like "Acu," the company produces new words that are both meaningful and unique.

However, made-up words aren't the right solution for every situation. New words are complex and may create a perception that the product, service or company is complex, which may not be true. Plus, naming beginners might find this sort of coining beyond their capabilities.

An easier solution is to use new forms or spellings of existing words. For instance, NameLab created the name Compaq when a new computer company came to them touting its new portable computer. The team thought about the word "compact" and came up with Compaq, which they believed would be less generic and more noticeable.

Test Your Name

After you've narrowed the field to four or five names that are memorable and expressive, you are ready to do a trademark search. Not every business name needs to be trademarked, as long as your government gives you the go-ahead and you aren't infringing on anyone else's trade name. But you should consider hiring a trademark attorney or at least a trademark search firm before to make sure your new name doesn't infringe on another business's trademark.

Simultaneously you should also lookup the availability of suitable domain names for your business so that you do not have a problem later on in developing a online presence.

Final Analysis

If you're lucky, you'll end up with three to five names that pass all your tests. Now, how do you make your final decision?

Recall all your initial criteria. Which name best fits your objectives? Which name most accurately describes the company you have in mind?

Some entrepreneurs arrive at a final decision by going with their gut or by doing consumer research or testing with focus groups to see how the names are perceived. You can doodle an idea of what each name will look like on a sign or on business stationery. Read each name aloud, paying attention to the way it sounds if you foresee radio advertising or telemarketing in your future. Use any or all of these criteria.

Keep in mind that professional branding firms devote anywhere from six weeks to six months to the naming process. You probably won't have that much time, but plan to spend at least a few weeks on selecting a name.

Once your decision is made, start building your enthusiasm for the new name immediately. Your name is your first step toward building a strong company identity, one that should last as long as you're in business.

When you look at the logo of a brand, have you spared any thought to their choice of colours in the logo that they have had designed?

Today a red, white and yellow logo immediately signifies a McDonald outlet and the yellow and blue logo shows us it is Visa. But we have never given thought to why these colour combinations were picked. The motivation behind this has to do with the psychology of colours and the way in which our minds take in a colour and the message that we draw from it. We may not even be aware of the way the message is being sent to our brains via an image. It clearly shows that colour psychology plays vital role in the designing of professional logos.

Here we will look at the ways in which many colours will have an effect on those seeing the logo. First we will look at the messages our brains get when we see different colours and also a look at colours in the way they complement each other. This should have an impact in the effect your company logo will have.

What colours tell the people look at them?

When you see the yellow and blue combination of Wal-Mart for example, what do the colours tell you?

In most situations blue is the colour of power and confidence while the colour yellow is of being upbeat. Combined these two pack a good punch and tell us what the company wants us to feel about the brand.
Colours carry a message with green suggesting good health and growth, while brown tends to be more earthy and shows usefulness, while red shows intense emotions, purple manages to show a lushness, white is a symbol of pristine things and black is the bold colour.

The inferences we have given are all of a positive nature but colours do have negative connotations. The same green that is seen as a prosperous colour is also the hue of jealousy, like red is for fury and black means demise. While this actually is not much an issue while making a logo design due to the many elements that go into a brand, one still has to keep these things in mind.

Using a colour wheel to pick out the right tone of colour

If you are not careful in picking out colours they may not send the message they want to. So instead of doing it randomly, do make use of a colour wheel. This is a tool that will help in putting colours as per the way they work with each other. The norm is that you can go with colours on the opposite sides of the wheel to ensure that they complement each other.

Normally the colours that are side by side may not work out that well. It goes without saying that all this will be dictated by the brand image of the company. But in spite of that do take colours that work well with each other.

Why are colours so important in designing of logos?

Even without us being aware of it colours play a part in the way we view things. The colours seem to touch a subconscious part of our brain even without our awareness. Each colour like the ones we see online or on roads or anywhere else have an effect on our psyche.

Just think about how many times the logo of a company is shown to people. You are hit by this several times throughout your interaction with them whether it is in person or via television and other media. Since it is shown and seen so many times, the colours in the logo need to be selected with care.

We are creatures that are impacted by what we see and then we respond to that too. In this case a logo that company uses will leave its own imprint of the brain which will then affect our decision making. That is why colour of logo for companies is so vital.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

A well optimized landing page is perhaps the first funnel point and one of the most important aspects that decides whether a user becomes a prospective client or a lost opportunity. Hence the headline, the line that catches the eyes first becomes the primary part of that landing page.
When a visitor lands on a landing page, the window for him to convert or sway to another website is very small. Hence, when you are planning a landing page, spend a good amount of time deciding the headline, because you also have a small window in which you have to grab the readers attention.

Keep it short, simple and sweet

Keep the landing page headline simple and to the point. This will take the readers’ attention off the bat in an instant and will deliver what the content has on offer. This again depends from business to business and campaign to campaign.
Your headlines can also be funny and inventive, but do so only if you have expert copywriters to do the job for you. In order to be funny, make sure you do not loose the essence of your content. There is a thin line that draws between being offensive and funny.

Give a Glimpse of what you are trying to offer

By looking at the headline, the visitor must get a glimpse of what exactly it is that you are trying to offer. An ideal headline should provide just enough information to the user, but not disclose all details. It should give away just a small glimpse of the benefits and should entice and urge the user to further read the contents of the landing page.
As an example, a landing page states…
What’s on offer - ‘Earn your degree online’. Any user who wants to enrol or get more details will have to fill up the form.
Solves a problem - A user will not have to run around colleges to enrol, attend classes and then attain a degree. All he will have to do is, fill the form and register to enrol…problem solved?

Add numbers to your headline

Yes, they do help. (Well this is also another reason why you are reading this blog, isn’t it?).
Providing numbers in a headline means that the reader will not be reading just a lump of information, but a specific list of insights into the said details. In some blogs, numbers also connote hierarchy of events and are easy to point out details that are otherwise difficult to mention in paragraphs.
That said, sometimes adding obscure number like 19 or 37 can really catch people’s attention. Numbers leave a mark on the readers mind which makes him think that this message is important. Marketing experts have analysed over the years that figure numbers (1,2,3,4) work a lot better than numbers that are spelled words (one, two. three, four).

Adding Questions is also a go getter

I find that adding questions in an easy and a very powerful way to grab people’s attention. When used effectively, questions rope readers into a story no matter how busy they are. A well formatted question headline has several viewpoints which makes the readers curious.
Now, asking a question in a headline can also be a risk. Most questions by default have a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ answer. If we take an example, there are three instances that can occur:
YES: Someone who wants to study abroad will fill the form immediately.
YES, but NOT at the moment: Someone who is not willing to study at the moment, but wants to give it a thought later may also fill the form.
NO: Someone who does not want to study abroad will move to another page the very instant he/she reads the headline.
Like you can see above, the ratio of people filling the form to not filling is much higher. This way question headlines also ensure that relevant leads (students who really want to study abroad) are much more than junk leads (students who fill the form without any reason).
Though writing a question headline is a gamble, it is a necessary one.

Trigger negative emotions

Negative headlines if used well can work as very powerful motivators.
Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs? He had stated that in order to survive, we thrive on safety, affection, attention and our need to outdo ourselves. So with a headline, when you play upon man’s basic need, that of survival, and offer to help him out of that situation, it leaves a positive impact on their mind.
In an example, the headline and the image play on the negative emotion of ‘Hate’. The headline communicates a problem – something that most people don’t like – bugs. Now, a user who hates bugs will want to read further or sign up to get the solution.
But at the same time, if negative headlines are used in the wrong context, they can kill the message.

Make the headline believable

Only 10 seats left – Study with us for 1 week, get an MBA seat at Harvard  
If this was the case, everyone would have been a alumni of the Harvard, rated the best MBA college in the world! This headline will put anyone on guard. Forget about the user reading the content further, he will close your website and move onto another. Your claim may be true…but keep it subtle. However, the headline should not be misleading, because then the reader will hit the back button and never come back.
By going overboard, you may lose trust with your users. Instead write…
Only 10 seats left! Study with us, get a step closer to your dream – Harvard

Add USP to the headline

In your landing page headline, try words that help sell a product – free, discover, secret, results, quick, guaranteed, off etc. If you know what pain points your potential customer is facing, it should help you write the correct headline and offer him the right deal.
The words ‘Limited’, ‘Off’ and ‘Discount’ are mentioned in the landing page headline and grabs the user’s attention immediately.

Do not use too may keywords in the headline

Yes, putting keywords in the headline makes sure that it ranks well in SEO searches, but stuffing the headline with too many keywords overwhelms the reader and makes it look pushy. Use just the right amount of keywords in a landing page headline which will give you an advantage during web search, search through social networking sites etc.

Landing page headline aesthetics

The less complicated your headline, page and its design, the more likely it is to convert. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. The headlines should ideally be 2 sizes larger than the content.
2. Do not colour them black, instead colour them a dark shade of grey or ivory white if using the headline against a black/dark background.
3. Use Title Case – Capitalize The First Letter Of Each Word.
4. Font size is really important considering that we live in a world where the internet is mostly accessed over Smartphone's.
5. Don’t use a period at the end of the headline. A period or what is also known as a full stop is a mental note for a user to stop reading there. Remember, a period in a headline is a major mistake!
6. Don’t keep the main headline very long. If you have a lot to say, break it down into bits. But again, the sub-headline should not be of the same size as that of the main headline as this will kill the essence of the main headline.
7. Quotations at times can work for headlines.

Use A/B Testing

Make sure you do A/B tests for your headlines to check which version of your landing page and its headline is working best. You can also use free A/B testing tools like Lander A/B and Google Website Optimizer. Over time, A/B testing will also help you analyse your visitors behaviour and what is it that is helping you connect with them.
Then again, when A/B testing, do not make a lot of changes in your headlines or landing pages. This way, when you analyse which landing page is faring better, it will be easy for you to gauge, adding or removing which part did the trick.
Example: When testing a landing page headline, change either the colour or the text or the words. Do not change everything at once. You will not be able to analyse which headline is faring better.
While there are many ways to create headlines, the above mentioned ones are most compelling.

Digital Marketing nowadays is a major component for Marketing of any Product, Service or Brand. Why Digital Marketing is taking precedence over traditional way of doing marketing is that it’s so fast & quick that it happens on a click of button with very minimal cost & efforts. If not handled properly, it could make or break any Person, Group or an Organization in less than 24 hours. Digital Marketing is nothing but Internet Marketing. Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Social Media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc) are components of Digital Marketing.


Digital Marketing is a field which is not restricted only to Sales & Marketing Professionals but now it’s mandatory that each & everyone, whether a Business owner, a Working Professional, Politician, Bureaucrats, Film Star or even Sportsperson’s can’t survive in coming years if they will not have knowledge or habit of using Digital Marketing.

According to Wikipedia, is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cellphones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

Digital marketing is a marketing process which leads to the development of any organization or brand by using a variety of digital channels such as email, social networks etc. It can be defined as promoting of brands or products and services using all forms of digital advertising. Digital marketing uses Television, Radio, Internet, mobile and any form of digital media to reach customers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.

A Primer of the term of digital marketing:

What is Digital Marketing - Digital marketing is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cell phones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

What is Social Media - Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media is a term used to collectively describe a set of tools that foster interaction, discussion and community, allowing people to build relationships and share information.

What is Search Engine Optimization - SEO is a technique which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. SEO thus helps you get traffic from search engines. SEO covers all the necessary information you need to know about Search Engine Optimization - what is it, how does it work and differences in the ranking criteria of major search engines.

Why Digital Marketing – With the increased amount of social media platforms, many companies are taking advantage of digital marketing strategies to promote and market their products and services. Since the Internet allows us to communicate instantaneously, launching a digital marketing campaign can take place more quickly than traditional marketing campaigns and are sometimes less expensive. The wonderful thing about digital marketing is that it’s immediate, thus you can monitor feedback, input and actions in real-time from your target market.

Methods of Digital Marketing & Social Media Use- This type of marketing enforcement or implementation is very integrated as various platforms can be utilized at once in promoting products or services. One can use websites, PPC ads, mobile apps, mobile websites, SMS, instant messaging, email among others to effectively communicate messages to his or her target audience. This mode of marketing is not only interactive but also very cost effective.

Email marketing - Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness.

Blog & Directory Submission - A directory is an Index of websites compiled by people rather than a Crawler. Directories can be general or divided into specific categories and subcategories. A directory's servers provide relevant lists of registered sites in response to user queries. Directory Registration is thus an important method for building inbound links and improving SEO performance. However, the decision to include a site and its directory rank or categorization is determined by directory editors rather than an Algorithm.

Google Analytic - Analytics refers to all the technology, programming, and data used in Search Engine Marketing to analyse a website's performance or the success of an Internet marketing campaign.

Meta Tagging - Also known as a meta description tag, a description tag is a short HTML paragraph that provides search engines with a description of a page's content for search engine Index purposes. The description tag is not displayed on the website itself, and may or may not be displayed in the search engine's listing for that site. Search engines are now giving less importance to description tags in lieu of actual page content.

Pull Digital Marketing – It is a method of advertising companies use to try and get consumers to find the company on their own. The idea is that people will find your company because your company was able to build a successful brand. This would mean that a company has offered a valuable product and created enough social media visibility to become something that a person wants all on his/her own.

Push Digital Marketing - is an approach that tries to put advertisements in front of someone who does not necessarily have any knowledge of your company. Push marketing strategies could involve cold calling, advertising banners, or generating referrals. They are designed to get others to really promote the company and “push” the idea that your company is something of value.

Google AdSense - Google AdSense is a paid service offered by Google that provides relevant text, image, and video-based advertisements to enrolled site owners. Advertisers register via Google AdWords and pay for ads on a Pay-Per-Click, Cost-Per-Thousand or Cost-Per-Action basis. This revenue is shared with Google AdSense host sites, typically on a PPC basis (which sometimes leads to Click Fraud). Google uses its search Algorithms and Contextual Link Inventory to display the most appropriate ads based on site content, Query relevancy, ad "quality scores," and other factors.

Google AdWords - Google AdWords is a paid and often expensive Keyword Submission program that determines the advertising rates and keywords used in the Google AdSense program. Advertisers bid on the keywords that are relevant to their businesses. Ranked ads then appear as sponsored links on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and Google AdSense host sites.

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Apart from using many of the techniques and practices contained within the category of Internet Marketing, digital marketing extends beyond this by including other channels that do not require the use of the Internet. Due to non-dependence on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes a whole lot of elements such as mobile phones or cell phones, display / banner ads, sms /mms, digital outdoor, and many more.

Digital marketing is now being enlarged in vast areas to support the "servicing" and "engagement" of customers.