In 2013, businesses must adapt to emerging technologies by becoming more integrated, inbound and real-time.  Jessica Meher of HubSpot  identifies  some key marketing trends to be prepared for in 2013:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Internet has drastically changed how consumers decide what to buy.  At Google, they call this online decision-making moment the Zero Moment of Truth — or simply ZMOT.  This new stage in the consumer purchase funnel is very important to marketers who are trying to influence consumers to purchase.  We now live in the digital age, where more than ever consumers are going online to research and gather information on products/services.  How can we capture more consumers and win the Zero Moment of Truth?

Here is a brief description of the four phases of the consumer decision journey.

Read the rest of this entry »

Content Marketing is critical to lead & opportunity generation. Content marketing now generates 3x more leads than traditional marketing. Today, marketers know that they must become publishers and create great, quality content.

Content marketing takes processes, tools, and practice to succeed. Here are some basics to creating great content marketing and succeeding as a publisher:

Read the rest of this entry »

For Search Engine Marketing to be successful, specifically Pay-per-Click (PPC) Advertising, it is crucial to have people click on your ad so that they will ultimately land on your website.  Writing compelling PPC text ads is important because great ads lead to visitors and better quality leads and conversions.

Following are some tricks gathered from WordStream to writing stronger, more clickable ads:

Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter has recently rolled out advertising for small businesses through their business portal, Twitter for Business.  If you are a small business looking to gain more followers and grow your presence on Twitter, perhaps you should consider allocating some of your marketing budget here.

How can you engage with your customers and put Twitter to work for your business.  Advertise on Twitter with these 2 new paid advertising products:

Read the rest of this entry »

Instagram is a very popular photo sharing mobile social platform.  The Instagram app is transforming the way people share experiences.  There are currently over 100 million registered users worldwide, only two years after its October 2010 release on the iOS platform.

Here are some tips from Vanessa Au of Spring Creek Group on using Instagram to bring your brand closer to your customers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Search is a big deal! In fact, there are 18.2 billion searches daily.  Following are some important facts and research about search and search advertising.

Search is big. Very big.:

Search is one of the most popular online activities. There are more than a billion searches a day worldwide – more than half come from outside the US.  People are constantly looking for new information online.  There are billions of searches each day on Google.  16% of the searches we see are new.  In 2012, there was $11 billion incremental US advertising dollars of which $8 billion is incremental digital dollars, of which $4 billion is search.

Read the rest of this entry »

With today’s emerging technology, smart businesses should consider kick starting their business on Google+.  Google+ is Google’s main social platform, and it integrates seamlessly with other Google properties, such as Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, etc.  The collaborative search results make it possible to actively search for the types of people interested in your products/services by using the same Google search terms.  Google+ also provides real time social engagement and interactions to support its social efforts.

Google+’s Hangouts on Air use audio and video to show live streams as a form of communication via social media.  Hangouts can be streamed publicly to your Google+ profile, YouTube channel and website.  With Google Hangouts, businesses have a unique and engaging way to communicate with their customers.  Hangouts are also a cool way to deliver and share information. Businesses can include different communities and bring community into content creation itself.  The way that users communicate, behave and participate with others is unique to Google+ and great for businesses.  With Hangouts, businesses can both communicate AND listen to their customers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Social marketing is becoming increasingly more valuable for retailers.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram are some of the social networking platforms that are being used to grow business.  The following are key Social Marketing insights for retailers.

Social Marketing can help build customer engagement and product awareness:

Social marketing can help you increase engagement with your online customers, but be sure to choose the appropriate channel based on your goal.  For example, Pinterest is a must for retailers because it is excellent for sharing product images.  As a visual network, it provides great value to retail brands.  It is also important to reach the right people.  Capture core fans and bring them into your social scape via website, emails, shares, and likes within a social network.  To drive awareness to your brand, optimize content to meet brands by using social analytics.  You can do this by determining which posts are receiving the most engagement and creating more content from that.  Continually manage and keep track of your Likes, Shares, Followers, Retweets, and Comments.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you are active on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, you will see that there has recently been a huge shift to visual content.  Businesses are seeing a positive response and increased engagement with visual content sites.  Part of the appeal is coming from our desire to look at aesthetically pleasing images and sharing them with our friends, fans and followers.

It appears that this growing trend toward visual media is also highly influenced by the shifting habits of technology users.  With the rise of mobile, smart phones and tablets make it easy for users to capture moments and to share them via social network sites that are highly image-based, such as Instagram.  Visual communication, for the most part, is simple and not time consuming. Photo sharing is becoming the preference for many to keep others updated about their experiences, or to tell a story.

Read the rest of this entry »