Cryptocurrency in Advertising

Digital currencies such as Bitcoin have been making headlines recently as the price soared over thirteen fold last year. However, sites such as Facebook and Google have decided to ban advertising for cryptocurrency amid scrutiny of the financial products that have become a rapidly growing market. Concerns about cryptocurrency have motivated these sites to protect their users from ads persuading them to purchase products like Bitcoin.

Google employees responsible for the decision have stated that cryptocurrencies are “unregulated” and speculative in nature which could prove to be a threat to the user experience. Facebook made a similar decision as part of an effort to rebuild trust with its users on the platform. Google chose to ban all ads about cryptocurrency-related content including initial coin offerings, wallets and trading advice on the ad platforms.

As a result of these bans, even companies with legitimate cryptocurrency offerings won’t be allowed to run ads using any of Google or Facebook’s ad products. The websites believe that there has been enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm as a result of cryptocurrencies to warrant the ban on advertising. Cryptocurrency scams are the main concern that could negatively affect users and put them in financial danger.

Understanding Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency products like Bitcoin are essentially used as an electronic cash system that doesn’t rely on banks or third parties to verify transactions and create new units. Transactions are instead confirmed using cryptography on a publicly distributed ledger called the blockchain which enables peer to peer payments. Cryptocurrency transfers can happen more quickly than with traditional banking systems which may take days to transfer money while crypto transfers happen in minutes.

In the same way that credit cards require a signatures, cryptocurrencies also require a digital signature. The transactions are secured through a system called public key encryption which allows each user to have a private key and a public key on their account. The private key is used as a digital signature for the user to prove who they are and authorize a transaction.

Bitcoin users were able to profit significantly from using the cryptocurrency which is making these financial products highly sought after. Unfortunately, scammers have become an issue with cryptocurrency and many are losing money as a result of investing in fake currencies. Scammers are making millions off of unsuspecting investors who believe they are paying for a currency similar to Bitcoin.

Countless high profile scams are what led Facebook and Google to ban advertising for all cryptocurrencies to prevent users from investing their money in a fake financial product. Google has been known to crack down on advertising that doesn’t follow its rules and the company said that it took down more than 3.2 billion ads in 2017 that violated its policies. Since cryptocurrency has become less trustworthy, banning all ads was their solution to protect users as much as possible.

Legitimate and Scam Cryptocurrencies

The reason Google chose to ban all of these types of ads from their site is because they find it nearly impossible to identify legitimate projects versus scam artists. People have been inundated with fraudulent advertisements claiming that users can make money by investing in new forms of cryptocurrency. There has been a major backlash against cryptocurrency products and especially ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings.

An ICO is a way for start-ups to crowd fund investment and ask people to invest in a cryptocurrency in exchange for a token that’s issued by the start up. The digital coin can then be used in exchange for future services offered by the company. There is also the possibility of the value of the coin climbing much higher than the initial investment as was the case with Bitcoin.

Although there are legitimate possibilities for people to make money and benefit from investing in an ICO, there are plenty of scammers online because ICOs are unregulated and investors don’t have the same protections as with other assets like stocks. People can invest in something that seems legitimate until they begin to see warning signs such as a lack of correspondence from its founders and failed attempts to recoup lost funds. These scams take people’s investments, don’t develop anything and eventually cut ties with investors.

Because there is no way for Google or Facebook to tell which cryptocurrency ICOs are real and which ones are going to steal from users, they have banned all ads across the board. This may protect people from being swayed by an ad asking for their investment in a false cryptocurrency. Some believe that Google may eventually modify their ban to include legitimate crypto ads once ICOs become more regulated.

For the time being however, users will not see any further advertisements on Facebook or Google for cryptocurrency starting in June of this year.

The post Cryptocurrency in Advertising appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/cryptocurrency-in-advertising/

Top 10 Powerful Testing Tools to Check a Landing Page

If you manage any of your Internet ventures with a specific goal in mind, you know the importance of landing pages. Getting email subscribers for your newsletters, traffic for your new blog, downloads for your ebook, or sales for your latest productivity hack courses – landing pages do it for you. But what makes some landing pages more successful at conversion than others?

Successful web entrepreneurs know that the secret of success with landing pages is – testing. Yes, with so many digital marketing tactics being tried out every day, and so many uncontrollable factors involved in how audiences interact with your landing pages, you can only rely on strong testing practices to know what works and do more of it. In this guide, we will cover 10 power-packed tools to help you check and test landing pages.

Google Analytics

This is the cornerstone of all Internet-based analytics, with data fed to it directly from Google’s unimaginably vast pool of sources. Using Google Analytics is easy enough because there are detailed online tutorials available for all major functionalities it offers. For landing page A/B split testing, you will need to work with the Content Experiments feature. Here, you can create different split test page variants, and get advanced reporting for them. There’s no visual editor here, which is a bit of a letdown, but Google Analytics is free! You might also want to try the ‘Goals’ feature that lets you easily track business targets from your web assets.

Optimizely

For anybody ready to work with a paid split testing tool, Optimizely is a reasonable priced and feature rich option. With Optimizely, you can set up split tests for your landing page versions, and let the tool collect data and weave it into meaningful reports for you. Optimizely offers multivariate, split, and mobile testing, and showcases data in an easy-to-understand manner, so much so that you won’t even need basic data analytics knowledge to begin using it to maximum effect. The good part with Optimizely is that you can always upgrade and avail more advanced features as the data analytics and split testing requirements of your web brand increase. One downside is that you need to create passable landing pages on your own, as the tool doesn’t offer any support there. The easy and intuitive interface with a visual editor, however, makes it a sweet deal.

Visual Website Optimizer

Though pricey, Visual Website Optimizer is worth every penny you spend, courtesy the vast range of testing options it provides. A/B testing, advanced multivariate testing, Split URL testing conversion tracking, targeting, usability testing, and heat-maps and click-maps – that’s a whopping collection of testing functionalities. A great part of Visual Website Optimizer is that it offers you some pretty smart idea generation features that can help beginners think creatively about the kind of split tests they can carry out for their landing pages. If you anticipate quick growth in your web traffic, or already have substantial traffic (more than 1,000 visitors every month), it’s time you considered a wholesome testing suite such as Visual Website Optimizer.

Unbounce

The tools we discussed till now are a lot more than landing page testing tools, whereas Unbounce is focused on landing pages. With 80+ optimized pre-designed landing page templates, beginners are absolutely going to love this tool. All presets are engineered specifically to improve conversions. Of course, on top of that is the A/B testing interface of Unbounce. Plus, you get some basic metrics to interpret the split test data, along with peripheral tools in higher priced subscriptions. Unbounce has clear goal – help beginners create and split test conversion-optimized landing pages; it achieves its goals like a pro.

KISSmetrics

KISSmetrics is one of the leading testing tools available for digital marketers, offering insight on customer interaction with websites like no other tool. Its super flexible data reporting options make it a powerful analytics engine for all kinds of digital brands. KISSmetrics is also a lot about the human side of data and captures invaluable data and metrics related to the entire customer journey across web pages, websites, and platforms. With KISSmetrics, you can carry out advanced split testing for all your landing pages, and connect the data to real people. It’s also pretty easy to integrate with other software, and hence a favorite of digital marketers already aligned with the idea of automation tools.

A/Bingo

This Ruby on Rails split testing framework is available as a plugin and can test behavioral differences across web pages using a single line of code. The analysis is fast, and it can make measurements for statistical significance across all kinds of tests. The A/B tests are defined in the code of the landing pages, and hence there’ no setup or configuration needed. With A/Bingo, you can create your own multivariate testing dashboard, or use the one it provides by default. The best part – it’s free tool.

CrazyEgg

Specializing in click tracking, CrazyEgg helps you make sense of user behavior when they visit their website and interact with your landing page. The tool is particularly recommended for marketers with a liking for easy to consume visual representations of data. CrazyEgg offers its analytics reports in 6 visually enriched formats, helping business owners understand how exactly visitors engage with their landing pages. It’s a pretty reasonably priced and simplistic entry level landing page testing tool for beginners.

Five Second Tests

This tool helps you understand as to what attracts the audiences about your landing pages in the first 5 seconds of their interaction with the page. Users control settings like the number of respondents needed for the test, apart from options such as click test, preference test, navigation flow test, etc. All you need to start is upload an image, set the test up, get the custom URL, and share it with test instructions. This is a pretty cool tool to use in conjugation with one of the more data-centric tools described above.

Convert Experiment

This tool brings together advanced multi-domain A/B testing and multivariate testing along with detailed reports to help you make sense of the massive data. Plus, there are JavaScript, CSS, and jQuery development tools in the package. Use easy style sheet editing for intuitive content experiments, in conjugation with the easy to use visual editor. You can test landing pages, product pages, and any other web pages using a JavaScript code snippet that allows for easy integration. In addition, you get complete test setting controls such as conversion tracking, test durations, traffic allocation, behavioral and segment tracking, automatic bounce measurements, and engagement evaluations.

Maxymiser

Pretty much like the Convert Experiment tool we discussed above, Maxymiser lets you easily set up basic split tests or advanced multivariate tests for landing pages. The visual editor is breezy to work with and helps you create tests on the fly. A superb feature is that it lets you remove poor performing variables from your testing scope and brings in powerful insights that can be applied to segmentation of audiences. It uses your CRM data to create unique personalities for each website visitor. This one’s for digital marketers looking for advanced landing page testing.

The post Top 10 Powerful Testing Tools to Check a Landing Page appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/10-tools-check-landing-page/

Top 10 Email Marketing Tips

There are plenty of different options for online marketing strategies but one of the most direct and useful is through email marketing. Reaching customers through email can give you the opportunity to communicate the information that you want them to know in a format that they are more likely to respond to.

However, it is important to tailor your email marketing strategies so that your emails get read and are not ignored.

Here are some helpful email marketing tips so you can get the most out of your email campaigns-

1. Keep Building Your Subscriber List

Even if you have a good amount of clients or loyal customers to get started, you should always continue to add to your email list. It can be very simple to keep gathering more emails by offering a signup feature on your website, blog and anywhere else you can add a subscription form. Collecting more subscribers increases your chances of getting positive responses every time you launch an email campaign.

2. Personalize Emails to Connect

Email marketing is often more effective when it is catered specifically to each customer so that they feel unique and valuable to you. Customers want to be acknowledged so including their name in the subject or somewhere in the body of the email can make them more likely to read. You can also tailor your content based on what each customer is interested in or what they have purchased in the past.

3. Use Enticing Subject Lines

In addition to adding the customer’s name, the subject line should also include some element that encourages people to open the email and read the content. You should use subject lines to both speak to readers directly and offer them something that will make you stand out from other emails. This could be a special discount, free shipping or new products that will particularly interest them.

4. Create Targeted Content

Part of personalizing emails includes writing content for specific demographics that will uniquely appeal to them. You can segment your email lists to certain groups so that you can tailor the message to resonate with them. Using only one type of content for everyone is much less effective because it may not interest every demographic in your customer base.

5. Be Entertaining

People want their emails to be useful but they are also persuaded by content that is entertaining, funny and quirky. If you take yourself too seriously and create dry or boring content for your emails then people will quickly start ignoring them. You can be conversational and use humor to make your company seem more human and less salesy to readers.

6. Keep Track of When People Unsubscribe

In order to minimize how many customers you lose it is a good idea to pay attention to when and why people unsubscribe from your email list. In order for readers to unsubscribe you can include a survey that asks them the specific reason why they are leaving. You can also analyze what types of content tend to cause people to respond positively or negatively so that you can adjust your campaign accordingly.

7. Include Links and Calls to Action

You want your emails to communicate something important to readers but you also want to get them to respond, be involved and potentially by something. Many of your emails should include an interesting link or a call to action so that you can increase traffic to your site and get more people to view your products. You can use promotional text and a visually striking button to get people to click through to your site instead of just reading and forgetting your email.

8. Adjust to Seasons, Holidays and Time of Year

You want your emails to seem relevant and timely instead of generic so it is important to create content based on what is happening in that moment. You can create special holiday emails, summer or winter themes or relate to something going on in the particular time of year.

9. Make Emails Mobile Friendly

Most people check their email on the go so it is important to make sure that your email campaigns look great and function well on smartphones. Emails should be optimized for mobile phones so that you avoid missing out on those clicks.

10. Test and Analyze Data

Email campaigns can become more effective over time if you put in some effort in testing your emails,reviewing and tracking data. You need to know if your emails are effective and have a better idea of what’s working and what’s not. Looking at data can take some of the guesswork out of creating content that will get people reading and visiting your site with every email.

Email marketing campaigns are more effective when you tailor them to what your audience wants to read. Following some of these tips can help you generate more success with your emails.

The post Top 10 Email Marketing Tips appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/top-10-email-marketing-tips/

What Does this Facebook Drama Mean for My Ads?

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has been through a rough time recently with the scandal involving the social media platform. The market cap for Facebook plummeted by $50 billion after the public discovered the truth about how their data was shared with third parties. Zuckerberg was forced to speak at a congressional hearing and asserted that he would make some much needed changes to Facebook to protect user privacy.

If Facebook gets an overhaul as a result of this scandal then people might be worried about its impact on users, especially businesses who rely on social media as part of their advertising tactics. Any changes to Facebook could also impact Instagram which is owned by the same company that might feel compelled to follow the same guidelines regarding personal data. Protecting user data is an important goal for Facebook but how will it affect businesses running ads on the social media platform?

Social media experts are predicting that data changes may not have as dramatic an effect on the way people use Facebook and Instagram as you might think. Advertising may not be hindered if Facebook allows businesses to continue promoting themselves through the platform and using the information they need to target ads. Many industry experts believe that advertising on Facebook and Instagram actually won’t change much, at least in the short term.

Protecting Data and Maintaining Business

When the news broke that Facebook allowed user data to be accessed by a company called cambridge analytica, it caused many people to question the integrity of the social media platform. Cambridge analytica is a political data firm that was hired by the Trump administration in order to gain access to user data on Facebook. The company was able to access private information on more than 50 million Facebook users and used tools to help influence their behavior during the 2016 election.

The data that was accessed by the company included users’ identities, location likes and friend networks which was used to map personality traits and then target audiences with digital ads. Users that took a personality survey and downloaded an app, consented to have their information taken and used by the third party although they were told it was for academic use only. Facebook allows researchers to gather data for academic purposes but Cambridge analytica violated the social media platform’s rules by allowing the data to be sold and transferred.

Although Cambridge analytica is mostly to blame for its violation of user privacy, Facebook has responded to the incident by removing the app that gathered data. The company also asked for this private data to be deleted so that it would not be used again in the future. However, it is likely that users will be more wary in the future of sharing their data online.

People using Facebook and Instagram may be more cautious about providing private information but it does not necessarily mean people will steer clear of these platforms. Instagram is less politically themed and more focused on design and visuals so it not likely that advertising on that platform will be affected in the near future. Ultimately when Facebook figures out how to resolve issues with data it will eventually transfer to Instagram.

Third Party Access to Data

One possible consequence of the Cambridge analytica scandal is that Facebook may scale back access to third party data. Legislators are beginning to understand that the platform leaves private data vulnerable and they may attempt to intervene. More government oversight may lead to attempts to break up the company which has control over a large portion of the social media world.

If there is any further backlash to Facebook following the scandal it could lead to more advertising potential on Amazon as another option for businesses. Amazon is currently struggling to keep up in the marketing world because it has a smaller number of advertisers and accounts can be more difficult to set up than Facebook. However, if Facebook becomes too problematic for users, Amazon may be a useful alternative for advertising online.

In the short term, it doesn’t appear that Facebook and Instagram’s advertising services will be affected much by any new changes. It will take some time for Facebook to resolve its data issues and enact significant shifts in the way that it handles things. For the time being most businesses will be able to carry on with their usual advertising tactics and not see too many negative changes.

It is difficult to tell how Facebook will handle data in the future and how it will adjust in order to prevent privacy violations. Businesses can maintain their advertising campaigns on the site but will also benefit by exploring other options. It will likely be some time before any real significant changes occur that will strongly impact Facebook Ads.

The post What Does this Facebook Drama Mean for My Ads? appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/facebook-drama-mean-ads/

Top 10 Things to Expect at a Co-Working Space

Traditional work spaces can have a certain formal atmosphere that people are beginning to steer clear of in favor of coworking spaces. Being in a coworking space can create more energy, enthusiasm and productivity as people collaborate with one another. Instead of being isolated in a cubicle, at home or a coffee shop, coworking spaces bring people together to share their work experience in a small community.

Coworking spaces can be ideal for freelancers, entrepreneurs, start-ups and anyone who is looking for a less traditional type of work environment. There are many different advantages when opting for a coworking space. Here are some of the common things to expect when you choose a coworking space.

1. Affordability – One of the biggest draws of coworking spaces is that it allows small businesses and freelancers to rent out only what they need instead of an entire private office space. Memberships for a coworking space can be much more affordable than paying rent in an office. The fees for membership may be monthly or weekly but they will include the use of the work space and all its facilities including a very reliable wifi connection.

2. A Sense of Community – The people who are interested in coworking spaces are often freelancers who would otherwise be working from home or a coffee shop in isolation. A coworking space gives them a shared area to work where they can feel a part of a community rather than spending all of their work time alone.

3. Options for Shared or Private Desks – Even though the concept behind a coworking space is to connect with other people, there are different options to suit everyone’s work style. You can opt for your own private desk or choose a shared one if you’d like to be able to communicate and share ideas while you work.

4. Prime Location – Most coworking spaces are located in the heart of a city near coffee shops and restaurants so that you can easily set up meetings or get drinks after work. They are closer to social spots so that you don’t feel shut off from the world as  you might in a more traditional office building.

5. A Welcoming Atmosphere – A more traditional office can feel cold, formal and sterile in a way that can make work hours seem dull. Coworking spaces have a more welcoming atmosphere that encourages people to connect, hang out and feel comfortable in their work space. The goal of coworking spaces is to have a more positive vibe that will keep them entertained as they get things done.

6. Kitchen Space and Coffee – Like many offices, most coworking spaces have an eating area or kitchen for people taking a lunch or coffee break. They might have a fridge, microwave, or a coffee machine where people can eat and hang out when they need to step away from their work. The kitchen area can also be a great place to connect and meet new people without worrying about interrupting someone when they are working.

7. Flexible Hours – One of the stressful things about working in a office can be making sure to get there on time. Coworking spaces allow you to create your own schedule or allow your team to work at the time that suits them best. Workers can come and go when they want, even just working for a few hours then returning home or possibly coming back later in the day.

8. Networking Possibilities – An interesting and unique aspect of coworking spaces is the chance to work with people from a wide range of different companies and fields. This can open up opportunities for networking, collaboration or just connecting with more people outside of your own business. Instead of meeting only people within your own company as you would in a traditional office, you can expand your social network to a more diverse group of people.

9. Meeting Rooms and Facilities – Another benefit of using a coworking space is the opportunity to have different facilities at your disposal including meeting rooms, whiteboards, projectors and anything you might need to conduct business. Instead of your company having to pay for all of these things in their own office they can use the coworking space facilities at a fraction of the cost.

10. Cleaning Services – In a typical office your company would have to clean themselves or foot the bill or cleaning services such as hiring a janitor. In a coworking space, the areas are kept clean for you and you don’t need to worry about the cost as it is included as part of your membership fee.

As more people work from home or in small teams, the advantages of coworking spaces become an attractive alternative to a traditional private office. Coworking spaces offer community, connection and an enthusiastic, productive work environment at a very affordable cost. If you are looking for a

The post Top 10 Things to Expect at a Co-Working Space appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/co-working-space/

Marketing To The Festival Season aka “Millennial Utopia”

There are hundreds of music festivals that take place year round in the U.S. alone, however the big, multi-day, even multi-weekend festivals SXSW, Ultra, Coachella, EDC, Governor’s Ball, Lollapalooza usually kick off in spring and hit HARD in the summer time. What’s happened with each of these festivals is that they have transformed way beyond music and become a playground for art, fashion, food, technology and social issues. The attendees are more than just concertgoers and see these events as can’t miss experiences they love being a part of.

Of these millions of attendees, half of them are millennials. What do you do when you have a plethora of excited millennials in one place with Internet access? You market to them.

1. Geo-fence Targeting

One of the most effective marketing strategies when it comes to these large-scale events is location targeting. Marketing techniques utilize mobile device location data, lat/long coordinates to pinpoint those in that geographical location at a specific time. Think of Snapchat Geofilters that can only be accessed while you are within the boundaries of set perimeter.

Geo-fencing, is creating a virtual perimeter that triggers specific ads and content including special discounts and offers to attendees and promoting products and events that the audience would mostly likely be interested in. Advertisers are also utilizing this technique to re-market weeks after the event is over.

2. Interactive Experiences

More and more brands offer interactive experiences at festivals and let the attendees do the marketing for them. Some huge brands will showcase cutting edge virtual reality or fun new technologies for attendees to tinker with, but it doesn’t have to be that high end or complex.

Displaying new products that haven’t hit the public yet can be enough to get the buzz going. Even simple things like digital photo booths with props, cool art installations or basic chill zones can generate brand awareness because millenials love sharing these instagrammable moments. Branded booths offering sun relief or a place to charge phones and connect to WiFi are considered a festival oasis. Attendees are coming to you and you can exchange their much-needed relief for a Re-post/Retweet, hashtag share or even a sticker on their festival outfit and call it a deal!

3. Influencer Parties

Depending on your industry, hosting an exclusive party off festival grounds during the day has become priceless for certain brands especially for fashion retailers. Inviting celebrities and ”lifestyle influencers” to attend and share their experience on social media can have a huge ROI, just ask Revolve.

You don’t need an A-list guest list, ask influencers in your specific industry and create relationships. Vloggers and social media micro-influencers are happy to share and engage their followers.

4. Leverage FOMO

The fear of missing out is real, especially if it’s experience that everyone is chasing. Even if millenials aren’t at the festival physically, they are there virtually. Utilize that festival theme and plan your content around it. Email blasts, blog posts, playlists, podcasts and shareable social media images can garner you valuable web traffic without even stepping foot inside. Millenials who can’t attend are live streaming, live tweeting and are still a part of the conversation so you should join in too.

5. Experiential Marketing

Want to test something totally out of the box, this is the crowd you want to experiment with. Brands like Soul Cycle offered spin classes to attendees so they can get their workout in before they let loose inside the festival. Asics offered  a pre-festival morning hike and what these lead to were highly shareable moments that really leveraged other aspects of the festival culture.

Millennials are excited to try new things and be a part of something unqiue and the festival environment is all about having fun after all.

The post Marketing To The Festival Season aka “Millennial Utopia” appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/millennial-marketing-festival-season/

What Kind of Content Marketing Is Your Business Interested in?

Content marketing is certainly the buzz word for 2018. But when it comes to narrowing it down, do you know what’s best for your business strategy? Take a look at some things Emarketed can help you with today:

Infographics

A picture says a thousand words and an infographic is more than just a shareable image. An infographic presents information in an appealing, visual manner by using a creative combination of carefully curated content, facts and images. A good infographic has a sense of purpose and flows in a way that easily makes sense to readers. It’s hard to think of an infographic as a driving force behind content creation, but it is certainly a powerful tool that can be helpful once combined with social media.

Read more about out infographics here: https://www.emarketed.com/marketing-infographics

Video Marketing

With advances in technology, almost anyone can use video marketing to their advantage. The goal is to tell a story and convey the human side of your business. Put your best foot, and face, forward and our video marketing team will help produce and develop the best videos to fit your business needs. Once again, you can leverage video as a platform to introduce, educate and even entertain. Video is definitely a must-have for 2018.

Email Newsletters

Providing interested customers with high quality content from a regular newsletter is an effective way to communicate. The “hook” is the easy part, as they’ve already opted-in and are expecting information from your business. The next part is to keep their interest and give them something to look forward to. This can come in the form of coupons, neighborhood news, important stories and just generally, helpful information. Newsletters may seem old-fashioned compared to all the other things out there but it’s certainly tried and true for most businesses. Looking at email newsletters as a source of creative content creation gives you something else to work on instead of depending solely on your website.

Social Media

While social media marketing is often seen as the connection between content and the audience, it’s time to look at it in a different light – as the source of content creation itself. If you don’t think this is possible, take a look at Instagram and Pinterest accounts. These updates/posts almost always rely on a quick and new source of content generation. Although the lifespan of this content generally doesn’t last as long, it’s another area to grow your business in. Social media sites such as these allow businesses to think outside of the box when it comes to creating new content.

Let Us Know

Content is king and by now, you should know that we don’t just mean written content. There’s so much more out there for your business to explore. Let us know what you’re going to concentrate on for this coming year.

The post What Kind of Content Marketing Is Your Business Interested in? appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/content-marketing-business-interest/

Slow Website? Find out Why with the Dotcom-Tools Speed Test!

No one likes a slow website. In 2008, this was somewhat acceptable, but in 2018 where most people have blazing fast internet in the palms of their hands, patience has dwindled for slow-loading websites.

Nowadays, most people expect websites to load in under 3 seconds, and there’s a significant amount of research showing that people will bounce or abandon a site very quickly (and not return) when the load time exceeds 3 seconds. In addition to users disliking slow websites, search engines like Google also factor website speed into their ranking algorithms and demote slow sites in the search results. Therefore, having a speedy website is a must!

What Can Be Done About Slow Loading Websites?

Most people know that slow loading websites aren’t good, but they have no idea how to fix them or where to start. This presents a big problem, because most sites that could be fixed by simple optimization sit and remain slow because their owners don’t know where to begin.

According to Web Hosting Buddy, there are a variety of causes for slow-loading websites, such as poor quality web hosting companies, overloaded servers, large images, unoptimized code, DNS issues, and other problems.  

Luckly, Dotcom-Monitor offers a free suite of testing tools on Dotcom-Tools.com, including a website speed test that runs from 25+ locations around the world. No other tool like this exists online, and it’s a great resource because it’s completely free to use.

How to Test With Dotcom-Tools

1. Visit https://www.dotcom-tools.com/website-speed-test.aspx and input your website’s URL. You can test your home page or specific inner pages.
2. Complete the quick captcha, and then choose your browser type. Dotcom-Tools offers 7 different browsers types, including iOS and Android for testing mobile-responsive websites.
3. Choose your testing locations, then click “Start Test.” The test will begin running in a round-robin fashion from all of the various datacenters around the world.
4. View your detailed results by clicking on the page load time. This will generate a waterfall chart where you can see every single element on the page, the size, and how long it took to load.
5. Analyze the waterfall chart to see where you can make improvements. Large images, long wait time, lack of caching are all areas that can commonly be improved.
6. Click on the “Summary” and “Performance” tabs to see a breakdown of the best and worst performing elements, including various charts and graphs that help summarize the information.
7. Finally, click on the “Host” tab to see where externally loaded resources are hosted and the performance of these elements.

Running a speed test with Dotcom-Tools will give you an incredibly accurate picture of why a particular website is slow and how to fix it. This is something that you should consider when looking at improving the performance of any website instead of flying blind. Next time your website is running slow, be a data driven webmaster and use a speed test like the one at Dotcom-Tools.com in order to ensure that your site is running as fast as it should be.

The post Slow Website? Find out Why with the Dotcom-Tools Speed Test! appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/dotcom-tools-speed-test/

5 Twitter Tactics We Can Learn From Trump

President Trump has thrown “social media rules” out the window. No other president has been as active on Twitter, or any social media platform for that matter and has even called himself “the Ernest Hemmingway of 140 characters”.

From attacking celebrities to what some call threatening a world war here are 5 things Donald Trump has taught us not to do when it comes to our Twitter strategy.

1. Avoid Typos

Covfefe anyone? Whether you have millions of followers or not, taking a little extra time to check that your published content is correct is essential. Not only do you want to make sure there are no spelling errors, double check for basic grammatical mistakes and that your links are working. Quotes should be properly cited, articles should come from reputable sources and stats should be factual. These things only take a few moments and can make or break how audiences view your brand. The last thing you want from your followers are comments that say your link is broken or that you used the wrong form of “there”.

“Unpresidented” “No challenge is to great” “Hearby” “Our deepest apologizes” “honered to serve” are just some of the embarrassing typos from President Trump that Twitter has a field day with. These mistakes can make your company seem careless, unprofessional and put a dent in your credibility, some may even say incompetent.

2. Brand Consistency

Whichever industry you are in, it can sometimes be beneficial to join in on the cultural conversation and leverage certain trending topics, albeit they pertain to your business. For example, if you sell sporting goods, keeping up with trending hashtags during the Olympics makes sense and can be valuable to both you and your followers. However, when you are the President of The United States, it might be best not to take multiple jabs at Meryl Streep at the Oscars. If something seems off-topic for your brand and you’re reaching for it to make sense for you, leave it alone.

Twitter has been around for over 10 years, it may be a good idea to take some time and go back and scrub old tweets that are inconsistent with your company’s current philosophy. You don’t want any new tweets to be incongruous with older tweets. Many Twitter users are retweeting Trumps cringeworthy older tweets that simply didn’t age well. Users have been digging up tweets that are direct contradictions of his current policies. Now not everyone has archives of hypocritical tweets waiting to be uncovered, however cleansing your account for things that are simply off brand is constructive.

3. Too Much Self-Promotion

Some people have social media strategy down to a science. There is Gary Vee’s, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” method, which is basically engage, engage, engage self promote. There is also the 5:3:2 method that’s about balancing your content and focusing on your audience, not yourself. If your entire Twitter presence is just self-promotion you’re not adding anything of value for your followers. Constant self-promo will get you unfollowed or even blocked.

Trump is infamous for being self-congratulatory and constantly tooting his own horn, often referring to himself as a genius and tweeting exaggerated approval ratings. He does this so often that when he does tweet about others it seems disingenuous.

4. Listen and Express Empathy

No, you don’t have to jump on to every #prayfor_____ trending topic you see for the sake of retweets. However, you do want your company to be able to show that they care. In the case of a natural disaster or national tragedy sharing your opinion or “hot take” or placing blame on somebody is the wrong thing to do.

After a hurricane hit Puerto Rico, Trump condemned the San Juan Mayor on her poor leadership abilities. Perhaps tweeting words of reassurance for the Puerto Rican people or providing a link where people can donate would have been more productive. Capitalizing on a tragedy is also a big no-no and may brands have learned this the hard way.

Using your Twitter account to listen is severely overlooked. If a customer uses Twitter to complain, address them and offer to speak to them via DM or provide them a customer service number to get their issue resolved. Having an all out Twitter feud with a customer in front of other followers will hurt you in the end.

5. Being Creative Doesn’t Mean Being Controversial

Being consistent doesn’t mean you can’t be creative, and being creative doesn’t mean you have to be controversial. Trying something new in your social media strategy is a good thing. How will you know something works if you’re not constantly experimenting?

However, a lot of brands can land themselves in hot water when they try to be funny or they try to be risqué. Getting a second, third or 4th opinion on your tweet before you click send can save you from irreparable damage if that tweet goes awfully south. Going viral for a tone-deaf tweet can label your brand ignorant for years.

Although it was once advised to keep politics hush, some brands are going full steam ahead. If your brand is against racism, sexism and homophobia and passionate about certain social issues then speaking out on a matter might be important to you. These days more consumers want to know what companies stand for or if you stand for anything at all.

Culture is changing and brands removing themselves from anything remotely controversial are actually alienating a lot of their audience. Some brands that have spoken out against the president have seen overwhelming support while other brands that have expressed their political stances have been hit with the dreaded b word- boycott.

The post 5 Twitter Tactics We Can Learn From Trump appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/5-twitter-tactics-from-trump/

10 PR Techniques for Boosting Your Brand

When you cut yourself, do you look for a Band-aid or a plastic bandage? How about when you need to blow your nose, do you ask for a Kleenex or a tissue? What about when you are having lunch at a fast-food restaurant, do you order a Coke or a cola?

These labels are proprietary eponyms, and they are the climax of brand awareness. The brands are so well-known that they have taken over the generic names for parallel products in your own language.  For a product or brand to become a proprietary eponym is the peak of brand awareness. (sorry, Pepsi).

Although you may achieve this with your business, that does not mean you cannot do more for your brand awareness. You just need the right techniques for boosting your brand.  

Though there may not be a quick fix for making your product a household name, the following are 18  brand-boosting strategies to assist with launching or continuing your efforts. You may not be as popular as Frito-Lay, but it can not hurt to try, right?  Along with these techniques, I found this post on the best PR Tools and Software that is a great resource.

The following is the ten leading pieces of advice for boosting your brand.  

1. Referral Programs

Who does not like perks? Users will happily spread the word about your service or product when they know they will get an added perk. Dropbox, for example, is a brilliant referral program that can growth hack any business.

Dropbox offers current users an extra 500 MB of storage space for each referral they make up to 16 GB. Before Dropbox became so popular, this referral program helped generate loads of word-of-mouth advertising, which is why it is so successful today.  The strategy contributed to a massive number of registers and saving the company billions in advertising dollars.

2. Impressive Guest Content

Great content is everything to a website. One way to help get your brand established on the web is to provide gorgeous looking, extra valuable content to share as a guest on other blogs. Despite what others may tell you, guest posting is a robust method to have your name known in your industry.  

However, cheesy content will not cut it—you will need to guest posting high-quality stuff, or you will do more damage than good.  By creating valuable, memorable content, you will make a lasting impression when you readers share you with their audience.

3. Infographics

Infographics are a colorful and smart strategy to share interesting marketing stats and data. These content dynamos often get shared near and far, making them a fantastic tool for building brands and thought leadership.

A really good infographic can gather thousands of social likes and shares while bringing in thousands of valuable links as well.

4. Freemium with Credit

There are tons of online products that will let a user choose a free version (freemium) which includes a credit line or watermark. It will also allow users to upgrade to a paid version which will permit the user to replace the mark with their logo or remove it altogether.   

Even though users will choose the free version, they are still promoting the brand to other users. That leaves the door open for many new users to go for the paid version.

Offering a freemium product means getting your brand in front of more viewers, which will build your brand by pulling in paying customers.    

5. Local Partnerships

Another excellent brand building technique is to get associated with local partnerships. That is incredibly vital for local-oriented companies. However, it can also be applied for other companies as well.

Partnering with local companies to hold joint intro festivals and seminars are very lucrative for all parties. You can donate to local charity events and sponsor local sporting events and teams. Having your brand plastered all over events and festivals can do massive things for your brand.    

6. Car Wraps

Who does not stop to look at a car completely wrapped with excellent graphics? The tried-and-true strategy for building your brand is a having a car wrap. A car wrap is a customized graphic design that most often covers an entire car (except windows).    

They attract a massive amount of attention, and it is a fabulous way to guarantee wherever you go, people will become familiar with your brand. Wrap your personal or company vehicle and see what happens.  

7. Freebies

No matter what it is, everybody loves free giveaways! All you must do is plaster your brand name on Frisbees, pens, koozies, basically, anything and give it away at local events.   

8. Social Media Contests

Hold a social media contest where users send a video or photo and let others vote for their favorite contestant. Those who take part will share the link with family and friend to gain votes. In return, you are building your brand awareness as a result.   

9. Social Focus

With social networks growing by leaps and bounds, trying to cover social media marketing on each one is a fool’s errand. If your company best avenue is on a specific network, do not be afraid to place most of your energy into just a few.

For example, if you have a lot of photos on your site, Pinterest and Instagram may be your best bet.  Twitter may be the way to go for B2B businesses.

Understand where your target audience hangs out and place your focus on those networks.  You will not want to abandon other social media sites entirely, however, save your best efforts for what you know works.

Not certain about your main network? Dig around into analytics to find where your heavy hitting referral traffic is coming from the most.  

10. LinkedIn Publishing

As mentioned above, guest posting is a fantastic avenue for getting your brand name out across the web. Recently, LinkedIn began allowing users to publish to post on their website via a publishing tool. If your post garnishes enough attention, it could end up on the LinkedIn home stream for numerous users.

As a bonus, a post attached to your own LinkedIn account helps launch you as a thought leader. You also can establish your company post and blog there—just be sure to promote and share your post once they get published.  

With these techniques for boosting your brand, you will be a leading brand in no time. Keep in mind that even Pepsi did not become a super-star brand overnight. Consistency and determination are what you put your brand out to the world.  

The post 10 PR Techniques for Boosting Your Brand appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/10-pr-techniques-boosting-brand/

4 Important Rules to Make Marketing Videos More Engaging

Engaging videos are able to retain, interest, stimulate, and connect with viewers – all of which are important for marketing. And while it is true that videos are naturally quite engaging, you will have to tap into and leverage that potential.

As you can imagine there are lots of factors that affect how engaging your marketing videos will turn out to be, but as a good place to start there are four important rules that you need to follow:

• Plan it so that it has a short duration

Try to plan every marketing video so that the duration is short – somewhere in the 15 to 60 second range. The fact of the matter is the shorter the video the more likely you are to be able to retain viewers, and more of them will be around for you to convert them with your call to action.

Considering your video is going to be short, it must also be direct. That means that you need to strip away any fluff during the planning phase, and distill it down to its most basic elements.

• Optimize the first few seconds

During the first few seconds (normally about 8 to 10 seconds at most), most viewers make a decision to either keep watching or click away. That is why you need to optimize the first few seconds so that you are able to best convince them to stay and continue watching.

One of the most effective ways to do that is to get to the heart of the matter and let viewers know what the video is about and more importantly how it will benefit them. Let them know what problem of theirs it could solve, or what they stand to gain.

• Design the video to provoke an emotional reaction

The most engaging videos are invariably the ones that provoke an emotional reaction, which is why funny, inspirational, sad, touching, or even outrageous videos go viral so frequently. Be sure to use that fact in your marketing videos, and design them to provoke some kind of emotional reaction too.

While it can be tricky to pull that off, using storytelling elements that make viewers feel invested in the subject is a good place to start. Also always remember that it is easier for viewers to connect with people rather than faceless objects or brands – so frame your video accordingly.

• Track, experiment, evaluate and analyze everything

Ultimately the key to making your marketing videos more engaging, is to improve them iteratively over time. For that to happen you’ll need to track their engagement, experiment and try new things, then evaluate and analyze the results.

If you do all that, you should be able to slowly but surely learn more about your target audience, and be able to tailor your videos so that they are more engaging to them.

Of course in addition to these rules, it is important that you create videos that are visually interesting and impressive enough to capture the attention of viewers. For that you may want to try using Movavi Video Editor as an MP4 editor that will help you to compile, tweak, and improve your videos to your satisfaction.

Within Movavi Video Editor you’ll find pretty much all the features you could possibly need to come up with engaging and impressive videos. It can be used to merge clips together, trim out unwanted parts, enhance the video quality, apply special effects and filters, add captions, include audio tracks, and much more.

The best part is that while you may be worried about how complicated it can be to edit videos – there’s really no need for concern with Movavi Video Editor. Simply put it will provide you with an intuitive and user-friendly experience that will let you edit your videos quickly and painlessly – even if you have absolutely no prior experience at all.

The post 4 Important Rules to Make Marketing Videos More Engaging appeared first on SEM Blog.

source https://www.emarketed.com/blog/4-video-marketing-rules/