Month: June 2017

How User Reviews Influence Your Digital Marketing Success

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Is your business rated by users on Facebook, Google or App stores? Do you know how these ratings impact your conversions? Read on to understand the role of user review in digital marketing and some guidelines to handle regular as well as negative online reviews.

user-reviews-blog-image

One of the key differences between traditional marketing and digital marketing is the two way communication between users and marketers. Online platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Justdial and other review sites have given consumers a seat on the marketing table. Consumers are continuously shaping how you are perceived online by

  • choosing what to read and watch,
  • interacting with brands publicly, and
  • providing reviews to the world.

Negative user reviews have the power to take you down despite brilliant digital marketing efforts.

According to 2016 survey by Vendasta, online reviews impact 88% of purchase decisions. 92% of consumers now read online reviews vs. 88% in 2014 and star rating is the number one factor used by consumers to judge a business.

User review is just the online version of the good old ‘word of mouth’ channel of marketing. For past few years social factor is a major influence in buyer’s decision. Following are the ways in which user reviews influence your digital marketing:

1. Form a brand personality

Your online presence gives your brand a personality. Information like how active you are on social media platforms and your responsiveness form an instant image in the reader’s mind.

But these are not the only information shaping your image. Visitors give more importance to other user reviews on your product and service. 73% of consumers form an opinion by reading up to six reviews.

2. Impact your Sales and Conversions

88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. User reviews have a direct and strong impact on online sales. Think about the last time you brought a product online. Did you look for the star rating or scroll down to see product reviews?

According to a survey 94% consumers would use a business with a four star rating whereas only 14% would consider a business with a one or two star rating.

3. Better Ranking

Yes, review ratings can help you rank higher in search engines. Google rates local business on prominence which is indicated by user reviews and ratings. More reviews can give you better visibility not only in Google but on other social media platforms as well.

4. Generate Ideas for Digital Marketing

User reviews are ears of a marketer in this digital world. You can find out what your customers like, why they buy from you and why they don’t. Good marketing is all about listening and those who listen well to the user reviews can adapt their digital marketing strategy effectively.

User reviews can give you

How to Support Digital Marketing with great User Reviews

Presence of user reviews on your site can increase your conversions by 4.6% according to Reevo. Here is what you can do to make sure user reviews are supporting your digital marketing efforts:

  • Ask your customers to review you online. You can send them mails or notifications to do so. Higher number of reviews improve visitor conversion rate. Make the process of reviewing your business easy and quick.
  • Make sure you have recent reviews. 44% of survey participants said reviews must be less than a month old to be relevant.
  • Be responsive and reply to maximum comments in a relevant manner.
How to Handle Negative User Reviews

There may be instances of negative ratings and user reviews. If you are a large company some negative reviews are inevitable. Following are the best practices to follow while resolving them:

  • Never delete the review  –  Ignoring the review is the worst response. You can reply with an apology and a solution where possible. In fact, negative reviews are not necessarily a bad. 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both positive and negative ratings. Users suspect fake and censored reviews if there are no bad reviews at all.
  • Try your best to resolve  – Take feedback positively and resolve the issue at the earliest. This is an opportunity to fix your product and service before it costs you money in recall or damages. According to a study for every customer that complains there are 26 unhappy customers who remain silent (Lee resource). Be glad someone spoke up and resolve the issue.  Also, if a business resolves its issue quickly and efficiently, 95% of unhappy customers return back to your business.
  • Don’t get defensive  –  Never get defensive or attack the customer with logical arguments. Lay down the reason/ facts and apologies to close the issue. A full blown fight can quickly become viral on social media. This will harm your reputation even if you are right on your part.

Reviews are going to be a major part of digital marketing strategy in coming years. User reviews help build trust with your business and directly affect your conversions.

10 Reasons Why Businesses Need Social Media Optimization

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Social media optimization (SMO) can be called as a viral publicity created through social media outlets and communities. The main intention of an SMO is to generate and increase the awareness of any product, brand or event.

Social media optimization is wider today. It includes using RSS feeds, social news and bookmarking sites, as well as social media sites, and video and blogging sites. You may wonder why businesses need the support of social media marketing for their growth. Well, here’s why:

Increase brand image and recognition through social media optimization. When people connect the brand with their life, it eventually promotes the brand image and its recognition among the crowd instantly.

Social media optimization can create brand awareness within a       short period. Unlike other marketing strategies it is done by connecting the brand with each customer directly. Also, search engine optimization helps to build a brand equity by creating a high value for the brand in the customer’s perception.

Gives you a genuine and sometimes worthy suggestions for your business, which promotes the growth of the brand and company. It even helps the management to take a smarter business decision with real-time information.

Social media increase the customer retention and sales through regular interactions and timely customer services. Customer retention is a big challenge faced by every industry today and so, SMO makes it simple, for you and your business.

SMO helps to develop a relationship of trust among the buyers. The intention to buy a product mainly depends on trust and its usefulness, and so, SMO is largely involved in this process.

SMO creates targeting and retargeting of your brand among the buyers. It means that SMO gives you the extra wings to target the crowd which you are intended to and even can relink with those customers by installing a social app in your company pages.

SMO enables you to generate more attention and publicity towards the events that the business sponsors, which in turn can increase the credibility and image of the brand.

It even reaches to the customers whom you weren’t so aware of or you couldn’t point out through the regular means of advertisement or marketing.

SMO acts as a vehicle to increase traffic to your website. It helps to increase the number of people visiting your website, extend their duration of stay in it and even encourage them to visit frequently.

Ultimately, the social media also focuses to create a humanisation of brand through regular interaction with the person rather than a robot or any other machine. So, you can make informed decisions with your historical data that you receive through your humanised approach towards your customer.

According to recent studies, about 90% of marketers believe that social media generates enormous exposure for their company and brand.  Social networks have now become an inevitable part of every business marketing strategy and the benefits of using social media are really great. If there is anyone who is not implementing this cost-effective resource is clearly missing out on a remarkable marketing opportunity for their business.

If you haven’t still tasted the fruit of social media optimisation, it is a good time to create an appropriate profile for your company by filling all the essential data and get set to gain the followers. A great marketing strategy will lead to an excellent social media optimisation for your brand. Every product or brand that is presented in the Internet is viewed 30% based on its title, 30% based on its presentation and the rest of the 40% is for the quality of content.

10 Advantages of Hiring an Online Marketing Agency in Trivandrum

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

SMBs and medium- sized businesses now keep a separate budget for their online marketing efforts. But when looking for online marketing agencies, most businesses focus their search in Bangalore or other metropolitan cities.

India as an IT country is so much more than the metro cities. Trivandrum, for example has the largest IT Park in Asia in terms of built-up area.

So, let’s look at the major advantages of hiring an online marketing agency in Trivandrum:

Contact Jointviews

1. Fast-growing IT Sector

Trivandrum has a fast growing IT Infrastructure that expands far beyond the walls of Technopark. Major IT Companies in the country has identified huge value in shifting to the city.

In the process, it has become a popular choice for the best talent in the country. This bides well for getting highly talented digital marketing resources from around the country as well.

There are many start-ups and It professionals from the city who has made their mark in the international IT scene.

2. Low Cost of Living

This is a huge factor that has attracted companies from around the globe. Lower cost of living means less expense on resources. It reflects on the final product as well, enabling brands to provide more affordable services to digital marketing clients.

3. Literacy Rate

Kerala was the first state in India to achieve 100% literacy. Trivandrum being the capital of Kerala has a well-educated population that is Internet-savvy.

Most people in the city know how to write decent English even though people who speak well are lesser in number. This is ideal for a major online marketing requirement – original, quality content.

4. Knowledge-hungry Population

The people of this city are truly knowledge-hungry. There are a huge number of print publications and News channels that run successfully in the city due to this characteristic of the people.

To be a quality digital marketing or an SEO/SEM professional, curiosity and a hunger for knowledge are basic traits to have. The next generation kids of the city are hooked to the Internet just like kids from any metropolitan city.

5. Communication

Digital marketing is all about proper communication, to the client and to the audience. What better place than a 100% literate state to have great, clear communication. A huge percent of the population is exposed to foreigners as the state is also a popular tourist destination.

6. Well-connected

Despite being near the southern tip of India, Trivandrum is connected extremely well via roadways, airways, railways and even waterways.

If a digital marketing client wants to make visits onsite, it’s very easy to do so. At the Jointviews Trivandrum office, we often have frequent visitors from different parts of the world.

7. Creatively Inclined

Creativity is a key trait for any quality digital/content marketers. They frequently face challenges and have to find creative solutions on the fly.

An online marketing agency in Trivandrum will have majority resources sourced locally. If you look at Trivandrum, the city has been a cultural hub throughout the centuries.

The natives are very creative. It is partially due to the calm and serene atmosphere provided by the city. Online marketing is a high stress work segment, and the peaceful city offers plenty of opportunities for the professionals to unwind. This allows online marketers to produce creative work.

8. Social

On any given day, apart from the rare occasion of hartal, you can see the streets are abuzz with life during the evenings. All types of people communicate with each other every day. Trivandrum has a very social population.

This also means that online marketers in the city socialize with people from the same industry quite often, either directly or through social media. Hence they are able to share a lot of ideas and maintain very high standards.

9. Internet Savvy

Kerala is a consumer state, and the people are always looking out for a bargain buy, especially online. Almost everyone in the city has an internet connected smartphone.

This helps and pushes those working in the digital domain to stay on top of the latest news and developments. Staying updated with the latest is a great asset to have in all online marketers as there are numerous changes happening every day.

10. Increasing Number of Online Marketing Agencies

Slowly but steadily, the city is embracing Online Marketing. This has given rise to a higher number of agencies, and there is stiff competition between them to outdo each other.

The customer is the beneficiary in such a scenario, as they reap the rewards of having a highly competitive workforce.

With so many benefits to offer, Trivandrum is a great choice to hire an online marketing company. You get your job done in the best way at affordable rates as agencies here have a strong pool of resources to bank upon.

How to Deal with Ranking Fluctuations in Google [Infographic]

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Nowadays website owners are in frenzy regarding the ranking fluctuation that has happened in Google search results. People are extensively talking about it on the internet. One day a website will be on the first page of Google search list and on the other day it will be on the fourth page.

Ranking fluctuations have always been common in Google search results due to the various algorithms they try frequently. However, something this strange and irregular is a first. This frequent fluctuations can be frustrating for those who are working hard to do better in Google rankings.

Here is an infographic that gives an exact idea about whats going on and how to deal with it.

How-to-Deal-with-Ranking-Fluctuations-in-Google-infographic

 

A Guide to Hire the Best Content Strategist for Your Company

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Content Marketing is a rapidly growing field and, content strategist, a fast filling vacancy in many organizations in 2017. According to a survey by recruiting firm The Creative Group, Content Marketing is the top area where companies plan to add staff in 2017. You might have heard of the role of Content Strategist, of late. Maybe you have even decided to hire one. Before sharing the guide on how to hire one let us first look at what exactly is the job of a content strategist.

Who is a content strategist?

Content Strategist is involved in all stages of content marketing life-cycle. This includes market research, content planning, content creation, content distribution and monitoring. It is relatively a new job title and hence, is still evolving. However, a content strategist is definitely someone who

-has the bird’s eye view of the content required to meet your company’s specific goals

– can chalk out a plan to reach your business targets through compelling content

Here is a Guide to hire a Content Strategist.

  • Define the Job clearly in your organization

The first step is to define the position clearly in your organization. The role does not have a fixed scope and you need to know what you expect the content strategist to deliver. Do you currently have a content developer, a digital marketer and content designer? If yes, how will the roles evolve, change or overlap.

  • Skills to Look for

As must be clear from the description of content strategist above, he/she needs to have a wide range of writing and marketing skills with plenty of creativity and vision. Following are qualities/skills that a content strategist must have:

  • Storytelling
  • Creativity and vision
  • Project Management Skills
  • Knowledge of digital marketing
  • Content writing and development, copywriting
  • SEO skills
  • User Experience and Design knowledge

That’s a lot to ask for, right? Remember that a content strategist doesn’t have to be an expert in all of the above. What is more important is his/her ability to analyze data, gain insights and weave all the components of content marketing into an actionable plan. He/she must have excellent creativity, storytelling and project management skills  and communication. However, a basic level knowledge of other domains will also do.

It must be clear by now that content strategist is someone who has a varied experience under his or her belt.

  • Previous records & References

It is advisable to go through the candidate’s previous work. You can ask for samples or check the work they have done before online. The best past about content marketing is that all their previous work will be online and you can even check the success of it (check for number of followers, likes, traffic to page etc.)

  • What to ask

Interviewing the candidate should make it clear whether they have the required skills. Discuss goals and challenges that your company is facing and ask them for possible solutions. This should give you a fair idea whether they can solve the challenges and take you closer to your goals or not.

Where can I find the Perfect Content Strategist

We get it. The perfect content strategist might be hard to find. Not only does he/she need to have all the above mentioned skill and experience but may also need to have your industry knowledge. Consider looking at following places:

Within your Organization: Yes. Your content strategist might be already working with you as a content writer/ digital marketer. Look for project management skills and analytical abilities in your current employees. It is better to spend on training current employee who is a good fit rather than hiring someone completely new.

 Recruitment channels: Again look for required skill sets in various recruitment channels like recruiting firms or online recruiting platforms. Do not be stuck with the job title of content strategist as it is a relatively new term. Your next content strategist might be working under the job title of content manager in some other company.

Hire a Digital Marketing Agency: This is an effective way to have a digital presence. Digital Marketing agencies provide content marketing services while cutting out your investment in hiring, training and maintaining a team. They already have expert content strategist who have experience in handling hundreds of projects. Many companies are going with this option of outsourcing content strategy work to the digital marketing experts.

Guide to Hire an Google AdWords Specialist

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Pay per click or PPC is an essential part for digital marketing mix. SEO combined with PPC campaign will give your business quicker conversions and more traffic. After all, 64% clicks for high commercial intent keywords go to paid results on Google. Designing, launching and monitoring an Adwords campaign requires a lot of learning, experimentation and experience. Here are guidelines to hire an Adwords Specialist who can get conversions for you:

Experience

This is the most important factor to consider. An Adwords specialist must have experience handling numerous Adwords campaigns in the past. Here are the things that count as good experience:

  • A professional experience at a well-known digital marketing firm is good to have. Someone who has worked a full time job will have formal training under experienced person. This is always better than someone who is self-taught.
  • Consider the number of years they have been using Adwords. More number is usually a good sign. However, remember that the candidate with the most experience may not necessarily be the best. Consider this point along with the quality of work and success ratio.
  • Each professional will have managed a different portfolio and may have different area of expertise. Ask if they have specialized in any particular industry or campaign type. We will talk more on different types of campaigns below.

Qualifications

An Adwords specialist will have Google Adwords certification at the very least.  Having Adwords certification means that individuals or partners have taken the exam and earned a certification in Adwords from Google. There are various specialization that one can take up in the certification:

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Remember that qualification and degrees are an incomplete way to assess anyone in digital marketing. The Google certification exam is fairly simple and does not guarantee best results by the certified partner. These certifications should be looked at as minimum qualification required before assessing other skills.

You can find a certified Adwords Partner in your area here. (https://www.google.com/partners/#a_search)

Skills

These are the skills a good Adwords specialist should have:

Analytical Skills: As a PPC campaign managers have to deal with a lot of data, numbers and statistics to analyze the campaign. You need someone who is comfortable with numbers and has an analytical mind. Adwords specialist should be able to draw insights from these number regarding campaign success buyer’s behaviour. Excel skill would be an add on as it helps to draw insights from number.

Time Management Skills: An Adwords specialists has to manage campaign time limits, budget limits, A/B testing variations for multiple clients or campaigns.  This can get too much to handle without to-do lists and weekly planner.

Readiness to Change: User behaviors and Google algorithms are continuously updating and so should your Adwords specialist. He should be someone who is ready to unlearn and try out new strategies. Campaign managers often set more than one variation of ads and test for better results. He should be flexible enough to throw away conventional knowledge and change with times.

Business empathy: Simply put business empathy is the ability to put himself in your shoes and understand your business deeply. Campaign strategies and best practices may vary business to business and Ads needs to be tailored by keeping your prospective customers and business industry in mind.

Service Agreements

 Make sure you have clear answers to following questions before you sign up an Adwords specialist or agency:

  • Who will be handling your account in person and what is his domain experience and certification
  • What is the breakup of the cost quoted. There will be at least two components to the cost. Campaign budget and campaign management fees that the agency or specialist is charging you. There could also be other additional costs. Ask for a formal breakup of the quote
  • Will the agency give you access to your Google Adwords account. And how will the account be handed over in case of termination of contract.
  • What will be the reporting parameters and reporting frequency? Ideally they should connect your Adwords account to your Google analytics data and report in context of traffic from other sources. Other reporting parameters could be costs per sale, cost per click and conversion rates.

Technical Knowledge

 Check for technical knowledge of the specialist. Here are some of the basic terms for your knowledge. You can ask questions on the application of these for your business campaign:

CPC – Cost per click is the price you pay for each click on your ad.

Campaign type – There are two types of campaigns possible. One is on the search network where your ad will show up on the Google search result page. The second one is display network where your as will show on the sites and popular video platforms with content related to your keywords. You can ask the Adwords specialist on what campaign would be a good fit for your business.

Negative keywords – These are keywords that you don’t want your ad to show up for. These could be words that come along with your keywords but have no buying intent. Eg: Evening gowns to share on Pinterest

Geo-targeting – This feature of Adwords allows you to target and limit your ad to a particular chosen region only.

Remarketing- This feature displays ads to visitors who have come to your website recently and interacted with your business. Eg: Ad of Makemytrip.com on your Facebook page right after you have checked flight prices on their website.

Split A/B testing– Adwords allows you to run two of more variations of ads for the same campaign. This is for Adwords user to test which variation works better. For eg: You may keep the location as Chennai in one variation and Kolkata in another. It is recommended to vary only one parameter at a time to understand which works.

Share your goals with the prospective hire and ask them how they can help you achieve your business goals. The answers should show you a logical and attainable strategy.

Beware of one person claiming to be a specialist in all the fields of digital marketing such as SEO, content writing, content marketing, Email marketing etc. Follow the above guidelines and hire an agency/person that instills confidence in you by their knowledge and expertise.

Rising Popularity of Chat Bots in Marketing

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

A chatbot is a computer program that imitates real humans to communicate with users via audio or text. The main reason for using chatbots is to drive customer engagement. Customers find it easy to interact with chatbots to find answers to their queries than taking the pain of searching for information in the websites.

Chatbots were considered ineffective during the beginning stages of researches on Artificial Intelligence. However, nowadays, chatbots seem to revolutionize communication. Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana are all examples of popular chatbots.

Chatbots are normally used to answer simple customer queries or to provide product/company information. Some apps even use chatbots to answer more complex questions. In future, chatbots are expected to be smarter.

It may learn from previous conversations to give more effective answers. This expectation is the main reason to chatbots’ rising popularity. They started as experimental projects and now, chatbots are taking over the world!

It’s said that 2017 will see more of chatbots in marketing, where it will be used by businesses to communicate and engage with their customers.

The following features of chatbots are making it immensely popular among marketers:

  • Automated customer service

At present, chatbots are serving only first line customer assistance by answering to simple queries.  Tougher questions are passed on to humans in the customer service department to handle. Weighing the capabilities of chatbots, it’s not too far from them actually handling the entire customer service department, thus reducing the workload for the employees and saving time, money and other resources for the company.

  • Tracking of user data

Even one interaction with the customers can give away loads of valuable data to collect. For a human to do it can be a herculean task especially when the main aim is to provide good customer service.  However, with chatbots, it is easy to collect the data while satisfying the customers by answering to their queries.

The analytics and data collected gives an insight of the customer needs and therefore, helps the company to provide with what is demanded. Though the data tracked by chatbots are put to temporary use as of now, it’ll be entirely used for the same in the years to come.

  • 24/7 availability

The chatbots are capable of answering the customers’ query at any time of the day. Also, the instant response by the chatbots will leave the customers satisfied. This will help improve brand awareness and your customers may even promote your brand through positive word-of-mouth.

  • Versatility

Chatbots offer more than what you think. Apart from customer service, it can be put in any branch of marketing to improve customer experience, steer customer loyalty and to reduce workload. Also, even if it’s to collect customer data or to answer to customer’s queries, chatbots are capable of using their own behavioural data to estimate the best approach to be taken while interacting with customers.

  • Mobile-optimization

These days, people prefer mobile phones over other gadgets. Therefore, if anything your business offers digitally isn’t compatible in their phones, you are in trouble. The chatbots come mobile-optimized, making it easy for you, saving you from additional expenses and work.

Now, how can this rising popularity of chatbots put to use in various aspects of marketing? Well, here’s how:

  • Ecommerce

Chatbots mimic human behaviour and hence can be used to provide customer support for e-commerce apps. It can be used to communicate with the customers and inspire them to purchase the products. Since chatbots come with defined rules set for them to intelligently answer to customer queries, there is no doubt of providing relevant answers to the customers and rightly guiding them to what they need.

Also, since the chatbots answer instantly, customers will feel that they can actually trust the brand. Remember, the chatbots’ role in e- commerce doesn’t end with customer support. They can also be used to automate the order process, sell the products and build customer loyalty.

  • Customer service

By customer service, we don’t mean just responding to the customer queries. It’s much more than that. Chatbots can be used to provide customer service 24/7. It saves you from the additional expense of appointing a customer service staff and providing them with monthly salary.

Chatbots can also be used to introduce a new product to the customers, offer promo codes, obtain customer feedback and provide notifications regarding shipping of products.

  • Customer acquisition

Chatbots can be used to instantly connect to the customers. When the customers see that they are being supported, they’ll start trusting the brand. Also, they may recommend the brand to the people they know, thus widening the brand’s customer base.

Conclusion

It’s true that chatbots are going to impact the future of marketing. However, it is necessary for businesses to familiarize themselves with chatbots to put them to good use.