With the emergence of the digital era, two-way communication process has diversified into computer-mediated communication these days. Blogs have frequently become a source to generate content on websites and connect to millions of users on the internet. Text, pictures and sound files have become various approaches to reach potential customers through their high-quality content. Readers have the option to give feedback, comment or connect to any individual posting or the website. For any marketer, blogging has become a necessary tool for a successful business.With the emergence of the digital era, two-way communication process has diversified into computer-mediated communication these days. Blogs have frequently become a source to generate content on websites and connect to millions of users on the internet. Text, pictures and sound files have become various approaches to reach potential customers through their high-quality content. Readers have the option to give feedback, comment or connect to any individual posting or the website. For any marketer, blogging has become a necessary tool for a successful business. Here is a list of reasons that states the benefits of blogging on any website.

1. Boost Search Engine Optimization

Regarding search engine optimization, the more you add content to your website, the more pages from your domain becomes indexed in search engines. This helps to improve organic search visibility and increases the traffic on your website. Blogging frequently provides Google and other search engines with a new content to add to their index which creates opportunities to plug in the all-important keywords and increases the visibility on search engine results pages. Therefore, the more blogs you post, the more chances you have to rank for various keywords.

2. Helps to convert the traffic into leads

With the help of blogging, you can drive the attention of the potential customers. It generates traffic on your website, and you have the opportunity to convert your potential customer into leads. Each blog is an opportunity to generate new leads. The way this works is effortless – just add a lead generating call to action for every blog post. Often, there are various approaches to generate lead like free eBooks, free whitepapers, free fact sheets, free webinars, free trials or any content asset for which someone would be willing to exchange their information.

3. Positions you as an expert

The business blogs answer common questions their customers have. If you are consistently creating content that is helpful for your target and existing customers, they will love you! Can you imagine the impact of sending an educational blog post you wrote to clear things up for a confused customer? Blogging posts is one of the best ways to establish yourself as an expert in your genre as it gives you a platform to share valuable insights and industry-related information. You can build up an authority in your niche. This authority incorporates trust and familiarity and keeps you on the top of your customers’ mind.

4. Humanizes your brand

The possibilities of what you can blog about are endless! You can start answering real customer questions, write about staff members, upcoming events, charity events, community-related projects and publish case studies & testimonials. Blogging gives your website a way to touch on the concerns of interest of your customer and also shares the passion for your employee. Showcasing the areas of your organization ‘humanises’ it and gives the marketers a platform to raise their voice, build up the trust and build up the brand's presence for existing customers, prospects and followers.

5. Shows consistency

The only route to convert your potential customers into leads is that your website has blog post consistently. Blogging about fresh and valuable content from time to time commits your readers. You need to produce great contents on a consistent basis, and you need to promote your blog and content on a regular basis. If you don't blog frequently, irrespective of the blogging platform you are using or how beautiful or stylish your blog is, you will simply not succeed. For your marketing strategies, you need to be CONSISTENT with things that would make your website a success.

6. Develop Relationships with Customers

Blogging helps you to connect with your site’s visitors through a two-way conversation. This interaction can be accomplished by asking questions at the end of your posts to get the conversation going on or by simply allowing comments and feedback or even criticism. By responding to readers’ comments, you can create a relationship with your readers and gain valuable insight into what information they require.

7.  Supports your social media initiatives

It is essential to maintain an active social media presence in the world of web with the access to effective and high-quality content. Businesses want to interact with their customers collectively and make them interact with their content, sharing it and promoting lead generation. Sharing a blog post raises the traffic on the website. The sharing of content on the social media platform gives a boost to the website and its e-mail marketing.

8. Take Control of Your Online Identity

For every business or marketer, it is essential to mark their presence on a digital platform. There's too much information available to the customers that they need to attain and you want to make sure that customers get the complete picture about your website, your objective and the content the website produces. With the help of a blog, it lets you have an excellent control of your online identity, and with the integration of SEO and Content Marketing, it makes sure that your website reaches the top result on the search engine.

9. Cost Effective approach

Every blog you publish is a long-term asset which helps to build brand awareness and promotes expertise for the products and services. Unlike other tools of developing the business, blogging comes as one of the most cost-effective processes which are enriched in its content and the customers reach to the website looking for the information they require instead of the product's hunt to its customers.

10. It drives long-term results

Blog posting will benefit immensely in the long run. It is an investment towards the future growth of your website. The blog posts you generate become an ongoing source of value to grab the attention of visitors and promote the website. Even after a period, a blog post keeps the high ranking in search engines. That means for the couple of days, weeks, months, and years to come, you can get traffic and leads from that blog post. >>To know about great Marketing Tools for SMB’s.

Today, technology has changed the way we market and promote our products and services. Websites and Applications have become an important marketing model to maintain a digital presence on the web for any business. An active site helps the marketers for generating the leads. But there is a need to analyse the user experience while designing that website. While reviewing the superior user experience (UX), there are some ways to approach this process.

Lean UX method generates the user experience designs to a more efficient and lightweight process, emphasising on a quick process of the Building, Measuring and Learning rapid cycle.

Lean UX is continually validating UX designers’ assumptions to build a user-friendly website that provides information or highlights a product or service. Everything about analysing user experience begins with research and strategy. There is a need to understand user’s goals while they approach any website. This analysis helps to create a wireframe to identify the features of a website or application. Along with understanding the users need, Lead UX unlocks the pain and frustrations the users are currently facing while using the site or an app.

Lean User Experience to Capture User Behaviour

#1. Research

While experiencing user-friendly experience, traditional research methods like surveys, interviews, usability testing and focus groups can be considered. Focus groups tend to take more time and comparatively a costlier research process.

Usability testing comes when we have some interface available for users to test (wireframe, prototype, and mockup). Therefore, regarding Lean UX, we can discuss and focus on the first two methods, i.e.,.e surveys and interviews.

Lean UX process helps to understand users within a short period. By asking essential questions based on the audience experience, while continuously validating our assumptions, we can refine these hypotheses. This method helps to achieve user solutions more rapidly. One of the most important reasons to do research is to know who our user's insights which include where and when they bounce off a site or application.

#2. Defining the User

Lean UX research begins with determining the actual users. We can create users' personas and assumptions to identify their pain points and difficulties. Personas are the user profiles outlining their demographic, consumer behaviour, as well as their needs and goals. After we create the hypothesis persona, we should validate the proposition.

To generate customer-centric experience, we need to authenticate our assumptions with limited resources. As discussed, one rapid way is through traditional research method like surveys which is a quick and cost efficient way to capture a better understanding of customer's needs and goals. Surveys can be sent out to many users. Then the information gathered through those surveys can be compiled and help to create the UX.

Another method to capture users, needs and goals is through interviews. It brings out more personal information about the users, unlocking their behaviour patterns to build a better website profile. Interview questions can be open-ended or close-ended. For example, an open ended question like "What do you want out of the site/application can be put forth? There may be several items that the users are looking for or they may provide a brief description of it through their answers. Then, close-ended questions could be framed like "Do you prefer open menus or pull out menus?” where there are multiple options provided to the answer, and the user has to choose one accordingly.

These two forms of questions allow getting a concrete answer to particular questions you may have and unique perspective of the individuals utilising that site or app.

#3. User Validation

You can create two types of validation questions while going for a user's research i.e. screening questions and interview questions. Screening questions prove whether the individuals you are talking fits in the right segment of users whereas interview questions are to reaffirm the user hypothesis.

The process of making an interview validation, hypothetical user persona and learning from the end users defines the Lean UX method. Their approach is to build, measure and then determine cycle. Lean UX approach helps the UX team to identify the users, their needs and goals instead of making assumptions.

There are possibilities that Lean UX is not in-depth as other processes where the same traditional user research methods are used like in Lean UX, but it provides a better understanding of the users within limited time and resources. It helps to understand the user-behavior, their pain points and difficulties of their audience.

The information gathered through surveys and interviews; the website designer can create a persona with some certain assumptions about their users and make the site easier and approachable for them. Finally, revise the persona based on the findings.

Lean UX is essential for any website or app making to understand because the process will help the website strategy, understanding of the users and monetization of the site. The approach does not stop here. It should continue to apply to the next steps of user research, such as creating prototypes, and usability testing.

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Content marketing is the new way of marketing a brand in the age of social media. Running a SMB is not an easy task and to get your brand across to potential customers is even difficult. If you can’t get across to your target audience, you can’t create awareness for your brand. This affects the sales and other aspects of your company. This is where adopting content marketing steps in.

Content marketing employs the use of creative and interactive content, in the form of videos or pictures or even written articles. These creative elements are targeted towards the potential customers, helping you reach out to them in a non-invasive way. Content marketing is inexpensive than traditional marketing to implement, more efficient and requires less labour. Overall it is a better strategy to follow and is also easier for small businesses to implement. With a good campaign, you can increase your reach on social media, like any other big brand.

Challenges Faced by SMB’s for Marketing

The biggest problem faced by any SMB is its limited resources. The fact that they don’t have a lot of people or capital to assign to marketing restricts the choices they have to market their brand. Unlike bigger companies, SMB’s cannot allot big teams just to take care of marketing, or big budgets. It puts a restriction on the methods or reach that you can have and limits the visibility for the company on web. Another limitation is, as the visibility of the brand is low, generating leads is challenging and affects sales. Customers nowadays know how to avoid or block out most of the advertisement content on the internet using ad-blockers and other tools. Reaching out to them in an organic way is important for any company. People don’t want to be bombarded with information on products they don’t want. They just want what’s relevant to them.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing involves creating relevant, audience targeted content to reach out to potential customers, in an effort create awareness for the brand. It can also be used to convert the target audience into leads and leads into customers.

The targeted content can be in the form of informative or viral videos, or written text like a blog, which talks more about particular problems and their solutions, which can be solved by their product.

The purpose of writing a blog should not be aimed at talking only about the product or brand for promotion but should be written with an intent to increase user engagement. A greater user engagement will in turn increase the social traffic of the company’s website.

When people share the content that you post, it helps spread the message to more potential customers and improve brand awareness. Interested people will follow the posts to the website. There, through the inclusion of call to action buttons, the visitors’ information can be turned into leads.

Content marketing can also help in keeping existing customers in the loop, making them come back for repurchase. Thus, growth via content marketing improves the company’s performance in all sectors.

How is Content Marketing Good for SMB’s?

Content marketing is an inexpensive method of marketing. It can reduce marketing costs by up to 60%. It does not require a lot of human resources either. A small team can achieve the goals. Essentially, an SMB would have to look at a content heavy strategy to achieve desired results. As more quality content is floated, it reflects in a bigger brand awareness.

With good content, the brand recall also increases, which helps in converting potential customers to leads. This is good for sales as more and more people know about the brand and are interested in what it has to offer.

Another important factor for SMBs to consider is the fact that content marketing can even be done in-house, which is a big plus point for small businesses as hiring an external agency is costly. The results derived from these methods are purely organic. And, as noticed, is a way to get genuine visitors who are interested in the brand. The more genuine readers a brand gets, the better it is for spiking brand conversations. This boosts the brand image further.

Being connected with the customers is also important to build brand trust and loyalty. Another thing to note here is that great content pulls a huge number of follower on social media. As opposed to other ways of buying likes or followers, this is a way more cost effective way.

This method of marketing puts the target audience before the company, increasing their trust and loyalty. The next step for a brand is to start engaging with this community by sending them personalised emails and replying to their social posts.

Responding to their opinions is a great way to improve customer experience. As the content is shareable, if someone likes the content, they can share it and spread the word. This helps with overall brand publicity.

Conclusion

Content Marketing is the marketing of future, which has a lot of benefits when used aptly, like increased brand awareness, greater brand engagement, and outreach. It is an inexpensive and more efficient system that provides value-driven results.

Hence, it is suitable for SMB’s to adopt and compete with bigger competitors without indulging in big-pocketed marketing budgets. It helps them quickly reach out to and engage with people on social media, creating a fast-paced interactive community that helps in building the image and perception of the brand.

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Marketing automation tools are the talk of the town. From offering the marketing team significant resources which saves time to providing tools that streamline marketing efforts, automation tools have become the necessity for every marketing team. Any B2C or B2B company realises how even the most basic marketing tasks can take a toll on marketing executives and consume an ample amount of time as well. From staying in contact with potential clients to sustaining leads, managing email campaigns, and coordinating social media marketing efforts, all is done by the marketing team because of the dearth of resources like marketing automation tools.

This gap can be combated by some marketing automation tools that can make these tedious and time-consuming marketing tasks uncomplicated. From handling email marketing with autoresponders to tools that coordinate the firm's social media efforts and editorial calendars there are hundreds of tools that can make the lives of marketers simple and less stressful.

Best Marketing Automation Tools that Global Companies are Using

#1. Hubspot

HubSpot is a premium platform that starts at $200/month. HubSpot integrates all marketing efforts that one needs to pull off a better marketing strategy. It can overview social media, blogging, email and sales in one place. Everything is synced, so you can see where leads and sales are coming from with each marketing effort. HubSpot helps you automate social media, emails, and email workflows as well. So, if you’re looking for an “all-in-one” tool that gives you the basic functionality of various marketing systems, HubSpot is a good alternative for you.

#2. Marketo

Marketo, with a base cost of $895/month, is a good option for medium-large sized businesses. It is a multi-purpose marketing automation software offering customer engagement marketing, real-time personalization to provide customised messaging across marketing platforms and marketing management functionality, including budgeting tools and marketing calendars. Nevertheless, if one is just starting and wishes to do that with the basics and move into the more advanced functionality soon, it could be a good idea to start with a marketing automation tool like Marketo so that you don’t have to switch over all your data and campaigns down the line. Moreover, Marketo has a very enormous and active knowledge base, which is an excellent resource for new users.

#3. Eloqua

With entry-point cost as $2000 per month, Eloqua is by far the most priced and enterprise-focused marketing automation tool. The firm was acquired in 2012 by Oracle for $871m. One of the best features in Eloqua is HyperSites, which are fundamentally micro site landing pages that include extremely personalised information, such as a customer’s name and other details.

Eloqua doesn’t have a personal CRM but instead integrates with popular enterprise-level CRM systems like Oracle/Siebel CRM, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It does come with exceptional services but with a matching price tag. Hence, Eloqua is considered to be the best automation marketing software for large enterprises with big budgets.

#4. Pardot

The price for standard Pardot package is $1000. The marketing automation tool can target communications over manifold channels. Most marketing automation tools focus on email communications, but Pardot goes beyond that and lets you target mobile app notifications and messages. While Pardot does have integration with most of the known CRMs, they have just 32 third-party apps, which is significantly lower than other tools, such as Marketo. Its API access and A/B testing is only available to pro users hence are available only to customers paying for their $2,000/month package.

The price for standard Pardot package is $1000. The marketing automation tool can target communications over manifold channels. Most marketing automation tools focus on email communications, but Pardot goes beyond that and lets you target mobile app notifications and messages. While Pardot does have integration with most of the known CRMs, they have just 32 third-party apps, which is significantly lower than other tools, such as Marketo. Its API access and A/B testing is only available to pro users hence is available only to customers paying for their $2,000/month package.

#5. Customer.io

Priced at $75/month (and they offer a free plan too), Customer.io is one of the newer players in the marketing automation, but they’re growing very rapidly and are definitely a company to look out for. Unlike most of the other tools, Customer.io is built to trigger emails based on events, instead of just pageviews. Customer.io’s lightweight UI, fast personal customer support and flexibility are the features that attract customers. It is good for companies that are on the lookout to get started with marketing automation and prefer a lightweight UI instead of the typical enterprise software. Businesses that are looking for some more progressive functionality that requires flexibility and personalization, and have the required developers to implement such practices can use this tool.

#6. Infusionsoft

Infusionsoft’s entry point cost is $199 / month (+ mandatory one-off $1,999 kickstart package). It is one of the most popular marketing automation platforms, with over 20,000 customers. The CRM system on Infusionsoft is pretty great. One can get lead scoring, automated quotes, pipeline reporting, unlimited tags, and much more. If one has the eCommerce package, you can also use Infusionsoft to manage your site’s eCommerce system, which automatically adds customers into your CRM, enabling up-selling, customer lifecycle marketing, etc. Companies with a sales team can have the advantage when using Infusionspot, as their CRM system is one of their strongest and seamless offering.

#7. Ontraport

 

$297/month, there’s no question that Ontraport is designed with small companies in mind. Their email deliverability rates are some of the highest among all automation vendors, and their range of services are equally good. Ontraport offers the feature to build custom objects which are available only in enterprise systems. Custom objects allow you to create relationships between multiple databases. Ontraport has a large range of striking e-commerce features that include automatic credit card payment collections, cross-sells, cart abandonment, ability to add upsells, and credit card expiration notification automation. While you can create virtually any metric you’d like, their reporting dashboard isn’t particularly visually appealing as it doesn’t have graphs and charts. While Ontraport’s campaign builder is simple and sufficiently efficient, it adds text-based rules one under another.

No marketing automation software is either perfect or the best to address the ever-changing demands of brands, but they can help you out on most of your marketing woes. With constant development, marketing automation software are trying to offer solutions for brand’s every marketing need, so as to let marketing teams focus on their core tasks. Budget, requirements, and scalability of firms are what will provide the answer when faced to choose from the above available options.

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Cheap, efficient and accessible - inbound marketing strategies are all that and more. Inbound marketing puts a stronger emphasis on creating quality content that pulls an audience towards your firm and its services. By ensuring that the content you publish aligns with your customer’s interests, you attract traffic that you can convert into customers over time. Customers are getting more value because of a buyer-centric approach, which is a clear indication that inbound marketing strategies are here to stay. With an amalgamation of countless benefits, inbound marketing software serves as the light in the startup tunnel. So if you wake up today and decide to be an entrepreneur, or have already fallen into the startup sphere, here are five inevitable inbound marketing strategies for every entrepreneur:

Inbound Marketing Strategies for Every Entrepreneur

#1. Strategy Driven SEO

If you aspire to see your startup on the first page of Google and Bing, SEO is your go-to saviour. SEO tools are handy and quite practical when it comes to increasing visibility, publicity and the reach of a company by unpaid methods. Some popular SEO tools that start-ups need to get their hands on are Google Analytics, Moz, Google Keyword Planner and BuiltWith. A start-up can also venture into more multi-faceted SEO tools for optimisation of websites and to target exact keyword phrases in latter stages. These include optimising for mobile devices, refining site speed and targeting exact strategic keywords. With a limited budget and no wish to decrease the quality of your work, you can look out for free SEO tools that provide exemplary services like Buffer, RocketRanking, and MergeWords. When it comes to getting started in the world of SEO, startups have a plethora of resources on their hands. Staying one step ahead of your competitors and watching your rankings improve over time is made tremendously easier with the help of these tools.

#2. Social Media Marketing

Facebook and Twitter are where businesses are and where every startup should be. Here, an organic social presence will give you a lot of recognition. Paid tools can be used on social media, which help a startup gain visibility and a larger audience. Social media has a massive hold on a brand’s image, which can either make your Q1 result everything you wished for or send you home with packed up investors. Thus, it is vital to use these tools carefully for the desired effect. Hootsuite, Facebook Ads, MeetEdgar, and AgoraPulse are some of the best tools for inbound marketing on social media. Startups seem to have a distinct advantage in the social media marketing realm. The answer revolves partially around the fact that social users love what’s new and start-ups are new by default. Most startups also don’t have a heap of funds or options when it comes to marketing, and social media serves as a perfect gateway to build a brand.

#3. Influencer Marketing

For startups who barely have any online presence, the key to getting the customer’s attention is to pull the reach of influencers. These are bloggers, social media celebrities, actors, or anyone else who can uphold the brand’s reputation and persuade the audience to make a purchase decision.

There are innumerable ways to reach out to online influencers – from granting them primary access to your product, to updating your social media with regular updates while tagging them along, to giving them products for review.

Influencer marketing works well if you can find and choose a person whose personality resonates with your brand image. The person or influencer can be an actor/actress, a sports personality or even a politician as long as they go with the idea and product of your brand. To target such people, you must first identify their reputation and your consumer preferences. By working with these influencers on projects, your company will automatically catch more attention and may even get a greater reputation because of the influencer.

Persuading the customer to engage with your brand and its audience might be hard but will reap major benefits, especially in the case of start-ups. For instance, Shahrukh Khan has been promoting Tag Heuer, giving the luxury brand the perfect image of its user.

#4. On-site content marketing

Your website is not only your brand’s address but also its face. With engaging content, any startup can attract its potential audience to invest in its services. Content should be simple enough to understand but also advanced enough to tell the customer that you know what you are talking about. High-quality content can boost your SEO rankings and improve your social media presence. Information provided to clients must be detailed, informative and engaging enough to persuade your visitors to know more about your brand. Pictures, visual demonstrations, and demographics can help the consumer have a better visual understanding of the brand and what it offers.

#5. Off-site content marketing

Your website may attract several potential customers, but the real deal may be somewhere else. Here is when off-site marketing comes into play and helps you crack more leads. Blogs and media publishing platforms with useful and informative content will attract a number of new people hence, increasing overall traffic and potential leads. Referral traffic due to a new audience will also boost your brand’s reputation and engage a larger consumer base. Off-site content spreads your audience by winning customers who might not have found your website otherwise. For example, Medium connects your content with the people most likely to read it.

When you are just starting, you need to have everything ready in your bag to pull off inbound marketing strategies that can revolutionize the emerging startup scenario. Inbound marketing strategies are the pillars for startups who aspire to engage an audience from everywhere. Initially, you may get lesser conversions but at least people will know about you and the fact that you are here to stay.

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The process of marketing is a dynamic one, which requires it to constantly adjust and react to the latest technology trends in the market. Content marketing has, hands-down, been accepted as the most viable method of marketing in today’s digital age. It focusses on the power of rich and interactive content to draw consumers towards your business. It is difficult to keep in pace with the changing technology for the marketers. Yet, hunger for innovation and constantly bringing something new to the table for their consumers is what keeps most of the businesses on their toes for latest tech updates.

Content marketing has undergone a lot of change over the past few years. The year 2017 saw a lot of advancements being made in this sphere. Use of AI, virtual reality and marketing automation tools are some of the major of them. This year will also see some new IT trends and innovations being made in the digital marketing sphere. So, in order to stay ahead of your competitors and deliver superior value to your consumers, you need to re-strategize your marketing strategy, if you already haven’t. Here are 7 technological trends that would change the way you do content marketing in 2018, and will definitely help you to reach your goals and increase your ROI.

7 Technology Trends Which Will Change The Way Marketers Do Content Marketing

#1. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation refers to a set of tools and software, which helps to automate some of the marketing functions such as e-mails, social media and other website actions, which are otherwise repetitive. Using a marketing automation platform makes it easier to schedule emails, automate social media postings, segment contacts, manage your content and track the lifecycle of your customers in your marketing funnel. The marketing automation industry alone is $5.5 billion and is only expected to grow in the near future. There are many tools available in the market, such as Zapier, AWeber and Hootsuite, which helps marketers accomplish this task.

Before using a marketing automation software, you must do a research on your organization’s specific needs and your consumer’s needs and how will it help achieve these.

For example, if you do marketing through email, you can personalize your email for each of your consumers and also create a custom message for each one of them according to their specific needs.

Some facts about Marketing Automation you probably didn’t know:

• According to Focus Research, 75% of the companies using marketing automation see ROI within 12 months, and 44% within 6 months.
• According to Jupiter Research, relevant emails delivered through marketing automation drive 18 times more revenue than email blasts.
• According to Forrester Research, companies that excel in lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower costs.

These data are the proof of the popularity of marketing automation, and how it has become a must for every business, irrespective of its industry.

#2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

With the advancement in technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a reality and no longer a stuff fiction was made up of. Sure, AI is being used in science industry and automotive industry for some time now, with robots doing many of the critical jobs not practically possible for humans. But recently, it has found its place in the sphere of digital marketing too.

A survey by HubSpot upon 1,000 consumers showed that 63% of the respondents were already using AI without even realizing it.

Some Market Use Cases where AI can be put:

• Website Design
• Content Creation
• Content Curation
• Search
• Marketing Automation
• Social Media
• images

So, if you are not still using AI, it is about time you did so. It is because it has many advantages, such as low cost, high level of efficiency and it can replicate many of your marketing tasks, which are otherwise repetitive.

#3. Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual Reality (VR) is the next big thing in the world of technology. It is a computer generated technology that uses devices such as headsets, which has head-mounted goggles, to generate realistic sounds, images and other sensations for creating real life-like experience for the user in a virtual word. Many of the business are using VR technology, to create an unmatched user experience. Virtual Reality technology, like Oculus Rift, has had a huge impact on how marketers interacted with consumers in 2016.

The most important advantage that VR offers to the consumer is personalization, which a consumer looks for in today’s date. With many brands telling 360-degree stories, VR has made it possible for brands to engage with their consumers like never before. With many companies joining the VR bandwagon, those who use it certainly have a big edge over the others.

#4. Live Videos

While live streaming a video is not a new marketing tactic, its popularity has certainly increased over the past year. This feature has enabled brands to create a unique experience for consumers. The most popular platform for streaming live video is Facebook, with its popularity growing manifold. It enables a brand to engage a consumer in any of its events, and make him feel a part of it. It also helps brands to give real time updates about anything new which is happening with the brand to the consumer. Live streaming of instant and short videos on other social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram have been proven to be successful in connecting with users.

#5. Integration of e-commerce and Social Media

The integration of e-commerce with social media has been one of the biggest leaps in the sphere of digital marketing. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have ventured into the e-commerce zone and have become one of the key platforms for brands to market their products.

With social media platforms like Facebook constantly updating its searching capabilities and integrating payment methods with the site of the brand, it serves provides a unique buying-and search experience to the consumers as it enables them to the first search about the product on the platform and then makes the purchase. Also, it provides a two-in-one buying and social experience for them since they can share and chat about the product they brought with their friends.

Thus, social media platforms not only make buying process easier for a consumer but also makes it an experience for him. With so many benefits of marketing on social media, many brands have jumped the social bandwagon and thus increasing the competition. Thus, to stand out in the crowd of marketing tactics of various brands, you need to strategize a plan which works well for your brand and which your consumers can connect with and relate to.

#6. Internet of Things (IoT)

Technology has changed the lives of humans in such ways which could not be imagined, even a few years back. The world of Internet of Things (IoT) is ever expanding, with new devices coming up each day with the ability to communicate with networked connections. Hence, it enables users to interact with a content from anywhere, and not only being restricted to their PC’s, mobiles or laptops.

For instance, wearable technology has entered the market in a big way, and people use it while they are on the move. Even smart TV’s and refrigerators have entered the market, interacting with the consumers wherever they are. This enables the marketers to provide customized content based on location and send real time updates and alerts straight to the devices, targeting the consumer where they are.

#7. Ephemeral Marketing

We know of the adage “less is more”. This holds more truth in today’s age, where your consumers don’t have time for long content. Ephemeral marketing is all about that, which focusses on communication which is short and to the point.

Snapchat has already entered the marketing platform. Since users use this platform widely for getting regular social media digests, it can prove to be a great platform for marketers to reach users real time.

You might want to deliver an integrated campaign to your consumers, especially the youth, and want to make them feel connected with your brand. For that, you need to create campaigns which are short and personalized for each consumer. And ephemeral marketing will help to serve that purpose since it works upon the principle “less is more’”.

These are the 7 technological trends which will be a big thing in 2018, and change the way marketers do content marketing! So, if you aren’t already incorporating any of these in your marketing strategy, it’s time for a revamp! Do a research which of these trends would best suit your marketing strategy, and match them with your organizational goal.

At #ARM Worldwide, we provide quality content marketing services to drive your business growth exponentially. Hire our professional content marketing experts today! You May Also Be Interested In 10 Things Every Marketer Should Know About Content Marketing Top 50 Content Marketing Tools for Every Marketer Why Should Marketers Go for ROI Driven Content Marketing Agency?

You must have heard your friends in the business talking about inbound marketing recently. After all, why wouldn’t they? Inbound marketing has established itself as an effective alternative for marketers and is proven to generate maximum output with minimum monetary inputs. Inbound is the most effective and ROI driven marketing strategy used by companies to create sizeable results for them.

It’s just a matter of time when businesses in all domains will be using inbound marketing strategies to increase their business and target a broader range of customers. Though inbound marketing doesn’t require a lot of monetary investment, the human efforts needed to implement an effective strategy is what makes it hard. This is also the reason why it generates sizable results for companies.

Since we know that inbound is the most useful option for any business to get the desired results, where does HubSpot step in and how it is related to inbound marketing? The reason why HubSpot is talked about when it comes to inbound marketing strategies is because of the ease and simplification it brings to the inbound marketing efforts for companies.

What is HubSpot?

It is a marketing automation platform which minimises your efforts by bundling up all the software, support systems, and services and puts them in one place. This reduces the efforts of marketers of shuffling up within several software to managing a single one.

Here are some other amazing features of HubSpot that will make you drool over the tool and convince you to invest your valuable money in it:

Streamlines Solutions

A lot of companies are using different software to manage their day-to-day tasks and having a challenging time trying to manage them all at the same time. HubSpot provides one window, one password facility where all your work can be consolidated into one place and managed from a single screen instead of juggling between many. Everything from your emails, landing pages, forms and blog can be kept and maintained at one place using HubSpot.

It also allows us to manage our social media accounts from a single screen where you can monitor your posts and even respond and schedule posts from a single screen, removing the clutter for marketers.

Customizable

What makes inbound marketing so efficient is the attention to detail and personalization. People are very responsive to the content that connects them and when they feel related to it. HubSpot provides a great deal of options for personalization and modifying the content accordingly.

HubSpot provides an option like COS which enables marketing professionals to personalise the content available on their website according to the user’s persona. Depending upon the location, source, language or any other information about the user, the HubSpot tool can personalise the website content and engage users providing them with a great experience. HubSpot can even take inputs from the feedback furnished by the user and incorporate changes for the next visit of the user.

User-Friendly

HubSpot is all about simplifying tasks at hand and making the process simple and easy for everyone. HubSpot is a tool that not only provides a single platform for all your marketing needs but also provides an easy and user-friendly interface for users. And they are not stopping here; they are continually improving the user interface to make it easy for people to professionals to use by getting constant feedback from them.

Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a must-have for any company. For any business that is into the service sector, CRM is the key to sustain and improve their functionality. HubSpot provides a great deal when it comes to CRM. HubSpot has an integrated platform which helps you get valuable information on how a particular user is using and interacting with your content that’s present online. HubSpot CRM merges all the information it can get from an individual visitor and shows it to you as a profile which eases the tasks for your employees and saves a lot of time and hard work.

All these features of HubSpot make it a great deal for any company as it minimises the efforts of marketing professionals, reducing the time spent on this every day and allowing them to concentrate more on other activities for the company’s overall growth.

Now let’s consider the most important factor: Is HubSpot ROI driven? Is it possible to track ROI using HubSpot tool?

Yes, HubSpot offers closed loop analytics which lets anyone calculate the ROI of their inbound marketing efforts. Using HubSpot analytics, it is a cake walk for marketers to calculate their returns on the efforts they made and money they invested into their marketing campaigns.

HubSpot is not only easy and friendly to use but also secure. HubSpot provides continuous training and support to its subscribers and provides enough educational content to get hold of the tool and run a successful marketing campaign for different situations.

Honestly, what HubSpot has to offer to market experts could go on for days; what I mentioned above are some of the best of them. In the end, to both make the most of and streamline your inbound marketing efforts, HubSpot is your one stop shop.

You May Also Be Interested In

• 3 Key Differences Between HubSpot and Pardot
• 7 Reasons Why CEOs Love HubSpot Marketing Automation

Smartphones have become an essential part of an individual’s daily life. For every task and activity, we have a quick solution in the palm of our hand with the help of mobile apps. The boom in the demand of smartphones has to lead to a surge in the number of mobile apps. The app development sector is committed to enhancing the experience of their users by maintaining the standards of highly advanced technologies.

The mobile is not just a device for calls and messaging anymore; it has become a mainstream tool, where businesses from all industries are using their best technology to boost their revenues by developing a highly functional app to meet consumer demand. Therefore, apps are in high demand which has to lead to the rise in user expectations.

Here is a list of current mobile app development trends which should be kept in mind while designing an app.

Mobile App Development Trends to Enhance the Users' Experience

#1. Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is the technology used in mobile apps, which combines virtual reality with the real world. It is in the form of live video imagery which is digitally enhanced with computer generated graphics. AR has become a key form of technology in mobile phones. Many growing businesses are considering the implementation of AR.

AR apps are constantly evolving. A lot of different things work together to generate an AR app. Therefore, the cost to develop these apps is higher in comparison to others.

The most famous example of augmented reality in an app is Pokemon Go. Though AR is deemed to be the future of mobile technology, it is still in its experimental phase.

#2. Internet of Things and Wearable Devices

A lot of mobile apps are leveraging on IoT these days. Apps, smart watches, belts and more are being upgraded to utilize IoT.

The virtual and real world is merging to the point where objects from different worlds can interact with each other. For example, smart watches and mobile apps.

A wearable device is a part of the Internet of Things. With the help of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity, devices can interact and transfer data between them.

Health and fitness-oriented wearable devices offer biometric measurements like perspiration levels, heart rate and oxygen concentration in the bloodstream. Technological advancements in apps can show the alcohol level or other similar data that can be measured via a wearable device in the future. Tracking body temperature might provide an early indication of a cold or the flu, which is made possible with the help of IoT and wearable devices.

#3. M-Commerce

The number of smartphone users is rising in this digital era, and businesses are taking advantage of this by shifting to M-Commerce Apps.

Mobile commerce took off in 2015, thanks to converging advances in retail mobile apps, smartphone capabilities, personalization technologies and mobile payment solutions.

Instead of using debit or credit cards, customers these days prefer to make their purchase through their e-wallets. M-Commerce companies like Paytm have attained enormous success during demonetization in India, when everyone from street vendors to citizens shifted from cash to Paytm wallet to pay for or purchase any item.

#4. Machine Learning Apps

Machine learning is a branch of Artificial Intelligence which has the biggest spotlight in business. Progressive companies are paying a lot of attention on machine learning apps and AI since it’s inevitable that industries like healthcare, finance, banking, retail will be relying on machine learning apps in the future.

Machine learning is a multidisciplinary field and can find its implementation at the intersection of various sectors like technology, science, and business.

These apps will help in predicting outcomes, big data analysis and improving customer service without any human intervention.

#5. Security Feature

Mobile apps available through Apple Store or Google Play have become a dominant way to distribute qualitative value to users around the world. Organisations have upgraded their mobile apps to improve user productivity and align with their mobile lifestyle. However, experts are raising questions like – are these apps secured and protected from hackers?

As per the reports of Gartner, 75% of mobile apps fail to pass the security test. This failure can lead to the theft of confidential and sensitive data. In order to combat this, web companies like Google are making automatic security updates for their apps and other granular app permissions model to secure apps and build trust between users and apps.

#6. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

AMP is a Google-backed project intended to open standard for any publisher to load pages quickly on mobile devices.

With the help of AMP, news, articles, top stories, highlights and more – according to the interest of the users – will load instantly on one page. You don't need to type and search for genres you’re interested in on Google; it will automatically update you through its analysis.

AMP personalises the topics every individual is interested in, and reflects a similar experience on apps, helping them attract more traffic and generate more leads.

#7. Big Data Applications

Customer expectations in the current scenario are an all-time high, and competition is always increasing. The digital era has empowered business to gather all the information of their customer's journey. This information includes their mobile app usage, digital clicks, interactions on social media and more. This data gives businesses a competitive advantage in analysing where the improvements are needed to fill the potential gaps in the market. Therefore, big data analytics has become one of the most valuable tools across the organisations.

Businesses are investing more in big data start-ups to get information of their users. The focus of the companies will be on refining the core big data capabilities by improving the functionality of big data apps.

With computers taking a toll on humans, there will be a time when AI will completely take over us and our jobs. “While automation will eliminate very few occupations entirely in the next decade, it will affect portions of almost all jobs to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the type of work they entail,” according to McKinsey Quarterly. Professions that require empathy and understanding like therapists, psychologists and roles that rely heavily on social and negotiation skills, like managerial positions, are less vulnerable to automation.

But for those who are in the creative field and require logical thinking and original ideas, like content creation, are also deemed at a comparatively lesser risk of having to lose their jobs due to these hard working, smarter and cheaper to manage resources. To create a machine that can generate great content and ideas which are worth reading as well as consuming is a tough job. Isn’t it? To assume such a thing will put us in the dark as the reality is leaning somewhere else. We do have machines that are already writing content and are good at it.

In fact, Gartner predicts, “By 2018, 20% of all business content will be authored by machines.” To some relief, it is safe to say that business content is not the same as creative content. Content marketing without humans would rob it of its most important aspect ----creativity. Artificial intelligence may be able to replace human effort to some extent, but creativity is where this debate stops.

Disturbingly, this might not be as clear-cut as most content marketers would likely hope it to be. Advanced computer-based products and tools already exist which are capable of producing amazing products.

For example, deep neural networks, computer systems which are designed to replicate the underlying synaptic structure of the human brain do exist. Advanced systems like these have already managed to create pieces of music, and ING’s Next Rembrandt project used A.I technology to loyally generate an eerily accurate, entirely new painting in the style of the master artist.

What exactly is content automation?

Major leaps forward may occur as natural language processing (NLP) develops. NLP refers to a machine interpreting what human language means with an acceptable degree of accuracy. Natural language generation (NLG) is an AI technology that takes structured data and converts it into text. The data is translated according to the translation rules coded by the system’s creators. Thereby humans are themselves teaching the NLG system the relationships between data points. In some usages, NLP might also include elements of NLG, as a machine processes language, then generates more of it based on its understanding of a text. Siri and Alexa are two examples of consumer technologies that combine NLG and NLP. For example, the Associated Press and Automated Insights work together to code and hence teach the Automated Insights system each rule for successfully translating financial data into a text-based earnings report that is very similar to one written by a human.

Here’s an example of a command they can code into the system: an increase of 30 percent or more when comparing two data points over a period should be written as “a notable increase” in the final report. Once that command is entered, the system would automatically refer to an increase of 30 percent or more as “a notable increase” when presented with properly organised data. Thousands of human-coded rules like this work together with the machine’s various other algorithms to create full written reports from the codes and data provided.

These NLG systems already exist. However, they require extensive work to tailor the system to particular content needs. An earnings report is relatively easier to break down into its constituent parts: report rises and falls in various metrics, which are linked together by commentary about each rise and fall. Every time a different type of narrative is needed, the AI tool or platform must be customised to produce that data. Once it is, then many more descriptions of that type, generated from a structured dataset, can be automatically created.

Is your company ready for content automation?

The usefulness of content automation for a brand depends heavily on its situation, scale and feasibility.

If you do not require content at scale, then it might not be worth the effort or time to customise NLG technologies for automation. Is your brand willing or can it invest beyond the initial setup of NLG? Additional editing, tweaking, and improvements may be required. An NLG even needs another limb of social content specialists to manage the machines. Can your brand procure or produce the talent to implement NLG? NLG is not a regular writing job. Its implementation requires a solid knowledge of rules-based and branching logic as well as a low grasping power of primary narrative mechanics. Tracking the growth of A.I. over the years does bring us to a vague answer to the question of whether A.I will be able to replace the job of a content marketer.

Recognising audience, defining content purposes, creating informative and quality content, and assessing results to inform future projects. These are a few tasks that A.I. will gracefully take from our hands in the future.

Content marketers need not panic just yet. There is a long way yet to let any computer being able to do these things in correlation with one another. The sheer complexity of a good marketing strategy does involve human emotions and smartness, which these machines are still to be prepped for.

Content marketing still gets to stay given the fact that Artificial Intelligence may be getting smarter, but at the same time, it has its limitations as well. They are built for humans and should be used by them in the way demanded. Computer systems are combating with 1’s and 0’s but still lack the perfect algorithm for a marketing strategy.

>>To know about great Marketing Tools for SMB's.

There are hundreds of thousands of businesses on the web that manufacture all kinds of goods, and all of them are fighting for prominence within every industry imaginable; be it offline or online. From hyper-niche goods aimed at the most important customers to mass markets goods and business-to-business products, everyone wants to rank well in search results and maintain visibility for the potential audience. This is because a lot of people begin their purchasing journey by using search engines to look for the required product or service. With fierce competition for the highly sought-after higher spots in organic search results, manufacturers need to ensure they do everything they can to appear in the topmost search results. SEO for industrial companies is the best way to achieve this goal. Let’s understand what SEO is and why it’s so important for manufacturers.

Search Engine Optimization: The Game Changer

SEO is nothing but a set of techniques for improving your website's ranking and increasing its performance in search engine results for keywords and phrases related to your business. When it comes to optimising your website, these strategies are classified into types: on-page and off-page that take place on and off your website, respectively.

• On-page SEO

It is the process of optimising features on your website so that search engines can crawl and rank your pages more easily. For instance, you might insert keywords and phrases connected to your business in critical aspects such as title tags, meta descriptions, URL structure, and headings to help search engines understand what each page is about. You may also use alt text to help search engines determine how your photographs relate to your content. Adding useful, original content to your pages can assist consumers in finding your website and knowing all they require to take the next step with your company. Moreover, you can emphasise your products and provide more information about your industrial manufacturing company by creating blog posts, videos, or article pages on your website.

• Off-page SEO

Unlike on-page SEO, Off-page SEO focuses on gaining links from other websites to increase your website's authority. For instance, you can reach out to bloggers, reporters, and industry influencers when you publish unique content like blog posts, infographics, and videos to see if they're interested in sharing it with their readers. Then, when people link back to your site as the source, search engines will see it as a favourable signal and increase your rating in search results.

Importance of SEO for Manufacturing Companies

SEO for manufacturing companies proves to be a cost-effective strategy with higher returns on investment (ROI) than traditional advertising strategies. Industrial manufacturing organisations can benefit from a robust manufacturing SEO plan that includes both on-page and off-page approaches. The numerous benefits of implementing a Manufacturing SEO offers a plethora of benefits ranging from increasing revenue, the website traffic and brand awareness to generating qualified leads and offering a higher return on investment. Ultimately, SEO for manufacturers allows their company to gain more visibility in search results, reach more clients, and generate more cash online.

Preparing for future

The internet has completely changed how businesses function, bringing in a revolution for the future along. Particulars have changed in the past decade, but the constantly changing environment remains, especially in the SEO sphere. For instance, pay-per-click advertising is quickly becoming an essential part of a complete and fruitful SEO strategy. As more companies develop their SEO, it’s becoming increasingly competitive which drastically increases the importance of PPC in a matter of only a couple of years. The best way to manage and stay ahead of all this constant change is to remain in tune with trends. A good starting point is the various respected newsletters and digests which are designed to help you do just that.

Staying ahead of the competition

More than a decade back, companies were investing huge amounts in building websites, putting in the right keywords, buying backlinks at minimal costs from overseas SEO agencies and putting in all efforts to avoid being found. Appearing in the top spot of search engines became – and still is – significant for manufacturers and industrial companies, irrespective of their marketing and sale figures. For instance, other sectors have already mastered using virtual reality and popular social media platforms, which are good for SEO, but not everyone in our industry can be successful in developing an informative and responsive website.

Getting more SEO manufacturing leads from search engine

Ultimately, search engines are trying to find appropriate content and the perfect answers for their user’s searches. So, by putting good content in place that will give search engines what they want, manufacturers are also putting in place the relevant information that human users will want to make it a win-win position. For instance, adding new, high quality and informative written content to your website will benefit both.

Getting more leads from local customers from Google Maps

For manufacturers, SEO is a larger prospect than just information/content about the client’s operations. It is pivotal to ensure that the significant details of the business are correct wherever they appear on the internet. Contact numbers, emails, and business addresses must match with Google’s registered address for businesses, across all manually created mentions on business directories and the like, or auto-generated citations pulled from Google maps listings. Social media sites also need to link directly to the main site, and business directories need to be verified for correctness. Only once all these necessary things are taken care of, can Google accurately interpret how well-known the company is and how beneficial it may be to people searching within that niche industry? Not controlling these particulars will make it tougher for Google in evaluating how the firm is faring, compared to its competition. Generating links to the company’s website from high authority websites that are relevant to your industry will be the next stage. And again, by ensuring that the information about your business is accurate and widely spread across the internet, manufacturers can make the task of potential customers easier.

Reaching SEO success faster than average

To target a bigger market share, manufacturers should aim at offering something more with their on-page SEO. Integrating it with social media inputs like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook profiles and embedding some video marketing is a great way to capture industry share by offering information to prospects at the very moment they need it. Only traditional trade shows and conferences are no longer enough to negotiate excellent agreements: Brands need to be accessible and informative in all instances.

Conclusion

SEO might look complicated at first, but many strategies that work in other markets are applicable as well as useful to manufacturing industries. Companies that decide to go the extra mile and adopt SEO as part of their marketing strategy will be cited for success as customers turn to videos and the mobile Web for information to make purchases. With all B2B industries vouching for SEO as the best tool for success, the manufacturing sector needs to understand its importance. Increased customer base, recognition and higher position in search results await the ones who plan to take a look at this tool.

To learn more, contact us to talk with a pro