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There’s no doubt about it that we live in a crazy digital age that’s packed with data.

Especially in the marketing field. 

Businesses are constantly collecting and analysing data to make informed decisions about their marketing strategies. The funny thing is that most marketers still struggle with a very fundamental fact: being data-informed and data-driven are not the same thing!

There’s no denying that digital marketing has evolved. We are facing new technologies and data analytics tools almost every day! 

The double-edged sword of this, however, is that marketers now have more data at their disposal than ever before. 

As a result, marketers must choose between two approaches: data-informed marketing and data-driven marketing. Both are – obviously – reliant on data, but they differ in their underlying philosophy, goals, and methodologies. 

Let’s see how:

Data-Informed vs. Data-Driven Marketing: What’s the Difference?

Being data-informed means using data to aid your decision-making process. 

It’s all about using data to gain insights and understanding but ultimately, the final decision is based on human judgement. 

Data-driven marketing, on the other hand, relies on making decisions based solely on data. It’s about using data to set objectives, make decisions, and measure success.

According to Dhawal Shah, 2Stallions Managing Director, in an interview given at the Programmatic Pioneers Summit 2023: there are pros and cons to both approaches. Being data-informed allows for a more balanced decision-making process that takes both data and human judgement into account.

Essentially, data-informed marketing tips the hat to the fact that while data is valuable it doesn’t always tell the whole story, often overlooking other considerations such as customer experience, brand identity, and business goals. 

By combining data with human judgement, businesses can make more informed decisions that take into account the bigger picture.

However, being data-informed also has its limitations. Too much data can bog marketers down, or worse, overwhelm them in the attempt to analyse it. In addition, marketers might interpret the data differently, leading to different conclusions and decisions.

On the other hand, being data-driven can provide a more objective and measurable approach to marketing… 

Let’s dive a little deeper:

What is Data-informed Marketing, really?

Data-informed marketing is an approach that uses data to inform decisions, rather than drive them. 

Data-informed marketers don’t only look at the analytics and metrics that they gather using platforms and tools. They also gain insight from other sources like customer feedback and market research. This offers a glimpse into the actual human sentiment behind the data that they need to consider.

The trick is, of course, to then use this insight to create a more personalised and effective marketing strategy and campaign.

Pros and Cons of Data-informed Marketing

Using data-informed marketing to create these kinds of personalised and relevant campaigns is one of the key strengths behind data-informed marketing.

Campaign messaging and other content can resonate better with target audiences. 

This strategy is also more flexible than data-driven marketing, allowing for on-the-fly tweaks based on real-time feedback and new data.

The downside, however, is that it can be limited by the quality and quantity of the data that comes in. If data is incomplete or inaccurate, marketers could make decisions based on flawed assumptions, which can lead to ineffective campaigns. 

Additionally, data-informed marketing may not be suitable for all industries or products, as some customers may not have a strong online presence or may not be as responsive to digital marketing efforts.

So what is Data-driven Marketing then?

Data-driven marketing, on the other hand, is an approach that relies heavily on data to drive decisions. 

Data-driven marketers use data analytics tools to gather, analyse, and interpret large amounts of data, such as customer purchase history, web traffic, and social media engagement. They then use this information to make data-backed decisions about marketing strategies, targeting, and messaging.

Pros and Cons of Data-driven Marketing

One of the main advantages of data-driven marketing is its ability to deliver more precise targeting and personalisation. 

By analysing vast amounts of data, data-driven marketers can create highly specific customer segments and tailor marketing messages to each segment.

Data-driven marketing is also more efficient than data-informed marketing, as it can automate many processes, such as A/B testing and optimisation.

One of the downsides of data-driven marketing is that it can sometimes overlook the human element of marketing. While data can provide valuable insights into customer behaviour, it may not always capture the full context of the customer’s needs or emotions. 

Additionally, data-driven marketing can be expensive and time-consuming, as it requires advanced analytics tools and skilled professionals to interpret the data.

Final Thoughts: Benefits of Data-informed and Data-driven Marketing for Marketers and Brands

Both data-informed and data-driven marketing have their unique benefits, and the choice between the two depends on the marketing goals and resources of the brand. Data-informed marketing is ideal for brands that want to create personalised, relevant campaigns, but may not have the resources or infrastructure to implement advanced analytics tools. 

Data-driven marketing is suitable for brands that want to leverage data to drive growth and achieve more precise targeting but may have more significant budgets and more complex marketing needs.

Where does that leave us then?

That really depends on your resources and desired outcomes.

In essence, data-informed and data-driven marketing are two approaches that use data to inform or drive marketing decisions. While both approaches have their pros and cons, they can offer significant benefits for marketers and brands, such as more personalised targeting, higher engagement, and increased ROI. 

Looking to get a bigger picture on your own data-driven or data-informed marketing strategies? Or just want to get started? We can help – our team of experienced marketers can help you implement a bespoke strategy that is aimed at helping you achieve your business goals.

We are proud to announce that 2Stallions Digital Marketing Agency has been awarded gold for Excellence in Pivot Marketing at Marketing Excellence Awards 2022.

The Marketing Excellence Awards are designed to celebrate, recognise and reward Singapore’s outstanding marketing campaigns. It is the premier platform for marketers to showcase their creative excellence, successful strategies and effective delivery.

“I’ve always been in awe of the agencies that win at what Cheryl Lim has termed it as the “mother-of-marketing-awards,” Razy Shah wrote on LinkedIn after receiving the award on behalf of the agency, “…I’m grateful to the panel of judges for recognizing our efforts and of course to my teammates for delivering a successful campaign for our client.”

The champions for 2022 were chosen by an independent judging panel comprised of high-calibre, senior industry experts from reputable brands. You can find the full list of winners here.

This year marks 2Stallions’ 10th anniversary, and we are grateful that our work is making such an impact. We work together with our clients and our teams to ensure high-quality campaigns and digital marketing initiatives, and it’s great to see that the efforts of all sides are recognised.

Furthering on his comments, Razy called it a “…beautiful way to cap off our 10 years in the digital agency business…” and we couldn’t agree more.

If you’re out there, wondering how you can drive sales and increase your lead generation, perhaps it’s time to look at improving your own performance marketing. If so, get in touch today, we’re happy – and eager – to help.

For more information about the latest edition of the Marketing Excellence Awards, click here.

 

There’s no denying that every industry was impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic, but I think it might be safe to assume that one of the industries most heavily impacted by it was the food & beverage industry. With restrictions on movement and delivery services, not to mention the breaking of pre-existing supply chains,  it’s no surprise that many restaurants struggled to survive. 

In this issue of the Marketing Expert Series, Yin Yin ‘Anna’ Goh, provides us with in-depth insight into how one restaurant chain survived the rapid changes sparked by the Pandemic. Join us, as we dive into not only Anna’s story about how she got to where she is now but also into the story of Burger King Malaysia’s digital transformation during and after the Global Pandemic.


Hi, Yin Yin, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with a little background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now? 

The pleasure is all mine. I’m Anna Goh – I’m a foodie, and I love to travel and enjoy a good read. 

Right after I completed my tertiary studies, I double hatted as Senior Trading Executive and Managing Director’s Personal Assistant at 99 Speedmart Sdn Bhd. I gained a wealth of experience on how to collaborate with suppliers & brands to feature their products and we worked closely on how to evangelize sales promotions across 99 outlets nationwide. 

As a Marketing Major graduate, I’m always looking for opportunities to extend my marketing knowledge in this industry. I was given a chance to head up my current Marketing department 7 years ago when the business owner of 99 Speedmart decided to take up franchises of Burger King in Malaysia and Singapore. Thinking back on my journey, it’s really a dream come true.

 

You’re the  Head of Marketing at Burger King Malaysia. Tell us about the work you do at Burger King in that role.

It’s a long list but I’m going to briefly touch on what I do: I am responsible for Burger King’s Brand Management and its Corporate MarCom. Anything related to brand positioning, new product development and product launches, advertising and restaurant image enhancement are also under my care. 

My typical day-to-day would be to prepare project proposals and lead campaigns from planning to activation and launches. On top of that, there’s admin fun stuff like monitoring reports, budgets, campaign performances, ROI & projection. Oh yes, and I also oversee the franchisee’s local store marketing activities and execution as well.

 

What sort of impact did the COVID-19 pandemic have on Burger King Malaysia?

The business is severely impacted, be it sales and in-store traffic as the consumers are afraid to step into restaurants to make their purchases. Most of the sales were contributed by delivery platforms. We are also facing serious supply chain disruptions such as sea freight delays, shortage of ingredients, etc.

 

How have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your strategies as Head of Marketing? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since 2020? How have you overcome them?

The developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic restricted everyone’s movement and that affects our strategies. Besides that, the pandemic has taught Malaysians to be more technology savvy as we were required to scan a QR code whenever we visited a place. This changes our strategies as well, we used to invest a lot in OOH advertising, but during the lockdowns, no one would see those ads on the road and no brand awareness was built. We did not do a lot of digital advertising back then, but the pandemic has led us to shift our marketing investment and focus to digital platforms. We have also introduced e-wallet payment options to reduce physical contact during the sales process. 

 

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on the food and beverage industry?

We expect customers to stick with digital interactions as a direct result from the pandemic. 

As for the F&B players, they foresee restaurants will have to offer more online services to the public in order to adapt to changes in consumer behaviours post-pandemic.

 

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

Yes, it does impact the way we conduct our work because change is constant and we have to adapt and adjust from time to time. Even though the acceleration of digital transformation is in place, we do see some shift back in sales from digital platforms to physical platforms as the extra cost incurred of using digital services is one of the factors. 

In the next few years, we will be focusing on sustainability by reducing paper coupon printing and publishing more digital coupons. To be aligned with the regional business direction, we are also working on removing preservatives, artificial colours and flavourings from the food we serve as in BK we believe that real food tastes better. For brand visibility, we are thriving to have a balanced brand exposure on both digital and non-digital platforms in order to maximize consumer reach.  

 

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers? 

Change is constant hence always be prepared to change. Know your market and customers well or else they change you.

 

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Yin Yin, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or Burger King Malaysia’s work?

I can be contacted through LinkedIn.


The Marketing Expert Series features marketing and communications experts from across every industry. Every month, 2Stallions will showcase the stories and expertise of marketing experts from around the world, join us as we explore how marketers navigate the challenges of the regions and industries they work in. If you’d like to be featured in the next issue of the Marketing Expert Series. Please reach out to us via email.

If you are interested in building your own company’s digital advertising, get in touch with us today, and find out how you can optimize your digital marketing strategies.

Integrated Marketing Communications – IMC for short – connects marketing teams, making sure that all brand messaging and communications are aligned and consistent. With the united front that IMC provides, companies are stronger and better able to communicate both internally and with external parties like customers, prospects and partners. 

But what is an IMC really? To fully benefit from the advantages that a fully integrated marketing communication strategy offers, it’s important to understand exactly how it works. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore the powerful impact that an IMC provides. First, though, we need to establish a few basics, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.

What is Integrated Marketing Communications?

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) helps marketing teams connect all of their communications and messages to keep consistent branding. Essentially, IMC is the strategy that takes your marketing department from separate initiatives and activities, with different messaging and approaches, to one interconnected approach. IMC takes all the various marketing activities, collaterals, and channels and merges them with one branding message and tactic. 

Consider all the elements that make up a marketing department for a moment. There’s marketing – consumers, products, services, corporate -, public relations, content, creative, perfromance, and lead generation, to name a few. Marketing is a very large field after all, so it’s no surprise that the many different aspects can sometimes clash into each other without something to unify them. 

Enter integrated marketing communications, the unifying force that can tie all the different marketing targets, objectives, and strategies together. Bridging the gaps between the disparate marketing agendas is key to advancing any overal marketing goal and reaching any company KPIs. 

Examples of an Integrated Marketing Communications Campaigns

There are several great examples of IMC campaigns, many of which you’ll not even have noticed when you’ve come across them. All we see is the end result, a consolidated, integrated message that touches us in all the right ways and motivates us to purchase the products or services they’re advertising.  Take the following two campaigns for example:

1. Always #LikeAGirl

Feminine care brands like Always and Dove are consistently trying to be the voice for good. They adovcate for self-esteem and inner beauty. Knowing that their products start to play a role in young girls’ lives usually around the same time that they also start struggling with their self-image and self esteem, Always is always determined to make a difference. The effort they’ve put into their campaigns has won them multiple awards from various institutions. 

https://youtu.be/XjJQBjWYDTs

2. Snickers: You’re not you when you’re hungry

Many of us feel ‘off’ when we’re running low on energy, and we need a pick-me-up. Snickers hits the nail on the head with the “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign. It’s one of the most well-known advertising lines to date and chances are that you’ve seen the ads somewhere whether on television, at a bus stop, or on YouTube.

Snickers integrated marketing campaign

Both these campaigns deliver a single brand message to their audiences, integrated and consolidated brand messaging. We don’t see what it ties together, and that’s the point – all that we know is that there’s a message and it’s clear. These campaigns tie together all of Always’ and Snickers’ messaging across the marketing board and because of that solidarity the advertising resonates more strongly with its audience.

Final Thoughts

Integrated Marketing Communications pulls together otherwise disparate strategies and brand messaging. By bringing everything together under one banner, companies strengthen their marketing and branding both internally and externally. As in all things, a united front is a stronger front and sends a stronger message.

Are you looking to strengthen your brand messaging? Would you like to run IMC campaigns that empower your company? We can help with that

Planning to hire a content marketing agency to manage your company’s content? Whether you need landing pages, blog posts, infographics or other types of content, it’s important to find the right fit.

Do you think all content marketing agencies are the same? We’d like to tell you different—every content agency develops and executes on campaigns differently. Each agency also has a unique team that brings a diverse mix of knowledge, skills, and creativity to the table.

There are two things to consider when searching for the “best fit” agency—the nature of your business and the kind of content an agency can produce. Overlooking these runs the risk of failing to add value to your brand.

Before we share tips for selecting the right content marketing agency, let’s first discuss what the role of content marketing agencies should be.

What Does a Content Marketing Agency Do

The name itself is self-explanatory – “an agency that creates content”. However, its goal isn’t just limited to content creation. It should, through its expertise, help your business to leverage the content to establish your online presence.

Content pieces (i.e. blog articles, videos, landing pages, social media posts, etc.) may help spread a positive brand image across the Internet for your business.

A content marketing agency should also work on marketing initiatives for the created content to help your business achieve the following:

  • Generate traffic
  • Attract new leads
  • Keep customers engaged
  • Increase conversion rates
  • Track and monitor progress
  • Update the content strategy

So now that you’re aware of the role of a content marketing agency, let’s tackle something more interesting. Below are four tips on finding a content marketing firm that best matches your specific needs.

How to Choose a Content Marketing Agency

1. Examine Their Strategy

Content marketing needs to be planned and strategized. With an effective strategic direction in place, your business will gain more clicks, follows, and other profitable customer actions

According to CMI, 72% of B2B marketers said that content marketing strategy is a critical factor in content marketing success. The respondents with a documented strategy report more successful campaigns than those with a verbal strategy only, or no strategy at all.

Source: CMI

When looking for an agency, ensure that they can develop a specific strategy that meets your business’ needs and goals. During a pitch, you can request for a general content strategy for your industry and analyse their response.

Examine the proposed content marketing strategy and check if it addresses the following questions:

Who are your target customers and what content types best suit them?

The strategy should take a stab at defining your target audience, customer touchpoints and the content types needed to reach them.

What goals can you achieve using content marketing?

An agency should identify the goals that your business can attain through their content marketing strategy. Typical goals include increased website traffic, more leads, greater social media engagement, and so on.

How content marketing-related processes are streamlined?

The content marketing pitch should discuss who will be producing and managing your content. It should also present the tools needed and give an overview of the workflow and processes if you were to work together.

See: 3 Ways to Self-Learn Content Marketing  

2. Assess Their Team 

Great things in business are never done by a person; they’re done by a team of people. This popular Steve Jobs quote may come in handy when doing an agency search.

You should spend some time chatting with the agency’s team members to check whether there’s rapport. Doing this will also let you know if they have the needed expertise to achieve your goals.

For example, if you want to increase website traffic via search engines, social media and email marketing, the content marketing agency should have staff who specialise in those platforms with proven past results.

You can’t expect a content writer to develop SEO-optimized content if he or she lacks knowledge about key SEO requirements. That’s like asking a pastry chef to prepare the main course in a restaurant—it’s possible but the results aren’t guaranteed.

Besides focusing on achieving your goals, it’s also nice to work with professionals who can market your content without making a cultural faux pas.

Remember the Pepsi advertisement that featured Kendall Jenner? Pepsi wanted to project a global message of unity, peace, and understanding. Unfortunately, many people were offended by the video and viewed the brand frivolous because of how they painted protests in today’s political climate.

Your content marketing agency should anticipate any sort of misinterpretation during the ideation process.

The Pepsi commercial mishap also proves the need for a content team with different opinions, cultures, and beliefs. The more diverse a team is, the greater the chance to spot probable misconceptions and complete tasks efficiently.

content-marketingSouce: CoSchedule

3. Measure Results 

Without proper tracking, it’s hard to determine whether your content marketing efforts are working. You would not be able to analyse whether your different content supports your overall marketing and business goals.

This is where you should consider the ability of content marketing agencies to measure, interpret and analyse your content performance. A good content marketing agency should have analysts and the right tools on hand to perform such activities.

During your assessment, ask how they would measure your content performance and work towards aligning with and achieving your goals. They should be able to provide you with an effective measurement plan with metrics that help gauge your goals.

This chart from CMI’s Vice President of Marketing, Cathy McPhillips, can serve as your reference:

Source: CMI

Typically, content marketing agencies utilise measurement tools like Google Analytics to track, analyse, and report on performance. Examples of such reports are Site Content reports. This report lets you look at your website’s traffic and further segment it to determine which source the traffic came from.

Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages report

4. Know Who You Are Working With 

It’s important to know who you will be working with before entering into any new business relationship. Evaluate first the agency’s reputation and the work they do to ensure a fruitful partnership.

Ideally, it should be free of ethical or legal problems, have relevant industry experience, and most importantly—have a roster of happy and satisfied clients.

It also helps to look at their website. As a content marketing expert, their website should be filled with timely, helpful and excellent content. They should practice what they preach and use content marketing to market their own agency’s services.

While browsing through their website, check for past clients vouching for their work. Positive client testimonials are proof that the agency and/or their services offer great value. If they don’t have any public testimonials, ask them if they can provide you with a pitch deck consisting of their present and past clients.

Lastly, have a conversation with them. An in-person or virtual video meeting will make it easier for you to gauge their transparency and confidence. Ask them questions such as “Who will handle the campaigns?”, “How often would the status meetings be held?” and so on.

Content marketing experts should be able to respond to your queries and enlighten you on their work procedures. They should brief you about how they research and plan out content, produce the content pieces, and monitor or analyse the performance.

Summing It Up 

Content marketing isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a tried and tested approach that can drive profitable customer actions. So if you want to drive content marketing success, tie-up with a content marketing agency that understands your needs and goals.

Whether it’s to drive more website traffic, capture the audience’s attention, increase brand engagement, or improve brand recall, 2Stallions can help you out. We will run an analysis of your website and develop a plan based on your existing analytics data and your desired outcomes.

Excited to get started? Request a quote today and be sure to tick on content marketing under the services of interest field.

Articles sensationalizing the “death” of SEO are clickbait. Google commands over 90% of worldwide search traffic today. In short, SEO is never going to die. If your company wants to prosper online, you need SEO.

However, Google continuously updates its search algorithm – more than 1 update a day at last count. What this means is that SEO and how it is achieved is in a state of constant evolution.

An example would be the featured snippet algorithm update in Jan 2020. Featured snippets (short texts that answer a search query) now count as one of the ten web page listings on the search results page (SERP).

This means that when you focus on SEO for your company, you need to also try and appear in featured snippets – something that wasn’t part of the SEO scope just a year ago.

Before we dive into the five reasons your company must optimize for search engines or become obsolete online, let’s explore what SEO is.

What Is Search Engine Optimization

Short for search engine optimization, SEO is the process of optimizing a website and its content to be discovered through non-paid (also known as “organic”) search engine results.

The practice involves understanding what people would search for on a search engine to find businesses in your industry —including the words they use, type of content they prefer, and answers they seek.

As a business, it becomes easier to connect with these people by developing content that adds value to your audience by solving their needs, optimizing it so it ranks on Google’s 1st page and driving organic traffic back to your website to convert into more sales for you.

Why Your Business Needs SEO To Prosper

Let’s go through some key reasons your company needs to invest in SEO to do well in the digital space.

1. The Best Place To Hide A Dead Body Is On Page 2 of Google

This section’s title is apt because only 0.78% of Google searchers click on something from the second page. This means 99% of clicks happen on page 1 of Google. Think about that.

Image by: Backlinko

Couple the data above with a 2018 Clutch survey that found that 56% of businesses do not invest in SEO. As a company in this category, you run the real risk of becoming irrelevant online.

SEO may be a less popular digital marketing channel to invest in due to a longer time frame for returns. However, take this “downside” with a pinch of salt by looking at success stories of companies that fully embrace SEO like AQ Services.

The mystery shopping services provider worked with 2Stallions to improve its website traffic for a niche audience on the Internet.

Over a two-year span, our agency worked with them to conduct thorough relevant keyword research, on-site and off-site SEO, and coupled it with strong, fully-optimized content marketing efforts.

These initiatives yielded excellent results. In a niche industry, AQ Services grew their organic clicks to 1,949 from 22,333 impressions and were ranking for 26 keywords on the first page of Google, previously having ranked for none.

Every converted lead from these clicks potentially generates tens of thousands in revenue for them. They can rest easy that due to their SEO efforts, they are the first name that potential leads click on when searching within their niche industry.

Over the long-term, their investment and the investment of the many other companies that invest in SEO pays off with multiple returns on their initial investment.

This reason alone should convince most readers, but if you’re not, carry on reading.

2. Focusing on SEO Will Improve Your Bounce Rate

Are you guilty of clicking the “Refresh” or “Back” buttons when you land on a website from a search result that doesn’t load quickly enough for you or if the content isn’t relevant? Of course, it is your choice whether to stay on or leave any website.

What if the same thing is happening on your website though? What if potential leads are leaving without interacting with your brand because your webpage design took too long to load or your content isn’t compelling enough?

Google Analytics defines bounce rate as the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page).

A high bounce rate indicates that your content (i.e. webpage, article, etc.) didn’t match the user’s intent (i.e. what they were looking for) or that your website is loading too slow and they got impatient.

A big part of search engine optimisation is technical and on-site optimization. This is achieved with a laser focus on a fast-loading website and performing keyword research followed by optimizing your website content to be high-quality and relevant so that it would rank on Google.

This, in turn, lowers your bounce rate and helps you to rank higher and generate a lot more leads over the long term.

In short, investing in SEO leads to better user experience on your website and the creation of better quality of content that is optimized to be found on Google.

Image by: Conversion XL 

3. Mobile is the De-Facto Search

Consumers nowadays tend to finalize their transaction on mobile phones. In addition to that, searches made from mobile phones have increased from 65.1% to 80% across Asia.

Since 2015, Google has made it official that over 50% of searches now happen on mobile and in 2019, they started rolling out mobile-first indexing, showing the significance of mobile to digital.

So why does this mean YOUR business needs to invest in SEO?

Think about how people use their smartphones. Whether on Android or iOS, when they need to find ANYTHING, they turn to Google as their de-facto.

Looking for a place? Open Google Maps and type in a search. Looking for information? Open their browser and type in the search term to get results from Google Search or use Siri or Google Assistant to do a voice search.

A major part of SEO these days is Mobile SEO and Local SEO. These strategies help to ensure your website is mobile-friendly and is indexed or found on search via mobile devices and Maps.

Failing to do this means the only traffic your brick-and-mortar business will likely see is opportunistic foot traffic.

4. Have an App? Your Apps Are Discovered Via Search Too

The mobile era has also ushered in a deluge in mobile apps. In fact, more than 90 percent of all smartphone users have various apps installed on their phones including a social app, utility app, entertainment app, search app, and shopping app, among others.

These apps can be found in app stores like Google Play or the Apple App Store. Unlike Apple, Google incorporates its app store in its search engine results.

According to a Google report, about 27% of users find applications through a search engine and growing. While the number using Google Play directly to search and download apps is still higher, the future trends show optimizing an app for search engines still makes great sense.

App search could be an important driver of app installs in the very near future. That’s why businesses with a mobile app should implement an SEO strategy to rank their apps on search engines.

5. Content Marketing and SEO Are Partners In Crime

Oftentimes, companies do not want to invest in SEO because they are already investing in content marketing and fail to see the connection to SEO.

An article from The Guardian states: “It looks like Google has tired of its old friend SEO and is instead cosying-up to the new kid on the block, content marketing.”

This certainly makes it sound like there is no need for SEO if you’re investing in content marketing.

The evolution of the search algorithm has led to success via the original SEO fire dwindling over time. Content marketing is the gasoline that can ignite the wildfire digital success for your business. However, it is just the fuel. Without SEO, there is no fire to begin with.

Content marketing relies on SEO to get audiences to your website. Producing high-quality content if nobody reads it is useless.

SEO, on the other hand, doesn’t rely on content marketing for success – it can also be applied to business websites without a blog or a content marketing strategy. However, success will take much longer.

Content marketing pieces such as blogs, videos, eBooks, or even your website itself needs keyword optimization, quality backlinks and technical SEO requirements to rank on search.

In short, do not discount SEO just because you have invested in content marketing. This, in fact, is more reason to invest in SEO.

Parting Tip – Befriend Search Engines (or Google)

Search is the first stop on the Internet for most people in most cases. If you don’t befriend the search engines, you will miss out on a lot of opportunities and the chance to grow your business even more.

If you’re looking at SEO but unsure where to start, 2stallions can be your SEO partner and help you with your digital success, as it has done with many other clients.

If you’re still unconvinced, drop us a message through the comments and we’ll help you answer your concerns and queries to make the right decision for your company.

If you’re still using an Android or iOS device’s voice-search feature, search engines are still relevant. If you use Google for research, then search engines can still be used for content marketing.

Some marketers believe search engine optimization (SEO) is dead. The reason behind the belief: social media advertisements and mobile applications make content marketing more effective. They believe spending on SEO nowadays is a waste.

However, the industry is still growing. According to SearchEngineLand, research by Borrell Associates shows that businesses have spent about $65 billion on SEM campaigns. The researchers note that the industry can grow to $72 billion by 2018. Their reasons include the decline of traditional advertising, increasing fact-checking attitudes of audiences, and sophisticated techniques.

Sophisticated SEO is spot on. SearchEngineLand’s Stephan Spencer writes that SEO is a “shape-shifter.” He writes about how it has changed in practice over the years. Modern SEO is a far cry from just optimizing headers and meta-tags. It is now about monitoring “entities” or subject-specific keywords and informative content. Spencer also highlights the importance of UX (which Google measures).

seo-website

SEO has changed with the advent of Web 2.0’s appearance and technicalities.

Source: Slideshare 

SEO plays a vital role in any business. In 2009, Marin Search Marketer helped improve Century Novelty’s overall revenues by 20%. The 1951-established party decors and supplies business saw new light online after the project. Marin Search Marketer focused on creating keyword-bidding goals to minimize their paid ad budgets and maximize ROI.

Another example of SEO success is this one project of Prime Visibility (now known as WPromote). The company helped Compass-Guard Security Systems improve its sales by using SEO targeted content and a PPC campaign to minimize paid ad spending costs. The result of their 2005 search engine marketing efforts increased content visibility by 79.4%. The business site had 278 CTA button clicks per month, effectively increasing their leads.

Never underestimate the power of a reliable SEO agency willing to provide excellent results. If you need to look for one, you must make sure to note these five characteristics.

Five Characteristics of a Reliable SEO Agency

1. Assess their Assessment

Most SEO firm sites want you to send your email and your interest in scheduling a free appointment. Take the plunge; sign up and wait for their correspondence. Their online correspondent will ask you through an email to detail your business, its performance, and SEO goals. The free consultation, just like the real thing, will take time. The correspondent may likely ask for more information; remember not to provide delicate ones crucial to your business.

Once they provide you a final recommendation and quote, assess their assessment. Ask the firm how they came up with the milestones and methods. Inquire why they feel strongly about using the indicated procedures. Finally, question them how they measured the projected results.

If you want to make an informed decision, then you need to use the free quotations of other prospects, too. It may take some time to wait for each assessment. However, it will be worth it because a data-backed, informed decision will significantly save your business time and money. You can have a free quote here.

seo-company-tools

If they’re willing to, ask their tool’s tool accuracy, too.

Source: Backlinko

2. Performance Metrics Guaranteed (and Fulfilled)

Reliable SEO agencies want to help you genuinely. It might seem silly to believe a copy that talks about their passion for data, analytics, and seeing growth. However, some firms sincerely feel it is their goal in existing.

These companies know the realistic metrics they can achieve for your business. Reputable agencies will need to know your goals for the SEO campaign, the timeframe you expect it done, and the budget you have to implement it. You will have several meetings with them. The goal of these interactions is to adjust certain metrics to achieve your goals within a realistic timeframe and budget.

Reliable companies will advise you on the type of digital marketing style advantageous for the company. They can create drafts for ideal and realistic plans to show you the difference between timeframes and budgets. SEO agencies you can depend on will never begin any project without your approval. They will also include in the contract all agreed metrics they intend to deliver for your business.

3. Years of Experience

An SEO company that is has been around in the industry for years indeed sounds impressive. Digital marketing as a whole is a continuously-changing environment. For a company to survive a year, they must have provided excellent service to their previous clients. However, make sure to observe their methods and assess their assessment (as mentioned earlier). If you do this, you can maximize your investment in these long-established companies.

4. Portfolio

If an SEO company strongly caters to you, it wants to achieve one of these two things. It might want to expand their services and learn with you. It could also be that the firm is confident because it had handled cases similar to yours. You can answer this question by asking them for their portfolio of case studies.

Some companies publish these case studies on their site. Some firms can digitally send them for your reference. Make sure to prioritize studies and service renditions similar or relevant to your industry.

If their portfolio is informative and data-packed, then the more helpful it will be for your evaluation. Take note of the set milestones and the results. See if they met these goals. Next, check the space of time between each procedure implemented and achieved the goal. These small details will help you make an informed decision in using the firm’s services. Meanwhile, feel free to check our previous works here.

5. Feedback from Trusted or Similar Businesses as Yours

A reputable SEO company can forward you to customers they serviced. On their pages, you can also find a list of client feedbacks. Most of these will be positive. You can email the agency and ask them to provide customers with your reference. Prioritize references for industries similar to yours.

Make sure to ask about the referred client’s goal during their project. Have them describe the firm’s attitude. Discuss scheduling and milestone achievement frequencies. Ask about the overall working system and logistics of the company. The more informative their answers, the easier it is to know whether the SEO firm is reliable or not.

Wrapping-Up

SEO is an industry that is bound to get bigger than its current stature in the next few years. Social networks, target-centric search engines, and applications might invade specific markets. However, users will still keep on researching regarding particular, and search engines are vital to doing this.

You will need an SEO agency to help your content and advertisements reach the top of the results pages. Outsourcing SEM campaigns will be better for your business. Having a team dedicated to the task is time and resource-conserving than having an in-house equivalent.

Neuromarketing is a term that has been gaining a lot of traction in recent years. But somehow, the exact definition of neuromarketing seems unclear. For me, the best way to define neuromarketing is that it scientifically studies the brain to benefit marketing. For example, medical technologies like brain scanning and brain activity measurements are used to gauge a person’s response to different marketing elements like packaging, videos, ads, billboards, etc.

Sounds like utter science fiction right? But here is some food for thought – large companies like Ford motors and Coca-Cola have been investing heavily on neuromarketing since the 1990s. Today, a lot of other companies have already followed suit.  There are good reasons why you should start thinking about using the consumer brain when it comes to your marketing. Let’s discuss the most notable ones.

Five clever ways companies are use Neuromarketing

Great packaging

Have you ever gone through an entire aisle of potato chips in the supermarket and had to choose one among the multitudes of bright collared packaging? It turns out, the brand you pick might be the work of your brain’s preference.

Companies have figured out through Electroencephalogram (EEG) what elements consumer prefer on their packaging and subsequently, what they do not like. When Chips Ahoy decided to use neuromarketing in their packaging, they discovered that people had a negative emotional reaction to the “resealable” words on their packaging. This is because people found it a bit hard to read.

Surprisingly, the photo of the chocolate chip cookie on their packaging failed to garner great reactions amongst the test subjects. As a result, Chips Ahoy redesigned their packaging with a “resealable” tab that was more clear and a cookie visual that is more exciting (with flying chocolate chips).

Image by Neuro Science Marketing

Simply put, making sure that people will like your packaging is one great way to steal their hearts.

Limited Editions

Have you ever heard of the story about limited edition Nike sneakers causing mayhem among “sneakerheads” on opening day? Well, there is a reason for that and that has something to do about Neuromarketing.

The effect of consumers love for limited editions and limited-time offers are called marketing with scarcity. Marketers put limitations on a product like timed offers and dwindling supplies to pressure them into buying fast. Creating a sense of urgency for the customer has been a technique that has been used countless times and has proven to be so effective. Think midnight sales, limited edition items, and McDonald’s McRib.

Image by Summit Evergreen

Think about this, a report by Experian has noted that emails with words of urgency have a 14% higher open rates and a whopping 59% higher transaction rates. Marketing scarcity rushes the consumer mind and is a great tool to turn up the sales.

Multisensory stimulations

Companies are taking their marketing efforts to another level nowadays. This includes giving their customers an experience that goes beyond sight and sound. As marketers keep learning more and more about how the consumer mind works, we are going to see a lot of marketing elements that utilize the other senses – smell and touch.

A good example is the video game, South Park: The Fractured but Whole. In order to promote the game, the developers invited journalists and bloggers to try their latest gadget, the Nosulus rift. This gadget is supposed to be an accompanying peripheral for their game that emits an ungodly odour for various scenes. This blends perfectly well with South Park’s crass humour.

Suffice to say, the journalists love it and the story went viral. This just goes to show how various companies are turning their attention beyond visual marketing.

Striking Headlines

Headlines are one of the most important elements in advertising and its impact has not waned to this day. Oftentimes, headlines are what grabs the attention of people in an ad. So making sure that your headlines are attention grabbing and exciting is very important to surprise the human brain.

Here is a great tip: Try a technique called “Hippocampal Headlines.” This means that you can use familiar everyday phrases and tweak them a bit. This type of headline activates the brain making your headline more eye-catching and memorable.

For example, Silver Patron tequila used the slogan “Practice Makes Patron” as a twist on the familiar phrase, “practice makes perfect.”

Image by Neuro Science Marketing

Effective web layout

Neuromarketing in web layout aims to improve your visitor engagement and conversion rate. This is based on the cognitive preferences utilised within your website’s content and design. Little things such as the font, colour schemes, and layout have an effect on the visitors.

You’ve probably recently encountered websites that utilises modern horizontal design. This is often done by designers to keep up with the current trends. However, neuromarketers found out that the traditional vertical design engaged visitors more than the newer horizontal design.

The study revealed that people are more inclined to explore websites that are designed vertically. Neuromarketers explained that the vertical design sends a signal to the reader’s brain that there are more contents below, as opposed to the horizontal design. You can also read more about how you can optimise your website in our Design page.

Neuromarketing is here to stay

Neuromarketing is a relatively new player in the realm of business. However, the effects and results of neuromarketing have been impressive, to say the least. Marketers should be on the look-out for future neuromarketing trends such as eye-tracking and biometric engagement.

The consumer mind is still continuously evolving and companies have turned to science to keep up. There are still so many opportunities to explore and a lot of research to be conducted. With that, it definitely looks like that neuromarketing is here to stay and is definitely worth a look at.

*This article was first featured in The Singapore Marketer July-Sept 2017 issue. 

The year has passed by quickly, and new budgets, organisation changes, and rapid digital innovation that may disrupt many big businesses are already out there.

There were some drastic changes in the consumer goods industry in 2016. AB-Inbev took over SAB Miller for a merger of more than US$100 billion, making them now the largest beer company in the world.

Here are some of the changes that the Asian consumer goods industry is experiencing.

1. Rapid Growth In Asia – 2017 And Beyond

While Asian powerhouses like China and Japan are going to experience a slight dip when it comes to growth in 2017, while other economies within the region are predicted to perform quite well. India leads the growth with a GDP increase of 7.5 percent this year according to a report by International Monetary Fund. Vietnam will continue to be a fast-growing economy along with the Philippines and Malaysia .

2. Direct From Manufacturer To Consumer Via Online

Consumer goods marketers are trying to find ways to create direct-to-consumer (DTC) to communicate with their customers directly. While this would only be possible up to a certain degree decades ago, digital channels have now enabled manufacturers of various industries to engage with their customers directly.

According to a report by Forbes, there will be a 71 percent growth in manufacturers who sell directly to their consumers. Moreover, more than one-third of consumers indicated that they had bought items directly from the manufacturer’s website last year. Marketers of these consumer goods manufacturers now realise that using tools like social media, email, mobile, and apps to converse with their customers is the way to go.

Nike, a very well-known consumer goods manufacturer, has been putting more effort to connect with their customers by improving their digital presence directly. They have managed to grow their sales further by launching NIKEiD, which is an online service that lets customers customise their gear. The direct to consumer campaign was responsible for 22 percent of Nike’s total revenue in 2015. Here’s a video to better explain NIKEiD:

3. Weakening Retailers

As stated above, manufacturers are starting to engage their customers directly, and this is weakening the retailers. Some time ago, manufacturers had to rely on their retailers to sell their goods and engage their customers. However, new digital channels have allowed manufacturers to bypass their retailers. Consider the following figures from Digital Clarity Group:

  • Nearly half of all consumers are already visiting the manufacturer’s website with the intention to buy.
  • Direct to consumer is a way for manufacturers to keep all the profit. Net margin per unit doubles with direct to consumer. A vendor interviewed for this research mentioned that the increases among customers are from 50 percent and even as high as 400 percent making their overall margin better.
  • Manufacturers who are now selling DTC have customers who are more engaged and loyal. They are now able to promote a customised product assortment to customers due to the availability of data on the customer’s purchasing habits.

These factors are the strong-suit of start-ups such as the Dollar Shave Club, which we first mentioned in Chapter I. They have mastered how to converse with their customers over different digital channels authentically. Six hours after the release of a video with their founder talking about their product in a very humourous way, the blades were sold out, and their website

Since consumers now have access to information about products online, they have a stronger ability to compare brands, pricing, and reviews. These make companies such as Dollar Shave Club who has built good customer relationships, even more valuable to big manufacturers.

4.  Increasing Importance Of Direct Sales

Under Armour Inc., a huge rival of Nike in the sports apparel space focused on e-commerce sales as well as factory outlets and had a great start on 2017 regarding DTC. They had a 23 percent increase in DTC revenue in 2016 and is still looking for more ways to reach consumers directly. A huge part of this success is attributed to various websites that the company launched in places like Thailand and Belgium in 2015.

Link: https://www.underarmour.com.sg/

Most businesses have focused on this aspect this year. Aside from the juicy profit margins reaped from DTC models, it will also allow companies to control their branding story and message that they want to tell customers.

DTC has a myriad of benefits. While big brands do make a killing when it comes to sales through retailers, they are still at the mercy of those retailers when it comes to customer experience. That is why direct sales and e-commerce is going to be huge.

5. Nurturing Direct Consumer Relationships

As more and more manufacturers are going DTC, nurturing those customers from direct sales is becoming more important. Gatorade, a beverage brand that has a particular core market, which is “competitive” athletes, has been very successful when it comes to building DTC relationships.

A report from Prophet mentioned that Gatorade had realised that 75 percent of competitive athletes spend time online to learn more about their sports. Because of this Gatorade’s Mission Control Center was born. It analyses and logs the customers’ online comments about Gatorade’s wares and helps the brand understand what their customers want, get new ideas for future products, and allows them to adjust their marketing accordingly. Check out how it works in the video below.

6. Rapid Evolution Of Delivery Services In Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia includes 11 countries and more than 620 million people. Among the population, there is a huge chunk aged 30 and below with disposable income. It does not come as a surprise that many businesses are finding opportunities to innovate and provide valuable and more convenient services. One such service is home delivery which is expected to grow at an average of 14 percent by 2020 in Asia Pacific.

The popular ride-sharing app, Uber, realised this and launched UberEATS, an on-demand meal delivery service. Utilising the current network of drivers and riders, food from the customer’s favourite restaurant is delivered quicker than the usual delivery services. Check out how convenient UberEATS is:

Uber, however, was not the first one to do this. They are currently competing with other popular brands offering similar services like Grab, Food Panda, and Deliver. The demand for delivery in Southeast Asia is already significant, and it can grow even more, especially for developing nations. Check out the graph below.

Graph by: Euromonitor

7. The Rise Of Cashless Payments

The supply chain in consumer goods is a vital process and includes shipping and transportation. Many businesses will start dwelling more into automated logistic management to make the customer experience even more convenient.

Most Asian countries certainly have a lot of room to make in the logistic environment, particularly the rapidly developing countries in South East Asia. Amazon, although known to most people as an Internet retailer, has been developing an automated grocery store that eliminates long lines at the check-out counter.

The store called Amazon Go is equipped with machine vision technology to automatically identify which shopper took an item off the shelf or which shopper removed an item from the basket. Here’s a video of the most advanced shopping technology to-date:

You can also read about our article Creating A Marketing Strategy For Asia’s Booming Mobile Users to know more about how to take advantage of this trend.

8. Logistics – The Key To Reaching Consumers Directly

Another exciting development that Amazon has in the works is a drone that will deliver your items right to your doorstep. A patent was filed, and it describes a drone that uses magnets, parachutes, and spring coils to release packages during flight. Check out the video below:

In Southeast Asia, Lazada has partnered with an e-commerce logistics start-up to compensate the slow and sometimes unreliable shipping companies available locally. It might not be as high-tech as what Amazon has been doing in the West, but it sure is a good start.

9. Fast Up-Trading To Premium Products

A few years back in Malaysia consumers began trading up to more premium products. Apparently, consumers who live in countries that are becoming stronger economically are more willing to trade up their usual brands to a more well-known and higher quality brand.

One product that is benefiting from this up-trade is baby milk formula. It turns out that mothers today know a lot more about better caring for a child because of more accessible information. Consumers are willing to spend more on premium brands since it meant more scientific research were done and better ingredients were used on the product.

Link: https://www.frisogold.com.my/en

They see premium and more expensive brands as far more superior than cheaper priced products. And with Asia’s economic rise, it is already apparent that a lot of premium brands have a gap to fill in the market.

10. Reinvestment Of Profits Into Asia

With Asia’s steady growth in recent years, it makes sense that the European brands are taking notice. Two major European FMCG brands have recently expanded their operations in Southeast Asia – Unilever in Thailand, and Nestlé in Vietnam.

Nestle Indochina’s Chairman and CEO said that the company believes in the potential of Vietnam because of its “young and dynamic population, expanding consumer market, and favourable business environment.” The brand spent about US$36.5 million on the expansion of Milo’s factory in South Vietnam.

Unilever Thailand’s chairwoman, on the other hand, mentioned that their expansion is the biggest investment in the past 20 years and that she has high hopes for it. She also said, “Thailand is a strategic country for Unilever globally due [to] its good geographical location, which can serve as a hub for the upcoming ASEAN Economic Community, while the number of middle-class consumers here can reach 50m by 2020.”

Asian consumers are starting to be more concerned about a brand’s attitude towards sustainability. This became one of the reasons why the Asian FMCG sector is important in a financier’s portfolio. The recent investments from these European FMCG giants will certainly have other big brands looking to put their money into these emerging markets.

11. Unleashing Future Growth Through Business Model Disruption

Marketing leaders know that disruption is a good thing. One disruption that already began is the changing of the 4P’s of marketing (Product, Placement, Price, and Promotion).

Current marketing leaders are changing industries by incorporating modified key frameworks like the 4P’s. Here are the redefined versions:

  • Think more of Service (not just product) – Adding services wrapped around the product increases the value proposition and makes the brand more personalised. Service adds value to the customer. Famous auto insurance company Geico has a brand promise that says “15 minutes or less can save you 15 percent or more on car insurance.” By making a bold statement, Geico tells customers that they value their customer’s time.
  • Access (not just placement) – Brands that are more accessible have a huge advantage over those that aren’t. Amazon Japan is an excellent example of this by allowing customers to shop online and pay through any of their 50,000 convenience stores nationwide.
  • Variable Pricing (not fixed pricing) – Consumers can now have the option to choose what they need and get what they paid for. Amazon has been doing this for a while now with their prices changing every ten minutes.
  • Engagement (not promote) – Directly engaging customers and encouraging participation to experience the brand helps develop a more lasting relationship with the brand. The coffee giant Starbucks is excellent when it comes to engaging customers, the company is splattered across all social media platforms and is quite busy responding to mentions as well as apologising to customers with bad experiences.

12. Entering Emerging Markets Digitally – Better Late Than Never

The growth of emerging markets gives rise to millions of consumers that have higher spending power. With this comes the endless potential for digital platforms that can further bring more choices and communication channels to consumers.

The gap is still huge for brands who plan to enter emerging markets digitally. This is because of the consumer population, of which majority falls into the Millennial bracket, who demands more premium and exclusive products.

In Asia, Lazada has been dominating the e-commerce business and valued at $1.3 billion. Despite this high valuation, it is still expected to grow rapidly in the years to come.

13. Increase ROI With A Digital Data-Driven Approach

Data-driven marketing utilises customer-related data to deliver the right message to the right audience, at the right time, and drive the right consumer behaviour. The beauty of this approach is that everything is measured and you will see which areas you need to improve on, and it also eliminates ineffective marketing.

The approach allows businesses to spend less money with maximised results by not having to cast a wide net regarding advertising and avoids wasteful spending. Read more about this topic in our article “Future Proof Your Business By Using These 6 Data-Driven Marketing Strategies.

With all these digital trends booming this year, which one are you planning to use for your company? Let us know in the comments below which digital trend excites you the most.

People visit your website because of two things: it is either they are looking for information to add to their research of a product or service, or they are looking for information to urge them to make a purchase. Targeted content help steer customers into sales funnels, which is why more than 85 percent of brands implement content marketing strategies and enjoy great ROI after a one-month evaluation.

Content must engage the audience. Marketers understand this; a well-made and positioned content help introduce the products and services as a solution. Engaging content today comes in the form of blogs, videos, and social media posts.

Content marketing helps develop your business brand. Well-researched and helpful content boosts your authority on the subject. The increased trust of your audience helps your website generate more leads and conversions.

Content Marketing is Not Just for the Big Brands

Small businesses and startups aren’t the only ones who can benefit from content marketing. Numerous multinational companies use content to engage their audience in different social media platforms and avenues that allow their audience to provide feedback. In this manner, they collect information to improve their products and services.

For instance, one might think that Rolex can go decades without making marketing efforts due to its established brand. However, the people who run Rolex know that if a brand doesn’t keep up with the pace and stay relevant, a competitor can easily swoop in and steal the show. Now, what exactly can you do to market a product that is already successful?

Rolex products rely on old-fashioned, glamorous, and prideful beauty.  It could be to Rolex’s advantage, but it can also be their downfall. At any time, consumers can suddenly decide that it’s time to debunk the old and go for a more modern brand, making it possibly one of the reasons Rolex has increased their social media activity and campaigns.

Using social media sites like Instagram to keep their products relevant and within everyone’s line of sight, Rolex uses its beautifully crafted photos of brand watches all over social media. Their goal could be to remind their target audience of why Rolex is the embodiment of a sophisticated lifestyle.

Why Should You Invest in Content Marketing?

Great Potential For Significant ROI

Returns come in different ways: it can come in the form of customer acquisition, brand visibility, brand reputation, and inbound traffic. These are all beneficial for your business. Marketing experts agree that content marketing, when done correctly, has great potential for higher ROI, just look at the graph below.

You may not necessarily get a dollar for every person who sees your content, however, your company will see benefits in many different forms. With an effective content marketing strategy, you will experience a return in the form of customer acquisition, brand visibility, brand reputation, and inbound traffic.

It’s Inbound Marketing (Pull Marketing Instead of Push)

Precise investments are important in marketing. That being said, when marketing your product or service, you have to filter out potential buyers from dead end leads. Content marketing allows you to present your business to customers who would strongly convert to your brand.

Think of it this way, a person with no interest in your industry will not bother to click through your link or advertisement and are less likely to go past your landing page. With that in mind, it should be clear that asserting any promotion efforts to such individuals will be a waste.

Other Strategies Can Benefit From It

The great thing about content marketing is that it will not only generate returns for your company, but it will also push your other marketing strategies to perform better. In order to be effective, you must establish a mindset that considers content marketing as the core of all your strategies.

Analytics provides data that helps you plan ahead all marketing efforts for maximum efficacy. For instance, your email marketing campaigns can strongly benefit from a consistent content marketing strategy. Since you are already creating content for your social media marketing campaign, why not take things a step further? Find out which of your content received good feedback and traffic and reuse them for your email marketing efforts. Using your best and proven content as a landing page means a higher probability to drive more conversions.

Perhaps the best benefit with an excellent content marketing strategy is for social media campaigns. Considering that you have a steady flow of helpful and informative articles published on your website, you can use these as social media posts to generate more leads.  This will attract more followers, viewership, and help establish brand identity. Just check out the data below.

Brand Authority (Thought Leadership) Will Be Stronger

The quality of your content develops your brand profile. If you implement an effective content marketing strategy, you can easily become your field’s primary source of information. It helps create authority and reliability, an important factor in marketing and advertising.

Let’s say that you run a fitness center and decided to utilize content marketing. You start posting two to three SEO-optimized blog posts every week and eventually catapult your website’s ranks in search engines.

Months before summer begins, people begin scurrying for ways to remain or become fit. If they find your business first, your fitness tips and programs become their immediate solutions to achieve their body goals. Ultimately, readers and followers can become actual customers who you would never have reached if it weren’t for the internet and content marketing.

Builds More Trust With Consumers

A reliable brand creates trust with great content. If readers find your content engaging, entertaining, and helpful, you can build trust with your audience quickly.

When people get used to seeing your content every week or so, they begin to think of your business as a trusted resource. When the time comes that they are in need of services or a product such as yours, they will recall your useful and memorable content.

Converts Better Through Lead Nurturing

We all want to guide our target audience down the sales funnel. Content marketing does the job effectively if you understand your audiences effectively to deliver the best content for them. Through lead nurturing, you can hit all three stages of the buyer’s journey; awareness, consideration, and decision. You can also read more about it in our article, “Turn Visitors To Customers With Conversion Funnels.”

Let’s say that you run a fitness hotspot with an active content marketing campaign. You are likely to target a certain demographic within your area and have posted weightless tips, healthy recipes, and the like. After months of consistent weekly published content, you’ve made yourself known to your market. However, they aren’t purchasing your programs or getting a membership to your gym – yet.

Right now, your audience is simply aware that you exist, hence, the first stage of the buyer’s funnel.  Now, summer time is just around the corner, and everyone suddenly becomes self-aware and wanting to get himself or herself in shape. They remember all the articles and videos you published not too long ago and start to consider making a move towards a fit summer body. They may start re-watching your videos and click through your website for more content, possibly hoping to get fit on their own.

However, not everyone can get the results they need on their own, and there will be a percentage of your audience who’d rather get the help they need from a professional. Your content has helped them improve, but they also realize it could be difficult to undergo without proper guidance, the latter an issue resolved by your business brand.

Content Marketing Is a Must For Your Marketing Campaign

We can talk for days discussing all the benefits you can reap for your business through content marketing. However, among all the reasons we’ve discussed so far, there is one that stands as the ultimate truth; content marketing is today’s most effective way of getting things done.

Content marketing is the bridge between your services and your customers. Information, whether used as a tool to convert customers or to provide research data for prospective customers, will always be in demand. Using this information to your advantage using efficient content marketing methods is the difference between your business and your competitor.

Effort-filled content marketing will drive inbound leads, establish brand awareness, and guide people down the sales funnel. Whether you are targeting short-term solutions, such as improving your pay-per-click advertising or a need to increase your leads or long-term strategies that involve brand development and rebound marketing, well-developed content and copy will leave a positive and compelling impression that significantly improves the possibility of high ROI.

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