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|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

A considerate portion of marketers in Asia Pacific [29%] don’t have the right balance and synergies between digital and offline media, while the majority [84%] still struggle with cross-channel measurement. That’s according to the latest annual state of marketing study, Getting Media Right: Marketing in Motion, released today by Kantar.

2020 is set to see a significant rise in digital ad spend, as marketers in the region look to optimise their media mix. 80% of marketers plan to increase their investment in online video advertising over the next 12 months, while 68% plan to increase spend on social media networks and 57% plan to increase spend on podcasts. This is in sharp contrast to print media, where 72% of marketers say they will decrease spend in magazines, while 60% will reduce their investment in newspaper advertising.

Despite the projected growth in online advertising, digital measurement remains a challenge for marketers, with blind spots such as ‘walled gardens’ impacting the ability to understand cross-channel performance. This leaves many advertisers in the dark about the performance of their brand across channels.

Now in its sixth year, Getting Media Right examines the current state of marketing in a fast-moving connected world, and is based on in-depth survey feedback from nearly 500 senior marketers globally spanning advertiser brands, media publishers and agencies globally. It reveals an industry that continues to diversify its usage of different media contexts, yet requires better understanding of how ideas, content and media channels work together to achieve their goals of driving short-term sales and long-term brand growth.

Key findings from the study

  • The short-term vs. long-term dilemma comes to a head. Almost all marketers in the region [89%] now recognise the importance of balancing short-term sales with long-term brand building. However, still only 61% of marketers are using both short and long-term measurement; 32% still rely solely on short-term sales results.

  • Marketers globally still struggle with integrated campaigns, but APAC marketers are having more success.  88% of marketers say they have integrated their marketing organisations, compared to 75% of global marketers.

  • Programmatic targeting continues to grow. Four in five marketers in APAC [78%] currently use programmatic targeting for their campaigns – and that is expected to reach 87% in 2020. But still one in five marketers [21%] aren’t confident they’re successfully targeting the right audiences.

  • Cookieless advertising could leave marketers in the dark. More than a third of marketers [36%] haven’t begun preparations for a cookieless world, leaving many concerned about how such change will impact the industry.

  • Nearly two thirds of marketers [61%] agree that developing custom content is an imperative, but when it comes to understanding how context impacts creative executions, there’s still a gap. More insight is required into how specific content needs to be tailored to specific contexts to improve message receptivity.

Jane Ostler, Global Head of Media Effectiveness, Kantar, said

While the rapid growth in digital ad spend comes as no surprise, this new research indicates that marketers still have a long way to go to when it comes to cross-channel measurement and proving ROI.

The next 12 months will see huge changes for the industry, with the rise of newer channels, such as podcasts and advanced TV, and the move away from cookies set to transform the way advertisers target and measure campaigns. Marketers should aim for the best of both worlds -they need to create a framework to monitor impact on business and brand metrics. That means harmonising measurement tools, building an infrastructure that enables measurement across the diverse marketing mix, and creating meaningful insights to improve performance across all channels.

Pablo Gomez, Chief Digital Officer for the region, said

The results go to show just how dynamic and complex APAC is as a region. Marketers here are faced with the challenge of rapidly increasing their digital investment, whilst at the same time, ensuring there is integration with offline media.

Measurement also remains one of the biggest issues for the region, especially online-offline cross measurement which is critical in a region dominated by TV and mobile. It’s clear that marketers need more focused data, with insights that give them the direction they need to better integrate and optimize their campaigns. This will also allow them to customize content better and improve the entire experience for their audiences.

Sandeep Ranade, Executive Director, South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar said

This research indicates that many marketers today focus on short-term measurement though they recognise the importance of balancing short-term sales vs long-term brand building. Integrated campaigns are the way forward, however there still a lot that needs to be done here. Marketers need to be more cognizant of the specific contexts while developing content.

This will help them future proof their digital measurement approaches in the rapidly growing and changing digital scenario.

For more information on Getting Media Right: Marketing in Motion, or to download a copy of the study, please visit http://www.kantar.com/gettingmediaright

|In: SEO|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Since most of the consumers are online, it is important for brands and businesses to have a presence online. And for that, many brands are establishing their own websites and blogs. But just starting them is not enough. If you want good traffic, more clicks, better ranking, and high ROI you have to work on it, and that is where SEO comes in.

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Make SEO an essential part of your marketing strategy and keep track of its trends. It is important to keep a track on it, because every year new SEO trends come and you don’t want to be left behind.

In this blog, we will talk about some of the newest SEO trends that you must look out for in 2019.

  1. Optimize for more than Google search engine

Since years, Search engine optimization was done keeping Google in mind, but in 2019 this trend is changing. People nowadays search on various things about products, and you have to optimize for that too and not just your website if you want to get more business.

Currently, people search on Amazon for things they have to buy or on the app store for a particular app. Thus, it is crucial that you learn how to drive traffic from other things too.

In simple terms, 2019 is asking you to be on top of everything, whether it be Amazon, or app store, or a podcast channel, anything where people can search for your brand.

  1. Content should be exceptional and of high quality

As usual content will always be the king, many trends will come and go, but this won’t. If you want your content to come in the top three Google searches, use exceptional and quality content. Especially, since 2018, as Google has updated its algorithm to intensely focus on evaluating the quality of a blog or sites content.

The websites that will have exceptional content with depth will have great rankings and enough organic traffic.

It is crucial that you publish good content, something that is relevant to the consumers and informs them about your brand too. Make sure your content strategy is not just about getting more users, but also about engaging them. You should also insert the relevant images, so that your content look good. You can use Canva to make amazing blog images.

  1. Include Microformats to your website

In terms of coding, microformats are HTML patterns that provide information about your website to Google.  It helps search engine to know what exactly is your website about and then rank you appropriately.

If you provide honest microformats, Google will reward you with better rankings. Also, it makes your content more engaging for the consumers and encouraging them to click on it. As we all know, more clicks mean more traffic and better revenue.

  1. Voice search

A study has shown that by 2020, 50% of the searches will be voice searches. Voice-enabled devices like Alexa and Google home will perform most of the voice searches on behalf of consumers without making use of a screen.

Voice searches are long, so SEO for that is completely different. You will have to find 7-9 words phrases as your keyword including a question that people might say while voice searching for your brand.

Consumers usually ask what, where, how, and when questions so optimize your website for that.

  1. Focusing on technical SEO is important

In 2019, you will have to focus on the technical SEO of your website, because every year numerous sites are coming up and their complexities keep increasing too. Focus on these areas as part of your technical SEO:

Speed – You will have to work on your site’s speed, and make it fast and simple. Google will rank your site better if it loads quickly.

JavaScript – Most websites even now use JavaScript and its frameworks to create their website. That is why you have to be a little familiar with JavaScript so that you can understand how a search engine works with such sites.

PWA – Progressive web apps are the future, and you have to figure out a way to make sure that your website has a future as PWAs.

These are some of the trends that you need to implement in your SEO marketing strategy. To know about more trends, keep watching this space.

About the Author

Kavita Paliwal is an Outreach Specialist cum Content writer at ViralChilly. When not glued to her laptop, she can be found making travel plans that rarely happen :). Connect with Kavita on Twitter @dreamerkavita

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

India is moving to a golden age of philanthropy that hasn’t been seen since the middle of the last century. Whereas the last period of giving led to the setting up of many of the trusts, hospitals, universities and similar institutions, modern givers are looking to find new ways to invest. Running alongside the new spirit of giving, charities are employing marketing techniques such as viral videos to help promote their causes.

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The Modern Givers

Philanthropists such as Erik Gordon plan whole campaigns looking to building sustainable futures and to tackle the causes of the issues they are addressing. Brands such as Siyaram have started campaigns to encourage their customers to carry out good acts every day. Charities and other non-profits are more reliant on partnering with brands, or appealing to a wider audience in a kick-starter fashion.

Marketing Techniques To Bring In More Engagement

Digital marketing techniques have a lot to teach those who wish to do good deeds. Marketing has become a science over the years, which allows it to be cost effective. For big businesses this can help with profitability but for those wanting to help other it is vital to ensure as little as possible is spent on administrative costs. Before starting any plan to do good you need to know who your audience will be. By understanding your audience you will be able to plan your campaign to suit them. Data harvesting will tell you more about their likes, dislikes and where to best engage them. The best way to reach out to this audience has been proven to be storytelling. YouTube provides services for non profits that can help enormously with campaigns.

The Future Of Giving

The future for those wanting to do good works online will be a far more professional one. Our world is expanding and it is increasingly becoming difficult to be heard in the crowd. It is vital that to get your message heard that you employ all the techniques available. Storytelling, social media, networking and data mining are all tools that will be necessary to succeed. Only by taking these professional attitudes and approaches will charities be able to stand out and be seen.

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

In the good old days, you had to step out to shop for clothes, books, grocery and had to refer to mass media advertisements [TV, Radio, Newspapers] in order to hunt for the best offers. Fast forward now, all these services are now available on the tip of your fingers due to the affordability of smart-phones, rising internet penetration, evolution of digital technologies, etc. Due to these factors, there is a rapid shift in the overall strategy in which companies market products to their customers.

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Marketing is an essential part of any new start-up or business. To succeed in whatever domain you are targeting, you need to pay more attention to direct mail marketing as it is still a fundamental marketing tool. Though there are many channels to acquire/retain customers, email marketing is still one of the most productive ways to win over customers. Email still delivers the highest ROI for marketers, for every $1 spent; email marketing generates $38 in ROI [Source].

The Era of Hyper-personalization

How many times have you opted out of a newsletter from an Online Travel Agency [OTA], e-commerce website, etc. since it was not relevant to you or you found that there was zero personalization in the newsletter? It would be an annoying situation if you receive offers for a product that you have never searched for on an e-commerce website or receive promotional emails for products not pertaining to your profile. Marketers can now utilize plenty of data-points from customer generated data – social media information, browsing history, purchasing history, user preferences, location & demographics, etc. to provide them a near-about ‘Personalized Experience’. There is a shift to Hyper-Personalization so that customers are offered hyper-personalized experience, an experience tailor-made for them.

Hyper-personalization can be applied to entire umbrella of the digital-marketing strategy, but it is the most effective when applied to email marketing. One more problem that marketers face is the low open rate of emailers and newsletters, but with the advent of AI, Machine Learning and other evolving technologies, they can now leverage AI that learns to automatically maximize open rates of email campaigns. Startups are working on solving this problem so that they can help their clients in achieving maximum conversion rate thereby acquiring as well as retaining customers.

SendPulse – Making Marketing Simple

SendPulse, a US based startup is leveraging AI, Hyper-personalization, Predictive analysis for email, SMS, Web Push, SMTP in order to make Marketing Simple

It maximizes the core metric of e-mail marketing – newsletter open rate – automatically. SendPulse collects tons of data about billions of subscribers in their system and predicts the best time and channel for each subscriber when to deliver the next message to him. The result has been fabulous where their customer’s see 50% open rate increase in average. When compared to other popular email marketing solutions, the core USP of SendPulse is that it is an all-in-one integrated solution that offers bulk email, bulk SMS messages and web push notifications.

SendPulse follows a freemium model, which means that customers can try out all the features that SendPulse offers in the trial period. Though the email marketing space is largely dominated by MailChimp and GetResponse, the major advantage of SendPulse is its advanced email service As a part of the review; we would be digging deeper into the email service of SendPulse.

SendPulse was among the 3 finalists of The Next Web SCALE 2016 program. It was recognized as one of the best startups of 2016 by The Next Web.

SendPulse – Detailed Review

As mentioned earlier, major concern that digital marketers face with emailers, newsletters is the Low Open Rates. SendPulse leverages the potential of AI that helps its customers to increase email and message Open Rates & overall audience reach. When compared to the existing Email Marketing Services [EMS], SendPulse provides 70% increase in the Email Open Rates resulting in much better ROI.

The AI solution in SendPulse will choose an optimal communication medium [email, SMS, web/mobile push] and optimal time to send out the message so that there is maximum probability of an interaction with the subscriber.

Sending Personalized Emails

Once you have signed up with SendPulse, you can start using the plethora of useful features available in the product. We discussed about the importance of Hyper-personalization and SendPulse takes that to a whole new level with its email offering.

Customers have the option to choose from the Free Email Templates on their website that cater to different segments like Travel, e-commerce, Business, Healthcare, etc. or prefer to design their own template using the WYSIWYG drag & drop email editor. If you are well-versed with HTML, you should definitely give a try to design your own personalized template.

The look & feel of the emails are adapted as per the device and display resolution so that there is uniformity in the design when the users switch from one device to another.

Create Unique Mailings with Personalization and Segmentation

Mailing Lists are a very powerful medium where companies can connect with their customers. With SendPulse, you can create a template that is tailored for each and every recipient.  The best part about the personalization is that it is all in the form of Macros. A sample is shown below

There is a huge difference when you refer a person by his/her name e.g. ‘Hey Himanshu’ when compared to ‘Hey’. SendPulse takes personalization to a different level, where multiple fields like Gender, Company, Position, etc. can be customized in order to Wow their customers.

Segmentation consists of dividing your customer base up into different groups according to the criteria you set. In order to deliver unique experience to every recipient on the mailing list, customers of SendPulse can do Segmentation on the basis of Gender, Place of residence, users’ subscription details date. Segmentation according to users’ subscription details date are useful for sending personalized offers, sending re-activation emails to customers who have been in-active after sign-up.

Web Push, Analytics and REST API

Customers of SendPulse can leverage the power of Web Push that lets them reach their customers when they are active on their devices.

SendPulse provides support for REST API that can be used by developers/engineers for their app/web development. SendPulse API’s can be integrated with existing CMS and CRM systems like WordPress, WooCommerce, etc.

A product is in-complete if there is no Developer Support and if there is no way to track What approach has worked and what hasn’t? Google Analytics is a powerful tool used by marketers for detailed tracking and measuring the CTR & taking appropriate actions. Emails that have been sent via SendPulse can be tracked using Google Analytics, hence there is no learning involved in it. Along with the number of emails opened, links clicked and other details, customers of SendPulse can track the activity of the subscribers, segment their mailing lists and work with clients with an individual approach.

SendPulse Pricing

As mentioned earlier, SendPulse follows the Freemium model so that it can cover a varied spectrum of customers right from startups to MNCs. Below are the different plans of SendPulse

Free Plan – If you have less than 2,500 subscribers you can send up to 15,000 emails per month for free.

Monthly Subscription – The pricing in this plan would vary based on the number of subscribers and emails that you need. The pricing for 50K subscribers is $191.

Pay As you Go – This prepaid email package gives you the option to pay for the emails that you need.

VIP Plan – If you have more than 1 million subscribers and if there is a plan to start a regular mailing program, than you should opt for the VIP Plan. You need to send a mail to sales@sendpulse.com for getting more information about the VIP Plan.

For further details about the Email Marketing Pricing, SMTP Service, Web Push Services, etc. please visit SendPulse Pricing Page

SendPulse – Conclusion

SendPulse is an interesting product that solves a ‘much-needed’ problem for online marketers. If you are looking out for a hybrid series of communications to target your customers, than you should definitely give SendPulse a try.

Since they have integrated SMS, Web Push, and Emails in one single platform hence, you can build/change your online strategy on the fly. If you are an existing SendPulse customer, please leave your feedback in the comments section.

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Blogmint, Asia’s leading Influencer Marketing Platform  recently surveyed 500+ influencers on the state of influencer marketing in India. The data brought out interesting insights like Instagram followed by Live Video will be the upcoming channels for effective engagement.

Infographic Credit – BlogMint