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E-commerce inbound marketing means attracting customers to your online store with engaging and relevant content to increase sales and conversions

E-commerce has rocketed over the last 12 months - and with it, inbound marketing tactics by savvy e-commerce marketers have picked up the pace, competing to attract customers to their site and win that sale. While a healthy e-commerce marketing strategy will always include a mixture of outbound and inbound marketing, with demand and competition peaking in 2021, there's little doubt that now is the time to focus on your e-commerce inbound marketing strategy to increase your return on investment. The numbers speak for themselves with e-commerce purchases accounting for 16% of all sales in the US in Q2. In fact, 9 countries were predicted over 20% growth in e-commerce post-COVID, the Asian Pacific market alone forecast $2,448.33 billion of E-commerce sales. With that in…

Marketers face their own particular challenges when it comes to digital marketing for financial services

It’s not exactly considered the sexiest of industries but digital marketing for financial services is a necessity – your customers are living in a digital world, so that’s where you need to be as well. The question is, how do you compete as a finance firm against influencers, funny viral videos, memes? How do you engage your audience and keep them interested? It can sometimes be difficult to know where to start, so, in this blog post, I’m going to share my top tips for financial services digital marketing. Before you get started with digital marketing though, make sure that your firm is in compliance with any online promotion laws; whether there are special regulations for running a contest on social media or for data collection, it’s always best to check and protect yourself. And now, let’s get…

Customer reviews are such a crucial part of the buying process that companies have invested a lot of money in trying to get their customers to write a review as part of their online marketing strategy

Research shows that the majority of online customers seek-out, read and take into consideration clients’ opinions, before buying. Nowadays, there are reviews everywhere, from Airbnb to Uber, Amazon or any other online shop. Customer reviews are such a crucial part of the buying process that companies have invested a lot of money in trying to get their customers to write a review as part of their online marketing strategy. [si_guide_block id="70710" title="Download our Premium Resource – Content Marketing Strategy E-learning course" description="Use our course to step through the analysis, planning and implementation activities which will take your content marketing to the next level."/] Encouraging customers to share their opinions has a lot of benefits, including: …

Unleashing the potential of user-generated content from brands

For digitally savvy consumers, traditional ads just aren’t cutting it. Instead, consumers are looking for “social proof.” And they’re turning to their fellow consumers on social media and blogs to establish whether you have it Dimensional Research found that 90 percent of consumers claim positive online reviews influence their purchasing decisions, while another 86 percent say the same about negative online reviews. And when those recommendations come from social media influencers, they hold even more weight. Approximately 40 percent of consumers purchase products after seeing an influencer endorse them on social sites, perhaps because over three-quarters of consumers find this kind of content more honest than advertisements. This user-generated content is at the foundation of social proof, and it can be anything from social media posts to Yelp reviews to comments in relevant discussion forums (Quora and Reddit have amazing SEO across a breadth of topics).…

Social media thrives on interaction; are you doing all you can to engage your audience?

Did you know that Playbuzz.com gained more than 50 million unique monthly visitors within just 10 months of launching the site? How did they do it? Two words: Interactive content!  Social networks have been around for quite a few years now, and they are buzzing with activity more than ever. Making it in the unforgiving environment of virtual social hoops and loops continually inspire action and engagement. Since your e-survival depends on it, we have put together a list of seven creative ways to improve your social media engagement.

1.   Ask Questions (Creatively)

The best and most straightforward way to strike a conversation is to ask questions. However (it being so obvious) you need to be creative. The secret to success is not in the question but in the way you deliver it to your audience! For instance, if…

How your users' content can boost your results

The best things in life are free. And user-generated content (or UGC) — which costs nothing — is one of the best marketing strategies available to brands, especially on Instagram. While its user base isn’t as large as that of its parent company, Instagram is crushing Facebook in terms of brand engagement. How would you react if someone you feel a genuine connection with posted about how great his experience with a brand was? You’d likely believe it. That’s why UGC is more trustworthy, influential, memorable, and, ultimately, effective for brand promotion than many traditional advertising techniques.

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What Is UGC?

While the name is fairly self-explanatory, here’s a quick primer: If a customer or fan posts a photo…

Chart of the day: User generated is the single most influential factor in determining purchase intent.

User-generated content (UGC) includes things such as photos and reviews sent in by previous customers. Nine out of ten (90%) of US customers who took a recent survey into UGC, said that user-generated content was the highest influencing factor when purchasing online. Search engine results came a close second. Promotional emails came third. It makes sense for SEO and email to have high influence, but this study shows that UGC is now heavily influencing shoppers, more than ever are buyers relying on reviews and the opinion of others. Those under 30 were particularly heavily influenced by UGC. Those over 65 were least influenced by UGC. Clearly then UGC will become over more popular and is an area you should be looking at developing. …

How to harness the power of user-generated content

User-generated content, whether customer reviews or visual praise for your product, can serve as superior marketing collateral. With this in mind, brands should harness the power of consumers to maximize the impact of social media marketing efforts. Social media marketing professionals understand the value of attracting customers. Much time, money, and energy is spent on marketing budgets in order to share quality content, hold product sweepstakes, and invest in attractive landing page designs to increase conversions. While these and similar efforts play a significant role in boosting social media exposure, the actual direct customer ‘voice’ in the form of user-generated content hasn’t been receiving sufficient attention in social media efforts. This is unfortunate, as content - whether in the form of a product review or a customer-uploaded photo - has immense potential for leveraging social media marketing campaigns. According to a Social Media Link infographic,…