AZ Digitals Blog

Virtual meetings is a very common trend in the dynamic business & corporate world in the global arena. It has many challenges attached to it in the form of having communication gaps while working usually in a 9-5 environment is different. COVID-19 is a huge example as many people have been working from remote environment mainly from home. Therefore, the biggest challenge is the environment that lacks professionalism in terms of many aspects, and one of the vital ones being timeliness and being effectively efficient.

However, at the same time virtual meetings are considered as a good option for interactions & virtual group discussions. Why the communication gap matters to most people in the corporate environment is evident due to the changing business trends. It’s more or less linked with higher professional levels and creating good alliances in the corporate sector. Maintaining a professional attitude during virtual meetings environment is a huge challenge. It not only demands immense contributions from the leadership. However, can also be taken as a demanding leadership challenge. The other key factor is the maintenance of time management aspects while delivering results in the digital world. Virtual meetings hold ingredients of success for the company if the due importance is given at the right time.

HANDLING COMMUNICATION GAPS:      

How can we proactively handle communication gaps in a virtual meeting environment? A very easy approach is synchronisation of time and agendas that can reduce the challenges of unwanted communication gaps in a virtual meeting. The limitations attached to virtual meetings are mainly with audio and visual cues. However, in person meetings involve body language, tone of voice, pacing & gestures that add immensely to the speaker’s words. Some key points that can help the communication gaps involved in virtual meetings are as follows;

1. It’s important to ask everyone to mute their microphones when they are not talking. It’s important to sit in quiet areas during the call.
2. Discuss and distribute a clear and concise meeting agenda to all the participants involved in the meeting. This is important as it signifies to all participants what they might expect in the meeting.
3. Effective and efficient use of technology is highly important as it engages the participants of the meetings in multiple ways. These tools includes screen sharing tools for bringing clarity in discussions and minimising communication levels.
4. Make sure that you stick to meeting plans to avoid communication gaps. This is important so that somebody from the participants makes minutes of the meetings as vital recordings as future references. It’s also important so that the participants don’t deviate from the agendas in any possible way.
5. Do make a positive end to the meeting. Sometimes in the virtual meetings environment, the end matters most than the start of the meeting. Try to end the meetings with exact action items for every attendee. Ask or remind each member for their next steps and make sure that everyone is highly aware of their responsibilities.

 ENCOUNTERING DISTANT TIME ZONE CHALLENGES:

In a virtual meeting environment the challenges linked up with variable time zones is yet another challenge. For example you are having a meeting with your client based in United States & your Time zone is Middle East, naturally you will have to take care of many variables that are applicable.

As a project manager and coordinator of the Virtual meeting you may fall into making & prioritising yours and your team’s schedules. However, as a Project manager & Coordinator you must also consider the Time zone & how easy & difficult it can be for your client to give his/her full participation in the meeting. Especially if it’s a recurring meeting, you have to make sure that the time frame for the meeting is selected somewhere in the middle of the two time zones & according to the convenience of both parties involved. The meeting takes place for 1-1.5 hours as dedicating more time to the meeting can result in lack of interest & increasing communication gaps.

Showing value to your clients or other stakeholders & giving them the due consideration will always create positive vibes in the meeting & future meetings. Ironically, creating an atmosphere for better virtual meetings and increasing the chances of future success.

A successful social media strategy is critical in getting success on social media. It is also important in bringing customers closer to their most desired needs. What the customers i.e. consumers want to see is important to analyze for a business or company. Hence, the company’s foremost success lies in building positive strategies on social media i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Your presence must not only be felt, but it should also be noted every time you are there. Either, on social media with a different campaign and a unique marketing content.

Choose the Right Networks

Choosing the most appropriate networks is the most desirable phase in marketing on Social media. As marketing is a very technical tool, therefore, Social media marketing needs a correct selection of the right network. This means whether you have selected Facebook as your network, or Twitter. According to the medium and keeping up with its requirements, future strategies shall be devised. The vision is to make fruitful goals for the future. A Facebook marketing strategy will be different from a Youtube marketing strategy and similarly goes for Twitter. The reason behind this is the network i.e. the group of people you are targeting. Hence also determining What are your consumer demographics?

By consumer demographics we mean the accessibility of a certain marketing campaign to a set of people. They are people with different age groups and other variables. Also, includes gender, locations, and other useful demographics. Most of the business issues are solvable with ease. This is primarily because of the powerful world of social media. This can happen with the correct use of the right networks which is highly appropriate for marketing concerns.

Set a Goal

Setting up your marketing goals for future strategies means. You have a target in your mind, and the rest can be planned with a designed strategy. Setting up your goals while achieving social media success guarantees many desired outcomes at the correct time. By setting up your goals, you can even plan your budget, set your targets, and play with your initiative. Marketing needs an internal and external environment. As it is the decision of decision-makers and business owners to set desirable and mandatory goals for the future.

How to Set a Goal? All the success ahead lies in this question which is the fulcrum of future success agendas. Set up a goal by looking at your marketing needs. Also, evaluations of your business strategies with your marketing strategies and determining the cost. At social media, the marketing costs are normally low. Therefore, determining your goals can get difficult, as your target audiences can increase or decrease depending on your campaigns.

Be a visionary in making these goals as visionaries have better ideas and plans in setting up their targets. They can see forward, evaluate profits and losses, and are proactive in making decisions good for business outcomes.  For e.g. in case if you are marketing a clothing wear campaign on Facebook or Twitter you will have your target audiences in mind. You would also know your campaign likes and those who are members on your page. You would also love to find out the result of your marketing campaigns and its popularity on Facebook in the form of views, likes & shares.

Finally, your marketing vision will be good enough to let you know when your campaign must end. Hence, you should come up with another campaign for popularity, knowledge, creative outcomes, and other different success indicators.

Come up with a Strategy

What’s important is coming up with a designed strategy for the implementation of your plan. A plan is always fruitful if a good strategy is there at the backup of your planning. Also necessary is its implementation with a futuristic approach. A social media success strategy means your eagerness in coming up with your goals is 100%. All you need is a good business strategy to achieve your marketing goals and targets.

For example, as part of your social media success strategy, you use various social media platforms. The effective usage of the platforms is for the marketing of your product. Later, you switch to other marketing methods of getting to your goals. This strategy means you are marketing your product or services online first i.e. Social media, e.g. Twitter and then you are switching your strategy. You can reverse the strategy as well but still, you will first come up with a strategy in any case. As your business has many points of view, but your vision is simple, strategy before implementation.

Businesses are all about setting up strategies, making desirable visions, and coming up with breakthrough performance evaluations. Nothing is that easy like it looks on paper, as your strategy is the key behind getting to your goals. Success is an accomplishment, but only after making a good success strategy. However, some businesses just want their customers to know why they are there? And what good can they provide in the long run? Hence, taking a business-minded approach every time you make marketing visions can be called good business strategies for Social Media. Success in social media is because of audiences and their responsiveness to specific goals.

Make a Content Creation or Curation Plan with Your Audience in Mind

The attractiveness of content with an audience in mind is the basic reason why a campaign is successful campaign. Social media is all about managing your content with a fruitful vision for your audiences. The content should be;

• Creatively attractive;
• Specific in terms of knowledge outcomes;
• Designed with audiences in mind;
• Having a deep vision for the marketing environment;
• Making realistic marketing goals;
• Having a vision in mind while making the content; and
• Having a clear marketing strategy in mind

Select Tools to Schedule and Automate Posts

The selection of tools for scheduling and automating the posts is one of the technical ways for marketing. However, accomplished mostly through the internal marketing environment. The right selection of social media marketing tools, e.g. Twitter, means you are having the right control for marketing on social media. On top of that, you are also monitoring the progression of a campaign. Making the campaign successful means you know the frequency of automated posts in a month. Hence, you are also well aware of all the marketing tools that will be needed for the campaign. The right marketing tools in social media are a guarantee of a successful marketing campaign.

Actively Engage Your Audience in Relevant Ways

How to engage your audiences in relevant ways is the primary concern for marketing on social media e.g. a post on Facebook or Twitter. It not only takes creative strategy but also a knowledge of getting through the minds of the audiences. Audiences are the key in determining strategies, their views and reviews are most important. Hence, they are always there for the determination of goals and long term targets.

The usefulness of content and its vitality elements are enough for the target audiences, in other words achieving relevancy. Engaging the audience is necessarily the most important attribute. The audience should know how to get and what to get from the content. This will only happen once they are emotionally engaged and linked up. Engagement can take place through attractive viral videos, illustrious, and user sensitive content. In addition to this, signifying the demands and needs of marketing. Making an analysis of the consumer’s needs and their desires will definitely make things easier. This ease is for marketing campaigns in the future. WHY?, HOW? And WHAT? these are questions that need to be asked in a successful marketing environment.

Minimize the Time You Spend Promoting

Minimizing the time on promotions and marketing is important to save time especially on social media e.g. Facebook or Twitter. Have the maximum results in a minimum of time spent is what is necessary for success in social media. It’s not only about the results, but it’s also about having positive results with minimum promotions. This is the determination of the power of social media, as campaigns just need the click on the clock. Precise is better, instead of making things too big and unwanted.

The success promos are made only for customer’s viewing and are intended to attract the customers. However, they become hits, and the credit entirely goes to the consumers who like it in the first viewing. This has something to do with the connection between consumers and the promo.

Maintain a Constant Presence

Maintaining a constant presence is necessary to have an impact on social media e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. Having a long term impact on marketing campaigns is important. The constant presence should always be distinguished and highly impactful for a good campaign. The more the customer see a promo or a post, the more it will be injected into their minds. This is very much similar to ‘word of mouth’ marketing.

Present Audiences with a Consistent Voice

Presenting the audiences with a consistent voice means all you need is consistency with the deliverables. The voice should be consistent enough so that audiences are sure in their mind about the marketing vision. The voice must at all fronts demonstrate the marketing goals in an environment set for social media marketing. SMM i.e. Social media marketing in this digital age is a consistent process and demands transparency. Everything is very digital in the modern age of digitization. Hence, there can’t be anything that can hide from the consumers of the digital world.

Hence, we mustn’t forget that we are targeting a set of smart audience. The audiences are well equipped with good know-how and also have a consistent frame of mind.

Watch the Right Metrics to Monitor Your Progress

The correct Metrics for evaluations are progress monitors through the use of KPIs. Evaluating the progress is a vitality in any marketing environment, for digital marketing and social media, it is mandatory. This is primarily because of the huge audiences. On top of this, their level of awareness and their needs regards to social media and its usability.

Performance meters or metrics e.g. Likes, shares, and polls are the ones for facebook evaluations. User surveys can also tell you most things about the success of your marketing campaigns. However, for correct analysis of product performance and its popularity in consumer’s social media might not be the best tools.

However, if used effectively and with a defined vision, social media shall be the least time consuming for marketing.

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MBE – Digital Media

The Hotel online presence holds huge importance in terms of marketability and promotional campaigns. It is known as ‘online marketing’ and holds significance due to the impact of online marketing in Digital marketing. An attractive website is highly demanding in formulating a strategy to attract customers and increasing the presence and its appeal. It is more impactful in Hotels Marketing and developing a highly digital marketing strategy. Strategies can vary according to the ratings of the Hotels and its online presence worldwide.

WHY ONLINE MARKETING FOR HOTEL?

Online marketing holds impactful importance in the hotel industry. It is mainly because these days most people prefer to search online for hotels and holiday Inns. Websites like Trivago.com and Booking.com are quite famous. They are one of the most looked at websites for finding hotels in the Hotels and Tourism Industry. They are directed to the company websites, the ones that hold all the information for the hotels. Also holds information about its location and what you are looking for precisely. It’s just not online marketing, it’s making a worthwhile use of online marketing. As well as keeping the customers in mind.

These are one of the best hotels sites for price comparison according to customer’s demands. Some of the websites are;

• Booking .com
• Kayak
• Priceline
• com
• Hotels Combined
• Expedia(which owns Travelocity and Orbitz)
• Agoda

WHAT IS A HOTEL MARKETING STRATEGY?

Hotels marketing strategy in online marketing is based on how a hotel will market its image. Also matters most is creating its value as a ‘brand’. In hotel branding, there are certain key variables that are of huge importance. The following is the list of key variables that are included in a hotel;

1. Star rating of a Hotel e.g. Five stars or Four Star
2. Honeymoon suite key images
3. Conference Room highlighted images
4. Dining Halls images
5. Banquet Halls images
6. Gym Facilities key images
7. Swimming Pool images
8. Sitting areas and Smoking zones sound images
9. Children Play Areas images
10. Single Rooms and Double Rooms images.

All these pictures are highly precious in determining the ambiance, style, and uniqueness of a hotel. Furthermore, it is also useful in determining a successful online marketing strategy.

The online marketing strategy must focus on cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, what exactly customers are looking for in hotels. Lastly, how a customer should give its true value while staying in the hotel.

Getting knowledge i.e. (brand image) via a hotel is not only common but it has become part of the diversified marketing strategies. It significantly defines the marketing goal, the marketing environment, and the vision for long term marketing needs. Why Hotel marketing is not easy? Precisely the answer is because of the amount of competition in the hotel industry and uniquely attaining marketing milestones. Every Hotel has incredible creative insights to create a marketing environment. They have their best brand campaigners, managers, and interactive & attractive staff. Actually, these are people who are the true ambassadors of their hotels in the hotel and tourism industry.

HOTEL MARKETING AIMS & ITS DIFFERENT WAYS

However, the aim should be to attract new customers via various online marketing tools. This is done by creating demand amongst the consumers of facilities and attracting them with seasonal offers. The best way is to have lucrative seasonal offers on hotels and restaurants. As an example occasion of Xmas, New Year, Diwali, and Eid festivals. The consumer’s feasibility should hold priority while formulating a winning marketing strategy.

Some of the Most Profound marketing ways in the Hotel industry are as follows;

1. Chat-based Services

   The importance of Chat-based services is for good customer interactions, fast services and rendering personalized services for customers.

2. Devising Loyalty Programs

   Loyalty programs for the customer, especially for old customers. These loyalty programs should be based on customer’s facts and figures.

3. Hotel Virtual Tour

   A Hotel’s Virtual Tour is an online Tour of the Hotels that is an attraction for customers. It is a detailed Tour showing everything that the customer needs.

4. Optimizing Guests Insights

   Having the customer’s insights into marketing campaigns that is a focused marketing strategy. The focus is the customers that are the core behind every hotel’s marketing especially their goals and variable platforms.

5. Tracking Guests via CRM

   CRM is a Customer Relationship management system, i.e. only for customers. It keeps a track of the customer’s activities, their likes, and dislikes and what are their needs. Customer needs are most important while devising hotel marketing strategies.

MBE HOTEL INDUSTRY-SENATOR HOTEL & ALGONQUIN INN

The MBE Hospitality industry started with the acquisition of Senator Hotel Timmins. Senator is being one of the best conference Hotels is located in the hearts of Timmins. Also beautifully located hotel with gorgeous surroundings. The priorities are with respect to showing the ambiance and style of the conference hotel in Timmins. The recently held Northern Ontario Tourism Summit is a huge proof of the conference hotel’s mega activities in Timmins. For online marketing https://senatorhoteltimmins.ca is the website that is used mostly. It also shows discount offers and the most amazing and hot seasonal deals and packages. Hence, a very interactive and highly revealing site for the customers.

Another acquisition apart from The Senator and Algonquin. Yet another vital achievement in the Hotels Industry, Algonquin Inn Lakeside view is a beautifully located Holiday resort. Online marketing is based on the website https://www.algonquininn.com and is a highly profound marketing & informative website.

CRM or Customer relationship management is a part of the most useful feedback system and dynamic marketing strategies.

Marketing strategies are based on the environment, events & happenings taking place in the Holiday resort.

Related blog: PREVENTIVE EVACUATION – THE SENATOR HOTEL TIMMINS

‘Branding’ generally means the branding of products and services so that they have an image in the market. This image should be unique in terms of the attributes, size, power, and stature of that particular product. This is in comparison to other similar products in the industry. This is a similar case for SEM, as in SEM the values are based on online search results. These are results for the target audiences. A brand loyalty element helps in creating a ‘brand significance’ of a product. Something that is finally in the eyes of its customers and potential consumers. This is true in consumer marketing and holds similar attributes in ‘SEM’ i.e. Search engine marketing. Hence, it helps in creating authority for the brand that sustains its image for the longer term.

1. BRANDING AWARENESS & AUTHORITY

Creating branding awareness with authority is the starting point in building the strength of the brand with SEM values. A brand awareness measurement specifies the importance of creating online values through a brand. It needs a highly integrated and factual brand marketing. The marketers should highlight their brand strength with careful evaluations of its performances since the beginning.

According to a survey, the percentage of people that clicked on paid search was one-third i.e. 33% the reason was a direct and fast response to the search query. The survey also shows stats that 77% of respondents are able to distinguish search ads from the organic search results. The ad that the businesses have created should be relevant enough. The relevancy should be in search queries otherwise the people will ignore them.

The different businesses can easily establish themselves in the form of reliable brands to potential customers. This can only happen if they have the ads that are good enough to answer people’s responses especially the search queries.

2. CREATING A LASTING BRAND IMPRESSION

 The first impression is the last impression and it is the utmost true in most cases. A ‘good’ is highly critical to creating an impactful branding impression for its marketability. The involvement of consistent appearances across the SERPs of similar kinds. As well as the category of topics creates an impression. The impression regarding the company is highly comprehensive and rich in terms of resources. It is broadly in your specified industry.

As an example, we can assume that if the company is a dealer in auto parts for automobiles. The best impression will come for the company to appear in the search results for all the terms related to auto parts and other combinations. These are the terms that relate to your business rather than just the exact match phrases. As an example we can say ‘Used auto parts’ or ‘Brand New Auto Parts’, ‘used car parts’ or ‘Used parts’ etc. These various combinations mean the availability at your business is higher than it seems.

In order to achieve these targets, there should be comprehensive research that the company must conduct. This research will help big time in the determination of the natural variants of the company’s core keywords.

The brand authority that is developed through the SEM strategy can be a complement for the business. These are part of the organic thought process.

3. CREATE A HIGHLY CURATED YOUR EXPERIENCE

Customer service for exclusive user experience is a mandatory approach to strengthening your brand image. It is highly useful in creating branding power with effective ‘SEM’. The PPC or Pay per Click Adds gives you permission to your company so that they can tailor people’s experiences with your brand. This is done by directing the users to the curated pages on your website. These are the pages that hold the key in SEM marketing strategies as they are the pages that give an opportunity to your business for expansions of the message that coveys through your search ads. It also helps the user in providing some extra information about your company and services and what’s your mission and your values for the business.

People or users of the website conducting the research about a company or their services express some degree of buying intent. This degree of intent can be shown in the form of stats in percentages, but it’s still not 100% as most of the users are just into browsing and surfing the internet. The aim of your business and website should be to expand or extend that intent through the use of search ads. This should be the motive to engage search audiences and the corresponding webpages designed for the elaboration of your company’s offerings and their values.

THE USE OF ‘SEM’ TO SUPPORT YOUR COMPANY’S BRANDING

  A Company’s branding e.g. a clothing brand like ‘NEXT’ is not only online, but there are other media entities involved in the branding & marketing strategies. ‘SEM’ being part of the modern marketing & branding strategies serves this purpose globally with a fast and dynamic dimension to the branding of products and services. A well designed, thought-out and effectively executed search engine marketing strategy allows the business to grow to its full potential. This is mainly because of the internet power and the value of the ‘World Wide Web’. It also is a big leap in presenting itself to the potential customers, as it is difficult to highlight a certain target market. This is mainly because of the approachability of so many people using the internet every day. This use is either from a Coffee Shop, shopping malls, public places, libraries or restaurants.

‘SEM’ significantly allows you to develop and build brand authority for your business. The key to this is relevancy in content for the search users. These are people or potential customers who are interested in your company or the related industry. Hence, the branding strategies highly rely on ‘SEM’ or Search engine marketing to have an online image of your company, its brand, and other related services.  This is known as the ‘Brand Image’ and is important as on all marketing platforms the image of the company and its products should be true for accomplishing sustainable marketing trends.

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Small businesses, especially online businesses, rely heavily on online marketing tips and the reliance is because of the amount of online marketing these days. Every small business is active in SEM marketing strategies for launching their products online and marketing. What small businesses need to do for smart SEM strategies. Here are the nine tips that are necessary;

1. BE CLEAR ON EXPECTATIONS & BUDGET

Having a clear insight into the expectations and budget is a necessity. As the scale of the business is small and requires investments in all business segments. It is necessary indeed to evaluate your business strategies. However, W.R.T the budgeting strategies the expectations should be clearer. Having clarity of your business expectations, how much you need to invest, and what sort of investments you are looking for is a necessity for the sustainable part of your business.

The vision needs to be clear not only due to the fact that the business is relatively small and new but the budget is also limited. The budget must be figured out according to the industry you are investing in, the target markets, and the ROI or Return on Investments it will give back.  It is part of the long-term strategy as for e.g. if you are an athlete i.e. a marathon runner you have to plan the race in advance. Running a long race needs more body fuel, more energy and you have to consume your strength by running in very short intervals.

Many companies dream to get bigger fast, and they can invest heavily in their budget. However, in the long run, it is a huge risk in terms of success factors. Don’t aim for overnight success instead aim for a long term success strategy with careful investments, low investments, and practical budgeting?

2. MEASURE EVERYTHING & REVIEW FREQUENTLY

Measuring everything and reviewing what you are doing on a frequent basis will make you a careful business owner. As part of the SEM strategies for business owners measured steps will improve the quality assurance procedures and will give you the huge mental strength to fight your business challenges. ‘Marketing’ is a very powerful tool and can be used effectively for a successful business or a failed one. Similarly, SEM or search engine marketing holds importance for online marketing strategies.

The planning of your objectives must be measurable with set time frames. It is necessary to know your numbers and adapt when necessary and frequently. The best thing is to be creative, coming up with different ideas, and taking very careful measures.

3. BASE YOUR STRATEGY ON DATA, NOT A HUNCH

For every strategy, if its business, corporate strategy, or marketing strategy there should be an involvement of data i.e. historical data or stats. To know which strategy will be successful it is necessary that you test it and back it up with data. The testing is the most important part of the strategy framework than comes the evaluation and finally, you can let your customers tell you what works best. You will have a variety of business strategies available. The involvement of data is purely for the integrity of your SEM strategy so that you can back up something that happened in the past.

4. REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER

Always think positive before your SEM plan as thinking is good but thinking without evaluation can lead to losses. These are because of being a small business owner the responsibilities are highly scattered. You have to think for the customer remembering that you are not the customer.

Your role should be to please the customer in every way. Keeping an eye on ‘customer satisfaction’ while making profitability is an approach of smart business owners. You should always think like smart business owners irrespective of the fact that the business is relatively new.

5. UNDERSTAND THE COMPETITION

Understand your competition and your competitors in a completely different way. Having a competitor’s strategy will always align your goals and broaden your horizons. Your search engine marketing plan should be unique and it should make you stand out from the crowd. You should know what your competitors are good at and how they can enable their targets with ease. As SEM is different from other marketing, strategies can change, but the goal must still be the same i.e. better customer understanding.

6. BUILDING A COHERENT STRATEGY

Defining your target audiences means you must be clear in making strategies for a certain target market. Identification of your customer needs and what motivates them and knowing your products. How the products can solve your needs better than the competition. It is necessary to give importance to the relevancy of keywords for SEM strategies. The target audiences should be well aware of how they can search the variable business functions with designated keywords.

For website optimization, you have to think from the perspective of your customers, i.e. how they would be thinking when searching for your products. A key part of the SEM, search engine optimization holds similar importance.

7. WRITING CONTENT FOR THE RIGHT KEYWORDS

Writing the right content for the keywords means you are more specific in your SEM. Content is the key and as a business owner, you have to make sure that the words you are targeting are actually being searched on. After you have your target words you should create content for each one specifically.

8. PRACTICE 80/20 CONTENT MARKETING

 80/20 Content marketing will definitely focus on your Top ROI products and services. It’s all about brand stories and emphasis of brands linked with brand significance i.e.’ WHY YOUR BRAND?’ This sort of marketing strategy will definitely make the customer think more about your brand and the ‘WHY’ element.

9. USE KEYWORDS THAT SPEAK TO YOUR CLIENT PERSONA

The personality of the client while designing the keywords is a specialty, particularly in SEM. You have to ask yourself some basic questions e.g. WHO are THEY and WHAT Do THEY NEED TO HEAR? This sort of marketing is hugely popular as known as customized SEO marketing. The client is the key focus while developing a winning strategy.

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As part of the branding and marketing strategies many companies are re-inventing their strategies of digital marketing. This is more precisely related to doing best to cope under the current circumstances. At the same time there also lies an opportunity to change, evolve and adapt with effect to the changing circumstances. It doesn’t matter who you are a change of approach is highly needed. Thus, what’s more needed is to re-access, re-think and re-invent your current approach regards to brands.

Branding strategies of any company for e.g. brands, Proctor & Gamble or Nestle can vary according to how circumstances start to re-invent for the future. This largely means, branding and marketing strategies can re-invent according to the demands and their specified needs. COVID-19, the pandemic has changed strategies of many companies as they have incurred huge losses in terms of the revenue generation.

The founder of Astra Media, Mr. Alec McCurry is positive that re-inventing the marketing strategy is part of the corporate culture and is indeed a need of the hour. The following are key points of focus

GOING DIGITAL:

Preferring to adapt digital marketing strategies is what most people and companies are looking for in the current environment. Understanding the importance of digital media and a digital presence gives you an easy access. This is while showing immense importance to the digital world and the process to re-invent. It’s not easy to understand the importance of digital platforms. This is evident as the world is moving towards digitisation at a much faster rate.

BEING COMPASSIONATE:

Being compassionate is yet another necessity of the digital marketing world in these times apart from Going digital. This can also be termed as an opportunity in disguise, as it will show more creative approaches for prolific brand ambassadors. Thus, it is important to think out of the box and envision to market online while being compassionate.

A huge example w.r.t. the changing circumstances is the way Bacardi has invested in their brand. They have shifted some amount of production to supply ethanol and help in the manufacture of hand sanitisers. Also, have a massive online presence and the change in online marketing strategies is proof to the change management approach. They have launched a campaign known as #raiseyoursiprits. This campaign has raised $3 million for the immense support of the restaurants and local bars. This is largely a support due to the pandemic, COVID-19.

IN SUPPORT OF A CAUSE:

Supporting a cause is part of the positive branding & marketing strategies that are in place simply due to the pandemic COVID-19. Although, the business has been slow, it can offer the brands the most calculative opportunity to reach their audience online. Also, coming up with digital marketing strategies for online shopping, as now it’s the best time to know customer expectations and what the customers are looking for.

According to McCurry, the owner of Astra Media people are most linked up and associated with those projects that they believe are making a big difference. Hence, the power that holds behind philanthropy and the social entrepreneurship is huge. It is because of the way it increases the customer’s confidence in your brand. Being philanthropic means you are very closely associated to the CSR values i.e. Corporate Social values that holds vital in the longer run.

PROBLEM SOLVING THE RELEVANT ISSUES:

Communicating often and effectively is an essential element on the way the brand is helping its consumers face the challenges to re-invent. Even in these uncertain times brands are highly aware of the way problem solving should be dealt with. The provision of real and tangible solutions in this hour of need is a must. It simply shows consumers that you practice what your preaching are. Not only for good problem solving concerns, this is highly detrimental for gathering consumer’s trust in future.

Sometimes it is important indeed for a brand to stop thinking about the statistics, and numbers. On top of this, what holds more values are revenues and returns. Also, start thinking genuine and real ways of problem solving and marketing strategies. Furthermore, dealing with current scenarios and stresses amid COVID-19.

The year that has just started i.e. 2020 will be seeing many new marketing trends behaviours and analysis. The previous year was seen as a busy one for marketing and marketing trends lately, especially in digital marketing. In digital marketing, the trends change at a very rapid pace. This is mainly due to the number of digital marketing mediums that are active on the World Wide Web. These social media platforms include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Myspace, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, Tumbir, WeChat, Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube.

According to the stats, the number of users for all these websites has changed since 2004. Furthermore, so are the trends in their applications and in digital marketing. Digital marketing trends means how the consumer’s behaviours have changed since the start of the first social media.

The literal meaning of ‘Trends’ relates to fashion in any industry. Mainly the ‘Trends’ means the most common behaviours of people according to a certain product or its usage. Also related to the most favourable and dynamic options that are seen more commonly than the others.

In digital marketing, the trends are according to the demographics as well. However, since lately it relates to online consumer behaviour options and also according to the country. However, since social media came it has changed many things and many perceptions.

1. PREDICTIVE MARKETING- ONE OF THE MOST COMMON TRENDS

We are currently in the age where data is vast, abundant and holds many platforms. These platforms are for engaging people with each other interactively especially in 2020. There are multiple channels of digital communications and marketing mediums that have transformed. These transformations are according to the needs of the modern age. It is in a highly unstructured and disorganized manner in which the content is mostly consumed. Hence, there needs to be a lot of homework before making a buying decision.

Predictive marketing means looking at existing positive data patterns and to anticipate results accordingly. The anticipation of the results is definitely based on patterns, stats, figures and past trends. Something that holds huge importance especially in the range of 5-10 years.

Some most common usage of predictive marketing in 2020 will be identifying the likeliness of a new lead. Hence, making a purchase decision and the sequence of a message to deliver to them.

There are many industries in this new age that has invested in the intelligence for predictive marketing. As an example, Hotels and Resorts have the dynamic ability that they can determine the number of guests. This is most likely on a day or an event to increase their booking rate.

2. SMARTER AD BIDDING- A SMART TRENDS ANALYSIS

According to previous stats that are based on the previous year’s performances of two big IT giants i.e. Google and Facebook. The giants are giving each other big competitions in smarter ad bidding. They are truly getting the best to spend using smarter ad bidding options i.e. another marketing trend. In fact, ad bidding in this modern world of marketing holds huge importance. It is the first thing that Facebook and Google teach during their training sessions. Both companies are getting creative with new options every day and bringing new features in smarter ad bidding. One of the features in smart ad bidding is “auction-time-bidding”. In this feature, Google holds the best signal, which is helpful in making the right bid at the right time. Commonly, known as ‘Auction’ and in technical know-how, it is known as Action-time bidding. The smart bidding features include different bidding strategies as follows;

• Target CPA
• Target ROAS
• Maximize Conversions
• Enhanced CPC

Both companies are doing more efforts in smart ad bidding by bridging the gaps between local experiences and advertisers.

3. SHOPPABLE POSTS- ONE OF THE MOST MODERN TRENDS

Shoppable Posts has increased lately and its part of the social media campaigns over 2 years now. In the current year i.e. 2020, there will be a huge storm in shopping posts on social media. This is primarily because the retail giants are using social media for their adverts and real-time marketing.

With the involvement of third-party apps and e-commerce marketing tech. Therefore, its a process achieved via all this throughout of the box integrations. This new environment is part of the marketing trends that we discussed earlier. Therefore, it is on the rise at a fast rate as well due to multiple reasons.

4. SEO STRUCTURED DATA

Yet another Marketing trend with SEO Structured data is based on google search results and its analysis. A significant change in the number of visitors that a specific business is getting. This is mainly from organic efforts and SEO is expected to decline.  An effort from the most wanted search engine Google. This obviously means more informed click-through and how it will bring a dramatic decrease in the bounce rates. The technical implementation of this rich snippets is known as Structured Data. Used mainly as an online marketing trends analysis. In the new age, digital marketing its a huge and common trend.

5. MORE INTERACTIVE E-MAIL EXPERIENCE

As part of the dynamic digital media trends analysis, interactive e-mails have been highly popular, convenient and user-friendly. A number 1 design trend in e-mail marketing for people who use the internet mostly. These emails are to-the-point, engaging and focused They are known as engagement-based emails in digital marketing terms.

Some key examples of dynamic content are polls, quizzes, surveys, animated call-to-action buttons, and add-to-calendar events. All these are very useful in decision making for consumers.

6. MULTI-CHANNEL SOCIAL MESSAGING & ENHANCED ATTRIBUTION

With the increase in communications medium and enhancement in chat technology, digital marketing trends have turned to new dimensions. From their preferred messaging channels. More potential buyers and existing customers can interact with each other. The mediums are larger in the amount as well as well scattered across the web. Hence, making communications easier and far more interactive.

Some examples of such applications are WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, and WeChat. The quickest, and most profound use of technology. The aim is signifying the goal of digital marketing, i.e. reducing time and increasing the marketing goals.

7. TEMPLATED MARKETING AUTOMATION & BETTER INTEGRATIONS

Templated marketing is a user-defined and customer-based approach in marketing trends analysis. As an example: running a paid campaign requires more than one components. This includes a landing page, a form, and a lead data platform. It requires 3 tools of communications with each other and its a highly synchronized process. The focus for the marketers should be cutting downtime, decreasing costs and increasing the content focus.

Highly focused marketing medium and one of the key digital marketing trends in 2020. The email marketing automation will surely save your time and energy. It will continue working in the background while you will be performing your other business responsibilities.

8. MORE VOICE SEARCH ADOPTION

This trend has started to pick up pace in the year 2020. Therefore, as a bit, more than 50% of online searches shall be voice-based in the current year. Google Home, Microsoft Cortana and Alexa are some examples of smart speakers. Also thanking some startups that include Blutag and Jetson that are online sellers. Turning their products into voice-enabled marketplaces just for the selling and letting customers for order placement with voice commands. A new age innovation with voice search commands.

Read the blog: DIGITAL MARKETING AS DYNAMIC TOOL OF E-COMMERCE

Digital media marketing is a new age phenomenon that has changed many things. It has also changed the way online marketing takes place is the modern e-retail environment. The history dates back some decades when the World Wide Web (Internet) was first launched. In this digital age, the element that enriches online marketing is the result of the created environment. The 7 main categories are; Search engine marketing, search engine optimization, content marketing, Social media Marketing (SMM). In addition to this Pay per Click Advertising (PPC), Affiliate Marketing, and E-mail Marketing.

The Challenges have been there, however, the benefits have been more in terms of expansion of marketing strategies. Hence, making things more evident and symbolic, and marketing mediums more enhanced power generators. The Worldwide web is the most used medium since the internet revolution. Hence it is via various channels and their effective use. The use of high techs was made common.

DIGITAL MARKETING & SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

Search engine optimization is changing the search engine ratings to get positive results i.e. top 10 or top 20. With the search engine searches, and achieving the targets in the most comprehensive of ways. Changing in the most profound and sound ways as the word says. Therefore, in SEO the changes are more enhanced and distinguished. Changes are necessary for getting what you want from the searches. As the internet is a highly capable tool, that can refine its searches. Therefore, SEO or search engine optimization helps in reaching the targets in a faster way.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM)

Search engine marketing is the process of optimization of the engine and marketing on search engines e.g. Google, Yahoo, and others, etc. In SEM or Search engine marketing, the focus is the keyword research and results based on that. With SEM there needs to be more focus on the tools and the marketing mediums. However, there is a direct link to SEO with SEM. There are various ways of interlinking the tools and finally developing them as well. Hence, this is why SEM is more focused in terms of the marketing approach. A very comprehensive approach in digital marketing, as results are more profound and direct instead of being generic. The specific nature in SEM or Search engine marketing makes it a useful approach or type of digital media marketing.

Pay-Per-Click advertising is a part of Search Engine Marketing and has been used very often these days. It is now one of the common marketing forms that relate to SEM. For paid search engine result page marketing PPC is used for increasing optimization.

PAY-PER-CLICK ADVERTISING

PPC Stands for Pay-Per-Click marketing. As the name clearly suggests PPC or Pay-Per-Click, means that the advertisers have to pay. Hence, they shall have to pay every time their ads are clicked or accessed. PPC is a modern form of digital media marketing. It is a very successful one as well, due to many known facts. It can also be termed ironically as buying visits to the site, instead of making an attempt to earn them.

THE DIGITAL AGE CONTENT MARKETING

The most common types of digital media marketing tools. A tool that is clear, wise, elaborative and well defined. It is well defined in the form of revealing highly relevant data for the sake of marketing.

A marketing approach for the distribution of the most important material on the internet. As well as focused on revealing the most valuable and consistent content. The target is a defined audience that is highly specific in terms of their searches. In addition to this as well as to drive profitable customer action. It is a highly customer-centric approach that creates a relationship between the customers, and the online seller. The content being delivered is of high quality, and its a long term relationship. It is primarily important as the customer knows very well what they are looking for. Showing their interests in the product, the customers can do instant decision making. The satisfaction level of customers should be high. This is because the value of the content is the most important key for the customers.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

A process in marketing by which an affiliate or a stakeholder earns a share of profit. The profits are in the form of commission for the marketing of the product. The tracking process is also very simple, as the sales are tracked via affiliate links from one website to another.

The various stakeholders that are involved are seller and product creators, the affiliate and finally the consumer.

WHAT IS MARKETING AUTOMATION?

A way to use the software for the automation of marketing activities. This is concerned with some repetitive marketing mediums. There are many departments in companies that use repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and add campaigns. A more customized and repetitive environment of marketing the products where nothing can be missed from the consumer’s eye.

THE BENEFITS OF DIGITAL MARKETING?

There are immense benefits associated with digital media marketing in the modern digital age. The benefits are because it is the most common and most up-to-date use of technology. This is especially in the modern age of gadgets and laptops. Facebook, one of the most commonly used Social media tool, is the biggest advantage, and one of the competitive ones. It is mainly because it is for all types of users and the accessibility is high. The advantage it holds for digital marketing is the immense amount of public liking worldwide. That has increased since the advent of the modern age smartphones and gadgets. Smartphones have not only made social media a common entity, but it has also enhanced the most dynamic features.

Whether it’s the marketing of a restaurant franchise or a clothing shop in town, Facebook is always prominent.

Read related article: DIGITAL MARKETING AS DYNAMIC TOOL OF E-COMMERCE