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  • Here’s What You Need to Know About the Google ‘Fred’ Update

    Google released an unconfirmed update on March 8th, 2017 which is being called the “Fred.” As per initial reports, the sites affected by this update saw up to 90% drop in organic traffic.

    What is the Google Fred algorithm update?

    While it remains vague as to what this update is specifically targeting, Fred is believed to be one of those updates which go by unnoticed until you start seeing changes in your website rankings or traffic. The chatter in the SEO community suggest that the Fred update affects these kinds of sites:

      1. Sites with low quality and thin content – Research findings from Barry Schwartz suggested that most sites that lost the most in terms of search engine rankings and organic traffic were those that have “SEO content” – content that is created solely for improving ranks in search engines and not around the user’s search intent. This is a clear indication that Google is keeping true to its goal of serving quality content that focuses on customer needs.
      2. Sites with low quality backlinks, i.e., where a number of the sites that link back to your site are low in domain authority.
      3. Sites with ads that have low or no relevance to the content on the site.
      4. Revenue or lead generation sites with lots of ads and not enough content created around the target audience’s search intent.

    5 things you can do to safeguard against the Google Fred update

    1. Build quality content – Quality content is not entirely about high word count or keyword density. Make sure that your content — even if it is low on word count — is relevant, provides unique value to the reader, addresses the needs of your audience and appeals to them.

    1. Use a website auditing tool to analyze what kind of content is ranking and driving traffic to your website by keeping a watch on key metrics such as bounce rate and time spent on page. This will help you understand what is and isn’t working to make the necessary content changes.
    2. Focus on creating unique content that clearly answers relevant queries — content that people want to read, not what you want them to read.

    2. Monitor website traffic – Keeping an eye on website analytics will help you understand how these updates are affecting your site ranking and traffic. When you begin to see unusual changes in your ranks or traffic, check the dates of the changes against the dates of the algorithm updates.

    3. Audit the ads on your site – To avoid being penalized by Google:

    1. Get rid of deceptive ads which can be deemed to be black hat SEO and harm high-quality content.
    2. Ads placed within articles and videos that auto-play when the user lands on the page affect user experience and in turn increase the chances of attracting a penalty.
    3. Ads with a dofollow link can be deemed to be black hat. Make sure all ads on your website have a nofollow attribute. Similarly, make sure all your ads on other websites have a nofollow attribute.

    4. Quality backlinks – If you find that a site irrelevant to yours has linked to you, reach out to them and ask them to remove your link or use Google’s Disavow Tool to disavow these links. Doing so will allow you to avoid a manual penalty from Google. If you have any affiliate links, make sure all the affiliate links have a nofollow attribute on them

    Use a link audit software to keep check of backlinks from other sites. Here are some Backlink analysis tools you can make use of:

    1. Ahrefs
    2. Moz Open Site Explorer
    3. Linkody
    4. Majestic SEO

    In addition to these, there are multiple tools out there that can help analyze the quality of your backlinks.

    5. Improve user experience – Focus on keeping your site user-friendly by optimizing for all platforms, eliminate unnecessary UX barriers and make the site easy to navigate, use schema markups to create well-presented search results and overall create a good site architecture.

    Focus on content quality and SEO compliance

    There is no doubt that Google is rolling out updates on a regular basis, and you may not get confirmation on every update. The best thing you can do to avoid being a victim of penalization through these updates is to constantly make sure that you are always serving quality content to your users which are not centered around search engine algorithms or created only for revenue generation.

    In addition, keep close watch for Google algorithm updates so that you can reduce the chance of being caught unprepared.

    Sources:

  • AdTech, MarTech, Demand Acceleration, Anonymous Visitors and More. Learnings from SiriusDecisions Summit 2017

    Position2 was again a Platinum sponsor at the SiriusDecisions Summit 2017 in Las Vegas this May. Wow!! What a show it was! SiriusDecisions unveiled a new Demand Waterfall, and that was just the beginning.

    We met with many amazing marketers and discussed real world advanced challenges about marketing technologies, demand acceleration, AI and anonymous visitors. Our team did two presentations on diverse and very relevant topics for today’s marketers. Niraj Swarup, Sr. VP of Products and Services, talked about the demand waterfall and I spoke about AdTech and MarTech integration.

    Over the last month, I’ve had the opportunity to digest the learnings from the summit. I aligned these learnings with the challenges our clients and prospects face in their day-to-day digital marketing efforts. Optimizing the demand waterfall and tech stack continue to throw up major challenges not just for SMBs, but also for billion dollar enterprises.

    In this article, I have compiled the key points from our presentations and SiriusDecisions’ sessions. My aim is to offer you direction to solve some of your digital marketing challenges. In doing so I have laid out high-level pointers to help you build a robust and scalable digital marketing model. If you require additional information or would like to just chat with us about your challenges, please write to us.

    My session was titled ‘Crossing the Chasm from AdTech to MarTech’. Primary objective was to explain – (1) how to build the right technology and marketing infrastructure to track digital campaigns, (2) the need to track digital marketing efforts granularly – and benefit from – cross-channel media mix optimization, and (3) the right team for success.

    Here are a few strategic and tactical tips to get you going:

    1) Marketers have too many technologies or platforms on their hands that make the job of integrating AdTech and MarTech difficult. I recommend you re-evaluate your entire tech stack. Identify and keep the most critical technologies or platforms. Get rid of stuff that you do not need.

    Yes, this is a slow and painful process, but it is something you will need to go through to succeed. In fact, a common theme at all the conferences we attended over the year was that successful large enterprises and smaller firms went through this exercise. Once done, these organizations had an ideal stack that best suited their needs.

    2) For greater digital media efficiencies, marketers need to look for ways to capture source to close data using “Deep Funnel Metrics”. Many marketers fail to do this because they either have limited or excess technologies. Another impeding factor is an unfriendly team structure.

    3) Marketers should strive to use cross-channel insights to optimize the media budget effectively. This is the best way to make sure that you and your teams will be able to migrate one channel’s successes to another. Often this effort falls flat for marketers because their teams work in silos.

    4) Lean teams can be a challenge. Therefore, marketers should not shy away from hiring the right resources with diverse skills to manage AdTech and MarTech stacks. Once you have the resources on board you need to make sure that all members of your team are working together.

    Niraj’s topic was ‘Add Yellowstone’s Upper and Lower Falls to Your Demand Waterfall’. Niraj drew inspiration from Yellowstone’s famous waterfalls and spoke about an augmented marketing framework that Position2 uses for clients.

    Below are a few high-level pointers from his presentation:

    1) It is important to identify and optimize the combination of touches that actually convert suspects into a known lead.

    2) We recommend that SiriusDecisions model be implemented so that you can track and optimize prospects as they convert to customers and as they flow through the waterfall, now the demand unit waterfall.

    3) Typically revenue from existing customers accounts for a very significant portion of overall revenue. Therefore, loyalty, renewal, customer advocacy, and retention programs are the critical challenges to solve.

    Along similar lines, another interesting topic that emerged this year was about tackling anonymous visitors hitting your website. Here are some insights:

    1) Web personalization is one-way marketers are trying to solve this problem.

    2) Marketers are playing around with AI and ABM to target these audiences.

    3) One can connect platforms like analytics and automation tools to build your ideal profile and target anonymous visitors’ through look-alike visitors.

    Of course, this is a new and emerging trend, so watch out for interesting directions to surface frequently.

    I hope this article has given you a few tips to solve the challenges of scaling digital marketing Demand Acceleration. We are happy to talk with you about your current MarTech, AdTech or Demand Acceleration challenges. Just contact us and we will reach out to you soon.

  • Opening New Doors for Design Thinking

    When a group of ambitious designers meet, you know something hot is brewing. Take a closer look and you’ll find them murmuring away about how to improve user experience on their next big undertaking.

    Design thinking is related closely with, but not limited to, designers. It takes a strategic approach to design better products and can be used by people from any field – art, literature, science, music, engineering or business.

    The Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) aims to make this approach more commonly known to everyone. IDF has a presence in about 85 countries where local groups get together to learn and develop new skills.

    We have one such group in Bangalore, India and we had the first IDF meet up on 18th February, 2017 at the Position2 office. Our team participated and collaborated with designers from across the city. We were pleasantly surprised to have some participants from other cities as well, who came just to be a part of this discussion group. This meet up was attended by 24 people in all.

    We have hosted two more such sessions on 11th March, 2017 and 29th April, 2017 respectively.

    In a snapshot

    Over three sessions, the IDF meet ups covered a wide range of topics:

    1. The first session was all about introductions and networking. Everyone was getting to know each other. This session was also used to set the ball rolling for the other sessions. It was decided that in the future sessions, a common problem area in User Interaction would be identified and the participants would brainstorm and come up with suitable solutions for them.
    2. The second session covered a more focused set of points – the future of interaction design vis-a-vis web, mobile, virtual reality (VR), AR and their applications. The group also discussed the present challenges of website and app design. An offshoot of this discussion led to listing the pros and cons of UI/UX.
    3. The third session saw the group dive right into the nitty-gritties of user experience, taking food delivery apps – Swiggy and Hungry Panda – as examples. The group divided themselves into teams and each took up an app and analyzed it. They traced the user journey and identified user personas – slicing the apps down to the tiniest details.

    Having declared Swiggy the winner, the participants proceeded to set the agenda for the next meet up – User Research. Don’t miss it!

    Missed out on some good moments? No problem, join our next session for a quick catch up and more conversations #meetup4

  • Content Syndication: A Must for Your Digital Marketing Strategy

    How to get your best content promoted on third party sites to drive brand awareness.

    Let’s start with a question – if you had to say just one thing, what is the single most important goal of your digital marketing strategy?

    It’s a fair guess that some of you answered: “to drive more traffic to the brand website.”

    Aside from SEO and Pay Per Click, Digital marketers have one key tactic for increasing click-through to a client website – getting as much branded content as possible distributed on different sites to increase presence and create a network of links back to the main site.

    Since search engines like Google started clamping down on content duplication and click baiting, this has become harder and harder. Unless you want your pages to disappear off search engine top tens, you can no longer simply repost the same keyword laden content on every article directory you find.

    What you can do, however, is reach an agreement with third party sites to promote your content. Search engines differentiate between duplication, which they view as unnecessary cluttering of the internet and what they call syndication.

    Syndication is an old media practice of different outlets sharing the same stories. For web content such as news articles, blogs, infographics, tutorials, videos, etc., Google views syndication as a positive way of helping users find content they are interested in.

    Content syndication has therefore become a powerful means for brands to drive traffic back to their own site. Syndicated articles are often not republished in full, so are therefore not duplicated. Instead, under agreement with the third party site, syndication provides links back to the original content, perhaps with a thumbnail and summary.

    Content Syndication Networks will even do the work for you. Subscribers’ sign up, submit their content and narrow down their target audience by topic and demographics. The network then does the hard work pushing the content to third party sites.

    Syndication Strategies

    A study from Curata suggests that syndication should account for around 10 percent of your content marketing mix. But that is an important 10 percent, as that is the section of your content that you wish to be promoted and endorsed by other sites.

    The content you choose to syndicate should therefore be the very best you have to offer. Unlike advertising, the purpose of syndication is not to get audiences to click through to buy, but to click through out of interest. As they are reading the host article or watching a video clip, you want them to spot the link to your content in the ‘Related Articles’ section and be engaged enough to click.

    If your aim is to get your content promoted alongside specific influential sites and blogs in your sector, try approaching them yourself to talk through a deal. Write a pitch focusing on the topics you produce content on, with any examples of previous syndication.

    Paid-for services like Taboola and Zemanta will make your content available to a wide range of sites, many of them with high visitor numbers. A free alternative is to adapt your social media strategy to cover syndication. If you have enough followers and engage well enough with your audiences, posting content to sites like Facebook and YouTube can result in high organic distribution through reposts.

    Repurposing Content

    Some large influential news and opinion sites – the Huffington Post, Life Hacker, Forbes etc. – will republish articles in full. In these instances, there are several benefits to not posting word for word the same content as you have on your site, and not just because of duplication.

    Repurposing can help drive traffic back to your site by tailoring content for specific audiences. A Forbes article may benefit from more of a business angle to something written for the Huffington Post. Different things work on different sites, plus you may have to consider word length and house style.

    Some sites, such as Hubpages and LinkedIn, allow you to publish articles in full. Because there is no editorial oversight crediting the original source, there is more of a risk of being picked up for duplication if you simply paste a piece word for word. In these instances, it is advisable to change content more substantially, perhaps with a different angle, to create a new unique piece of content.

    Conclusion

    Syndication is one of the most effective content marketing distribution strategies available to digital marketers today. Leaving behind the old clickbait practices, the focus of syndication is on quality and endorsement, providing direct links back to content on your site your audiences will be engaged with.

    To learn more about how Position2’s syndication subscription service can help promote your brand to a wider online audience, click here. To stay in touch with the latest trends in digital marketing, you can subscribe to receive alerts from our weekly blog

  • Changing with the times comes easy with jQuery

    The term ‘User Experience’ or ‘UX’ is essentially demand based development on ‘User Analytics.’ It focuses more on users’ needs, limitations of the interface and improvising them to give a better experience. And improving quality to provide ease of navigation to the users. One such plugin is the jQuery inline pop-up.

    What is jQuery inline pop-up?

    It is a simple plugin that shows content and images within an inline frame using a simple jQuery code. It enables users to expand preview as can be seen in Google Image. jQuery inline pop-up not only improves user engagement and interaction but also helps in providing high-quality images or add more content.

    With user mindset either changing or adapting to new user experiences, jQuery inline pop-up is here for the long haul or till such time developers find a better way. This may be the reason why major technology players such as Google, Twitter Bootstrap, WordPress, and other open source technologies have them as a feature. Also why most websites are likely to have this as a feature.

    Interested in the jQuery inline popup, here are the links for you to use.

    GitHub URL to download:
    https://github.com/Position2/jQuery-Inline-Popup

    Demo URL to check functionality:
    https://position2.github.io/jQuery-Inline-Popup/demo/

    So, what are you waiting for? Get on with providing a better and greater user experience with jQuery plugin and what’s more; it is free.

  • Demand Acceleration in Ten Steps

    Great content brings in a great audience, and no one knows this better than our team at Position². We hosted a webinar in collaboration with SiriusDecisions – ‘The Secret Sauce of Demand Acceleration Is in Your Content’. Here are the 10 steps we follow to help grow your business.

    Skill sets: An often overlooked step zero is identifying the resources that can execute the functions. Every step has components that require very different skill sets, and one of the first things you need to do is decide what can be done in-house and what can be outsourced.

    Step 1: Goals

    Set goals for each stage of the funnel. A basic step is to establish what business marketing wants to be responsible for. Then, work backward from that to see what you need at each stage. You can start by setting goals based on industry benchmarks and tweak them as you learn more.

    Step 2: Match to Funnel Stages

    Each component of Demand Acceleration (Content, AdTech, and MarTech) needs to be adjusted by the sales stage and the state of your funnel. The content you need at each stage is going to be different and therefore must be prioritized based on where your biggest leads are. Similarly, the ads you want to run will change too, and the nurture and programs you want to execute will also vary.

    Step 3: Personas

    Identify personas and define the content, ads, and nurture for each persona. To get off the ground quickly, start a campaign targeting one persona before you do the work for the others.

    Step 4: Mind the Gaps

    Inventory existing content and identify where the gaps are. Based on what you have available and how long it will take to develop what you don’t have, you can form a strategy for programs that you can kick off now and those that need more time.

    Step 5: Amplify

    Amplify the content that exists by repurposing. Take one or two startup pieces of content and break them into a smaller, more snackable set of assets. Match the assets to the personas and the sales stages, and because they are quick and easy to produce, you now have a way to fill out your matrix.

    Step 6: The Theme

    Campaigns typically do well when you have a visual theme. As your audience receives multiple communications from you about a single campaign, it will be clear to them that they are on a journey together with you.

    Step 7: Media Mix

    As we mentioned earlier, great content deserves a great audience, and a central piece of any campaign is the use of paid channels to bring new visitors to consume your content. Start with the total number of leads you want at the end of the campaign and work backward to figure out the ad spend media mix.

    Step 8: Deploy AdTech

    Optimize your spends to get the most out of your money. Start a lead level optimization to figure out how many leads you’re getting from each of the different channels. What paid channels are producing leads that make it through the pipeline to MQL and opportunity? Which ones are doing so at a good velocity? This information will give you valuable insights to make some marketing mix adjustments.

    Step 9: Optimize Deeper Into the Funnel

    Use the data you get at every stage of the funnel to adjust and fine-tune your sales funnel, differentiating between MQL, SQL, and SAL opportunities. This will help you restructure your budget and bucket campaign spends in different lead gen stages.

    Step 10: Map and Share

    Choreographing Content, AdTech, and MarTech, and mapping out how they play together is what the last step is all about. Use charts and hand-drawn sketches to map it all out and answer questions about the campaigns. What channels are bringing in leads? What should happen to the leads once they come in? If they do not convert on a landing page, do we use retargeting? By doing so, you will avoid a lot of confusion and make it clear to everyone working on the campaign what the next step is going to be.

    The Demand Acceleration Framework is designed around the buyer’s needs. At Position², we use the ten steps to deliver significant improvements in our clients’ B2B sales programs across awareness, engagement, and purchase stages.

    View our recorded webinar for a more comprehensive view on Demand Acceleration.

  • The Year Ahead: Top Trends That Will Shape Digital Marketing in 2017

    The past 12 months have certainly been eventful in the digital world, with a number of developments that are expected to play a significant role in shaping marketing for years to come. The key takeaways we should remember from 2016 are:

    • Online advertising spend has overtaken TV. For the first time, global ad spend on the internet has totaled more than television advertising. Online video advertising has now doubled since 2013 to £5 billion.
    • Mobile is on the march. The percentage of web visits on desktop and laptops has dropped by nine points to 56 percent while browsing on mobile phones has soared by 21 percent, significantly closing the gap on PCs to stand at 39 percent of all web hits.
    • Live video stream has arrived. The importance of online video has been growing for the past couple of years, and in 2016 it accounted for half of all mobile web traffic. That has been given a significant boost by the rapid emergence of live video streaming, first by specialist services like Periscope and Meerkat, and now brought into the social mainstream by the arrival of Facebook Live.
    • Social has diversified. Whether it is e-commerce on Facebook or Twitter or advertising on Snapchat and Instagram, social platforms have entered the marketing mainstream with nearly all leading services now providing a suite of business services. Spend on social has increased to 14 percent of total marketing spend and can be expected to keep rising.

    What to Expect in 2017

    Some of the trends that dominated 2016 will continue to shape digital marketing through the coming year. What we can expect is the use of increasingly sophisticated technologies which will add value to the interaction between brand and customer.

    From Live to Immersive

    Live video streaming announced itself in 2016 and should be a priority for marketers seeking to keep up with consumer trends in 2017. Faster connection speeds will iron out glitches in delivering smooth streams to mobile devices, while brands will be keen to explore advertising options in this new and exciting space.

    But that will not be the end of video innovation in 2017. Shoppable film is a natural evolution in content marketing, marrying high-quality films packaged as entertainment with e-commerce – viewers can simultaneously purchase as they watch. The idea was a high profile success for Ted Baker in its spy-themed collaboration with Guy Ritchie.

    Another hot trend in video could be the development of immersive content. With virtual reality headsets becoming increasingly popular, the development of 360o video offers a new dimension for brands to engage their audiences.

    Native Advertising

    Native advertising is nothing new, but its importance to digital marketers could be on the rise. Although online took the largest share of total advertising spend for the first time in 2016, the click-through rate for display advertising was 0.6 percent, with more than half of the internet users saying that they will not click an ad because they don’t trust them.

    Given those statistics, marketers have to be creative in how they present advertising online. Native advertising is about effectively hiding the fact that it is an advertisement at all, blurring the lines with content.

    Augmented Reality (AR)

    AR exploded into public consciousness in the summer of 2016 with the overnight success of the Pokémon Go app. With 650 million downloads within 80 days of launch, the game has brought to notice the potential AR has to engage audiences, especially on mobile. Digital marketers will be keen to cash in on this potential with imaginative branded AR offerings.

    Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    The rise of Virtual Assistants like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa means AI is now part of the mainstream when it comes to accessing the internet. For marketers, this demands fresh thinking in areas like SEO and ensuring websites are optimized for the way people search and browse online using their voice.

    AI also presents brands with new opportunities for interacting with customers. Chatbots are growing in popularity for providing one-to-one interaction with their customers, and as AI develops, those dialogues can become more and more personalized and responsive.

    The Future is Near

    We can expect some real technological innovations in 2017. With futuristic technologies like Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence ready to go mainstream, brands can now add a certain depth to their brand experiences in a way that was never possible before.

    The evolution of video will lead to brands fully embracing the interactive opportunities of live streaming and immersive content to capture audience imagination the way television and film have for half a century. Let’s stay tuned for 2017!

    For further updates on the latest digital marketing trends, subscribe to our blog here.

    Sources:

  • Key to Successful Facebook Ad campaigns

    890 million people are signing into Facebook every single day. Whether your potential customers are college students or CEOs, they’re probably on Facebook right now. The trouble is, posting on Facebook alone isn’t enough anymore for most brands, especially for those just starting out. Spending money on Facebook to drive people to your page and sending them to your website works only if you’re smart about it.

    One way to be smart is to create Optimized Facebook Ads targeted at the right audience. Optimized targeting will help you spend the budget wisely and see a positive return on investment. It utilizes key Facebook targets like Interests and Lookalike Audiences while focusing on defining a process to identify your key audience segments. Just Interests and Lookalike Audiences targeting simplifies the process and works well for short-term success. For more consistent results, here’s a three-step process to build the perfect audience for your Facebook campaigns.

    1. Build the audience
    2. Building up the leads
    3. Sell your services

    Build the audience

    A large built-in audience is very essential. Aggressively and efficiently build an audience in volume by promoting engaging content. Use articles and videos to drive traffic and create a website custom audience.

    For this, you need to have two on-going campaigns, with two separate objectives. The type of audience can be chosen from lookalike audience or interests. The key here is not to waste money on the entire audience but trying to get engagement in terms of opt-in for the product/service. Lookalike Audiences and interests are not that accurate since these audiences may not be ready to provide their credentials.

    The first campaign – Clicks to Website, should be the promotion of your most successful blog posts to create awareness which could be regarding helping people to solve problems without a motive to sell product/services. On the other hand, carousel ads can also be used to promote multiple blog posts as long as it can solve problems your audience might have.

    For this to work, you need to install Facebook pixel on the website. Then choose your custom audience as – “Visited Your Website – 30 Days” and “Viewed [Popular Blog Post] – 180 Days”. Let’s target both Lookalike Audiences and Interests, thus creating 2 different ad sets as:

    • Ad Set #1: Lookalike Audiences
    • Ad Set #2: Interests

    When promoting blog posts, it is essential to exclude those who’ve already read the blog posts and the ones who’ve opted to buy. And no manual bidding, let Facebook optimize for website clicks.

    The objective of the second campaign should be video views to get the relevant audience in volume. Create two ad sets targeting the same audiences as Campaign-1. Choose your Facebook Custom Audiences as follows:

    1. Viewed [Your Video] 50% – 30 Days
    2. Viewed [Your Video] 50% – 365 Days

    Percentage of view depends upon the length of the video. Smaller the percentage, larger the audience and less relevant it will be. Again, exclude the audience who have already viewed the video and those who have opted for buying.

    Now, start building up the leads

    Now that you have an audience who have engaged with your content, it’s time for the next step. Offering free giveaways in exchange for an email address. This could range from newsletters to discount offers as long as it is valuable. Once again, it requires two separate campaigns. The primary reason is to find what works best for you.

    Campaign-1- To drive audience to a landing page

    In this approach, your objective should be website conversions. Before starting, create two Website Custom Audiences: Visited Opt-in Thank You Page for 30 and 180 days separately. This will have different ad sets. One ad set for audiences who have visited your website in 30 days and another set for audiences who have viewed your video in 30 days.

    Campaign-2- Using Facebook lead ads

    Facebook lead ads generate a greater volume with ease. Create Lead Ad Custom Audiences for – Opened and Submitted Lead Form for 30 days and 90 days.

    The ad sets and targeting in the second campaign will be the same so will the exclusions. Below are the Campaign-1 exclusions:

    • Visited Thank You Page post Opt-in – 180 Days
    • Opened and Submitted Lead Form – 90 Days
    • Registered (Email Custom Audience)
    • Bought the product we’ll promote (Thank You Page Website Custom Audience – 180 Days)
    • Bought the product we’ll promote (Email Custom Audience)

    Finally, you are ready to sell your services

    The objective of this campaign should be Website Conversions with two different ad sets. Ad set one will be for the audience who have visited the thank you page (post Opt-in) in 30 days while ad set two will be for the audience who have opened and submitted the lead form in 30 days with following exclusions:

    • Thank You Page Website Custom Audience in 180 Days
    • Email Custom Audience

    For bidding, we recommend using Daily Unique Reach as the targeting is much smaller and relevant. Follow this process and let us know how well it worked for you!

    Source:

    Facebook Ad Campaign Process: Build Audience, Leads and Conversions

  • Sales and Marketing – The Evolving Relationship

    Sales and marketing are different sides of the same coin. While marketing team’s job is to generate qualified, purchase-ready leads for the sales team, it is the sales team’s job to turn those leads into sales. Although it may seem that both departments have different objectives, in the end, the goal remains the same: marketing to drive sales and generate revenue.

    According to research by Marketo and ReachForce, half of sales’ time is spent on unproductive prospecting, with sales ignoring as much as 80% of marketing leads. It’s important to empower the sales team with the right information by the marketing team, and that both teams know exactly when to handover the qualified leads from marketing to sales. Marketers have to prepare the sales team with necessary information and content to add value to existing relationships with leads.

    Marketing and sales alignment basically means the process of getting the two teams to work together toward a common goal efficiently.

    The Situation:

    The sales and marketing departments are different bodies, which causes differences in the following ways:

    • No Common Objectives
    • Misunderstood Goals

    Set Common Objectives

    Marketing and sales teams work toward the same goals: converting new leads to revenue closure. However, because of the perceived handoff from marketing to sales, this process can seem like two separate stages.

    Marketing goals are mostly long-term – which is generating potential sales leads by building a foundation with strong branding and content. It focuses more on scoring and nurturing leads for the long term.

    Sales goals, on the other hand, are short term – it’s mostly monthly or quarterly targets to achieve.

    Incorporating marketing into sales activities and working closely with the sales team allows marketers to see how they contribute towards the success of the sales team. Marketers can get a better understanding of the impact of lead quality, and sales teams can understand the need to follow up quickly.

    Misunderstood Goals

    Creating the right goals between marketing and sales is imperative for proper alignment. Defining roles for marketing and sales helps move leads through the funnel more effectively. Defining specific roles ensures that every part of the lead’s journey is accounted for.

    Marketing supports revenue goals by generating more qualified leads to pass on to the sales team. It helps to focus on many things, including full-funnel marketing programs, lead nurturing, and analytics. Marketing supports sales enablement through content creation, understanding the sales process, and product and data sheet creation. This team creates valuable and instructive content to help the sales reps and provide materials for lead gen and nurturing.

    The Solution:

    Create Service-level Agreements

    SLAs contribute to another critical part of sales and marketing alignment: making sure no qualified lead is left behind. The SLAs prioritize and assign a time stamp to leads. When marketing passes on a lead, sales teams have a certain window of time before making the first call. Once a given amount of time has elapsed, reps receive a reminder email.

    Replace the Sales Funnel with a Revenue Cycle

    The traditional sales funnel modeled a process whereby a large audience was sorted down to leads, then prospects, and then finally sales.

    Marketo’s Revenue Cycle Is an Evolution of the Traditional Sales Funnel:

    • At the top of the Marketing Funnel (TOFU), your prospects are aware of the brand. This designates when a name has officially entered the database. People move onto the next stage after meaningful engagement.
    • And in the middle of the funnel (MOFU) is where the traditional sales begin. Leads have displayed buying behavior and have engaged with content, making them a potential sales lead. We use lead scoring to determine whether it’s time to reach out. If leads aren’t ready to convert, we start the lead nurturing process. If leads are sales-ready, they are passed on to an account executive.
    • At the bottom of the funnel (BOFU), once leads have reached the bottom of the funnel, they are close to becoming a customer. Leads in this stage are sales-accepted and actively being worked on by the sales team.

    Define the Common Terms and Goals

    • Lead Scoring
    • Lead Generation Metrics – MQL, SAL, SQL

    Sales Development Representatives

    Sales Development Representatives can further help you streamline the sales qualification process and ensure the best results in the handover from marketing to sales. More consistent the follow up on leads better the conversion of leads into opportunities.

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  • Why Is User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) Important for Your Business?

    Research shows that rejection or mistrust of websites is 94% design related1. Good design is the difference between organizations that know what they’re talking about and ones that don’t. UI/UX can play a major role in establishing just how well. There are a few sure-shot ways to make a great impression on your customers – and having a well thought of and well-developed website is one of them. UI/UX is primarily focused on making highly engaging interfaces. It’s no surprise then that companies having an excellent user experience (UX) generate higher revenues.

    Every marketer out there knows the importance of good content. It is the most crucial element in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which in turn, is critical for your business. But, how do you pique your customers’ interest to read through everything? You guessed it, UI/UX. It enables better customer service, more conversions, brand loyalty, higher retention, and positive recommendations.

    A peek into User Experience (UX)

    It’s the tiny details that make the big picture look flawless. UX development puts an emphasis on carefully crafting an experience for the target market. Making sure all aspects of a website from the homepage to the checkout page, from site architecture to the sign-up button are intuitive, relevant and straightforward.

    Where does User Interface (UI) fit in?

    Simply put, user interface (UI) in the presentation and appearance. A good UI is all about perfectly balancing the science of functionality with the art of compelling design, creating visual cues for ease of use. When you want to give your potential consumers something to remember you by, give them a great UI design. It is the biggest takeaway of a website and has the final say on the number of conversions. Now that’s what you call real value.

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