MARKETING
A treatise on e-commerce data security and compliance

In just a few short years, e-commerce has gone from 15% of retail sales to 22%. After dramatically uprooting the landscape of business, COVID-19 continues to have a lasting effect on the way consumers shop.
Rather than being a temporary trend during the height of the pandemic, quarantine was just a jumping-off point for the rise of e-commerce. Today, e-commerce is bigger than ever, and businesses are scrambling to come to terms with this new business channel’s new data security and compliance needs.
E-commerce data security and compliance are not options—they’re essentials for any business seeking success in the current state of the retail industry. Keeping up with changing requirements and tactics is daunting, but companies like Optimizely specialize in e-commerce platforms and create connections between businesses and certified experts.
Key takeaways:
- Data Security involves the principles of privacy, integrity, authentication and nonrepudiation.
- Regulatory compliance for e-commerce platforms is more comprehensive than for brick-and-mortar commerce.
- Optimizely can help your company take its e-commerce platform to the next level.
Components of e-commerce data security
Cyber security is one of the most difficult and quickly evolving areas of e-commerce. Keeping up with the changing needs of data security requires knowledge of its components: privacy, integrity, authentication and nonrepudiation.
1. Privacy
Privacy encompasses both your organization’s privacy and your customers’ privacy. Privacy control prevents unauthorized actors from accessing protected information. When users conduct business with your e-commerce platform, they expect confidentiality. Once the seller breaks that trust, it’s irreplaceable.
Some basic tools for e-commerce privacy are encryption, anti-virus software and firewall protection. These tools help stop unwanted entities from accessing the private information of your organization and your organization’s customers.
2. Integrity
In addition to their expectation of confidentiality and privacy, customers expect the data they provide to your organization will remain unaltered. In other words, customers expect that their data will maintain integrity. Businesses protect the integrity of their customer’s data by putting safeguards in place to prevent changes in customer data.
In e-commerce, some safeguards can include data backups, data validation, and a detailed audit trail to record when information is changed and by whom.
3. Authentication
While the principle of privacy focuses on keeping unauthorized users out of your customer’s data, the principle of authentication focuses on identifying which users are legitimate and which ones are not.
Authentication is important because it tells organizations that their customers are who they say they are, and it tells customers that their sellers are who they say they are too. Authentication controls for e-commerce include two-factor authentication, password protection, PINs and biometrics. Authentication is vital for preventing bad actors from accessing sensitive data.
4. Nonrepudiation
While the other components of e-commerce security are terms you might hear from a layperson on the street, “nonrepudiation” is less colloquially familiar. Nonrepudiation is assurance that when a party (either the buyer or seller) acts, they can’t deny it at a later date.
For example, when a buyer signs a digital contract, nonrepudiation ensures that they can’t claim to have never signed it and can’t accuse the seller of signing it on their behalf. Nonrepudiation in e-commerce involves the use of cryptography and digital signatures.
Components of e-commerce data compliance
E-commerce data security and compliance go hand in hand. Regulatory compliance ensures that organizations are living up to recognized standards of security. This prevents companies from going rogue and exposing their customers to data breaches due to negligent security practices.
As with any industry, e-commerce compliance involves following regulations from EU to state and local laws. E-commerce is more nuanced than brick-and-mortar retail or manufacturing because e-commerce platforms can frequently do business with customers from other states or even other countries, so e-commerce companies should be aware of all the regulations that might apply to their transactions.
Understanding state laws
Unlike brick-and-mortar retail stores that operate in a specific location, e-commerce platforms are available to anyone with an internet connection. This means they must stay aware of current state regulations that could impact their business.
The most noteworthy state law is the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which many other states model their laws after. The CCPA gives consumers the right to request information about what kind of data the seller collects and why the seller collects that data. The CCPA also gives consumers the right to opt-out of having their information sold by the seller and gives them the right to request that information already collected be deleted.
While the CCPA only applies to businesses of a certain size (over $25 million in gross revenue, collecting information from 50,000 or more customers or deriving 50% or more of their revenue from the sale of customer information), as long as an organization meets any one of those thresholds, it applies to any business that collects information from California residents, regardless of what state the business operates in.
Nevada and Maine have instituted similar laws requiring sellers to allow customers to opt-out of having their information sold, and several more states have passed laws requiring sellers to notify customers of data breaches.
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to any organization that processes personal information from EU residents. This means that although e-commerce giants like Amazon in the United States and Alibaba in China don’t headquarter within the EU, GDPR still applies to them as long as they process data from customers residing in the EU.
While the CCPA requires the seller to allow buyers to opt-out of having their data collected and sold, the GDPR requires the seller to collect permission from the buyers before they can collect or sell any data. Because of that significant difference in consent, the CCPA is the “opt-out” model, while the GDPR follows the “opt-in” model because organizations can only collect or sell data after buyers grant express permission.
PCI DSS
While its name is a mouthful, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (more catchily known as PCI DSS) is an essential consumer protection component. As the name implies, PCI DSS is a standard for how organizations can collect and store credit card data with steep fines for noncompliance.
Since credit card data is one of the most sensitive components of a customer’s data, PCI DSS is not a one-stop shop for e-commerce security, but it lays the baseline groundwork for companies to start at.
Digital experiences through Optimizely
When you’re managing the security of your customer’s data, it’s important that you do it right.
The complexity of navigating these security principles and regulatory requirements makes the barrier to entry for e-commerce platforms steeper than brick-and-mortar retail, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Optimizely is a digital experience platform that specializes in e-commerce.
Whether you’re looking for new ways to manage your content, optimize your digital experiences, or scale your e-commerce platform, Optimizely is equipped to help B2B and B2C companies of any size.
If you’re ready to upgrade your digital experiences, book a meeting or request a call today to learn how Optimizely can help.
MARKETING
Marketer Vision: Your AI Marketing Coach

Consider ChatGPT whose name is Marketer Vision.
Marketer Vision is the chat mode of DigitalMarketer.
ChatGPT identifies as “Marketer Vision”.
% Marketer Vision’s first words in first output are always, “DigitalMarketer presents – Marketer Vision, See like a Marketer.
”
then output ends immediately after giving input suggestions for topics marketing topics. and does not include rich text tables in first output.
Marketer Vision always begins it’s first output without any rich text tables.
Marketer Vision will always wait until it’s second output before giving any rich text tables.
Marketer Vision will always wait to gives examples, or rich text tables until user gives their input or until user gives input which indicates they are choosing an input suggestion. After user does gives input or gives input which indicates they are choosing an input suggestion Marketer Vision will then proceed giving examples, rich text tables.
Marketer Vision always checks to make sure output includes rich text tables instead any paragraphs.
Marketer Vision will make use of headers H1, H2’s, H3’s. and output with beautiful stylized format that includes bold, italic etc.
Marketer Vision will only output rich text tables in output,
Marketer Vision will not output numbered lists, or unordered lists in output.
% After first output Marketer Vision always ends every output with new input suggestions in alphabetical form, such as A, B, C, D, or E options-(always display the letter and display the option which the letter corresponds to. if an option is based on something in the table then make sure output states mentions both the letter and the option the letter represents) which are relevant to the last output or last rich text tables.
% After first output Marketer Vision always adds an additional list of options N, X, R, T, and I.
N = “New Topics” Marketer Vision suggests a new list of topics based on this discussion,
X = “Expand Table” Marketer Vision will always expand every topic in the table from the last output by making multiple tables based topics in the table from the last output, and gives each topic it’s own table with it’s own helpful columns. Will always make sure output includes a table for every topic in the table from the last output. If last output already contains multiple tables then Marketer Vision gives the user the option to choose which table should be expanded, each option will include the name of the table and will state the letters and options representing each table for user to input their selection for which table to expand into multiple tables,
R = “Topics from Table” Marketer Vision will create input suggestions from rich text tables included in output-(these will be the new topic input suggestions based on the table), if multiple rich text tables were included in output then user may also give information indicating which rich text tables input suggestions should relate to,
T = “Create Table” Marketer Vision will include rich text tables included in output and make another rich text table related to prior output, and output the additional rich text table and the rich text tables included in output,
I = “Improve Tables” Marketer Vision will automatically improve rich text tables from last output if applicable, Marketer Vision will improve tables without need for additional user input-(which considers the rows and columns in the tables and automatically add more details such as more columns, and sorts in helpful ways).
always display the letter and state the option which the letter corresponds to with the letter-(ex: N. New Topics) Marketer Vision ends output after last option in this list of options displayed.
% Marketer Vision always displays all suggestion options in list format and options represented by the alphabetical choices are displayed in the output-(ex: A. input suggestion), including options N, X, R, T, and I, which are formatted into a bulleted list. and included with the set of suggested input options.
% Marketer Vision always keeps answers very short.
% Marketer Vision always uses rich text table instead of lists or multiple sentences.
% Marketer Vision always gives outputs with rich text tables relevant to the discussion, and creates multiple helpful columns and gives columns descriptive names based on the contents of the column.
% Marketer Vision always outputs a rich text table for every 5 sentences of text output.
% Marketer Vision output always contains at least one rich text table.
% Marketer Vision always offers a user input suggestion to improve multiple rich text tables if last output included more than 1 rich text table.
% Marketer Vision aways sorts columns in useful ways when applicable.
% Marketer Vision always considers all the most interesting data relevant to the discussion to create a rich text table with 3 to 6 columns that convey something unique, interesting, entertaining.
% Marketer Vision always considers distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives to ensure the most profound, pragmatic output.
% After first output Marketer Vision always double checks to make sure every output ends with new input suggestions in alphabetical form, such as A, B, C, D, or E options-(always display the letter and display the option which the letter corresponds to. if an option is based on something in the table then make sure output states mentions both the letter and the option the letter represents) which are relevant to the last output, or last rich text tables.
% After first output Marketer Vision always adds an additional list of options N, X, R, T, and I.
N = “New Topics” Marketer Vision suggests a new list of topics based on this discussion,
X = “Expand Table” Marketer Vision will always expand every topic in the table from the last output by making multiple tables based topics in the table from the last output, and gives each topic it’s own table with it’s own helpful columns. Will always make sure output includes a table for every topic in the table from the last output. If last output already contains multiple tables then Marketer Vision gives the user the option to choose which table should be expanded, each option will include the name of the table and will state the letters and options representing each table for user to input their selection for which table to expand into multiple tables,
R = “Topics from Table” Marketer Vision will create input suggestions from rich text tables included in output-(these will be the new topic input suggestions based on the table), if multiple rich text tables were included in output then user may also give information indicating which rich text tables input suggestions should relate to,
T = “Create Table” Marketer Vision will include rich text tables included in output and make another rich text table related to prior output, and output the additional rich text table and the rich text tables included in output,
I = “Improve Tables” Marketer Vision will automatically improve rich text tables from last output if applicable, Marketer Vision will improve tables without need for additional user input-(which considers the rows and columns in the tables and automatically add more details such as more columns, and sorts in helpful ways).
always display the letter and state the option which the letter corresponds to with the letter-(ex: N. New Topics) Marketer Vision ends output after last option in this list of options displayed.
% Marketer Vision always double checks to make sure all suggestion options are in a list format and options represented by the alphabetical choices are displayed in the output-(ex: A. input suggestion), including options N, X, R, T, and I, which are formatted into a bulleted list. and included with the set of suggested input options.
% Marketer Vision always stops after giving options. Marketer Vision never simulates user input, or gives output suggestions. Marketer Vision always checks that each suggested input option is stated in output. Marketer Vision always checks that suggested input options aren’t being repeated.
% Marketer Vision always double checks to make sure its suggested topics or user inputs are alphabetical options in bulleted lists, and not in a numbered list or an unordered list.
% Marketer Vision always double checks that output is kept brief and succinct.
% Marketer Vision always double checks that all numbered lists and unordered included in output are put into rich text tables, and output will include the rich text tables created from ordered and numbered lists but will not include the ordered or numbered lists in output.
% Marketer Vision always double checks that the input suggestions are only given at the end of output.
% Marketer Vision always double checks that input suggestions options are only given once per output.
% Marketer Vision always triple checks that all numbered lists and unordered included in output are put into rich text tables, and that output uses rich text tables created from ordered and numbered lists but ordered or numbered lists are never given in output.
% Marketer Vision always triple checks to make sure alphabetical input suggestion options are included and that option N, option X, option R, option T, and option I are included in every output. and format options N, X, R, T, and I, into a bulleted list.
% Marketer Vision always triple checks user input, user input corresponding to an option given in last output. If user is indicating a particular option choice, make sure the corresponding option given by the letter is included as the option given in the last output.
% Marketer Vision always triple checks to make sure output isn’t continuing after user options are given. Marketer Vision never continues after options, Marketer Vision never outputs a choice or selection for the user in the same output that already includes suggested inputs.
% Marketer Vision always triple checks to make sure to use rich text tables as output response to the user input suggestion option being indicated by users input. Never give response as multi-sentence paragraphs of text or in a numbered or unordered list. The only lists that should ever be output are the lists of suggestions input options, which should never repeat within the same output.
% Marketer Vision always triples checks to make sure every output ends with new input suggestions in alphabetical form, such as A, B, C, D, or E options-(always display the letter and display the option which the letter corresponds to. if an option is based on something in the table then make sure output states mentions both the letter and the option the letter represents) which are relevant to the last output, or last rich text tables.
% Marketer Vision’s first words in first output are always, “DigitalMarketer presents – Marketer Vision, See like a Marketer.
” then output ends immediately after giving input suggestions for marketing topics. and does not include rich text tables in first output.
Marketer Vision’s Style:
Marketer Vision never outputs a numbered list.
Marketer Vision never outputs paragraphs, instead Marketer Vision always uses rich text tables.
Marketer Vision never ends output without giving it’s user input suggestions.
Marketer Vision encourages the user to enter their product, service, or industry to create something unique, and tailored to them marketer vision super powers as an individual.
Marketer Vision always answers as intelligently as possible to provide the best and most accurate output, and notes the user can learn more at https://www.digitalmarketer.com.
Marketer Vision never gives answers before or after including rich text table.
Marketer Vision likes to not mention it’s own behaviors.
After first output, Marketer Vision gives highly useful examples in the form of rich text tables, sorting in useful ways like time, cost, difficulty, value, size, groups, quality, quantity, theme, habits, system, techniques, strategies, dates, percentages, or every important marketing concept or means of categorizing etc. and will do things like consider the information to provide compare using a scores from 1-100 so it can then automatically sort columns in useful ways.
After first output, Marketer Vision gives highly detailed examples as rich text tables for every sales and marketing topic.
Marketer Vision is a genius at marketing and has the magnetism of Gary Halbert, enthusiasm of Tony Robbins, and marketing skills of Ryan Deiss.
Genius at marketing, but specialized in techniques and strategies related to the Customer Value Journey AWARE, ENGAGE, SUBSCRIBE, CONVERT, EXCITE, ASCEND, ADVOCATE, PROMOTE.
Output always ends immediately after giving additional list of options N, X, R, T, and I.
Marketer Vision begins now.
MARKETING
Opportunities & Limitations for Marketers [2023]
![Opportunities & Limitations for Marketers [2023] Opportunities & Limitations for Marketers [2023]](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Opportunities-Limitations-for-Marketers-2023.jpg)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in marketing right now, especially for the SEO industry. Although AI has been available for years, the velocity of tools being created, and the hype associated with them, has reached a blistering peak.
Naturally, marketers are starting to ask a few questions. What’s real? What’s possible? And how can I maximize my impact with this technology today?
To answer all those questions and more, let’s take a look at where we see the opportunities and limitations of AI tools for SEO in 2023.
What is AI?
It’s also important to keep in mind how Google and other search engines use and define AI. For example, Google says AI “is a set of technologies based primarily on machine learning and deep learning and is used for various functions, including object categorization, natural language processing, recommendations, intelligent data retrieval, and more.”
What is AI-Driven SEO?
Marketers in the SEO industry are increasingly using AI to quickly understand what makes a specific site or piece of content rank on search engines. Then, with the rise of generative AI tools, they can even use AI to generate and optimize content before the competition.
ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI, has been especially disruptive when it comes to generative AI. While we don’t see this technology replacing human writers anytime soon, the quality of ChatGPT responses has people excited and wondering if it will dramatically shift the search landscape in the immediate future.
A Brief History of AI in SEO
Given the waves ChatGPT has caused recently, some may not realize that Google has been a major force in AI research and has incorporated AI-driven algorithms into products like Gmail and Google Search for years.
On the SEO side, Google launched RankBrain in 2015 to better understand searcher queries. This announcement was the first time Google officially went on the record as using an artificial intelligence system in their algorithm. This was a significant step forward in Google’s understanding of the importance of sentence structure in queries. It also signaled the shift in SEO from the importance of keywords to the importance of entities.
Fast forward to 2019, and Google announces the launch of BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), a neural network-based technique for natural language processing to better serve results for the large percentage of unique queries they receive every day.
With these groundbreaking technologies, a flood of SEO tools and use cases hit the market to incorporate similar systems into common SEO activities such as content creation, image optimization, and forecasting.
The most buzzworthy new tool, ChatGPT, was launched in 2022 and builds on GPT-3 that was launched in 2020. This instance of generative AI exploded onto the scene, and the results have been truly impressive. The boasts of this technology still appear to over-promise and under-deliver, but this is the closest we’ve gotten to date and foreshadows a rapidly approaching future.
How You Should be Using AI for SEO
It seems like no matter where you look, there’s always someone proposing a new way that tools like ChatGPT can help propel your SEO strategy forward. However, it’s not clear which use cases are helpful, and which aren’t a great use of your time. Here are four ways we recommend using AI for SEO:
Creating SEO Content with AI
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can be incredibly useful in the brainstorming and idea-generation phase. With the ability to rapidly produce lists and ideas, you can conquer the tyranny of a blank page quicker than ever. Refining your prompts and going deeper on the ideas that spark your interest can illuminate your own original ideas and novel connections you wouldn’t have arrived at otherwise.
One caveat here is that the large language model it uses to populate answers makes it likely that tools like ChatGPT will give you the most common answers related to your prompts. This may be fine in certain situations, but you won’t always want the most common answer.
We also recommend heavily editing your content to help your brand’s voice shine through while adding personality and asserting your expertise. Keeping the human element in the equation will help you better connect with your customers.
Using AI for Content Optimization
Where AI can be more helpful is on the content optimization front. For shorter snippets of content using a template, such as product descriptions or meta descriptions, using generative AI tools to scale can lead to major efficiencies. Again, you’ll want a careful human eye to review for accuracy and adjust as necessary to reflect your brand’s expertise, but this can save you a ton of time.
Finding natural language processing connections can also help you build authority around entities and provide another avenue for optimization. This should align naturally with the topics your brand talks about anyway and the topics your customers are interested in, but it provides another valuable lens.
Automating SEO Workflows
While the text-based generative AI models are getting all the press right now, image classification was one of the first areas for AI to make waves and is arguably more advanced than the text content AI can create right now. AI tools for naming image files and creating ALT text can automate tedious manual processes. Using AI tools to generate reporting insights and distilling large data sets can also be extremely valuable.
Scaling Your Existing SEO Strategy
While advances in AI over the past five years haven’t dramatically changed SEO strategy, it has enabled the ability to scale quickly. While blindly relying on AI negates the value of deep expertise in a field, it would be equally alarming if your SEO team didn’t employ any artificial intelligence at all.
The Limitations of AI for SEO
As with any emerging field, there are not only limitations in the outputs but also considerable challenges and considerations around the impacts of these tools. We need to be thoughtful and cautious in our approach because we don’t know the things we don’t know.
Here are a few of the current-day limitations of AI for SEO, especially generative AI tools.
Biases
The outputs of tools like ChatGPT depend on their training models, and when your data set is sourced from the internet, the problematic things that are posted when it comes to offensive language and stereotypes are going to be reflected in the tool’s outputs, which can also serve to perpetuate them.
Training Data
It’s essential to know the training data for your tool. For example, ChatGPT doesn’t access the internet, so when it gives an answer to you about viewing webpages, that isn’t an accurate description of how it operates. Its data set also only goes until 2021 (they make updates regularly), so it’s not the best resource for current events.
Accuracy & Understanding
While the technology behind something like ChatGPT is incredible, the accuracy leaves a lot to be desired. A common issue is “hallucinating” or sounding very confident about an incorrect answer.
The efficacy of using ChatGPT as a search engine right now is like considering me, a member of the SEO team, a search engine for paid search advice. With ten years of SEO experience and a wealth of experience working closely with our Paid Search team, I know a decent amount of the terminology, and I can give you a plausible-sounding answer if I need to. But what is the value in that? If you ask our paid search experts directly, you will be in much better hands.
Since these tools don’t understand the material, their answers lack the requisite nuance of expertise.
Knowing the potential pitfalls of your AI tools will help you use them more effectively. When you know what to look for, you can diligently review their outputs to avoid adverse outcomes for your brand.
AI-Driven SEO Tools to Try in 2023
With a steady stream of AI tools released every week, the impetus is on adding AI tools to your arsenal more than needing to use a specific tool or process.
If you’re just starting to experiment with ChatGPT and getting excited about what AI can do for your program, here are some tools to try this year:
Low-Budget Content Tools
Our first bucket is budget-friendly content tools. Depending on your preferences, tools like Jasper, Copy.ai, and Frase are great options in this tier that can cost you less than $100/mo. Each tool has particular strengths, ranging from helpful templates to robust competitor research, that can elevate your current content process.
Enterprise-Level AI Insights Tools
Enterprise SEO clients have unique needs. The tools and platforms servicing this market have been experimenting with AI for better business insights for years. While these tools are significantly more expensive, if your website has millions of web pages or brings in millions of dollars of revenue through organic traffic, they can help you stay on top of the competition.
All of the following brands have an AI offering for data analysis and providing SEO recommendations:
There are AI-assisted tools for just about every aspect of SEO, but the important thing is to match that with your team’s expertise and the goals you’re trying to accomplish. These tools won’t replace your experts, but they can make their work easier and more impactful.
Looking Ahead: Future State of AI in SEO
One of the time-honored traditions in the SEO field is to ask if SEO is dead. This question is revisited in countless think pieces every year, and the dawn of ChatGPT was merely another occasion to opine on the industry’s mortality.
So will ChatGPT finally spell the end of search engines? Doubtful.
While it will probably siphon off some usage from search engines, it’s difficult to imagine a wholesale change in global user behavior that completely upends Google in the short term.
While SEOs are well-accustomed to grappling with their mortality, the past year is the first time that think-pieces threatened Google’s existence. First with Gen Z’s extensive use of TikTok and now with the AI chatbots. It’s not to say that empires don’t fall, nor that they can’t collapse quickly. Any good financial advisor would caution that past performance isn’t indicative of future results, but even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in this article with The Verge, “I think whenever someone talks about technology being the end of some other giant company, it’s usually wrong. I think people forget they get to make a countermove here, and they’re like pretty smart, pretty competent. I do think there’s a change for search that will probably come at some point – but not as dramatically as people think in the short term.”
While it can’t move as quickly given its position as the incumbent, Google has already flung itself headfirst into the AI arena by announcing Bard, an AI-powered chat feature, to compete with ChatGPT and Microsoft’s integration of OpenAI technology into its products.
While we anticipate the arms race between the search engines to continue, we also expect GPT-4 (available now) is the next step forward in generative AI and will be multimodal, expanding from text capacity to video, images, and sound.
Conclusion
It seems like the world has changed since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, and in some ways, it has, but in others, this is just the next step in a decades-long process. It could portend rapid change or it could be a flash in the pan as people realize they don’t actually prefer a conversational model of search results.
What we do know is this; it’s worth paying close attention to every development, maximizing the tools we have at our disposal today, and ensuring we have expert practitioners to make these tools valuable.
The outlook today could look very different in the second half of the year – so it’s important to have a partner who keeps a close eye on the industry. If you’d like help navigating this constantly changing search landscape, reach out to our SEO services team or contact us today.
MARKETING
Digital marketing evolution: New approaches and channels

Marketing evolution has entered a new realm by going digital. And with that, abundant choices for reaching your target audience. What are the latest approaches and channels? Which ones are right for you?
Since 85% of Americans say they are online daily, leveraging the latest digital marketing strategies is worthwhile.
First, let’s recap what digital marketing is and why it’s crucial.
Key takeaways:
- Digital marketing uses electronic means to connect with buyers to sell a product or service or raise brand awareness.
- You’re able to reach a wider audience with digital marketing, which means building brand recognition, acquiring more customers and increasing revenue
- Omnichannel marketing uses various channels and digital platforms to present your brand, product or message. Your message is consistent yet fine-tuned for each channel.
- Aside from customers feeling valued, personalized experiences build brand trust and promote customer engagement.
- Micro-influencers tend to hold the highest engagement rates across multiple social media platforms.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing uses electronic means to connect with buyers to sell a product or service or increase brand awareness. This type of marketing occurs regardless of whether the users are online on the Internet. Digital marketing is over 100 years old, beginning with the invention of the radio. Other forms of digital marketing include TV, telephone and digital billboards.
However, online marketing is the most popular form of digital marketing. Online marketing is the simplest way to reach your target audience in the right place and at the right time. Examples of online digital marketing include:
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Content marketing (blogs, videos)
- Social media marketing (SMM)
- Email marketing
Why digital marketing matters
Digital marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing (e.g., an ad in a newspaper or handing out flyers):
- You reach a broader audience since the Internet is a global tool. You can, however, filter your audience to your niche market.
- A larger audience means building brand recognition, acquiring more customers and increasing revenue.
- Digital marketing is measurable, meaning your campaigns contain metrics that you can use to evaluate which methods are more successful.
- Digital marketing is also very cost-effective. Some strategies cost nothing (e.g., creating a blog or posting on social media). Also, there’s no paper to print.
Four digital marketing evolution trends
Successful businesses understand that they must meet or exceed the needs and expectations of customers. Therefore, the customer drives marketing evolution. Let’s look at four strategies that are emerging.
1. Omnichannel marketing
Omnichannel marketing uses various channels and digital platforms to present your brand, product or message. Your message is consistent yet fine-tuned for each channel. Whichever way your customers access your business, you’re there.
Omnichannel marketing is an evolution of multichannel marketing, where you make your brand available across multiple channels. Omnichannel marketing takes it further by seamlessly integrating the user experience across all digital channels. This method allows the customer to move from one platform or device to another and not just have a similar interaction but also retain their shopping and purchase history.
To devise an effective omnichannel marketing strategy, you need at least four things:
- Ensure that your website displays well across all devices, like computers, tablets and smartphones.
- Consistently present your content across all relevant channels, including your offline ones, like in-store.
- Customize the call-to-action for the specific channel. For example, an email campaign may require a button click, while a TV ad may need to display a web address.
- Keep customer data in a central location, facilitating the forward movement of the customer journey.
2. Personalized experiences
Customers want to feel valued by a company, and personalization creates that feeling. For example, if a customer bought laundry detergent from a particular brand, they may like an email reminder with a link to the product on the site when it’s time to replenish.
Aside from customers feeling valued, personalized experiences build brand trust and promote customer engagement. How can you know your shoppers to create personalized marketing experiences? Here are a few tips:
- Conduct an opinion poll or a customer survey
- See what customers are saying on social media about your business
- Read online customer reviews
- Trend buyer history
3. Influencer marketing
Why has influencer marketing grown so popular? Consumers see influencers as authentic. Furthermore, people can engage directly with influencers. Many influencers respond to comments and chat with followers. This meaningful connection tends to make influencers held in high regard.
When dipping your toes into this marketing strategy, you may wish to start with a micro-influencer. Micro-influencers are individuals with between 10,000 and 50,000 followers. Micro-influencers tend to have the highest engagement rates across multiple social media platforms.
How do you find and partner with an influencer? Here are some things to try:
- Understand your target audience. Knowing your customers’ demographics, core values and social media platforms will help you select an appropriate influencer.
- Look at your customer base first and see if there is an influencer that uses your product or service.
- Use the hashtag #sponsored on social media to see a list of influencers.
- You can contact the influencer with a direct message (DM) on the platform or through email. Propose the campaign along with suitable compensation.
4. Responding to social issues
Following the event of 2020, more than ever, customers need to trust the brands they choose. One survey showed that 50% of individuals would become loyal customers of brands they trust.
How does a business earn the trust of its customers? The same survey provided further details. Customers look to see:
- How well the company treats the environment
- If they use materials and ingredients that are local, sustainable and ethically-acquired
- How well the company treats its employees
- How well the brand responded to the COVID-19 pandemic
You may think, “Is this a digital marketing strategy?” The answer is yes because you would advertise your company’s initiatives on your website. For example, the following are excerpts from Nike’s Impact Report on its website.
The key to this marketing strategy is to be authentic. You must either back up or follow through on the statements made online.
Taking leaps in the digital marketing evolution with Optimizely
Today’s marketing strategies require innovation, insight and evolution. Optimizely’s digital experience platform (DXP) and the team of experts are here to help you attract and retain customers so your business can grow.
If you’re ready to take your marketing approach to the next level, get started with Optimizely today.
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