However, to join the marketplace, you need to sign up and submit an application. Only when your application has been approved, can you use any of these features available.

• Tik tok analytics:

Like every other social media platform, tik tok too has an analytics measuring software. In fact, 67% of marketers say that decisions made from analysing data are far more profitable than decisions made using gut instincts. So it’s never too late to go ahead and get yourself a tiktok analytics measurement system. All you need to do is upgrade to a pro account, which is free! This upgrade will let you access detailed analytics collected and offered by Tiktok.

When you start to analyse your data, you need to keep an eye on what type of content of yours is doing good and which is doing bad. This way you can cut down on anything that isn’t adding value to your brand.

Some tips while using TikTok:

• The best results from posts come when you post between 10AM to 6PM.
• Have a detailed bio but make it something that is easy to remember.
• Link to other social media accounts – this way your following will increase across platforms and you wont be isolated on just one platform.
• Make a video on the most trending hashtag on tiktok. If you use this hashtag and make a video based on it, you’ll get your content across to millions of users within minutes.

• PINTEREST MARKETING

Pinterest is very different from any other social media channels. And to be able to market or advertise here, you need to understand how and why it is different from other platforms.

Let me get this straight. Even if pinterest is included in social media, it is not a social media communication platform. It’s a visual search engine. This is not a place where you would go to find and meet people or influencers. Pinterest is a place of solutions and inspirations.

Don’t know how to make a DIY gift? Pinterest.

Don’t have any outfit inspirations for an office party? Pinterest.

Want a new tattoo design? Pinterest.

Want to see some cute home decor ideas? Pinterest.

Here, you need to generate ideas and inspirations so that customers get attracted to your brand and start to click on our website links. 

Eg- you own a clothing website, and you just released new pins on Pinterest on a winter wardrobe collection. 

If people like it then they will be sure to click on the link through which this collection came from – your website!

You can create these pins and drive traffic to your site both organically and paid. 

The best part about paid advertising on Pinterest is that once the ad on the pins is over, the pins are still visible on the platform! 

Just because the ad is over, doesn’t mean they remove the content – so it’s now open to organic engagement. 

While paid pins may have a shorter life span, they are then left to grow organically. 

And the beauty of Pinterest’s organic pin is that they are available for a  really, really long period of time.

Behavior of millions of users on the internet has shown that 72% of people say that Pinterest is the one that gives them ideas and inspiration to buy something. 

Can you imagine the number of people who depend on this platform? To help businesses even more, Pinterest also publishes a yearly report which gives information on all the things that have inspired people.

Pinterest has more female users than men, but this is changing quickly with more millennial men coming and signing up on the platform. 

So if your demographic lies within this sphere that uses Pinterest then it is definitely worth advertising over here.

Pinterest Marketing Strategy:

What you must not expect from Pinterest is fast results. When it comes to the long run, Pinterest will drive people to your website for months and years to come, 

but it takes a bit of time to gain traction. So how do you decide if Pinterest is the right fit for your business?

• First make sure if your content has not already been shared on Pinterest. All you have to do is post your website’s name next to Pinterest’s URL (pinterest.com/source/your website address). If there are already shares from your sight, it’s a good thing because people know about you already on Pinterest.
• Search for key words on pinterest that are relevant for your line of business. If this search gives a good result, then it’s a good idea to start marketing on pinterest. Look at all the pins under these keywords that are trending or really engaging and see how you can incorporate this into your business.
• Also ask your current consumer database if they use pinterest. If they do, then go ahead and start looking fo more potential customers. If they don’t then it may not be such a viable option for you.

How to make a business work on Pinterest:

1. 80% of users use Pinterest on mobile. So your website should be mobile optimized.
2. Regular content. You cannot have an outdated website. People want to see something growing, inspiring and constantly giving. So if you regularly publish blogs, podcasts or any kind of content, then you are on the right track.
3. A freebie. Everyone likes new things. So if you can give a potential consumer something for free, then they may be tempted to leave behind a part of themselves in your website -like an email address. And from here on out, it wont take you long to convert that potential into a consumer.
4. Have a Pinterest Business Account
5. Install a Pinterest save button on your website itself. This is so that when users see your website, they can directly pin your content without having to search for you on Pinterest.

What should you keep in mind while developing your strategy?

1. Think like your customer. If you were a consumer yourself, what would you want from your business? Consumers don’t just want to see product images anymore. They need more content and more conversation. So instead of posting just a picture of a denim jacket, post a blog article on ‘10 ways you can wear a denim jacket’. This gives consumers a lot more than they asked for, which is why the conversion rate would go up.
2. Keep your end in mind. WHY are you even marketing? Do you want more views? More conversions? Some downloads? What is your purpose behind advertising so much? Knowing the goal will help you make a strategy strong enough to get to your goal. So don’t move in blindly, be prepared. Think of this like a backward chain of events. Look at everything backwards, then go forward!
3. Pinterest is a search engine. This is the first thing I mentioned. This is not like any other social media platform, but it’s like a search engine of images. Keywords therefore play a very important role here. Your pins and dashboards should have the same keywords that people type out on the search engine while looking for something that comes under your line of business. Search for keywords, and make a note of how popular they are and check out every related or suggested keyword as well. You need to dig deep to find water!
4. Track your progress. This is a given for any marketing account you need to make sure you’re not driving your vehicle to a dead end. Do monthly check ups to see how far you have come in achieving your desired goal. If there has been little or no progress, then you’ll have to re work on your strategies and methods.

Effective ways of kick starting your marketing goals on Pinterest:

• Build your authority – this means you need to put yourself out there and tell the people that you are a major player in the field. People only look at the team leaders, never at the substitutes. The idea is to make users believe that your Pinterest account is THE place to get useful information on any topic in the market you are tapping into. There are many ways to do this, but a sure way to start is by building trust among your audience. They need to see your brand as a reliable companion so that they not only become a buyer but also a loyal consumer who gives repeat orders. If you do well enough, they may even give referrals about your brand to their friends!
• Grow your reach – the easiest way to do this is by approaching Pinner’s who already have a large following and engagement on Pinterest. They are like influencers. This benefits both the parties. It gives you more followers and reach and it adds more value to the Pinner you have partnered with.
• Increase traffic – if done in the right way, Pinterest can bring more traffic than any other social media app combined. But it takes patience and strategy. If you want a high traffic rate then pinners must find your content useful enough to share to others and must constantly pin and repin so that your brand’s name comes up on the top.

Pinterest boards:

Almost every brand or popular pinner has a Pinterest board. 

Think of it like an empty bulletin board that you need to fill up – except, it’s online. 

Once you set up a board, it’s your responsibility to maintain it. You need to nurture it – post consistently, relevantly and engagingly. 

You need to keep updating it and keep looking for needs to fulfill. Your boards should reflect your goals, value systems and especially your unique style.

• While deciding the board, be sure to decide the right keywords. As mentioned earlier, your boards should contain the keywords that users are likely to use while searching for something.
• Although videos are rarely seen, it’s not a ghosted part of Pinterest. Along with static images, GIFs, videos and even infographics can be displayed. All are rich media but maybe not all will work for your brand. So do a bit of research to see what kind of content is working best in your market.
• Keep an eye on your competitors. DO NOT copy their style, because Pinterest being the height of originality, won’t look at borrowed or lifted content. Take inspiration and also have a critical eye on the parts of their boards that are not doing as well as they should. The loopholes in your competitor’s boards could be filled up in yours and marketed as the best option.
• Your content should be highly appealing. You can create the prettiest looking board and people may never follow it because the content is of no use to them. So give them a theme, a pattern, anything that makes sense or is useful to them. That’s the only way you’ll get people to follow you.

Pinterest is a longer term client. It cannot give you immediate results but will give you consistent, evergreen results once you’ve established yourself.

Just make sure to post high quality images because Pinners can be very picky that way!

• CONTENT MARKETING

Content marketing includes creating, publishing and advertising valuable content to a very specific audience online. 

It focuses mainly on storytelling – because for as long as humans could speak and listen, we have always tended to lean towards storytellers.

This type of marketing focuses on creating a long-term relationship with the audience – think of it like your grandma is telling you a very interesting bedtime story every night. 

You want engaging stories, you want to hear them everyday (consistent) and you want them to have relevance and impact or help you in some way.

In the same way, the marketer is the grandma and the audience are children who want to hear high-quality, relevant and consistent content.

For digital marketing, it is necessary for you to develop a Content Marketing Strategy. 

This term is interchangeably used with content strategy and content plan. But what is it?

Content Marketing Strategy is the “why” of your business. 

Why are you creating content and who are you helping with this and most importantly: how will you help them better than everyone else? 

Your strategy should pin point why you are the best in the market you are hoping to advertise in.

What should your Content marketing strategy include?

1. State your case: Reasons for creating content, the risks involved, mission and vision for achieving success.
2. State your plan: You’ve announced what the plan is, so the next step is outlining how you are going to get there. This includes your business model, value systems, processes of achieving set goals and the content program.
3. State your audience: List out your audience market – the size and in depth demographics. Here you will tell them the needs of the audience and how your product or service is going to help them satisfy their needs. State your story: characterise your brand. Decide what messages and ideas you want to
4. Give to your audience. These should be different from your competitors because well how else will you stand out?
5. State your platform: Which platform are you going to use to market your brand and its products? Why is this platform the best way to go and how will you build a comprehensive and cohesive brand conversation?

These are some of things you need to keep in mind while developing your content marketing strategy. 

It may look simple, but the best strategies root from in-depth research and knowledge on the subject and the area.

Why do you need a content marketing strategy at all?

• You’ll find yourself to be able to do content marketing more effectively.
• Because you have a plan in place, you will feel less challenged when new steps come along in the process.

Overall, it’s a broad topic but once you get the hang of it, you’ll realise that its application can have far reaching and effective consequences.

• EMAIL MARKETING

Ah, Email. One of the earliest forms of virtual communication. You could call this the mother of all social communications. 

However, there are many more social communication platforms and now, email is a more formal way of addressing someone. 

Businesses and brands have used this opportunity to send commercial, inviting but formal messages to individuals. 

This way, it is more authentic and more serious than reaching out using other social media platforms. 

Let’s face it – which message would you take more seriously? 

An Instagram DM from an unverified brand or an email from the same?

Like different sections of marketing, email marketing also has its own variations. There are nine main types:

1. Welcome email
2. Standard promotional campaign
3. Seasonal campaign
4. Triggered email series
5. Post purchase drip
6. Connect via social campaign
7. Newsletter
8. Cart abandonment campaign
9. Re-engagement campaign

The Welcome Email

You just signed up or subscribed to a website. 

You’d think that’s it but when you’re signing up you’re agreeing to get regular emails from them – and that’s exactly what they will give you. 

A standard “Welcome to ABC! We are so glad you are part of our community!” email will surely follow you just minutes after you register with your email ID. 

You can even go on to give them a little welcoming present.

This cannot be stopped at just one email. You must go on to send a series. The three main emails in the series are as follows:

• Introduction – here you welcome them and give them a bit more information about who you are, what your brand does and what exactly they have signed up for.
• Invitation – after introducing yourself, you can then invite them to any ongoing events that are happening on your site or in your social media pages. That way they get to have first hand experience in the promise that you gave them in the first email.
• Interaction – from them on out, it’s mostly introducing them to newer events or things that might interest them.

Here is an example of the Welcome Email series –

Let us say you are a renowned website that hosts photography competitions. 

When an individual signs up or registers, the first email you send is “Welcome to our photography community! 

We are excited to see where you will go on this journey into the world of photography!” then you would go on to explain who you are, your history, your mission/vision statements and where you hope to be with the new subscriber.

The second email would then introduce them to any new competitions that are open for them. 

To make it more personalised, you would tell them that these competitions are for “new subscribers only”, so that they wouldn’t feel left out and it would be a great welcome to them as well.

The third email would be telling them “Now that you entered a few competitions as a new member, it is now time to explore which other competitions you can participate in!” 

This way you are acknowledging that the first few days at the new home is over and it’s time to settle down.

The Standard Promotional Campaign

This is the most common type of mail that consumers find in their inbox. 

If you have a new campaign or are launching something new, then the best way to promote it through email is using a promotional message.

Use lively font and bold colours for such emails because it needs to grab the viewer’s attention and not just be thrown into the trash folder. 

Another thing that could help you get people is by promising them a gift or using and reusing slogans from popular songs. 

Make it relatable, funny, eye-catching and interesting. 

You are promoting to get an audience and they don’t want to waste their time on anything boring!

The Seasonal Campaign

We have all received emails during festival time – this in essence is the seasonal campaign. 

During festivals, national, international and local holidays, brands find opportunities to send emails to customers. \

Eg – on Friendship day, valentine’s day, christmas eve etc.

Triggered email series

Just like the word suggests, this email is delivered after the consumer ‘triggers’ something. 

This works as a reaction to an action. 

Let’s say the consumer clicks on a promotional link, recently bought something or completed a survey- these actions are responded to with email.

Eg – if the consumer bought a camera from a Nikon website, they will then send an email saying “Since you bought this, why don’t you buy a tripod too? Look at our collection.” This is very similar to Netflix’s “Because you watched ABC, here are closer recommendations!” Except that this happens over email.

Post Purchase Drip

These emails are hardly ever seen and are restricted to a small percentage of websites. 

They are similar to the trigger email because it comes after an action made by the consumer, which in this case is buying a product. 

Eg- if you buy a cosmetic kit from Nykaa, they might then send an email on how to use it, when best to use it, maybe even additional tips to use with that particular product.

Connect via Social campaign

This is essentially connecting your email to your social media accounts. 

The brand may email you and ask you to visit their social media for feedback. 

That way, your opinion and rating is not only on their website but also on their social media pages which is a huge benefit for companies wanting to grow on that platform. 

Eg- you just purchased a kitchen gadget. The website you bought it from will then email you to maybe take a picture of the gadget and post it on your story by tagging them – and they will add that to their story! 

This is appealing for many consumers if they get to appear on a famous brand’s social media page.

Newsletter

Newsletters are most popularly sent by NGOs, news websites, campaign driven businesses, or even some of the regular businesses. 

This is not marketing per se, but like a long letter from the company to its consumer explaining about what has happened in the last month, 

what will happen in the coming months and any new offers or products and services to the consumer that are available. This is not a pitch. It’s education with entertainment.

Abandoned Cart Series

Did you ever put something in your online shopping cart but never really checked it out? 

Maybe it was too expensive and you were waiting for a price drop or an offer… so now it’s just stuck in  your cart not moving. 

That’s when the brand or company will email you reminding you that you have something that you have forgotten.

Eg – “Hey, your Sony camera is still in your cart but now it’s at a better price- we are giving a 10% off on it to encourage you to go on with the purchase!”

Re-engagement Campaign

There are a lot of consumers who sign up for emails but in a week or month, become inactive users. 

They don’t open emails, they don’t visit your website again…they just ignore you. 

The re-engagement campaign tackles this issue by emailing the consumer again and reminding her/him about your presence. 

But this is also a tactic to see if you will respond. 

If you don’t then it’s clear they are wasting their time on you and maybe won’t send you emails as frequently…or not at all!

Email marketing can go both ways – good and bad. 

If it’s good, then you can get your customers to do just about anything because it comes from an authentic and formal platform. 

If it goes bad, then you’re stuck in unopened or in the trash folder forever!

• CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION

We already learnt that people who come to our website can always become potential customers. 

And the way to get people to click on the link is by using search engine optimization (SEO).

Now that you’ve got the person to click on the website link, it’s time for the next step.

This is where Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)  comes in.

Conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the percentage of people who take an action on your website.

For example, if your landing page has an action to subscribe to emails, your current CRO might be less – i.e. the number of people who click on your website may be high but the number of people who actually subscribe are very less.

So to get more people to subscribe, or perform an action, you need to start doing CRO.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes. They can be small actions or bug actions, free or paid.

All weapons are broadly classified into two types:

Micro conversions- these are basic and usually what people start off by doing on the website.

1. Creating an account.
2. Signing up to get emails.
3. Adding something to cart.

Macro conversions – this is the next step of micro, and usually involves bigger actions.

1. Requesting a quote – this means that sometimes the website will not have the feeling details of a product or service, in which case you can enter your email or phone number for them to get back to you with a “quote”.
2. Actually purchasing a product. In micro, you had just added it to your cart, but in macro, you went ahead and bought it. Because you paid money, it is counted as a macro conversion.
3. Subscribing to a service – this is similar to buying a product. Let’s say there is a website that does SEO or CRO for companies. If you subscribe to their service then you are still buying a product, just that it’s more of a service done by someone else for you.

How to calculate conversion rate?

Before you try to increase your CRO, you should first look at the existing CRO. There are two variables that you must take a note of:

• Sessions – the no. of times a person visits a website. Every new visit if theirs is their new session.
• Orders – the no. of actions taken by that user.

Eg – If you are a first time Amazon member, then your first visit is your first session. You may not do anything on your first visit.

When you visit a second time, it will be your second session. This time you may add something to your cart, so it becomes your first order.

The third visit becomes your third session. If you now go on to purchase a product, then it becomes your second order (second action).

So what will your conversion rate be?

You have 3 visits – 3 sessions

And you have completed 2 actions – 2 orders.

Conversion rate = 2 orders/ 3 sessions

=> 66%

Same way, if there were 600 orders out of 2000 sessions… the conversion rate is 30%.

How to start CRO?

The key to a successful CRO is data analytics. 

You need to know your audience so that you can approach them in the right way to get them to convert into customers.

Start with simple but powerful tools like Google Analytics that give powerful numbers and statistics for you to analyse your audience and its characteristics.

When you get these numbers you’ll be better able to focus and decide on which page or part of the website you should improve.

What questions do the analytics answer?

• Consumer demographics.
• Which page of your website is most visited.
• Which feature of your website is most popular.
• Why people come to your website
• Which browser, app, link, or device connected them to your website.
• Why do people leave your website.

These are the main statistics and numbers that analytic forums give, along with anything else that you might specifically ask for.

However, these methods and tools are AI powered. There is a more basic and personal way to get certain information.

We have all at least once answered a survey. 

Be it short or long. We’ve also given feedback on any product we have purchased. 

Businesses ask you questions on the product or conduct surveys to measure customer satisfaction – This is a more personal and manual way to get analytics. 

It’s a win win situation because the consumer feels more important in this type of methodology.

Which pages should you do CRO for?

• Homepage – this is the obvious. You need a good, eye catching homepage with the right words to grab the visitor into becoming a consumer.
• Landing pages – landing pages are stand-alone pages that are static. They are also called destination pages because they take the user to the desired action page. They appear when a user clicks on any promotional link, online ad, or marketing email.
• Fee page – you’ve managed to make the user come till this point – now you should just help them decide to make the payment. this is the best time you can give offers, product features that stand out, monthly or yearly subscriptions… anything that makes the viewer want to become a consumer. They should see an advantage if they pay you, so make sure to optimize price pages very well.

Marketing strategies for CRO

A lot of the techniques used will be mostly trial and error because you are dealing with the uncertainty of human decision making. 

You may have the best CRO strategy and it may work very well but you should always be ready to see that it doesn’t work on everyone. 

This is why, you must try and fail and try again until you find something that best suits your business.

• A/B testing – This is a bit tricky to understand so let me give you an example. During a mock exam, a teacher gives one half of the class question A and the other half of the class question B. The students don’t know that half of them have gotten different questions. Depending on which half does better, the teacher can then decide which type of question to give the students in the final. This is exactly what A/B testing means in CRO. In CRO, let’s say you have two variants of the same webpage but you don’t know which will do better when you launch it. So you will show both the versions of the web page to the same number of different audiences (group A and B). Whichever does better, you will finalise on it and launch only that.
• CTAs – Call to Action is the most powerful tool you can use to convert users into consumers. Instead of just listing products or services, talk to the consumers. Give them something to do and make it about them so that they see the pros in joining hands with you. You can include CTAs almost anywhere but the best place to do so is in blogs. Instead of a banner CTA (that almost everyone ignores), use text based CTA. If it’s embedded in the blog then it gives the action more authenticity and appeal.
• Test your landing pages – As discussed earlier, there will be a lot of trial and error in the process. Landing pages are powerful if they have the right CRO done. So try out which feature of your landing pages work best and garner the most conversions. Cut out the ones that are not doing anything to create conversions. You need to stick to strong, relevant features ONLY.
• Live chats – Have you ever gone to a website where a chat box suddenly pops up and asks you what you want? That’s a live chat. Once you engage with this chat, it’s first an AI powered robot that answers you. Once you give out the desired information (your enquiry), then the AI tool will redirect you to an actual person. Conversations are very strong tools to get conversions. They are more inclusive than any other kind of interaction because any confusion will be cleared by a person and the consumer won’t have to search the web page for this information.
• Optimize your blog posts – Not all blogs will perform well. But make sure you optimize those blogs that are performing well on their own. This includes SEO. Good writing can always be used to persuade a reader into becoming a buyer. Don’t underestimate your blog section and use keywords, meta tags and other SEO techniques to improve CRO ratings.
• Use heatmaps – heatmaps show which parts of your blog, article or page are read / viewed the most. If you have this, then you can ensure that you use similar techniques in other places as well.
• How long does your site take to load – Consumers are impatient people. They don’t have time to wait around for a website that takes 10 seconds to load – they’d go back and click on one that takes just 1-3 seconds. Statistics show that the abandonment rate of consumers for slow websites is 20% higher than for fast websites. This means that they are more likely to leave the page if it doesn’t load quick enough. It’s a small thing but it can affect your conversions and you should therefore invest in optimizing your webpage load time.

• WEBSITE ANALYTICS

In the previous subtopics (SEM, SEO, CRO) we talked about how to use numbers to get traction. 

But who is going to give us these numbers and how exactly is this done?

Web analysis is the process of collecting and analysing web data to understand and optimize a web page. 

The key to web analytics is understanding consumer behavior. The better you know the consumer, better the experience you can give to them. 

And if the experience you give is much more valuable to them than any other brand, then you get the competitive advantage. 

All web analytics use AI powered tools. Smart technology is the quickest, most accurate and customizable way of getting information. This

How does it work?

All the web analytic tools out there do more or less the same thing.

They insert a Java script into the web page’s code. It’s like a tracker and tracks everything that goes in the web page. What things does it track?

• How many people visit the website
• How many clicks a particular link gets
• Which device the person is using
• Geographical location of the user
• COOKIES – cookies are the easiest way you could give permission to an analytic tool to access and track what you do online, what you browse, what your likes and dislikes are etc.
• Gives the Bounce rate – if a user visits but doesn’t click on any other page than the one they landed on, and they leave… Then it’s called a bounce. Larger bounce rates mean that there is something wrong with : loading time, navigation or unattractive web design.

There are three types of analyses that it does:

Consumer data:

• of visits
• of returns
• Geography
• Unique users
• Device

Consumer behavior:

• Frequently visited pages
• Favorite landing pages
• Favorite features
• Conversions

Campaign / event data:

• Which campaigns did best
• Which websites (competitors) got the most traffic
• Which parts of the campaign were favorites
• Break down of campaign data – who and how they reached, when etc.

Which are the best analytics out there?

1. Google Analytics – they’re easily the most powerful and popular tool on the net. The best part? It’s absolutely free.
2. Adobe Analytics
3. Spring metrics
4. Chartbeat
5. Kissmetrics

You can choose any of the above famous analytic tools or widen your choices here.

• DATA TRACKING

If you think nobody is watching you online, you’re wrong. Yes, even if you’re incognito. But who keeps an eye on you and why?

Data tracking is simply keeping a tab on your activity online. 

Third party entities or websites track your activity and can use this information in many ways.

First let’s look at data tracking through an example.

Imagine you just opened chrome and browsed through the net searching for Nike shoes. 

Then, on your way to work, you saw a pretty flower, took a picture and storied it on your Instagram. 

Finally you looked up a restaurant for an office meeting scheduled that afternoon.

While you did all this, third party entities tracked you – they made a note of which website you visited (Nike, amazon, flipkart), which shoes you liked and put in the cart, which location you were at when you posted a story, which restaurants you picked and if there are similar ones nearby.

But why are they tracking you?

They’re trying to figure you out! Third party entities are mainly advertisers. 

They want to know you and your preferences and habits so that they can customize and target specific ads towards you. 80% of people don’t know that they are being tracked.  

They don’t  notice that when they search for watches on Chrome, they’ll get related ads on their social media.

Tracking can be a little uncomfortable to digest. Nobody likes knowing that they are being watched, especially without their knowledge, which is why most of them are kept unaware of this. 

Tracking can be both good and them.  

Most of the time, the user itself will give them permission to track them – and this is using COOKIES. 

Cookies are the “legal” way to track user activity and preferences. Another legal way is terms and conditions. 

Eg- when you set up Google Maps, it is mentioned in terms and conditions that the browser will know and track where you are and where you have been if you turn on your location.  

This way if you search for a boutique near you on maps, you’ll get boutique ads on other platforms while you are browsing!

The bad side of tracking is that instead of personalizing ads for the user, entities will use it to make a profile on you.  

The extreme would be called “targeted surveillance”. To stop what is close enough to be intrusion of privacy, some companies provide private browsing experiences and ad blocking techniques. 

But not everyone is interested in this and it’s much easier for them to get targeted advertisements on things they like. 

The three main methods of tracking:

1. Cookies
2. Fingerprinting
3. Beacons

Cookies – they are small files or packets of information that contain your activity on a particular website or web page. 

So the next time you come to the website, they can identify that it’s you and give a more personal and better user experience.

Beacons – they are very small, invisible or transparent images that appear on webpage or emails for two purposes – tracking and reporting. 

Advertisers use them to determine how many impressions their ads got or how many times the web page was loaded. 

Most beacons do not have malicious intent, those that do usually come with spam emails and give spammers information about whether or not your ID is active.

Fingerprinting – this is a bit more complex method of tracking. Unlike cookies and beacons they do not use small files to store information. Instead they look at:

• Browser settings
• Browser configuration
• Browser version
• Monitor size and resolution
• Operating system

Methods of fingerprinting always change and get more and more complex.

Is tracking bad?

79% of all web pages on the internet track your information. This is a huge number and only 20% of users are aware of this happening.

Strictly speaking, data from tracking is used to give the consumer a better experience. 

But over tracking is unnecessary and invasive. There are many loopholes that entities use to sell your private data to another webpage or website altogether.

If you’re not comfortable with tracking, then you can always use a VPN.

A Virtual Private Network is a protected browser that connects various networks and encrypts them. 

This doesn’t really stop tracking but they won’t know that they are not tracking you, because VPN directs trackers to a different IP address. This way your information and data remain private!

• GROWTH HACKING

This is a new field in the ever growing world of digital marketing. This is mainly aimed at start-ups and is slowly gaining popularity among new only entrepreneurs.

All start-ups want to get that one click that hits them off into huge profits and revenue. 

It should either grow fast enough or die. Growth hacking is a way to help new businesses grow in the fastest way possible. Growth is what they are after.

But what exactly is growth hacking?

It is an experimental way to to determine which methods are most effective to grow a brand or business (usually start-ups).

Growth Hackers

It’s simple. People who do growth hacking are called growth hackers.  

A growth hacker should be creative. They should come up with new and cost effective strategies that both get consumers and help retain them.

Some of the main things they do include SEO, A/B testing, email marketing, content marketing etc… all of which we have discussed above.

But there are some specifics that you need to know when starting growth hacking.

• Pre-launch email list

This is here email marketing comes in handy. As discussed under email marketing, it remains the best way to achieve leads and conversions. 

Suppose you have a new product coming up for launch. You need weeks and weeks of preparation and marketing to build curiosity and appeal among the audience. 

Start by creating a list of emails. Who are all the people you’re going to mail this to? 

They need to be potential and active consumers and even new customers. 

When you email them about the launch, give enough information to get them curious but not too less or not too much.

• Product hunt

Product Hunt is an online company that helps startups launch ideas on their platform. 

Here  audiences use the product and give feedback and it’s a great way to get attention to your new product.

• Referrals

Referrals work in any industry. Word of mouth still remains one of the most effective ways of persuasion. 

Family, friends, celebrities… they can all be used as referrals to make audiences more aware of your product.

• Adjacent markets

People think that most of Nike’s products are only focused on track and field sports but they don’t know that it includes almost all sports gear. 

This means that when they first started they were in the track and field section 

but then expanded into other areas as well. Adjacent markets expand your company’s niche and reach so do this once you are well settled into one particular area.

• New brand partnerships

Collaborating and partnering with other businesses is never a bad idea. 

It creates buzz in the market and will definitely give you more organic customers and followers. 

The other brand’s consumers are more likely to move towards your brand as well. The buzz would create more people to notice you in the market.

• Host and attend community events

MAKE CONNECTIONS. This field is full of people with power and it’s always better to be on the side that will benefit your business. 

Meet people in events, invite them to yours, make a professional family that helps you and which you help, put your business card in the hands of as many as possible. 

Be ready to learn from the best.

• Build a community

This community is slightly different from the one you make offline. This community is online on social media!  

The advantage of social media is that in addition to getting new followers, you also have the opportunity to earn with every post you make if you have a significant following.

• Go behind your biggest competitors (competition scans)

Yes they are your competitors, and yes they may be larger than you but there’s a reason why they are successful. 

You’ve heard of ‘keep your friends close but enemies closer’ right? Apply the same principle. 

Keep an eye on your competitors – see what their strategies are and if you can implement something similar or more unique than that. 

What do they have that you don’t? 

Monthly competition scans help you compare monthly developments between you and all your competitors.

Take a look at their blogs and the keywords they have used. Which competitor had the maximum impact and why? 

See their brand partners and all the methods they have used for growth and implement them.

• Aggressive CM strategy

All content marketing strategies rely on getting feedback from consumers and creating value for your product. 

With the feedback they give, you need to work on any possible defects and tell your consumers that “look, we took your suggestions and made this a product you cannot say no to!” unless your content marketing strategy is not audience centric, you cannot grow.

• Influencers

This is similar to partnerships. Instead of partnering with brands, you’ll be partnering with people who have a huge following or a celebrity status. 

Influencers are called this for a reason – people do what they do, be it clothing or makeup or accessories. 

If they endorse your product, then the people that trust the influencers will also trust you. 

This is of course given that your product should be of the highest quality and must deliver to the consumers what was promised.

• MARKETING AUTOMATION

Have you heard of automation? 

Of course you have – almost everything is automated these days. Automation is the process of using technology to tasks and reduce human intervention as much as possible, 

we reduce human intervention because it means there is less opportunity for human error to occur.

When we are marketing there are a lot of things that humans can miss out 

because we are not machines and lot of factors can drive, deliver and hinder our output – we could miss out a name in the list of emails, we could make spelling errors, 

we may lose our cool with customers that are not so friendly, we may forget to post on time…

all these factors may hugely alter the outcomes of our digital marketing strategies. 

So the best way to stop such things from happening  is to automate the entire marketing process.

Essentially, this means that all the things we discussed above, from SEO, to all kinds of social media marketing, to CMS etc can all be done with the help of automated technology and minimal to zero human work.

Marketing automation is therefore the process of using software to market your product or service online. 

The software helps companies automate repetitive tasks and increases efficiency and therefore helps in getting higher revenue at a lower cost and faster rate of workflow.

With marketing automation, you can assign whichever tasks you want to the software, not have to do it yourself and then see how the software has done the job. 

As your business grows, you simply may not have time to reply to every email, comment or share. 

Or even post daily at the same time or interact and measure your business and consumers like you used to. 

You need someone to take care of it with no mistakes and hassles – so you automate parts of your marketing that you don’t have the time to do yourself or assign to someone else.

There are three main layers of marketing automation:

1. Email marketing – remember we learnt about the various kinds of emails, from welcome to campaign to trigger emails? Will you or anyone else have the time to type out custom emails to about 2000 – 20,000 people every day? Or even more? Certain emails (trigger emails especially) can be done very easily with automation. You can even automate sign up forms. With email marketing, you can automate both the delivery and the distribution of content. The software can identify which user comes under which category – new, frequent, age-old? And after identifying that, it can then customize the email and send it over in seconds.
2. Social media – This platform is so huge that it is now impossibly out of our control. We cannot imagine replying and interacting with each and every one who communicates with the brand across all social media apps. Who has the time or the patience? If you’ve seen someone’s reply section look like the picture below, then it means they have automated the process of individually thanking each and every person for following.

If a company posts at exactly the same time every day or every week, it is again that they have automated the process of posting so as to not waste time on the app and focus on much more important things.

With automation, you don’t have to worry about direct messages, replying to comments, posting, following etc

    3. Landing pages – it used to take hours and hours of coding in HTML to make a landing page. 

But now you get to use custom templates or copy templates over and over again.

Getting started with automating email marketing:

The first thing you need to do is to segment your customers. You cannot obviously send the same email to everyone. 

Categorize them according to your convenience – their gender, how old or new they are, their subscription status etc.

Once you segment them, you can then customize which email will be delivered to which customer. 

Maybe a special offer for new comers (like a discount on shipping) or a 10% off for an old consumer’s 50th purchase etc, or even a new gift for someone who paid for a higher subscription.

Therefore, the more you segment, the more specialised the emails become and also let users know that you are aware of their status and are willing to do more for them.

Forms and mobile optimization:

Automation comes with a form filling feature for consumers. 

Once the consumer fills information, it shows up on the software and you can then use this for marketing, promotion etc. 

Another great advantage of this software is they can optimize your content on the mobile screen. 

Reading the content or viewing products on the website may be appealing and easy but increasing people like to see their phones for everything. 

So it’s important to optimize content (readability and design) on the phone screen as well.

Autoresponders:

We have all sent an email and received an instant response – maybe the response told us to wait for a few days before the company can actually reply back to any query we have. 

Auto responders are used so that the consumer is given a certain time period to wait. It is better to tell the long que to wait for a while instead of not informing them at all and leave them hanging.

Starting with social media:

• Posting and scheduling – when scheduling posts, you must keep in mind that you need to keep the posts ready to post. The only thing that the software will do is post it (you should keep the photo/video, captions, hashtags, tags etc ready to post).
• Social listening – it is impossible to manually keep a track of who uses your brand or eve talks about it. Automation softwares searches the internet for any conversations or mentions of your brand or products so that you stay in the loop of what’s happening with your business. It’s like a fly on the wall – it will listen to everything, make note of it and then come report it to you.
• Social interactions – same as receiving an instant email response, this is an instant messaging response on social media apps.

Few other features given by automations:

• Personalized customer targeting – consumers NEED to feel as if they are your first priority, which they really should be. When you feed in the information, softwares can then target ads based on the specific and personal information of the consumers given.
• Customized landing pages – the ad, the keywords and the landing page must go hand in hand. They must all come together to form a successful conversion. Most marketing automation tools provide you with customized landing page builders and lead capture forms that you can then customize on your own to fit your ad.

The difference between CRM and marketing automation:

CRM- Customer Relationship Management

The thing is, there is no clear distinction on which one is more useful. It depends on which stage your business is at. 

Depending on where your business stands in the funnel represented above, you can use either CRM or marketing automation.

When do you use CRM?

• If you are reported to have bad customer service. CRM can help you reach out to all customers who have a complaint and help resolve them.
• Customers are lost. If they are confused while navigating through your website, then CRM can help them get through any queries.
• If you have too many leads to handle in a spreadsheet, it’s time to think of using CRM.

When do you use marketing automation?

• Your customer list is getting too big – obviously, you can’t manage millions of consumers manually. You’d take years to reply to them! This is when you need automation to come in and make it easier for you.
• Your customer list is too small – I know, this sounds a bit odd. But if your leads are too less and you need to reach out to a large, untouched audience, then automation is the way to go.
• Your content is great, but it’s not reaching your audience – this has happened a lot of times that the content of a business or website is amazing but it’s shocking to see so little engagement or traction. This software will get audiences to see your content faster!

The best software for marketing automation:

1. Eloqua
2. HubSpot
3. Marketo
4. Pardot
5. Silverpop

Remember that marketing automation is not something you should apply for every task. 

Most tasks still need human intervention otherwise your consumers will get angry that they are only interacting with bots and not real people. 

You can appear busy, not neglectful.

CONCLUSION

We have covered every aspect of digital marketing. We have covered what it is, why it is done, the different types under it in detail and even other services included under digital marketing.

This is such a huge topic, it is impossible to cover every nook and cranny in one go. 

And because it is so dynamic and ever changing, new developments keep coming and going. 

Some of the features mentioned in the article may be completely outdated within the year, or even within a month.

When it comes to marketing online, you just have to make sure you are prepared well in advance for anything that might happen. 

It’s twice as unpredictable as the traditional method of marketing, so solutions to any problems you might encounter should be on the tip of your finger. 

It can be bad growth on some platforms, or Instagram’s new algorithm is not giving you enough reach as you had anticipated, or your SEO strategy failed – these things are bound to happen but you mustn’t lose heart and just continue to dig in.

As uncertain as it sounds, digital marketing really is somewhat like a trial and error project. 

What works in one platform may not give you any results at all in another. 

So each part of digital marketing that we talked about above will have different methods that you need to apply effectively.

In conclusion, this is the new age advertising that is required for you to do because otherwise you’ll be left behind in this race to success, with nothing but stagnant pages on the internet.