Have you ever sat down and really thought about the ways in which you yourself shop? When devising a marketing strategy for your business, you might be a little hesitant to allow this idea to influence you. However you’re probably nothing special with regards to habits, click patterns and searches. Consumers are now buying more than they ever have while on the move. They’re also doing so, by the power of their smartphones. The old days of the majority sitting at home buying online and going out to buy in person are slowly dying away. So as the digital landscape changes, so too must your marketing strategy. Pulling people toward your business can be done is so many ways but not all of them are as effective as the next. It’s notable that a few old techniques that you might have been used to for so long are learning new tricks. Keeping track of their progress will allow you to mold your marketing campaigns and tactics to improve the conversion from curiosity to satisfied purchase.
The crumb trail of PPC
One the simplest yet effective tools for any marketing campaign is to use pay-per-click advertisements. Based on the number of clicks your ads get, that’s how much you pay for displaying it. It’s very cost effective as you only pay for the time’s people have interacted with the ad. It doesn’t take into account how long someone has viewed it on their screen or charge you based on how much time you exist on the real estate of a website. However what has rattled a lot of people over the years is, that only the final click gets the credit for hooking in the consumer. All the other ads that played a role in galvanizing interest and causing the consumer to perform extra keyword searches don’t get any credit for helping them along.
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Google Analytics is trying to make sure this is a thing of the past. The tech giant is now providing data-driven tools to all those who use Analytics for their marketing campaign. When you activate this in the options menu, you can then understand what ads and keywords are the stepping stones for consumers to finally click on your ad. This means you have better attribution to what finally caused the customer’s curiosity to convert into an action. Rather than just noting the last click, you can understand their click journey. When you have all the information at your fingertips of all the keywords and ads that built the journey, you can then modify your marketing strategy to include them. It’s a much better way to effectively drive up sales.
Everyone’s looking down
Smartphones made leaps and bounds in the year of 2017. The hardware itself became faster and more complex to cater for multi-tasking of bigger proportions. Even so, we have to realize mobile shopping is actually in its infancy. Although at least 50% of the google searches in 2017 were made using smartphones, the majority of websites don’t cater to the mobile shopper. What needs to happen is companies need to make two version of their website; one for desktop users and the other for mobile users. One of the digital marketing trends to watch out for are Google’s plan to boost a mobile-first index. If you have a desktop website, all the normal rules apply with regards to how Google ranks your website. However, if you have through the trouble of making a mobile version of your website, it doesn’t have the same ranking methods applied to it. Essentially, mobile browsers will only find your mobile website due to their ranking based on their desktop website.
This is all about to change as Google search results will now judge you based on your mobile website experience if consumers are using a mobile to search. It’s kind of like splitting the two up so each can be judged in their own realm. So if you’re not ready for this, your business is going to suffer massively. With at least 50% of the searches last year being done via smartphone, you might appear up to 50% less in shopper’s eyesights than before. It’s therefore crucial that you are putting just as much focus on your mobile website as you are for shoppers sat in front of desktop computers.
Media as property
Increasingly there’s little to no excuse why businesses don’t have their own media department. Rather than going out to privately hire a media company to do the filming, recording, and graphics for your marketing campaigns, you should be working toward adding an extra wing to your company. Hire a professional team of people who are comfortable with filming top quality interviews with your staff. They can also be working behind the scenes to film advertisements for your business with footage that can be cut up and used in a montage. Instead of airing these ads just on television, they can be uploaded to all your social media accounts and feature on your website too. With all the content kept in-house, any media product you make is instantly your property which cannot be used by anyone else. If you were to hire a third-party company to do these things for you, it’s common to get embroiled in contract disputes regarding who owns the material. With your very own media department, this is not an issue.
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Online shopping was once a mystery which businesses tried to harness for their benefit; albeit in primitive means. However, all ads have their own tail now. Rather than the last ad to be clicked on that leads a consumer to the product they were looking for, now there is a fair attribution to all who contributed to invoking the consumer. Mobile shopping just seems like a wave you cannot stop. Now that Google is moving toward a mobile-first index policy, a business that doesn’t have a great mobile website will be ranked lower than one that does. So even if your business offers better products and services, you can no longer rely on your desktop website to appear at the top of mobile search rankings. Not only is having your own media team going to be great for the long term, but it also means you do not have to rely on another entity to get information out quickly in the forms of interviews, teaser trailers, etc.
