Digital Marketing in 2015

In this blog, I will explain you what Last-Click Attribution really is, and what are the flaws of the attribution. Lastly, if marketers are not going to use Last-Click Attribution today, then what is next? What now? What marketers are using right now? 

What is Last-Click Attribution?

(Photo from: http://www.marketingdive.com/news/is-last-click-attribution-to-blame-for-misallocation-of-media-budgets/351453/)

It refers to a web analytics model in which the “last click” is to give credit of the sale or conversion to the last channel that the customer touched. For example, if you search for a pair of “ankle boots”, then you click an organic listing for ALDO and browse their selection. You end it with not buying anything. Next time, you go back ALDO website directly by typing www.aldoshoes.com into your URL bar. You still decide leave the website without buying any shoes, but you signed up for subscription. After that, you receive promotion emails from ALDO; finally, you purchase a pair of ankle boots while it is on sale. In this situation, the credit goes to the last click for the sale. Many companies measure their sales by using Last-Click Attribution or First-Click Attribution; however, these measuring models do not always provide the most accurate result and even have some flaws.

What are the flaws in using Last-Click Attribution?

Firstly, “many, many businesses, 99% of the conversions and sales come from branded keyword (your name) traffic.” It is true that no one is born knowing your name, so ask yourself- what are some keywords that introduced your customers or “potential customers” to your sites? Another reason why the Last-Click Attribution model has always been flawed is because “with the rise of the multi device user, it is now actively driving bad decisions.” It is hard to keep track of people which devices they use when they see your brand at the first, and for the marketers the process of seeing people come to your websites is actually the important part. The model is just completely under-value marketing efforts influencing the middle of the sales funnel, such as customers’ research and consideration.  

If Last-Click Attribution doesn’t work that effective, then what are some other options?

According to the research above, we can see that the Last-Click Attribution and the First-Click Attribution is having the same effectiveness percentage, which is 14%. On the other hand, Customized by Channel has 29% presents in very effective; also, Linear model has 69% in somewhat effective which is the highest number compared to other methods. Different models have different people to devote or detract; even only 29% of people considered the model of Customized is very effective. My opinion is that it sometimes depends on which industry you are in, what segment of people you are targeting and others. Finally, marketers: the Last-Click Attribution is almost dead. And what attribution models are you going to use?

 04/28/15

Reference: 

Last Click Attribution   http://willmarlow.com/last-click-attribution/

Why last click attributions breed bad decisions in a multi-device world http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/07/27/last-click-attributions-breed-bad-decisions-multi-device-world/

(photo from: http://thinkandstart.com/2012/el-hypertargeting/)

Hyper-Targeting means media planners or marketers send the tailored ads directly to individuals based on the knowledge of that individual’s personal life or the information the individuals provided. By using this type of targeting method, media planners and marketers might target this individual at the certain moment that she or he is about to buy something. The main benefit of hyper-targeting advertising is to place the most accurate ads and address the specific needs for each specific individual they care about.

In my opinion, hyper-targeting is important to know for business because it can be effective and efficient. The reason is because the ads are only placed in those specific audiences’ that needs your product or service. Hyper-targeting advertising especially works well for small business and start-up company which is small brands that might only have fewer marketing resources due to reaching a small group of right people is always better than mass marketing campaigns. For example, in Facebook some jewelry companies have been targeted me mysteriously especially in necklaces since I have been looking for a great necklaces for a while. Here is one of the jewelry advertising displays that has been popping up recently.

Another example that use Hyper-Targeted in marketing strategy is the App called “ Lulu” from founder and CEO- Alexandra Chong, and it is an app designs for women to share their experiences and making smart moves before starting a relationship.

According to research, “within its first month, over 60,000 women had downloaded the app, with over 12 million profile views.” The reason why it grows so fast is because they target the right people which are college women in sororities and based on their needs to improve the app. The founder invested in these young age women due to she believes”they are the springboard to reaching the entire female population in the United States. As our users graduate, enter the workforce, and bring Lulu to new cities and new friends, our network will grow with them and attract new users in these new life stages.“

(Photo from: http://timefortrading.com/upside-and-downside-of-binary-options/)

However, the downside of hyper-targeting advertising is sometimes it is easy to miss out on potential audiences; therefore, to avoid this problem happens, it is better to understand what the ideal customer social circle looks like or to look through his or her friends or family to consider is there any other possibilities to target. After analyzing all, the hyper-targeting display method will be more effective for marketers.

04/14/15

Reference:

Hypertargeting 101: What it is and What it Can do for Your Brand http://gradybritton.com/uncategorized/hypertargeting-101-can-brand/

Hypertargeting: 3 Steps to Ensure Your Campaign Is "Just Right"  http://blog.cmglocalsolutions.com/hypertargeting-3-steps-to-ensure-your-campaign-is-just-right

(Photo from http://izquotes.com/quote/26787)

From the article of “7 Expert Tips to Protect Your OnlineReputation with SEO and Social Media”, the author- Zac Johnson mentions a lot about reputation management which is a process that to monitor what others say to your personal name, brand or business and also knowing how to take action to reduce or destroy the issues. And, these bad reviews, complaints and negative content sometimes are ranking on the top of the search results and also being forwarding to other people on social media.

The author gives out his expertise from himself and other experts, so after reading this article you will become an expert as well to protect your online reputation.

Firstly, to understand what Online Reputation Management (ORM) really is…

Online Reputation Management is a process of managing your online reputation, which means to know who say about you online and to control, repair and monitor at the same time. Another important point is, SEO is a key part in most of the ORM campaigns because “you can push the negative comments and results deeper on the index so that they are not directly visible when someone searches for your brand name or any products and services you offer.”(More information http://memeburn.com/2013/09/think-orms-just-about-seo-youre-seriously-missing-out/)

 Few tips to help you protect your online reputation:

1.    Use Software to Monitor Your Mentions Online

For example, Google Alerts, a free tool, allows you to type in the keyword and name that you want to monitor, then Google will send you an email every time when it finds a new mention within its search results. There are other tools such as Menion.net and Trachur that are more advanced and premium can check if you got mentioned in websites, blogs and social medias.

2.    Actively Search & Response to Social Media Mentions

Not only need to know where people talk about you or your brand, but also it is important to know how to respond to these comments. According to the author, “Reviews are one of the most powerful, effective and influential ways to persuade someone to take action during a decision or buying process. Sites like Yelp, ConsumerReports, RipOffReport, and TripAdvisor have millions of reviews that ultimately affect the bottom line for millions of businesses around the world.” Negative reviews get more credibility than positive reviews, so people tend to believe on the negative ones more.

3.    Your Reputation is what You Make it Out to Be… Don’t Blow it

When we look at the “World’s Most Reputable Companies List”, the top ones are all those familiar brands that we have heard of; for instance, The Walt Disney Company, Google, BMW, Rolex, Apple, Intel and others, and all these top ones are names that people like to work with, buy from or become a big fan of which means people following them on social media pages, wearing them or even willing to pay more in order to buy a brand that everyone can recognize. Of course that “all of these companies have their own problems, complaints, and disasters every once in a while, but they also have a lasting impression that connects with their audience, provides value, and have created a long-term relationship.”

Back to the quote from Warren Buffett, we all must take seriously and carefully in building and managing our online reputation because one bad move or few negative reviews can definitely destroy or ruin the hard work that you have created in the beginning.

04/07/15

Reference:

When us-Marketers do an Email Marketing Campaign, you might happen the situation of running into spam filter issues, which cause you unable to deliver the emails to your clients. This could be a major lost for abusiness today.

(Photo from https://placester.com/real-estate-marketing-academy/email-marketing-tips-6-ways-to-avoid-your-customers-spam-folders/)

So what is email spam? What are some common terms that associated with email spam? And how to avoid email spam filter? In this blog, you will get a better understanding of it!

What is email spam?

There are a lot of definitions that can interpret the word of “Spam” itself, but the true meaning of email spam is “unsolicited, irrelevant email, sent in bulk to a list of people.”

Or in other words, if any emails that meets these three criteria would count as spam:

(From the website of comm100: http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/email-marketing-ebook/email-spam.aspx)

·  Anonymity: The address and identity of the sender are concealed

·  Mass Mailing: The email is sent to large groups of people

·  Unsolicited: The email is not requested by the recipients

(Photo from: https://www.unlocktheinbox.com/resources/spamfilters/)

Few common terms that associated with email spam:

Email Blocking - This happens when an email client such as YAHOO, AOL, GMAIL bounce black or block the email at the receiving server. Spam Filters- “Every email server has filtering software that identifies spam in the content or sender’s name or subject line of the email. The spam filter identifies spam trigger words and other indicators to eventually land emails in a recipients spam folder.” (Later will show you what are some common trigger words) and others are Blacklist, Whitelist and False Positive.

(More information that you can find in this article http://blog.woorank.com/2013/01/email-tips-to-avoid-spam-filters-and-9-top-email-marketing-tools/)

After interpreting some common terms that associated with email spam, now comes to the part of “how do you avoid it? Or how to avoid email spam filter?”

(Photo from http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/how-to-avoid-spam-filters/)

1.     When sending out email marketing campaign emails, you need to avoid the spammy phrases such as “CLICK HERE”, “FREE” and “ MONEY BACK”. Of course there are others.

Here are others trigger words:

(Photo from http://www.mannixmarketing.com/blog/2009/08/20/spam-trigger-words/)

 2.     Do not use too much capitalization and loud colors such as green or red in the email body text or subject line, or overly use those call-to action words.

 3.     Not include excessive symbols or over-used punctuation marks more than once; for example: use three times of the money sign ($$$).

 4.     Do not use bad HTML coding in email, and this happens when converting Microsoft word files to HTML. And, avoid bad content.

 5.     Not having the word” test” in the subject line because this could cause huge issue for agency who tries to get approval from clients.

There are other tips that you could avoid email spam filter which you can read more of the information from the links that I provided in the end; however, these five I think are the important ones.  

Email marketing is an effective tool for marketers. You must understand the proper strategy or knowledge of email spam from spam filters, email blocking and others before starting an email marketing campaign. After absorbing the information, it could help you run a successful email marketing campaign and to deliver to your readers and clients for sure.

(Photo from http://www.deborahdawui.com/3-effective-email-marketing-strategies/)

03/31/15

What is Email Spam?

http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/email-marketing-ebook/email-spam.aspx

How to Avoid Spam Filters? 

http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/how-to-avoid-spam-filters/html/

Email Spam Filter Trigger Words To Avoid In Your E-Campaigns 

http://www.mannixmarketing.com/blog/2009/08/20/spam-trigger-words/

Email Tips to Avoid Spam Filters and 9 Top Email Marketing Tools

First, let me ask you a question. How many unread emails that you have in your inbox now? 100? 300? Or thousands?

(Photo from http://www.thomasboyd.com/confessions-of-a-self-professed-email-hoarder/)

We all get tons emails everyday no matter it’s in the type of promotional, transactional, retention, news or more. A lot of them that we are never opened because we tend to find the one that is more important to us and the one that subject line is interesting enough. Therefore, the chances of your emails are easily to be ignored unless you have a better SUBJECT LINE that can attract people right away.

(Photo from https://blog.zopim.com/2014/09/16/write-compelling-email-subject-gets-opened/)

According to the subject line study from MailChimp, it analyzed that “the open rates for over 200 million emails. Open rates ranged from 93% to 0.5%.” The interest scales of opening the emails are from personal messages, affiliations, timely news to stale newsletters and other offers that are too good to be true.

Here is the result of subject lines that with highest and lowest open rate. 

 Few tips that can help to increase the open rates in my opinion:

1.     To keep your subject line SIMPLE! (The most obvious one)

MailChimp indicated, “The best email subject lines are short, descriptive and provide the reader with a reason to explore your message further.” On the other hand, those emails subject line that are splashy or cheesy are easily to be ignored. Also, it is important to watch the length of the subject line; the study proves that it should keep it to 50 characters or less. For instance, order status- something that has specific purpose.

 2.    Personalization- Localization

The research shows that the subject lines including a recipient’s first name or last name do not increase the open rate because sometimes readers might assume these emails as spam; however, providing localization such as city names or location specific offers would improve the open rates. For instance, Gilt City is doing a good job on this- always sending me emails with subject lines promoting deals in New York City.

 3.    Questions in email subject lines

Asking readers questions is an easy way to make them engage and also create curiosity for them. In addition, most of the time questions are tended to be short and entice the reader to find out the answer. Sometimes, readers even know the answer but they just want to confirm the answer. The most high rating ones are such as” do you think”, “how do you”, and “what do you” and more. Or even just questions that are emotional -

(Photo from: http://kb.mailchimp.com/campaigns/previews-and-tests/best-practices-for-email-subject-lines)

These three types of the subject lines that I think to me is the most engaging ones, of course, there are others such as funny, shocking, single-word, or email subject lines that with numbers or lists and others. If you are still interested in other subject lines that will have the high open rates, please visit the links that I provided below!

03/31/15 

Best Practices for Email Subject Lines

http://kb.mailchimp.com/campaigns/previews-and-tests/best-practices-for-email-subject-lines

 The 17 Best Email Subject Lines for Increasing Open Rates

http://www.mequoda.com/articles/audience-development/best-email-subject-lines/

 The 9 Best Email Subject Line Styles to Increase Your Open Rates

Smartphones are going to change the retail industry. More people now today use their mobile device to research, compare, and even purchase the products. As you can see the chart below, you will see how mobile commerce is going to grow in these couple years.

(Source: http://www.pineapplemobile.com/news/)

I noticed from the research of mobile marketing that few articles keep saying the mobile commerce sales are going up which has been growing rapidly than desktop e-commerce. I then realized how it going to influence the whole retail industry.

According to thearticle “Mobile Shopping Is On The Rise” from the website of Pineapple Mobile, “In 2013, total m-commerce sales were $42 billion and they are on a road to surpass the $52 billion estimate.”

“On Cyber Monday in 2014, mobile sales accounted for 22 percent of online sales, an increase of more than 27 percent compared to the prior year, according to IBM Digital Analytics.”

All these numbers represents that every online retailer should have a solution in place already or they might be missing certain percentage of sales and in some industries even more.

Or I think I should say it in this way- 2015 will be the year of global mobile commerce, and social media may lead the way of this revolution.

Few major social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. With these platforms, “marketers can identify social users from email addresses within their own CRM data  — and target these consumers with far more precision using custom audiences to advertise to them within the social ecosystem.”

For example, below is what I got from my Instagram account, which is a sponsored ad from Old Navy.  

After I clicked on “Learn More”, this is what I saw.

These ads from retailers would drive the business in mobile commerce. Another example is from Target during the holiday season in 2014. “Target’s an early adopter of the Facebook Product Ads, and according to Kristi Argyilan, Senior Vice President of Target, they’re showing strong performance with mobile shopping, “where we’re seeing two times the conversion rate.”

(Source: http://stratospherestudio.com/m-commerce/)

Finally, my point is-

The revolution of mobile commerce is unstoppable, with social media at the forefront. 

03/09/2015

Reference:

Social may be the tipping point in the m-commerce revolution: http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/22/social-may-be-the-tipping-point-in-the-m-commerce-revolution/

Mobile Shopping Is On The Rise: http://www.pineapplemobile.com/news/

The first site I picked is OpenTable- http://www.opentable.com

(Photo Source:http://www.searchenginejournal.com/sites-valuable-search-engine-traffic-infographic/125900/)

The type of site-

It is for “occasions and gifts.” According to Search EngineJournal, OpenTable has ranked in the first place in “Occasions & Gifts.” The website is designed for people who are looking for great restaurants and restaurants suggestion. If you are looking for a gift, OpenTable has gift cards as well if you would like to purchase. The most convenient part in this site iseveryone can make reservation directly from here which means no need to make a phone call to restaurants to reserve the table. Other than that, it has Rewards Program which is by collecting points ofreserving the table from OpenTable.

The purpose of site –

“OpenTable connects diners, restaurants and their communities around the restaurant table through that fuels an extraordinary experience, each and every meal you share.” (From OpenTable website)

The content here is easy to follow. Once I clicked on the “We've got a brand new brand. Check it out“, it took me to OpenTable’s Brand Story and Brand Assets. And then, you can start choosing restaurants to reserve for your romantic dinner with girlfriend or boyfriend!

The user experience is useful that OpenTable does fulfill a need for people who look for great restaurants and easily to access for reserving. The content is findable which means the information I need I can find them effortlessly. Most importantly, OpenTable is usable that I mean it is easy to use.

(Photo Source: http://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/user-experience.html)

Second site that I picked is Gilt- http://www.gilt.com/

The type of site-

A shopping website that sells women, men, Baby&Kids, home, city and travel deals. If you scroll down to the bottom, you will see Gilt’s information including Company, Customer Service, Policies, Connect with Gilt, and Magazine Partner.

The purpose of site-

The site creates from team of five founders of Gilt to give “a new way for millions of consumers to shop curated styles, goods, and services, all at insider pricing.”

“Gilt has thrived through the downturn, selling labels like Rodarte, Derek Lam, Christian Louboutin at prices around 70 percent off retail. Within the e-commerce sector, what Gilt does is called a “flash sale,” or a virtual version of a designer sample sale,” accordingly to “What’s a Dress Worth?”(http://nymag.com/fashion/10/spring/63807/)

The content is full with top picks from different brands and services, and then you will also see tomorrow’s top picks as well, which attracts customers to come back and shop tomorrow.

Gilt also has Rewards Program which allows customers to collect points; in addition, if you collect up to 5000 points, you can shop 5 to 30 minutes earlier than anyone else. (the point is collected by buying merchandises from Gilt or referring Gilt to your friends!) The site has more pictures than words, unlikely to other shopping websites, Gilt doesn’t have reviews in each items since the merchandises are gone in couple days; therefore, I sometimes need to search for the reviews from other sites in particularly items that I am interested in. This is only one thing I think Gilt could improve. 

Stitch Fix, the service that I found very interesting. It is a personal styling service that helps any woman to look and feel the best everyday.

Here is the landing page when I first came to the website.

Stitch Fix’s landing page uses few words to grab my interest

“ Your preferences, Your schedule, Our expert stylists.” Hummm… this really gets my attention which makes me want to dig deeper on what they offer.

Then I clicked on “Learn More” and I saw:

The introduction of this website, how this works (since this is a whole new service that we rarely experience before, this website gives out the steps to follow)

Of course, the steps are easily to follow that they make everything so clear; also, it even denotes the benefits and pricing parts.Then, there will be few other things that for customers to expect. 

Finally! To the part says” Let’s Get Started!” Obviously, they want your information first in order to get you the right style that you ask for. 

They ask so many questions.. things like “ how do you prefer clothes to fit?”, “what size do you usually wear?”, couple pictures to choose if this is the style I like, and items that I would like to avoid; for instance, colors, prints, or fabrics.

Lastly, it goes to the “Social Networks” part that help their stylists to get a better sense of whoever their customers are, but this is completely optional. 

“Schedule Your Fix!” is the next step. This part scared me a little bit because I wasn't prepared to receive the Fix yet.

I randomly clicked on “every three months (ship the items to me every three months); after that, they asked my address, cards and other information. (Of Course, I didn’t finish filling everything out…because I don’t really need a personal stylist now)

To wrap up, I think the landing page of Stitch Fix is user-friendly and understandable. The processes go further once you click on “next” or “save”, and the page either jumps to the next page or scrolls down to the next part. I would say this website designs well and the purpose is very clear that they are going to be your personal stylists so they need a lot information from you first. Since this kind of service is so fresh, the website interprets how everything works in Stitch Fix in the beginning. I think it is deduced because customers always demand to know what this company offers to go on the next step. Overall, Stitch Fix does have a good landing page and the purpose of serving the brand is evident as well.

If you think the service is fun, please go to the website https://www.stitchfix.com/ experience it : ) 

Today, I am going to share with you the brand that I think it could be done better if it uses video marketing more effecitvily; however, this is just my point of view.

The brand is Dell.

source:  http://www.mindsetcomputerrepairs.com/Desktop-Computers/Dell/Dell-Desktop-Computer-Motherboard-Repair.html

Dell used to rank in the first place among others PC companies in 90s, but today it continued to lose market share to HP and Lenovo. Why? There are couple reasons that lead Dell to this situation now. The reason is not only because the overall PC industry is shrinking and the growing demand for tablets and smartphones is taking over the market, but also it is due to Dell's marketing and advertising strategy.

In my point of view, Dell could focus more on the video marketing in some particular devices that they are selling; for instance, gaming computers. Although the PC market as a whole may be declining, some niches in the market are still growing. Alienware, the gaming computer series of Dell, performs well in gaming computer market.

Dell could have a better TV commercial or more engaged video to target more customers and potential customers.

source:

http://driveraz.com/driver-dell-alienware-m17x-r3-for-windows-7-64-bit/

Most of the brands use Social Media Marketing to targetaudience, but how this social media going to work and what is the trend for 2015?

The point that I found very useful from the article of “Here's How Social Media Marketing Will Change in 2015” is not only about the content, but also how you use platforms natively.  Some of the brands post their same campaigns or ads in different platforms of social media, but the way that they use social media is just mis-using. For example, Facebook is the great place to share quotes or other idioms, and those social media platforms that are used for sharing photos such as Instagram and Pinterest is more about the lifestyles and creativity that the brands want to create. But things are different now; Facebook had more video views than YouTube of this year, which means not only sharing quotes or posters, it could also be a good platform to share video ads. 

Another point that I bet most of the marketers today all know about is the mobile marketing! This means that marketers are going to concentrate on creating campaigns that only designed for mobile.

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Before start reading the textbook, I was sort of confused how digital marketing actually works for branding. But then now after reading part one from the textbook and the whitepaper, I think I do have basic concept on how digital marketing can affect a brand so much.