Creative tips to plan Vine videos for marketing

If you’re a pro marketer, you must already know that the best advertisements are the shortest (usually 30 seconds long). For some reason, (and let’s not blame everything on technology yet) as time goes on and new generations are born, the attention spans seem to be reducing. So, if your customer loves smart phones, uses Netflix, and owns several different portable devices, his attention span may be shorter than you think. Like any professional marketer, we could use these odd transformations in time to our advantage. How? Think: applications! You’d want to market where the crowds are, and clearly that’s not the television anymore. Recently, many companies have been using Twitter’s video uploading application Vine to produce and share creative 6-second videos of their products. That’s right. You get only six seconds to make an impact. Used well, it could be the best shortest ad you’ve…

The Fails and Fixes of using SMS for marketing

As consumers are more on the move, shopping and researching using their mobile devices, getting their attention with SMS is a good option many marketers may be underusing. Yet... Engagement rates for SMS/Text are 6-8x higher than emails and 90% of SMS texts are read within 3 minutes of receipt. This infographic from West Interactive shows however that even though it's a good medium, there are dangers lurking since mobile users are highly aware of unsolicited texts and opt-out rates can be high. It recommends to ' Co-ordinate your messages across your channels, be aware of country specific legislation and test load times for a good UX.' …

Explaining the differences and options for AB and multivariate testing for email marketing

It can be difficult to know where to start when working on testing your marketing emails to boost the results of your sequences or campaigns. Which elements should you change? CTA, subject line, colour of your button, the list goes on. In their latest infographic, our friends at EmailMonks have designed a handy checklist to prompt testing ideas, by revealing which elements to test. Plus they share some examples and best practices from Samantha Iodice of the Email M@ven blog. The text is a little on the small side for us, so if you click we have an enlarged version for you. …

Tips to help brief on-screen graphics for your videos and animations

Brands are increasingly employing video marketing to communicate their messages, engage online audiences and use content to support the sales and marketing teams. especially n B2B. According to the Demand Gen report, the use of video content in B2B marketing increased from 8% of companies employing it in 2013 to 58% in 2014. Website Inc reports that 92% of B2B customers watch online video and 43% of B2B customers watch online video when researching products and services for their business. There is little doubt that video is both here to stay and will require your focus. There are many styles of video from case study to product profile, feature to interview style films. What they have in common for a business is that they are professional, clear, informative and engaging for the viewer and potential buyer. As part of the commissioning and…

Who are the winners and losers since Google's mobile update?

If you're involved in using SEO to drive traffic, you’ll no doubt know the hype of the build up to Google’s mobile friendly algorithm update since it was initially announced in the autumn of 2014 and finally rolled out a month ago today on April 21st, 2015.  Many predicted major changes as a result of the update, with Google’s Zineb Ait Bahajji saying at SMX Munich that the upcoming mobile-friendly algorithm update would 'impact more sites than their Panda or Penguin algorithms'. Even the mainstream media picked up on it, dubbing it 'Mobilegeddon'... So one month on what has the impact been? Has it impact been like that of a zombie apocalypse, or is it more a case of Business as Usual for most? In this post I'll look at insights from different studies which show the impact of effected websites. I'll also look at how you…

How to add Calls-to-action to your Facebook business page and ads

Importance: [rating=4] Recommended link: Facebook Help: Enhanced Calls-to-Action for your Adverts Another day, another update from Facebook. Today it's a relatively minor ad change. But an opportunity to remind you about the similar, but more significant change relevant to all page owners, i.e. the ability to add organic call to action button options from your home page which was introduced earlier in 2015. For example, here is the Smart Insights Facebook page with a 'Sign-up' Call-to-action (CTA) selected. To learn more about how to implement these company page CTAs, see this Facebook help advice. Now brands are now given the ability to promote the CTA with an ad. The benefit of this is that you can more prominently drive business outcomes rather than page likes. Open up Facebook and you'll likely see this: …

6 tactics to get started with Customer Activation

As a marketing leader you know that each customer experiences numerous touch points with your company throughout their lifecycle. With Lifecycle marketing it’s the job of marketing to ensure that each interaction has a positive impact and moves the customer on to the next stage. But how can you measure the success of your combined efforts and their impact on your customer’s lifecycle? It's time to think about Customer Activation... Customer Activation means motivating customers to move to the next stage of their lifecycle faster than they would on their own.

But, how do you activate your customers when you’re interacting with millions?

You need to think about your customers' lifecycle from potential customer to eventual advocacy. Cultivating relationships with your customers throughout their lifecycle is key to extracting maximum value from them. Unfortunately many marketers fail in activation through not delivering effective, relevant emails. The problem…

Digital marketing tools to support your content marketing

The importance of content marketing in a business cannot be overlooked especially since we have to work hard to engage our audiences rather than pushing messages to them. Long gone are the days where creating billboard ads and radio spots were enough to get your business to the next level. Today, consumers want more and they like to have content they can relate to in order to feel a part of your business. Content can help you to craft a story about your business to help you connect further with your customers and to share your unique values, showcasing the personality of your brand. It's not easy to get started with your content marketing strategy.  Before any success story can be realized, a business needs to have the right tools in place to be in a better position to…

How to respond to your Twitter interactions to increase engagement

Twitter users have high expectations and if you have a Twitter presence, regardless of whether you are using it as a platform for customer service or brand awareness, then it's important to respond quickly and appropriately, or it could be damaging to your brand. Did you know that only 15% of the FTSE 250 companies respond to tweets? this is worrying given that 17% of consumers are using this channel to ask questions to leading brands. Like any social media channel, you should only post content if you have a strategy and the resources to interact in a two-way conversation to engage with your followers. Leadsift's research has drawn up a snappy visual to provide a toolkit for responding to your Tweeters to maximise engagement.

So how should…

A tutorial on creating ads in Facebook comparing Power Editor to Facebook's self-serve Ad Manager

Most people I meet on training courses who advertise on Facebook, naturally start with Facebook's Ad manager since they don't know about Power Editor. In this tutorial I will explain the ad creation process using the self serve tool and I'll show you how much better it is with Power Editor. If you don't know it Facebook's Power Editor is a Chrome application which I'd strongly recommend for anyone creating ads in Facebook. It's pretty essential for big, regular advertisers, but what you may not realise is how many benefits there are even in a single ad.

First: go to the Ads Manager

You'll see something like this. Select "Create Ad".

Step 1: choose your campaign objective

Now compare the approach in Power Editor…