Have you heard about LinkedIn

With 562 million users, LinkedIn is all about building networks and connections. It’s not only about who you know, but about who your connections know.

The real power of LinkedIn for business is the ability to tap into existing connections and grow your brand through word-of-mouth.

It is a leading platform to generate leads, drive website traffic, and leverage content marketing successfully. But for many marketers, it can be difficult to get it right.

How can I use LinkedIn as a Marketing Strategy?

Think about “smart goals” when implementing your marketing strategy. There are some LinkedIn tools that can help you improve your marketing efforts.

List of tools:

v  Datanyze: a leader in technographics that provides you with real-time insights into the technology choices of a company.

v  Dux-Soup: best LinkedIn tools for lead generation it allows you to automate your profile visits.

v  InBoardpro: This cloud-based tool for automation. It allows you to manage multiple LinkedIn accounts in one place and generate leads.

v  Leadfeeder: allows you to see which companies visit your website and what they’re interested in. This makes it one of the best LinkedIn tools to find B2B prospects that can convert easily.

v  Salestools: is one of the best LinkedIn tools to find your next customer. It has an updated database of over 300 million prospects to search from. You can sort your prospects list that best fit your current marketing goal. 

There are a number of social networks with large followings and numerous amazing features. But none of them provide you with such effective B2B networking and marketing opportunities that LinkedIn does.

Thankfully, you have these awesome LinkedIn tools to help you market your brand the right way. They can help you generate quality leads and drive sales.

Works Cited

Shanebarker. (2018, 11 23). Retrieved from shanebaker.com: https://shanebarker.com/blog/best-linkedin-tools/

Why Instagram

Social media have indisputably become an integral part of everyday lives of individuals and businesses all over the world. The opportunities they offer to their users are limitless and continuously increasing.

Marketing and promoting brands through social media allow delivery of their messages to a larger audience, raising brand awareness. According to Evans in ‘’Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement’’ people will discuss brands on social media even if the brand is not active in them.

There are a lot of benefits for brands that promote their products/services through Instagram.

These would include

Higher engagement rates:

Instagram exhibits high levels of user engagement, meaning that its users check the application daily and are more likely to interact with it through likes and comments.

Visual character:

Instagram is an application based on photos and videos, because of this, brands are able to achieve more visually pleasing and stimulating results by uploading photos of their products, resulting in higher engagement from the consumers and thus enhanced brand royalty.

Mobile-based platform:

Instagram increased convenience through its mobile platform. It allows persons to use the application from their mobile devices, which means that Instagram is accessible in every place a user goes, as long there is internet connection in it. This is a great way marketers’ can reach their targeting audience creating brand awareness.

Question

Based on the information above do you think of Instagram is a marketing tool?

Please share your views on the comment section below

Works Cited

Startup Pulse. (2018, 11 2018). Retrieved from startuppulse.net: https://blog.startuppulse.net/6-reasons-to-include-instagram-in-your-marketing-strategy-fdfcb71914a0

Facebook? Marketing?

For many, Facebook is the internet. This platform provides a variety of information and communication facilities. With this being said, is your business taking full advantage of this? 

You as a Marketer are you taking full advantage of it?

There are many strategies to approach marketing on Facebook, nonetheless inbound is the most suitable strategy.

What is Inbound

Inbound is being supportive and personable to your audience. It involves understanding the goals of your customer and connecting with them to achieve such goals. One of the best ways to do this is to be available where they already spend their time. Being present on Facebook is utmost important in this regard.

Facebook’s tools cater to the business that wants to form an authentic relationship with their audience. It allows marketers to create and dispense quality content that’s helpful for users. This platform also allows sales, interaction with customers and feedback about your brand.

Why Inbound

With an average of 1.18 billion daily active users and 60 million businesses, you have to stand out if you want to market on Facebook.

You must be helpful and tactful. You have to be deliberate and creative. To master Facebook marketing, you have to be inbound.

With Facebook’s increasing number of multimedia content options, you can stretch the limits of your creativity. Facebook also has the feature whereby there is a Page Insights, with this you can see which content people engage with and segment advertising to ensure you’re helping more than annoying.

Your target audience are giving you the opportunity to reach them through Facebook.

Make the most of this opportunity. 

Works Cited

Hubspot. (2018, 11 20). Retrieved from hubspot.com: https://www.hubspot.com/facebook-marketing

Content Creation for Digital Channels-canvas

Be creative

One aspect of being a marketer you must be creative in marketing your products or services. A good tool that can be use is Canva.

Canva models are an easy way to help marketers visualize things like creating a go to market strategy.To complete a canvas unearths a lot of interesting stuff.

Canva makes design amazingly simple (and fun)! Create beautiful designs for work, school and play in minutes.

With Canva – no design skills or complex software is needed.

Key Features of Canva

1)      You get access to hundreds of the professionally designed layouts.

2)      You can add text to photos, change colours, add advanced filter effects and even add transparency.

3)      A fully stocked library of over 1 million images and elements – both free and paid.

4)      Instant syncing between desktop and iPhone versions

5)      Great User Experience, allowing you to press and hold a design to see it closer before choosing to edit it, seamlessly move between desktop and iPhone, and use the touchscreen (tapping and dragging with your fingers) to design intuitively.

6)      Instantly Undo mistakes!

7)      You can share your designs instantly to all the usual suspects (social media sites) as well as Whatsapp, Slack and Email. 

8)      You can even create multi-page designs with more than one image at a time!

Try Canva today and make your marketing content creative and interesting.

Channels in Digital Marketing~ Hmmmm

Marketing channels are among the most important elements of any value chain. In business, a “channel” is the pathway through which goods flow from producers to consumers.

With Channel marketing it involves finding new partners to help transfer goods from producers to consumers. Finding new channels and maximizing the potential of those channels is the main goal of channel marketing.

The business and marketing landscape have drastically changed in recent years whereby traditional methods that were effective before may not be as effective in this current market powered by the complexities – and the vast wealth of opportunities – by the Internet.

That is why it is very important that your brand and business establish and maintain a very strong online presence to be competitive enough to reach out to targeted audiences.

Popular digital marketing channels:

Social media

Social media marketing is the most popular digital marketing strategy among marketers. It allows businesses to connect with their customers almost immediately.

Email and Websites

Both allow digital communication between the customer and the company. Using these methods, businesses have the goal of making sales in mind. Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing channels that can give businesses and ROI of up to 4,300%.

Display Advertising

Digital marketers can reach out to potential customers by placing relevant display ads on third party sites. These sites may include blogs and forums. The advertising method on these sites may include banners, boxes, interactive ads, video ads, interstitial ads, overlays and other similar ads that are linked to a landing page or website. Display advertising creates greater brand awareness as well as generate highly targeted traffic that may convert into leads or sales.

Content Marketing

With good, high-quality and very relevant content, your website and other Internet marketing real estate will generate considerable inbound traffic from highly targeted audiences – all of which can be potential customers.

Marketing should not be set in motion and left alone, but constantly reviewed, evaluated and adjusted to suit the needs of the company and the wants of the consumer.

 Channel Evaluation in Digital Marketing

Evaluation is an important part of marketing: it helps your company eliminate ineffective strategies and develop an overall plan that helps build your business. Marketing plans serve as the blueprints for your company's sales strategy. Marketing should not be set in motion and left alone, but constantly reviewed, evaluated and adjusted to suit the needs of the company and the wants of the consumer.

For more information please view these videos

Works Cited

Biz Fluent. (2018, 10 29). Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/how-7608270-evaluate-marketing-strategies.html

Courses Lumenlearning. (2018, 10 29). Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-marketing/chapter/marketing-channels-in-the-supply-chain/ 

Marketing School. (2018, 10 29). Retrieved from http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/channel-marketing.html

Sm Study. (2018, 10 29). Retrieved from https://www.smstudy.com/article/importance-of-understanding-and-evaluating-digital-marketing-channels

Youtube. (2018, 10 29). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOo8oyYX7nY

Youtube. (2018, 10 29). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiu4mUbGaYs

Why I love Branding

Branding is one of the most significant facets of any business. An effective brand strategy gives you an advantage in increasingly competitive markets.

Unsure about the meaning of “branding”?

“A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association).

Branding is the procedure of giving a connotation to a specific company, products or services by forming and shaping a brand in consumers’ minds. It is a strategy intended by companies to help people quickly identify their products and organization and give them a reason to choose their products over the competition’s, by clarifying what this brand is all about.

The objective is to attract and retain loyal customers by delivering a product that is always aligned with what the brand promises.

How can it be done?

With different tools companies can create and shape a brand. For example, branding can be achieved through:

v  Advertising and communications

v  Product and packaging design

v  In-store experience

v  Pricing

v  Sponsoring and partnerships

v  The visual identity of the brand (logo, website and colors, are just some examples).

Is Branding Important?

Branding is important because it sets you apart from competitors, promotes recognition, and represents your promise to the customers.

My favorite quote on branding

“Building a profitable personal brand online is not a sprint, and something that happens overnight. Don't aim for perfection early on. Instead allow your brand to evolve naturally over time and focus on providing massive value and over deliver to your target audience. Then you will get more clarity on your message and brand as well. Always remember that!” – NavidMoazzez (Yes, moi!)

Works Cited

Strategy New Media. (2018, 10 30). Retrieved from https://strategynewmedia.com/why-is-branding-important/

The Branding Journal. (2018, 10 30). Retrieved from https://www.thebrandingjournal.com/2015/10/what-is-branding-definition/

Digital Marketing``MY TAKE ON IT

Technology is integrated into our lives more than ever before. With so many people online, it’s essential for businesses to be online as well. As our online presence continues to grow, the way we make online purchases will continue to evolve. Digital marketing is important because more and more consumers are online. Digital marketing is an immediate way to reach them. Traditional marketing can no longer reach people quite like digital marketing.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

Global reach – We live in a techno-era and to keep up with this change, establishing a website would allow you to find new markets and trade globally for only a small investment.

Lower cost – “Low investment, High Return”- a properly planned and effectively targeted digital marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.

Social currency - Digital marketing lets you create engaging campaigns using different types of rich media content. On the internet these campaigns can gain social currency - being passed from user to user and becoming viral.

Measurable results - One of the top reasons why digital marketing has succeeded in surpassing traditional marketing is the fact that it offers measurable results. With digital marketing strategies, you can get reliable and solid reports with numbers that tell you the how many people checked your email or even clicked on a specific link. This enables you to cut out the excess and focus on areas that give results.

Digital Marketing Benefits-this explains why Digital Marketing is important

Digital marketing is an easy way for companies to tell their brand’s story and brings companies to life on an online platform

Works Cited

Business2Community. (2018, 10 31). Retrieved from https://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/the-importance-of-digital-marketing-in-2018-02101555

Digital Marketing Philippines. (2018, 10 31). Retrieved from https://digitalmarketingphilippines.com/how-to-choose-the-best-digital-marketing-channel-for-your-business/

Nibusinessinfo. (2018, 10 31). Retrieved from https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/benefits-digital-marketing

Relevance. (2018, 10 31). Retrieved from https://www.relevance.com/5-digital-marketing-benefits-that-every-business-should-know-in-2018-and-beyond/

Youtube. (2018, 10 31). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnW0UB8cm6Q