What Is Affiliate Marketing: How to Start in 4 Easy Steps

 https://www.semrush.com/blog/affiliate-marketing/?kw=&cmp=CA_SRCH_DSA_Blog_Core_BU_EN&label=dsa_pagefeed&Network=g&Device=c&utm_content=484339215095&kwid=aud-888728096768:dsa-1053501813507&cmpid=11775480152&agpid=117404320234&BU=Core&extid=167385121845&adpos=&gclid=CjwKCAjwv_iEBhASEiwARoemvDW9B1bqqVpjCgmohGhxTmyfzDJ-giZ2dmwg_tLZIzL44CjVKNzagxoCHYoQAvD_BwE

10 Actionable Ways to Personalize Your Messaging [Infographic]

 

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4 Social Media Tweaks to Make a Big Impact on Your Marketing

Having a strong social media presence is one of the most effective ways to ensure continued expansion and growth for your business.

Building an engaged social media following is a crucial aspect of any businesses’ marketing strategy. For a modern business, having a strong social media presence is one of the most effective ways to ensure continued expansion and growth. The ultimate goal of having an engaged following is to create meaningful connections with existing and potential customers, establishing personal and long-term relationships through brand loyalty and brand recognition.

Social media is an incredibly powerful marketing tactic that certainly shouldn’t be underestimated, and the following reasons will outline why it is an opportunity that every business must avail.

1. Measure Your Engagement

One of the main measures of social media engagement is the number of comments, likes and shares you generate with your posts. Whilst having a significant following is important, it’s equally important that this following actively interacts with you regularly. There are a few metrics businesses can use to assess the levels of engagement they are attracting, such as shares, comments, likes, follower growth, mentions, tags, click-throughs, and hashtags.

This provides businesses with a wealth of information regarding the impact of their present marketing strategies and if they need to change or improve them. Traditional marketing strategies such as print and television don’t offer this level of insight – social media marketing is unique in the way that you can see in real-time the extent to which your campaigns are interesting, engaging and attracting customers.

Related: 7 Ways to Get More Engaged Followers on Social Media

2. Constantly Be On Your Customer’s Minds

Keeping followers is as important as attracting followers, and an effective way you can ensure this is by posting consistently and on a regular basis. If you observe the posting patterns of some internationally known and successful brands, you’ll find that many of them are posting multiple times a day. People tend to scroll through their social media platforms every few hours or so, and with two or three posts spaced out at strategic times throughout the day, your brand will be a constant presence on your followers' social media feeds.

This is actually an incredibly effective psychological trick. When an international brand posts at regular intervals they are maximizing their exposure. Increased exposure means that audiences will gradually develop a familiarity with the brand as well as the products/services it provides, and this will, in turn, generate engagement, interest and purchases.

The advantages associated with this type of exposure extend far beyond the immediate impact of seeing a post on social media and then scrolling past it. Frequent and memorable exposure creates long-term associations. If you have a business that manages events and you have established a powerful social media presence, for example, then whenever anyone or someone they know needs to arrange an event, they will immediately think of you.

Related: Beginner's Guide to Social Media Marketing

3. Don’t Just Say, Show Customers Why Your Product/Service Is So Amazing

With regards to the content you post, you don’t want to be just passively broadcasting your brand with product photos and product descriptions for the captions. Instead, you want to create the buzzing and interactive conversations with your followers. For example, if you’re a brand selling handmade winter apparel such as scarves and hats, you don’t want to post pictures of models wearing them.

Create videos with styling tips, create competitions where your followers can provide their input for the latest design, or engage them by asking them to choose their favorite product. These are all ways of making your brand truly memorable and distinctive.

Social media platforms are such an amazing marketing tactic because they can communicate any message or concept within a variety of different mediums or formats. Your mode of expression is not restricted as much as it would be with more traditional marketing tactics such as a magazine feature or a television advert.

Whilst there is certainly a place for these promotional strategies, the truth is that nothing quite compares to the creative freedom you can have on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Infographics, tutorials, albums, edits, compilations and collaborations – you can show your customers the merits and virtues of your product/service from every conceivable angle.

4. Manipulate The Algorithm

Keeping up with social media trends and topical events such as pop culture and international sporting events are great opportunities for your brand to connect with audiences instantly. Other ways of boosting engagement are contests, asking questions, polls, contests, GIFs and spotlighting customer posts or stories.

There are countless ways you can encourage social media engagement and interact with your followers; it’s just about experimenting and discovering which strategies work the best with your brand and your goals.

Social media algorithms are incredibly intelligent, and once you understand how they work, you can ensure that you are constantly appearing in the feeds of a diverse and varied audience. These algorithms exist so that relevant and interesting content appears in users’ feeds, and certain actions are more likely to be rewarded by the algorithm.

Essentially, the more engagement you receive on each of your posts, the more likely it is that the algorithm will notice you. So remember to post regularly, ask questions, interact with your followers, use hashtags and tag other accounts to boost your engagement as much as you can. By manipulating the algorithm to your advantage, you vastly increase the extent and reach of your business.

Related: Top 5 Social Media Marketing Pitfalls

Social media impact

In this contemporary digital era, social media platforms and their users are at the forefront of the creation, publication and distribution of digital content. Whether it’s a review or testimonials, social media comments, detailed captions and posts, interactive discussions or video reviews and commentaries, social media has provided users with a powerful platform to have their voices heard and have a real and tangible impact on brands and businesses. It’s crucial that brands and businesses learn how to capitalize on the marketing opportunities provided by social media.

The benefits provided by a robust social media strategy extend far beyond merely increasing sales. An essential part of branding is creating a recognizable and memorable brand image, and this is because that consumers prefer to buy from brands that they know and trust. When it comes to building a strong brand, social media is the perfect platform for achieving this goal. For example, using the logo of your brand as a profile picture will ensure the visual elements of your brand are communicated immediately to whoever visits your social media pages.

Compared to traditional forms of marketing such as television commercials or radio advertisements, social media allows you to reach a wider audience much more quickly. Millions of consumers scroll through their various social media accounts multiple times throughout the day, and by strategically posting, collaborating and marketing your page, you can attract potential customers even at times when they’re not actively shopping around or thinking of purchasing your product or service.

Guided CX: The New Online Digital Norm

In 2018, PwC research found that 82% of U.S consumers felt the need for more human interaction in their digital experiences. Let’s think about that for a moment. Before a time of lockdowns, humans wanted more out of their online interactions with a brand. And then came a global pandemic and what we saw was the use of digital channels accelerated at an unimaginable pace in an attempt to bridge that gap.

We are starting to see a new sense of normal return with people going back into offices, restaurants, bank branches, and other places they didn’t even realize they missed. One thing that will remain is the need to support online strategies and initiatives that came out of this need to recreate the in-person experience. Innovators know that they need to solve the human connections gap in their online channels. We call this new shift in momentum to better service customers online the Guided CX. Here is how we got here and what it is.

Making a complicated journey less complex

We did a lot online last year. Many of these tasks were pretty simple and straightforward, such as switching a password or ordering takeout for the umpteenth time. It wasn’t so much out of the ordinary. Then there were the challenging and emotional journeys—the first-time home buyer escaping the city for more space in the suburbs—the business owner filing a PPP loan online because bank branches were closed. These were a few of the many reasons for an empathetic lifeline that could help guide a customer to the promised land.

The true winners of 2020 understood the need for the customer journey and presented a customer journey that solved every puzzle piece. They knew there were those easily solvable and automated answers, and then there were the high-touch engagements we call Critical Advisory Moments.

What is a Critical Advisory Moment?

Critical Advisory Moments are forks in the customer journey – where one path advances the process, and the other terminates it (and often starts a new journey with your competitors). Critical Advisory Moments, when executed correctly, can provide some of the highest value outcomes for a business by providing real-time, in-the-moment assistance.

A guided customer experience empowers your staff to reach customers in the moment, build relationships, and solve problems quickly. There’s no guesswork because now your associates or advisors can see what’s going on and guide your customers to the best possible outcome. “Do it yourself” doesn’t cut it in these high-touch moments but, “Do it together” does.

What an ideal Guided CX looks like

The Guided CX provides the human connections customers are looking for in the digital space. When you put the idea into practice, here are some key things to look for:

In-the-moment service and support – When consumers go online, they are often doing just fine… until they are not. When things go wrong, they need assistance immediately, within the website or app, and it needs to be easy. With a simple click of a button, your employees can connect with your customers, view what’s on their screen, and guide them to a solution.

Digital consultation and sales engagement – Sometimes it is not just a navigation issue, instead the customer needs advice or reassurance from your sales person or specialist. A Guided Customer Experience allows your product or sales expert to join the customer in the app or website, to deliver consultation and reassurance, and prevent the digital transaction from stalling.

Frictionless – Getting to a Guided Customer Experience should be frictionless. It shouldn’t require the customer to open an email or download some screen share or online meeting software. They shouldn’t have to leave your website or app to get help. And getting connected shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.

Secure – Not having to leave your website or app or click on a potentially suspicious hyperlink helps here, of course. But the customer should also be able to be reassured that any sensitive, personally identifiable customer information in the shared view will be automatically masked (redacted) so the agent can’t see anything they shouldn’t. Again, this is about increasing trust.

Trust builder – As mentioned above, security is important when building trust with your customers. Focusing on trust, is there a way you can build a rapport with the customer? With Guided CX, you want to earn the trust of your customers because that is how you strengthen the relationship and create lifelong loyal customers.

A win for your customer is a win for your enterprise

Businesses that employ a solid Guided Customer Experience see short-term and long-term gains. Short-term, you’ve helped solve customer frustration. Long-term, you have gained trust and built a loyal customer. In big picture terms, a Guided CX improves efficiency, which increases close rates and conversions and creates more revenue streams for your enterprise.

The Guided Customer Experience bridges the human connection gap for businesses selling and supporting complex products and services. And not only does it remove pain, frustration, and friction from digital CX – it also opens up new possibilities for generating revenue.

If you want to learn more about the human connection gap and how Guided CX can help, download our latest ebook. No forms to fill; just download and enjoy!

Designing Customer Journeys for the Post-Pandemic World

by Gene Cornfield

May 06, 2021

Sean Gladwell/Getty Images

Summary.   While using customer journeys to guide what teams build and how they operate is common practice, small differences in approach produce vastly different results. But today, as we enter a new stage of profound change, those differences will be more important than...more

As vaccinated millions step tentatively back into an in-person economy poised for growth, the relationships they had with companies they preferred before will resume — but on a trial basis. Spending loyalties will be cemented (or potentially lost to others) based on how well companies understand customers’ new priorities that were forged by the degree of uncertainty, fear, strife, or loss each individual experienced. These considerations will influence not only what customers choose but also how they go about choosing. Your customer journeys must change to reflect your customers’ new preferences and behaviors.

While using customer journeys to guide what teams build and how they operate is common practice, small differences in approach produce vastly different results. But today, as we enter a new stage of profound change, those differences will be more important than ever to business performance. Companies that have adopted different approaches to customer journey and experience practices have seen more than six times greater growth in year-on-year profitability.

Regardless of one’s industry, whether B2C or B2B, the following three simple but critical factors will determine whether your post-pandemic customer journeys will help amplify or impede business growth.

Customer-Centric, Not Company-Centric

Customers happily serve as the engine of business outcomes when doing so is a byproduct of achieving their own intended outcomes. Every time a customer achieves their purpose, the company that enabled them to do so receives revenue or some other value (loyalty, advocacy, etc.).

Insight Center Collection

Opportunities for Midsize Businesses in 2021

Set yourself up to thrive.

But the vast majority of customer journeys I see focus on company outcomes. They guide marketing or sales or service teams, perhaps inadvertently, to manipulate customers toward a business outcome. This practice is so engrained that we have a name for it: The funnel.

The least customer-centric companies often have a single customer journey that is essentially the vertical funnel turned on its side, like a livestock chute through which customers are prodded toward a fate of the company’s choosing. The corralling pens customers pass through — awareness, interest, evaluation, intent, purchase, loyalty — are all in the context of a product and what the company wants, not what customers want.

Many other companies have recognized that customers engage in multiple journeys over the lifetime of their relationship; however, those different journeys are typically aligned to and named for specific outcomes, such as acquisition, retention, or upsell. The question for these companies is: Which customer segments wake up with a burning desire to be acquired? Which think their lives would be so much better if only they could be retained or upsold? These journeys, too, are entirely company-centric. Customer-centric journeys start and end with the outcome customers are trying to achieve: Their intended purpose.

For example, the pandemic has spurred many people to relocate from cities to suburbs. Many are first-time homeowners, unsure what tools they might need for planned improvements or unplanned repairs. Some might want to build a treehouse with their kids but don’t yet have a specific model chosen or the plans, instructions, or tools to realize it. What new offerings, journeys, or experiences might manufacturers of power tools create to enable customers to achieve this purpose?

A traditional journey might start with ads or emails with images of a family building a treehouse that link to the company home page, and then expect the customer to discern what tools or other things they need. Without further guidance, customers will likely leave the company’s site (and the company-designed journey) for a search engine, which provides links to numerous articles, blogs, or competitor sites — any of which might better help the customer achieve their purpose and, as a result, prompt them to purchase elsewhere. The company-designed journey might include stalking customers around the web with retargeting ads. But not only is this practice being phased out, it squanders marketing spend by trying to bring customers back to a site that doesn’t address key needs in their journey.

A more customer-centric journey might start with the ads or emails described above, but link to a section of the company website organized by types of projects, from decks to sheds to treehouses. They might show multiple treehouse designs, filterable by size or the type of trees for which each is suitable. The detail page for each treehouse might show a video of the project from start to finish to build confidence in the customer and excitement among the family. All the tools and parts required might be listed, with options to buy them a la carte or as a full package. Each purchase might include assembly plans with illustrated instructions, and a mobile device–optimized step-by-step version, with guidance on what age child can handle each task so all family members can participate safely. Options for contactless delivery or curbside pickup at a local retail partner could be presented. The company might include an offer from a partner like DoorDash or Grubhub for lunch/refreshment delivery, to address that part of the journey.

Companies can better drive growth by creating journeys that align with their customers’ purposes, then develop and operate experiences that enable customers to achieve them. This isn’t to say companies shouldn’t be trying to influence customer decisions along the way. Influence can be more effective when journeys and experiences are customer-centric, designed not as a path to purchase, but as a path to purpose.

The tool company above influences purchases by designing an offer, journey, and experience that addresses customer purpose. They could influence future purchases by triggering an email a few weeks later asking customers how the treehouse project went or if they need help. Doing so demonstrates commitment to the customer’s purpose, which can influence loyalty and future purchases. If the email also encourages customers to post finished treehouse photos on Instagram (which can also appear on the webpage for that treehouse), the company aligns with customers’ desire to share family accomplishments, which might influence others to buy.

This customer-centric, purpose-led approach is even more important for B2B companies. Longer buying cycles mean keeping prospects engaged in longer journeys with more interaction points. It’s also more challenging when decisions involve multiple people, each on their own journey, with varying purposes depending on their role. Marketing and sales teams can increase win rates by aligning individual journeys to each person’s purpose, while managing the group’s purposes collectively in a multi-buyer journey.

Flexible Journeys Based on Need-Points, Not Touchpoints

Customers have greater choice than ever before in terms of how and where they engage. And being forced in the last year to interact only via phone, websites, apps, chats, text, or social channels means customers are more comfortable with these methods than before.

This democratization of new interaction channels has made it more important that customer journeys not be rigidly tied to specific touchpoints. For example, a customer journey that portrays a linear series of interactions — customer sees offline ad, then goes to search engine, then is directed to landing page on website, then is retargeted on Facebook, then comes back to website and provides email address, after which an email to customer is triggered, etc. — is only useful as an example of what could happen if all the stars aligned — or if customers were willing to follow the script.

But customers don’t follow scripts. They follow impulses, urges, whims, and preferences, often in unplanned moments of opportunity. So it’s important that journeys are not aligned to specific touchpoints according to what the company wants to happen. Rather, the company should seek to understand the series of need-points customers traverse in order to make decisions that achieve whatever outcome they ultimately intend.

For example, a person whose purpose is to quit smoking might traverse a journey of need-points, from understanding the easiest way to quit, which method is best for them, how fast it will work, where they can buy it, how quickly they can get it, and (once received) how they use it. Each customer might choose from a variety of touchpoints at each moment of need, depending on their preferences or context at that moment.

It’s your job to be present with the content, expert, recommendation, answer, or product relevant to the customer need at that point, in any and all of the channels a customer might choose, including any operated by the company (website, app, chatbot, call center, salespeople, stores, branches, etc.) or by third parties (search engines, review sites, blogs, retail partners, etc.).

The company that successively addresses these needs most relevantly, clearly, and quickly at any potential touchpoint is likely to maintain engagement and influence throughout each customer’s journey until each achieves their ultimate purpose — and generates value for the business.

Measuring (and Optimizing) Customer Journeys and Experiences

Company outcomes depend on the number of customers who successfully achieve their intended purpose. The better a company measures and manages how well they’re enabling customers to progress across need-points, the stronger the resulting business outcomes.

Teams can measure the effectiveness of their customer journeys — and the experiences based on them — using Customer Performance Indicators (CPIs), which I’ve written about before. This method measures how well a company is performing for customers at each need-point. The better a company performs on outcomes important to customers (CPIs), the better it will perform on outcomes important to the company (KPIs). And because certain need-points in the journey will influence customer decisions more than others, companies should prioritize performing well on CPIs in these moments that matter.

You may find that some need-points are specific to certain customer segments. So, while revising journeys and experiences for your largest or most valuable customer segments is advisable, catering to the unique needs or preferences of other segments should be added over time. Do this by creating off-ramps and on-ramps to and from your main journeys, as a map would depict side roads merging onto a major thoroughfare.

For example, the simplified insurance journey from my previous article reflects three key need-points: Fast Quote, Best Price, and Payments That Fit My Budget. Some customers may need to understand the benefits of bundling home, auto, or other insurance policies before looking for a fast quote.

So another need-point (and CPI) for Understanding Bundling Benefits might be added with an on-ramp to the main journey. This helps marketers ensure they have relevant content for the new need-point (at all touchpoints), and designers can ensure a more relevant and seamless experience for more customers, which results in more customers won.

Looking Ahead

If your company has already adopted these practices, you’re well-positioned to thrive. Simply refine your customer journeys and experiences for how customer needs and values have evolved. For those still using company-centric, linear journeys rigidly tied to specific touchpoints or measuring only business outcomes, now is the time a change in approach will pay off the most.

Small and midsize businesses have a window of advantage here. While larger companies might have greater resources and reach and some have recognized the need to pivot their customer journeys, experiences, and operations for new realities, for many, forward progress will be mitigated by operational, organizational, and cultural inertia. So, until larger or slower players ultimately get there, opportunities abound for more nimble companies to better align with customers’ new purposes and forge new relationships that accelerate growth and strengthen loyalty by providing them with greater confidence in a still-uncertain world.

4 REASONS WHY PR NEEDS TO BE A PART OF YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY IN 2021

PR is often overlooked by many businesses and entrepreneurs as they feel like they ‘don’t need it’ – here’s 4 reasons why you do.

Public relations (PR) is often overlooked by many brands, businesses owners and entrepreneurs. Whether it’s because of the expensive price tag that traditional PR companies come with, or the lack of guaranteed results, many a great opportunity is missed out on due to a lack of PR and a digital footprint. 

PR by definition, is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organisations and their publics. It is the perfect way to build trust, credibility and authority, and also to build your digital footprint to position your brand for long term success. 

Like many of the clients I’ve personally worked with, you could be missing out on dozens of potential clients. When a prospect see’s your competitors’ articles flooding the first page of google, with yours nowhere in sight, who do you think they’re going to go with? In my opinion, you shouldn’t leave it to chance.

 Here’s 3 reasons why PR needs to be a part of your marketing strategy in 2021. 

Trust & Social Proof

Competition is at an all time high, and trust is at an all time low. This makes it tough for businesses just starting out, or businesses who have been around a while and have not much to show for it. When it comes to marketing ourselves, people don’t really care how good we say we are – they care about what others say about you.

People associate you with the places where they get the information about you from, which is where psychological biases like social proof come into play. Having PR in the right places builds instant trust with your audience, and gives you and your brand third party credibility and social proof, that you won’t get from screaming the loudest from your own roof. 

Ranking in Google

Now I’m not 100% sure how you found this article, however the chances are that you probably found it near the top of the first page of google – am I right? Regardless, having a strong digital footprint is key in a competitive market.

The perfect example I like to use is this: If a potential client were to google you, and then google your biggest competitor, to find they had dozens of articles in notable publications and you had nothing but your facebook page – who do you think people will choose to work with? Just because you have a great business and testimonials, doesn’t mean you’re going to be the pick of the people. Don’t leave it up to chance. 

Omnipresence

Now, following on from the last point, having a presence everywhere in 2021 is paramount to success. Do you think big players like Gary Vee are just going to use one platform or marketing channel? Not a chance. They understand how important it is to be everywhere – including the media. Google any of your favourite influencers, and you’ll find their PR everywhere.

As they say, it takes an average of 7+ touchpoints for people to want to work with you, and by showing up just about everywhere they look, the chances are you’re going to be the one top-of-mind when it comes time to purchase. 

Increased conversions

One of the biggest trends I’ve noticed in 2021, is companies using their press articles to direct their ads to. These big brands know how much power having “as seen in” or simply a reputable publication logo on their ad is going to be for increasing conversions. The same thing goes for websites, landing pages and funnels – without an as seen in, section you could be missing out on over 40% increases in conversions. 

In the competitive environment of business in 2021, you need to do everything you can to stand out. As one of the best PR agencies, our team at Boost Media Agency can get you great press guaranteed, without the ridiculous $4k monthly retainers of most PR companies. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you with this, visit our website here to find out more. 

On Instagram, Video vs. IGTV Posts: Which Perform Better? [Infographic]

 Traditional video on Instagram tends to outperform IGTV videos (Instagram's long-form, immersive format), according to a recent analysis conducted by Social Insider.

The research, which is summarized in an infographic below, was based on an examination of 10,563,463 Instagram posts from 60,737 accounts.

Traditional Instagram videos garner higher view counts, on average, compared with IGTV videos both for small accounts (fewer than 10,000 followers) and for large accounts (more than 100,000 followers). IGTV videos garner higher view counts, on average, for midsize accounts (between 10,000 and 100,000 followers).

Across all account sizes, traditional videos garner a higher average engagement rate (likes and comments) compared with IGTV videos.

Check out the infographic for highlights from the report: