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Why You Should Still Be Using Personalized Marketing to Boost Your Brand

It’s getting harder than ever to connect with buyers and prospects on a personal level.

The good news? It is easier to build real, human connections with your audience if you know what data and strategies to use.

One of the most effective strategies to build a personal connection is personalized marketing.

What exactly is personalized marketing, and what are the benefits? (Hint: It’s more than adding “$FNAME” to your email marketing!)

Here is what marketers need to know about personalized marketing.

 

What Is Personalized Marketing?

Personalized marketing is a strategy that uses demographic and behavioral data to create individualized messages for current or prospective customers.

It’s incredibly popular, with research from Statista showing that 78 percent of marketers use personalized marketing in their email marketing alone. Most marketers use the strategy on multiple channels.

The point of personalized marketing is to understand your customers more and how they like to communicate so you can better engage them in the busy online world.

There are three main categories of personalization: behavioral, contextual, and demographic.

• Behavioral personalization analyzes customer interactions with your company, such as past purchases or website behavior.
• Contextual personalization considers where customers are in their journey.
• Demographic personalization examines demographics like age, gender, race/ethnicity, and household income level.

Companies have used personalized marketing for years to improve engagement rates, but factors like the growth of AI and data analytics are making it easier than ever for even smaller companies to get on board.

Personalized marketing is also one of the best ways to engage customers between channels and send more relevant marketing messages.

 

Different Types of Personalized Marketing

Before we dig into all the benefits of personalized marketing, it’s worth looking at the different types of personalization. Keep in mind that different approaches might be more effective based on your audience, industry, and business model.

There are four main types of personalized marketing. Let’s look at them one by one.

Segmentation

This is a technique marketers use to divide their list into smaller groups or segments.

Segmentation helps brands to understand their customers better and target their products accordingly.

You can implement email segmentation by analyzing the customer data and behavior over various channels to deliver the content and style most valuable to your buyers/prospects.

You can also use segmentation to identify where the customer is in their journey or to encourage sales.

An example of email segmentation in action is Sephora.

The beauty brand sends out segmented emails to remind customers to restock on items they’re likely running low on. Sephora’s approach nudges buyers into heading over to its site and getting the product.

Further, Sephora makes it almost effortless for customers to repurchase; they’ve just got to click on the message and it takes them right to the item.

Segmentation can also be used to deliver personalized content, lead magnets, paid ads, etc. Essentially, the goal is to separate your audience into segments and deliver more relevant messages.

Personalized Emails

A personalized marketing email is an email that aims to address the personal needs of a recipient the company has had some kind of previous interaction with.

Companies send personalized emails to buyers or to prospects who have shown an interest in certain products. Typically, these emails go further than addressing the customer by name. For example:

• they personalize subject lines
• companies send them to welcome new customers and acknowledge orders
• they target consumers who’ve abandoned carts

For further personalization, businesses can use their data and track consumers’ behavior to tailor the emails and increase the chances of a purchase.

A popular use for such messaging is product recommendations, like this one from Groupon, which focuses on pampering experiences a customer may appreciate.

Dynamic Websites

Dynamic websites are a form of web design that relies on real-time data to provide a personalized experience.

Most often, businesses use them to create engaging customer experiences in a way that is more meaningful and personal to the individual.

An example is dynamically adjusting a webpage to display specific categories or products first.

Travel companies might also use dynamic websites to adjust their homepage to focus on the city a visitor has researched:

The homepage to the left is the site’s standard homepage, while the right side shows to a visitor who has researched flights to Dubai.

 

One-to-One Personalized Marketing

One-to-one personalized marketing is all about reaching out to a customer. It’s more than just sending emails to the same group of people: It’s about creating tailored content for each individual.

This approach takes personalized marketing to a new level and puts the focus on data, like:

• demographics
• geographical locations
• devices they’re using (Smartphone, laptop, etc.)
• past purchases

Businesses then use all this info to make specialized discounts like the one below or offer other incentives to get a prospect over the sales line.

Product Recommendations

We’ve all seen the emails or ads you get after you’ve purchased a product or used a service from a company.

For instance, when you buy or search for something on Amazon, you get messages like “more top picks for you,” “your browsing history,” or “keep shopping for.”

Like one-to-one personalized marketing, product recommendations use behavioral data, such as purchase and search history, to deliver personalized recommendations.

For example, a razor company might see you purchased a razor a few weeks ago and recommend a shaving cream.

 

What Are the Benefits of Personalized Marketing?

One of the main benefits of personalized marketing is that it is more affordable. Messages are more direct, which means you spend far less time (and money) targeting users that aren’t likely to convert.

However, that’s not the only benefit.

Customers Prefer Personalized Messages

According to a report by Smarter HQ, 90 percent of consumers are willing to share personal data for an easier or cheaper brand experience.

An Epsilon survey found 80 percent of consumers are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences—and 90 percent say they find personalization appealing.

Buyers like brands to treat them as individuals and respond to their pain points. Personalized marketing does that, and tailored campaigns and follow-up emails make your customers feel valued and appreciated.

 

Better Understand Your Customers

You already know how to gather information like demographic data, search and purchase history, and social media activity.

However, AI and marketing automation technologies enable marketers to gain an even better understanding of who their customers are and what they need. For example, you might find that high-revenue customers prefer a specific channel, like email.

Digging into the data for personalization gives you more insights into who your customers are, what they want, and what will drive them to make a purchase.

That data can be used to improve other marketing strategies, inform rebranding, and much more.

 

Improve ROI of Marketing Efforts

Personalized marketing is a simple way to improve your overall marketing ROI by providing what the user wants.

In fact, personalized marketing can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50 percent.

Here’s more proof: HubSpot found personalized CTAs perform 202 percent better than basic CTAs.

Additionally, it’s a way to build customer loyalty and brand recognition while reducing your acquisition costs.

Improving your ROI starts with your data to produce accurate customer profiles to create relevant content and offers for them.

A great example of this is McDonald’s.

The fast-food giant took things a step further than most by acquiring AI firm Dynamic Yield to personalize digital menus. Later, Mastercard purchased Dynamic Yield from McDonald’s to further improve their customer experience.

As Raj Seshadri, President of Data & Services, Mastercard, puts it:

The notion of going into a store or opening a webpage to find an experience perfectly tailored to you is no longer farfetched. It’s a reality that more brands are deploying and more consumers expect.

While most of us don’t have McDonald’s or Mastercard’s budget, you can still use personalized marketing to get results by relying on data from first-party tools that track users on your site or tools like HubSpot.

Increase Customer Engagement

Every company strives for more customer engagement, and personalized marketing helps you get there. It all begins with understanding your customer base in terms of demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data and tailoring efforts for each individual.

In practice, that means:

• knowing your customers’ expectations
• taking an omnichannel approach
• analyzing your data

That data can be used to speak directly to users on their preferred platforms about the topics important to them.

When you succeed at customer engagement, the rewards are priceless: Loyalty improves, revenues increase, and your business grows along with consumer trust.

Improve Customer Retention

Personalization makes it easier to identify your customers’ needs and provide them with solutions that will solve them—and that increases retention.

As a McKinsey report explains, when brands use customization correctly, they do more than just survive; they thrive.

Plus, 60 percent of customers say they’re likely to repeat if a brand offers personalized interactions.

With numerous personal touchpoints at each stage of the customer journey, sales increase, and customers stay loyal.

That’s a win for your customer and your brand.

Enhance Email Open Rates

Email open rates are the metric most email marketers focus on, and with good reason: if your list isn’t opening your emails, you’re not making any money.

There are many ways to improve your email open rates, such as:

• personalize your email content through segmentation adjust your content so it’s relevant to the readers
• send emails at the right time of the day
• adjust your CTAs to be more appealing

By using personalized marketing methods, you can increase your email open rates dramatically.

However, it’s more than ensuring you have your customer’s name in the subject line. It’s also about providing personalized discounts while creating headlines, snippets, and content that connects with them personally.

When you do this, customers feel like you understand them and what they want.

 

Personalized Marketing Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusions: Personalized Marketing

Personalized marketing is a powerful tool for marketers and business owners. It has an increased ROI and leads to higher conversion rates.

A personalized marketing campaign also increases customer loyalty by creating that personal connection with them, which makes them feel valued and appreciated.

By focusing on what is most relevant to the individual, there is a higher chance of them making a purchase than by only sending an email packed with generic information that doesn’t apply.

Although personalized marketing may be time-consuming, it’s well worth the effort to grow your business.

Do you use personalized marketing? How has it transformed your business?

Source: neilpatel.com

How to Bolster Your Brand’s Reputation By Giving A Damn

At the risk of stressing something that marketing professionals well know, your product is only as good as your brand. But we need to take a moment and reflect on why this axiom is as important now as ever.

Just as the pandemic has upended our lives, it has upended our businesses. Businesses have been burdened by the same pandemic realities everyone is going through. They are trying to figure out how to not just survive but thrive amid the uncertainty.

Businesses need a partner, not just a product. And in an era of trust and transparency, they need a partner they can count on.

The values you stand for, delivering on what you promise, doing what’s right because you care are all critical to your brand’s reputation.

 

The Power of a Brand That Actually Really Cares

In short, you give a damn.

Doing anything less is a gamble. Research indicates that corporate reputation has a significant influence on price, perceived service quality, and brand preference.

You can lose customers to bad experiences and aggressive competitors. Your credibility can get dragged through the social media gauntlet. If you don’t actively work to bolster your brand’s reputation, you are exponentially at risk from negative PR.

Without a strong brand, you can’t recover as quickly, while customer loyalty and affinity can weather nearly any storm. Here are some ways to bolster your brand’s reputation. They aren’t particularly difficult. But they do require courage and commitment.

 

Be True To Your DNA (aka “Transparency and Genuineness Are Key”)

Be true to your core values in what you do and what you say. What do you stand for? And how do you demonstrate that each day?

Businesses want to work with businesses that are transparent and genuine. If a business outwardly projects itself one way — say a creative, outside-the-box trailblazer — yet inwardly operates much differently — a buttoned-up corporate plodder — your clients will pick up on the ruse.

When your external image accurately reflects your internal self, on the other hand, you build trust.

It is no surprise that Patagonia, a company with a global reputation for high-quality products and corporate and environmental responsibility, is atop the 2021 Axios Harris Poll 100 reputation rankings.

Even the words you use matter. Be bold and authentic in what you say because it signals what you really mean. At Ceros, one of our core values  is, “We give a s***.”

At Ceros, we regularly go above and beyond just selling our product to providing creative inspiration throughout the process, from hands-on training to community support.

We have a team of people who can help a business with what it needs even when doing so requires going beyond “the contract.” We make this investment because we care.

We give a damn.

Being true to your DNA also proves invaluable when a public relations crisis erupts. Remember when Starbucks received widespread criticism in 2018 after two Black men were arrested on suspicion of trespassing after asking to use the bathroom? Starbucks didn’t press charges and later reached a financial settlement with the men.

But the coffeehouse chain that has consistently advocated corporate social responsibility didn’t stop there. The company apologized publicly, fired the employee who called the police, and announced it would close its U.S. stores for a day to give anti-bias training to 175,000 employees.

Starbucks practiced what it preached.

 

Don’t Be Lame (aka “Be a Trusted Business Partner, Not Just a Product or Service Provider”)

Businesses need an ally, not just a product or service provider. Think of the challenges they face: supply chain troubles, labor difficulties, the pace of technological change, the pandemic.

They need a business partner they can trust to help them navigate their needs and bring solutions to their problems. You need to deliver on exactly what you say you would, and if for some reason you can’t, you need to roll up your sleeves and help. Customer service is not a status page.

Your reputation also extends to your own business partners and how they do business. How they treat their own employees and think about the world can reflect back upon you.

 

Don’t Be Thanos (aka “Win The Battle For Hearts and Minds”)

Humanize your brand. Businesses have become too transactional in their relationships with customers. But customers are people, and people are emotional. Emotion influences their buying experience.

Show how your brand has a broader impact on society, whether it’s environmental, social, or other causes. Research indicates that corporate social responsibility can elevate a brand’s equity and reputation.

Take AIG, for example. The global insurer stresses the importance of diversity, philanthropy, and volunteerism and makes deep financial and other commitments to those causes. Earlier this year, it released it’s first Environmental, Social, and Governance Report to measure and manage its efforts in these endeavors. AIG isn’t just making promises. AIG is holding itself accountable, as well.

 

Become An Advocate For Someone Who Needs One

I once worked for a diagnostic company that made blood glucose testing strips at about a third of the cost of the popular brand-name version. The brand-name manufacturer, a multibillion-dollar company, filed a patent infringement case, which made national news.

During the case, we heard stories from people with diabetes who with our strips could afford to test themselves at recommended frequency levels to avoid complications and live a better life.

We knew we faced an uphill battle in this David versus Goliath legal dispute. And yes, we had a business interest in the outcome. But we became emotionally invested in the lives of the people who were going to be most affected. We unintentionally became advocates in a way that we had not been before. We were their collective voice.

Your reputation isn’t just about your business and how you solve problems for customers. It’s also about how you can represent the voices of other people who matter.

 

Who Are You Fighting For?

Your brand is a powerful yet fragile thing. It can boost profits, customer goodwill, company morale, and the communities we live in, or if too largely ignored, can begin your organization’s slow march toward irrelevancy. By being true to yourself, a valued business partner, and an advocate for others, you can help your brand stand out.

The post How to Bolster Your Brand’s Reputation By Giving A Damn appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com

What Brands Need to Know About Misinformation and Disinformation

There are no earthworms in beef jerky sticks. It is important I state that upfront, lest anyone not read this post in its entirety.

 

Misinformation Opened A Can Of Worms For Me

Beef jerky was my earliest memory of encountering misinformation. I always seemed to be running late at lunch when I was in grade school.

Waiting in line for mediocre school food was both unexciting and also put me at risk of running late to my after-lunch class.

So I often used my lunch money to buy snacks from the school cafeteria’s snack bar. That generally involved chips, cookies, and Slim Jim beef jerky sticks (for protein, naturally). Oh, how I loved Slim Jim.

A fellow classmate nudged me one day and told me – so everyone around could hear – that beef jerky contains earthworms. Specifically, “earth bait.”

He took “earth bait” to mean “earthworm” and thought I should know. He was not a kid I generally liked so his opinion held little sway, but I was curious about the idea and frankly rather grossed out. I investigated my now unfurled Slim Jim plastic sleeve. There was, in fact, no earthworm or earth bait on the list of ingredients.

Among the many other very questionable ingredients, one did stand out to me, though: erythorbate. This is a commonly used preservative and, if you say it fast it does in fact sound like “earth bait.” I suppose this is the origin of the myth that beef jerky contains earthworms.

 

Misinformation and Disinformation’s Impact on Brand

This misinformed concept regarding Slim Jim remains in circulation today. If you search on Google for erythorbate, you’ll see a “People also ask” result: “Is Erythorbate a worm?”

This leads you to an advisory from the USDA that confirms its origins (it’s highly refined, according to the USDA, and is closely related to vitamin C) and also states in plain English: Erythorbate is NOT earthworms. They get phone calls to their hotline.

This is an example of simple misinformation spreading somewhat innocently. We’ve heard a lot about mis- and disinformation and bad actors during recent elections, ongoing political feuds around Covid-19, and during congressional hearings when certain social media executives claim to be tamping it down.

 

What’s the Difference Between Misinformation and Disinformation?

It is important to clarify that misinformation and disinformation are different things.

Misinformation, as I noted, is generally spread without malice or intent. Disinformation, on the other hand, is generally organized and has a specific outcome in mind.

For example, if someone started an anti-beef-jerky coalition they might benefit from spreading the false fact that beef jerky contains earthworms. There is not, to my knowledge, a coalition of this nature behind the aforementioned falsism.

This distinction is subtle but important. It’s highly likely that your brand or organization will find itself in the midst of misinformation from time to time. It’s also increasingly probable that you could be in the crosshairs of a disinformation campaign, too.

A September 2021 study by the Network Contagion Research Institute found that disinformation is increasingly being used against brands of all types.

 

Be Prepared to Protect Your Brand

How should you prepare for and respond to misinformation and disinformation when you see it?

 

1. Always be listening.

Active social media listening is the best way to detect false information before it catches on. This is a baseline activity and its benefits reach far beyond identifying potential misinformation.

Look at the data carefully to examine for a common language in comments or user-generated posts. Also, look broadly at posts your community managers are responding to and search for comments that might be otherwise overlooked in day-to-day community management (particularly if your team is large or the duty for responding rotates among different humans).

 

2. Create your brand interactions carefully.

Brands themselves sometimes contribute to a sense of confusion. Be extra clear about things that could cause confusion (like deals or things that have limited availability).

Also consider how you phrase Tweets and messages, especially if your brand is prone to phrasing things as a question. There are times when asking a question sparks community engagement. But it’s not always necessary. NPR, citing Betteridge’s Law, actually trains journalists to generally avoid it.

 

3. Correct the record.

If you encounter false information it’s important to answer it with truth and link to a source where readers can further verify if they so choose. It is also important to do this promptly.

 

4. Context matters.

If it is clear from a customer’s message that they are using your product or service and have encountered something that sparks a question, it’s probably not the misinformation.

This brings me to my final point…

 

5. Consider the source.

If someone shows up in your feed for the first time with clearly false information, take a moment to look at their other posts. Check to see if they’re a prospect or customer. If not, it is possible it may be a troll out to spread bad information about you.

 

Got Questions?

These steps do not remove the risk of mis- or disinformation targeting your organization, but they are helpful defensive maneuvers that can limit the impact. Questions? Let us know.

The post What Brands Need to Know About Misinformation and Disinformation appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com

What Does It Take to Start a New Digital Project?

Have you been planning to start a new digital project for ages but never got around to taking the leap?

We’ve all been there!

I have a long list of domains I once purchased planning a new project that I never ended up using.

So don’t feel bad. It is never too late!

Here’s what it takes to start a new digital project:

1. Start with the Name

This step requires some serious consideration.

Remember your brand name is something you are going to be stuck with for years.

Rebranding is a nightmare, so make sure you do this right the first time.

Things to consider:

Easy to Write

How easy is it going to be to misspell it?

Running this generator may give you some ideas. You may also share your name with friends and get their input on how easy it may be to type your future brand name into the browser’s address bar.

Check Negative Association

Are there going to be any negative associations that would impact your branding?

I usually check Urban Dictionary for parts of my brand name to see if there’s anything I need to know about that concept.

Unique Brand

Are there strong brands with the same or similar names?

Search Google and see if there’s someone already known by that name.

They don’t have to be in the same niche to make your reputation management a nightmare or cause ongoing brand confusion.

I like using this brand name generator to find a cool name for my new projects.

What makes this tool unique is the way they come up with brand names: Instead of using overused tactics (like putting a prefix or a suffix to your target keyword), this one uses AI to generate meaningful and unique suggestions based on your chosen category.

For example, here are some suggestions in the Fashion category:

And here are suggest brand names in the Technology category:

The tool will also check the domain and social media availability for your chosen name and even suggest a possible logo for your future brand which also matches your niche:

Surely, with so many helpful ideas, selecting your future brand name and identity is much easier.

Plus, it’s free and requires no registration.

 

2. Set up a Website

This may seem a challenging step if you lack tech skills (like most of us do) but the reality is that it has become much easier!

In fact, setting up a WordPress site on the most popular hosting providers is just a matter of several clicks and following the clear steps.

From there, all you need is to select a theme.

Unlike your brand name, a theme is easy to change, so no need to stress yourself with this step too much.

I usually just start with a decent free theme and start filling it up with content to be found by search engines.

 

3. Develop Your Content Plan

You can develop content in various sections of your website: frequently asked questions, a blog, a news section, product or service descriptions, testimonials or reviews, your “about page”—these all deserve your attention!

Try not to sound too corporate.

Nobody likes talking with a company, so add some personality.

Be yourself.

And skip the gobbledygook!

Firstly, start with your audience

A useful way to do this is to describe your perfect customer.

• What do they read?
• What are they interested in?
• What are they worried about?
• What do they dream about achieving?
• What are their objections to buying from you?

Thinking about your perfect customer will make your content interesting, engaging, and persuasive.

Next, decide what content your perfect customer is interested in

• Which questions can you answer?
• How can you create testimonials?
• How can you show the benefits of your products and overcome objections?
• What language does she speak?

Text Optimizer will give you lots of ideas on what to cover in your content and where to branch out to in the future:

Your content shouldn’t all be about your services/products

Show that you’re an expert in your industry.

Comment on industry news.

Interview experts.

And don’t forget that your content can be text, audio, visuals, or video. Above all, be useful.

Help your perfect customer with solutions to her problems.

An editorial calendar will help you create content on a regular basis.

It’s absolutely fine to create something just once a week or even every other week.

The quality of your content is more important than quantity.

And don’t forget that you need to spend time promoting your content, too

Do you know on which social media channels your audience is most active?

Just start with two or three channels.

Don’t try to be everywhere.

Build up a following in a natural way.

If something doesn’t work, move to another channel or change the way you engage.

Ask different questions or share different stories. But always be authentic.

This is what content marketing is about.

You need to provide quality content that is useful for your audience, that engages your audience and that builds trust and authority for your company.

 

4. Define Your Conversion Funnels

Don’t launch your project until you set up your conversion funnels!

Otherwise, all the traffic you’ll generate from your launch activities will be lost forever.

First define your main conversion, for example:

• Buy your book
• Set up for your demo
• Schedule a phone consultation
• The email you to request about your services
• Enroll with your course, etc.

Then identify and set up all the different paths towards that goal:

• Add your CTAs: “Contact now”, “Buy now”, etc. I did a huge list (which you can download) on how you can word your calls to action to trigger an action.
• Add lead generation forms: Those who may be interested in hearing more from you will share their contact details. Using conversational forms is a smart idea as they feel more human and encourage more action.
• Include the “Recommend” button to encourage your site visitors to recommend your product or service to a friend
• Create and install Facebook pixel to be able to reach out to your site visitors through Facebook ads and generate some more conversions from people who already know your brand but failed to take an action
• Include social proof to show how your customers are enjoying your product

There are many more conversion optimization tactics that also generate more traffic to play with.

Conclusion

Starting a new project is scary and overwhelming but it will also make you feel inspired all over again.

I am a strong believer that the riskiest thing in life is not to take risks.

The person who is afraid of falling never learns to walk!

So wait no more: Launch that project of yours now!

The post What Does It Take to Start a New Digital Project? appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Source: digitalmarketer.com

8 Visual Storytelling Tools and How They’ll Help Your Content Marketing

Storytelling and visuals are two of the most powerful tools content marketers have. Both can help get ideas across more effectively and increase engagement. Combining these two elements—well, that’s a recipe for success.

How can marketers go about creating a successful visual story?

Luckily, there are plenty of tools available to help you take a marketing yarn and weave it into a beautiful visual.

 

8 Visual Storytelling Tools

Here are eight visual storytelling tools we love for weaving visual content into the content marketing mix.

1. Canva

Canva is the visual content and storytelling tool we use most often at Convince & Convert.

It empowers marketers to easily create beautiful designs and animations without any technical or design expertise.

We use it for creating blog graphics (like the one above), infographics, social media graphics, and more.

For important templates, I like to work with a graphic designer or team (we use Lightboard.io, big fans! hi Devin & Heather ) to come up with beautiful, functional templates in Canva that we can use over and over again.

Here’s a peek into our Canva account at Convince & Convert.

We use Canva to create blog graphics, social media graphics, infographics, and more.

Canva even gives you access to images, fonts, icons, and photo filters, so you don’t have to go looking for stuff to add to your design, although I use iStock to access a wider selection of photos and illustrations.

Because visual content performs so well on social media, being able to create it is crucial for marketers.

Here’s are a few examples of the type of visual content you can create for social media with Canva.

A post shared by Convince & Convert (@convinceandconvert)

Happy #NationalPetDay from our furry friends at C&C! pic.twitter.com/F22wItRjrg

— Convince & Convert (@convince) April 11, 2021

 

2. Ceros

Ceros is an interactive content platform that makes it easy for marketers—or anyone, really—to create infographics, e-books, and websites without the need for coding knowledge.

It enables you to create aesthetically pleasing designs easily, animate them, and input features like social media plug-ins and pop-ups.

It also includes access to a catalog of fonts and icons.

Here’s an example of interactive content created in Ceros: The State of Hiring in the COVID Economy.

With Ceros, the team at 24 Seven was able to take research on hiring and turn it into an interactive report.

Study after study shows that interactive content engages users more than static content, and with a solution like Ceros, you can take your static research or copy-based content and insert it into one of their templates for a more engaging user experience.

 

3. Prezi

If you’re looking for an amazing way to create gorgeous, engaging presentations for webinars, meetings, and other events you should check out Prezi.

The company offers a number of sleek templates to which you can add text, images, audio, and more.

You can then easily share and present your creation.

You could use Prezi for your next big meeting or try using it to create an interactive video for your website.

We’re big fans of Prezi here at Convince & Convert, and last year, Jay Baer presented a webinar (created in Prezi) on “How to Unsuck Your B2B Webinars” with Brian Fanzo and our friends at Prezi.

If you’re creating webinars, you need to check them out.

Watch “How to Unsuck Your B2B Webinars” and see Prezi in action now.

 

4. Infogram

Infographics are a fantastic way to organize information visually. Users love them. They make text easy to digest and tend to get shared a lot on social media.

Infogram is a tool that makes designing your own interactive infographics a simple process. You can also make cool charts and maps by using one of Infogram’s themes.

Here’s an example of an interactive infographic about the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill — it takes a look at what has happened in the ten years since the spill.

 

5. Uberflip

Uberflip helps content marketers create engaging content and keep it all organized.

It features tools for creating interactive flipbooks, infographics, white papers, and more, as well as an attractive home for all your content.

Uberflip also includes tools for adding in things like calls to action and social media buttons.

There’s even a place where marketers can manage all their content and receive insights about it.

 

6. Loupe

If you’ve got a bunch of photos from a company event or some other function and want to share them with your customers, try using Loupe to help you present them in an interesting way.

Loupe lets you make a collage of your photos in a custom shape, send them in a card, or even look for photos in a Where’s Waldo-inspired game.

Here’s an example made with Loupe of the Apple logo made up of a collage of photos.

Sharing your photos in a creative way like this can make your content more interesting and help develop a strong brand identity.

 

 

7. WordArt

WordArt is more or less what it sounds like. It’s a website that lets you make art out of words.

All you have to do is copy and paste words from, say, your latest blog posts and choose a shape, and you’ll get a cool-looking shape made up of the words you uploaded.

You could use this to visually sum up a piece of text, but there’s another benefit: The words used most often appear largest, which can give you some helpful hints when optimizing for search engines.

Here’s an example of a visual made with WordArt that features the words “Michael Jordan,” “basket,” and “NBA.” You might have guessed this already, but it’s also shaped like a basketball.

 

8. Visage

If you want to easily design your own graphics and still have the possibility of working with a graphic designer, you might want to try out Visage.

This company offers an easy-to-use tool that allows a team to collaboratively design and edit visual content.

The company also has graphic designers on staff that you can work with on your projects.

Here’s a cool infographic like the ones Visage helps design.

It looks at the Beatles and breaks down stats like their biggest hits, who wrote most of their songs, and what words they include most often in their lyrics.

 

Wrapping It Up

Visuals and storytelling are two of the biggest assets marketers have.

Taking advantage of the various tools that are available to help you create visual stories can make a huge difference in your marketing campaigns.

Try out these 8 examples, and feel free to scour the internet for more helpful resources.

This post was originally written by Kayla Matthews in 2017 and updated by Megan Leap in 2021.

The post 8 Visual Storytelling Tools and How They’ll Help Your Content Marketing appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com

How to Craft and Nail Your Brand Voice

Your brand voice is your business’s personality.

It’s the character you use as the frontman to your operations—the person that makes your business feel like a tangible thing.

And that’s why it’s a huge deal.

Your brand voice is the part of your brand that your avatars interact with the most.

Social media content, paid ads, long-form content, emails, and products are the touchpoints you have with your avatars and customers.

Every time your avatar runs into one of these touchpoints, they’re met with your brand voice.

These are the interactions that show who you are and why someone wants to get to know you better.

But creating a brand voice out of thin air is hard (don’t worry, you’re not the only one struggling).

It’s the existential question brought into business—who are you?

We’re going to show you how to answer this question for your business by crafting the foundation of your brand voice making one decision and using 2 spectrums:

• Decision: Personal or business
• Spectrum: Friend to Mentor
• Spectrum: Easy language to jargon

 

Personal to Business

The first step to figuring out your brand voice is deciding who is talking to your avatar.

There are 2 options here:

1. An employee (a CEO, Marketing Director, social media manager, etc.)
2. The business itself

For example, at DigitalMarketer we send emails from our CEO Ryan Deiss.

That means these emails are written in Ryan’s voice and signed by him.

Check out the example below:

In our business, it works really well to have Ryan as the face of DigitalMarketer, but we understand this isn’t the case for everybody.

And there are plentyyyy of success stories of businesses who aren’t a specific person.

For example, Canva isn’t sending emails from any of its 3 founders.

They send emails from Canva:

In some cases, choosing to use an employee’s voice or the voice of the business might not be a big deal (like in our case).

In others, it might make much more sense to focus on the business’s voice.

 

Does your customer avatar want to hear from a person or a business?

 

Friend to Mentor

Where does your business’s personality lie on the friend-to-mentor spectrum?

Finding the answer to this question requires you to know who your customer avatar is… who do they want you to be?

Are they looking for a fun friend or a mature mentor?

For example, at DigitalMarketer we aim to be the friend.

We’re not speaking like Neil deGrasse Tyson would if he were to change career paths into digital marketing.

We like to talk to our readers and customers like they’re friends we’re meeting out for coffee or bumping into at a marketing conference.

Here’s an example of our brand voice in an email to subscribers:

This works really well for our audience of marketers who are learning more about the marketing world but don’t want to feel like they’re back in a college lecture.

But, for other businesses, the mentorship brand voice works a lot better.

For example, Tony Robbins isn’t going to try to become your “Let’s get drinks after work” buddy.

He’s going to tell you to get in that ice bath, jump on a trampoline, and get your energy UP because this is your life and you better do something with it.

His brand voice is that of a mentor.

Take a look at Tony’s Instagram post below:

His avatar of the average person who wants to take their life to the next level wants mentorship and somebody who is going to guide them through inspiration and motivation.

The mentorship brand voice works perfectly for Tony’s avatar.

If you’re feeling like your avatars don’t necessarily want a friend or a mentor, that’s why this a spectrum.

Every business isn’t either a friend or mentor, there’s an area in between for businesses that are friends but mentors or mentors but friends.

 

Where does your business lie on the friend-to-mentor spectrum?

 

Easy Language to Jargon

Now that you know who is talking to your avatar (a person or your business) and where your brand voice lies on the friend-to-mentor spectrum, it’s time to start filling in what words you’ll talk to your avatar with.

This is the easy-language-to-jargon spectrum, where you’re either using language that anybody can understand (even if they’re not familiar with your industry) or you’ll be using niche jargon so only those that are well-versed in the industry know what you’re talking about.

Again, we have to go back to your customer avatar.

Who are they and want language does it make the most sense to talk to them in?

For example, Bulletproof sells food and supplements for people looking to improve their health and lifestyles.

Their founder Dave Asprey is well-versed in biohacking jargon—but you don’t see a word of jargon in the emails to their subscribers.

Why? Because their customer avatar isn’t an expert in the health space; they’re an average person trying to figure out how to live a better lifestyle.

That’s why you’ll see an easy language brand voice in Bulletproof’s emails to their subscribers where they explain what refined carbohydrates are and why they’re bad for you in easy-to-read language:

If Bulletproof just threw the words “refined carbohydrates” at their customers. they wouldn’t really know what these carbs are and why they’re bad.

By using easy language and explaining anything that isn’t knowledge for the average person, they’re making their content accessible to a lot of people.

An easy language brand voice works great for Bulletproof, but not for every other business.

Here’s part of an article from Nasdaq.com, written with jargon like “cash strategy,” “cull risk,” “portfolio,” “market downturn,” liquidating,” and more.

For Nasdaq, having a brand voice that speaks directly in industry jargon is totally okay.

The people who are going to read the Nasdaq blog are going to be more than well equipped to understand what cash strategy, cull risk, portfolio, and the other terms mean.

But again, this doesn’t mean your brand voice has to speak in either easy language or jargon.

You can find your happy in-between point where you can use mostly easy language with a hint of jargon or jargon with a hint of easy language—it all depends on what works best for your customer avatar.

Where does your business lie on the easy-language-to-jargon spectrum?

Here you are—you’ve crafted your brand voice based on what your customer avatar wants to read and hear and now you can feel confident in saying you nailed down who they want you to be.

Just remember, a brand voice can’t change often without confusing your customers.

So once you’ve decided who talks to your avatar and where you lie on the friend-to-mentor and easy-language-to-jargon spectrums, you’re not going to be able to switch back and forth very often.

That’s why understanding your audience is a crucial first step in crafting your brand voice.

The post How to Craft and Nail Your Brand Voice appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Source: digitalmarketer.com

The 34 Marketing Principles I Live By

 

Can you guess how long I’ve been a marketer?

7 years? Maybe 10?

Guess again.

I’ve been a marketer for 18 years now.

That’s a long time… And funny enough, I’ve also been an entrepreneur for the same amount of time as I’ve never really held a “corporate” job.

Many of you think I am smart, and I am great at marketing.

But let me burst your bubble… I am NOT smart, and I am NOT a great marketer.

Instead, I’ve just been doing everything long enough where I’ve learned what not to do.

See, the first 4 or so years of my marketing career went really slow and didn’t go the way I wanted.

This was mainly because I kept making mistakes.

And even worse, I kept repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

So, when I was around 20 years old, I created a list of marketing principles to never break because I wanted to ensure that I didn’t repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Over time I kept adding to the list, and it has helped me succeed not only as a marketer but also as an entrepreneur.

Hopefully, the list of principles below helps you get to where you want in life.

I know it’s helped me tremendously.

 

The 34 Marketing Principles

Here goes:

Principle #1: Don’t be the first

So many new marketing channels pop up, don’t be in a rush to try them all.

Especially when these channels are new and unproven.

You’re more likely to waste time than find wins.

At the same time, you don’t want to be the last either.

The key is to be an early adopter.

Once a channel is picking up steam, that’s when you want to jump on board and see if you can leverage it for your business.

 

Principle #2: Ride it while it lasts

Every channel that works eventually gets saturated.

Some fade away, but most stick around, and some just don’t work as well.

For example, Facebook grew through sending out invitation emails to everyone in your email address book.

That just doesn’t work anymore.

Digg used to be an amazing site that drove 100,000 visitors to a site in less than 24 hours.

It doesn’t anymore.

Google AdWords used to be a cheap way to drive sales.

It still works, but it is expensive.

When you find a channel that is working amazingly well, push hard and milk it for as long as it lasts.

As time goes on, you’ll want to keep leveraging it, but you’ll naturally have to scale back as more competitors jump due to price increases.

 

Principle #3: Sales and marketing should be owned by one person

To truly grow, you need to understand the whole picture.

From how someone comes to your site, to what they are looking for, to how to sell, upsell, and retain a customer.

You need to think about the whole cycle a customer goes through.

For that reason, a company eventually needs a Chief Revenue Officer (especially in the B2B world).

A CRO is someone in charge of both sales and marketing.

The departments can run separately, but they need one boss.

When both departments don’t roll up into one boss, there is typically is a disconnect.

This will cause the conversion rates to be lower.

 

Principle #4: Go all in during recessionary periods

The market moves in cycles.

When things go down people pull back on marketing.

Don’t optimize for short-term gains, optimize for the long run.

Marketing tends to be more cost-effective during recessionary periods.

This is when you should be spending more, doubling down, so that way you can beat your competition once the recession is over.

 

Principle #5: If you aren’t thinking long term, you won’t beat your competition

Most publicly traded companies optimize for a return within the first 12 months.

Most venture-funded companies have a 1 to 3-year outlook.

If you want to beat these companies, you need to have a 3-plus year outlook.

This will open up more marketing channels that your competition can’t look at due to investors and outside pressure.

With your marketing, it doesn’t mean you have to lose money for 3 or more years to beat your competition.

It means you just have to get creative.

For example, I know marketing costs are rising each year, so I’ve invested in software to generate visitors at a much lower cost than CPC advertising.

Doing these sorts of things requires patience as it can take years for creative ideas to come to fruition.

 

Principle #6: Never rely on one channel

Good channels eventually become saturated and it’s too risky if your marketing is solely based on one channel.

If it goes away or stops working for your business, it will crumble you.

You can’t control algorithms, and you can’t always predict costs. Focus on an omnichannel approach.

In other words, you can’t just do SEO or social media marketing.

You need to eventually try and leverage all of the major marketing channels.

 

Principle #7: Marketing tends to get more expensive over time

It’s rare for marketing to get cheaper.

You can’t control this.

As much as you focus on marketing, you have to focus on conversion optimization.

It’s the only way to keep you in the game as costs increase.

Try to run at least one A/B test each month.

And don’t run tests based on your gut.

Use both quantitative and qualitative data to make decisions.

 

Principle #8: Don’t take your messaging for granted

No matter how effective your traffic generation skills are, you won’t win if people don’t understand why they should buy from you over the competition.

A great example of this is Airbnb.

They beat Home Away and are worth roughly ten times more.

They both have a similar product and they both executed well.

Airbnb came out much later, but they nailed their messaging.

Spend time crafting and creating amazing messaging.

Typically, amazing messaging requires story-telling and understanding your customers.

You may have to survey your customers or talk to them over the phone, but eventually, you can come up with the right messaging using qualitative data.

And once you’ve figured out the right messaging, retest each year as market conditions can change, which will affect your messaging.

 

Principle #9: The numbers never lie

Opinions don’t matter!

Marketing should always be a data-driven approach.

Follow the numbers and keep auditing them as things will change over time.

What works now may not in the future due to external factors that you can’t control such as privacy and security concerns.

For example, if your users claim to hate exit popups, but the data shows an exit popup increases your monthly revenue by 10%, then continually use the exit popup.

People within the organization will complain and argue with you, but as long as you aren’t doing anything unethical, follow the data.

 

Principle #10: The best thing you can do is build a brand

Whether it is a corporate or personal one, people connect with brands.

From Tony Robbins to Nike, people prefer brands. By building a brand, you are building longevity with your marketing.

Don’t ever take it for granted and start building it from day one.

No matter how small or big your company is, you should continually work on improving your brand.

From the story behind why it exists to showcasing it wherever you can push hard on branding.

In the short run, it will not produce a positive ROI, and it is hard to track the value of a growing brand, but it works.

When people want to buy sports shoes, they don’t always perform Google searches.

Instead, they just think “Nike.”

When people want a credit card, they think Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express.

Brands are powerful and create longevity.

 

Principle #11: Always protect your brand

You’ll have opportunities to generate quick sales or traffic at the sacrifice of your brand image. Never do it.

It’s better to have less traffic and sales in the short run than it is to tarnish your brand in the long run.

If you tarnish your brand, you’ll find that it will be hard to recover and cost more money.

 

Principle #12: Don’t take shortcuts

Every time someone presents a social media or SEO shortcut, avoid it.

Typically, they won’t last long, and they could set you back through penalization.

It’s better to be safe and think long-term.

It will be tempting but say no.

 

Principle #13: Don’t market crap

Building a crappy product, service, or site just won’t cut it.

With the web being competitive and it being easier to start a site online, you need to make sure you have something incredible.

It’s 10 times easier to market something people love than it is to market something people don’t care about.

No matter how good of a marketer you are, it’s not easy to market something people don’t want.

So first focus on creating something amazing.

 

Principle #14: Hire a full-time affiliate manager from day 1

There are always people within your space who aren’t competitors and have an established user base.

Have a dedicated resource continually reaching out and partnering with these sites and companies.

It’s a good long-term way to grow without having to invest a lot of capital.

Even if your product or service isn’t ready, hire this person from day one as it takes 6 months to fully build up a good base of partnerships and affiliates.

 

Principle #15: Go against conventional marketing wisdom

Doing what everyone else is doing won’t work for the long haul.

Doing the opposite usually works much better.

It may sound risky to go against the grain, but it is one of the best ways to grow when you are in a saturated market.

A simple example of this is how Gmail grew when it first came out.

Space was crowded and even though their tool was great, so were a lot of the competitors.

Gmail grew by creating the illusion of exclusivity.

People had to be invited by other members to get a @gmail.com email address.

 

Principle #16: If you aren’t scared, you’re not pushing the limits

If you’re cheering about everything you are doing when it comes to marketing, something is wrong.

You need to be scared and be going through a mix of emotions every time you launch a new marketing campaign.

If you aren’t then you’re not pushing the limits.

Testing campaigns that your competition won’t ever dare to try, and, of course, be ethical when doing this.

Don’t burn your brand.

The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward.

Those who push the limits, tend to have a greater reward.

 

Principle #17: Don’t Be Unethical

You are going to have opportunities to gain quick wins at the cost of your customers.

Always put others first. It’s the only way to survive in the long haul.

In general, if you are going to have trouble sleeping at night, you shouldn’t be doing it.

A good example of this in marketing is how affiliates use forced continuity.

This is when they sell physical products for free as long as their customers pay for shipping.

What these customers don’t realize is that they are going to receive the same product every month and they will get a bill every month as well.

Don’t be unethical.

 

Principle #18: Get the right influencers onboard early

People tend to have a deeper connection with individuals over corporate brands.

Get influencers on board early, as it will help you attract customers faster.

Make sure your influencers are related to your business or else it won’t work and will just be a waste of money.

For example, if you are selling a B2B software you don’t want half-naked Instagram influencers promoting your product. It won’t work.

But if you are selling fashion products, having influencers on Instagram who have popular fashion channels will help drive sales.

 

Principle #19: Video is the future

People want to connect with you and your company.

If you aren’t integrating video within your marketing, you are making a big mistake.

Whether you like being on camera or not, the video should be in your strategy from day 1.

When you create videos, don’t just put them on your site.

Put the same videos everywhere… from social networks to asking other websites to embed your videos on their site.

You should even test running video ads as they tend to be more effective than text-based ads.

They are more expensive to run, but the conversion rate is typically higher.

 

Principle #20: You don’t know everything

Marketing is always changing.

No matter how good you get at one tactic, never stop learning.

Having the attitude that you are great will only hurt you.

Have an open mind and be willing to learn from anyone, especially newcomers with little to no experience as they bring fresh insights.

 

Principle #21: Don’t Hire Arrogant Marketers

If you have arrogant marketers on your team, consider replacing them with people who are open to learning (assuming you aren’t breaking any HR laws).

Arrogant marketers are typically stuck in their ways and they aren’t open to change.

Just because someone doesn’t know as much, doesn’t mean they can’t learn.

Arrogant marketers tend not to experiment, and they prefer sticking with what they know.

 

Principle #22: Little Is the New Big

Social media has empowered everyone.

Don’t take people for granted, even if they don’t have money.

By helping everyone, it will cause your brand to grow in the long run.

Don’t worry about a direct ROI when helping others, it will cause word-of-mouth marketing.

Because of social media, everyone can impact your brand in a good or bad way.

So make sure it’s in a good way by helping everyone out (as much as it is feasibly possible).

 

Principle #23: Continually test what’s working

Because of external factors that you can’t control, things change over time.

For example, 3rd party authentications were used to boost conversion rates, but now people are concerned with using them because of privacy concerns.

Always retest what has worked in the past every 6 months to ensure it is still helping you.

When you don’t retest, you’ll find that your conversion rates will drop over time and you won’t know the cause of it.

 

Principle #24: The majority of people don’t read

If you write a masterpiece, expect the majority of the people to not read it.

Make sure your content and marketing landing pages are easy to skim.

Without this, you’ll lose out on a large portion of sales.

Things like design, spacing, colors, and typography all affect readability and how easy it is to skim.

Yes, messaging is important, but if no one reads it then you won’t generate sales.

 

Principle #25: Headlines are more important than content

8 out of 10 people will read your headline, but only 2 will click through and read your content.

Spend as much time coming up with a headline as you do writing content.

If you have an amazing masterpiece and a terrible headline, it won’t get read.

You shouldn’t stop with one headline either.

Consider A/B testing a handful of headlines, as this will help you come up with a winning version.

 

Principle #26: Expand internationally once you’ve figured out your main market

The English language is always competitive.

But markets like Asia and Latin America don’t have as much competition and people within these regions are willing to spend money.

Translate your website, content, product, and service as quickly as possible (while maintaining quality, of course!).

It will open up more marketing opportunities and revenue streams.

When picking new markets, don’t just look at GDP look at the population as well.

If one region has a slightly lower GDP but a higher population, consider going after the one with a larger population first.

 

Principle #27: Be willing to start over every year

If you are expecting to grow by just doubling down on what worked in the past, your growth will slow down.

By having the mentality that you need to start over and redo all of your marketing initiatives each year, you’ll grow faster as you will be receptive to change.

This doesn’t mean you should ignore what worked for you in the last 12 months, it means that you need to keep doing that as well as go back to the drawing board to try new tactics.

 

Principle #28: Ideas are a dime a dozen, but good team members aren’t

You’ll have dozens of ideas that you’ll want to test, but if you don’t have people to take charge of them they won’t go anywhere.

Don’t bite off more than your team can handle.

If you want to grow faster, you need people to take charge and lead each of your marketing initiatives.

This will also allow you to fine-tune each channel and squeeze the most out of it.

And if you have dozens of ideas, don’t just hire any marketer.

If you don’t hire the right person, with experience, you’ll find that the marketing channel isn’t working out too well for you.

So take your time.

 

Principle #29: Don’t hire people you need to train if you want to grow fast

There is nothing wrong with hiring people who need training, but it will cause your growth to slow down.

If you want more traffic and sales ASAP, you can’t hire people that need hand holding or training.

Hire marketers with industry experience that know how to get off and running from day 1.

Ideally, you should even consider hiring marketers who have worked for your competition and have done well for them.

 

Principle #30: It takes 3 months for a marketer to get ramped up

No matter how skilled of a marketer you hire, even if they come from your competition, it typically takes 3 months for them to find their groove.

So, when you hire them as a full-time employee or a contractor, be patient and be willing to give it at least 3 months before you decide what you want to do.

Of course, you should see results within the first 3 months (even if they are small) but you still need to be patient.

 

Principle #31: People love stories and always will

Storytelling goes back centuries.

They were effective back then and they still are today (and they will be tomorrow as well).

Integrate stories within your copy.

It will help you craft a better bond with your audience.

With a better bond comes higher conversion rates.

 

Principle #32: Don’t take trends for granted

If you see the market moving in a direction, even if you don’t think it will last forever, consider riding the wave.

Even if you don’t like the trend, you’ll find that it typically makes customer acquisition easier and more affordable.

Use tools like Google Trends to help you determine which trends are popular and to see how the market is moving.

A great example of this is MixPanel copied the KISSmetrics product, but they grew faster as they rode the mobile analytics trend, while KISSmetrics did not.

 

Principle #33: Optimize for revenue, not top of funnel metrics

In marketing, looking at numbers like monthly visitors is great, but it isn’t the most important metric. Optimizing for leads isn’t enough either.

Your tracking needs to encompass the whole funnel.

By optimizing for revenue you’ll be able to make better decisions and see faster growth.

When looking at your funnel, keep in mind that it shouldn’t stop with a purchase.

There are upsells, repeat purchases, cross-sells, and even churn to consider.

 

Principle #34: Follow the rule of 7

People need to hear about your brand or see your brand 7 times before they’ll convert into a customer.

In other words, you need to be everywhere if you want to win market share.

With every company having similar products and services, people have a hard time deciding who to buy from.

If your brand is more prevalent, people are more likely to choose you.

Make sure you are leveraging as many proven marketing channels as possible.

 

Conclusion

Some of the principles above may seem obvious to you while others may not.

But you’ll find that both you and your team will make many of the mistakes no matter how obvious they seem.

Whether it is the principles above or your own, consider creating a list of your own for your team to follow.

And it shouldn’t just be for marketing. I have lots of principles… especially in regards to entrepreneurship.

So what other principles should marketers follow?

Just leave a comment below with some of the principles you follow.

The post The 34 Marketing Principles I Live By appeared first on Neil Patel.

Source: feedproxy.google.com

The Future of SEO: It’s Not What You’re Expecting

What do you think the future of SEO is?

And no, I am not talking about what Google will look like 10 years from now… I’m talking about how you’ll be able to rank your site in the future.

You know, that one thing that’ll just skyrocket your rankings.

So, what do you think it is?

I can tell you this… it’s not link building and it’s not on-page SEO.

Sure, those things help, but they don’t skyrocket your rankings. When you build links, it can take months if not a year for them to kick in.

And everyone is doing on-page SEO, so there is nothing unique about it anymore.

So, what do you think it is? Shall I give you a hint?

 

The accidental SEO hack

I stumbled on the “future” of SEO by accident. Back in March 2016, I was able to take my traffic from 185,980 visitors a month to 195,596 a month.

And it all happened within 30 days.

Here was my traffic in February 2016:

After I ran my accidental marketing experiment, my traffic grew by 9,616 visitors (to 195,596 monthly visitors in March).

I know what you are thinking… there are more days in March than February. And although that’s true, the majority of those additional 9,616 visitors came from search.

 

So what happened?

As I mentioned above, I accidentally stumbled upon this.

But once I noticed that the side effect of this marketing experiment was that it increased my search traffic, I ran it again.

And this time, on a much larger scale.

Let’s look at my traffic in June 2016:

And now let’s look at July 2016:

And now look at August 2016:

That growth rate is ridiculous! I grew my traffic to 454,382 visitors a month in August from 240,839 in June!

See, during that time period, I wasn’t trying to figure out any cool SEO hacks that would boost my rankings… it just accidentally happened. And it happened because I was running a marketing experiment that wasn’t related to SEO, but funny enough, it impacted SEO (in a major way!).

As you can see from the graphs above, I was able to drastically boost my rankings and search traffic over time.

So, can you guess what it was?

Let me give you a hint…

 

How Google deals with the Internet cesspool

The EX-CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, talked about how the Internet is becoming a place where false information is thriving. Essentially, the Internet is becoming a cesspool.

He went on to discuss how brands were becoming more important signals of whether or not content can be trusted.

And in his words:

Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.

In other words, if you want to do well in the long run, you have to build a brand.

When you look at Google you can see clearly that it’s dominated by big brands. From Huffington Post to Wikipedia to CNN… the list goes on and on.

Sure, these sites have a lot of content and backlinks, but they also have huge brands.

When my traffic grew from 185,980 visitors a month in February 2016 to 454,382 visitors in August, it was due to one thing.

My brand kept growing!

Just look at the brand queries for my name over time according to Google Trends:

Over time, my brand has grown in popularity. And as it’s grown, so has my traffic.

In the last 28 days, 40,412 people found my site by Googling variations of my name.

That’s a lot of people!

But what’s cool is, the traffic increases didn’t mainly come from people Googling “Neil Patel.” It mainly came from an increase in rankings for non-branded terms like “online marketing.”

It’s so effective that I generate over a million visits from Google each month now:

To clarify, the way Google looks at brands is that if a website gets a higher amount of brand queries than their competition (the number of people searching for your website name each month), it tells Google that people prefer that one brand over another.

And when Google is determining where to rank a website for all of the terms they are optimizing for, they give more preference to the ones with the most popular brands because those are the sites that people prefer more.

So why does Google put so much emphasis on brands versus other search signals?

 

Why Google loves brands

Just think about it, it’s the hardest thing to manipulate.

You optimize your on-page code with very little effort these days.

Heck, if you have a WordPress blog you can just use the Yoast SEO plugin and it will do a lot of the work for you.

And when it comes to links, it is harder, but not impossible. You can do email outreach, guest posting, buying links, reciprocal link building, content marketing…

Now, I am not saying you should leverage all of these link-building tactics because Google frowns upon many of them and they are short-sided (always think long-term).

You get the point… it’s not that hard to build links these days if you know what you are doing.

But the one thing that is hard to build, no matter how good of a marketer you are, is a brand.

Even if you do massive PR stunts, which causes everyone to know your brand and search for your brand on Google (that’s how they measure it), it won’t help you in the long term.

And trust me, I’ve tried it all.

I even tried to get people to search for my name by having famous people hold up signs with my name as it causes others to wonder “who is Neil Patel” and perform a Google search.

I also did that throughout the world in different languages.

I even had Larissa Manoela, a famous Brazilian actress, post this on her Instagram account for her 15+ million (million!!) followers.

The concept behind this marketing stunt was that no matter what industry you are in, everyone follows celebrities (or at least knows about them).

And if you can get these celebrities to talk about you, it will create buzz and get new people to learn who you are and potentially become an avid follower. Or at the very least, search for you in Google.

And if you can get a lot of celebrities (or social influencers) to talk about you during the same time, it will create even more buzz and potentially cause newspapers and news websites to talk about you as well.

Now I didn’t have enough money to pay A-list celebrities, so I took Internet celebrities (and a few big names in countries outside of the US) and got them to hold up signs with my name on both Facebook and Instagram.

This created a buzz, which then caused more people to Google my name. This, in turn, increased my popularity over time. And the end result was that I increased my rankings for non-branded terms (like “online marketing” and “SEO”).

That’s how I got the big boost in traffic from February 2016 to August 2016.

Although that will help boost your search traffic in the short run, it won’t last long unless you continually build up your brand.

Google is looking to see how many people are searching for your brand name on a daily basis… and ideally, they want to see this increase over time.

In other words, if you can’t maintain your brand’s popularity, your search traffic will die off if you use short-term strategies as I did. That’s why you see huge spikes in my brand when you look at the Google Trends image below.

But if your brand continues to grow in popularity, so will your search traffic for all of your non-brand-related terms.

It’s hard to see it in the chart above, but before I focused on building my brand, I was only generating 18,304 brand queries per month, versus the 40,412 that I am generating now.

 

So how do you build a brand?

As I mentioned above, you need people searching for your brand name on a consistent basis.

The only way to really do this is by creating value.

Just look at me… I blog on a regular basis, produce educational videos, have a daily podcast, and I even speak at conferences.

All in all, it has caused my brand to grow over the years.

And this works even better for corporations. If you create an amazing product or service, people will love your brand and keep coming back.

I learned this from my Ubersuggest acquisition. When I bought the brand and merged it into my website, my number one search query become the term “Ubersuggest” and variations of it.

People love the tool… so much so that they access it by Googling the brand name. Sure, the tool has more direct traffic, but people also go to sites using Google.

But to get back to the question of how you can build a brand?

Well, there are no very detailed strategies I can give you as it will range from business to business. I can give you an overview of strategies that have worked for me though, as well as some stats to go along with it:

 

Blog weekly

I’ve found that if you blog on a regular basis you get more brand queries.

When people are expecting content from you on a regular basis, they’ll Google your brand to come back to your blog and read your latest content.

When I blogged daily, I generated 11% more brand queries than when I blogged once a week.

This is why sites like CNN, Huffington Post, Business Insider, and every other news site generate a lot of brand queries… they blog numerous times per day.

 

Create videos

You don’t have to copy my YouTube strategy, but you should create some sort of videos related to your product, service, or industry. Not because of Google or YouTube, but because social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn love video content.

So much so that it’s easier to get eyeballs on Facebook and LinkedIn for video content than it is on YouTube.

This will cause more people to see your brand, and build a relationship with you or your company.

What I’ve found is that the more videos I create the more brand queries I get. Just look at the screenshot below:

The screenshot shows how many views my videos received on YouTube over the last 28 days from people searching for my name. It’s 3,806 visitors to be exact.

I know YouTube brand queries don’t mean more brand queries on “Google.”

But if you can push out video content on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, it can’t hurt. It will cause more people to see your brand, and eventually, this should cause more people to Google you.

Now, the reason I am emphasizing LinkedIn and Facebook is that it is easier to generate views on those two social networks for video content.

I know they count views differently, but there is a huge difference (and even if there weren’t, it’s extra views).

Just look at my YouTube views for my video on GoogleRank Brain, it has 10,010 views:

And on Facebook it has 31,000 views:

And on LinkedIn it has 29,506 views:

So if YouTube is creating roughly 3,806 brand queries per month when it’s generating fewer views than Facebook and LinkedIn, just imagine what these videos are doing for my brand.

Sadly, Facebook and LinkedIn don’t share stats in the same way as YouTube, but you can come to the conclusion that it probably helps in a similar fashion.

That’s why you need to create videos in order to promote your personal or corporate brand on all social sites (you can use the same content, just upload it to each social network).

 

Speak at conferences

Every time I speak at conferences I see an influx of brand queries.

It’s harder for me to see these days as I already have a lot of brand queries, but I used to see big swings in my brand queries when I was starting out because of my participation at conferences.

Every time I spoke at a conference with at least 300 attendees (the number of people attending your speech, not the total number of people registered for the event), I would see an increase in brand searches within 24 to 48 hours of my talk.

Each speech would typically bring me 110 to 180 extra brand queries. Although that seems high, you have to keep in mind that reporters also sit in on speeches and are blogging about your speech.

This creates more press related to you and your company, which helps with brand queries.

And if the conference you are speaking at uploads the video of your speech to YouTube (or even live streams the event on Facebook) you’ll see even more brand queries.

The larger the audience the better as it creates more potential searches. If you don’t know how to get speaking spots, check this out.

And if you don’t have the time to travel, you can speak at virtual events. They won’t have the same effect, but it is better than nothing.

 

Build an amazing product or service

I learned this one from my Ubersuggest acquisition… if people love what you are building, your brand queries will really skyrocket. It’s so effective, that it has become my new SEO strategy.

As you can see, the better product you build, the more brand queries you’ll receive.

With Ubersuggest I took a simple approach, just take what my competitors are charging for and give it away for free.

And my brand queries don’t even compare to companies like Dropbox, Apple, Slack, and the loads of other companies that have built amazing products or services.

This strategy is easy to replicate and you’ll see the results fast as long as you take what your competition is charging for and give it away for free.

Just look at the chart above: it shows a huge spike in just 1 month. That was when I released more features for free.

 

Performance-based press

There are companies like PRserve that charge for the performance-based press. If they get you to press, you then pay.

If not, you don’t pay a dime. It won’t cause tons of brand queries at first, but over time it will help.

If you want to do it yourself, here is an article I wrote breaking down how to get press. It takes longer and it’s harder than hiring someone, but as long as you are willing to put in the time, you will see results.

You can also check out sites like Help a Reporter Out, where journalists ask questions and people go to help them out. When you see a question related to your expertise or industry, you should respond and you can get free press.

 

Release a book

This works better for personal brands, but publishing a book is a great way to get more brand queries. There are even companies that can streamline the whole process for you.

When I released my book Hustle, I learned three important things:

• Don’t co-author a book – I love my co-authors, but I would have received much more of a brand boost if I self-authored the book.
• Write a book about your expertise – Hustle was a mainstream book that appealed to most people versus people who wanted to learn about marketing. If I wrote a book about marketing, which is where my expertise is, I believe my brand would have grown faster (even if fewer people purchased the book).
• Don’t focus on being a New York Times Bestselling author – I was on the list 3 weeks in a row, and I don’t think it did much for me. Focus on building a following within your space, versus just generating book sales from people who don’t care about your business.

Hopefully, the strategies above will give you a start on building your brand… it just takes time and a lot of elbow grease.

There is no quick solution and what worked for me may not work for you. So get your creative juices flowing and think outside the box.

 

Conclusion

Branding may seem like a waste of money, but it isn’t.

I used to think companies like Nike were wasting money with all of their TV ads when they could have focused on channels that produced a direct ROI like Google Ads.

But what’s funny is, when you think of shoes you naturally think of “Nike.” You don’t have to Google them, you just know about them because they’ve built a huge brand and are everywhere.

The same goes for Visa. When you think of credit cards, Visa comes to mind because they are accepted worldwide and run tons of ads.

The list keeps going on and on… from McDonald’s to Coca-Cola… the one thing you have to learn from these big companies is that you have to build an amazing brand.

Not only will it create more brand searches, but it will help drive more revenue in the long run.

Most of the companies I mentioned above don’t generate the majority of their sales from Google… they generate their sales from having a huge brand that people trust and love.

The brand queries that they get on Google are just an added benefit.

And if that doesn’t convince you, here is an interesting stat. One of my friends works for one of the largest travel companies in the world.

They are publicly traded and run television ads as well as spending millions on Google/Facebook ads each month.

When they run TV ads, their Google cost per click (CPC) goes down by roughly 20% because people are seeing their brand everywhere and are more willing to click on it.

When they turn off the TV ads, they see the CPCs go back up.

They also own so many travel sites in the space, so they tested this out with a handful of them. Every time they saw similar results, no matter which travels site they tested it on.

More money spent on branding equals a cheaper CPC. When they don’t run TV ads, CPCs go up.

I know you probably don’t like the idea of branding because it isn’t something that is instant, and it is hard to manipulate. But that’s why creating a strong brand drastically increases your non-branded rankings.

So, what are you waiting for… are you going to focus on building a brand?

The post The Future of SEO: It’s Not What You’re Expecting appeared first on Neil Patel.

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