Month: March 2018

How to Use Dynamic Content to Boost Conversions

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Creating an online experience tailored as per the needs and preferences of customers is the ultimate goal of any marketer. In fact, recent trends in technology have made it possible for businesses to modify websites as per individual viewing experiences.

This strategy involves the use of dynamic content based on various sets of information about the user giving them just what they need to engage with your brand or take steps in the direction of leading to a conversion.

Dynamic content makes the user experience more engaging and intuitive, thereby resulting in increased conversions.

It eliminates all sorts of extra and irrelevant information that could otherwise cause a friction or frustration with the customers. These techniques offer a logical step to the customer taking them forward in the customer lifecycle.

Here are 5 ways you can use dynamic content to give your website visitors a smoother and user-friendly experience to boost conversions:

1. Personalized Recommendations

Recommender systems have gained immense popularity in the recent years. This technique collects consumer data and takes users through their journey by offering recommendations and relevant content at every stage of browsing.

In fact, product recommendations tremendously help in increasing online revenue.  The focus lies in improving the experience of customers engaging with your brand instead of running after the prospective ones.

The algorithm of recommender systems captures, collects and analyzes consumer behaviour and other data to recommend the most suitable products for every individual. This process is known as ‘collaborative filtering’.

However, this does not mean that recommender systems are only suited to E-commerce companies. They are also beneficial for content portals, travel websites, and other platforms.

As a rule of thumb, if your business is involved in the marketing and sale of several different products, chances that the implementation of a recommender system will be beneficial are high.

2. Improve Site Search Experience

Search technologies have advanced in the last couple of years making it easy for users to find what they need. This means that the quality of search on your website can also influence conversion rates.

Dynamic content has the ability to optimize your site search. This includes simple strategies such as autofill and autocorrect.

Another way of utilizing dynamic content to improve site search experience is by providing search terms related to the products and categories near the search box.

This enhances the discovery process as users instantly jump to the product they are searching for, rather than going through the vast product range and listing pages on your website.

With popular recommendations, filter keywords and phrases, the scope of searches is narrowed making it easier for the visitor to make a choice.

Additionally, based on consumer behaviour, purchase histories, and other data, items can be sorted as per popularity benefitting both the business and the customer to view the best available products.

3. Tailored Call-to-Action

Call-to-Action buttons are a vital part of any business website. It is the element that connects the user and the business. However, its effectiveness is dependent on the copy that it uses.

Dynamic call-to-action buttons fasten the conversion process by giving users an incentive that is absolutely lucrative and relates to them instantly.

The copy of the button is customized according to the stage of the sales funnel that the customer is in. Giving a website visitor the right touchpoint at the right time helps to generate more leads and conversions.

For example, if you are reaching out to a new lead and expecting them to download the brochure, a ‘Download Now’ CTA is what you need.

Once the brochure has been downloaded, you wish to redirect them to a testimonial or a free trial offer and your button copy must reflect the same.

Tailoring the call-to-action button improves the product adoption process since the customer’s journey is already being tracked with the right actions being displayed in front of them.

Takeaway

Dynamic content may sometimes be confused with personalization. However, the former is infinitely more powerful. Content tailored as part of personalization is fixed while dynamic content is HTML content that alters itself on the basis of the user accessing it.

How To Create High Converting Landing Pages

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

In case if you are wondering how you guide visitors to your website, it will definitely be a landing page. The first look of your landing page says whether the visitor will remain your site or will go away.

Each penny you spend on running advertisements, or consistently you focus on composing visitor posts – every last bit of it will be a waste if you don’t convert your guests into leads or clients. In the case, if you are still not converting, the issue may be with your landing page.

You may offer brilliant content or items and your advertisements may even be producing a decent click-through rate. However, if your conversions are stale or decreasing, it is your landing page that requires more work.

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is the main page that guests see in the wake of clicking on your standard advertisement, PPC promotions, or promotion emails. It can be a particular page on your site or a different page made only for search engines.

A landing page is intended to guide guests to make a particular move, for example, making a purchase, finishing a registration, or subscribing to your mail list.

An incredible landing page is the one that targets a particular crowd. Getting an impression from your targeted audience is done when you offer them the data they are looking for.

If you are able to provide the necessary information they are seeking when they visit first time on your page, their search will end at that point and they will be prepared to take a move. The first impression is the best impression!

In the event that you goof on the first impression, potential leads get lost in an outright flood.

Do you require a Landing Page?

If you are attempting to construct an audience or offer something on the internet, then it will be a yes!

A landing page assumes an extremely critical part of your site. It helps you to convert traffic into leads.

If you have various items or offerings, you would prefer not to confuse the guests for an excess of data. Make numerous landing pages and ensure everybody has a special reason for its own.

Key factors for a High-Converting Landing Page

High-converting landing pages do share several characteristics in common. Let’s look at the key factors needed for a high-converting landing page:

1. Striking headline

A headline is the first place that gets visitor’s interest, attention and understanding. The headline is your first and most critical action on a landing page. To accomplish that, you need to do these:

1.The headline should be catchy enough to grab the visitor’s attention

2.The headline ought to convey the client what the item or service is all about. If your headline supplements a picture that clarifies the item or service, then you are on the right track.

3.The headline should be short; never in excess than twenty words, and ideally
just ten.

2. Enticing sub headline

If the headline influences the client to look, then the subheadline should influence them to remain.

1.Regularly, the enticing subheadline is situated specifically underneath the main headline.

2.The subheadline ought to have some component of inducement. Keep in mind that, you are tricking the visitors to remain on the page with the subheadline. You can take the idea of the main headline and push it somewhat further.

3.The subheadline can go into more intensity and detail than the main headline.

3. Pictures

Our brain processes pictures 60, 000 times quicker than content. A client will be influenced by the pictures on your landing page instantly.

1.The pictures ought to be huge.

2.The pictures ought to be applicable to your item or service. In the event you are offering a physical item, it is necessary that your landing page contains a picture of the item.

3.In the event that you are offering an item, at that point, the main role of the picture ought to get consideration and exhibit the importance of the product.

4.Ensure that the pictures are of high-quality. This isn’t the place to highlight stock photos or a minute ago messed up Photoshop pictures.

4. Correct explanation

If a client doesn’t understand what is your item or services is about, you have lost them. An explanation of whatever shape it comes is urgent. The best explanations are those that are clear.

  • Your explanation can be incorporated into your headline, or totally isolated.
  • Your explanation may consolidate components from a few sources:

1.Your headline
2.Your subheadline
3.Pictures
4.A separate paragraph

If taken separately, none of these components doesn’t clarify the products or items; however, as a composite, they achieve what an explanation ought to do.

  • An explanation ought to be advantage-oriented. Explanations are useful; however, usefulness ought to be tilted towards the client.
5. Value Proposition/Benefits

The value proposition is characterized as a “modification, feature or a highlight proposed to make an organization or item alluring to clients.” When it goes to your landing page, this component needs pride of place. The benefits essentially answer the client’s inquiry, “How might this benefit me?”

1.Similarly ‘explanation,’ value proposition can be discovered among the different basic components.

2.Outstanding amongst other approaches to propel your value proposition is through a rundown of benefits. Usually landing pages use a basic bullet point list to clarify the benefits of their items or service.

3.Benefits ought to be plainly centered around the client. Mainly consider the client and how he or she will benefit from your item.

6. Logical Flow

The logical flow of a landing page is similarly as vital as the content you have on the landing page.

A really interested client will be mentally engaged with the landing page. They will read the content and pursue the point of view. Along these lines, you should lead them through a process of reasoning that is intelligent and convincing.

1.Begin with your explanation, proceed with your benefits, incorporate your testimonials, and end with your Call-To-Action (CTA). This is the most evident and enticing technique for organizing a landing page.

2.CTA position is a basic part of the landing page flow. You can use various CTAs on a single landing page, placing every one toward the end of each discrete segment of the landing page.

3.Enable your design to divide areas. Truth to be told, in the event that you enhance the logical flow with relating design flow highlights, at that point, you will enhance the process with visual or emotional consistency.

4.Use enticing components all through. Try not to limit influence to a single area. Enticing highlights ought to be available in each area of the landing page.

5.Keep in mind, a lengthy landing page is very powerful. Try not to be hesitant to make a landing page extremely long.

7. Reliable Testimonials

The testimonials on a landing page are one of its most vital trust signals. A client needs to realize that they can confide in the items or services. If they see a dependable testimonial, this goes far in developing the client’s trust.

1.Utilize testimonials from genuine individuals. Celebrities and experts are extraordinary, yet you needn’t bother with testimonials from these individuals. Pick testimonials from individuals who are most significant to your targeted audience.

2.Ensure that you utilize pictures. Pictures are the foundation of the trust in testimonials. It’s vital that each highlighted testimonial is followed by a photograph of a genuine individual.

8. Means of contact

The most convincing pages have numerous methods for contact – a telephone number, an email address, a physical address, or a contact form. Some pages even have popups where a customer service executive inquires as to whether they can be an assistance.

These go far to help to reinforce the trust in the organization and to wipe out any problems in the conversion pipeline.

9. Provide Guarantee

Clients adore guarantees. Despite how it is or what it is introduced, a guarantee can enable individuals to feel relieved while on your landing page. Essentially the word itself enhances the probability of a conversion.

1.Guarantees can take numerous forms. Pick a kind of guarantee that suits your business, and express this guarantee on your landing page. There is no compelling reason to dive into the authorities of it. The fact of the matter is that you have a guarantee and the client knows it.

2.Position your guarantee near the CTA. This nearness will enable the client to get a last piece of information and to be prepared for a changeover.

10. Social sharing buttons

These buttons allow the guests to share the content of your page to their network or systems via social media platforms.

Sum up

A landing page is where all your efforts work out as expected. This is where clients click, purchase, and you make income.

You will make an effective and high-converting landing page by executing all of the above-listed factors. Also, once you are done, run some A/B testing and continue moving forward. The way towards making a landing page never gets wrapped up.

How to Create Readable Content

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

It is frequently neglected that there is a connection between readability and search engine optimization. Readable content can do wonders in SEO.

When you create content, it should be:

  • skimmable
  • composed at a proper reading level
  • use only compact sentence structures
  • prefer only uncomplicated words

At the point when your content is simple to read, chances are high that your visitors will keep reading. This implies a more extended occupying time, a superior bounce rate and better rankings in seeking.

In this article, we will give you tips to make your content more readable. Likewise, we will demonstrate to you a couple of tools that check readability before you click “publish.”

Tips for composing more readable content

Try your hands on implementing the following tips as soon as possible. Editing as your own for readability for your content can be time-consuming and also tedious.

If you can intentionally take a shot at making content clear as you think of, you won’t need to invest more energy in editing subsequently. Following are the best tips to make your content more readable:

1. Establish a solid first impression

In the event, if it’s a case study or a tale about a client experience, begin with a conflict and demonstrate the client’s challenge. Individuals with similar dissatisfactions will relate and keep reading to perceive how your business figured out the issues.

Regardless of how you begin, the presentation ought to mirror the substance of whatever remains of your post. That way you don’t deceive readers and they won’t leave the page when they don’t get what they anticipated.

2. Make the content skimmable

It is a fact that most of the people just scan through the web pages or web content. It might be hurting to compose a content realizing that your audience won’t really read the entire thing.

However, if you can give valuable data, readers will discover precisely what they are searching for while skimming through the page. They won’t leave your page in dissatisfaction.

One of the simplest approaches to make a content skimmable is to separate the duplicate with formatting techniques. Following are a couple of things to begin incorporating into your content:

Headings: Use of headings will help to recognize fundamental topics of the different segments of content. Utilize H1 and H2 labels to design your content, as well as to enable Google to access your page to understand what it is about.

Bullet points: Exactly like these kinds of pointer heads to differentiate content into segments.

Numbers & listicles: Using numbers is a simple method to compose a bit of content and split it up into sub-points and show how everything identifies with each other.

Short paragraphs: Make sure that you only put a couple of words on each line. Otherwise, it will relatively be irritating to read the content. You need to utilize more line breaks; however, an excessive number of it makes it troublesome for readers to understand the point of each passage and where to focus.

Visuals: Photos, videos, and different graphics help to separate the duplicate, as well as add interesting components to your content, urging readers to remain on the page.

Bold, italics and hyperlinks: Using these formatting techniques can feature keywords and the essential outcomes in sections.

3. Use suitable and natural language

Before creating content, you need to know who is your crowd. As you build up your purchaser personas, take note of the kind of the language your audience uses.

Concentrate on the content your audience absorb, regardless whether it is a famous blog or industry magazine, and focus on how they discuss the themes they cover.

Unless writing a technical stuff or for academic purpose, use a conversational tone. Using a conversational tone, you will have a capacity to address a more extensive scope of your audience.

Using pronouns, like “I” and “You” upgrade the conversational tone. It helps in building up a relationship with your audience by enabling them to become more acquainted with you.

It is likewise a review without bounds discussion that the prospect may have with a salesman. This kind of conversational tone is called natural language.

At the point when individuals make inquiries in a search engine, particularly when they use voice search, they are not using any keywords but they are utilizing full sentences.

So your content should answer these inquiries. Google’s algorithm has advanced to sorting out accommodating answers over keywords.

4. Be aware of word choices

Indeed, even with formatting that splits up content, complex word choices and long sentences will reduce readers. Following are a couple of formatting and writing tips to keep in mind:

Avoid fluff: Make sure you don’t use repetitive kind of words in your content. What is important is imparting your message plainly and being as connecting with as would be feasible.

Make use of active voice rather than passive voice: The subject of your sentence ought to do the activity. For instance, active voice resembles this: “Ram distributed the papers”, while passive voice resembles like this: “The papers were distributed by Ram.”

Passive voice can frequently cause negative responses since it’s lengthy and not as direct, and also sometimes irritating to read.

This is a simple error to make while you are writing, so bear in mind to search for it during the proofreading process.

Use only fewer adverbs: Like using the passive voice, an excessive number of adverbs undermine your written work. Adverbs change verbs and more often not end with ‘ly’, for example, “He rapidly hurried to class.” Instead of adverbs, use more expressive verbs. For the above-quoted example, it can be altered to “He dashed to class.”

Stay away from empty phrases and superlatives: Let’s consider the example of a baker and his marketing phrase goes like this “The world’s most delicious cookies.” That sounds great; however, the phrases are overused.

Besides, there is no real way to demonstrate it! Rather, ask what makes the following one interesting, “Does anyone has created such uber-delicious cookies that won the American Gingerbread contest last year?” This says significantly more in regards to the item without exaggerating.

How to review the readability of your content?

On the off chance you don’t have an editor on the team, recruit someone else in your company, or even a friend or family member if needed to review your content. A fresh set of eyes will be able to let you know how readable your content is.

There are also some scales that measure the readability of your content and review the average length of your paragraphs, sentences, and words:

The Flesch Reading Ease score: It rates in between 0 to 100, with 100 being the clearest. Scores rating between 60-70 can be rated as eligible for grown-up readership.

The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Grade: It indicates what reading level in school is required for somebody to grasp your content.

According to Readable.io, you should aim for grade 8 or beneath to guarantee your content is readable by 80% or greater amount of Americans.

Following are a couple of supportive devices to decide these scores:

Hemingwayapp.com – This is a free web application, or else you can pay to download it to your desktop. This app is particularly valuable for authors who tend to use more complicated words and sentence structures.

It provides your content a reading level and features all the issue regions so that you know precisely what to settle.

Yoast: This mainstream WordPress module for measuring SEO meta tags and definitions additionally has a component that decides readability.

It gives a Flesch Reading Ease score, which measures the usage of passive voice and recognizes the sentence length and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Readable.io – This is a web application that checks the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Grade, the Flesch Reading Ease score in addition to numerous other scales.

Also, it checks content details like characters per word, number of adjectives, reading time and so on.

Grammarly: Use this as an application or as a convenient Chrome extension. As the name recommends, it checks the language structure of your content, and additionally spelling, style, punctuations, and offers suggestions for correcting your content.

Even though there is no readability score, Grammarly will catch a significant number of mistakes that will help to increase the quality of readable content.

Final Thoughts

The primary goal of writing readable content is to answer your reader’s inquiries. Your content has to be snappy and simple for your audience to absorb.

Figuring out how to create readable content needs a numerous number of rehearsals. However, it will be justified despite all the trouble over the long haul for better results of SEO.

20 Reasons Why No One is Reading Your Website Content

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Nobody wants to accept that their content is weak and not deserving to be read. After all, why would anyone write something that is utterly useless? However, there’s still a lot of content on the web that does not attract the target audience.

Read this article to know and understand why some of your website content is not being read and why is it that your audience is not being able to relate to you:

1. Repetition

A lot of websites just repeat the content that is already available in Google searches. If a consumer can find the same topic and the same angle on a blog post through Google search, why would the audience need to visit your website?

Most content on the web is just information that’s reformatted with keyword stuffing, unnecessary links, and ads and that’s where the interest is lost. We are not recommending you to invent something new but refrain from using the same top 10 tips that everyone has already been talking about.

2. Excessive Use of Product Name

Some website owners tend to write their product name over and over in an attempt to register it in the minds of the consumer. However, more mentions of the product in a small piece of content weaken the overall readability of the piece. Consumers tend to view it as forced promotion and you lose their interest.

3. More Focus on We

Content today is over-emphasizing on the brand and company itself. Statements that position the brand before the customer appears as excessive bragging leading to a frustrated reader. Try and eliminate the ‘I’ and ‘We’ from your marketing material.

4. Need to Upgrade

Website content may seem outstanding at the time of development. However, with changing market dynamics, innovations in technology, and new research, it is important that you update the obsolete information. Content must regularly be made fresh and relevant.

5. Eliminate the Obvious

Writing something that is obvious and the target audience is already aware of is an act that makes your content weak. Nobody will spend time reading your content if you say exercising regularly is important to lose weight or cutting down on your expenses can help to save money. Get rid of such obvious facts and bring in content that is advantageous for the readers.

6. Long Introductions

Some blogs start with an introduction to the topic that lasts around two paragraphs before the actual answer begins. This is more like the filler and can be avoided. If you skip these paragraphs and get to the most important information, it will help to keep the reader glued to your webpage.

7. Engage

Your topic may not be interesting but the way you write the content must be. It must have emotion, enthusiasm, a story, or a voice that adds a humanistic appeal to your content. Readers will only convert if they get excited after reading your content.

8. Monotonous

Long-form content is suitable for research papers and dissertations. Your website content must have a combination of video, text, images, music, and other elements that can break the monotony and keep the target audience interested.

9. Every Article is a Listicle

You must have come across articles like ’10 ways to lose weight’, ‘5 tips to grow your hair long’ etc. While these were a trend as finding information through a listicle was easier, avoid getting obsessed with it. Every article that you post must not be in the form of a listicle.

You need to provide the reader with a mix of educational, concise, precise, and appropriate information that helps them enhance their knowledge.

10. Misleading Content

Some webpages do not deliver the content that it promises in the title. If that is the case, your reader would just be deflected from your website and would not want to come back for any kind of further information.

11. False Information

There isn’t anything worse than providing wrong information. Google allows every reader to cross-check what has been mentioned by you and if you have written something incorrectly, it will completely kill your content and your website.

12. Lack of Appropriate Sources

An important aspect that most marketers ignore is to cite appropriate references and sources. Data used from trusted sources instead of editorializing helps to establish credibility. Credibility then leads to trust and it results in loyal customers.

13. Track the Length

Several discussions and forums have been created on the appropriate length of a webpage. There have been conclusions in favor of a 500-word post as well as a 1500-word post stating that they both can keep the reader interested as long as the content fulfills its purpose.

Content must value the time a reader is spending on the blog and therefore provide information that is worthwhile.

14. Relevancy

Every word on your website must be relevant to your brand, its products, and services. Bad content is irrelevant and customers are just not interested in reading it. If your content does not answer the real question and does not entertain, it will just fail.

15. Negativity

While stating the neutral facts related to your industry is good, putting your competitors in a negative light is not suggested. If you try to pull your competition down, they will try to do the same.

The outcome then would not be loyal customers but a battle between you and your competition resulting in continuous judgment by your target audience.

16. Fluff

Sometimes website owners add extra words to their content just to match with the design of the webpage and satisfy Google. However, these extra words can be noticed as fluff by the reader and tend to give a bad audience experience.

17. Selection of Words

Words used on the website must be compelling enough. Flowery words don’t always do the task and therefore, words selected must complement the goal of the content and must clearly convey the objective to the target audience.

18. Too Long, Too Boring

Most readers tend to exit the page if it has around 5000 words written on it. This is because they don’t have the time to read through the entire thing even if it provides the most factual, accurate, and relevant information.

It is therefore important to wisely break down the information into something that can be read easily and quickly. The same goes for large volumes of images and long videos.

19. Routine SEO

Sometimes content is just written to tick off the requirement in the SEO plan. Such a piece can easily be recognized and will fail at attracting organic traffic.

20. Not Mobile Friendly

The use of smartphones to access websites has increased tremendously. This means that your content must be mobile-friendly. The font and alignment must be such that readers can easily view it without having to zoom in or scroll left and right.

Takeaway

With the website content mistakes mentioned above, you may have realized what you need to fix. So, get going and make your content perfect so that viewers actually read what you want to say and then transform into customers.

How to Collaborate with the Right Link Building Agency

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Link building is an important part of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. A single backlink from the right page has the power to get thousands of new visitors to your site.

Take the example of Moosa Hemani, SEO and inbound marketing specialist who recorded a 203% increase in his traffic after his guest post on Moz.com.

Backlinks from authority sites can in fact do magic for your website ranking. This is because Google counts backlinks from reputed sites as votes for your page.

Other pages pointing to your site tells Google that your content is worth quoting and referring to and hence valuable.

However, building links proactively takes time and effort. There is a whole process of researching the right sites and reaching out to them for backlinks.

You also need to add value to your partners to gain their trust and links. This could be re-purposing their content in the form of infographic, writing a guest post or promoting their page on your social media.

Link building campaigns need expertise, time and resources. This is why outsourcing link building to an external agency is a good idea.

The right agency can boost your SEO efforts with link-building strategy. Here are the evaluation criteria while choosing the right link building agency for your business.

• Experience

Past work of the agency is good indication of their quality of work. Have they successfully delivered increased traffic before? Ask them for references of their clients if required. This way you can enter the contract with confidence.

Also, it is important to check the industries and size of companies they have worked in. A campaign that was successful for a big MNC may not be the best strategy for a start-up. Your agency must have the creativity to develop a tailor-made strategy for you.

Generally speaking, an agency who has worked within your industry with similar client profile is preferable. However, do not rule out an agency new to your industry without asking for detailed strategy proposal for your business.

Another detail to consider is the experience of the person who will be handling your campaign. Stellar experience of the agency is of no use to you if your account will be taken care by a fresher single- handedly.

• Ethical Strategies

You may come across agencies that will promise you 500% increase within no time. Practices employed by such agencies are often unethical, penalized by search engines and may cause Google to ban your site. Make sure your agency is not using black hat SEO tactics that will only hurt your business in the long run. Here are some black hat practices for your awareness:

  • Paying for backlinks is not allowed and is considered a serious offense by Google
  • Inserting links in others site without their permission or through hacking into their site
  • Irrelevant posting of links to your site in the comments section. There are even tools available for mass posting in websites that are unrelated to your topic.
  • Excessive link exchanging is a practice where links are exchanged between sites just to show backlinks to search engines and with no real benefit to site visitors. Such a practice of linking excessively to unrelated site is a violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines.

You website will be the one penalized by Google even if you are unaware of such practices being used by your agency. This is why it is important that your agency shares all plans and actions with you honestly. This brings us to the next point.

• Transparency

Since you are entrusting a third party with your business site, it is important that you share a relation of trust and honesty. Your agency must share campaign details with your regularly. Setbacks and delays are understandable and should be shared with you clearly.

Unexplained delays in implementation and poor communication could be a sign of your agency hiding something.

• Business Philosophy

Very few blogs will talk about this, however, difference in business philosophy is often the underlying cause of problems. Imagine an agency that values perfection but is serving a client who values speed instead. The slow pace of delivery may frustrate the client whose priority is to move fast in the market.

When you choose an agency to work with, do check for alignment with their values and vision. There is no right or wrong in this. Some agencies will work best for you because their way of doing business fits perfectly with yours.

• Holistic Approach

Everything works together in digital marketing. This means that your link building efforts must be supported by good content, inbound sales process, social media and other channels. Building links around poor content will only lead to wastage of your resources.

Ideally, your SEO, link-building and content marketing should be done by the same agency. If not, they should at least work closely with the content and digital marketing team. Choose an agency that has an overview of your digital marketing and holistic approach to link-building.

Takeaway

These are the five ways to make sure that you choose and collaborate with the right agency. Remember to be patient as returns from link- building may take some months to show. Link-building is a long term exercise and therefore it is even more important for you to choose the right partner.

What Impact AI could bring in Storytelling

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

An AI based robot is creating sensations by flaunting humanistic expressions, picking her favorite bollywood star and giving her opinions on women empowerment, businesses such as banking, insurance etc.

Yes that’s Sophia for you, world’s most advanced robot created by Dr. David Hanson of Hanson robotics.

The concept of artificial intelligence is age old, but has been in vogue, since the past decade as smart technology started ruling humans.

But how will these machines know what we want?

Will they get better than us with creativity over time and eliminate the need of humans like it happened due to mechanization during the industrial revolution?

Let us sit back and analyze if AI is capable of changing the game to the extent of driving human storytellers to the edge of extinction.

Man Vs Machine

The one important thing that distinguishes humans from cyborgs is that we feel and we respond with emotions. And more than that we can convey those emotions to others with equal intensity and make them feel the same way. That is the power of storytelling that we possess.

Human mental network is complex with a lot of patterns left unexplained. So there is a long way for us to go before we think about incorporating these emotions in machines.

But as vehement as this argument gets, the fact that artificial intelligence has been evolving cannot be denied. Several experiments carried by techies of the most renowned institutes have given clearance to the fact that machines are successful in empirically reading human reflexes and understanding the emotional arcs.

Machines calculate the Visual valence induced in audience by a certain scene or piece of content. It is evident from this fact that they will evolve and eventually aid in storytelling business.

In attempts of fine tuning AI systems the scientists have grabbed inputs from human responses to motion graphics and what specific elements have triggered a positive or negative response and their emotions.

AI could work alongside humans in the process of storytelling. If humans write a video script, AI could adorn the script with its own inputs of background score and visuals.

It would be like a generator to charge the human storytelling mode.

The system is known to continuously learn from its experiences.

Pitching in AI in the scripting process will hugely influence how content is discovered, created, conveyed and consumed.

Identifying potential concepts

The way content is moulded changes each day. Stories are generated as a result of observations. These observations emerge from triggers and trend patterns. Computers and software are capable of detecting minor deviations from normal patterns and are quick and efficient. It also gets rid of subjectivity.

The human brain tends to get biased towards stories that seem acceptable to the observer. Machines on the other hand rules out subjectivity and brings up a valid and an all round significant content.

The information doing rounds of any topic invokes perceptions in human brain to identify and comprehend. Machines do not get sidetracked and lack other reviewing obstacles which have led them to transcend humans.

What would take humans ages to analyze ,interpret and organize, machines can do it with the blink of an eye. We can only imagine how lives of many professionals working with large amounts of data will be simplified with AI coming into use. With the data sorting being automated, humans can focus and invest more in storytelling

Generate stories

A writer’s biggest fear today is that AI taking over the human race with its ability of content generation.
Big publications are already using algorithms for generating narratives and news.

Researching topics and keywords, apt media and references, formatting are steps in creating interesting articles.
Platforms such as Wordsmith are being used by The Associated Press to generate financial reports with data input.

Quill is a natural language generation software which replicates the input to meaningful statements by analyzing the objectives of the story.

Heliograf is the in-house scripting software used by the Washington Post to publish articles.
NLG platforms have been used for generating short reports on sports, election alerts in the U.S. and tweets.
A machine’s neural system is confined to what its creator has fed it while human creativity is limitless.

According to the MIT’s Associate professor Iyad Rahwan “Human authors have nothing to fear at the moment, but if we can build machines that understand the very essence of human experience, we would have bigger problems than simply losing jobs in creative writing,”.
But that is still a long shot owing to the unbeknownst mysteries of the neural functioning.

Pan it across the media

We live in a world where the word “viral” no longer instigates panic. It only incites curiosity. The media does not control how content flows anymore. It is the giants of social media who do.

Facebook,Twitter, Instagram own classified algorithms which determine which content occupies their user feeds. Search engines decide what content should be retrieved for the user based on the patterns of his search.

Rather than stressing over the fact that AI might outshine the human race in the story telling business why not contemplate and incorporate machine learning in the content discovery.

Automation would bring about exceptional transformation in storytelling right from tracing target audience for a story to reverse mapping the audience psychographics to find out what story would intrigue them.

Given the fact that, the one size fits all theory does not work with the audience today, the giants of the digital world have started using data driven approaches to target audience.

News organizations have adopted the idea of headline testing which involves generating multiple title versions for a piece of content or article. The testing is carried out with an A/B testing tool which splits the traffic reaching the website and finds an optimize title based on performance metrics.

Extrapolating this idea, machine learning can be deployed to determine article or title length, expanse and position of the visuals etc based on the device on which the content will be retrieved the most.

Scientists will stop at nothing to make AI the ubiquitous element of technology in near future.
So it is wise for us to give up on the narcissism and embrace the apparent future-the progressive idea of content creation which is the humans and humanoids mulling things together.

Let’s Wrap It Up

The human nuance and data powered intuition are capable of creating path-breaking stories if used the right way. Just imagine a sci-fi story created with point blank tech details and aesthetic emotional arcs as a result of the man-machine alliance.

The human subtlety and mechanical calculations are quintessential to each. And maybe far in future machines will surpass the creator.

There is no reason to look at emergence of AI as a peril to human storytellers. The advent of AI will only revolutionize the concept of storytelling.

How to Boost Your Influence and Authority as a Marketer

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Traditional push marketing does not work anymore as customer is in charge of what they consume. Television has been replaced by on-demand video and ad blockers have reduced the window to get your message across.

Marketers have to deliver their message in a way that audience wants it and through people they want to listen to.

This is why influencer marketing has emerged as one of the major trends in marketing. Brands such as Adidas, Motorola and American Express have embraced influencer marketing with success.

In fact businesses are earning $6.5 for every $1 they spend on influencer marketing. Influencer reach is clearly the future of marketing.

Who is an Influencer

An Influencer is any person who has a substantial following in a niche segment on the internet. The area of influence could be anything from business to pet-care.

They are actively engaged with their followers over social media or mails. They can monetize their following by product endorsements or selling their own services.

Marketers work with influencers for product endorsements to use this powerful channel. Another way to work this channel is for marketers themselves to become an influence.

For example, one of the top marketers in the world Neil Patel, is also the most influential celebrity in the area of business startups and digital marketing.

Being an influencer naturally boosts your marketing and sales. This is why most of the influencers are starting their own business. A following is very easy to monetize compared to strangers on the internet.

Why Influencers are so effective at Selling

We all know the influence of celebrities like Dr.Oz (in health sector) and Oprah Winfrey have on populations. It has been estimated that Oprah’s support for Barack Obama swayed around 1 million votes in his favour.

Today, the internet is filled with smaller stars who are celebrities to their respective audiences nonetheless.

Youtube star like Wayne Goss (3 million subscribers) and Lily Singh(13 million subscribers)  are sought by brands to promote their products.

But what is it about influencer marketing that makes marketing so successful?

Influencers have a trust and connection with their audiences that an unknown marketer can never match.

Influencers give their followers tons of value in education, entertainment or inspiration. Therefore the followers trust them as an authority in their field of work and are more open to messages to them.

Secondly influencers endorsing a product act a social proof to their audiences. As kids we all wanted to do what the cool kids in the class were doing. Influencer marketing is not very different from that.

It is the mix of authority, social proof and trust that makes influencer marketing so effective.

How to Become an Influencer

Influencers are going to rule the web in coming years. According to TapInfluence, 73% of marketers have allocated budget for influence marketing.

If you don’t have huge budgets to hire top influencers it makes sense to become one yourself.

Here are some ways to increase your influence as a marketer or business founder:

  • Share Knowledge

Are you into clothing? Share fashion tips with the world.

Maybe you are in B2B SaaS services. Share knowledge on how to evaluate and implement SaaS products.

Whatever your industry is there is always information that people want to know. Developing your expertise in the topic and sharing it with the world is the first step to becoming an influencer.

The deeper your knowledge the better you content will be. So make sure you exactly know what you are going to talk about.

Use various formats like blogs, video, webinars , podcasts etc. to see what works.

Tip:  Videos are doing much better than any other format currently

  • Networking

You have to be social if you want to be an influencer. Find out other influencers in your niche and start building relationship with them. You could start off with social media and move to personal channels such as mail and meeting at events and conference.

Interacting with your followers and comments on your posts is equally important. You will have to build virtual as well as real relations to become an influencer.

  • Build Authority

People must view you as authority on subject before they trust you. Certifications, memberships in professional associations and affiliations help in this regard. Testimonials from known personalities are also helpful.

Another way to build you authority is to be quoted in well-known publications. Use HARO to register and get in touch with journalists who are looking for quotes in your industry. You can also find contacts for popular publications and contact the journalist.

  • Events & Industry Meets

 Do not underestimate the importance of live events and meets in influence marketing. Giving live updates from events and being with the right people will boost your following tremendously.

Takeaway

Influence has been taught in marketing and sales since a long time. These are some of ways in which you can increase your influence in the online space.

Because marketers are always looking for maximum conversion, becoming an influencer is a natural progression for a marketer. Once you are an influence, a tweet could get you more sales than Google Adsense.

How to Implement a Successful Personalized Marketing Strategy

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

If you have purchased products from Amazon or Flipkart, you will be able to see the amazing effects of personalized experience.

You will be able to see a list of suggestions based on your search history. Also, most probably you will receive a follow up email which contains similar collection of books based on your recent purchase.

We will not be surprised to see if you return to purchase more; it is because they are based upon your likes and interests.

This is why most of the marketers believe that personalized marketing campaigns are crucial for the success for their business.

If you wish that your customers want to come back for more purchases, you need to provide them with personalized experience that matches their wants and needs.

This means that more visits equal to more leads and more leads equal to more happy customers. Let’s take a look at how to implement a personalized marketing strategy:

1. Review your strategy

Before you execute your marketing strategy, think about the following questions to perceive how your organization can handle the strategy implementation:

  • What brand value I would like to offer my customers?
  • What kind of customer trends should I enable for e.g., repeated customer visits, increased trust, lot of purchases etc.?
  • What are the marketing resources that we have/can create which may change one strategy over another?
  • How much time does the plan need – whether short term/long term requirement?
  • Do I actually have enough resources such as people, tools, time etc. to achieve success?

2. Research and Analyze your audience

When you are done with planning your strategy, it’s time to gather some information about your audience and you will be able to use that for your marketing program. These are the ways you can research about your audience:

  • Surveys
  • Questionnaires
  • Discussion groups
  • Feedback via website or email
  • Social media platforms

Try to collect maximum amount of information from your potential prospects or customers. One or two queries might be enough rather than a drawn-out survey.

3. Choose right marketing tactics

Choosing the right marketing tactics is very crucial in the process of personalizing marketing strategy. Here are some of the marketing strategies to choose from:

  • Send emails from humans, don’t sound like a brand

Email is one among the simplest ways to create a personalized experience for your prospects. Rather than having the sender name as company’s name, create it from the name of an actual agent working on your promoting or marketing team.

Also, think about adding that agent’s photograph and his/her’s email signature to the body of the email to indicate that actually that agent took their time and energy to craft the message and can get some responses.

Even if you employ email templates, guarantee that they don’t appear as if they have been designed by a promoting/marketing machine. It is because you want to sound credible in your emails.

  • Use recipient’s name for emails

Writing “Dear Customer,” “Hi Customer,” “To [First Name]” etc. are all not at all preferred for your email communication with your prospects.

A lead’s real name is one among the best items of lead intelligence to assemble. If a prospect has filled out a form at any point of time, you can easily get their first name and email address.

If not, most likely you should not be emailing them. Most of the email service providers give you the opportunity to customize the email messages with recipient’s forename; so what’s more to think? Take advantage of it!

  • Make use of marketing automation tools

Based on content interest, automation tools will be able to trigger lead nurturing campaigns. While you will address completely different business problems and topics inside your content, that does not mean that each one of the prospects have an interest in all told topics.

If a prospect downloads an e-book targeted on specific topic, for instance, program your automation tools to automatically enter them into a lead nurturing campaign which will deliver content relevant to the initial topic and personalizes email messages based on supported data of that original content which was downloaded.

  • Segment email database by marketing persona

There are number of ways to segment email database; but the most effective and easiest way is by marketing persona. For example, if you have classified three separate marketing personas that combine your ideal customers, segment your email list into three different blocks.

Then, personalize the messaging used in independent emails sent to each blocks using the language that individual persona always uses and responds to.

  • Focus on creating persona driven content

Persona driven content is a key factor to consider when you begin with the process of personalization. Produce new content or modify the existing one to handle the exact needs and problems of your varied marketing personas.

Contemplate the very fact that one persona might have issues that the other persona doesn’t have. When you prepare a non personalized campaign, your one-size-fits-all content policy won’t fit with the particular problem of persona, which will be a drawback.

However, with a personalized approach that is targeted at a selected group of prospects, you will be able to address that drawback and make more customized and valuable content for those potential prospects.

  • Respond personally to customers on social media

Nowadays customers depend upon social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google + to research about the products and to make buying decisions.

It may appear to be an easy task to assign a real person to respond to customer queries on social media; however, several companies choose to automate it.

You need to check your social media activity on a daily basis and respond to them in a personal manner which provides suitable and rightful content that can address each persona’s needs.

  • Generate targeted landing pages

If you lack the bandwith to create content targeted for each of your personas, you have an option to create targeted landing pages for your different offers.

Make sure to customize the messaging and language on your targeted landing pages to handle the precise needs of particular segment, and do that for every phase.

  • Build targeted company’s product page variations on LinkedIn

LinkedIn company pages provides amazing targeting tool that permits you to personalize the products or services that a visitor sees on your product page in LinkedIn.

You will be able to target based on demographic info such as trade, job function and geographic area.

  • Use Google + topic circles to target content

Google + topic circles is another way of using social media platforms to supply a lot of personalized content distribution. By using Google + Circles, you will be able to create many totally different topic circles depending upon the different interests of your targeted page followers.

The next step is to poll your followers, raise that Circles they would wish to be side to, and simply distribute only targeted content to those Circles. This offers an individuality and personalization.

  • Lead intelligence to help in personalizing sales follow up

Lead intelligence or knowledge you gather concerning your leads/prospects consists of demographic data, customer behaviour on your website etc. which can be very useful as you outline segments of your business’ client personas.

However, it may also function as a robust lever to assist your sales team to personalize their sales pitches and perceive the wants of a lead before they even pick up the phone to dial the prospect. A well prepared sales agent can close the deal in no time.

4. Regularly update and refine personalization process

Like all other methods, personalized marketing process needs constants review and improvement to make sure of 100% effectiveness. The best way is that let the campaigns run for some weeks and then evaluate the results.

By this way, your team will be able to get a correct impression of exact progress over time, instead of getting a quick picture of how your personalization process is advancing.

It is also crucial to re-check all of your technological integrations to make sure that you have got access to holistic image of information.

During the refinement phase, marketers may take a step back and judge certain strategies or aspects of their personalized marketing campaign.

Let’s see how incorporating personalized marketing campaigns can be beneficial for your business:

1.A large compilation of client data: Personalization methods track the habits and activities of potential prospects; which in turn provides marketers with valuable knowledge that may not be available with conventional marketing campaigns.

If you are passing your leads to sales team, they will get a better clarity of whom they are merchandising and how the products/services matches with the client’s needs.

2.Loyal brand followers: Once customers feel that their needs are fulfilled and a company actually takes care of them, it is doubtless that they will definitely come back to the company in future to shop additional services or products.

3.Valuable business insights: Data gained from trailing customers will assist you in confirming what works and what doesn’t work in regard to marketing tactics and messages.

Takeaway

It is evident that customers prefer to buy more from retailers who can personalize their shopping experience across various channels.

Don’t be too late if you haven’t started implementing personalization strategies listed above. Companies who can successfully implement personalized marketing experiences will be able to witness an increase in sales and customer loyalty.