How to Create a Revenue-Generating Google Ads Campaign

The trouble with search engine optimization (SEO) is that it takes a long time to work and doesn’t come with any guarantees. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, on the other hand, can provide results a lot faster.

For companies that have no organic presence and need ROI fast, a paid ad is sometimes your best bet for driving traffic to (and conversions from) your website.

The problem is that your competitors are using the same search terms and keywords you will. Not only do you need to know how to build a campaign through Google Ads, but you also need to know how to stand out from the crowd.

What is a Google Ads Campaign?

Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) system for advertising in the search engine results pages (SERPs) on Google. You can create Campaigns, which are used to organize groups of similar ads. Your Google Ads account can have one or many campaigns running at a time.

Each campaign then includes multiple ad groups, which house your keywords ad text, and landing pages. 

The advantage of structuring your Ads account with campaigns is that you can target different audiences (for better personalization), be more intentional with your bidding, and even run different tests without affecting your main campaigns. 

For example, let's say your organization sells two products. One is a more lucrative opportunity, and the other is less important to your company goals but still requires some spend. By using separate campaigns, each of these products get their own ads, and you can put more of your budget toward bidding on the more lucrative product without the less lucrative one eating up all your spend. 

For more information on how ad spend works, check out our ultimate guide to Google Ads.

Let’s continue on with a few real examples of Google Ads campaigns — a service formerly known as Google AdWords — and then throw in some pro tips for succeeding with your own search engine marketing (SEM) strategy. By the time we're done, you'll be an expert.

AdWords Examples

1. New Breed Marketing: what is inbound marketing
2. Nettitude: cybersecurity
3. Rock Content: content marketing course
4. Destination Canada: cheap holiday destinations
5. FM Training: LEED certification online
6. LeftLane Sports: hiking boots for women

1. New Breed Marketing

Search term: what is inbound marketing

Links to:

Some searchers are experiencing a pain that’s led them on a path to purchase, but they may not be clear on what it is that will solve that pain. That's the thinking behind the first Google Ads campaign example above.

New Breed Marketing, an agency partner of HubSpot, is an inbound marketing service provider. Because New Breed's customers might not know what they’re signing up for with "inbound marketing," the company sought to define the term for them — helping buyers confirm that inbound marketing is indeed what they're looking for.

New Breed Marketing's Google Ads result above is as simple as search engine marketing gets. The meta description is just one sentence long but indicates to searchers that inbound marketing is a "process" to be invested in.

Meanwhile, the blue link, called a Site Extension, itself promises to explain inbound marketing in the form of a downloadable "guide." This ensures those who click through to the website are prepared to submit their contact information and become a lead in exchange for that guide. Remember, Google Ads campaigns cost you money every time somebody clicks on one of your ads — you need to get something out of those clicks.

2. Nettitude

Search term: cybersecurity

Links to:

In general, the broader the search term, the less likely the searcher will want to buy something right away (a pay-per-click concept called "match types"). In the Ads campaign above, however, Nettitude bid on a broad, one-word search term — "cybersecurity."

While this broad search term doesn't target a specific searcher, the details of their Google Ad ensures the link can satisfy many different types of searchers no matter what their interest was when they typed in the word.

Nettitude's AdWords campaign, above, does two things well:

First, its meta-description has several value propositions that most cybersecurity customers would be receptive to. This includes a "2 hour response time" and a "free initial consultation" to make a prospect's initial outreach convenient and low-commitment.

Second, the ad displays a phone number directly on the page. When you bid on a search term that yields such a broad, diverse group of people, getting them on the phone is often the easiest way to nurture their interest so they don't wander off to another search result and forget about you.

3. Rock Content

Search term: content marketing course

Links to:

Rock Content, an agency partner of HubSpot, is a content marketing service based in Brazil.

Its Ads campaign bid on a search term that's only somewhat related to the service Rock Content is offering on its landing page. Here's why it works.

The search term "content marketing course" is intent on finding classes that help marketers increase their content marketing knowledge. Rock Content looks to pivot searchers from taking a class for improving their content knowledge to entering an "evaluation" for determining how much they already know.

This evaluation might not satisfy every searcher, but it is a smart way of pivoting their interest to a related service and introducing them to Rock Content's offerings at the same time.

4. Destination Canada

Search term: cheap holiday destinations

Links to:

Canada Destination's Google Ads campaign above uses a searcher's general interest in taking a holiday trip to advertise all the fun parts of Canada. Similar to the third example on this list, the strategy is to pivot off of a broad search term to drive value into its own offering. It's not a casual article, but it's also not a flight itinerary — that middle-of-the-funnel space is what makes this campaign work so well.

The link above also uses two sub-links beneath the main Site Extension, highlighting the key subjects covered in the website to maximize the ad's click-through rate.

When people search for "cheap holiday destinations," it can be hard to gauge their level of interest just right. When launching a Google Ads campaign, you don't want your ad to be too broad to convert customers, but you also don't want to be so close to the cash register that your searchers aren't ready for what you're offering them. Canada Destination's digital tour of the country captures that middle ground perfectly, holding users' interest without chasing them away with overly specific content.

5. FM Training

Search term: leed certification online

Links to:

FM Training is a certification hub for facility managers (FMs), the same people who work to make their building facilities LEED-certified. Lots of coursework can go into earning this certification, but it can be a challenge to find curricula that caters to these professionals.

FM Training's Ads campaign makes sure FMs know they've come to the right place.

While the five Site Extensions beneath the ad help users jump directly to the information they're most interested in, the first sentence of the meta-description is what really reaches out to this audience: "FMs ..." — the audience is clearly stated in terms they'd understand — "... see a salary increase of 6% or more within 1 yr." The ad uses the limited space it has to send a message designed to encourage clicks and make the ad worth the investment.

6. LeftLane Sports

Search term: hiking boots for women

Links to:

This campaign by LeftLane Sports is an example of local business advertising done right. The company doesn't even need people to click on the link to make money from it.

If prospects in the Boston area search for "hiking boots for women," they won't just see a paid result by LeftLane Sports; they'll see where the brand's nearest storefront is and how long they're open. It's the perfect way to drive website traffic to the appropriate product pages and promote a local presence in the process.

How to Create a Google Ads Campaign

1. Get a Google Ads account.
2. Set your Campaign Goals.
3. Complete the "Describe your business" section.
4. Designate your geographic area.
5. Set up keyword themes.
6. Write your ad.
7. Set your ad budget.
8. Complete the "Budget and review" section.
9. Double check your double check.
10. Set up billing.
11. Hit Submit.

1. Get a Google Ads account.

Before you can do anything, you'll need to visit the Google Ads website and sign up for an account. 

As part of signing up for a Google Ads account, Google will automatically take you through the process of creating your first campaign, so be prepared with your financial information. Google takes its fee with each click, so your banking credentials are required during the setup process.

Note: There’s no need to worry about getting charged for ad spend as you get started with Google Ads and set up your first campaign. You can always turn it off once you get through the registration process.

2. Set your Campaign Goals.

The Google interface will prompt you to select a goal type from the following three options: 

• Get more calls
• Get more website sales or signups
• Get more visits to your physical location

This goal will be tied to your advertising campaign, so you'll want to choose the one that most closely represents the results you want to see.

3. Complete the "Describe your business" section.

Google will then prompt you to enter your business name and website as important information that "describes your business." This information is used to help predict your audience and is also used for the actual ad's creation.

4. Designate your geographic area.

In this section, you’ll designate where you want your ads to appear. This is particularly helpful for local businesses. 

At the same time, if you are an online shop, you may be less concerned about geographic constraints. It's still not a bad idea to consider where, exactly, the majority of your audience lives. If you don't know, you may want to back up a step and consider your buyer personas first. Why spend money advertising to people in the Midwest if the bulk of your customers live in the Northeast?

You can also reach other countries if your company serves international buyers. Just be sure you're prepared for any of the buyers who come your way as a result of your ads. You might pay a lot of money for visitors who can't make a purchase if you're not careful.

5. Set up keyword themes. 

Google will determine different themes based on your website content. You can customize your keywords based on their suggestions as a jumping off point for your campaign. 

Keep in mind you'll be competing against many other companies for the same audience when choosing keywords for which you want your ad to show up. Take some time to think of the keywords that will reach people who are ready to buy.

For instance, instead of using "luxury shoes" in your PPC ad, you can use keywords such as "red leather heels." Maybe you'll miss out on people who are looking for shoes of all types, but you'll snag those who have a particular shoe in mind. They'll be more likely to make a purchase if your ad leads to a landing page with red leather heels, and that will more than pay for their click.

You can also use negative keywords and save a lot of money on your clicks. These tell Google what you don't want your ad to show up for. In other words, you can use keywords such as red leather heels, not stilettos.

6. Write your ad.

This is the most important aspect of your Google Ads education. The copy you use is what will convince potential buyers to click. You want to attract plenty of people, yes, but you also want those people to buy. If they don't buy, you pay anyway. 

In this section, you're setting up the headlines and meta descriptions for your first ad(s). Note that you can choose to set up multiple ads in a single campaign, though Google starts you off with one. 

For each add you create, you have three considerations: 

• Headline
• Description
• Destination URL

Headline

Start with a great headline that uses search terms that will reach your niche. Google splits the headline up into three sections of 30 characters each, so make each character count. You might even need to use abbreviations, or you can search for shorter synonyms.

Description

After the headline, you get another 90 characters for the first description. Use this space to highlight any benefits. How will the product solve your buyers’ pains? Then, in the second description, you can capitalize on a feature.

Be ready to change these if you notice your ad isn’t gaining a lot of traction, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Destination URL

This is where you can choose where clicks on your ad go to. Just choose the page you want them to land on and paste the URL in the field.

7. Set your ad budget. 

Here, you'll be designating your daily budget. 

You want to include enough money to make a difference, but you really don't want to break the bank. You can manually set the bids for clicks, which gives you more control. This also means your ads will stop showing once your budget is spent. That means you won't end up with a shocker of a bill later.

Once you start to review the results from your campaign, you can always adjust the budget.

8. Complete the "Budget and review" section. 

In this section, you'll be reviewing your campaign settings. It's best to double check each of the following: 

• Your daily budget
• Your monthly budget
• The impressions you'll get for that budget
• The clicks you should expect based on the impressions
• The location you're targeting

9. Double check your double check.

It's always a good idea to check over everything one more time before you set your ad in motion. Is everything spelled correctly? You'll miss out on keyword searches if there’s a typo one of them. When you're sure you did everything correctly, then take a deep breath and move on to the next step.

10. Set up billing.

Because Google charges per click, it needs the payment information during the Google Ads account setup. By providing your payment information, you're giving Google the ability to charge accrued advertising costs from your campaign.

11. Hit Submit. 

By doing so, you've set up your first Google Ads campaign.

To create additional campaigns, perhaps with different or tighter keyword groups, you'll want to select Campaigns from the page menu on the left. Then, click the blue plus button and choose New campaign. The Google interface will walk you through the additional steps. 

Beyond setting everything up correctly, you'll also want to A/B test your results often. Change headlines, introduce new features, focus on different benefits — and then take note of the number of conversions. There's always a way to make your ad perform better.

How to Cancel a Google Ads Campaign

To cancel a Google Ads campaign, first sign in to your Google Ads account. Then, follow the instructions below: 

1. Click Campaigns from the menu on the left side. 
2. Find the campaign you want to cancel. 
3. Click the checkbox next to that campaign. 
4. Click Edit from the drop-down menu that appears. 
5. Click Pause to place the campaign on hold or Remove to permanently stop the campaign. 

You can select the checkbox on multiple campaigns for a bulk edit. 

Now that you know how to set up and cancel Google Ads campaigns, there's nothing holding you back from getting started with the many things that PPC offers you. 

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Create a Revenue-Generating Google Ads Campaign was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Corporate Image: Why Your Brand’s Public Perception Matters More Than Ever Now

In 2019, Contently, a content marketing software company that connects freelancers with enterprise brands, made a controversial move — in an effort to increase profitability and, in turn, provide more creative opportunities to their freelancers, the company announced that they'd begin charging freelancers a mandatory service fee for every assignment they book.

As you might already know, the response wasn't great. Many freelancers messaged the company and explained the fee could hamper their earning potential, or even end their freelance careers.

Fortunately, the freelancers' feedback didn't go unnoticed or unrewarded. As a result of the honest feedback, Contently's CEO Joe Coleman announced via Twitter that the company had decided not to implement the new service fee.

Contently's realization that they weren't prioritizing the needs of their customers ultimately helped save — and even enhance — their corporate image.

Here, let's dive into what corporate image is, and why it matters. Plus, five ways you can bolster your own corporate image today.

What is corporate image?

Your company's corporate image is your brand's public perception. You can help shape it by telling the public what kind of company you are through marketing and advertising.

But what really sculpts your corporate image is your company's actions, like performing well financially, developing innovative products and services, following ethical business practices, actually operating by your values, appropriately responding to company criticism, providing tremendous customer service, treating your employees with dignity and respect, and attracting elite talent.

All of these actions fuel the flywheel of your brand's word-of-mouth marketing, which is the most effective and trusted form of marketing, especially when the internet has enabled every brand to scream for your audience's attention today.

Developing a stellar corporate image also opens up more opportunities for customer testimonials, case studies, product reviews, and awards that can provide the social proof needed to earn new customers' trust.

Why Corporate Image Is More Important Than Ever Before

Nowadays, most people support brands that share the same values as them.

In fact, brand values is often a critical factor in someone's purchasing decision. For instance, 83% of millennials find it important to purchase from companies that align with their values.

Additionally, Weber Shandwick, one of the world's leading global public relations firms, found that global executives, on average, attribute 63% of their company's market value to their company's overall reputation.

More than likely, you already know this on a quantitative level, as well. Consider, for instance, the last time you made a purchase on a product or service for which you could have found a cheaper alternative.

Perhaps you purchased a new iPhone, or splurged on that Patagonia jacket you've wanted for a while.

Ultimately, you likely made that purchasing decision, at least in part, due to the brand's reputation and overall image.

That is why corporate image matters — it can influence whether consumers' want to buy from you, and can increase brand loyalty when people feel your values align with their own.

Next, let's dive into how you can boost your own corporate image.

How to Improve Corporate Image

1. Identify your company's purpose.

If you truly want to build a loyal following for your brand and, in turn, strengthen your reputation, your company's core message should focus on your purpose -- not how you make your product or what your product is.

This notion, that people buy the "why" behind your organization -- not the "what" or "how" — isn't just some idealistic trend catching fire in the business world today, though. It's actually rooted in human biology.

The most primal part of the brain is called the limbic system, and it controls all decision making. It also happens to control all our emotions and feelings. So, resonating with your audience will also appeal to the part of the brain that's responsible for action. In other words, if you can evoke emotion, you can drive behavior.

Conveying a clear and convincing purpose through all your brand's actions will forge the emotional connection required to persuade an audience to support you. And the more people who support you, the stronger your reputation will become.

2. Make sure you can walk the walk.

Sometimes, brands that want to reap the rewards of being a mission-driven company don't actually adhere to the values they claim they're so passionate about. But even though being aquasi-mission-driven company can attract new customers, once they uncover your hypocrisy, it's almost impossible to retain them.

A Yale psychology study suggests that highlighting your morality is essentially a short-cut to high status. But if people realize you don't actually possess the traits that shot you up the social ladder, they'll lose trust in you and respond harshly to your deception.

Before you start boasting about your company's dedication to putting the customer first, make sure your actions are actually aligned with these values, or that you have a plan in place to do so.

3. Own your mistakes.

Even the smartest brands make mistakes. But what separates the great companies from the good ones is their ability to admit that their wrong and change course in light of new information. Unfortunately, a lot of companies won't admit their mistakes or change their minds, even if it's the right choice, because they have too much pride or don't want to seem weak.

However, admitting you're wrong actually requires a lot more strength than sticking to something that hurts your customers just because you've invested a lot of time or effort into an initiative. By owning your mistake and correcting it -- instead of blaming the issue on external factors -- your customers will understand the rationale behind your decision and appreciate your honesty and humbleness.

Just like Contently, making a mistake that hurts you customers can spark harsh backlash and even start a trending Twitter hashtag that undermines your brand's integrity. But, ultimately, you can still earn back your customers' trust and support if you put your pride aside and own and correct your mistakes.

4. Offer the best customer service possible.

For many customers, one of the first interactions they'll have with your brand is through a customer service representative — so customer service plays an undeniably critical role in corporate image.

Customer service representatives can demonstrate your company values in both their actions and words. For instance, consider Glossier's customer service department (known as the gTEAM), who are responsible for responding to customer messages on social media and creating personalized experiences for each customer who reaches out.

This type of authentic, customer-first attitude is a small example of a bigger Glossier core value: "Devoted to the Customer". Ultimately, each interaction your customer has with your company has the power to form their entire perception of your brand — and those customers will share both positive and negative feedback with friends. For this reason, customer service is a vital component to consider when improving corporate image.

5. Make sure your website and social media presence reflect your current corporate image.

Corporate images change over time. Just consider HubSpot's Culture Code, which has been updated over 25 times since it was first created — while the values have stayed the same, the messaging has required adjustments to reflect HubSpot's most up-to-date corporate image. 

As your organization grows, as consumer preferences and industries change, and as you learn more about what makes your customers happy, your priorities or vision might shift slightly. To reflect the most relevant, accurate version of your corporate image, then, it's critical you maintain a strong social media and website presence.

Oftentimes, social media is the first opportunity people have to discover your brand — and they'll likely make a snap judgment of your entire image as a result of a few images or videos at the top of your feed. So make them count.

Similarly, your website is your digital storefront. In much the same way you might repaint your house every few years and add fresh flowers to the pots outside, you'll want to update your website regularly for freshness.

Take a look at your website and consider whether it truly reflects your current corporate image. If not, consider whether a complete redesign is necessary, or whether a few small tweaks could do the job.

Ultimately, creating a strong, positive corporate image can't happen in a vacuum. You'll need to align all aspects of your company — from marketing to sales and service and operations — under a strong vision and mission statement, and ensure leadership walks the walk when it comes to inspiring employees.

A strong corporate image will look different for each organization, but ultimately, corporate image can be the difference between a good company, and a great one. 

Corporate Image: Why Your Brand’s Public Perception Matters More Than Ever Now was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Essential online advertising trends | 2021

Online advertising trends for 2021 promise to be very interesting. Indeed, while 2020 has been a strange time for marketers, the advertising trends highlighted in last year’s blog are proving extremely relevant.

Online shopping and browsing were more prevalent than before – 87% of households made online purchases this year compared to 82% in 2019 – simply because we couldn’t leave our homes. Those who honed in on their online advertising strategies thrived.

So how should we continue in 2021? And what trends are likely to lead us to success in the coming year? We’ve considered some of the most important online advertising trends in this article.

What 2021 online advertising trends will we be considering?

1. Creative optimisation
2. In-game advertising
3. Contextual targeting (again)
4. Ever greater personalisation
5. One-platform advertising
6. Agile is a key online advertising trend

1. Creative optimisation

In 2021, advertising will require a focus on efficiency and effectiveness. This is where creative optimisation comes into play and the concept of automatic optimisation of ads. No one wants to spend hours fiddling with preferences on an advertising campaign. Especially, when there are platforms that can do all the hard work for you!

Facebook’s Automated App Ads are something to consider embracing in 2021, as it allows you to streamline campaigns and management while conducting a/b testing to determine which adverts are working the hardest for you.

These optimised ads also do the legwork in terms of location. Enabling you to work out where your customers are to offer more targeted advertising. Plus, even reach wider audiences than you’d perhaps considered.

Bannerflow supports this approach to optimised advertising too. How? By providing a one-stop location where you can enjoy a complete overview of your campaigns – from social to display. It also offers an auto-optimise tool that constantly tests your ads and then promotes your best-performing ones. Resulting in a potential uplift of 50% to 150%, which could significantly improve ROI.

You can test a number of variants to determine which appeals most to your consumer base, providing you with direction and data that can be used in future campaigns. Plus, because it’s fully automated it means less work for you and your team.

In-game advertising

During the lockdown(s), many of us found ourselves scrolling the app store on our phones to find games to pass the time. And maybe upon completing a level we were perhaps shown an advertisement. In most cases, gamers receive a perk for watching these advertisements – perhaps more credits for the game or more lives. This means your advert needs to be worth watching. And most importantly, something they remember long after they move onto the next level.

While some may not appreciate this interruption to their gaming experience, we can expect this online advertising trend to continue into 2021 – and it’s something to take advantage of. With 50% of video game sales being attributed to mobile games, this is an area of opportunity for many marketers.

What are the benefits of in-game video advertising?

• In-game advertising allows brands to get in front of a wider audience than ever before. While there may be arguments regarding the contextual targeting of some of these advertisements, there’s no doubt it’s something to consider implementing. You can reach a wider demographic from Mums, to teenagers studying at home!
• It’s easy to track click-throughs. You’ll be able to see when users click through to your advertisement and can determine if it was an accidental swipe or an intended click from the bounce rate.
• You can reach a wider female audience too. The gaming demographic is split around 50/50 between men and women, which means you don’t need to worry about creating solely male-orientated advertising.

Contextual targeting (again)

This is a trend that’s unlikely to go away. The reason being it’s never been more important that your advertising gets in front of the right audience. Users expect adverts that appeal to them, that reflect their ideals and values and that offer products or services they need.

A quick recap: What is contextual targeting?

Contextual targeting improves your adverts relevancy matching up keywords, location and even browsing habits to offer advertisements a user may find appealing. Your advertisement is displayed not because of what the user is searching for but is based on the relevancy of the content on the website and the keywords linked to this.

In IAB Europe’s recent report (Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising 2020), they noted that more and more marketing agencies are adopting this trend – in fact, 71% of agencies were considering this solution in 2020, compared to 57% in 2019.

Contextual targeting improves your advertisement’s relevancy. Thus, ensuring only those who may have an interest in what you have to offer are put in front of your brand. It’s also privacy-friendly, something that more and more online users are concerned about.

Ever greater personalisation

Leading on from contextual advertising and the idea that users only want to see advertising that means something to them, we find ourselves at personalisation. In 2021, display advertising should speak to the consumer but this idea is nothing new. In fact, it’s a regular online advertising trend. However, when done correctly, it can potentially deliver five to eight times the ROI on your marketing spend and even lift sales by up to 10% or more.

Personalised ads target the user based on their demographic and their location. A good example of this was created by the Guinness brand who adopted a hyper-localised approach and an ad campaign that sought to encourage users to enjoy a pint at their local pub while watching the rugby.

Users on social media were met with adverts that recommended they head to a pub near their location to watch the game. While some may feel a little spooked that their phone knows exactly where they are, others may appreciate the nudge and consider donning their team’s shirt and marching to the pub.

Even if users didn’t take Guinness up on the offer, it is still a bold example of personalised advertising that uses a device’s location data and presents its owner with a suggestion relevant to them. Consider this approach in 2021 and reach users on a local level. After all, who knows when we can travel longer distances again!

What do you need to personalise?

In the age of ad fatigue, personalisation needs to work across a range of formats – not just on social media.

Everything from the content on your page to your PPC campaigns needs to speak to the demographic you feel best complements your brand. Tailor your blog content needs to those you anticipate buying from you. Likewise your homepage and banner ads on other sites too.

But more importantly, your team needs to understand the importance of catering to your audience and have the skillset to quickly adapt assets to appeal to the right consumers. Here are just three important assets to consider taking a personalised approach with:

• Facebook ads. Users on Facebook except advertising to target them based on what they engage with and like. Your advertising needs to feel personal to them.
• Emails. While there was a shift in moving away from email marketing, brands are recognising the importance of them when it comes to personalisation. In fact, personalised emails have a higher open rate of 6.2% which doesn’t sound like much but when campaigns usually end up straight in the trash this is a great incentive. Personalised email campaigns allow you to easily target individuals based on their shopping habits. This enables you to encourage them to buy from you. You can even throw in an incentive such as a discount code generated just for them!
• Google AdWords. Learn what your customers are likely to search for then target and bid for these terms in your next campaign. Users feeling like the ad is just for them, which improves your chances of catching their attention.

One-platform advertising

A streamlined approach to all marketing channels will be more important than ever in 2021. This is where one-platform advertising comes in. This enables you to create campaigns that span across all of your media and offer the same message.

Users want to enjoy the same level of service and quality whether they’re visiting a brick and mortar store or shopping online. This means your advertising campaign needs to work across a range of formats.

This is something that Bannerflow can help with via our creative management platform, CMP offering. This allows you to produce ads for your entire campaign in one place. Meaning you can cover everything from social to display to video and even onsite ads. Then these assets can be published directly to the desired platforms and updated in real-time when necessary.

What your consumers see on the homepage, needs to reflect your social media ads and vice versa. How your customer is serviced in-store should be reflected by associates on social media or those who man your customer service phone line.

A brand that appears different from one space to the next loses traction and engagement. Your brand must be instantly recognisable, creating a chain of events that encourage the consumer to remember you later.

How to achieve success with one-platform advertising:

• Consistency, consistency, consistency. It sounds simple but colours, fonts and messaging need to stay wholly the same whether you’re using a billboard or a social media platform. The customer should enjoy the same experience no matter how they’re interacting with the brand.
• Mobile friendly. No one wants to be met with a cut off image or a squished text box. It makes the brand look sloppy and with most people consuming content on mobile, it’s the first thing you should be considering when adapting your marketing.
• Adapt for social media. If you’re creating video for your advertising campaign this must be adapted when being shared on social. According to Hubspot, Instagram users will watch videos 30 seconds long. While, videos that are 26 seconds receive the most comments. You can post 45-second videos on Twitter, while Facebook and YouTube viewers will consume one to two-minute videos happily.

Agile is a key online advertising trend

2020 required marketers to be more agile than ever before, adapting their advertising to reflect the current situation. We saw many brands – namely banks and building societies such as Natwest – creating new advertising in work from home situations, showing real employees at desks in their homes talking to consumers directly about how they could help. It revealed a rawer, more human side to a brand and shared the idea that we’re all in this together.

iGaming is another example of an industry that adapted well to advertising in the pandemic, switching ads off completely that were unlikely to bring in any revenue or changing campaigns from a live odds focus to videos in real-time. A mobile focus approach also benefited them. These iGaming brands understood many users would now be predominantly on their smartphones finding ways to pass the time.

Uncertainty is one online advertising trend still on the horizon in 2020. Yet, even if there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic, we still need to be able to adapt and be flexible when it comes to advertising. Consider these questions when pulling together marketing ideas and mapping out plans in 2021:

• Are your plans easily adaptable? Can you change the approach quickly and still achieve the same result? Ensure you have plans in place that allow you to put out your campaign in a safe manner.
• Do they reflect the mood of the moment? It’s important that your marketing reflects how users may be feeling and offer a solution that they need.
• Is what you’re offering available and Covid safe? With guidelines and rulings changing day to day, your messaging needs to reflect this.

We know that events such as those that occurred in 2020 are not something we can plan for per se. But now we understand that it’s more important than ever to be flexible in our marketing approach.

Online advertising trends next steps

The year ahead requires us to adapt as marketers, putting consumers first and ensuring that we as brands offer them the experiences they want and need. With a focus on personalisation and contextualisation, we should be able to build strong relationships and reputations with those we want as our customers.

Look into how you can incorporate these online advertising trends into your 2021 campaign, and speak to Bannerflow about how we can help you reach your goals by booking a demo today.

 

The post Essential online advertising trends | 2021 appeared first on Bannerflow.

Essential online advertising trends | 2021 was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Pros and Cons of Blog Comments [+ Does It Matter for SEO?]

As any blog owner will tell you, "Should I enable comments on my blog?" is one of the first questions you'll ask yourself as your content starts to grow.

There are plenty of benefits to enabling comments on your blog, including an opportunity to engage with your readers, grow a stronger community, and learn what your readers think about each piece of content you publish.

But there are also plenty of drawbacks — there's a reason many major marketing blogs including Search Engine Land, SEMrush, and Buffer don't allow comments (and, for the record, at HubSpot we don't either).

If you're wondering whether comments make sense for your own blog, keep reading. We'll explore the pros and cons of blog comments, and whether they truly deliver enough SEO advantages to make them worthwhile.

Blog Comments and SEO

At HubSpot, we've run tests to determine whether blog comments actually lead to an increase in traffic or conversions.

In fact, a colleague of mine analyzed over 100,000 blog posts and came to the conclusion: "There is no correlation between the number of comments on a post and the number of views that post got ... There's also no correlation between comments and the number of links that post got."

And, as HubSpot's SEO Head of Content Aja Frost told me: "Many blogs develop thriving communities through their comment sections, such as Cup of Jo, Ask a Manager, the New York Times, etc."

Frost adds, "Having a thriving community can be good for SEO, because it increases your direct traffic (which has a knock-on effect on organic), market awareness, etc. But only if your commenters are truly engaged."

Frost says, "If you can build a robust community, organic traffic may follow, but I wouldn't turn on a comment section for SEO's sake."

Additionally, it's also important to note — while it may have been true a few years ago, it's no longer true that backlinking to your website in another blog's comment section will increase your website's search ranking.

Ultimately, Google caught onto the black hat technique where people were stuffing blog comments sections with irrelevant links for the SEO benefit, and Google now gives much lower priority to user-generated comments on websites.

All of which is to say — leaving a comment on another blog post linking back to your website is ultimately not worth the effort. There are plenty of more legitimate, powerful opportunities to increase your SEO that I'd recommend instead.

Next, let's dive into a few examples of businesses that do have blog comments enabled, and the potential benefits of including a comments section on your own blog beyond SEO.

Blog Comment Examples

1. Backlinko

Brian Dean's blog, Backlinko, is a popular and trusted source for SEO tips and expert advice. Trusted by major brands including Disney, Amazon, and IBM, Backlinko provides actionable content on a range of SEO-related topics.

Dean's blog also enables comments — and his readers love to engage. Take a look at the comments section for one of his recent posts, "Landing Pages: The Definitive Guide":

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It's clear that Dean cares about the comments his readers leave — in fact, he typically responds to most of them. Best of all, the comments often include actionable, tactical tips that readers can use to further their knowledge on the subject.

In a world where social proof matters, Dean has proven there is a responsible way to use blog comments to increase a blog's value and effectiveness.

2. Cup of Jo

The popular women's lifestyle site — which covers topics ranging from food and style to travel and parenting — has an incredibly active community of readers, and I'll be honest … the comments section is almost as exciting to me as the blog's content itself.

Take, for instance, the blog post on parenting Screen Time Rules. The short piece is only four paragraphs long — and yet, there are over 400 comments on the post from a range of perspectives:

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Ultimately, Cup of Jo has facilitated a strong, vibrant community of people eager to share their own opinions on the topic at-hand — so the comments section is a viable and necessary component of the blog, and in this case, adds value to the site.

3. Moz

One of the most popular digital marketing and SEO blogs around, Moz has built a community of experts eager to weigh in and provide industry insights to help digital marketers and SEO strategists.

This strong sense of community is likely why Moz has chosen to keep comments enabled on their blog:

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Wisely, the company also includes a CTA for commenters to refer to Moz's community etiquette guidelines before posting a comment. While this won't prevent all spam from getting through, it helps Moz outline the do's and don'ts of their public forum for well-intentioned commenters.

There are other plenty of other examples of publications with comments sections, including Neil Patel, Web Search Social, and even the New York Times.

Ultimately, however, the decision to enable comments on your blog largely depends on your own business goals. Comments can foster a stronger sense of community and enable readers to learn from each other.

However, even with the help of spam filter services, you still run the risk of providing a space for people to post offensive or defamatory content, off-topic remarks, or promotional content linking back to inappropriate or irrelevant links.

If you feel the benefits outweigh these risks, you'll want to hire a community manager or create a process for thoughtfully removing content that doesn't feel relevant to the conversation at-hand.

Should you allow comments on your blog?

It's up to you whether the benefits outweigh the risks when it comes to allowing comments on your blog.

For certain use cases and brands, comments are a necessary aspect of building a strong community and encouraging friendly discourse.

On the other hand, facilitating healthy discussions, deleting spam, and answering both on-topic and off-topic questions posted by your readers might be more effort than it's worth.

If that's the case, perhaps you want to explore using one of your social channels as an alternative option for encouraging engagement from readers, as Buffer does:

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For HubSpot, we decided we wanted to steer those types of conversations to a more public forum, which is why, rather than enabling comments on our blog posts, we'll post our blog posts on our social channels with questions to facilitate effective conversations with marketers across industries.

Of course, that doesn't mean that decision works for every brand. Brian Dean is a good example of that, as demonstrated above — the comments left on Dean's blog posts are often just as useful as the content itself, since readers' can share personal experiences and help other readers' grow their businesses through shared challenges and successes.

If you're unsure whether you should enable comments or not, you can always include a comments section for a few months and then reassessing whether the comments are productive and engaging. If not, consider how you might get creative with facilitating engagement and growing your blog audience through other methods.

The Pros and Cons of Blog Comments [+ Does It Matter for SEO?] was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Complete Marketing Strategy in 2021

How many times have you seen a killer marketing campaign and thought to yourself, "Wow, I wish I would've thought of that!"

(Glossier, I'm looking at you.)

We've all been there.

The truth is, when you're just starting out, it can be tough to know whether your strategy is as comprehensive and powerful as it could be.

To help ease some of that uncertainty, we've created this guide that'll show you step-by-step how to create a marketing strategy that leaves no stone unturned.

Let's dive into the five critical components of a complete marketing strategy in 2019, followed by some examples for further inspiration.

1. Build a marketing plan.

Wait, I have to make a plan for my strategy? What's the difference? Your marketing strategy provides an overview behind the reasons why your marketing team will need certain resources, take certain actions, and set certain goals over the year. Your marketing plan is the specific actions you'll take to achieve that strategy.

Not sure where to start? This free marketing plan template can help. 

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The right template can help you build a marketing plan that identifies your budget for the year, the initiatives your marketing organization needs to tackle, and the marketing channels you'll use to implement those initiatives. And it will tie everything back to a business summary, to keep you aligned with overarching company goals.

2. Create buyer personas.

If you can't define who your audience is in one sentence, now's the chance to do it. A buyer persona is an example of your ideal customer.

For example, a store like Macy's could define a buyer persona as Budgeting Belinda, a stylish working-class woman in her 30's living in a suburb, looking to fill her closet with designer deals at low prices.

With this description, Macy's Marketing department can picture Budgeting Belinda and work with a clear definition in-mind.

Buyer personas have critical demographic and psychographic information -- including age, job title, income, location, interests, and challenges. Notice how Belinda has all of those attributes in her description.

You don't have to create your buyer persona with a pen and paper. In fact, HubSpot offers a free template you can use to make your own (and it's really fun). Buyer personas should be at the core of building your strategy.

3. Identify goals.

Your marketing strategy goals should coincide with your business goals. For example, if one of your business goals is to have 300 people attend your annual conference in three months, your goal as a marketer should be along the lines of boosting online RSVPs by 10% at the end of the month.

Other marketing goals might be to increase brand awareness or generate high-quality leads. You might also want to grow or maintain thought leadership in your industry or increase customer value. Whatever your goals, identify what they are and how your marketing organization can work to achieve them over the next year.

4. Select the appropriate tools.

Once you have your goals identified, make sure you have the right tools to measure the success of those goals. Online software like social media schedulers gives you analytics to help you keep track of what your audience likes and doesn't. Alternatively, you might consider Google Analytics to measure blog and web page performance.

Additionally, it will be helpful if you make your goals SMART -- to do so, take a look at How to Write a SMART Goal [+ Free SMART Goal Template]. Here are a few tools that can help you track and measure the success of your marketing goals:

Trello

Trello keeps your marketing team on track and openly communicating about the projects they're working on. Create boards for individual campaigns, editorial calendars, or quarterly goals.

Built-in workflows and automation capabilities keep communication streamlined, and simplicity keeps your marketing team focused on the work that matters.

Pricing: Free; Business Class, $9.99/user/month; Enterprise, $17.50/user/month for 100 users

Monday.com

Everything on Monday.com starts with a board or visually driven table. Create and customize workflows for your team and keep groups, items, sub-items, and updates synced in real time.

You can also transform data pulled from timeline and Gantt views to track your projects on Monday.com and ensure deadlines have been met. Plus, with more than 40 integrations — from SurveyMonkey to Mailchimp and, of course, HubSpot — you can visualize your data and ensure your whole company is collaborating.

Pricing: Basic, $8/month/seat; Standard, $10/month/seat; Pro, $16/month/seat; Enterprise, contact for pricing

SEMRush

SEO continues to be a huge factor in the successful ranking of your website. SEMrush allows you to run a technical SEO audit, track daily rankings, analyze your competitor's SEO strategy, research millions of keywords, and even source ideas for earning more organic traffic.

But the benefits don't stop at SEO. Use SEMRush for PPC, building and measuring an effective social media strategy, content planning, and even market research.

Pricing: Pro, $99.95/month; Guru, $199.95/month; Business, $399.95/month

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo allows you to analyze data to enhance and lead your marketing strategy, all while exploring high-performing content in your industry to increase engagement. Use the platform to identify influencers who may help your brand reach, and monitor comments and trends to make the most of every turn.

They also have tools to help with crisis management and video marketing as your needs evolve.

Pricing: Pro, $99/month; Plus, $179/month; Large, $299/month; Enterprise, $499+/month

Crazy Egg

Need to optimize your website this year? Consider getting started with Crazy Egg. You'll be able to identify "attention hotspots" on your product pages, track ad campaign traffic on your site, and understand if shoppers are clicking where you want them to. You can even make sure your "buy now" buttons are in the best place.

Crazy Egg also offers recordings, A/B testing, and more to help ensure your website is offering the best user experience and the best return.

Pricing: Basic, $24/month; Standard, $49/month; Plus, $99/month; Pro, $249/month; Custom options available upon request

5. Account for existing resources.

Decide what you already have in your arsenal that can help you create your strategy. To streamline this process, think of your assets in three categories -- paid, owned, and earned media.

Paid Media

Recall that paid media means any channel you spend money on to attract your target audience. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn offer paid media options that boost your exposure.

Owned Media

Owned media is any of the media you create -- blog posts, ebooks, images, and infographics that your marketing team has created are examples of owned media.

Earned Media

Earned media is another way to say user-generated content. Shares on social media, tweets about your business, and photos posted on Instagram mentioning your company are all examples of earned media.

Gather your materials in these areas and consolidate them all in a single vehicle so you'll have a clear vision of what you have and how you can integrate the three channels together to maximize your strategy.

For example, if you already have a blog that's rolling out weekly content in your niche (owned media), you might consider promoting your blog posts on Twitter (paid media), which customers' might then re-tweet (earned media). Ultimately, that will help you create a better, more well-rounded strategy.

The free option? Tweet it from your company's Twitter or post it on Instagram and use relevant hashtags to spread it.

If you have resources that don't fit into your goals, nix it. This is a great time to clean house or identify gaps in your materials.

6. Audit and plan media campaigns.

Cleaning house segues straight into this step. Now, you must decide which content is going to help you. Focus on your owned media and marketing goals. For instance, will updating the CTAs at the end of your blog posts help you increase RSVPs to your event?

Next, look at your buyer personas. Let's say you work for a video editing software company. If one of your persona's challenges is adding clean sound effects to their videos but you don't have any content that reflects that, make a 15-second demo video for Instagram to show how great your product is at solving that challenge.

Finally, create a content creation plan. The plan should include the title, goals, format, and channel for each piece of content. Be sure to include which challenge it's solving for your buyer persona.

For ideas on content creation or a more in-depth look at how to create a content plan, check out our post, The Ultimate Guide to Content Creation.

7. Bring it to fruition

At this point, your market research and planning should help you visualize how your strategy will be executed (and by which teams).

The final step is to bring that all together -- to put actions into your planning. Create a document that maps out the steps you need to take to execute your campaign. In other words, define your strategy.

Think long-term when creating this document. A standard strategy document is 12 months. This structured timeline should be the home base for your strategic marketing efforts.

To paint an example, let's go back to the video software company.

Maybe in January, you will launch a software update that improves the exportation process for users. In April, you want to publish an ebook that explains editing terms to your buyer personas, and in September, you plan to launch an integration with other software.

Remember, your digital strategy is unique to your business, so the document should be, as well. As long as the strategy includes all of the necessary information, you'll be all set to take your company's brand from okay to outstanding.

Now that we've explored five critical steps of a complete marketing strategy, let's look at some "Why didn't I think of that?" strategies to inspire your own.

Examples of Successful Marketing Strategies

1. Regal Movies

Digital strategy: Owned media

Regal Movies took the Halloween spirit to a new level, even re-naming their Twitter to reflect the spirit of the season. This "Monster Madness" poll is a fun, interactive way to get followers invested in Regal's content:

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Regal's tweet is an example of owned media because the company was in full control of the answers followers gave (and, apparently, American Werewolf didn't stand a chance). Regal effectively kept true to their brand by using only classic movies in their poll,, while still putting a modern spin on it.

This is also a good example of how retweets don't necessarily equal success. While four retweets isn't that big of a deal, check out the votes: 461. That means there were over 400 interactions with a single tweet.

2. Taco Bell

Digital strategy: User-generated content, earned media

Real love is taking your engagement photos at your favorite fast food Mexican restaurant -- right? User-generated content is one of the best ways to gain traction in your strategy -- it demonstrates your appreciation for loyal customers, and also incentivizes other users' to promote your products for the chance at a similar shout-out. Plus, sometimes the content your brand-lovers create is really, really good:

Oh, you sure did. 👏❤️ https://t.co/TXflZvxVxR

— Taco Bell (@tacobell) September 26, 2019

It's not every day someone takes engagement photos at a fast-food restaurant, and Taco Bell jumped at this earned media opportunity. Earned media is at work here because this couple is saying they love baja blasts and crunchwraps as much as they love each other -- so it must be delicious.

3. Small Girls PR

Digital strategy: Event marketing

Wait, is that Keke Palmer?

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View this post on Instagram

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It's true 🤷🏾‍♀️ We've got a crush on @keke 💛 The team with our #WCW @keke at @olay's pre-NYFW kickoff event for her #OlayBodyWashChallenge

A post shared by Small Girls PR (@smallgirlspr) on Oct 9, 2019 at 8:23am PDT

Small Girls PR is a boutique PR company based in New York, and one of the company's talents is throwing amazing events for their clients, like Olay. This event recap carousel on Instagram is an effective event marketing example.

Event marketing is a fantastic opportunity to boost awareness for your brand. Not every business needs to throw lavish events, either. Event marketing can be as simple as the last company outing you had at your team's favorite brewery.

Posting a quick recap on Instagram sheds light on your business's culture, and demonstrates your appreciation for your employees', ideally incentivizing others to apply.

4. Diesel Cafe

Digital strategy: Word of mouth

Boston-local cafe Diesel Cafe is more than just a great location to get vegan bagels. It also rocks at word-of-mouth marketing. In fact, Diesel even has a website dedicated to it -- a place where fans can submit letters about the fun times they've had at the cafe:

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There’s a little something for everyone! Dig in! Www.diesellovestories.com #love #readingisfun

A post shared by Diesel Cafe (@diesel_cafe) on Jul 5, 2019 at 1:44pm PDT

Check your company's Yelp climate. Are people giving you nice reviews? Showcasing some of them on your social channels is an effective opportunity to provide social proof that your products or services are a worthwhile investment, since people typically trust peers more than ads.

5. Target

Digital strategy: Paid media, Twitter cards

If you've got the budget for paid media, take full advantage of it. Paid media is when you pay social channels, like Twitter, to promote your content on their site. By doing this, your content reaches new audiences you might not be able to reach organically:

Get wrapped up in soft sweaters and fleece-lined jean jackets.

— Target (@Target) October 11, 2019

An inclusive ad from Target about fall shopping uses Twitter cards to promote their brand and offer easier ways to shop -- simply click on the photo, and you're redirected to a purchase page. More social channels are offering ways for shoppers to purchase in-app or close to it, driving sales and boosting exposure for brands.

Ultimately, creating a complete marketing strategy isn't something that can happen overnight. It takes time, hard work, and dedication to ensure you're reaching your ideal audience, whenever and wherever they want to be reached.

Stick with it (and use some of the resources we've included in this post), and over time, research and customer feedback will help you refine your strategy to ensure you're spending most of your time on the marketing channels your audience cares most about.

Editor's note: This post was originally publishing in October 2019. It has been updated for freshness and accuracy.

The Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Complete Marketing Strategy in 2021 was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Develop a Niche Marketing Strategy that Drives Growth

As of March 2020, over 804,390 businesses in the U.S. were less than one year old. Combine that with the 31.7 million small businesses vying for customers, and the competition seems even more fierce. So how can you possibly create a marketing strategy that stands out? Diving into a specific niche is the way to set your business apart.

Let's look at how a handful of businesses use niche marketing to their advantage, before walking through the steps to create your own growth-generating strategy.

5 Examples of a Niche Marketing Strategy

1. Flylow Gear

With 9.2 million skiers and snowboarders in the U.S, the pool of potential customers seems wide enough for all to share. But popular brands like Patagonia and The North Face can be found in almost every sports shop, making it hard to convince customers to seek out smaller brands with fewer offerings.

Flylow Gear figured out how to fight through the noise. Instead of targeting all customers interested in winter gear, their niche marketing strategy focuses on backcountry skiers looking for no-nonsense, quality gear. Their products are featured in all the right places — like Powder magazine — to reach their ideal buyers. Even their confirmation emails share that they're a small, mountain-based crew of dedicated skiers.

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2. Octavia Elizabeth Jewelry

For ethically-minded consumers searching for jewelry, the most important factor is knowing about raw materials sourcing and product creation. That's because this $300 billion dollar industry has come under fire for using child labor and causing extensive environmental harm.

Octavia Elizabeth understands the need for responsible jewelry. The company's commitment to fair working conditions, legitimate living wages, and ethical production are clearly stated on its website.

Not only has Octavia Elizabeth honed in on customers looking for sustainably-sourced, handmade jewelry who are willing to pay a higher price, the brand has also elevated its niche offering by associating itself with celebrity clientele.

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3. Natural Dog Company

Research estimates Americans will spend $99 billion on their pets in 2020 alone. So how can a pet-focused business stand out amongst the thousands of memory foam beds, custom carry-on bags, and dog-friendly ice creams saturating the market?

Natural Dog Company caters to a very specific kind of pet owner: the eco-conscious consumer who pampers their pooch. By giving their organic and all-natural skin care products names like PAWdicure Pack and offering discount codes for free dog treats, they put pups first — which is exactly what their customers do.

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4. Pimsleur

Learning a new language can be a struggle, and the options for doing so are definitely overwhelming. Will you really be speaking like a Parisian after spending $1,000 on a program?

Rather than making promises of perfect grammar and flawless accents, Pimsleur focuses on learners who need to improve their speaking and listening skills. The program includes a 30-minute audio lesson every day, with each conversation building off the previous ones. While not the most innovative language-learning app, its audio-first approach is great for customers looking to improve their conversational skills.

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5. Photographers Without Borders

It's one thing to entice people to buy a product, but it's another thing entirely to attract donors for a nonprofit. While this type of organization may not seem like the right fit for a niche marketing strategy, it's essential for bringing in donations and volunteers.

Photographers Without Borders has partnered with major organizations like Adobe, Sony, and Patagonia by honing in on a particular marketing technique: storytelling.

By prioritizing ethical storytelling, whether in a social media post, email newsletter, or online webinar, the organization has built a reputation for producing high-quality work that address the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and UNDRIP. Plus, their Code of Ethics makes it clear what type of community members and partners they're aiming to attract.

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Developing a Niche Marketing Strategy

Now that you have a better grasp on how brands from all types of industries create strategies that drive growth, it's time to shape your own.

Step 1: Know your competition.

Developing a niche marketing strategy is impossible without scoping out your competition. That's because it's crucial to understand your unique selling proposition — what you do differently that makes customers choose your company over another.

Maybe you design ceramic dishware that can't be found anywhere else, or maybe you've developed a tool that makes it easier for marketers to send emails. Whatever is it, find your speciality and craft a story around it.

Step 2: Narrow down your niche market.

Airbnb Co-founder Brian Chesky is famous for having said, “Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.” Put simply, it's better to reach a small group of people who sing praises about your company, rather than a large group who thinks it's just okay.

You can do this by honing in on the right niche market for your business. While this takes time and thought, it's worth the effort to find loyal customers who will gladly choose you over competitors.

For instance, Thirdlove is the first underwear company to offer bras in half-size cups. Through their inclusive sizing options and emphasis on body diversity, they've built a loyal community of over 327,000 Instagram followers.

Step 3: Go where your buyers are.

If your ideal customer spends all of their time scrolling on Facebook, it wouldn't make sense to develop a niche marketing strategy around email campaigns. Enter market research.

You already know who your buyers are, but research helps you go deeper to find out where they shop, how they find products, and what influences their purchase decisions. Once you have that information, you'll get the most return for your marketing dollars.

Step 4: Listen to the word on the street.

Everyone has problems that need solutions. If you listen to people's thoughts about a certain product or service, you can find opportunities to fill in the gaps.

David Barnett did just that when he engineered a solution for constantly tangled headphones. What started out as two buttons glued to the back of a phone case quickly turned into Popsockets, a company that brought in $169 million in revenue just seven years after its founding.

Step 5: Create a unique brand.

Once you've defined your unique selling point, outlined your buyer persona, found out where to reach them, and listened to their problems — all that's left is to build a brand identity. A well-defined brand will help you develop a niche marketing strategy that's authentic to you and attracts ideal customers.

For instance, Etsy's position as the marketplace for independent artists has attracted more than 138 million buyers. In a 2020 TV commercial, the brand touched on the pandemic and used emotional marketing tactics to encourage support for small businesses that sell through the platform.

Creating a niche marketing strategy that drives growth for your business is more than creating a social media ad or sending a weekly email promotion. If you take the time to learn about your customers and differentiate your brand, you can develop a strategy that attracts the right buyers and helps you hit your growth goals.

How to Develop a Niche Marketing Strategy that Drives Growth was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Evolution of Content Marketing: How It's Changed and Where It's Going in the Next Decade

A sound content marketing strategy is one of the better ways a business can help shape its brand identity, garner interest from prospects, and retain an engaged audience. It lets you establish authority in your space, project legitimacy, and build trust between you and who you're trying to reach.

As you can assume, it's well worth understanding. But that's easier said than done. Content marketing isn't static. The landscape of the practice is constantly changing. It doesn't look the same now as it did ten years ago, and in ten years it won't look the same as it does now.

It's a difficult topic to pin down — one with a fascinating past and an exciting future. Out of both genuine interest and forward-thinking practicality, it's important to understand both where it's been and where it's going.

Here, we'll get some perspective on both. We're going to take a look at how content marketing has evolved in the past decade, and how it's going to evolve in the next one.

How Content Marketing Evolved in the Past Decade

Google changed the game.

In 2011, Google conducted its landmark Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) study. It found that 88% of shoppers use what's known as a Zero Moment of Truth — a discovery and awareness stage in a buying cycle where a consumer researches a product before buying it. Google's research also indicated that word of mouth was a definitive factor in swaying that moment.

The study provides a unique point of reference in the context of content marketing's evolution. It captures the essence of how and why businesses needed to focus on content marketing at the beginning of the 2010s.

It was tacit evidence that companies' stories were being told online — well beyond the control of their marketing departments — and it was in their best interest to help shape those conversations.

The ZMOT study highlighted the need for sound Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Ranking for relevant keywords on search engines became all but essential to bolstering a company's online presence and holding up during consumers' Zero Moments of Truth.

But that study wasn't the only bombshell Google dropped in the early 2010s. Around the time the study came out, Google's search ranking algorithm changed to discourage "keyword stuffing" — the practice of repetitively loading a webpage with specific keywords to try to sway search engine rankings.

The change represented what is still a continuous effort by Google to provide users with positive, helpful online experiences. And it did just that. The shift that set the stage for businesses to focus on producing more high-quality, meaningful content.

Social media rose.

But content marketing's evolution wasn't exclusively linked to search engines. Social media's meteoric rise to prominence — one of the most disruptive trends in human history — also had a profound impact on the practice. As these platforms developed into mainstays of everyday life, they presented new challenges for content marketers.

As social media evolved, it popularized a different kind of content consumption than search engines. The difference boiled down to a matter of "pointed versus passive."

Consumers use search engines to find content more pointedly. Generally speaking, when you use a search engine, you're looking for a specific answer or a specific subject. Social media allowed users to consume content more passively on their preferred platforms. The content you see on your Facebook feed is finding its way to you — not the other way around.

That trend incentivized the creation of more shareable, attention-grabbing content that could easily be spread across social media channels.

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Video made a push.

Video also emerged as one of the prevailing content marketing mediums as the decade progressed, particularly among younger consumers. By 2017, over 50% of consumers wanted to see videos from brands they supported — more than any other kind of content.

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Video is inherently engaging. Generally speaking, it's easier to follow than blog posts, email newsletters, or ebooks. Gradually, audiences took to it more and more as the decade progressed. By the end of the 2010s, platforms like YouTube were central to the landscape of content marketing.

Obviously, content marketing underwent several shifts in the 2010s, but as I said at the beginning of this article, the practice isn't — and will never be — static. There are still plenty of changes to come.

How Content Marketing Will Evolve in the Next Decade

Video content will continue to rule.

As I just mentioned, video was emerging as one of the most — if not the most — important mediums for content marketing at the end of this past decade. There's no indication that that trend is stopping anytime soon.

As of 2020, 85% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up 24% from 2016. And 92% of marketers who use it consider it an important part of their marketing strategy. It's already a staple in several companies' content marketing operations, and research indicates that base is going to expand.

According to a survey by Wyzowl, 59% of marketers who weren't using video in 2019 expected to be using it throughout 2020.

 

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All told, it looks like the exploration and expansion of video as the preeminent medium for content marketing is going to continue. The priority for marketers is going to be a matter of standing out.

That could mean emphasizing the quality of the content you produce — ensuring it's enriching, well-crafted, and relevant to viewers. You could also try looking to emerging platforms like TikTok.

No matter how individual producers and companies manage to innovate when it comes to video marketing, the medium is going to be a mainstay in the evolution of content marketing going forward.

Adjusting for mobile will be essential and present new opportunities.

According to Statista, global mobile data traffic in 2022 will be seven times larger than it was in 2017. Mobile device usage is increasing astronomically, and it's in every content marketer's best interest to keep pace with that trend.

In 2019, 61% of Google searches took place on a mobile device, and that trend is showing no signs of slowing down. Having a website optimized for mobile devices will be central to successful SEO efforts. And a lot of the content you create will need to fit that bill as well.

Blogs should be easily navigable on smartphones. Readily accessible video content that your audience can watch on mobile devices will be a big help as well. Prospects and customers will need to be able to get as much out of your mobile resources as your desktop ones.

This shift towards mobile will also present new opportunities through emerging kinds of media. More novel mobile technology — like virtual and augmented reality — will have a very real place in the future of content marketing.

As people continue to rely more on their mobile devices, content marketers will have to as well.

Successful content will be more empathetic, purposeful, and customer-first.

Google's ranking algorithm aims to prioritize the content that will mean the most to searchers. Ideally, by Google's standards, the first ranking search result for any keyword is the one that best addresses whatever users are searching for. And in all likelihood, they'll keep tinkering with their process in pursuit of that interest.

While there's no telling exactly how the algorithm might change going forward, one fact remains — marketers need to focus on high-quality content that will register with consumers. That means understanding your audience and putting considerable effort into how to reach them best.

As HubSpot Senior Content Strategist Amanda Zantal-Wiener puts it, "Where I'm starting to see content turning a corner is in the area of empathy. In the years to come, marketers are going to start creating more content that's truly created in the mindset of putting themselves in the shoes of others — be it their customers, prospects, partners, or someone else within their audiences. They'll ask questions like, 'What does my audience need from me right now? What can I create that's truly going to help them?' That's going to become a requirement for marketers when they begin brainstorming content."

Research, outreach, and community engagement will become even more important in the context of content creation. Content marketing is trending towards audience enrichment as opposed to product promotion. If this shifting tide holds true, content marketing will continue to become more targeted, purposeful, and customer-centric as the practice evolves.

If there's anything to take away from understanding the previous and upcoming evolutions of content marketing it's this — don't get too comfortable. New trends and challenges are always emerging, and it will always be in your best interest to stay abreast of them.

And above all else, focus on consistently creating high-quality content that your audience will always be able to get something out of.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The Evolution of Content Marketing: How It's Changed and Where It's Going in the Next Decade was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns