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Branding, Marketing & Interactive
There’s no doubt, visual content is taking the social media world by storm. According to the study from M Booth & Simply Measured, visual content is by far driving more engagement than text content.
According to a survey from Webmarketing123, which drew from over 500 B2B and B2C marketers, they found a growing interest in social media but still frustrated on how to gauge the impact of those online efforts. The report also found that both B2b and B2C marketers put SEO at the top spot for what impacts lead generation. Marketers are no longer just responsible for building a brand, but are being held more liable for increasing revenue. SEO is one of the most measurable ways to market, knowing how much money was spent compared to the amount of leads received. Although, the study found that 70% of marketers where unable to attribute ROI, which was probably due to the majority of efforts gone towards branding and not for lead generation purposes.
Lots of companies can still have the notion that they can do their own SEO work internally not needing to hire an agency. The study found that companies using agencies were twice as likely to be highly satisfied with their SEO programs. SEO is something that needs to be constantly studied and updated due to algorithm changes. Agencies have the man power and knowledge behind them to stay up to date with the ever so revolving world of Google & the assortments of SEO strategies.
Online advertising has given political candidates huge advantages over traditional ads. The internet has given candidates the ability to target users in precise geo locations. Many candidates are using Google Adwords to fuel their online campaigns. The typical candidate’s only option would be use Google Adwords to target by zip code. Zip code targeting wasn’t seen to be as effective as thought of, because of dynamic congressional districts not being able to completely match up.
Google now offers political campaigns the ability to target search, display, mobile, and video advertisements by congressional districts. Google has recently released “Four Screens to Victory”, a comprehensive guide for political candidates interested in using Google products. The National Republican Congressional Committee is already spending $50,000 a month with Google to broadcast to specific districts throughout the country.
Google has published data about the increased importance of the internet and mobile devices
The type of promotions email marketers deploy will ultimately determine how high the click-through rate is. How can one be creative with their deals and drive clicks into revenue? Usually someone is subscribed to an email lists because they want insider deals such as percentage off or buy one get one type promotions.
-Creating a sense of urgency through limited supply promotions are great ways to heighten click through rates. Using an inventory ticker is also a great way to install a sense of urgency. Usually a promotion of this type works the best with first time buyers who making infrequent purchases.
-Giving away expertise for free is also a great strategy to increase leads. This type of promotion works best with higher priced or longer sale cycle items. Offering free consultations, assessments, diagnostics, reports, tutorials, or any type of free service will drive higher quality leads.
-Thank your current subscribers for sharing by offering them some sort of incentive. By offering this type of referral incentive, it helps more potential customers become engaged and coming back for more purchases.
-Offering some sort of instant percentage off or rebate to incentivize the subscriber into completing a desired action. Offers promoting instant money off will encourage the prospective customer to return to your site.
-Price change notification promotions are great ways to create senses of urgency. Notifying the subscriber of price increases but offering them a discounted price before the price changes on an effect date is a create way figure who’s really serious about making a purchase.
-Another creative way to capture the attention of your subscriber is by using newsjacking principles. Leveraging events or popular news is a great way to grab someone’s attention. Large companies do a very good job in leveraging certain holidays into their promotions. For example, one could offer discounts on flowers for Mother’s Day.
-Offering other inside deals from partnered companies can also increase your credibility. Offering your VIP promotions through your partnered email database is a great way to promote yourself.
Coming up with creative ways in order to make people think they are getting something of worth from your promotions is a great way to increase revenue.
There’s a ton of important information one should ask when inquiring about email marketing. One of the biggest aspects determining the overall success of the campaign is who it’s being mailed to. Depending on the offer, the quality of the list weights an importance anywhere from 40-60%. The offer is next in importance followed by the creative (graphic design and copywriting). Since the mailing list weighs most importance, determining which list will reach your target audience is essential.
When choosing the right company that represents one or more data lists, there are some important questions to ask.
It is important to ask questions in finding the right company whose expertise can reach your target audience ultimately increasing response rates and branding visibility.
For the first time ever, the United States will spend more on mobile advertising than any other country. Advertisers in the United States will spend more $2.3 billion while Japan falls to second spending close to $1.7 billion in 2012. Smartphone growth and mobile internet usage is growing very quickly in the U.S. where the majority of people use smartphones, causing a lot of interest from advertisers. The U.S. mobile ad market is expected to growth by 96% in 2012, a smaller growth from 127% in 2011, but analysts are expecting numbers to drop while the market matures.
Despite the booming interest in mobile advertising worldwide, mobile advertising only accounts for about one percent of total ad spend in the U.S. & worldwide. Global media ad spending is projected to grow 7.4% this year to $542.3 billion, with the Olympics giving it a small nudge, but is projected to decline next year by 6.4%. Next year China will reach $53 Billion, surpassing spending by Japan for the first time, and placing it behind the U.S. as the country with the second highest amount in ad spending.
Email marketing is one of the most cost effective methods of online marketing and lead generation. If you want to promote your car dealership using email marketing; however, it is important to realize how digital marketing is different from traditional media. It is much more personal, conversational, and targeted. If you fail to realize this, you can hurt your chances of success. Here are some tips to get the most out of an email marketing campaign.
Get Permission
The first thing that you should do is ask for permission before spamming your audience with pitches about the latest cars to hit the lot. (You shouldn’t spam them at all, but we’ll get back to that later.) If you fail to ask for permission before sending an email, you will risk losing potential customers, and damage your reputation in the long term. It is easier than ever for customers to mark a message as spam. Once you have been flagged, it becomes especially difficult to recover, and most of your audience will no longer be receiving your messages in the first place.
The good news is that it is not hard to get permission. Offer the customer the chance to receive a small benefit such as a discount on the next car that they buy from you, as long as they agree to receive email messages from you. In many cases they will also agree to provide you with information about their preferences, which will make it easier to target them specifically.
Be Viral
Encourage customers who have worked with you to refer their friends. Ask them if they would like to receive regular updates about new promotions and tips. Fill the newsletter with genuinely helpful information, and people will want to share the information. If you include a “subscribe” button in the email, it will be easy to start building a dialogue with potential customers. If you do it right, the list will grow on its own, with very little traditional “marketing” efforts.
Think Long Term
Bizarre as it may sound to some marketers, the goal of each email shouldn’t be to sell a car. Don’t misunderstand this. At the end of the email you should always encourage your reader to visit your dealership for one reason or another, but most of the content of the message should provide some other helpful insight for your customers. The goal of email marketing is to build a long lasting relationship with your customer so that when they think about buying a car, or hear that one of their friends wants to buy one, your name will be the first one that comes to mind.
It is also very important to stay fresh in your customer’s mind. Obviously you shouldn’t flood their inbox with more information than they can possibly use, but if you are sending out a message less than once a month, odds are they have forgotten you exist.
Keep the Reader Interested
Tell stories instead of trying to advertise. Most people don’t get home from work and turn to the nearest infomercial. In fact, most people are so saturated by advertising that they tune it out. Viewers can see the same commercial multiple times before they even notice it exists. If your emails don’t spark the reader’s interest, it is hardly worth the effort. It is much better to imply the expertise, trustworthiness, and low cost of your cars than it is to come right out and say it. Prove that you are an expert in your subject rather than saying that you are one. You should be writing the type of email that people want to share with their friends.
Design Principles
Sometimes it is better to use plain text than to use too many images or animations. Some email filters will be more likely to consider these messages spam. It is often a good idea to ask the customers before they sign up for a newsletter if they would prefer to receive plain text or multimedia messages. Either way, animations or audio usually scare readers off. A basic image and some attractive coloration are all that is necessary.
Experience has shown most experts that the call to action should be next to an image, rather than underneath it. Readers will often disregard anything displayed below an image, possibly considering it to be a caption rather than anything noteworthy. It has also proven advantageous to use buttons rather than hyperlinks, because they attract more attention and it is more clear what they mean. There is no point in “tricking” a user to visit your site. You only want them to visit your site if they want to visit it, otherwise they will almost certainly not buy anything.
Rather than directing all readers to your home page, it is also advantageous to direct them to specific pages that are relevant to the content in the email.
Know When to Quit
Beyond a certain point, if emails are not converting it is likely that they never will. The exact point at which you should stop sending messages is something that you will need to use your own data in order to determine. The important thing is to avoid beating a dead horse. If a reader has received a certain number of emails and not clicked on a single link to your site, it’s best to cut off the messages so that they don’t start to become a nuisance.
Know What You Want
Your email marketing campaign should have a very clear goal, and that goal might be different for different types of customers. Some customers may have subscribed to your emails after buying a car from you. Others may have done so after discovering your website, and still others may have had an email referred to them. You wouldn’t want to try to sell a car to somebody who subscribed immediately after buying a car, but there are other ways that you can take advantage of that customer relationship. Know what you want.
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