Tag Archive for: Digital Marketing Trends

7 Social Media Graphic Design Tips

/in , /by

No matter what you’re sharing on social media, it always performs best when paired with striking visuals. So here are some social media design tip best practices to help your content stand out amongst the crowd. 

1. Determine Your Goal 

Usually, the main goal when using social media is to grab user’s attention and get them to engage in some way. No piece of content will ever cater to all social media users, so the most important factor is figuring out what works for your audience. Here are some questions to get you started when determining the goal of your social media graphic: 

  • Who is my target audience? 
  • Which platforms are they using the most?
  • Which devices are they on most frequently? 
  • What is the message I want to spread?
  • What emotion am I trying to invoke? 
  • What action do I want my audience to take after seeing this graphic? 

2. Be Consistent 

You want to maintain consistency across all design elements and branded materials so that your target audience can clearly recognize who it’s coming from. Whatever graphics you create and share should essentially be an extension of the same brand they see on your website. Be sure to incorporate your brand’s colors and fonts into your designs and avoid anything content that doesn’t accurately reflect your brand. 

3. Tell Your Message Visually 

Majority of people scroll through social media slightly distracted and only for a few minutes at a time. Try to use visuals with minimal text to capture attention and get your message across as quickly as possible. Statistics have shown that people can recall information about 55% more efficiently when it’s paired with a relevant graphic. That’s why you want to choose visuals that evoke a specific emotion you want your audience to feel. Possibly a visual representation of a pain point you know your target audience is experiencing, or that pain point being solved or relieved. 

4. Avoid Color Discord 

Make sure you’re choosing colors that complement each other, avoiding color discord. Combine contrasting colors to make your graphic a scroll-stopper. The most eye-catching color combinations are those that oppose each other on the color wheel. You also want to avoid using colors that might clash with your own branding, as well as the branding of the social platform you’re using. For example, Facebook’s signature blue. When you’re already competing for attention with the color schemes of other ads, you don’t want to compete with the colors of the site itself. 

5. Establish a Visual Hierarchy 

It’s important to establish some sort of visual hierarchy throughout your design. A visual hierarchy is the use of size and color to emphasize one item over another to draw the viewer’s eye to a certain item above others. Basically, you want to give visual clues to what’s most important in the graphic. Emphasize your message by focusing on the most significant phrases. The title text should have the largest font size, then subtitles, body copy and so on. You should also highlight any sort of CTA that might be included as well. 

6. Be Sure to Use Correct Sizing 

Every social platform requires images with different sizes, specifications and image types. When creating your design you need to identify which platform(s) you’ll be sharing it on. You will most likely have to resize the graphic to fit the specific dimensions of every platform you’re planning on sharing it. This can seem like a tedious task, but this is important for optimization and to ensure important elements of your graphic aren’t cropped or distorted. 

7. Keep it Simple 

Because social gives designers a much smaller canvas to work with, overcrowding can happen fast. You want to avoid overcrowding because it hinders user experience and can make it difficult to get your message across. You can avoid this by: 

  • Using large illustrations 
  • Limiting typeface to 2 fonts 
  • Sticking with 2-3 colors 
  • Utilizing white space to contrast the main bold, colorful element 

More from Onimod Global 

Needing assistance with graphic design, branding or social media? We offer high-end design and branding for your business.

Visual identity and marketing materials are our specialty. Bring an in-house graphic design team to your business with Onimod Global. Learn more about who we are or contact us to bring your digital marketing strategy to the next level today. 

6 SEO Techniques to Enhance Your Search Traffic for 2021

/in /by

As marketers, we’re always looking for new ways to improve and enhance our strategies, especially when it comes to SEO.  

Here are 6 link building SEO techniques that will not only increase the amount of traffic you drive to your website, but the quality as well. 

1. Create and maintain a strong blog strategy. 

It’s not enough to have created a blog calendar if you’re not sticking with it. It’s essential to consistently post blogs that are valuable and relevant among your audience members. Your goal is to get people to want to link back to your blog content. This is one of the best ways to organically generate inbound links. Ultimately improving your search rankings and generating more traffic back to your website. 

2. Utilize infographics. 

People love consuming and sharing visual content. An easy way to get topics for infographics is from your already created blog posts. There are also plenty of online tools that can make graphic creation easy, such as Canva. The goal is to create infographics with valuable information and data that people will share and link back to you as the original source. 

3. Link back to other blogs on your blog. 

A blog is ultimately a social tool. The more you link to others, especially when you do it in a consistent, opportunity-driven way, the greater the likelihood of one of the other bloggers will return the favor. 

4. Write guest blog posts.

Similar to linking to other blogs, you can shop your best performing blogs around to others it would be a good fit for. If you find a taker, it’s just another opportunity for another inbound link back to your site. 

5. Curate and publish helpful resource lists. 

Resource lists are great link bait and increase your chances of getting a featured snippet on Google. Creating a comprehensive resource list makes it easy for other sites to link back to in their own content. Both which are great for your rankings and traffic. 

6. Consistent brand monitoring. 

Consistently perform searches for your name to see if there are any mentions floating around that you’re unaware of. If you find some in a place you want to be, contact the owner of the site to see if you can turn that into an inbound link. And if you find one that might be negative and unwarranted, get that removed, so it doesn’t harm your reputation or SEO. 

Final Thoughts 

At Onimod Global we understand how vital SEO can be. Search engine optimization is our core attribute and a pillar of our strategy. We develop  organic search engine optimization campaigns that deliver increases in organic traffic through an increase in natural rankings on major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. We are a trusted Google Partner and continually excel with their products. If you need assistance with SEO, or in any area of digital marketing, contact us today. 

8 Do’s and Don’ts for Email Marketing Campaign Success

/in /by

Email marketing is one of the best ways to remain top-of-mind with your audience. According to Campaign Monitor, email is capable of driving a 4400% ROI and $44 for every $1 spent. The opportunity email presents is endless, but creating a successful strategy right off the bat isn’t so simple. While no one expects their campaigns to fail, the truth of the matter is it’s not as easy as just sending an email out to a massive email list. There are specific steps to take in order to reach success. With that in mind, here are 8 do’s and don’ts to keep in mind when creating your email marketing campaign. 

Do: 

Put together a targeted email list 

No matter how great your email is, if it’s not reaching the right people, you won’t be generating any leads. Which is why it’s essential to take the time to create a well-thought-out email list. It’s best to choose those who have already interacted with you in some way. It’s much more effective to send emails to a smaller group of people that are actually interested in your business, rather than a large group of users who likely have no need for what you’re offering. The best way to go about building this list is by asking users to subscribe when they land on your website. There are many ways to go about this. The most effective ways are either using a subscribe button throughout your site or with an exit-intent popup that will give them the option prior to leaving a webpage.

Use an eye-catching subject line 

One of the most essential components of a successful email is the subject line. Without an engaging subject line, users won’t be compelled to open the email. Here are some tips for creating a solid subject line: 

  • Keep it short and sweet. Studies have shown that the best performing subject lines are 40-50 characters long, so be sure to use your characters and spaces wisely. 
  • Make the point clear. You don’t want to be vague or misleading, this can result in getting flagged as spam, which completely defeats the purpose of sending emails in the first place. Tell your readers what to expect when they open your message. 
  • Personalize them. Adding a reader’s name to the subject line can help draw in their attention and increase engagement. 

Make the body of your email short and sweet 

The same goes for the body of your email. Nobody wants or is going to read a multi-paragraph long email. Your email copy should be just long enough to get your complete message across. Here are some additional tips for writing an email body that will keep your reader’s attention and lead them to convert: 

  • Include a strong lead. 
  • Don’t come on too strong, make your reader comfortable. 
  • Personalization is key. 
  • Find additional ways to make readers engage such as including surveys, polls, videos, images, etc. 

A/B test 

A/B testing is essential for any marketing tactic. This is when you create two or more versions of a digital marketing asset, change one variable and test them against each other to see which performs best. Try out different subject lines, messaging, fonts, colors, images, CTA’s, etc. 

Don’t: 

Purchase an email list 

This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in an email marketing campaign. This can seem like a quick and easy way to grow your list and prospects, but in the end, it’s usually just a waste of money. Generally, people don’t appreciate getting unsolicited emails from companies. These users are much less likely to open or engage with your emails since they’ve had no prior connection with your business. This can lower the reputation of your company and decreases your chances of connecting with qualified buyers. 

Use a one-size-fits-all approach 

Everyone is different, you don’t want to use the same type of messaging for everyone. Which is why you should always segment your lists into different groups of people. At minimum, you should have two: those that are existing customers and those that are not. You can get as detailed with your lists as you want, such as a list for those that have subscribed to you but have never purchased, those that have subscribed but haven’t made a purchase in a few months, etc. The most important part is that you change up the messaging in your emails to cater towards the segment you’re sending it to. 

Bombard your recipients 

While following up on your initial email is important, sending out constant emails only turns off your recipients and will result in them unsubscribing or flagging your messages as spam. Experts usually suggest to wait at least three days to follow up from an initial email to send a follow up. Following the second email, you should wait around three weeks before sending another unless your reader answers with specific questions, in which case, respond immediately.

Leave your email address unbranded, generic or anonymous

With people getting hundreds of emails a day, you don’t want to let yours get lost in the spam folder. People like to know there’s a real person behind an email they’re engaging with. Avoid making use of email addresses like marketing@yourcompanyhere or customerservice@yourcompanyhere. These look fishy, and email filters are increasingly registering them as spam. Using your company name or your actual name shows your recipients your legitimate and personable. 

More from Onimod Global

If you’re needing assistance with your email marketing strategy, or in any area of digital marketing, Onimod Global can help. As experts in SEM, SEO, webdev, email marketing, social media and more, we’re sure to help find the solutions your company needs.  To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here. To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. 

How to Optimize Your Website Structure for SEO

/in , /by

Not all website structures are favored equally by search engine algorithms. A site that is a disorganized jumble mess of pages is unlikely to rank well against a structure that is rigorous and streamlined. To make your site structure SEO-friendly, it has to appeal to users while guiding them to relevant content across your website. 

Learn more about website structure, why it matters and steps to take to optimize yours for SEO. 

What is Site Structure? 

Site structure refers to the way a site’s content is grouped, interconnected and presented to its visitors. Website structure starts with a foundation, its home page, then splits off into other sections, such as the about page, contact page or blog page.

Why Does Site Structure Matter? 

Site structure is one of the most crucial components linked to SEO performance. A well-executed website structure sets you up for SEO success down the road. It also: 

  • Creates a better user experience. 
  • Helps with crawlability. 
  • Provides you with sitelinks. 

How to Optimize Your Website Structure for SEO

1. Plan your site hierarchy. 

The hierarchy of your site is the system that arranges your pages from top to bottom. A website’s structure is similar to a skyscraper. It would be difficult to revise the foundation once you’ve already constructed the middle floors. Which is why it’s best to establish the organization of your website from the beginning. Here are some tips to keep in mind when planning out your hierarchy: 

  • Make it logical. You don’t want to overcomplicate this process for both your sake, your users’ sake and for crawlability. Each main category should be unique and distinct. Subcategories should somehow be related to the main category under which it’s located. 
  • Keep the number of main categories between two and seven. There should only be a few main aspects of your website. If there’s more than seven, you may want to rethink the structure. 
  • Try to balance the number of subcategories within each category. You want to keep it approximately even. If one main category has a large number of subcategories, while others only have a few, the site can become unbalanced. 

2. Create a URL structure that follows the navigation hierarchy. 

URL structure also impacts rankings in Google. Your URLs should follow your website structure, as well as be simple and readable. So if your hierarchy looks like this: 

The URL structure for the Chinatown location should look like: www.kimsrestaurant.com/locations/chinatown 

More developed sites might contain a longer series of folders and subfolders, but the main idea is to create a concise URL with recognizable words.

3. Select the right navigational depth. 

The structure of your site determines how difficult it is to click to a different part of your site. You don’t want important pages of your site to be buried too deep. Shallow paths perform best from a usability and crawlability perspective. With that being said, you also don’t want to go with a completely flat structure. You want a site that proceeds deeper than a second tier of folders, but you want users to be able to get where they need within a few steps. 

4. Establish a header and footer. 

Headers and footers help enhance website structure by making navigation more seamless. Best practice is to display your main categories in your header, but you can also include dropdown features that show subcategories. When you do incorporate additional features, it’s important they have an easy-to-follow design. Basic text links and corresponding anchors are a reliable way to enrich your SEO strategy. Text links perform well because search engine bots can comprehend them. Although images have ALT text, text links continue to deliver better results when it comes to SEO. 

If you have a footer with menu links, be sure they’re duplicated exactly like the main menu links. Changing the order of links or adding additional category listings will complicate the user experience.

5. Include internal linking. 

Internal linking shows the relationship between pages and content on your website. Search engine crawlers move from one link to the next, on-site links give search engines a better picture of what your site has to offer. Placing links organically throughout blogs, product/service pages and other posts forms a grid for users to explore. If there’s a related page or helpful link on your blog, users can continue to traverse your site and come closer to converting or purchasing a product. Internal link structures also help crawlers understand the content you think is most important, which supports differences in ranking on search results pages for similar content. Try to link back to your most popular or important pages to instill more ranking value in them for powerful SEO optimization. 

Final Thoughts 

Site structure is something that can be easily overlooked if you’re not experienced in site building, but it’s crucial when it comes to SEO. At Onimod Global we specialize in both web site development and SEO. You can rely on us for new project development, website maintenance, and more. We build all of our sites with search engines rankings in mind. We analyze data from Traffic Sources and Visitor Flow to establish the routes people take to reach you, the devices they use to get there and what they do on your website. Utilizing this information allows us to build highly engaging, search friendly websites for your business.

Learn more about us and contact us today!

5 Key Elements for Local Digital Marketing Success

/in /by

Small businesses can face many growth challenges, such as limited resources, budget constraints, competition, staffing challenges, etc. It can be tough to figure out ways to set yourself apart from other businesses and achieving overall success. Executing a full range of local digital marketing techniques can be a game changer for many companies. Local digital marketing helps connect businesses where customers reside and interact. The opportunity to compete and provide outstanding customer service, are reachable through digital marketing strategies. 

We’re going to discuss the 5 key campaign elements that can deliver an effective local marketing strategy for businesses of all sizes. 

1. Manage All Online Listings 

Clean data and accurate listings are essential for overall digital marketing success. Every mention of your business on the internet is a ‘citation.’ You want to make sure all of this information is accurate. Otherwise you run the risk of not being able to be found easily. Even minor discrepancies you might not think of can have an impact on your results. You can prevent discrepancies by claiming every local listing and providing accurate information to search engines and online directories. Specifically Google, Facebook, Yelp, Apple Maps and Bing. 

You should include as much information in your listings as possible, such as product descriptions, services, hours of operation, deals, promotions, accepted payment types, photos, etc. Accurate and consistent data helps drive search engine rankings, making it that much easier for prospects to find your business. 

2. Local SEO 

Local SEO is fairly similar to listing management. Complete, accurate and consistent updates to listings are critical for high search engine rankings. Algorithms continue to drive more relevant results based on user location. Meaning it’s even more crucial to optimize local landing pages with location information. 

You can locally optimize your landing pages by:

  • Localizing title tags to include city and state names.
  • Optimize meta descriptions to include product categories. 
  • Implement localized schema markup for your business name, number and address.
  • Localize URL structures to include street names and product categories. 
  • Include hours, directions and local descriptions in on-page business content. 

3. Reputation Management

It stays true that people trust people. Ratings and reviews have a significant impact on potential buyers. On average, consumers read up to 10 reviews before fully trusting a business. The most effective way to increase your reviews is by simply asking your customers to write them. You can make this easy for them by including a button that offers one-click access to writing a review. It’s common to offer incentives or contests for those that leave reviews, but you have to be careful when doing so. Google and Yelp prohibit businesses from offering money, products or services for writing reviews. It’s important that the reviews are authentic, as consumers can be skeptical. Meaning when a negative review comes through, it should be managed but not deleted. Best practice includes replying to their comment and apologizing that they did not have a positive experience and ask them to contact you privately to resolve any further issues. This way other people see that you’re not ignoring them, but you don’t want to continue the conversation in public. 

4. Paid Search and Social 

In any digital marketing strategy, incorporating paid efforts is essential. This becomes even more important when it comes to local campaigns. Customize your messages based on the location of your ads to become personally relevant to those that will see them. Local search and social can be used to capitalize on regions where business is strongest or become a lever that can supplement marketing in underperforming regions to increase awareness and improve sales. For more tips on successfully taking your paid digital marketing strategy local, click here. 

5. Specialized Landing Pages

Along with customizing ads for certain locations, the landing pages they’re attached to should also be customized and optimized for mobile. Most often, consumers are on the go and looking for local solutions. Local landing pages should be simple yet comprehensive, including your business name, address, phone number, hours, products, services, etc. Effective landing pages have a responsive design with title tags and descriptive schema to send information to search engines. For further tips on creating a high converting landing page, click here. 

More from Onimod Global

Needing some assistance in any area of digital marketing?  Contact us! We are experts in all things digital marketing including SEM, Web Dev, Automation, Analytics, and much more. Learn more about what we do here, or keep up to date with all things digital marketing on our news page. 

Tips to Keep Your Marketing Emails from Getting Flagged as Spam

/in /by

When you put a lot of effort into creating your email marketing strategy, it can be frustrating looking at the stats and seeing that a large amount of your messages end up in spam. A report from Return Path revealed that spam filters are more rigorous than ever, with one in five emails failing to reach the inbox. This can be very concerning, especially when email marketing is a large part of your overall strategy. But there are a number of things you can do to help prevent your emails from getting marked as spam by filters and consumers. 

Build Your Own Email List and Regularly Clean it Up 

If you’re buying email lists and sending content to people who never signed up to receive them, your chances of ending up in the spam folder skyrocket. The average office worker receives 121 emails daily, meaning it’s unlikely they’ll waste time opening unwanted messages. It may take more time, but organically building up your email list will be much more effective in the long run. 

Once you have a good size list built up, it’s important to manage it. Some recipients will naturally unsubscribe from your emails, but others will just start ignoring them. This will lower your engagement rate and make you seen as less favorable by the ISPs. This ultimately means your emails will more likely go to the spam folder. You can combat against this by regularly looking at your stats and removing unengaged users, bounced emails and role email addresses. 

Make it Clear Who the Email is From and What it’s About 

Most companies have multiple email addresses within their domain, depending on the size. You don’t want to change the sender field too often. Try to stick with the one that works best with promotional messages and avoid odd names, such as donotreply@yourdomain.com or 123456@yourdomain.com. Build trust with your recipients, meaning you don’t want to confuse them with using a variety of sender addresses or unprofessional ones. Try to either stick with a person’s name or your company name. 

Once you’ve made it clear who the email is from, make it clear what it’s about. This means avoiding spammy subject lines. Don’t want to try to trick recipients into opening your email by starting your subject line with “FWD:” or “RE:” implying there was previous communication. You also shouldn’t use click bait, such as telling them they’ve won a prize if they haven’t. Try to find something catchy and compelling that peaks curiosity, yet still gives enough information that recipients aren’t confused about what the email is. 

Use a Reputable Program 

A sign spam filters keep a lookout for is an IP address associated with the sending email address and see if there are any spam complaints associated with it. If there are, then even legitimate email addresses can get flagged due to association. To ensure this doesn’t happen to your emails, always use a reputable provider. All the top providers take steps to prevent spammers from using their platforms. They also have built in features to help avoid other common spam triggers, such as not including a physical address or using a sending email address that looks suspicious. There are thousands of marketing automation and email marketing companies out there, so just do research before deciding on one. 

Follow the Laws Governing Email Marketing

It’s always beneficial to be aware of the laws that govern digital marketing communications. Specifically, the CAN-SPAM Act, which outlines the practices you must use when sending commercial emails. There are some harsh penalties for sending spam emails, so you should be aware of what are considered spam emails. The CAN-SPAM Act defines spam as any message that are sent:

  • To a recipient without permission. 
  • Without including a mailing address. 
  • With a deceptive subject line. 
  • Without including a way for the recipient to opt-out. 

Most modern email marketing programs ensure you comply with the mailing address and opt-out by default, but you should be careful about subject lines and sending emails to those who didn’t sign up for them. 

Send Valuable Content 

At the core of any successful marketing campaign, is value. You shouldn’t be sending emails just to send them or to try to hit a quota. This causes engagement to suffer. When you send emails that don’t resonate with recipients, it’s unlikely it will get opened and more likely it will land in spam. One study found that the top reason why emails get reported as spam is because the brand sent irrelevant or too many emails. 

Before you start drafting an email, ask yourself these questions: 

  1. Is this new or urgent information? 
  2. When was the last time I sent an email about this? Was it recently?
  3. Do all my subscribers need to know this information or only a segment?
  4. If I received this email would I find it valuable? 

Takeaways 

Email marketing is an essential part of an effective strategy, but if your messages are getting flagged as spam, they’re just going to waste. The key is to identify why your emails are getting flagged and how to avoid this going forward. Keep in mind that the higher your email engagement is, the more likely your next email will end up where intended and not in a spam folder. 

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

YouTube Marketing: How to Kickstart Your Strategy

/in , , /by

With over 2 billion worldwide active users, YouTube is the top choice for video marketing. But, with being the clear-cut winner comes a lot of competition. There are now more than 50 million content creators pumping out videos daily. With over 500 hours of content uploaded every minute, you are now tasked with figuring out how to make your content stand out among the crowd. 

Whether you’re just starting out on YouTube or trying to improve your strategy, here are few tips to kickstart your marketing strategy. 

Find what content performs best among your audience. 

You can’t be successful on YouTube if your plan is to upload a video and just sit and wait for viewers to find it themselves. With loads of other options, your content and channel has to stand out. 

The best way to do this is by creating fresh, original and entertaining content. Start by researching what works and what doesn’t. By knowing the trends and what’s popular among your audience, you can improve your content. The more effort you put into researching your audience and what they enjoy, the more insights you’ll have to use to assist you in creating your own content.

Pick catchy thumbnails and titles. 

It’s no secret that to get more clicks on your video, it’s necessary to spark your viewers curiosity right off the bat. This requires something that can quickly grab people’s attention, while communicating what the video is about. Your thumbnail and title ultimately play the largest role in this. Your chosen title and thumbnail work together to build a viewer’s anticipation by giving a glimpse of the video, so making them eye-catching is essential. 

Here are some tips on creating a thumbnail that stands out: 

  • Use an image of the most exciting part of your video. 
  • Set the size to 1280 x 720 px (16:9)
  • Create a title that gives the thumbnail context. 
  • Include an attractive background.

Here are some additional tips on creating a clickable title: 

  • Include popular keywords. 
  • Consider using a question your viewers may be asking or searching. 
  • Make it concise and on-topic – aka don’t use click-bait or misleading titles.  

Optimize your content with YouTube SEO.

One of the most essential aspects of marketing on YouTube that many aren’t aware of is SEO. Oftentimes people only think of using SEO when it comes to Google or other search engines. With such a large number of daily users, combined with billions of content being uploaded everyday, YouTube is almost another Google, but for strictly videos. SEO is essential to prevent your videos from just getting lost in the massive sea of content. 

So, how do you go about optimizing your videos? With the use of tags, keywords, running A/B tests, staying on top of your statistics and researching competitors’ statistics. This can be a lot, especially when you’re just getting started, but there are a number of tools that can help, such as: 

Not only can this help your content rank higher on YouTube, but on Google as well. Google has started favoring video content when it comes to search results. Meaning if you’re video is ranking well on YouTube, Google will want to make it easier to find and share.

Create a schedule and stick to it. 

To be successful and drive engagement on YouTube you need to have a strong presence. This requires regular uploads, meaning at least once a week. This is because the number of videos being uploaded on YouTube continues to increase. To prevent yourself from getting lost among the crowd, you have to keep up. 

Consistently uploading may be more work, but it’s extremely beneficial. It brings more engagement, more subscribers and more feedback, allowing you to improve and enhance your content delivery quickly. 

We recommend creating a monthly calendar with your video topics, titles, tags, keywords and any other details you find helpful. If you have time, you could even create multiple videos in one sitting, so you don’t have to rush to create them each week. 

More from Onimod Global 

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Facebook Ads Boycott: Why Marketers Are Pulling Their July Ad Spend

/in /by

The list of companies planning to suspend their Facebook ads for the month of July continues to grow. This boycott stemmed from Facebook’s inaction to address hate speech on its platform. 

A civil rights coalition, which includes the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the NAACP, launched the #StopHateforProfit campaign last week when it called on major corporations to put a pause on advertising on Facebook to send a message to the platform that its lack of action is not going to be tolerated. Within a few days The North Face, REI, Patagonia and a few others were the first big-name brands to join the stand. 

So what is this boycott all about and should you get behind the movement? 

Where This All Started

Social networking platforms have been under fire over the past year for allowing false statements made by politicians, the president in particular, to be published with no consequence. These types of campaigns stem all the way back to the election of 2016, with Trump and Clinton. More recently, the main focus of the push came from the president’s recent comments on the BLM protests, which Facebook chose to leave up in the matter of public interest. 

Activists have been pushing for Facebook to follow Twitter’s lead and draw a definitive line on hate speech that cannot be crossed in on-platform discussion, even by the president. Quickly following Trump’s post, Twitter prevented users from viewing the tweet without reading a brief notice that the post glorified violence. Twitter further tightened restrictions on the messages from Trump and the White House by blocking users from liking or replying to them. A few days later Twitter added their first fact-checking labels to Trump’s election-related tweets as well.

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, on other hand did not feel the same way about censoring the president’s posts. Zuckerberg says Trump’s posts did not violate Facebook’s policy and will remain online, uncensored. 

They ultimately decided to leave the post up because the company’s position is that it “should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies,” Zuckerberg wrote. 

The Boycott 

Last week the NAACP and the ADL officially announced their #StopHateForProfitCampaign with a full page ad in the Los Angeles Times. The campaign was meant to target advertisers, specifically big-name brands. Just two days later, The North Face tweeted, “We’re in. We’re out @Facebook #StopHateForProfit.” The North Face’s commitment applies to ads on Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram, the brand said in a statement, though it will continue to create organic content on Instagram. The list now expands to: 

  • REI 
  • Upwork 
  • Patagonia 
  • Dashlane 
  • Magnolia Pictures 
  • Eddie Bauer 
  • Arc’teryx
  • Ben & Jerrys 
  • Eileen Fisher 

What Will Happen to Facebook? 

It’s not a massive wave of advertisers yet, which means it won’t hurt Facebook in a revenue sense. But it will have perceptual impacts, and could spark more backlash from the platform’s partners and users. Facebook has already admitted that it has a deepening ‘trust deficit’ with ad partners, which it will need to address. The company has already been seeing a slowdown in ads due to the impacts of COVID-19 and the recession. If the list of big names continues to grow, Facebook will have no choice but to listen. 

What Should You Do? 

The decision to join in on this movement is a more personal one. If you support the #StopHateforProfit campaign and feel that it’s important to use your voice as a business, this is the perfect way to do that. On the other hand, this isn’t about calling out or judging marketers whose business relies on Facebook advertisement. For many joining in, this is a very low-risk decision, but for others it’s not financially justifiable. 

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

7 Marketing Metrics to Focus on for the Rest of 2020

/in /by

Tracking key metrics is crucial for any successful marketing campaign. There are countless KPI’s you could be tracking, but not all are essential. While it does vary from campaign to campaign, we’ve narrowed it down to 7 critical metrics that must be tracked to get a solid understanding of your campaign, to better identify where you should be spending your ad dollar. 

1. Qualified Leads 

Generating leads is one of the first and most difficult steps of a marketing campaign, but getting qualified leads is even more important. Qualified leads are leads that you’ve seen some level of engagement from, and have a high chance of making a purchase decision. You can calculate the rate of your qualified leads by using this formula: (Qualified leads / Total leads) x 100 = Qualified lead rate. That will help you get a better understanding of the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives. A few tips for gaining qualified leads include: 

  • Creating more personalized messages. Giving leads personal attention makes them feel more important and much more likely to continue down the sales funnel. 
  • Putting greater effort into finding them. Instead of cold-calling or sending out bulk email blasts, go through your lists to identify those that have a higher chance of converting. 

2. Customer Acquisition Costs 

Customer acquisition costs (CAC) looks at how much, on average, it takes to convert a lead into a customer. You can find it by calculating: Amount spent on lead generation / Number of new customers as a result of lead generation = Cost of customer acquisition. It’s a metric that can help you avoid wasting resources on programs and campaigns that aren’t delivering. It should not be relied on alone, though, as there are number caveats. A company’s CAC can be poor if they’re expanding into a new area, are in early stages of SEO work, the company is undergoing reorganization, etc. CAC should be viewed in comparison with the company’s overall strategy. 

3. Referrals 

Referrals are something that often get overlooked by companies, but this is an important metric, especially in digital marketing. There are a lot of ways to track referrals. Traditionally, they can be tracked using referral or coupon cards. However, they’re often run and tracked online. The most commonly used program involves a customer signing up online, then inviting their friends via a unique code/link. To track this an excel or spreadsheet is easiest to use. You can calculate your rate of referrals with: Total number of customers / Number of referrals = Referral rate.

4. Customer Lifetime Value 

Customer lifetime value refers to how much revenue the typical customer will bring into your business over the course of their lifetime. The simplest formula to measure CLV is the following: Customer revenue per year x Duration of the relationship in years – Total costs of acquiring and serving the customer = SLV. This shows how many customers you need to break even and make a profit. 

5. Time Spent on Site and Bounce Rate 

Time spent on site is a good indicator of whether or not people are interested in what you have to offer. If they’re spending a significant time on your site, as well as browsing to other pages, it’s likely they’ve found a good amount of value in your brand. Bounce rate is related to time spent on page, but refers to someone who made it to your homepage, but immediately leaves. If you have a high bounce rate, this is a big indication that either your home page is poorly designed or you are focusing your digital marketing on the wrong people and need a shift in strategy. Both of these metrics can be tracked with tools like Google Analytics or Clicky. 

6. ROI 

Return on investment is one of the most important metrics to track for a business overall. It allows you to identify which tactics are generating revenue and which are poorly performing. You can then adjust budgets and strategies as necessary. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t immediately quit a marketing strategy if it has a poor ROI right off the bat. You should take some time to think if there’s anything you can do to adjust to make it more successful. 

7. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate tracks the percentage of people that make it to your landing page and turn into a real customer. A low conversion rate is bad for obvious reasons; your landing page isn’t working and you’re not making a profit. It’s important to A/B test multiple landing pages, because you never know what people are going to like best. Sometimes it can just be a small tweak to turn a poor performing landing page into a high performing one. Try different colors, fonts, images, etc. Other things that may cause a low conversion rate is if your ask is too large. It’s best to start with something small, such as a subscription or sign up, then move those customers to bigger purchase asks. 

Final Thoughts

Like previously mentioned, all strategies and campaigns are different. But one thing all marketing programs have in common is their metrics need to be tracked and adjusted based on the data that’s found. If you need assistance in any area of digital marketing, our team at Onimod Global is here to help. We’re experts in SEM, SEO, analytics, social media marketing, and more. Learn more about what we do and contact us today. 

Tips to Increase Your Brand’s Engagement on Social Media

/in , /by

Promoting your brand through social media has become vital for overall business success. But just being on social channels isn’t enough anymore. The key to real success is through user engagement. This can help increase your brand awareness, customer relationships, and conversions, ultimately improving profits. 

Something that often gets lost to marketers is this: engagement is much more than just likes. Engagement is also comments, shares, follows, re-tweets, clicks, private messages, etc. And these types of engagements are often more valuable than likes. That sounds great, but how can brands accomplish all this? We’re here to help. Here are 5 tips for boosting your brand’s engagement across all social platforms.  

1. Talk about interesting topics, not just your brand. 

It’s common for businesses to frequently or exclusively post about their products or services. That’s not really not what social media is for, or what users want to see. The best content is exciting and informative. Ask yourself if it’s something you’d want to see or would share. It’s also important to ask yourself how it makes you feel. What getting people to engage, click, and convert comes down to is emotion. You should constantly be evaluating if your content is making you feel something and if that is worth sharing. If it’s not, editing and reevaluating may be needed. Most importantly, the content you’re creating and putting out to your audience should have value. The value is either making your audience happy, gives steps on how to get there, or anything else that’s beneficial. 

2. Join and hold Q&A’s and surveys. 

Joining Q&A sessions is a great way to provide your audience with value and get more brand awareness. You can spark discussions with prospective customers, all before competitors, you can become the go-to seller. Consumers are more impatient than ever and don’t want to wait for answers. That’s why, if it’s possible, you should have a dedicated response management person/team. While answering questions quickly is important, it’s also important to answer them accurately and clearly. We advise you to complete ongoing research for the most commonly asked questions and develop sample answers that can be customized for each question/situation. 

3. Share other people’s content. 

Constantly creating interesting, high quality, and engaging content is not easy. If there’s someone else providing quality answers to a query or other relevant content, make use of it. Your audience will see that you are there to give them what they need, no matter where it comes from. If your feed provides relevant and valuable information, whether it’s yours or not, people will be more attracted to your brand and be more encouraged to follow you. Keeping your feed diverse and from different contributors keeps audiences interested.

4. Make your customers feel engaged. 

To boost engagement, you need to be social. This means directly responding to all messages, comments, etc. Whether it be negative or positive, responding is essential. Show appreciation for the positive comments and suggest solutions for negative ones. It’s also important to respond to posts that aren’t addressing you directly, but indirectly or through hashtags. When responding you should present yourself as personable and approachable, ultimately humanizing your brand. Addressing comments with the person’s name is a great way to do this. It shows that the comment wasn’t computer generated and that someone really is listening to them. You should also try to match the person’s tone/emotion. If their comment was lighthearted and included emojis, feel free to use them back. This is a great way to generate a longer conversation and may even get other audience members involved. 

When it comes to negative comments, it’s smart to have a plan on how you’re going to deal with them. You want to be able to respond quickly to stop the issue from growing. You want to respond to show others that you’re not just ignoring the problem, but it’s also best to take the conversation offline and solve the problem privately. 

5. Post frequently and at optimal times. 

Posting frequently across all channels is vital for overall social media success. This shows your audience you’re relevant and up-to-date on the latest trends. This also helps your audience members stay up-to-date with you. Loyal customers want to know what’s happening with your brand the moment it occurs. Whether it’s a promotion, a new product/service, expansion, etc. This helps your audience stay connected and strengthens your relationship with them. 

A large part of engagement is posting at optimal times (when your audience is online and active). Most people are online during lunch hours or later at night, but it’s important to do research on your audience specifically. A/B testing may be necessary. Experiment with posting times to see which performs best and generates the most engagement amongst your audience. 

Social media moves quickly. If users think your page is inactive, they will unfollow you. Which is why it’s important to be posting as frequently as you can. Everyday isn’t necessary, but a few times a week is best practice. 

Final Thoughts

No matter what industry you’re in, social media is beneficial. It only continues to grow in value as times change in 2020. Brands that are focusing on growing their social media engagement are benefiting from better marketing reach, ROI and higher brand awareness. All which makes it easier to reach prospects and customers. Boosting and sustaining engagement is difficult and does take time, but it’s not impossible. It takes knowing your audience, a strong strategy and ongoing effort. In the end, it will be worth it. 

More from Onimod Global

As experts in social media marketing, our team knows where and when your customers need you most. We help create visibility for brands where their customers are searching, interacting and engaging. If you’re struggling in social media or any area of digital marketing, contact us today.