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Tag: digital marketing

  • Why You Should Use Contests as a Marketing Tool To Generate Leads For Your Business

    Competitions are a great way to challenge oneself and others also. Also, holding such competition is an awesome way to promote your brand and also for customer engagement. As per a survey, 52 percent of consumers are motivated to stay connected with a brand by contests or being asked for their input about current or new products. Thanks to social media which gives one of the most effective and lucrative ways to interact with our customers. Hence, startups can use this strategy to gain more attraction in less budget.

    In addition, contests enable you to engage your audience because in contests you and your customers both interact with each other which ultimately deepen the connection. If you want to increase your audience base as well as get content for your business then user-generated content (UGC) Promotion like photo and video contests can be the best option to just do that. Here is the reason why to use contests as a marketing tool.

    Some of The Reasons Which Made the Companies Decide to Run Competitions As a Marketing Strategy:

    Why You Should Use Content as a Marketing Tool.
    Why You Should Use Content as a Marketing Tool.
    1. Generate leads and sales
    2. Drive traffic online and offline
    3. Increase brand equity
    4. Engage and delight customers
    5. Grow fan base, generate opt-ins and subscribers
    6. Gain user data and insight
    7. Collect consumer-generated content

    This allows the brand to recognize and reward loyal customers (as well as those all-important new ones). Ultimately, competitions can be a quick, low-cost incentive to encourage your customers to do some of your marketing for you.

    Now There are Two Types of Promotion:

    The 2 common types of promotions include

    1. Sweepstakes (chance-based promotion) – When conducting sweepstakes, it keeps the call to action clear and the forms easy to fill out.
    2. Contest (skill-based promotion) – For contests, there may be a public voting or closed judging or a combination of both. In this method be sure that the criteria for winning are clearly articulated and readily available.

    In either model, consider rewarding participants with coupons, discounts or smaller prizes to reward their time and effort, if even they don’t win the grand prize.

    Also Read:

    Promotional Law Basics

    Running promotions involves adhering to laws and the guidelines of individual channels/ social media network. Promotion containing all 3 (prize, chance, and consideration) is deemed to be an illegal lottery. Either eliminate chance or consideration. To keep everything legal, you’ll also need to disclaim the platform that you’re on, stating that they don’t sponsor the contest. This will be found in the terms of service of whichever platform you’re posting on. If you’re going to do anything related to kids, make sure you have something saying that the legal guardian is the one that’s entering because there are some legalities around that. Also, clear out all the rules and regulations related to the contest, making it transparent for the participant.

    For Example:

    Facebook promotion guidelines include the following Don’ts:

    1. Administer a promotion directly on your Page or use Facebook features as an entry or voting mechanism.
    2. Automatically enter someone for Liking, posting a photo or comment.
    3. Use a like button for voting.
    4. Use Facebook channels to notify the winners.
    5. For Twitter, the 140 character limit can make disclosure of material and policy items challenging. Make sure to host the information on your website and link to it often.

    Also Read:

    How To Run a Successful Social Media Contest To Get The Desired Result?

    Begin with the end

    The first rule of running any marketing campaign is to know what you want. So start planning to establish a clear goal before to achieve the highest engagement. It can be anything from trying to get newsletter subscription, expose certain products, gain brand loyalty, more fans, followers on social media or increased traffic to your site and blog. Then, work on the prototype where you have decided to increase the marketing, especially using the contest as a method.

    Select the type of content

    Integrate your brand messages into the contest – whether it’s adding product information that may catch people’s attention into the contest itself or throwing other posts to your Facebook page with interesting information about your brand.

    Choose the right platform

    Based on the goal, find where your target audience hangs out. You can promote your content across all social media platforms; however, choose the primary platform as the place you’ll collect data.

    Have Clear Contest Rules

    For example, if the contest is for the number of Facebook likes a photo receives, make sure to specify that multiple votes from the same IP address will be discounted. And if you’d like to reuse images submitted as part of a contest, be sure to clearly state that in the contest rules as well. It will save you a lot of time afterwards!

    Also Read:

    How Long Should You Run Your Contest?

    Typically a contest should run for at least 2 weeks but not more than a month. Entries started to tail off at the 12-day mark, before picking up again right before the end of the contest.

    What to Give Away?

    The general idea here is to give away something that is valuable enough for most people in your market to stand up and take notice. For some markets, this might be an item in the INR 10,000 – INR 15,000 range, and for others, it might be as small as INR 2500. You can also give away something that a large percentage of your market will want. Don’t make it something obscure. You want the item to be inherently valuable and also broadly desired, to maximize the reach of your content.

    Executing the Competition

    Moderate submission entries, many platforms have built-in options for moderation. Make sure to approve all images for photo contests before they get posted, in case there is inappropriate material. You can drive heaps of wild engagement with a social media contest. It just takes a bit of planning and execution to make it a smashing success.

    Also Read:

    Conclusion

    Contests are really helpful in generating a huge number of leads and bring success if executed properly and keeping the public in mind. Comment below, if you have used contests as a method for marketing at any point of time in your brand promotion and how much success it has become in terms of the promotion of your brand in the public eye.

  • How To Retarget Visitors and Bring Website Visitors Back with Retargeting Ads

    You might be able to attract a lot of traffic to your website. But unless you are just dependent upon the earning from advertisements on your website, that traffic means nothing to you. If your visitor is not converting into your customer, that traffic is just a group of people. But to convert those viewers into your customers, you need to give in something. You need to remind them what they need and what you can give, again and again.

    According to some sources, Retargeted ads average a CTR 10x higher than that of Display ads. And you must know that Retargeting can lift ad engagement rates up to 400%. According to web, 20% of marketers have a budget specifically for retargeting.

    Many businesses whether it is small or big are practicing retargeting as a important marketing approach to bring their website visitors back and to keep their potential customers reminding about their brand. So, to help you out with retargeting in this post we’ve mentioned everything you need to know about retargeting and at the end of this post you will get to know how to bring website visitors back with retargeting ads.

    What is Retargeting?

    Ever wondered why you see ads of a product you just visited the website of, on other websites? This is because they want you to remember them again and again. Advertisements are not there just to tell you about the products, their purpose is to remind you of the product again and again. When you see the ad, you might not notice it but it fits in your subconscious mind and whenever you are buying the product, you will more likely to buy that brand only. So, retargeting works the same way. When someone visits your website but forget to check out due to some circumstances, you can target them again and show your ads to them. This will bring that customer back to your website and generate a lead for you. You can even show that the price of your product is reduced to attract more people.

    Also Read:

    Advantages of Re-targeting

    Potential Customers

    Re-targeting helps you to reach potential customers. The system automatically recognizes the potential customer. Although the system is not accurate all the time, it will still give a great result in identifying the potential prospect.

    Brand Awareness

    When people will see your ad on other websites, again and again, it will increase your brand awareness. More the people know about you, more the people share about you.

    Generate leads

    When the potential prospect sees your advertisement many times a day on every other website, they will come back to your site. There is a very strong possibility that anyone who wants to buy some product will go for the brand he/she has been looking at all day.

    Cost-Effective

    Re-targeting gives a great ROI. Most of the people who need some particular product will get influenced by your ad. So, you will earn much more than you will spend on retargeting advertisements.

    The Second Impression

    You might get a chance to impress your prospect in the second try. If you think your website does not impress people and let them know the real power of your product, then you can show it in a better way in the re-targeting ads.

    Analytics

    You can easily check the stats of your advertisement. Not only CTR (Click through rate) but you can also see View Through Rate.

    Also Read:

    Limitations of Re-targeting

    Creepy

    Your re-targeted advertisement might feel creepy and annoying when people will see it again and again. Creepy in the way that not all people understand technology, so when they will see your re-targeted ad, they will assume their privacy is at risk. And it will annoy people when you show the same ad again and again.

    Time Consuming

    If you don’t want your prospect to get annoyed by your ads, then you will have to create so many advertisements, which is both, expensive and time-consuming.

    Waste of Advertising

    These ads will be shown to the people who already bought your product too. So, your happy customer may start hating your bran.

    How does it work?

    How does retargetng work?
    How does retargetng work?

    Probably the most important question. Re-targeting works as the system collects enough data to re-target the same user again. You can go to any re-targeting service and pay them to do this for you. When someone will visit your website, they will show your ads on their platform(s). However, some information might be needed, but the companies still do not put their hands into any sensitive user data. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about when you see some ads on websites or Facebook, etc.

    Best Tools/Services for Re-targeting·

    1. Google Adwords Remarketing
    2. Facebook Remarketing
    3. ReTargeter
    4. SiteScout
    5. Twitter
    6. Criteo
    7. Outbrain

    Tips to remember

    1. CTA: It’s not the first time I am using this term. Call to action is as important in marketing as air is to us. Include some CTA in your retargeting ads.
    2. Coupons: Provide coupons to the people who visited your website but didn’t buy anything. This might attract people as the reason for not buying the product, could be its price.
    3. Potential Customers: You can re-target the visitors who spend a lot of time on your website. They might be interested in your product
    4. Stop Ads: Stop showing those ads which are not performing well. These ads can cause negative results.
    5. Animated Ads: You can and you should use animated ads to grab people’s attention.

    Also Read:

    Conclusion

    Retargeting is one of the most important parts of the internet today. This was the most innovative internet technology ever. The important thing to remember is that retargeting doesn’t need too much data and it did not touch any of the private data of the user. You can choose any of the services out there. Google and Facebook are the best in this field though. You can even go for more than one platform, but this might cause a dispute in the companies, for your ad only. When you run an ad on more than one platform, all the campaigns will bid for a particular visitor. It is just like that your salesmen are fighting against each other to bring a customer to you. Each salesman will tell the customer to take their reference so that they get the commission. So, analyze the platforms carefully before bidding on the ads.

    Let us know how was your experience with retargeting. Share this post with all your friends. Don’t forget to turn on some eyes on more articles from StartupTalky. Thank you for visiting and reading this post on Startup Talky.com. Hope to see you soon.

  • What are different channels to advertise a start-up digitally?

    When you have successfully started up your own business, or have engaged in one, the responsibilities and tasks hung upon your shoulders are huge – especially when it comes to the marketing aspect. Marketing is that part of the business activity that deals with the management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with satisfying customers that leads to increasing sales and increase in profits as well. And advertising comprises of a larger part of marketing. Though, they are sometimes interchangeably used terms, the terminologies go hand in hand in most part of the business decisions.

    A new and upcoming way to advertise your brand or product or services is to do it on the digital platform – i.e. on the internet.

    “It’s hard to find things that won’t sell online.”
    – Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

    It is called Digital Marketing. Digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies and includes use of mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium. And these mediums are often called the channels of digital advertising. Internet provides a startup personnel a vast wealth of opportunities. Hence, it is very important for your brand to establish and maintain a strong and evident online presence to be competitive enough to reach out to targeted audiences.

    Now, the internet provides various marketing tools that are lucrative and worthy enough to focus on while they bring you steps closer to your business targets – but the problem of choice will depend upon an analysis and correct study of these options. Not all of these digital marketing tools are going to be applicable or work for your business.

    In this article, we will share the types of channels that are available on the  internet for you to advertise on and help you in identifying the best tool available to market you brand or product.

    Also Read: Business Ideas For Students

    Social Media

    Social media is a very big platform for brands and companies to advertise about their product on. The shopaholic demographic is generally found on social media the most and hence it becomes attractive for both seller and buyer to interact and get gains from. Customers are actively seeking out brands and deals they like or are interested in and increasing numbers of users take the medium of social media as making their buying decisions.

    The creative examples of social media marketing can be – promoting your brand or deal on stories that are sponsored (on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, etc.),  on sponsored posts, or on promoted deals especially on Facebook, and many more. Social Media influencers also help the brand a lot, for instance a person with a significant amount of followers or subscribers on any social media platform will bring a lot of attention and customers on site that are desiring to buy your product or service. And through the use of “cookie”, the companies and brands are able to target and focus on building relationships on people who are genuinely interested in your product and will be willing to  make the final purchase.

    By choosing the right platform that benefits your specific business the most should be given priority. And expansion or withdrawals can be managed thereafter.

    Also Read : A Complete Facebook Marketing Strategy

    E-mail Marketing

    If you want to build a direct relationship that benefits both the parties E-mail Marketing is the most effective tool. The users (or say potential customers) have shown interest in your website, app or online ad, and have opted to hear from you by giving you the personal information i.e. their e-mail address. So they are more willing to open those messages to learn and be aware about your products  (or new ones), sales and how to benefit from them. You can make it as  personalized as possible. By the way of triggered autoresponders and segmentation practices you can make the emails as immediately relevant to the  receivers as possible. This significantly increases the chance of immediate conversion and also long-term open rates too.

    The email should preferably be short to read and easy to scan. Give the users reason to click by giving an attractive subject line. You should, again, keep it short but try to offer value, incite urgency, or both in order to increase traffic.

    Also Read: How To Get More Instagram Followers Free?

    Pay-Per-Click Advertising

    Pay-per-click  is an internet advertising method that is used to drive traffic to websites in which an advertiser pays the publisher when the ad is clicked. They typically  include search engines, website owners, or a network or websites. There are also many other paid advertising channels like Pay-Per-Click advertising that deliver highly targeted traffic of potential customers within very short period of time. This method requires the most beneficial placing of the ad –  i.e. the ad placements. As the revenue invested in advertisement should  profitably correlate to the acquisition of customer per unit.

    You can choose to run you PPC ads on the basis of a day, a week or a month depending upon the budget. The effectiveness of a PPC will depend upon how well you choose your keywords that are attractive and grab customer’s attention, as  well as optimizing the visual and contextual information of your ads.

    Also Read: A Complete Guide to Hashtags Marketing

    Content Marketing

    Content lies at the very core of every digital marketing campaign and is one the most important element that works in the advertising field. If your website has good, high-quality, and relevant content, your website will generate significant amount of inbound traffic from all he potential audiences.

    The content so created includes text, graphics, videos, and other related effects people are looking for and are interested in. It should be catchy and informative at the same time. Make sure the so published content is enough to make a potential customer gain trust in your brand and be impressed enough to make the final purchase as well.

    Generally, the management hires content marketers for the same task and job. They provide the company or brand with the relevant experience and work in favor of the enterprise, which is an effective strategy to go for.

    Also Read :
    Digital Marketing Business Ideas | Online Business in 2019
    13 Tips To Make A Video Ad To Pump Up Your Sales

    Display Advertising

    Display advertising is the type of online advertising that comes in various form such as banner ads, rich media and more. Display advertising relies on elements such as images, audio, visuals, videos, animations and logos to communicate an advertising message. Display advertisers frequently target the users with  particular traits to increase the ads’ effect. It can be done through the ways of using “cookies” – which can track whether a user a page without buying anything, so the advertiser can later retarget the user with ads from the site the user previously visited.

    Display advertising normally works more on the principle of placing display ads on various websites, blogs, forums, and so on. It helps in promoting new products or offers and increase online presence and reach out to customers to help  drive leads and increase brand awareness. This method can track everything from  numbers reached, clicks, action and conversion ratios and hence it is easy to  manage with the given budgets.

    SEO

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the thriving, most effective and efficient digital marketing tool. It involves several activities to boost rankings and includes usage of keyword research. It also makes use of both on-page and off-page optimization, linkable asset creation, organic links building and  more.

    “We want to know what consumers are looking for, what their values are, and how can we meet their needs. It’s not just about Big Data; it’s about translating that into the truth.”
    – Gayle Fuguitt, Marketing veteran

    Optimizing SEO in your content will significantly improve your search rank and make it much easier for potential customers to find your website. You can include the keywords from your article and strategically place your title, hashtags, headings and the main content.

    Also Read : How to Create Quality Content that Ranks & bring Quality Traffic

    The aforementioned digital marketing channels will work dramatically well if you have a good digital marketing strategy in place for your brand or business. Each method can be evaluated and gives relevant consideration in the working of final marketing mix. It should be kept aligned with the business objectives and long term goals. Once the marketing channel is chosen, it should be periodically monitored also. The effectiveness in workings of the channels so selected should be altered as per the changing digital trends and business  goals.

  • Best Ways to Advertise SaaS

    The SaaS market is booming right now, and competition is getting heavy. Spending on SaaS reached $8 billion in 2015. The growth and competition aren’t going to slow down, with spending expected to reach as high as $55 billion by 2026. It’s going to take some unconventional marketing strategies and clever growth hacking to stand out as the competition increases.

    Here are some tactics that will give your SaaS an edge over the growing competition.

    Marketing Plan

    You need to have your marketing plans right to attract the right customers and stay in the competition. To do so, you can take help of apps to advertise about your company. But, you should follow some strategies to create an app:

    • You have to get your marketing right or massive distribution of your message won’t help and could actually hurt by attracting the wrong audience.
    • You need a good call to action (CTA), and the ability to capitalize on that CTA on the back-end
    • Where possible, get to know the people behind the directories and see if there are ways to make your app stand-out from the noise.
    • This is not a replacement for a marketing strategy of any kind.

    Also read:

    But, while this isn’t a complete marketing strategy, why not make sure you’re in every horizontal App directory and recommendation engine as well as going after more specific promotional opportunities within your market.

    Sites where you can list your App
    Sites where you can list your App

    Once you’ve done all of that, then you need to go figure out where the real money is, and that is where people aren’t just looking for “Apps” in a horizontal directory somewhere, but where they’re looking for immediate solutions to their very real and specific business problems! Below are some basic listing sites, and some places you might not have thought about. Or, if you have a LinkedIn or CrunchBase profile, consider whether it is used to its fullest.

    Basic listing sites
    Basic listing sites

    Setup a “local” listing for your physical location or mailing address even if you’re a ‘virtual’ company; more data in the search engines can’t be a bad thing!

    Relevant read: How to validate your SaaS idea before building an MVP?
    Must read: Email writing for Engagement stage

    Highlight your Product on B2B Software Review Platforms

    B2B products can offer you three content types that will help their readers assess your product: an in-house review, user-generated reviews, and paid listing. Although the first two types are usually beyond your reach, you can control the third type.

    A paid listing highlights your software or gives it a priority in a specific category listing and in-site search results. Furthermore, many reviews platforms include valuable add-ons in their marketing packages. For instance, Finances Online has a marketing package that includes an in-site article about your product, a press release campaign and a verified quality certificate awarded to your product. They also provide very efficient lead generation campaigns for SaaS vendors.

    Finances online
    Finances online

    Software review platforms are becoming a major lead channel for SaaS marketers as prospects use review sites as their first base to product discovery. What other users say on review sites influences prospects’ opinions, and by the time your sales team get in touch with these prospects, they already have an opinion about your software.
    Likewise, B2B software review sites are becoming a necessity in software purchase. A company’s buying unit–an ad hoc team composed of the CMO, executives, managers and end-users–can easily get bogged down by a deluge of options and information on hundreds of solutions. Review sites are resolving this dilemma. They help companies focus on the key aspects to compare and shortlist at once the top choices.

    Things can move fast because the buying unit has clear visibility on product options, essential features, pricing terms and call-to-actions. That’s why you need to have a solid presence in these review sites, which is ground zero for product research.

    Know about: How to Set Pricing for Your SaaS Product?
    Relevant read: How to Improve Landing Page Conversion?

    Use an Ad Network Company

    An ad network company works like a conventional ad agency. It identifies ad placements and sells these digital locations to advertisers. There are two main types of these: either your ad shows in search results or it shows in content on a website. For both types you can set a target based on keywords, location, IP address, and demographics. Your target is then matched with search results or a website’s content. You can select text ads, rich media, or a mixture of both.
    There are two popular ad models: pay-per-click (PPC) and cost-per-mile (CPM). Ad networks also use a bid process, where advertisers set a price per click (PPC) or per thousand views (CPM). The ad which bids higher is selected first for display.

    When targeting your ad, you should have a clear picture of your audience. Utilize keywords that these prospects use while searching for content or a product. Do not limit yourself to a niche when ad targeting. For example, an accounting software product can also be promoted in other business aspects such as online business, small business, project management, marketing, etc.

    Best display ad networks
    Best display ad networks 

    The top ad networks for B2B and SaaS are likely to be preferred by publishers and they can leverage your reach and content scope. Some of the best display ad networks for publishers includes: Google AdSense, Clicksor, Adblade, Conversant, BuySellAds, and Media.net. You can also explore other ad networks and compare the main factors outlined above.

    Most Important Social Media Platforms for B2B Marketers (2017)
    Most Important Social Media Platforms for B2B Marketers (2017)

    Source: 2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report

    Facebook advertising takes your business beyond your followers. Moreover, you get to qualify your audience down to details. The social network has demographic-specific options, such as, based on the user’s listed job; employees of specific companies; and a life event like a new job. Most B2B marketers use Facebook for brand awareness, lead nurturing and reach out to the personal accounts of the client’s decision-makers. Interestingly, since most Facebook users have their email address for user account, you mailing list is likely to be a treasure of Facebook accounts and the social network permits you to leverage this bonus. Go to Custom Audiences then Campaigns and select Custom List. Your mailing list, which should be in CSV, can now be uploaded and included in your Facebook ad campaign.

    On the other hand, LinkedIn is always an excellent channel for B2B promotions, where users are mostly professionals and where your software ad can be more focused. You can target ads by professional titles, positions, and company; thus, niching your target down to the core users of your B2B software. Moreover, people on LinkedIn are more conducive to B2B relationships, where they network to further their career. As a SaaS vendor or marketer, you can be seen as an important connector or expert in your software category.

    Important read: Bootstrapping SaaS Startups

    Use Paid Content Distribution Networks

    These networks promote content instead of ads, and therefore they are ideal for marketing articles, case studies and webinar topics. They focus on engaging prospects with topics of interest rather than with product pitches. In fact, the “ads” look like they are part of the publisher’s content, usually as a bottom filler with subheadings like, “You Might Also Like” or “Stories Across the Web”. Paid content can complement your ad network placements as these content networks create a top-of-funnel traffic that can provide conversion at a much later date.

    Taboola, Outbrain, and nRelate are three popular paid content distribution networks utilized by high-ranking publishers such as USA Today, ESPN, CNN, The Huffington Post, and Time. These networks use different algorithms to match your content ads with the publishers’ content to engage readers’ interest.

    Show how it Works

    When you really want to grab attention, it pays to put your platform to work and show them how it’s done. That’s what Promoter.io did when it launched its service. As a way to tap into current events, the site developed a tool that used its technology (Net Promoter Score measurement) in an unconventional way – predicting the presidential election.

    With just a few months under its belt, Promoter.io has been featured in a number of publications with more than 12,000 votes driven by its platform as leads roll in daily. Showcasing the features and benefits of a system is a great way to connect your audience with your value proposition.

    Examples of Promoter.io and SumoMe
    Examples of Promoter.io and SumoMe

    Engage with Reddit

    Marketing on Reddit has the potential to generate a lot of traffic. The community is segmented into hyper-focused subreddits that put your target audience in one place. Unfortunately, Reddit has some pretty strong guidelines about self-promotion.

    SumoMe understood the need to provide value in the Reddit community. It created high-value long-form content within the subreddit, rather than Spam content links. It then sent information and links via private message to Redditors who requested more information. According to Wilson Hung of App Sumo, the efforts generated a lot of up votes and discussion with up to 1,000 unique visits per Reddit post.

    Create urgency through exclusivity

    Creating an exclusive gated or invite-only platform is a great way to generate buzz, because people tend to want what they can’t have. Targeting a younger audience, specifically college students, Tinder mobilizes local reps on college campuses across the U.S. to host exclusive parties for people between the ages of 18-24, which make up about 68% of its audience base. The company has been using this same tactic to grow since it first launched. If you wanted in, you had to download the Tinder app on your smartphone.

    Facebook deployed this same kind of exclusivity as far back as 2004 when an edu email address was required in order to target and attract a very specific demographic – college students. That exclusivity lasted more than two years before Facebook finally opened the platform to the public.

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    Press Release Sites

    For standard press releases you have a slew of paid and free PR distribution services, each one with its pros and cons. Free press release sites often do not let you post images or videos, greatly diminishing the impact of your announcement. The advantage of course is there’s no cost involved. On the other hand, paid PR can include a service that distributes your content or tweets it to a press group, but for a cost.

    Although press releases are written to announce something, they’re mostly used for SEO, either to gain an extra backlink to your website or get a search boost by riding on the press release site’s PageRank. Likewise, even as your competitors focus on social media and content marketing, that leaves your brand alone in the PR site space, which is a significant advantage worth your attention. Free press releases are also often included in premium marketing packages on B2B review sites.

    Make it All About the customer

    With so many companies focused on growth hacking, gaming the search engines, leveraging optimization, and pushing the best services, you have to wonder when people are going to start caring about the customer. If your goal is to grow your customer base, then you should stop focusing on tricks to get their attention. Be direct. Ask them, quite literally, what they want from you.

    Help Scout gets it, as it developed a help desk platform designed to create a delightful customer experience. Yes, it’s a SaaS product, but it’s customer-focused. The site has built and marketed its platform in a way that helps companies provide a human touch.

    Conclusion

    Paid channels can be the difference to your organic campaign especially when readers today are being overwhelmed by re-purposed content churned out by companies. When planning your SaaS ad campaign, make sure to cover a wide ground by including the basic but essential paid streams we’ve talked about.

    Let us know in the comments section about the different advertising strategies that you applied to bring your SaaS in limelight.

  • Digital Marketing Business Ideas | Online Business in 2021

    Digital marketing is gaining immense popularity among entrepreneurs, marketers and consumers. While entrepreneurs and marketers use digital marketing to reach out to a large target audience, consumers life has also become easier as they can explore and buy products and services easily. As a result, there is high scope for success in digital marketing business ideas you can start online like SEO agency and web/app development.

    So here, we have compiled a list of best digital marketing business ideas, which are popular and profitable too. You can start them all online.

    Best digital Marketing Business Ideas to start Online:

    Blogging Agency

    Blogs are the arteries carrying the weight of digital marketing. Existing from the time the internet was introduced in the 90s, blogs are an effective way of marketing products and services on the internet, mobile phones and other mediums. The quality and influencing capability of these write-ups are defined by the minds that produce them. Hence, there’s a dire need of professional content writers comfortable in delivering content over an array of topics.

    So if you have flair for quality content creation, then a blogging agency is a suitable startup plan for you. You can later diversify your income plan when you have a good amount of audience.

    SEO Agency

    A lot of companies proclaim being experts in SEO and thus there’s a lot of competition in this domain. But if you’ve worked on real-time SEO projects and have enjoyed success, then optimization can be one of the best business ideas to make money. In in the SEO industry, success depends only on two factors – prior experience and conversion rate i.e. increase in incoming traffic.

    Social Media Agency

    Virtual presence on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter is imperative in bolstering brand identity and awareness among people. Every business irrespective of the size and area of operation must be present across different social media platforms to attract target customers. Managing social media accounts in different platforms, and keeping these accounts updated is an exhaustive task. In this scenario starting a social media agency is a profitable business idea. Along with that, if you learn a few things about Social Media marketing and the paid ads on social media, then you can build a good clientele. Many small businesses which are coming online don’t know how to use the social media and its ads effectively. So, you can approach them easily generate a lead.

    Additionally, If you are a social media enthusiast, you can also earn money by selling products to your friends and followers on social media platforms. You do not even need to keep a stock of products to sell online. There are many Dropshipping apps available like Meesho, Shop 101 etc. You just have to download the app and share the products shown in your social media accounts, and you earn commission on every product sold.

    You can also promote affiliate links and make money whenever someone buys from your affiliate link. Almost all the ecommerce companies provide affiliate links. Today, social media is one of the best business and there are various possibilities of making money through it.

    Mobile and Web Application
    Development:

    Organizations want to expand their market reach beyond the realms of laptops and computers. This implies transporting an entire website to a mobile screen, with no delay and failure in rendering.

    As such,mobile/web app development can be a successful digital marketing business plan. The USP is to distinguish oneself from the numerous companies already involved in app development. An example is creating applications that don’t breach the privacy of the smartphone user. This is slowly becoming a necessary feature in the light of various data breach incidents that have occurred in recent times.

    Also, there are many businesses which need to get online to expand their business. According to a study (2018) 6 out of 10 small businesses do not have a website. In fact, 35% of those business owners think their business is too small to be online. You can easily target those business and tell them how easy and profitable it is to be online.

    Video Marketing

    Static images as advertisements are gradually being replaced by short video clips. And it makes sense as well since people are prone to be enticed by a 10-second ad when compared to an image trying to convey the same message, promotion or idea. According to a study, organic traffic improves by up to 157% with added video content. So, if you can form a team that has innovative digital marketing ideas and specializes in creating amazing videos for promoting clients, then video marketing consultancy is your niche to launch a startup.

    PPC Strategist

    What a PPC strategist do is to come up with the best keywords for the PPC campaign. Pay-per-Click campaigns are expensive and can quickly burn through the budget if not implemented carefully. So, companies need highly experienced strategist who can do deep research and come up with the best keyword for the PPC campaign. If you can convert a $2 fee paid to a search engine for PPC into a $100 lead, then you should lend your expertise to others by conjuring a PPC strategy company. Companies pay the PPC strategist their quoted prices.

    Cloud Consultancy

    Cloud services offered by providers such as Amazon, Microsoft etc. have made life easier. Whether large storage or high-performance virtual machine is needed, cloud computing satisfies all kinds of requirements. And as more and more companies shift their entire operations online on a cloud platform (especially startups), cloud consultancy is the need of the hour. With a large number of vendors to choose from, companies may not be able to make the right choice and need professional guidance for cloud computing. In such a case, starting a cloud consultancy can be a profitable startup idea.

    However to rise up in ranks as a consultant, one needs to have the latest certifications and skills, and above all, the desire to learn and improve daily since cloud computing is making tremendous progress and innovations with each passing day.

    Web Analytics Company

    Analysis of data obtained through incoming traffic on a website can reveal surprising and useful patterns. Using the power of AI, ML and business analytics experts in these domains can help websites boost productivity, income and effectiveness. If you’re an analytics expert or can assemble a team which specializes in same, you can create a startup providing web analytics services and solutions.

    Websites, blogs, and similar platforms often fall prey to copyright and infringement suits due to plagiarizing content for digital marketing. For example, bloggers tend to copy answers from forums like Quora, without giving the actual writer due credits and recognition. Situations like these open up an entire money making domain to legal experts dealing with copyright and trademarks and thus makes a good digital startup.

    As such if you are one such ‘cyber lawyer’, then use your skills to start a business in saving website owners from unnecessary copyright violations!

    This was our list of top digital marketing business ideas. Comment below if you have any of the listed startup. If not, which kind of Digital Marketing Startup are you most interested in and why?

  • Somo – Enabling you to Earn with Social Media

    Startup Name – Somo

    Headquarter – Delhi

    Founders – Saurabh Goel & Sooraj Singh

    Sector – AdTech

    Founding Year – 2015

    Do you have a decent Social Media reach? Do you want to become a Social Media Influencer and earn some bucks? Somo might help you to start your journey. Somo is the world’s first social media advocates driven marketing platform headquartered at Delhi. Somo connects business as advertisers with social media users as influencers. Thus, helping companies to reach out to closer to people at micro level and at the same time helping social media users to earn some money.

    We interviewed the Co-founder, Mr. Sooraj Singh to learn about his journey of building Somo.

    Somo – Vision & Mission

    Every brand owns a digital space in today’s time. It is because digital marketing benefits businesses of all sizes by giving access to the mass market in a cost-effective & measurable way. According to IAMAI Report, “The growth in spends on Digital Advertising is expected to continue at a CAGR of 30% to touch INR 12,046 Crore by December 2018 in India”. However, the existence of Ad blockers, Blind Spots & Bot Traffic has stopped the communication between digital marketers & their targeted audience, thus jeopardizing a brand’s overall success.

    Also, there is no platform that enables social media user to become an Influencer immediately & to monetize the profile. Micro users are always most influential in order to promote services or products of brands. Furthermore, Somo mobile application is the world’s first mobile application that not only helps users to monetize their social media profiles but also quantifies the influential power user has on social media.

    Read more: Check out the vision and mission of OnlineTyari

    Somo’s long term vision is an expansion on all social media platforms as well as global expansion.

    Somo – Founders

    Somo is a venture by two young & passionate entrepreneurs, Saurabh Goel & Sooraj Singh. Saurabh is a serial entrepreneur with years of experience in marketing & sales. He is an electrical & electronics Engineer. He started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 18. After working with Simpli5d Technologies for almost 2 years, he had an idea of starting his own digital firm along with his college friend Sooraj Singh. Sooraj Singh is a Computer science engineer & coder since childhood. He has significant experience in different technologies and blockchain.

    Somo Founders

    Aditi Sharma (VP Marketing) – She has a master’s degree in Science. She has significant experience in Business Development & Digital Marketing.                

    Somo – The idea and starting up

    We were always passionate about building something that can make an impact and contribute effectively to the existing problems around. We believe problem itself is a solution and that is why we started our first venture together named as WebAssets in 2016 with a vision to transform the digital marketing industry. Through WebAssets, we provide very economical services to startups, restaurants and schools so as to fulfil their digital requirements. We initially developed our expertise towards digital marketing and sooner figured out declining effectiveness of digital marketing. We then worked towards innovating new generation of digital marketing. Finally, we are up with Somo: World’s first social media advocates driven marketing platform. We have already gained early traction through Somo.

    Read more: Interesting story behind the idea of BookMyShow

    Somo is the World’s first Social Media Advocates Driven Marketing Platform. In the word Somo- “So” represents Social & “Mo” represents Monetization. We are quantifying the influential power of Social Media users in the platform & helping them to monetize their influence on Social Media & Let them begin the journey of a Social Media Influencer. Thus the Name “Somo” Social Monetization.

    Somo Logo

    Somo – Industry details

    According to reports, India holds the total potential market size of Digital Marketing as INR 19,000 Cr. with CAGR of 28-32%. We believe it is high time to bring in a new generation of digital marketing as internet user’s communication with digital advertisement has gone tremendously low and it is need of the hour to uplift dying traditional media.‌                        

    Somo – The Product

    Read more: Check out the products and services of Netmeds

    Somo is a Patent Pending Technology, registered under “Startup India Program” & “MSME”. The mobile app of Somo lets brands go viral on social media when thousands of KYC verified Social Media users share their content. After the “Sign Up” on the Somo Application, user gets to see several posters of various brands which they can share directly to their Social Media profile. Once they share a post, they earn a certain percentage of revenue which brands pays. Through this model, the user can start monetizing their Social Media profile directly from the very first day.

    Once a user shares a post, our integrated algorithm starts tracking several factors to understand the influential power of the user on Social Media. These factors include the number of engagements, number of clicks, number of views etc. This way we put Social Media users in different leagues of influencers like the Bronze league, silver league, gold league etc. This solves a big problem of monetizing Social Media profile for users as well as to understand the influential power one can have on Social Media.

    For Brands, with the declining effectiveness of native digital advertisement & the rise of bot engagement on Social Media, it is the need of the hour to take a step forward. Somo plays an important role here by getting the brand’s post shared by multiple users directly from the app. This burst of posting organically on Social Media ultimately delivers high ROI as content now goes in a more integrated and a recommended way on Social Media channels rather than going like a blind spot ad. Also, the chances of bot engagement become negligible because of the KYC verification of Micro-influencers. Brands also get deep insight reports on the performance of the campaign. KPI is delivered through a user-friendly dashboard consisting of graphical analysis representing important KPIs like number of shares, comments, views, etc.

    Somo builds up a win-win situation for both brands as well as Social Media users. It gives a dual opportunity for both users & brands. Users can monetize their social media profile & start the journey of being a popular social media influencer and brands can get an organic shootout through the power of these engaging social media profiles, along with the real engagement. Somo mobile application monetizes the users’ basis upon their influential power on social media and ranks them in the leaderboard for them to stay rewarding.

    Somo – Revenue model & Sources

    We have two revenue models. The main being, we retain a percentage spent by brand as a platform fee and share the remaining revenues with brand advocates. In the SaaS model, we give the control of Somo platform to the brands. We charge a particular fee from the brands to use our model and brands decide what they have to pay to the Brand Advocates.

    Read more: Check out the revenue model of PropStory

    Somo – Customer Acqusition

    Users acquisition is done through both online and offline activations. Online activation includes digital campaigns executed through Somo, Google Ads, Facebook etc. whereas offline activation is carried through the student ambassador program at the mass level. ‌‌We are doing brand acquisition through e-mails and agency connects.

    Somo – Current achievement

    Somo has already started shaping up the new generation of digital marketing. The company has already collaborated with popular brands such as Mamaearth, Travelur, Milaap, Evibe, Behrouz Biryani, Ovenstory, MomsCo and a lot more! Just within the first month of the application’s launch, Somo received an enormous response . More than 10000+ downloads were done and it had more than 7,000+ registered users.

    Somo – Work Culture

    We believe in learning and innovations can go hand in hand it can build a fantastic environment for a company. We intend to build a team that works with the company and not for the company. And we will ensure this by providing limitless learning and growth opportunities to our team and respecting everyone’s opinions,

    Somo – Funding

    We are into the closing phase of our seed round.

    Somo – Competitors

    We do not have direct competitors. The ones we have are indirect competitors but we are very much different in terms of customers segmentation, business model and execution strategies.

    Read more: Who are the major competitors of Mobikwik?

    Somo – Future plans

    We are very much clear with our future plans. Once we integrate all the relevant social media platforms, we look forward towards global expansion via licensing our technology to various parts of the globe.

    We are planning exponential expansion across different Social Media platforms & geographies in quick time. We are expecting more than 1 Million downloads in the next 12 months.

    Somo – Awards and recognition

    Soma has recently been awarded with Kotler’ Excellence Award at the World Marketing Summit, 2018.

    Somo – Founders’ Advice

    Today’s youth especially Indians needs to learn the risk-reward system. Going with the safest thing for the career is not always the right one. Most people during their teens aspire to have a completely different path then what they end up doing because they think it has the most career stability. There is a part of life which for taking risks and it is the youth. However, the risks should always be calculated and should have a good risk-reward ratio.