Tag Archive for: Digital marketing news

How To Adapt And Pivot Your Marketing Strategy During COVID-19 Crisis

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COVID-19 has massively disrupted all business and daily activities which forces us to rethink everything we do. Now more than ever, the world needs creativity and fresh ideas on how to manage such an overwhelming situation. Not only is it a challenge to manage what your company should share with the public, marketing managers need a proactive plan to adjust how they lead their teams and manage their brand. Don’t wait for any problems to further develop, and instead follow this 4 step plan to identify potential scenarios and strategize marketing changes.

Scenario Brainstorming

The best, the worst, and everything in between. It is crucial to think through as many scenarios as possible for your business from all different perspectives. Now is a great time to strategize with your colleagues in the HR department, finance, and others to develop a well-rounded understanding of what challenges you will be facing. For example, if the “best case” scenario for a live-event company involves sponsorships and paid advertising, then “worst case” scenario should include some alternatives for how to reach and contact customers.

Observe Customer Behavior

How is your customer base reacting in this climate? This will range greatly based on geographic location, size of business, B2B or B2C, and so on. If you take away anything from this point, it should be that it’s imperative to establish trust with your customer base during this time. They are most likely looking towards you for information, reassurance, and guidance. How you handle this crisis will impact your brand significantly over the next several years. So now, more than ever, listen to your customers. It’s important to know what customers feel and do, and why.

Identify Operational Challenges

Challenges to service, delivery, product as a whole are inevitable. Identify and anticipate what could potentially be coming in your industry. Survival ultimately matters more than market domination in this current climate. Marketers will be challenged to adapt your message on a weekly, if not daily basis on the status of what you can produce and deliver. We recommend you to optimize your marketing budget and prioritize spending. Postpone campaigns for products or services that you are aren’t sure will be produced in this time. Instead, invest budget in promoting apps and other mobile tools and services.

Pivot Your Marketing Strategy

Everyone is in the same boat, and is looking to secure the same media spots to replace lost opportunities. The next months are now crucial. The rest of 2020 is likely to be impacted by many societal changes, and it is up to your business to be proactive and take alternative action. Use your scenario planning to anticipate possible and likely changes and take alternative action.

More from Onimod Global

To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

 

Tips on How to Be Productive While Working from Home

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As a result of the Coronavirus outbreak, many companies are transitioning to working remote. While working from home is a dream for many, there are many challenges that can come with it. We don’t know how long this situation will last, so it’s important to learn how to be as productive as possible while working from home. 

If you’re new to the WFH life, here are some tips on how to do it successfully. 

Create a schedule. 

Working from home presents a different set of challenges than working in an office. It’s much easier to get distracted and feel restless with having nowhere to go. Establishing a routine that replicates a normal work day, and sticking to it, can be very beneficial. Set goals for the day. What tasks do you need to complete? What needs to get started? It’s also helpful to set aside specific hours for answering emails, making calls, taking lunch, coffee breaks etc. When you have a full to-do list and stay productive, it will make the day go by much faster. The next thing you know it’s 5pm and the work day is over. 

Have a designated workspace. 

If you don’t have a home office already, try as much as possible to create a separated and designated workspace. When it comes to working at home, you want to create a boundary between work and leisure. You don’t want to turn your bed or couch into the office. It could be as simple as moving a nightstand and upright chair to the corner of a room. This can also help to create boundaries with others in your home. Whether it be roommates, partners, or children, having a designated workspace signals to others you’re ‘at work.’ This all helps you to stay concentrated and productive. 

Communicate, communicate, communicate. 

Whether temporary or permanent, the keys to successfully working from home is clear communication with your boss and colleagues, and being aware of what’s expected from you. When you’re used to being in close proximity with your manager, communication is effortless. If you’re new to working remotely, this is now very different. Your boss might not be used to managing people virtually, so you need to find ways to break down that new communication barrier. Suggest starting the day with a phone call just so everyone is on the same page and knows what their expectations are. This doesn’t just have to be with your supervisor, either. If you’re working closely with another colleague on something make sure you both consistently communicate with one another. Whether this be done via email, phone call, or video chat, it’s important to stay in contact. 

Beware of feeling isolated. 

Loneliness can be a huge and serious issue, especially when you’re so used to talking face-to-face with a number of people a day. With the current situation, we don’t know how long companies will have to stay remote, which presents many additional problems. Usually remote workers still have the opportunity to go to public places or attend social events. Restaurants, cafes, bars etc. are open, which allows those remote workers to still have face-to-face interactions. With the COVID-19 outbreak, these opportunities aren’t there. Prolonged isolation could potentially start to impact morale and productivity. Those remote worker experts suggest trying to sustain a semblance of normalcy in unconventional ways. Consider having a virtual happy hour or dinner party. It can help everyone feel that they’re in this together and lift spirits during this difficult time. 

Take breaks. 

When you live where you work, it’s important to get out of your workspace at times during the day. You might feel pressured to overextend yourself to prove to your team you’re actually working, it’s critical to carve out break time. You’re going to get quickly burnt out if all you do is pace back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. 

Final Thoughts 

Initially, working from home can be challenging, but during this time, it’s in everyone’s best interest. Until the outbreak is under control, the benefits of working from home, outweigh the inconveniences. Remember to cut yourself some slack during this time. It’s inevitable to get distracted and off-task every once in a while. There is a lot going on and new information to take in everyday. While it is difficult, try to stay positive. We’re all in this together. 

More from Onimod Global

To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Facebook’s New Lead Generation Messenger Feature and What it Means for Advertisers

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On August 29th Facebook started their global roll out of their new lead generation feature in Messenger to all advertisers. This feature allows businesses to create an automated question and answer experience within their Messenger app that launches via click-to-Messenger ads on Facebook News Feed. This is just one of the many new tools Facebook has introduced in the past year with the intentions of streamlining the advertising and communication processes from brands to users. 

 

How it works:

The automated lead generation feature is designed to be used in conjunction with click-to-Messenger ads, which triggers conversation between businesses and Facebook users. If you’re unfamiliar with click-to-Messenger ads, they were one of three new ad additions Facebook released back in February. These ads appear in user’s regular News Feed and will open a Messenger chat with the brand if the ad is clicked. With the new feature, businesses can now set up an automated question experience. The ad opens Messenger and kicks off a set of questions that can be answered through pre-filed or free form text. The system is also designed to send follow-up reminders if users do not complete the questions. 

Businesses can integrate Messenger with their CRM provider to capture the information provided by customers and identify qualified leads. Then, Pages can manually continue the conversation through Pages Inbox, Pages Manager App, or a third party-live chat provider. 

 

What it means for advertisers: 

According to a recent survey, 42% of those polled said they expect a response via an online chatbot within five seconds of sending a message. By integrating an automated lead generation feature that directly connects a CRM platform to its click-to-Messenger ads, brands are not only able to respond more quickly to customer inquiries, but also streamline all communication with their customers on the platform.

 Facebook says that “businesses engaging with potential leads in their preferred channels are seeing results, and finding it easy to continue the conversation and seamlessly nurture leads in Messenger.” They reported that RIFT Tax, a financial services company, used the new feature to increase its customer base of Armed Forces members and increased their qualified leads by 42%. They were able to respond to users in less than 10 minutes, which increased their lead resolve rate by 18%. 

Along with Facebook ads targeting, this feature allows advertisers to further drive interested people into conversation with your business. You can start to take action on leads in Messenger when it’s convenient for both you and your customers. You can easily send reminders to users that haven’t completed the questions, and nurture leads where they spend their time. Finally, with an integrated CRM, your sales team can start immediately taking action. 

 

To try out the lead generation feature:

  1. Visit Ads Manager.
  2. Select “Messenger Objective” and set “click to Messenger” as your message destination. The lead generation template is under the Ad Level in “Message Setup” section. 
  3. Select the option “Generate Leads” and click “+ Create Chat.” 
  4. Add a welcome message, a question, a thank you, a disqualifying message, a completion reminder, and your privacy policy. 
  5. Finalize the setup and submit for approval. 

 

Final Thoughts 

Currently, there are around 300,000 developers building on Messenger, and people and businesses exchanging over 20 billion messages on the platform each month. This option helps to improve the bots and conversation process overall. The more options business have to utilize them, the more popular they will become, and as utility increases, you can also expect consumers to become more attuned to bot usage, further boosting their appeal. 

 

More From Onimod Global 

To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here!

 

 

Facebook Adds New Features to its Video Creation Kit

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On Tuesday Facebook announced new updates for its video creation kit feature. The updates are to give video advertisers more templates, editing options, and a new ‘save’ option. Facebook’s overall purpose of the new features is to optimize ad placement, while giving advertisers more support to create custom designs.

What is the Video Creation Kit:

Facebook released this feature back in August of 2018 with the mobile-first mindset, since it was becoming the most effective way to connect with customers. It enabled users to turn existing image and text assets into mobile-optimized videos framed in 1:1 for feed environments or 9:16 for stories on Facebook and Instagram. The template options are based specifically on what you’re trying to do for the product.

There are two 6 second video options if you’re promoting a product or selling multiple products. It allows advertisers to use keywords to generate interest and sales, or show a selection of products, promoting special offers. There are also two 15 second options to show product benefits or promote product discovery. You can highlight features, use case studies, explain how the product works, bring your brand to life, and share what makes it unique.

The platform gives those with limited video production staff or resources the ability to produce quality video advertisements. It’s most beneficial to small or medium sized businesses that may not have the tools or extensive knowledge on video production.

The New Updates:

Resizing Tool

Advertisers can now optimize the size of their videos for various ad placements. They say it only takes a click of a button to transform one video into many videos with multiple aspect ratios automatically for different places such as Stories or News Feed. Facebook says you will save time and be able to create videos that appear to be customized for each placement, without shooting additional content or having to edit manually.

Editing Options

Facebook has added new templates, including a single-image template with the option to add visually engaging motion, and 20 new fonts for text overlay. They have also added new event and seasonal stickers, such as Back-to-School season and Mother’s Day with more to come in the fall.

‘Save’ Feature

Before users were not able to start and stop projects whenever they wanted. Videos were required to be published in the same sitting as they were started. Now advertisers are allowed to save unfinished videos as drafts and return to work on it as they please.

You can read Facebook’s full announcement about the new features here.

Why We Care

The Video Creation Kit was made for anyone who wants to build Facebook and Instagram video ads that display well on phones, including digital and social agencies, in-house production team, Facebook marketing partners, direct advertisers, and digital creative agencies. Facebook is giving small companies with limited resources the opportunity to create customized content for multiple ad placements, ultimately allowing them to better compete with larger brands.

More From Onimod Global

To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here!

Everything You Need To Know About Voice Search in 2019

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There is no doubt that voice search has arrived and is here to stay. Google Voice Search actually launched way back in 2012, however it’s only been the past 1 to 2 years that users have begun to utilize and listen to its benefits. The dynamics of SEO changes have completely shifted due to the use of voice assistants and the growing popularity of voice search in 2019. People are searching differently for things for the first time since Google came on the scene, therefore the way things can be found must also change.

 

How it affects SEO

Consumers are searching for things at a variety of times on a variety of devices.  We’re using everything from traditional desktop computers through to smart watches and, increasingly, voice search to discover new brands, find solutions to our problems and to research and buy products. Voice search has the potential to be huge for small business. 22% of voice search users are querying local business information, and this presents a great opportunity for small local business to appear on the first page of search results.

Typically these voice searches are for “near me” or other local queries, the potential for local brands is huge. Smaller businesses that may not necessarily have the budget to make their presence well known in years past can make themselves the top result for voice searches with a range of relevant questions and keywords.

 

Key Voice Search Statistics

SEO Expert Bradley Shaw shares significant statistics that display the importance of voice search in 2019:

– 58% of consumers have used voice search to find local business information within the last year
– 46% of voice search users look for a local business daily
– 27% visit the website of a local business after conducting a voice search
– 76% of smart home speaker users conduct local searches at least  once a week—with 53% performing daily searches

– 22% of smart home speaker owners have made a purchase using their device.

Voice searches aren’t just increasing, they are doing so in volume at a tremendous rate. Voice search queries are 35 times larger than they were at launch of the technology. Furthermore, statistical search analysis by ComScore which predicts that 50% of all searches will be accomplished by voice search in 2020.

More From Onimod Global

There is no avoiding voice search in 2019 or in the future, it’s time to optimize and ensure your business is performing the best it can in terms of SEO, especially for local business. Are you on the hunt for someone to help you create success for your business? We have you covered at Onimod Global! We would love to help you and your company succeed, request a quote or contact us here. We can’t wait to here from you!

The Top 2019 Digital Marketing Trend: Digital Personalization

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The digital marketing industry which is forever fast-moving has sought to combine data with advertising technology –  2019 may be the year of implementation. Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is a display ad technology that creates personalized ads based on data about the viewer at the moment of ad serving. DCO is more relevant to the consumer and typically outperform static ad copy frequently by a significant margin. So why is 2019 the year that digital personalization will make the move to large-scale usage, you ask? There are three core reasons signaling this year to be the year that we see personalization technologies integrating rapidly into digital communications and video content.

 

Technological Innovation

In years past, DCO has been a term used to describe testing a variety of versions of ads for performance-based campaigns. According to Marketing Tech, DCO campaigns used techniques such as multivariate testing aiming to establish which combinations of assets perform the best, and optimize the creative towards those results.

There are pros and cons to dynamic creative optimization, and one of its significant shortfalls is requiring a significant amount of data to learn and optimize. This can be rather lengthy and costly to format requiring high skill and expertise.

Today’s leading personalization technologies are highly sophisticated machines; referencing multiple sets of data to identify individual consumer preferences and profiles to serve the optimum combination of creative content to each consumer in real-time. With this new technology and approach that has developed over the past two years, it has opened a variety of new opportunities to run highly personalized campaigns across all marketing channels.

 

Removing Obstacles, Increasing Results

Advertisers can dynamically create a variety of ad groupings in real-time using only a single tag with digital personalization technology. This not only simplifies ad production and trafficking to save time and money for brands of all sizes, but it also allows your advertising team to focus on their specialized areas maximizing your results even further. On average, personalized advertising created and executed in this way sees between 2.5x – 4x uplift in consumer engagement compared to version-based advertising.

 

Video Personalization

Video personalization has arrived! This technology is available to serve the most appropriate content and messaging through a single VAST tag, which removes brand dependence on ad serving technology. Personalization is a key strategy for many brands and companies in 2019, and video content is a key component within the personalization strategy.  Until now, being able to dynamically create and serve video advertising at scale and across all devices had been a challenge, both technically and operationally. With the upgrade in technology, there now exists a huge window of opportunity for advertisers to engage and build relationships with consumers that just weren’t possible in years past.

 

More From Onimod Global

As digital personalization continues to advances continue to progress, adoption of this digital marketing strategy will help your brand build stronger consumer relationships across digital touchpoints.

Are you ready to grow your brand and take your digital marketing to a new level?

We have you covered at Onimod Global! We would love to help you and your company succeed, request a quote or contact us here. We can’t wait to here from you!

4 Tips To Success For Your Brand’s SEO Strategy

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As the online environment becomes increasingly competitive for businesses and brands, SEO is more important now than ever. Just how important is it? According to Marketing Land, over one-third of U.S. consumers started their online purchases with Google or another search tool in 2018. Paid search can only take you so far, we find that success lies in organic search results. Before you can take your SEO to the next level, you need to know where you are now and what to do next. Check out these 4 tips from Onimod Global that will give your brand the biggest competitive advantage in organic search results and make your SEO strategy a success.

 

Crawlability

The first step is making your site visible to search engine crawlers. A crawler is a program that visits Web sites and reads their pages and other information in order to create entries for a search engine index. In order to show your site crawlers your site structure for better indexing, you may need to update and expand your sitemap or build one from scratch. Updating your site’s robot.txt file with instructions will tell crawlers which pages you want indexed and which you don’t. After this step is complete, submit it to Google and other search engines so they can re-crawl your site as soon as possible.

 

Content Optimization 

After you resolve your engine crawler issues, the next thing you’ll want to focus on is content optimization and leveraging your existing assets. Doing this will improve ranking with specific keywords you want your brand to be associated with. There are a variety of tools to develop a list of keywords, the best one being Google Keyword Planner which develops a list of target keywords based on volume and ROI. From there, you can use this list to enhance meta tags and content you add to your site. This tip is very important in improving your SEO so your brand is shown to the right audience at the right time.

 

Build Links and Engagement

This tip is an offsite strategy, and the more complete content-optimization process is, the more SEO benefits you’ll see from your link-building and influencer efforts. We recommend researching link building and reviewing Google’s link-building ethics and best practices before you begin. Marketing Land also shares that a 10 to 15 percent response rate is good for link-building campaigns — so don’t get discouraged by what may seem a small response to your outreach efforts.

Influencer marketing is a strategy that is taking off and getting bigger every year. In order for this to be successful, you have to know your product and audience. From there, you can identify the social media user that has built a specific following specific to your industry or product. It is also important to recognize that large social influencers may not get you the best ROI, and it may be better to go the micro-influencer route. These are people who may only have tens of thousands of followers, but they’ve earned a high level of trust and authority within that group you are targeting.

 

Content Creation 

Your content is by far one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle to success for your brand. If your company is mature in its SEO program, you can focus on content creation at a whole new level. By this we mean your content should go beyond answering the basic questions of your products or services to answering questions that relate to what you sell. For example, if you are a company that sells bar shelves B2B, you can create content on how to effectively sell liquor in certain seasons by the lighting in your club.

It’s important to recognize these tips go in order and allow your brand to build level by level. Establish a solid foundation with crawlability and optimize your existing content — before you know it you’ll be creating unique content and your brand will see significant growth in your organic search traffic.

 

How Onimod Global Can Help

Are you on the hunt for someone to help you create an SEO strategy and increase your organic search traffic? We have you covered at Onimod Global! We would love to help you and your company succeed, request a quote or contact us here. We can’t wait to here from you!

 

10 Digital Marketing Statistics You Need To Know In 2019

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Digital marketing is forever changing and revolutionizing the way the industry interacts with consumers. The rapid evolution of digital marketing is more significant than ever. According to a survey by Adobe, 76% of those asked felt “that marketing had changed more in the past 2 years than in the previous 50”.

As time goes on, keeping up with the changes to digital marketing can be challenging. To keep you up to date, Onimod Global is here to provide you with 10 digital marketing statistics covering topics from conversion optimization to mobile marketing to start off 2019.

 

1. 60% of people have started using voice search within the last year. (Venture Harbour)

Search marketing has experienced some of the largest changes in regards to digital updates and Google algorithm updates. This shows that voice commands on Google, Amazon, and a variety of other sites are only increasing in popularity and a force to be reckoned with when it comes to search queries by consumers.

 

2. 85% of mobile advertisers think they’re providing a positive experience; only 47% of users agree. (Unlockd)

3. Mobile is predicted to account for 72% of digital ad in 2019. (eMarketer)

If you yet to optimize your site for mobile, now is absolutely the time to do so. While desktop advertising will always be a portion of your marketing budgets, mobile is where it’s at in 2019 and will only continue to increase. By now, it’s time to recognize the impact of smartphones and stop cutting yourself short of potential leads and conversions your business should be experiencing on the mobile platform.

 

4. Segmented email campaigns have an open rate that is 14.32% higher than non-segmented campaigns. (MailChimp)

It’s fairly common knowledge that segmenting your email campaign lists will increase your click-through rates, however it’s always positive to see this backed up with data. By narrowing your focus and sending messages to targeted groups within your lists, your recipients will find your campaigns more relevant—and relevant campaigns get better results.

 

5. The average ROI on CRO tools is 223%. (Venture Harbour)

6. 4.8% is the average conversion rate for websites using video, compared to 2.9% for those who don’t. (Adelie Studios)

A high conversion rate is crucial to the success of your business specifically generating leads and sales. You can use conversion rate optimization to persuade your website visitors to complete the desired action whatever that may be. Utilizing sources like Google Analytics and other CRO tools will significantly impact your success in 2019.

 

7. 72% of marketers worldwide said relevant content creation was the most effective SEO tactic. (Marketing Profs)

8. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. (Demand Metric)

Websites that consistently generate new, valuable, up-to-date, and original content should see a steady increase in organic search traffic and improved positioning in search engine results. This is the best way to increase your rankings for any topic or industry and saves a big chunk of your budget. Always make sure your site is rich in both keywords and helpful, useful content to help “sell” your business.

 

9. Infographics are Liked and Shared on social media 3X more than other any other type of content. (Mass Planner)

Infographics are great for a variety of reasons! They are eye-catching and persuasive, easily understood, and memorable. They are successful because they are informing versus selling. With an infographic, you’re sharing information, building a relationship, and creating a potential customer without being pushy.

 

10.  Social media has become the most popular content marketing tactic reported by 90% of B2C businesses. (Content Marketing Institute)

The key to social media is recognizing which platforms work best for your industry. Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest are clear winners for retail business whereas plumbing would utilize other social platforms. This is the most popular content marketing tactic because it’s the best way to get your brand and business in front of the right audience with minimal costs to your marketing budget.

 

More From Onimod Global

For more information regarding digital marketing expertise, trends and insights, visit the Onimod Global Website. We provide weekly news updates on the latest in the world of digital marketing. Enjoy!

 

 

 

eCommerce Website Performance Tips To Boost Conversions

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The way brands engage with their consumer is always changing, especially in the past 10 years compared to the rest of the digital age’s history. eCommerce sites have made the biggest leap digitally by engagement occurring almost all online. In fact, global eCommerce sales are predicted to almost double between 2017 and 2021. From a digital standpoint, there is always room for improvement from website design to your website performance. With the constant updates to different site platforms and detailed coding, it can be difficult to keep your site up to date on web performance and speed.

If a main goal for your current business regards significant growth, you’ll want to make sure your eCommerce site is able to keep up with the traffic that will be directed to your site. Certain themes are common among businesses in areas of eCommerce that could be improved upon. The following tips found from Liquid Web will help your team decrease shopping cart abandonment, improve your site performance, and boost conversions.

 

Quality Web Host – Solid Foundation

Like anything, the foundation of whatever you are creating is the most important factor. This is no different for website development – your website performance depends on this being solid and sturdy. A host that offers 24/7 support and real people versus automated responses. The experts at Onimod Global also work with website development, and you can request a quote for new website development here!

 

Optimize Your Product Images – Faster Load Times

Optimizing images on your site is a very important step to take. This is a combination of keeping your file sizes reasonable, keeping resolution in mind, using relevant file names, and more. Typically, product image optimization is a large mistake when it comes to website performance for larger eCommerce sites. Oleg Korneitchouk, Director of Marketing at SmartSites, was quoted by Liquid Web on this topic:

“When businesses take high resolution images and don’t properly resize and optimize the format for web, images are unnecessarily large in file size and hamper web performance. It’s best to resize them to fit their purpose, save them in the proper file type and compress them using one of the many tools online.”

 

Leverage Browser Caching – Loading Content Faster

Implementing caching into your site is crucial to your success, it is one of the largest culprits eating up load times for sites. Research shows that slower page load times will result in larger amounts of customers leaving your site. Even one second shaved off of your page load time can increase your conversions by 7%! Browser caching specifically can be very helpful, and the Google PageSpeed Insights from Google Developers are a great resource for recommendations on a caching policy.

 

Request An Audit With Onimod Global

Are you thinking your eCommerce site may be struggling due to any of the above common issues? We can help! Request a fully-customized digital audit for your website, and we’ll review your website performance at no charge. Click here for your audit, we can’t wait to hear from you!

Final Results Of Black Friday Shopping 2018

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Consumers took Black “Friday” by storm this year setting ground-breaking records with the largest online presence in its history. 2018’s Black Friday shopping festivities also started earlier than ever. Right after Thanksgiving dinner, consumers everywhere jumped straight to their cellphones to begin their holiday shopping. SalesForce reported that peak sales times were between 8 to 10 pm and started ramping up as early as 4 pm local times. Black Friday was also the first day ever to see more than $2 billion in sales coming from smartphones alone. According to MarketingLand, a record $6.22 billion was recorded in online sales for Black Friday — an increase of 23.6 percent from last year.

 

An Adobe Analytics spokesperson shares more on the trend of online shopping on Thanksgiving day over the past several years:

“We attribute this to many consumers being on the road or with family during the holiday, and they’re using this time to shop (often via mobile). The takeaway for marketers is there’s an opportunity to market to consumers on and around Thanksgiving Day – not only the traditionally known shopping holidays like Cyber Monday and Black Friday.”

 

What’s New This Year

Another rising trend in the year of 2018 holiday shopping thus far has been buying online and picking up your purchase in-store. The growth in this shopper has risen 73 percent from Thursday to Friday, which can be credited mainly to stores being closed on Thanksgiving day. Nevertheless, this is a trend gaining ground quickly and presents an opportunity for marketers to capitalize on and make easier for consumers.

More than one-third of online Black Friday sales were made on smartphones surpassing last year’s 29.1 percentage of online purchases. $2.1 billion were done in sales this year via smartphone on Black Friday, completely shattering the record set last year on Cyber Monday at $1.4 billion. The trend of smartphone shopping is here to stay and will only continue to increase every single year.

 

Why These Sales Are Important

Holiday shopping is just getting started! While 2018 Black Friday and Small Business Saturday shopping is in the books, Cyber Monday kicked off today and is predicted to be the largest online shopping day in history. The opportunity here is recognizing the importance of mobile to consumers in today’s holiday shopping adventures. The companies that place their efforts in developing an extremely user-friendly mobile interface will be very successful with their consumers. It is also recommended to pace your holiday sales throughout the holiday seasons instead of focusing solely on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.