Expert Views on Digital Marketing Trends

In the current times, it has been very difficult for the Digital Marketers to search for and adapt to any strategy or trend that can be considered “perfect” to achieve the desired results, especially in the scenarios when the Search Engine Giants like Google keeping refreshing their updates and Algo’s. Keeping the facts in mind, we decided to interview some Digital Marketing experts on some of the controversial points arising in the industry. Go through the article and explore the full story.

Questions we’ve been discussing:

• What are some of the most ingenious ways to increase traffic to a website?
• Given limited resources, what is the best possible marketing strategy to grow a young Small business?
• What’s the best way to develop and execute an online marketing strategy?
• How do you identify your target market?
• What would be the best landing page layout for an AdWords campaign?
• What are the best marketing tools and techniques to market a Mobile app?

Q. What are some of the most ingenious ways to increase traffic to a website?

A. David Leonhardt (The Happy Guy Marketing Canada)

To me, the single best way that is within a reasonable budget for the average small business or blogger and applies to any niche is to work hard at networking, and get mentioned in other blogs.  Specific tactics for this include blog commenting, guest posting and responding to questions like this on MyBlogU.

But there are other strategies that can also support this strategy.  For instance, when you create really good content that bloggers want to reference, that also can get you mentioned.  Interacting with influencers on social media can also help.

This is what works best on a small budget, and it works in any niche.  There are often niche-specific strategies that might work better  within those niches.  And if you have a little bit of extra money, there is nothing like a publicity stunt to create some buzz; I am right now advising a client that this is the best road for him to take.

B. Ashley Faulkes (Online Marketer)

Everyone talks about traffic and looks for simple or even obvious ways to get it. One of the most obvious ways that is right in front of us yet not used by most people, is Pinterest.

Not only is Pinterest a great social media traffic generator, but it also brings traffic again and again and often in ever-increasing volume. Of course you need to be active and get followers (like on any social network) but Pinterest is one of the most powerful traffic generators I have found. Give it a go.

C. Jaideep (A techie by profession, blogger/writer/poet/learner by passion)

• Excellent design: this is the first point of grabbing the attention of your visitors
• Fast to load: slow loading sites face visitor’s rejection. use faster technology.
• Perfect Navigation
• Right stuff for the target audience: understand your audience and post content accordingly
• Enough mix of content for all business stakeholders
• Customer interactions
• Forums
• support/ suggestions/ contact us

D. Darmawan (Blogger, marketer, entrepreneur)

By creating your own Facebook Group: Facebook has its own algorithm to filter posts from pages and people so it won’t reach their news feed. If you’re posting links normally on your page or in other people’s groups… you won’t get lots of traffic.

But, I joined quite a few groups on FB and noticed that every time the admin posts something on their own group — even if it’s link — they (almost) always showing up high on my news feed.

Now that I have 3000 people on my own group, I usually get around 500-1000 visitor each time I posted a link.

And it’s really not that hard to get that many members.

E. Steve Counsell (Mr)

Assuming that traffic is all that is required then simply asking people to go there is one way, or paying people to go to the website. However, I guess that this is not the real reason behind this question.

Getting relevant traffic that will stick to your site is what’s really needed and one rather ingenious way would be to run a competition on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. The competition MUST have something to do with your niche to ensure that the traffic is relevant in some way.

Having a MEME section on your website for all of the images that you use can also drive traffic. Turn every image that you use into it’s own blog post a pep it up with some “meme-ery” then post those meme images around social media with a link back to a related post on your site. There are many examples of this type of thing using Cpt Kirk from Star Trek Next Generation.

F. SoBold (SoBold)

Ensure that keywords are used throughout so that it ranks higher on Google, get to grips with meta-data too so that spiders can track the site.

Share the URL on all networks, make sure it’s in your bios on your social profiles, have it at the bottom of emails.

Start a blog on your website, so that you have weekly or daily articles being shared that can drive traffic to your website.

Q. Given limited resources, what is the best possible marketing strategy to grow a young Small business?

A. David Leonhardt (The Happy Guy Marketing Canada)

Blogger outreach is the best way to start from scratch.  Develop a list of the top 20 or 30 or 50 bloggers you want to be associated with.  Follow them and start interacting with them on Twitter and Google Plus or wherever else they hang out (forums? blogging communities? Facebook groups?).  Comment on their blogs, share their posts, and once you are known to them, start letting them know also about your story.

B. Ashley Faulkes (Online Marketer)

Whether it is online or offline, I believe the best and fastest ways to grow a fledgling business is through networking. It could be that you use your network for partnerships and sharing clients. Another option is simply expanding your network to inform more people about what you do.

Either way, when you are unknown there is nothing more powerful than direct contact and word of mouth from people who know you to expand your business rapidly.

C. Jaideep (A techie by profession, blogger/writer/poet/learner by passion)

Social media in an engaging and consistently engaging manner. With limited resources focus more on digital marketing to reach your target audience. It is very important to understand the concrete boundary line between social media approach and digital marketing but keeping in mind the overlapping component between the two.

Find out innovative ways of using least but intelligent resources rather than more and dump resources.

D. Darmawan (Blogger, marketer, entrepreneur)

Content marketing.

Create remarkable, helpful, and relevant content in your business website then distribute it to community sites. Reddit and Facebook Groups are two of my favorite.

By creating content, you’ll recognized as an expert in your industry. You’ll also get lots of traffic directly to your content and indirectly to your sales page.

E. Steve Counsell (Mr)

Work through a website content strategy that also ties into the local media and press. Do something unusual and tell the world about it on Social Media, your website and in the press, local TV and Radio etc.

People love the unusual or outrageous so the bigger and bolder you can go the better.

Your plan should be to publish something NEW every month at least and on the same day (may the last Friday or something like that).

Make a list of all of the local journalists, their names, phone numbers, email addresses and postal address so that you can contact them regularly EVEN if you don’t have a new story for them, you can ask what they’re looking for in teerms of stories about business in your town or niche. You’ll need to be VERY persitent but not annoying; it’s a delicate ballance

F. SoBold (SoBold)

Networking is so important when you have limited resources, and the power of social media must not be mistaken.

Use LinkedIn to connect with industry professionals and get talking in group discussions.

Use Facebook to set up a business page and start sharing created content and use Twitter to reach out to larger audiences – use hashtags, get involved in Twitter chats, follow influencers.

It’s all about finding your customers using the available resources online. Offline, simple activities such networking events, industry talks, etc will all get your business name out there.

Q. What’s the best way to develop and execute an online marketing strategy?

A. David Leonhardt (The Happy Guy Marketing Canada)

An online marketing strategy, at the most basic level, is no different than an offline strategy.  Identify who your market is.  Then identify the vehicles to reach them – what social media, what communities, what hashtags – and get yourself seen by them.  You will also want to determine specific magnets to draw them in, such as freebie giveaways and contests, which will again depend on who your target market is.

B. Ashley Faulkes (Online Marketer)

A lot of thought and planning goes into a successful online marketing strategy, however there is one fundamental aspect that is that is often fogotten.

Keep the client or customer at the centre of everything that you do, and help to solve their problems.

It may sound simple, but many business owners or marketers start writing content and website copy without taking this into account. Instead of writing blog posts or sales pages helping to solve problems and they instead write about everything and anything else (products, features, their latest work party). This is usually a result of thinking from their own point of view, instead of the customer’s.

Imagine I come to your website because I want to change careers. You can help me. But there is nothing on your site that shows me you understand my problem, have worked with people who have these problems, and can solve my problems at all. You talk instead about what you do, how you work and how much it costs.

Keep thinking about things from the customer’s perspecitve and your marketing plan will evolve accordingly in a more natural and useful way.

C. Jaideep (A techie by profession, blogger/writer/poet/learner by passion)

Both development and execution are different activities but cannot go in parallel. It has to go in sequential manner. First the strategy has to be in place to execute, and then deploy your task force to execute it.

To develop a right online marketing strategy you must be clear which path or paths to be taken – text, video or both. Also to note that it is good to go by 80:20 rule. Target those social media sites where you anticipate finding maximum of your target audience.

D. Darmawan (Blogger, marketer, entrepreneur)

First, create buyer persona for your business. Find out who is your average buyer, what’s their burning problem, and what can you do to help them.

Then, find community sites where they hang out. They may be on Facebook, Google +, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, or other sites.

Build relationship with people in those communities, and with influencers in your industries.

Now create content and tell them about it.

E. Steve Counsell (Mr)

Think about what questions your ideal client would want the answers to. Even the smallest things that you take for granted can be massive barriers to buying when you are a customer. Set oout a plan to answer everone of those questions and the educate your audience in why you’re the best choice and most knowledgeable in your niche.

Ask your friends, family and most importantly your customers what they would like to know about your Niche; dig beep with them and don’t take their first answer as everything they need. Really dig deep, ask question after question until they don’t have anything left that they’d need to know before buying. Answer all of those points in regular blog posts, posts on Facebook, Twitter aand LinkedIn.

If at all possible set yourself up with a YouTube Channel, Pinterest Account, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn and then use one of the many free or paid scheduling applications to post to multiple platforms at once. important to keep in mind here is don’t try to automate your social Media too much; and interact with your audience.

F. SoBold (SoBold)

Brainstorm your ideas first, you need to decide what your goals are.

Once you have your goals, decide which channels you want to work with and where you will get your content from.

Ask yourself if you need to use any scheduling tools, or image apps etc to help you create your content and to help with time management.

Put all your content into a content calender and mark the days/weeks/months when you will measure your analytics and assess how close you are to your goals. Set regular targets to hit, this way you can more easily change your strategy along the way if specific parts of your strategy are not working.

Q. How do you identify your target market?

A. David Leonhardt (The Happy Guy Marketing Canada)

If this question is being asked at the marketing stage, you are way too late.  The target market should be developed at the product development stage.  You might want to refine it or segment it later on.  When Karma Kisses was developing its organic rice teas, they came to me to help write the website, but I also helped them refine the wording on their product labels.  They had a pretty good idea of who their target market was, but even as we were wordsmithing the labels, questions came up as to the attributes of the market, and whether they would respond better to one word or another. But the market had to be identified before developing the product.

Sherman Smith did a nice write-up on this topic athttp://www.shermansmithblog.com/define-your-target-market

B. Ashley Faulkes (Online Marketer)

The first step in identifying your target market is fully understanding what it is that you offer. Once you can break that down into small pieces, clearly explaining what you do, why you do and how it helps people., you can then start to research the kinds of people that need your service or product.

There is no silver bullet when it comes to finding these people, but matching them to your offering is the key to deciding who they truly are.

C. Jaideep (A techie by profession, blogger/writer/poet/learner by passion)

Very simple. If a marketing firm of department or guy does not know it, it is worthless and wastage of money and efforts. Target market comes out of the product or service you are offering. There has to be an intelligent way to weed out the junk and zero down to right audience. A survey, poll or interview, there are many such ways to achieve it.

D. Darmawan (Blogger, marketer, entrepreneur)

There 2 ways.

• First is by brainstorming. If your business has been running for a while, you should know who’s your average buyer. If not, then go find similar business and copy their target market.
• And the second way is by sending out surveys. It’s not really that hard to create a survey, there’s a lot of free tools you can use like SurveyMonkey, PollDaddy, or Typeform.

E. Steve Counsell (Mr)

Think about why you got into your business. Look around you to see who is using your competitors products and services. Seek out competitors websites and social media platforms. Look at who is following them on Twitter.

Decide who your ideal client would be, describe them for yourself and in detail. This is called creating an avatar.

What’s their name, where do they live, what type of house do they live in, what car do they drive, are they vegitarian, do they have children where do their children go to school etc.

Once you have that avatar in place you will know what appeals to them and can then start to find real people in your area. They are your target market

F. SoBold (SoBold)

This is highly subjective, but when thinking up your business and its product/service, who did you have in mind?

If this is debatable, think about who would benefit most from your business idea and do research into whether there is something out there for them, or whether there is a gap in the market for this audience.

Ultimately, market research is the biggest winner when it comes to determining target market – this can be carried out offline or online, but a wide demographic needs to be covered in order to gather the most informative results.

Q. What would be the best landing page layout for an AdWords campaign?

A. David Leonhardt (The Happy Guy Marketing Canada)

I actually wrote about this at http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/anatomy-perfect-landing-page-01227361 .  It is not specific to AdWords, but the principals of a landing page are the same across the board.  The only additional change I would make for AdWords is to make sure that the text on the page would match the text in the search query so that there is psychological continuity for the reader.  If my Adwords campaign covered a number of significantly different keyword sets, such as those centering around property, homes and real estate, I would create separate (but nearly identical) landing pages for each set of keywords.

B. Ashley Faulkes (Online Marketer)

Depending on what you are tyring to accomplish with the adwords campaign, there are many alternatives in terms of a landing page layout.

However, you need to keep one thing in mind for landing pages of any kind. The content, offer or whatever it is that you have on that page needs to match what you are advertising on adwords very clearly. If there is any inconsistincy (or disconnect) betweetn the ad and the landing page, you will lose people in seconds.

So the key is to clearly match and state your offer in your heading at the top of the page, a main benefit below that and then continue on from there. This might include a lot more information (videos, tesiimonials, examples, features etc) or only a little. It depends on what you are offering. But whatever you do, match what you advertised.

C. Jaideep (A techie by profession, blogger/writer/poet/learner by passion)

Content has to be powerful enough to engage the target audience. Too much of visuals fails AdWords campaigns. Hence, the content and visuals have to be in a right kind of mix. Try to keep not more than 5 or maximum 6 main tabs. Ensure there is not too much of content crowd on the page.

D. Darmawan (Blogger, marketer, entrepreneur)

There’s no silver bullet in landing page layout. Everything’s different depending on your offer, your industry, price, and people.

But, the best format always follows AIDA model. It’s one of the most popular copywriting formula to get people’s Attention, Interest, Desire, and persuade them to take Action. There’s also other models but they all similar to AIDA.

E. Steve Counsell (Mr)

I have not fully tested layouts but what seems to work best is to place a video intro top lect with a few bulletpoint at the right of that video. A really convincing headline and a BUT NOW button below th ebullet points.

Below all of that there should be sections covering the product, what you get, testimonials for happy customers. each of these sections should contain a BUY NOW button.

The major thing to remember on this is that the landing page MUST match your AdWords wording exactly to perform best. Any landing page that seems incongruant with the ad will result in the ad performance suffering.

F. SoBold (SoBold)

The landing page needs to be simple and clear, so that your brand image is strong and positive. This is the first thing that visitors to your site will see, so it needs to have the wow factor and prove that you are a professional business. High quality images and an easy to read font that works with the background are key when it comes to landing pages, as well as clear navigation links to get people moving around your site.

Q. What are the best marketing tools and techniques to market a Mobile app?

A. Ashley Faulkes (Online Marketer)

Mobile apps are just another product like any other. And marketing them is very similar to what you would do for other products. If they are indeed a product at all. So you would need to get your product in front of relevant audiences, perhaps on related blogs using influencers or other celebrities. Of you could simply use Adwords or Facebook ads to get in front of people if you have the money for that.

However, if your app is more of an extension of your company and information that you share with clients or visitors, then it might be better to inform people of your Mobile app via your newsletter or website.

B. Jaideep (A techie by profession, blogger/writer/poet/learner by passion)

mobile ads, social media, offers, call centers, mailers, sms etc. are some ways of marketing a mobile app. All might not fit well in all kind of environment of the type of application. There are many innovative ways being adopted these days – twitter chats, facebook events, bloggers meets etc. by means of which more depth in reach can be achieved.

C. Darmawan (Blogger, marketer, entrepreneur)

Advertisement is one of the fastest and most effective, especially mobile ads. CPA model also works great for mobile games.

If you don’t have the resource, use websites like Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Reddit to get your first members. If your app is really good, it will be popular by itself on those sites.

D. SoBold (SoBold)

Customers who are interested in getting a Mobile app will already be on mobile, so promotions need to take place across social networks and mobile-friendly sites. Showing how the Mobile app will benefit the user is key, because you need to answer the question as to why they should download the app when there might already be a site or another platform that it is available on. It needs to be smart and fast, because that’s what people expect from their phones.