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Author: Team Position Squared

  • 74 Nambiar, Co-founder of Position2 wins Confederation of Indian Industry (Southern Region) – Emerging Entrepreneur Award – 2014

    The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has conferred its prestigious Emerging Entrepreneur Award on 74 Nambiar, Co-founder & MD Global Delivery of Position². Six emerging industrialists from across the southern states of India were awarded in recognition of their overall achievements.

    Position2-74-CII-Award

    The award was instituted by CII five years ago with the objective of encouraging entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Over 270 companies were part of the screening process and the criteria included parameters like number of years in business, revenue, growth and also looked at softer factors like uniqueness of the business model and social initiatives.

    Reacting to the award, 74 said, “It’s a proud moment for me and the entire Position2 team. Such recognition always encourages companies like us who are part of the growing digital economy. I would like to thank CII, my family, friends, all my Position2 team members – past and present – clients and partners. We function in an ecosystem where we all help each other!”

    About Position2

    Position2 is a demand generation firm, which provides solutions in the area of content marketing, lead acquisition and marketing operations. The company’s single-point-of-access service provides clients with streamlined and integrated solutions for all online marketing needs including creative, pay-per-click campaigns, search, web development, media, marketing automation and web analytics.

    Backed by Accel Partners, the company has two offices in India and the US with an impressive client base focused on Fortune 500 companies and SMB companies in B2B technology, consumer products and Internet industries.

  • Position2 jQuery Plugin for Form Validation

    Without form submissions, a primary tool for extracting useful data that you use to generate leads and expand your business offerings, your website visitors would simply come and go. But building effective form submissions with flawless form validation processes can be a real struggle for webmasters and even web designers. To build a validation form from scratch that can pass all the checks and be market ready you simply need to have extensive Java Scripting knowledge and experience. A JavaScript developer with three to four years’ experience needs one to two hours to program a complete jQuery code for a customized form validation.

    That’s why Position2 has designed a simple plugin to help you achieve the same task in less than ten minutes. All that you need to know is simple HTML programming and you are good to go.

    You can customize the form to your specific requirements:

    • form field validations
    • custom error messages and error handling
    • custom data entry patterns

    You can download the plugin here. It’s free. The documentation is available here.

    We hope you save time and enjoy working with the jQuery plugin for form validations.

    Contact us if you have any doubts/feedback regarding our plugin.

  • Mobile World Congress 2015 – Mobile Advertising

    For the first time the Mobile World Congress (MWC), which just wound up in Barcelona in early March, anointed mobile marketing and advertising as a standalone entity. Talks were given that highlighted the finest work in mobile advertising. And a lot of new trends and technologies that will have a major impact on the mobile landscape took center stage.

    Mobile Marketer’s Takeaway

    Some of the important points for the mobile marketer to consider:

    1. The rise of social media
    2. The inevitable fragmentation of social attention
    3. How cross-channel attribution demands more attention
    4. The emphasis on data-driven creativity

    1. The Rise of Social Media

    In a world where more people own cell phones than toothbrushes, most major social platforms have transitioned to the mobile platform. Mobile ads now account for 69% of advertising revenue for Facebook. Tools like Facebook Atlas emerge. It targets people across multiple devices to support people-based marketing campaigns. It’s a customer tracking tool that does not rely on cookies and finds a lot of use in mobile advertising. This is a radical shift that paves the way for a holistic mobile marketing experience.

    US-Social-Media-Ad-Spending-2012-2017

    2. The inevitable fragmentation of social attention

    The breakneck speed at which the social landscape expands and proliferates has given rise to dedicated messaging apps. As a consequence, dark social (which is social sharing that can’t be tracked using web analytics, because sharers are sending content off the social platform via email or IM, for example),  may account for as much as 70% of social sharing on the Internet today. This is a challenge Mobile marketers need to size up and understand. Truly knowing what users are talking on social platforms supports better targeting.

    Net-US-Mobile-Ad-Revenues-as-a-Percent_of-Digital-Ad-Revenues-by-Company-2014-2017

    3. Cross-channel attribution

    Cross-channel attribution uses advanced analytics to track various marketing touch points across channels. US adults have an average of three connected devices and they all offer crumbs of data from the channels. Consumers today easily switch between devices. They might browse and add a product to the shopping cart on a smartphone. When they switch to their desktop they expect the same shopping cart with all the history to be carried across, seamlessly.

    It’s imperative that brands and companies ensure a fluid online journey that is commensurate with what the customer needs. That is the only way for digital marketers to aid conversions, establish customer satisfaction, and ascertain return visits.

    4. Data Driven Creativity

    Data-driven creativity meets programmatic buying to deliver a 360 degree customer experience. It’s the new world of the buying and selling of media in an automated, data-driven way.

     US-Programmatic-Digital-Display-Ad-Spending-by-Device-2013-2016

    It makes it possible to deliver personalized ad messaging on a massive scale, an experience that is in sync with the customer’s needs, thus ensuring a deeper brand engagement.

    Share your thoughts on the just concluded Mobile World Congress 2015!

    Contact Position² to deploy a ‘mobile first’ marketing strategy for your B2B brand now!

  • Best of the Week | Optimize your Website for Complete Google Search, and much more…

    This week’s hot news, events and videos from the online marketing and social media world.
    Optimize your Website for Complete Google Search
    From the Position² Blog This Week:
    Optimize your Website for Complete Google Search
    Google is the de facto gateway to the Internet. It is thus incumbent on you to optimize your website for complete Google search like video, image, news, et al. Find out how you can achieve this for enhanced visibility in this insightful blog now.
    Top Stories this Week: Social Media
    Top Stories this Week: SEO, PPC and Digital Media
    Wait, Paid Media Investments Can Yield SEO Value?! - Whiteboard Friday Best of the Week Video
    Watch this video to learn more about the most important performance statistics for your AdWords, and where to find them.
    Persona Based Lead Scoring: The Mystery and the Method
    Download this White Paper and learn:

    • Classify leads based on behavior and demographic details
    • Develop a consistent methodology to proffer quality leads to sales
    • Employ data integrity and tracking
    • Deploy marketing automation to improve efficiency and cut costs.?

    Download the complimentary persona Based Lead Scoring White Paper now

    		 Lead_scoring_Whitepaper
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  • Facebook Offers Digital Marketers More Data Insights

    Facebook has recently introduced access to data that will provide insights on who is saying what about anything on Facebook…but keeping it all anonymous.

    This new data mining service for marketers and advertisers is called Topic Data. Marketers will be able to scrape user posts for keywords and phrases so they can home in on their target audience. It’s important to note that marketers will not be able to target ads directly, but Topic Data means decision-grade data that will help marketers with their strategies and roadmaps.

    Usability

    Facebook is leveraging a platform to keep the data actionable, scalable and anonymous through a partnership with DataSift.  Facebook is promising their advertisers that Topic Data will mean ‘actionable insights’, and DataSift appears to be the right choice claiming they enable companies to aggregate, filter and extract insights from public social conversations. The partner has as their tagline that they, “Translate data into action with the privacy-first Human Data platform”.

    Availability

    Topic Data is in beta, so Facebook is only available to a limited number of UK and US DataSift clients. The data Facebook is making available is also limited. The roll out will expand after Facebook can determine that Topic Data is indeed useful to marketers. Hopefully later this year the beta program will be available to a wider audience. Position2 will keep you posted.

    If you are interested in Facebook advertising, Contact Position². We manage and scale Facebook advertising for super-ambitious brands!

  • Changing US smartphone dynamics: A by-the-numbers opportunity

    A quick look at comScore’s Q4 data spells out a digital marketing fact of life: It’s no longer a “mobile too” world out there. It’s all about “mobile first”.

    • United States smartphone penetration jumped to 76%
    • 3% of total US population now owns a smartphone
    • 84% of all US social media users access the platform via a mobile app or browser

    This does not presage the end of the desktop or the laptop. But it does underline, with data, that users want access to the Internet anytime, anywhere, with any device – but primarily with a smartphone.

    And of that Internet usage? A lot of Facebook time, followed by You Tube. And making a first time appearance to the Top 15 Smartphone Apps list: Pinterest.

    What are people doing on their smartphones?

    mobile-usage-stats-applications

    Image Source

    Social networking, watching videos, searching for information, messaging, accessing email are all top activities on the smartphone. This spells opportunity for digital marketers, and the platforms know it. Facebook has made advertising easier to its massive, lucrative audience thanks to the mobile app it recently released to manage your ads. Twitter, with a 23.6% share, has improved ad campaign tracking tools, giving you a new and better way to manage your Twitter ads.

    Smartphone sales are going one way – Up

    global-smartphone-shipments-forecast-2010-2018

    Of the 1 billion+ smartphones sold worldwide in 2014, Samsung lead the pack. Apple, on the other hand, cornered nearly 90% of the global smartphone profits.

    Here is a breakdown by brand of worldwide smartphone sales in 2014:

    smartphone-sales-to-end-user-statistics

    As smartphone dynamics change so too must your digital marketing campaigns. Mobile centric is the way to go. It’s all in the numbers.

    Contact Position² for all your media and advertising needs targeted towards your mobile customer!

  • Best of the Week | Content Marketing Trends in 2015, and much more…

    This week’s hot news, events and videos from the online marketing and social media world.
    Personalized Search
    From the Position² Blog This Week:
    Content Marketing Trends in 2015
    Content marketing has come of age. Companies big and small are investing in content marketing to embrace a comprehensive digital marketing campaign. Find out what are the trends in content marketing that will steal the limelight in 2015. It makes for a compelling read.
    Top Stories this Week: Social Media
    Top Stories this Week: SEO, PPC and Digital Media
    A Universal SEO Strategy Audit in 5 Steps - Whiteboard Friday Best of the Week Video
    Watch this video presented by Mike Telem & David Myers of Marketo who provide you insights on nurturing leads and boosting conversions on your website.
    White Paper: The Rapidly Changing World of SEO
    Get a head start in your quest for search engine optimization by going through this insightful white paper. Download this White Paper to know:

    • How important SEO is & why it should concern you?
    • Various ways in which you can deploy SEO
    • How to combine Social Media with SEO?
    • SEO best practices and a road map to getting there

    Download the complimentary SEO White Paper now

    		 Search-Engine-Optimization-White-Paper-position2
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  • Instagram Debuts Clickable Carousel Ads

    Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends and family.  And it’s free. All of that adds up to 300+ million users throughout the world, all of them potential targets for advertising.

    Instagram has always wanted people to browse for photos or videos and remain on the platform, not click on links that take the user off site, as is the case with ads on Facebook and Twitter. With the introduction of clickable carousel ads, advertisers now have good reason to get excited. Instagram’s carousel ads give brands more flexibility in telling their stories by allowing people who view their ads to swipe left to see additional images and link to a website of the brand’s choice.

    Think in terms of glossy multi-page ad campaigns in upscale magazines. That’s essentially where Instagram is headed with this advertising tool. But here’s the key difference between magazine spend and Instagram. The ads on Instagram have the advantage of all manner of digital analytics telling advertisers the exact nature of the impact.

    Cash flow

    Instagram has positioned itself with clickable carousel ads to give leading brands a quantifiable way to measure the impact of their marketing campaigns. The brands, in turn, are seeking vivid ways to influence people. Clickable carousel ads are a valuable resource to, among others, apparel, automotive, and restaurant brands that need more than a single image to fully display their latest offerings. Users swipe through the series of images, much like turning the pages of a magazine. Click through rates will help advertisers determine the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. And the subsequent cash flow will keep Instagram a free and ever growing app.

    Contact Position² to reach out to your B2B clients on social media now!

  • Content Marketing Trends in 2015

    Over 35,000,000 distinct units of content were shared on a daily basis in 2014.  As staggering as that may seem, 2015 promises to  be even bigger. Now’s the time to look at the content trends likely to appear in 2015, and plot your marketing course accordingly.

    content-marketing-trends-2015

    Current Marketing Trend

    Social Media Marketing and Blogs on Top

    Today most marketers promote their content on social media sites, and for good reason. Clicks, shares, and views from social media sites are five times more likely to be shared.

    The Prediction: This year we’ll see content marketing efforts push beyond social media and spill over into webinars, case studies and other relevant content platforms. These efforts deliver more value, brand awareness, backlinks and discussions than just a simple social share.

    1. Businesses will finally get involved in content creation

    Nearly all marketers now factor content marketing into their overall marketing plan, and 45% of B2B marketers report having a content strategy in place. They understand how social media and content marketing line up with each other. They understand that content marketing is all about story-telling. Make this the year you generate high quality engaging  multimedia content. Customers respond to visual content and remember it better.

    For help planning a content strategy for your business, see the links below:

    1. Content marketing targets engagement and brand awareness

    According to the Content Marketing Association, brand awareness and engagement are the leading marketing goals for 2015. To build better brand awareness develop regular posting schedules, speak with a consistent voice and share the kind of content with groups that functions like free publicity.

    In 2015 expect to see a deeper focus on brand awareness and engagement as content marketing assumes a more natural approach.

    1. Get ready for the content marketing visualizations boom

    Neil Patel of Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics says that content marketers should be ready for visualizations in 2015 and move beyond basic infographics. Neil suggests that 3D infographics or animated infographics work to your advantage, adding a “wow” effect that generates more shares and likes.

    To learn more about infographics check content marketing infographics for 2015

    1. Calculating content marketing ROI

    In 2015 you’ll see content gaining more traction in terms of lead generation, and lay a new groundwork for the future of content marketing. Content marketing platforms will become fully integrated with customer records and customer relationship management.

    For tips on how to improve digital marketing ROI see tips to improve digital marketing ROI

    1. Smart marketers prefer thought leadership

    Don’t just present content. Add value. From shares and tweets to blog posts to whitepapers, have a well-defined plan to engage with the consumer. Always ask the question,”Will our clients and prospects find this content valuable?”

    1. Content marketers wake up to email marketing

    There was a time when you could offer a company newsletter via email and that was enough to build and grow your list. Email marketing has been used as a distribution channel for existing content such as blog posts, and to promote paid products and content to subscribers. All that has to change.

    In 2015 marketers need to get really smart about the kinds of email marketing content they want to produce and develop engaging ways to promote it.

    1. Conquering content on mobile

    In 2015 there is no longer any debate about mobile. Everyone will be investing in the space. So it is essential for content marketers to develop mobile-friendly content for customers. The health of their brand depends on it. It’s a problem that needs adressing. While 41% of respondents confirm that up to half of their subscribers open emails on mobile devices, only 42% of vendors admit they rarely employ a mobile-friendly design in their communications.

    There’s a big disconnect between what marketers know they need to do, and what they’re actually doing. Look for that to change in 2015 because it’s a change or die situation.

    2015 to-dos

    • Make responsive connections with your prospects
    • Build brand awareness
    • Increase commitment

    What ups and downs or trends do you predict for content marketing in 2015? Please Share your insights below!

    Contact Position² to establish a B2B content marketing strategy now! Happy Blogging!!!

  • Improved Ad Campaign Tracking Tools on Twitter

    For Internet advertisers of all kinds, Twitter is fast becoming the place to be. Consider the numbers:

    • 288 million active users tweeting monthly
    • 500 million tweets sent daily
    • 80% of active tweeters using mobile (Twitter)

    With this in mind, advertisers will need a better way to manage their Twitter ads. Fortunately the micro-blogging site has just launched two new ad conversion tracking tools, both of which will help advertisers gain better insight into ad campaigns run on Twitter.

    The two new tools are:

    • Transaction Values
    • Key Conversion Tags

    Transaction Values

    While advertisers may have previously used website tag for remarketing, now they can use it to track their sales figures as well. By making some simple changes begin collecting order quantities and conversion values for each conversion. Twitter Ads analytics dashboard will then display the aggregated value and reporting.

    improved-ad-campaign-tools-on-twitter

    Advertisers will be able to see their ROI from their Promoted Tweet Campaigns. If not already using conversion tracking, now would be a good time to start. Simply create a tag in Twitter Ads UI and begin implementing it within a website. This new feature allows digital marketers to measure sales that were directly driven by Promoted Tweets.

    improved-ad-campaign-tracking-tools-on-twitter

    LiveNation, a Beverly Hills, California-based company that promotes concerts and  live-events, finds Twitter’s real-time platform a natural fit for its business model. Live Nation beta tested the Transaction Values feature on Twitter for over a month with Promoted Tweet campaigns using the Website Card to increase ticket sales, and the results they logged were impressive. The analytics of @LiveNation reveal that the company earned a ROAS of 819% in the test phase.

    Key Conversion Tags

    With the key conversion tag feature advertisers can select the single conversion event that is most important to them and optimize for it. They then receive gleaned analytics within their Twitter Ads UI that show only that conversion type. And they can still get all their conversion type reporting for their campaigns within their analytics dashboard at any time.

    As an example, a boutique bakery might turn to Twitter to drive more sales of its cakes for a specific holiday. All it needs to do is place a website tag on the final conversion page of the cake sale and then select this tag as the key campaign tag. Twitter will then optimize the bakery’s campaign to generate more conversions on the cake sale page. The bakery will be able to view all the cake purchases within the Twitter Ads analytics dashboard, all in real time.

    Contact Position² to deploy B2B advertising campaigns on Twitter now!