Digital Marketing for 2017: Avoid These 3 Marketing Traps

According to Social Times, nearly 90 percent of companies rely on social media for all or part of their marketing. If you plan to use digital marketing in 2017 to promote your products or services, you should know that the internet is a powerful tool. If you use it well, you will receive great rewards. If you fall into one of the following traps, however, your results might not be what you expect.

Ignoring or Misusing Digital Data

When you market your business online, you will receive a ton of data that you can use to better align your marketing strategy with your audience. However, the sheer amount of information that you receive daily can be daunting, which may cause you to ignore important information or pay too much attention to data that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The best strategy is to have one person handling all of your data and making informed decisions based on that data.

Too Many Irons in The Fire

If you have too many marketing strategies, you may stretch your marketing department thin. If you want to focus on digital marketing, make sure your resources are allocated properly. You may have to cut back on traditional marketing methods in order to free up the resources to launch an effective digital campaign.

Not Creating Enough Content

In digital marketing, content is vital. Blog posts, social media posts, press releases, web pages, and articles are all necessary to drive traffic to your website and promote your products. Don’t overlook the power of unique, fresh, and relevant content. It’s what drives a successful digital marketing strategy.

To make a marketing campaign successful, you must first identify what works and do it. However, you must also watch out for potential pitfalls and traps that can undermine your efforts.

How to Handle Complaints Through Social Media

If your business currently has a social media presence, you may have gone through the dreaded issue of having a customer post a complaint on the wall of your business page. This can be incredibly disheartening and make you wonder if it will cause you to develop a “bad reputation”, but the truth is that you can (and will) get through it with great success. In fact, it is how you handle this roadblock that will give you serious points in the eyes of prior and future customers.

 

The Basis of Truth

Your response to a complaint on your social media platform will depend on the validity of the person’s claim. Was it true that your company made a mistake, or was negligent in some way? Determining this first will allow you to form a quick plan and be as graceful and humble as possible.

If the claim is true, you should write a response within no more than a couple of hours. It only will look worse on your part if you do not have a ready answer, as it will appear that you are avoiding the individual and the topic. Discuss it in a public forum, such as right on the same post. Keep your statements brief, and ask for clarification. Then, offer a solution that will be in the best interest of the customer. Even if he or she chooses not to take you up on your offer, you will have the advantage of looking like a professional and compassionate representative of your company.

Rise Above and Beyond the Expectations

Many individuals who write about their negative experiences with a company on social media do not expect to hear back from said company within a short period of time, if at all. If you give him or her the benefit of the doubt, be as clear as possible, and stick to how you can help to resolve the issue, you are certain to make it right with the customer. Also, you will serve to maintain your company’s solid reputation.

Increase Your QR Code Scans With these 3 Tips

In the modern society, QR codes are essential marketing tools used by businesses. They make the aspect of mobile marketing efficient. It is a perfect way that necessitates the promoting of services and products to the clients. QR codes offer a direct link to the online sites of the firm. One aspect that makes them reliable for marketing is because they are applicable across the globe. Therefore, customers from every country can engage directly with the organization and view advertisements with ease at a lower cost. Therefore, it is advisable to incorporate QR codes as crucial parts of your marketing strategies. Below are essential tips that can help in increasing your QR code scans.

Offer Essential Guidelines Near the QR Code

Many businesses print plain QR codes on brochures and other materials without providing instructions on how to use them. Therefore, many customers do not know the need of those codes, and they just ignore them. It leads to low rates of QR code scans. If you want to increase your QR code scans, you must offer your customers helpful instructions on how to scan those codes on the printed materials.

Test the QR Codes

After incorporating the QR codes as a marketing tool for your business, you should test them to enhance efficiency before printing them on different materials. Testing is essential to ensure that they direct the customers to a mobile compatible website where they will be able to view different offers and advertisement of the firm. It will enable proper engagement with the company without complications and increase your QR code scans.

Ensure that the Destination URL is Short

QR codes are capable of holding a lot of data. However, the more the URLs are complicated, the harder it will be to scan the QR codes. Therefore, ensure that it is short to enhance efficiency. It will increase your QR code scans because clients will find it easy to perform the process.

Therefore, as a marketer, you should use the tips above to increase your QR code scans. Always make sure that the codes are attractive and that your people are aware of their existence on the prints.

Integrated Marketing Tips for The New Year

What is integrated marketing? Simply put, integrated marketing is a strategy that displays a consistent brand message across multiple platforms. There are various avenues to market your brand, whether it be the internet, television, radio or print media. In order to reach as many people as possible, many marketings opt to utilize more than one avenue. The point of integrated marketing is that the message consistent about what the brand is. With integrated marketing expected to be one of the bigger trends in 2017, marketers are looking for new tips to employ in the new year. Here are four tips for integrated marketing.

1. Find the Best Platforms to Integrate.

Once you know the target audience, you can figure out which platforms are best to sell on. For instance, if you want to target a younger audience, marketing strategies that involve the internet is the way to go. Meanwhile, an older audience is more likely to use traditional media like television. Do your research and find out what are the most suitable platforms to market your brand on.

2. Use a Marketing Management Platform.

Integrated marketing can become messy. It’s easy to forget one marketing platform when you’re busy cultivating another. That’s why you should use some kind of management software to stay organized. Resource managers are available to simplify the process for you.

3. Come Up with a Brilliant Message.

Because integrated marketing is about consistency, you need to come up with one clear and concise message to spread across all platforms. Not only does it need to represent your brand well, it needs to fit seamlessly with whatever platform it is being marketed in.

4. Look for New Ways to Integrate. 

Change in the marketing world is constant. It is ultimately up to the entrepreneur to stay ahead of the curb. Always be on the lookout for new ways to revise and improve your marketing strategy.