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The Ultimate Guide to Internet Marketing [Data + Expert Tips]

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The Ultimate Guide to Internet Marketing [Data + Expert Tips]

Internet use is still increasing worldwide every day — in fact, over 4.95 billion people around the world use the internet, as of 2022.

Marketing is, and always has been, about reaching customers where they are. TV commercials, print advertisements, and billboards all attempt to do just that.

The internet offers unique benefits other marketing mediums can’t offer — scope of reach, the option to personalize content, and the opportunity to build far-reaching relationships with customers, being just a few.

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But the internet can be an overwhelming and all-encompassing entity, filled with videos and recipes and news articles and e-commerce sites. In the crowded space of the internet, how are you supposed to differentiate your business to reach the right audience?

The answer is internet marketing.

Internet marketing leverages digital channels, including email, social media, websites, and search engines, to reach your ideal audience.

Unlike more traditional advertising mediums, such as print, the internet encourages two-way conversations between your business and your customer, ideally creating better long-term customer retention.

There’s no avoiding it: internet marketing is critical for the success of your business in 2022 and beyond.

But with all the gimmicks and tricks, it can be difficult to distinguish short-term wins from effective long-term strategies, which is why we’ve created an ultimate guide.

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Here, we’ll cover everything from marketing strategies to real-world examples, to ensure your business reaches the right people out of that four billion.

What is Internet/Online Marketing?

Online marketing, also known as internet marketing or web advertising, is a form of marketing that uses the internet to deliver promotional messages to customers through digital channels such as search engines, email, websites, and social media.

Online marketing strategies include web design, SEO, email, social media, PPC, and other internet-related methods.

What’s the role of internet marketing?

Simply put, the role of internet marketing is to help your business reach, attract, and convert online audiences.

Let’s dive into two separate goals you’ll have with internet marketing, as well as the necessary methods you’ll want to take to achieve those goals.

Internet Marketing to Attract New Customers

You can use online marketing strategies to attract new customers. To do this, you’ll want to focus primarily on paid social media ads, search engines, and web design.

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For instance, you might use Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences to get your message in front of an audience similar to your core demographic. Or, you could pay a social media influencer to share images of your products to her already well-established community.

Paid social media can attract new customers to your brand or product, but you’ll want to conduct market research and A/B testing before investing too much in one social media channel.

To attract new customers, you also need to maintain a powerful SEO presence. With 81% of shoppers using the internet for research before making purchasing decisions, it’s imperative your business is at the forefront of search for related keywords.

Having a strong SEO presence also translates to more in-store purchases, as well — in fact, 78% of local mobile searches result in an offline purchase.

Finally, it’s critical you spend time and resources on your business’s website design.

When these aforementioned customers find your website, they’ll likely feel deterred from trusting your brand and purchasing your product if they find your site confusing or unhelpful. For this reason, it’s important you take the time to create a user-friendly (and mobile-friendly) website.

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Internet Marketing to Cultivate Brand Loyalists

Internet marketing is for more than just attracting new customers — it’s also critical for maintaining a loyal, long-term customer base.

You’ll want to use email, blogging, and social media tactics to increase brand awareness, cultivate a strong online community, and retain customer loyalty.

Consider sending personalized emails to past customers to impress or inspire them — for instance, you might send discounts based off what they’ve previously purchased, wish them a happy birthday, or remind them of upcoming events.

To properly employ email campaigns, you’ll need an email list. Here’s how to build an email list from scratch.

Additionally, you might use social media to showcase your brand’s personality and hear directly from your customers. Consider hosting a Twitter chat, posting surveys on Instagram, or creating fun contests on Facebook.

If you don’t feel like you have the bandwidth to create all social media content internally, consider using a third-party service like UpContent, which sends you compelling, curated content that you can share with your audiences for increased engagement.

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Internet Marketing vs. Content Marketing

Content marketing and internet marketing are incredibly similar strategies used to attract leads and prospects to your site, and ultimately convert web traffic into customers. However, there are a few slight differences between the two.

Content marketing lives under the roof of online/internet marketing — which means online/internet marketing is the more broad, overarching strategy, and content marketing is one process within that strategy.

Content marketing applies only to the process of creating and distributing content to reach audiences.

Online marketing, on the other hand, encompasses sharing that content through email, search engines, and social media — it also includes paid advertising, retargeting, and a wide range of strategies you might use to reach audiences online.

While most of the strategies that fall under online marketing have to do with content creation, online marketing also pertains to the non-content creation tasks of internet marketing: such as PPC bidding, or website design.

We surveyed 1,067 global marketing professionals working in B2B and B2C companies to find out which trends they leverage, the channels they use, and the challenges they face, as well as their plans and expectations going into 2022.

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Based on our research, there are 16 strategies you’ll want to employ to ensure you’re successful at internet marketing.

  1. Keep TikTok in mind.

Without question, TikTok’s popularity soared as the pandemic kept many people at home and in need of connection and entertainment. And that popularity isn’t expected to wane anytime soon.

While LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram have the highest ROI for B2B businesses, TikTok is quickly becoming the app to invest in.

Through our research, we found that while just 40% of B2B social media marketers leverage TikTok, 65% of those who do plan on increasing their investment in 2022, the highest increase of any social platform.

2. Consider podcasts and audio chat rooms to make connections.

Podcasts are gaining more attention as influencers, celebrities, and comedians continue to step into the medium. Despite low ROI, investment in podcasts or other audio content is expected to grow in 2022.

Our research shows that just 14% of social media marketers leverage audio chat rooms like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, but 68% of those who do say they are the most effective social media marketing platforms they leverage.

51% of those who already leverage podcasts or other audio content will invest more in 2022, and 43% plan to continue investing the same amount. Additionally, 26% of content marketers plan to leverage podcasts or other audio content for the first time in 2022.

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Essentially, if you’re not leveraging podcasts and audio chats in your marketing strategy, your competition most likely will.

 

3. Lean into short-form video content.

With the enduring popularity of TikTok, audiences are gravitating more and more toward short-form videos. Short-form videos continue to be the norm as Instagram and YouTube push similar short-form video features such as Reels and Shorts, respectively.

We’ve found 31% of marketers are currently leveraging short-form video and 29% plan to leverage it for the first time in 2022. In this survey, we specified short-form videos like TikTok and Instagram Reels. Yet another reason to keep an eye on TikTok.

4. Repurpose content across various channels.

Repurposing content means re-using your existing content and presenting it in a fresh format that extends its lifespan and audience reach.

Our survey found that 32% of marketers who repurpose content say this method is among their most effective marketing strategies. Examples of repurposing content include:

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  • Sharing old blog posts you’ve updated with new information, fresh data, and video content (Hint: The piece you’re currently reading is an update).
  • Using video clips of podcast recordings sessions on Instagram to create intrigue and excitement over an upcoming episode.

If you’d like to learn more about repurposing content, here are 20 methods you should know about.

5. Invest in Permanent Social Media Content.

Permanent social media content is content that won’t disappear after a set amount of time, unlike Instagram Stories or SnapChat photos and videos.

We found 33% of marketers are currently leveraging permanent social media content. Our surveys also showed 85% of marketers plan to continue investing the same amount or increase their investment in permanent social media content.

6. Design a user-friendly website.

First, you want to create a user-friendly, and mobile-friendly, website. The design of your site will showcase your brand’s personality and differentiate your business from every other online business. But it’s more than just looking good — a cleaner, more well-organized site structure can affect how you rank in the SERPS.

For help designing your website or ensuring it’s up-to-par, check out 8 Guidelines for Exceptional Web Design, Usability, and User Experience.

7. Optimize your site for search engines.

Next, you’ll need to keyword optimize your site for search engines. Essentially, this means you’ll choose keyword(s) that relate to your business, and incorporate those keywords into the URL, body text, image text, headers, and navigation bar.

For tips on keyword optimizing your entire site, check out On-Page SEO 101: Tips for Keyword Optimizing the Most Critical Parts of Your Website.

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If you’re interested in focusing on keyword optimizing your blog posts, consider reading Blog SEO: How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Content.

For a real-life example on how to successfully implement SEO into your digital marketing strategy, check out our case study on Canva here:

 

8. Use email marketing or opt-in email campaigns.

Email marketing and opt-in marketing campaigns are one of the most effective long-term strategies to connect with potential customers and cultivate brand loyalty.

For everything from getting started with email marketing, to email marketing best practices and lead magnets, check out The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing.

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9. Write online press releases.

Writing online press releases is an additional way to increase online coverage of your business from other sources, which will also positively affect your ranking in the SERPs. Plus, if a local news outlet covers your business, you’ll receive their audience, which you otherwise might not have reached.

To get started writing a press release for your business, consider How to Write a Press Release [Free Press Release Template + Example].

10. Create a blog.

I might be biased, but blogging is one of the best ways to attract a large audience to your site, establish your business as a thought leader in your industry, and prove your brand to be both useful and current.

Writing blog posts is especially effective for providing different opportunities to land on page one of search engines — for instance, maybe your eyeglass store’s website is on page three of Google for “eyeglasses,” but your “Best Sunglasses of 2018” blog post is on page one, pulling in an impressive amount of traffic (over time, that blog post could also boost your overall website to page one).

To learn everything from choosing a domain name to writing your first blog post, check out How to Start a Blog: A Step-by-Step Guide [+ Free Blog Post Templates].

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11. Develop social media contests and campaigns.

Social media contests and campaigns are exceptional opportunities to engage with your online audience, form relationships with customers, and learn about your buyer’s persona.

For an overarching compilation on everything you need to know about social media campaigns — from how to craft perfect posts on Facebook to the most shared phrases on LinkedIn — take a look at Everything You Need to Know about Social Media Campaigns.

12. Leverage pay-per-click advertising.

Pay-per-click advertising, or PPC, is an advertising model in which advertisers only pay when someone interacts with their ad through impressions or clicks.

PPC is most commonly used on search engines, and can help your business appear for searches related to your products or services. This is particularly important for more competitive keywords, when it’s difficult to rank on page one against websites with higher domain authority.

It’s important to note — PPC doesn’t replace your SEO strategy, it simply complements it. For instance, if you’re trying to rank for “website builder”, you’ll see the keyword difficulty is “super hard (95)”, according to Ahrefs. However, there are some long-form keywords you might have success ranking for, including “what is a website builder? (52)” or “best website builders for ecommerce (57)”.

If you do want to target “website builders”, you’ll want to bid for an ad and use PPC to stand out against competitors.

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13. Optimize your site for conversions.

Okay, you got readers to your blog or homepage … now what?

Ultimately, you’ll want to invest in resources for conversion rate optimization (CRO). If you don’t, you risk not being able to convert any of your traffic into qualified leads and, ultimately, customers.

There are four areas of your website that can benefit from CRO. These include the homepage, pricing page, blog, and landing pages.

Within a blog, a CRO strategy might include adding relevant calls-to-action throughout the text, or inviting readers to submit their emails in exchange for an ebook. On a pricing page, a CRO strategy might include a slide-out that invites viewers to book time with a sales rep or watch a demo.

Optimizing your site for conversions is a critical component of any strong internet marketing strategy.

14. Post videos on YouTube or other social networks.

Video marketing is an undeniably powerful opportunity to reach new audiences and convert leads into customers. In fact, 86% of video marketers say video has helped them generate leads, and 88% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.

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Convinced yet? If not, simply consider the fact that YouTube is used by 88% of video marketers — which means, even if you’re not posting videos on the channel, your competitors most likely are.
You’ll want to diversify the type(s) of content you produce to attract audiences who prefer video over text, or YouTube over Twitter.

Consider how you might implement your own video strategy to reach and convert new audiences. If you’re not sure where to start, check out HubSpot’s Ultimate Guide to YouTube Marketing.

15. Find influencers to work with your brand.

I’m currently wearing a watch I found on Amazon. I’m sitting on a couch from Wayfair, with a candle from Anthropology on the table in front of me.

Where did I hear about all these products? Influencers.

Social media influencers have cultivated strong, meaningful relationships with their followers. Their followers typically trust them to provide true, reliable guidance on a range of topics related to the influencers’ expertise. Which is why influencer marketing can be an effective opportunity to spread brand awareness to new audiences.

If you think influencer marketing could be a good choice for your business, consider micro-influencers as a more effective (and oftentimes more cost-efficient) option. Micro-influencers often experience higher engagement rates than mega-influencers, and we predict micro-influencers will likely have more influence than celebrities in 2022.

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Additionally, it can be expensive and time-consuming to find the right influencer(s) for your brand. If you’re going to invest in the strategy, consider working with the same few influencers for the long-term — which enables your company to build stronger relationships with their social followers.

16. Create a Facebook group.

A Facebook group — unlike a Facebook page — is an exclusive, private group that enables you to facilitate a sense of community surrounding your brand.

A Facebook group isn’t a necessity for every business, but when done properly, it can go a long way towards creating a stronger relationship between you and your customers. Best of all, it can help foster connections between your customers.

Since having a strong community can help you build brand loyalty, it’s important to seek out unique opportunities to engage directly with your customers. If a Facebook group doesn’t seem like a good fit for your business, however, there are other ways to create a sense of community — including via social media, or through a branded newsletter.

Finally, take a look at our Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Internet Marketing to dive deeper into the six essential steps of internet marketing.

There are many different methods to online marketing you can try to boost engagement for your brand, such as:

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1. Repurpose your high-quality content across multiple channels.

Like we said earlier, repurposing your content simply means reusing content you already have but in a fresh format. That reaction video you created on TikTok could be repurposed as a Reel on Instagram. If you change the caption on Reels, you can use the video to react to something else.

2. Lean into permanent social media content that doesn’t have a time limit.

Examples of permanent social media content include tweets, YouTube videos, and TikTok videos. Content such as Snapchat videos or Instagram stories are note permanent and disappear after a period of time.

3. Choose the right keywords and optimize your site for search.

Using keywords helps search engines, especially Google, categorize your content and ensure it reaches the right audience. It also helps your target audience find your website and services. To optimize your site with the right keywords, use applications like Ahrefs that are designed to help you find the right keywords your audience is searching for.

4. Create a mobile-optimized site.

There are many ways to better optimize your website for mobile users, such as compressing images to reduce page load time, mapping your customers’ journey, or creating a mobile app.

5. Publish blog posts regularly.

Blogging consistently has many benefits. It keeps your website up to date with fresh content, maintaining the interest of your audience. It’s also an effective way to get your website to pop up on the first page of search engines. The more you post, the more content you’ll have for the search engine to rank.

6. Conduct email marketing campaigns.

In our recent survey to predict 2022 marketing trends, we found that email marketing is still a helpful approach to marketing your business online. According to our survey, the three most effective email marketing strategies are subscriber segmentation, message personalization, and email automation campaigns.

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7. Encourage conversation on social media accounts.

Social media is the place where connections are made and conversations happen. Social media users don’t want to just interact with brands, they want to see the humanity behind the big name and logo.

A great way to create meaningful connections with the humans that make up your audience is to facilitate conversations. Ways to do this include conducting social media polls or hosting Spaces on Twitter.

8. Publish online press releases.

Like blogging, publishing online press releases will increase your presence on search engines and raise awareness of your brand. When writing press releases, remember to answer the “who,” “what,” “where,” and “why” of your brand. And make sure to use simple, understandable language as well as a quote.

9. Cultivate paid social media campaigns.

The idea of paying for advertising may seem a bit daunting, but paid social media advertising is one of the least expensive types of advertising. Paid social media ads can start as low as one dollar thanks to the bidding model and lottery system some platforms use to push ads to users’ news feeds and timelines.

Platforms that allow for paid advertisements are:

10. Leverage pay-per-click advertising for competitive keywords.

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and SEO go hand-in-hand like peanut butter and jelly. Optimizing your website for keywords can definitely help your brand appear at the top of search engine results pages. However, it requires patience, and you may not see results for weeks or months if you’re optimizing for highly competitive words.

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But by leveraging PPC, you’ll be able to stand out among competitors by bidding for an ad.

11. Post videos on YouTube or other social channels.

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet, and 81% of Americans used YouTube in 2021. So, you can bet your audience frequently visits the site. When creating content for YouTube, be sure to diversify your content in order to attract audiences who prefer video over text. You’ll also want to research keywords you can optimize your content for and use in your video’s title, description, and tags.

12. Work with micro-influencers to reach new audiences.

On apps like TikTok, brands are still struggling to find their place. However, influencer marketing has proven to be a helpful tool in helping brands elevate their online presence and find their target audience.

In our survey, we found that 57% of influencer marketers cited influencer marketing as one of the most effective trends they leverage. We also found that 86% of marketers plan to continue investing the same amount or increase their investment in influencer marketing.

Online Marketing Examples

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of online marketing examples to inspire your next internet marketing campaign.

Here, I’ll dive into five real world examples of social media, email, SEO, and website marketing methods. I’ll also include links to additional blog resources at the bottom, for even more exceptional ideas.

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1. Social Media: HubSpot’s “Set Sail With HubSpot CRM” Campaign with Kathryn Hahn

In 2022 we kicked off our “Set Sail” campaign with award-winning actress and comedian Kathryn Hahn. In the campaign, Hahn plays a pirate using HubSpot’s CRM to expand her reach across the seven seas.

“As CEO of my own pirate enterprise, I chose HubSpot as our CRM platform,” Hahn says as she tours a busy office-like pirate ship. “Because it helps us treat customers like people, not conquests. Plus it enables my teams to work together seamlessly as we expand.”

Hahn’s comedic timing and stage presence helped highlight the many tools we provide to help businesses achieve their goals, but our approach to social media is what helped the campaign be a success.

Our first social post announcing the campaign was promoting Kathryn Hahn’s Fast company cover, we positioned her as our newest ambassador and let her be the hero of the story—not us to start,” said Hubspot’s Senior Social Strategy Manager Leslie Green. “The positioning of her success as our success leans into our humble voice and tone.”

When it came to Instagram, there was a particular feature on the app that played a key role in spreading our message on the platform.

“We utilized a collab post feature on Instagram which allowed this post to be delivered to both ours (and Fast Company’s) followers,” Green said. “The reach and engagement on this announcement was incredible for this reason. Across channels, we shared our 30 second spot to showcase how Kathryn was making waves as a disrupting Pirate CEO.”

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In 2022 we kicked off our “Set Sail” campaign with award-winning actress and comedian Kathryn Hahn. In the campaign, Hahn plays a pirate using HubSpot’s CRM to expand her reach across the seven seas.

“As CEO of my own pirate enterprise, I chose HubSpot as our CRM platform,” Hahn says as she tours a busy office-like pirate ship. “Because it helps us treat customers like people, not conquests. Plus it enables my teams to work together seamlessly as we expand.”

Hahn’s comedic timing and stage presence helped highlight the many tools we provide to help businesses achieve their goals, but our approach to social media is what helped the campaign be a success.

Our first social post announcing the campaign was promoting Kathryn Hahn’s Fast company cover, we positioned her as our newest ambassador and let her be the hero of the story—not us to start,” said Hubspot’s Senior Social Strategy Manager Leslie Green. “The positioning of her success as our success leans into our humble voice and tone.”

When it came to Instagram, there was a particular feature on the app that played a key role in spreading our message on the platform.

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“We utilized a collab post feature on Instagram which allowed this post to be delivered to both ours (and Fast Company’s) followers,” Green said. “The reach and engagement on this announcement was incredible for this reason. Across channels, we shared our 30 second spot to showcase how Kathryn was making waves as a disrupting Pirate CEO.”

When promoting the campaign on Twitter, Green said it was important to engage and interact to build intrigue.

“On Twitter, along with sharing campaign assets in clever & social-first ways, we made sure to highlight and retweet notable media mentions from publications like Entertainment Weekly to drum up excitement about this partnership and give our audience social proof,” Green said.&

She continued, “In order to encourage our audience to feel included in our fantastical founder’s journey and be inspired to share their own, we repurposed UGC to go with CTAs for the audience to share their own #HubSpotSuccessStory on Instagram and LinkedIn.”

2. Social Media: Under Armour’s “I Will What I Want” Campaign

Under Armour came up with the hashtag “I Will What I Want” to encourage powerful athletic women to achieve their dreams despite any opposition they might face. The hashtag, first used by American Ballet Theatre ballerina soloist Misty Copeland, blew up on Facebook after supermodel Gisele Bündchen used it in one of her Facebook posts. Many other female athletes have also used the hashtag.

The campaign spreads a positive message of female empowerment, while also highlighting Under Armour’s women apparel. The campaign reached five billion media impressions, increased Under Armour’s women’s sales by 28 percent, and pulled in an additional 42 percent of traffic to their website.

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under armour's instagram campaign, an example of internet marketing

3. Email: JetBlue

Companies often use email marketing to re-engage past customers, but a “Where’d You Go? Want To Buy This?,” message can come across as aggressive, and you want to be careful with your wording to cultivate a long-term email subscriber.

This is why JetBlue’s one-year re-engagement email works so well — it uses humor to convey a sense of friendliness and fun, while simultaneously reminding an old email subscriber they might want to check out some of JetBlue’s new flight deals.

jetblue re-engagement email as an example of internet marketing

4. SEO: Moz’s case study for Pipedrive, a sales CRM

Using a content marketing strategy that included content creation, outreach, and guest posting, Pipedrive, a sales CRM, was able to rank #1 for a high-volume keyword — “sales management” (9,900 search volume). They were able to outrank many competitors and even US News and Wikipedia. They published their strategy on Moz.

Moz's case study for pipedrive as an example of internet marketing

5. SEO: Brian Dean’s YouTube strategy

Brian Dean, an SEO expert and the creator of BackLinko, uses SEO tactics to rank #1 on YouTube for keywords like “on page SEO” and “video SEO”. Initially, Dean admits his YouTube account struggled to get any views.

Employing SEO methods like keyword optimization has enabled Dean to rise to #1 on YouTube for search results related to his business. He published his full strategy on Backlinko.

brian dean's video, which ranks first on YouTube for 'on page SEO', as an example of internet marketing

6. Web Design: AccessAble

AccessAble, an information provider for people with disabilities in the UK and Ireland, hired Agency51 to implement an SEO migration strategy to move AccessAble from an old platform to a new one.

By applying 301 redirects to old URLS, transferring metadata, setting up Google webmaster tools, and creating a new sitemap, Agency 51 was able to successfully transfer AccessAble to a new platform while keeping their previous SEO power alive.

Additionally, they were able to boost visitor numbers by 21% year over year, and the site restructuring allowed AccessAble to rank higher than competitors. Their case study is available on SingleGrain.com.

AccessAble's website Image Source

More Internet Marketing Examples:

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer, or just starting out, there are plenty of tools available to help build your brand’s audience, including:

1. HubSpot

Ultimately, your internet marketing strategies will work best if you incorporate inbound marketing methodology. First and foremost, you want all your online content to add value to your customers”s lives. This is the only way you’ll attract quality leads and build deep relationships with your online community for the long-term.

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2. Buzzsumo

We love Buzzsumo because it can help you analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor. Buzzsumo can report important metrics such as social shares, backlinks, and which influencers are sharing certain pieces of content.

You can also find influencer reports that give insight if you’re looking for a micro influencer to promote your brand.

3. Canva

Canva makes designing infographics and materials for print, blogs, and social media simple, even if you don’t have much experience with graphic design. Its user interface is easy to navigate and includes thousands of customizable templates you can redesign to fit your brand’s aesthetic.

4. GTMetrix

This application tests your website’s performance, particularly its speed. If your website takes too long to load, you run the risk of deterring potential customers or clients from your brand. With GTMetrix, you can measure how long your website takes to load and what areas of performance need to be improved.

5. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is my favorite tool for finding the right keywords for optimizing my content. They offer tools for tracking keyword performance, analyzing your competitor’s keywords, web traffic, and more. One of my favorite features has been the “content gap” tool, which shows the keywords our competitors rank for that we don’t.

6. Buffer

Posting multiple pieces of content across several different platforms can be overwhelming. Fortunately, applications like Buffer allow you to draft and schedule posts across multiple social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.

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Furthermore, Buffer also offers social media reporting and functionality monitoring so you can track how your content is performing.

7. Facebook Insights

When I was a journalist, Facebook Insights played a key role in tracking how my articles performed. With a Facebook Insights dashboard, you’ll be able track user behavior and post performance on your Facebook Business Page.

This tool also reports important metrics like page views and post reach for paid and organic posts. It even recommends competitor pages to monitor.

8. SocialRank

SocialRank is an online tool that helps you manage your followers on Twitter and Instagram. SocialRank offers a range of filters to better analyze your follower count. It can also search for new followers, get leads, and more.

9. Trello

As your business grows, so will its output and the projects it takes on. Therefore you’re going to need a tool like Trello that will help you manage it all.

With Trello, a project management tool, you can put all your team’s projects in one customizable space that can grow as your company grows. You can use Trello to conduct growth experiments, sales pipelines, and product feature road maps.

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10. Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is a website optimization software that offers A/B testing, heat mapping, and usability testing tools. We love its A/B testing tool because it allows you to test variations of every page on your website. All you have to do is copy one snippet of code to the pages you want to test.

You don’t need coding experience to use Crazy Egg, as the software is user friendly to marketers at all levels.

11. Google Keywords Planner

If you struggle with finding the best keywords for your website, Google Keywords Planner is an excellent tool for you.

By putting in one keyword, multiple keywords, or even your website address into Keyword Planner, Google will show a list of related keywords along with simple metrics.

These metrics will gauge the competition around each keyword and how many searches it gets on both a global and local search level.

Ultimately, your internet marketing strategies will work best if you incorporate inbound marketing methodology. First and foremost, you want all your online content to add value to your customers’ lives. This is the only way you’ll attract quality leads and build deep relationships with your online community for the long-term.

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MARKETING

Effective Communication in Business as a Crisis Management Strategy

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Effective Communication in Business as a Crisis Management Strategy

Everyday business life is full of challenges. These include data breaches, product recalls, market downturns and public relations conflicts that can erupt at any moment. Such situations pose a significant threat to a company’s financial health, brand image, or even its further existence. However, only 49% of businesses in the US have a crisis communications plan. It is a big mistake, as such a strategy can build trust, minimize damage, and even strengthen the company after it survives the crisis. Let’s discover how communication can transform your crisis and weather the chaos.

The ruining impact of the crisis on business

A crisis can ruin a company. Naturally, it brings losses. But the actual consequences are far worse than lost profits. It is about people behind the business – they feel the weight of uncertainty and fear. Employees start worrying about their jobs, customers might lose faith in the brand they once trusted, and investors could start looking elsewhere. It can affect the brand image and everything you build from the branding, business logo, social media can be ruined. Even after the crisis recovery, the company’s reputation can suffer, and costly efforts might be needed to rebuild trust and regain momentum. So, any sign of a coming crisis should be immediately addressed. Communication is one of the crisis management strategies that can exacerbate the situation.  

The power of effective communication

Even a short-term crisis may have irreversible consequences – a damaged reputation, high employee turnover, and loss of investors. Communication becomes a tool that can efficiently navigate many crisis-caused challenges:

  • Improved trust. Crisis is a synonym for uncertainty. Leaders may communicate trust within the company when the situation gets out of control. Employees feel valued when they get clear responses. The same applies to the customers – they also appreciate transparency and are more likely to continue cooperation when they understand what’s happening. In these times, documenting these moments through event photographers can visually reinforce the company’s messages and enhance trust by showing real, transparent actions.
  • Reputation protection. Crises immediately spiral into gossip and PR nightmares. However, effective communication allows you to proactively address concerns and disseminate true information through the right channels. It minimizes speculation and negative media coverage.
  • Saved business relationships. A crisis can cause unbelievable damage to relationships with employees, customers, and investors. Transparent communication shows the company’s efforts to find solutions and keeps stakeholders informed and engaged, preventing misunderstandings and painful outcomes.
  • Faster recovery. With the help of communication, the company is more likely to receive support and cooperation. This collaborative approach allows you to focus on solutions and resume normal operations as quickly as possible.

It is impossible to predict when a crisis will come. So, a crisis management strategy mitigates potential problems long before they arise.

Tips on crafting an effective crisis communication plan.

To effectively deal with unforeseen critical situations in business, you must have a clear-cut communication action plan. This involves things like messages, FAQs, media posts, and awareness of everyone in the company. This approach saves precious time when the crisis actually hits. It allows you to focus on solving the problem instead of intensifying uncertainty and panic. Here is a step-by-step guide.  

Identify your crisis scenarios.

Being caught off guard is the worst thing. So, do not let it happen. Conduct a risk assessment to pinpoint potential crises specific to your business niche. Consider both internal and external factors that could disrupt normal operations or damage the online reputation of your company. Study industry-specific issues, past incidents, and current trends. How will you communicate in each situation? Knowing your risks helps you prepare targeted communication strategies in advance. Of course, it is impossible to create a perfectly polished strategy, but at least you will build a strong foundation for it.

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Form a crisis response team.

The next step is assembling a core team. It will manage communication during a crisis and should include top executives like the CEO, CFO, and CMO, and representatives from key departments like public relations and marketing. Select a confident spokesperson who will be the face of your company during the crisis. Define roles and responsibilities for each team member and establish communication channels they will work with, such as email, telephone, and live chat. Remember, everyone in your crisis response team must be media-savvy and know how to deliver difficult messages to the stakeholders.

Prepare communication templates.

When a crisis hits, things happen fast. That means communication needs to be quick, too. That’s why it is wise to have ready-to-go messages prepared for different types of crises your company may face. These messages can be adjusted to a particular situation when needed and shared on the company’s social media, website, and other platforms right away. These templates should include frequently asked questions and outline the company’s general responses. Make sure to approve these messages with your legal team for accuracy and compliance.

Establish communication protocols.

A crisis is always chaotic, so clear communication protocols are a must-have. Define trigger points – specific events that would launch the crisis communication plan. Establish a clear hierarchy for messages to avoid conflicting information. Determine the most suitable forms and channels, like press releases or social media, to reach different audiences. Here is an example of how you can structure a communication protocol:

  • Immediate alert. A company crisis response team is notified about a problem.  
  • Internal briefing.  The crisis team discusses the situation and decides on the next steps.  
  • External communication. A spokesperson reaches the media, customers, and suppliers.
  • Social media updates. A trained social media team outlines the situation to the company audience and monitors these channels for misinformation or negative comments.
  • Stakeholder notification. The crisis team reaches out to customers and partners to inform them of the incident and its risks. They also provide details on the company’s response efforts and measures.
  • Ongoing updates. Regular updates guarantee transparency and trust and let stakeholders see the crisis development and its recovery.

Practice and improve.

Do not wait for the real crisis to test your plan. Conduct regular crisis communication drills to allow your team to use theoretical protocols in practice. Simulate different crisis scenarios and see how your people respond to these. It will immediately demonstrate the strong and weak points of your strategy. Remember, your crisis communication plan is not a static document. New technologies and evolving media platforms necessitate regular adjustments. So, you must continuously review and update it to reflect changes in your business and industry.

Wrapping up

The ability to handle communication well during tough times gives companies a chance to really connect with the people who matter most—stakeholders. And that connection is a foundation for long-term success. Trust is key, and it grows when companies speak honestly, openly, and clearly. When customers and investors trust the company, they are more likely to stay with it and even support it. So, when a crisis hits, smart communication not only helps overcome it but also allows you to do it with minimal losses to your reputation and profits.

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Should Your Brand Shout Its AI and Marketing Plan to the World?

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Should Your Brand Shout Its AI and Marketing Plan to the World?

To use AI or not to use AI, that is the question.

Let’s hope things work out better for you than they did for Shakespeare’s mad Danish prince with daddy issues.

But let’s add a twist to that existential question.

CMI’s chief strategy officer, Robert Rose, shares what marketers should really contemplate. Watch the video or read on to discover what he says:

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Should you not use AI and be proud of not using it? Dove Beauty did that last week.

Should you use it but keep it a secret? Sports Illustrated did that last year.

Should you use AI and be vocal about using it? Agency giant Brandtech Group picked up the all-in vibe.

Should you not use it but tell everybody you are? The new term “AI washing” is hitting everywhere.

What’s the best option? Let’s explore.

Dove tells all it won’t use AI

Last week, Dove, the beauty brand celebrating 20 years of its Campaign for Real Beauty, pledged it would NEVER use AI in visual communication to portray real people.

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In the announcement, they said they will create “Real Beauty Prompt Guidelines” that people can use to create images representing all types of physical beauty through popular generative AI programs. The prompt they picked for the launch video? “The most beautiful woman in the world, according to Dove.”

I applaud them for the powerful ad. But I’m perplexed by Dove issuing a statement saying it won’t use AI for images of real beauty and then sharing a branded prompt for doing exactly that. Isn’t it like me saying, “Don’t think of a parrot eating pizza. Don’t think about a parrot eating pizza,” and you can’t help but think about a parrot eating pizza right now?

Brandtech Group says it’s all in on AI

Now, Brandtech Group, a conglomerate ad agency, is going the other way. It’s going all-in on AI and telling everybody.

This week, Ad Age featured a press release — oops, I mean an article (subscription required) — with the details of how Brandtech is leaning into the takeaway from OpenAI’s Sam Altman, who says 95% of marketing work today can be done by AI.

A Brandtech representative talked about how they pitch big brands with two people instead of 20. They boast about how proud they are that its lean 7,000 staffers compete with 100,000-person teams. (To be clear, showing up to a pitch with 20 people has never been a good thing, but I digress.)

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OK, that’s a differentiated approach. They’re all in. Ad Age certainly seemed to like it enough to promote it. Oops, I mean report about it.

False claims of using AI and not using AI

Offshoots of the all-in and never-will approaches also exist.

The term “AI washing” is de rigueur to describe companies claiming to use AI for something that really isn’t AI.  The US Securities and Exchange Commission just fined two companies for using misleading statements about their use of AI in their business model. I know one startup technology organization faced so much pressure from their board and investors to “do something with AI” that they put a simple chatbot on their website — a glorified search engine — while they figured out what they wanted to do.

Lastly and perhaps most interestingly, companies have and will use AI for much of what they create but remain quiet about it or desire to keep it a secret. A recent notable example is the deepfake ad of a woman in a car professing the need for people to use a particular body wipe to get rid of body odor. It was purported to be real, but sharp-eyed viewers suspected the fake and called out the company, which then admitted it. Or was that the brand’s intent all along — the AI-use outrage would bring more attention?

To yell or not to yell about your brand’s AI decision

Should a brand yell from a mountaintop that they use AI to differentiate themselves a la Brandtech? Or should a brand yell they’re never going to use AI to differentiate themselves a la Dove? Or should a brand use it and not yell anything? (I think it’s clear that a brand should not use AI and lie and say it is. That’s the worst of all choices.)

I lean far into not-yelling-from-mountaintop camp.

When I see a CEO proudly exclaim that they laid off 90% of their support workforce because of AI, I’m not surprised a little later when the value of their service is reduced, and the business is failing.

I’m not surprised when I hear “AI made us do it” to rationalize the latest big tech company latest rounds of layoffs. Or when a big consulting firm announces it’s going all-in on using AI to replace its creative and strategic resources.

I see all those things as desperate attempts for short-term attention or a distraction from the real challenge. They may get responses like, “Of course, you had to lay all those people off; AI is so disruptive,” or “Amazing. You’re so out in front of the rest of the pack by leveraging AI to create efficiency, let me cover your story.” Perhaps they get this response, “Your company deserves a bump in stock price because you’re already using this fancy new technology.”

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But what happens if the AI doesn’t deliver as promoted? What happens the next time you need to lay off people? What happens the next time you need to prove your technologically forward-leaning?

Yelling out that you’re all in on a disruptive innovation, especially one the public doesn’t yet trust a lot is (at best) a business sugar high. That short-term burst of attention may or may not foul your long-term brand value.

Interestingly, the same scenarios can manifest when your brand proclaims loudly it is all out of AI, as Dove did. The sugar high may not last and now Dove has itself into a messaging box. One slip could cause distrust among its customers. And what if AI gets good at demonstrating diversity in beauty?

I tried Dove’s instructions and prompted ChatGPT for a picture of “the most beautiful woman in the world according to the Dove Real Beauty ad.”

It gave me this. Then this. And this. And finally, this.

She’s absolutely beautiful, but she doesn’t capture the many facets of diversity Dove has demonstrated in its Real Beauty campaigns. To be clear, Dove doesn’t have any control over generating the image. Maybe the prompt worked well for Dove, but it didn’t for me. Neither Dove nor you can know how the AI tool will behave.

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To use AI or not to use AI?

When brands grab a microphone to answer that question, they work from an existential fear about the disruption’s meaning. They do not exhibit the confidence in their actions to deal with it.

Let’s return to Hamlet’s soliloquy:

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

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With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

In other words, Hamlet says everybody is afraid to take real action because they fear the unknown outcome. You could act to mitigate or solve some challenges, but you don’t because you don’t trust yourself.

If I’m a brand marketer for any business (and I am), I’m going to take action on AI for my business. But until I see how I’m going to generate value with AI, I’m going to be circumspect about yelling or proselytizing how my business’ future is better.

Want more content marketing tips, insights, and examples? Subscribe to workday or weekly emails from CMI.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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How to Use AI For a More Effective Social Media Strategy, According to Ross Simmonds

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How to Use AI For a More Effective Social Media Strategy, According to Ross Simmonds

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

It’s the age of AI, and our job as marketers is to keep up.

My team at Foundation Marketing recently conducted an AI Marketing study surveying hundreds of marketers, and more than 84% of all leaders, managers, SEO experts, and specialists confirmed that they used AI in the workplace.

AI in the workplace data graphic, Foundation Labs

If you can overlook the fear-inducing headlines, this technology is making social media marketers more efficient and effective than ever. Translation: AI is good news for social media marketers.

Download Now: The 2024 State of Social Media Trends [Free Report]

In fact, I predict that the marketers not using AI in their workplace will be using it before the end of this year, and that number will move closer and closer to 100%.

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Social media and AI are two of the most revolutionizing technologies of the last few decades. Social media has changed the way we live, and AI is changing the way we work.

So, I’m going to condense and share the data, research, tools, and strategies that the Foundation Marketing Team and I have been working on over the last year to help you better wield the collective power of AI and social media.

Let’s jump into it.

What’s the role of AI in social marketing strategy?

In a recent episode of my podcast, Create Like The Greats, we dove into some fascinating findings about the impact of AI on marketers and social media professionals. Take a listen here:

Let’s dive a bit deeper into the benefits of this technology:

Benefits of AI in Social Media Strategy

AI is to social media what a conductor is to an orchestra — it brings everything together with precision and purpose. The applications of AI in a social media strategy are vast, but the virtuosos are few who can wield its potential to its fullest.

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AI to Conduct Customer Research

Imagine you’re a modern-day Indiana Jones, not dodging boulders or battling snakes, but rather navigating the vast, wild terrain of consumer preferences, trends, and feedback.

This is where AI thrives.

Using social media data, from posts on X to comments and shares, AI can take this information and turn it into insights surrounding your business and industry. Let’s say for example you’re a business that has 2,000 customer reviews on Google, Yelp, or a software review site like Capterra.

Leveraging AI you can now have all 2,000 of these customer reviews analyzed and summarized into an insightful report in a matter of minutes. You simply need to download all of them into a doc and then upload them to your favorite Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) to get the insights and data you need.

But that’s not all.

You can become a Prompt Engineer and write ChatGPT asking it to help you better understand your audience. For example, if you’re trying to come up with a persona for people who enjoy marathons but also love kombucha you could write a prompt like this to ChatGPT:

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ChatGPT prompt example

The response that ChatGPT provided back is quite good:

GPT response example

Below this it went even deeper by including a lot of valuable customer research data:

  • Demographics
  • Psychographics
  • Consumer behaviors
  • Needs and preferences

And best of all…

It also included marketing recommendations.

The power of AI is unbelievable.

Social Media Content Using AI

AI’s helping hand can be unburdening for the creative spirit.

Instead of marketers having to come up with new copy every single month for posts, AI Social Caption generators are making it easier than ever to craft catchy status updates in the matter of seconds.

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Tools like HubSpot make it as easy as clicking a button and telling the AI tool what you’re looking to create a post about:

AI social media caption generator step 1

The best part of these AI tools is that they’re not limited to one channel.

Your AI social media content assistant can help you with LinkedIn content, X content, Facebook content, and even the captions that support your post on Instagram.

It can also help you navigate hashtags:

AI social media hashtags generator example, HubSpot

With AI social media tools that generate content ideas or even write posts, it’s not about robots replacing humans. It’s about making sure that the human creators on your team are focused on what really matters — adding that irreplaceable human touch.

Enhanced Personalization

You know that feeling when a brand gets you, like, really gets you?

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AI makes that possible through targeted content that’s tailored with a level of personalization you’d think was fortune-telling if the data didn’t paint a starker, more rational picture.

What do I mean?

Brands can engage more quickly with AI than ever before. In the early 2000s, a lot of brands spent millions of dollars to create social media listening rooms where they would hire social media managers to find and engage with any conversation happening online.

Thanks to AI, brands now have the ability to do this at scale with much fewer people all while still delivering quality engagement with the recipient.

Analytics and Insights

Tapping into AI to dissect the data gives you a CSI-like precision to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what makes your audience tick. It’s the difference between guessing and knowing.

The best part about AI is that it can give you almost any expert at your fingertips.

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If you run a report surrounding the results of your social media content strategy directly from a site like LinkedIn, AI can review the top posts you’ve shared and give you clear feedback on what type of content is performing, why you should create more of it, and what days of the week your content is performing best.

This type of insight that would typically take hours to understand.

Now …

Thanks to the power of AI you can upload a spreadsheet filled with rows and columns of data just to be met with a handful of valuable insights a few minutes later.

Improved Customer Service

Want 24/7 support for your customers?

It’s now possible without human touch.

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Chatbots powered by AI are taking the lead on direct messaging experiences for brands on Facebook and other Meta properties to offer round-the-clock assistance.

The fact that AI can be trained on past customer queries and data to inform future queries and problems is a powerful development for social media managers.

Advertising on Social Media with AI

The majority of ad networks have used some variation of AI to manage their bidding system for years. Now, thanks to AI and its ability to be incorporated in more tools, brands are now able to use AI to create better and more interesting ad campaigns than ever before.

Brands can use AI to create images using tools like Midjourney and DALL-E in seconds.

Brands can use AI to create better copy for their social media ads.

Brands can use AI tools to support their bidding strategies.

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The power of AI and social media is continuing to evolve daily and it’s not exclusively found in the organic side of the coin. Paid media on social media is being shaken up due to AI just the same.

How to Implement AI into Your Social Media Strategy

Ready to hit “Go” on your AI-powered social media revolution?

Don’t just start the engine and hope for the best. Remember the importance of building a strategy first. In this video, you can learn some of the most important factors ranging from (but not limited to) SMART goals and leveraging influencers in your day-to-day work:

The following seven steps are crucial to building a social media strategy:

  1. Identify Your AI and Social Media Goals
  2. Validate Your AI-Related Assumptions
  3. Conduct Persona and Audience Research
  4. Select the Right Social Channels
  5. Identify Key Metrics and KPIs
  6. Choose the Right AI Tools
  7. Evaluate and Refine Your Social Media and AI Strategy

Keep reading, roll up your sleeves, and follow this roadmap:

1. Identify Your AI and Social Media Goals

If you’re just dipping your toes into the AI sea, start by defining clear objectives.

Is it to boost engagement? Streamline your content creation? Or simply understand your audience better? It’s important that you spend time understanding what you want to achieve.

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For example, say you’re a content marketing agency like Foundation and you’re trying to increase your presence on LinkedIn. The specificity of this goal will help you understand the initiatives you want to achieve and determine which AI tools could help you make that happen.

Are there AI tools that will help you create content more efficiently? Are there AI tools that will help you optimize LinkedIn Ads? Are there AI tools that can help with content repurposing? All of these things are possible and having a goal clearly identified will help maximize the impact. Learn more in this Foundation Marketing piece on incorporating AI into your content workflow.

Once you have identified your goals, it’s time to get your team on board and assess what tools are available in the market.

Recommended Resources:

2. Validate Your AI-Related Assumptions

Assumptions are dangerous — especially when it comes to implementing new tech.

Don’t assume AI is going to fix all your problems.

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Instead, start with small experiments and track their progress carefully.

3. Conduct Persona and Audience Research

Social media isn’t something that you can just jump into.

You need to understand your audience and ideal customers. AI can help with this, but you’ll need to be familiar with best practices. If you need a primer, this will help:

Once you understand the basics, consider ways in which AI can augment your approach.

4. Select the Right Social Channels

Not every social media channel is the same.

It’s important that you understand what channel is right for you and embrace it.

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The way you use AI for X is going to be different from the way you use AI for LinkedIn. On X, you might use AI to help you develop a long-form thread that is filled with facts and figures. On LinkedIn however, you might use AI to repurpose a blog post and turn it into a carousel PDF. The content that works on X and that AI can facilitate creating is different from the content that you can create and use on LinkedIn.

The audiences are different.

The content formats are different.

So operate and create a plan accordingly.

Recommended Tools and Resources:

5. Identify Key Metrics and KPIs

What metrics are you trying to influence the most?

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Spend time understanding the social media metrics that matter to your business and make sure that they’re prioritized as you think about the ways in which you use AI.

These are a few that matter most:

  • Reach: Post reach signifies the count of unique users who viewed your post. How much of your content truly makes its way to users’ feeds?
  • Clicks: This refers to the number of clicks on your content or account. Monitoring clicks per campaign is crucial for grasping what sparks curiosity or motivates people to make a purchase.
  • Engagement: The total social interactions divided by the number of impressions. This metric reveals how effectively your audience perceives you and their readiness to engage.

Of course, it’s going to depend greatly on your business.

But with this information, you can ensure that your AI social media strategy is rooted in goals.

6. Choose the Right AI Tools

The AI landscape is filled with trash and treasure.

Pick AI tools that are most likely to align with your needs and your level of tech-savviness.

For example, if you’re a blogger creating content about pizza recipes, you can use HubSpot’s AI social caption generator to write the message on your behalf:

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AI social media generator example

The benefit of an AI tool like HubSpot and the caption generator is that what at one point took 30-40 minutes to come up with — you can now have it at your fingertips in seconds. The HubSpot AI caption generator is trained on tons of data around social media content and makes it easy for you to get inspiration or final drafts on what can be used to create great content.

Consider your budget, the learning curve, and what kind of support the tool offers.

7. Evaluate and Refine Your Social Media and AI Strategy

AI isn’t a magic wand; it’s a set of complex tools and technology.

You need to be willing to pivot as things come to fruition.

If you notice that a certain activity is falling flat, consider how AI can support that process.

Did you notice that your engagement isn’t where you want it to be? Consider using an AI tool to assist with crafting more engaging social media posts.

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Make AI Work for You — Now and in the Future

AI has the power to revolutionize your social media strategy in ways you may have never thought possible. With its ability to conduct customer research, create personalized content, and so much more, thinking about the future of social media is fascinating.

We’re going through one of the most interesting times in history.

Stay equipped to ride the way of AI and ensure that you’re embracing the best practices outlined in this piece to get the most out of the technology.

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