4 Digital Media Trends that Will Dominate 2017

2017 is going to be a big one. We’ve got a new president, technology is advancing faster than ever before, and most importantly, the second season of Stranger Things will be released on Netflix (If you haven’t watched the first season, close this window and start the first episode immediately. Seriously, so good). But we all know that with cultural changes come changes in marketing. Based on the trends we saw in 2016 and even the changes we’ve seen in the first couple weeks of the new year, these are our digital marketing predictions for 2017:

Influencer Marketing

A new form of stardom has taken the world by storm, and we’re not talking about traditional celebrities like musicians and movie stars. “Influencers” in marketing are people who have grabbed the attention of large audiences through some sort of skill or achievement. Social media and influencer marketing go hand-in-hand because most influencers’ fame is reflected through large social media followings. Often coined as “Instagram stars,” these people are paid by brands to promote products or services. They’re already established and trusted by their followers, so it’s expected that more of these personalities will jump on the advertising bandwagon this year.

Live streaming

Even though live streaming had been introduced previously by platforms like Periscope, the release of Facebook Live in 2016 was a real game changer. Live broadcasting allows brands to reach their audiences in real time and in a genuine, unedited way. Facebook Live allows two-way text conservations as well, giving viewers the chance to personally engage. Before you get too excited, know that Facebook Live can be very hit or miss. If you live stream just for the sake of live streaming, you probably aren’t providing any value to your viewers and might come off as annoying. As with anything else, content is key in live video. Either way, we expect more brands to utilize Facebook Live and more consumers tuning in.

Chatbots

The phrase “tech support” alone makes anyone groan because it used to involve calling a 1-800 number, waiting a half hour to get a real human on the phone, and then inevitable frustration when the person on the other can’t help you. Chatbots are a new customer service trend, and we expect to see a lot more of them in 2017. A chatbot is a basic form of artificial intelligence that is programmed to address customer inquiries, solve problems, take orders, and perform other previously-human functions. A 24/7 live chat feature gives customers the ability to get instant solutions without even having to talk to another person. Chatbots are also able to collect data and provide insights about the traits and behaviors of those they communicate with. Truly a double whammy for marketers.

Snapchat

2016 was supposed to be the year of Snapchat, and it was, kinda. But we expect to see more Snapchat growth this year, especially in terms of advertising. Snapchat’s expiring content creates a sense of urgency and significance, simply because it will be gone forever in a matter of a few seconds. We foresee more individual brands maintaining native Snapchat channels as well as more paid advertising opportunities.

We can make predictions, but only time can definitively tell what kind of content and media people will respond to this year. Our days at Transformation have been filled with meetings and research in the past several weeks in an attempt to plan and prepare for the coming year. The start of a new year is a great time to kick your marketing efforts into gear, especially if you’ve gotten lost in recent incoming and outgoing trends. To find out what we can do to make your business more relevant than ever this year, drop us a line here.

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Coca-Cola: Just Dance Now Mobile Campaign

Coca-Cola has teamed up with Ubisoft on the new ‘Just Dance Now’ mobile game that is sweeping the world, in an integrated content play that sees players scanning Coke cans to unlock special content and activities inside the game. Further pushing the growing trend of native content plays for big global brands into the gaming world.

To launch the new game, Coca-Cola crated an interactive Dance Off installation using the mobile game against the Les Twins.

The launch marks the latest phase in Coca-Cola’s ongoing ‘Movement Through Happiness’ campaign and follows the renewal of its global partnership with entertainment content brand Ubisoft, along side the ‘Flash Fitness Monitor’ will be available from November with a $50 price tag. Further showing Coca-Cola’s push towards healthy living after shrinking its cans across the US.

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A Fast Guide To Making Your Brand Story More Persuasive

Ever wondered why Mousetrap continues to be promoting? Whatever your model presents, it will have an origin and a distinctive story to inform. Frequently, by a fascinating intermingling of details with feeling attracts you actually near to your potential customers and places you in another group. Do not simply produce a manufacturer; PRODUCE it!

What you ultimately did when this occurs of time brought you to where you're right-now. Reveal that account with style. Recommend the manner in which you resolve your customer's issues in a distinctive and solid method.

• Motivate customers and your employees to request what they think about the manufacturer's development. Share your enthusiasm for the friendship and that market you produce. Come up with your original challenges in your website; powerful competition et al. Produce movies that formulates what your potential suggestions for development could be and the manner in which you increased previously.

• Reveal a genuine time case, It's always fantastic to provide a fascinating history about your transactions with a meticulous customer, even although you are proven in periodic discomfort. Clarify how you provided them a healthy answer that left them and how they kept picking out issues and inquiries spellbound. You'll discover that customers will frequently connect themselves with one of these tales. Substantial utilization of social networking systems to distribute the job is recommended.

• Include particular places which have a brief history together with your development. Attempt To target the market at that area. Determine your objective and be certain about your potential reasons.

• Evaluate the down sides identified from the various sections of one's organization and how they cooperate and interact to produce a great answer. Take a look at strange feelings.

• Operate an investigation to check on what's the understanding of one's company among your market. Identify your USP which makes you stand in addition to the rest of one's rivals. Determine with poise and yourself suggestively. Do not be universal; that's a put off. Keep in mind that a freelance reporter appears to be awkward-sounding such as for instance a typist.

• Your story should have the essence of enterprising brand equity. You automatically name Marie Curie when asked about a woman scientist. J K Rowling elicits the vision of Hogwarts, Dark Lord and the Boy who lived!

Reena Jagwani is now a terrific web expert that also can potentially benefit your site boost your primary web-based business enterprise and additionally obtain much more website visitors .

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Where To Find Advertisers For Your Site?

When it comes to making money online, one option is to display advertisements for complementary products and services on your website. This is great for all types of websites and blogs, whether you write for a living, have a photography hobby website or are a multi-national million-dollar company. The question is where do you start looking for advertisers? How do you make it clear that you have available advertising placements?

Check Out Your Competitors
The first thing to do is looking at the competitors in your niche. They possibly have some marketing placements and are encouraging interested companies to purchase them. This gives you a way to find the names of companies that are already willing to pay for advertising slots. Companies proven to opt for this route are more likely to be open to placing their ads on more websites. At the same time, you can also gather information about business model and pricing structure from your competitor's websites.

Search Your Industry Directory
Check your industry directory for the names of companies within your business sector. A simple online search for a product that is related to your website can yield many leads. You could open ad slots specifically for those that offer something you do not offer or sell, as a way to encourage partnership and opportunities for cross-selling complementary products and services.

Attend Industry Networking Events
Many conferences and networking events are organized every month. You can find an event near you and attend to find potential advertisers and also explore other business opportunities. You do not need to rent a booth at the event to raise your profile, even though that certainly helps if your marketing budget allows. By being a normal participant, you can explore the booths and talk to other visitors to expand your business network. Use these events as a starting point for further discussions and meetings.

Explore Your Business Contacts
Referral is one of the most powerful and convincing channels. You can email your contacts or post on your social network profiles to let them know that you are looking for advertisers. Your friend might know someone who might want to sponsor a section on your website. Or they can give you more leads to explore on your own.

Let Them Find You
Potential advertisers are often your website visitors. If they browse your website and want to advertise their products or services on it, you should make it easy for any potential advertisers to get more information about your advertising program and how to contact you. A media kit can provide this information. It lists the available ad placements on your website and description about your audience. A more advanced media kit can allow potential advertisers to place the ad order directly from your website on their own and you can then review and approve the incoming orders. For a self-service advertising setup like this, you can use a comprehensive ad server that provides all the necessary tools: from placing ad orders to ad serving to performance reporting.

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How To Place Advertisements on the Website?

Proper placement of your advertisements on your website can boost your click through rate (CTR), in turn, increase your advertising revenue. With so many locations to pick from, where is the most profitable placement for your website? You may also be wondering how many ads you should have per page and how many times a visitor should be shown a certain advertisement for optimal performance. Some of the answers to these questions can depend on your site content and page layout. Here are some factors to consider.

In general
All experts agree on one thing: above the fold is better than below the fold. This is because scrolling is not required for the visitor to see the advertisement. You need to consider that visitor’s browser type and screen resolution may change what is above and below the fold. WhereIsTheFold.com is a tool you can use to find the fold location for your website. In contrast, if your website contains an article, placing a relevant ad right after the end of the article is a great location. Once the visitor has finished reading the article, they will wonder what to do next and this creates a perfect opportunity for the advertisement to be seen and clicked.

Now that we know above the fold is better than below the fold, is the right or left side of the site a better location for your advertisement revenue? Google has made a heat map showing the best locations to place their Google Ads. Taking a quick glance at the map would make you think that the left side is better than the right side. Yet, studies show that ads placed close to navigational aids are more successful. So, if your navigation aids are on the right side then consider placing your ads on the right side and vice versa. If you are creating a new website and are wondering where to place the navigation bar, either side is fine. Expert opinions vary but many studies shows that it does not make a difference.

Lastly, place the ads in locations where you believe your viewers’ attention will be focused. This depends heavily on your site and its content. At the same time, overall aesthetics is also important. If a visitor turns away from your page due to poor aesthetics then there is no chance to view or click on any advertisement.

Things to watch out for
You do not want to clutter your page with advertisements, hoping that at least one ad will catch the viewer’s attention. Clutter can create visual blindness drawing the visitor’s attention away from the advertisements. Along the same line, even though it is more effective to place advertisements above the fold, placing too many ads will end up making your primary content harder to find. The visitor is there to view the primary content, not the advertisements, so make sure they can find it easily. Otherwise, your bounce rate will rise and decrease your advertisement revenue. Even more importantly, Google has recently announced that websites with too many ads above the fold may be penalized and downgraded. Also noteworthy, too many advertisements will certainly cause the page to load slower, giving the visitor yet another reason to navigate away from your website.

Optimal advertisement repetition
Although most studies and experts do not provide an exact frequency for which an advertisement should be shown to a visitor for optimal revenue, they do agree on two things. First, repetition is important. Showing an ad five times or more will increase the CTR and banner interaction. Second, "banner burnout" is a reality so frequency capping is an important measure to maximize advertising revenue. You can also rotate banners or refresh the page to keep the visitor engaged.

Experiment, experiment, experiment
The only real way to truly maximize your advertisement revenue is by trying different things. With the above advice in mind, you can experiment by moving ads to different locations, different pages, and with different frequency caps. A good ad server should have great tools to help you do just that. Furthermore, the ad server can provide you the needed statistics to make the comparisons pre and post changes. Always keep in mind that there are seasonal changes so, for example, if your revenue increases from the month of November to the month of December, this could simply be the effect of online Christmas shoppers and not the changes you made to your website. Now go out there and make some money!

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Where Can I Find Website Traffic Information?

Website traffic information is very important for many people such as publishers, advertisers, and website developers. This article describes why it is important and how you can find the traffic numbers. Publishers are always interested in the traffic that their website is getting in order to understand how it is performing and to see if those recent website changes create more traffic or less. They may also want to look at how their competitors are doing. Advertisers want to know how much traffic is going to particular websites. They want to know the reach of their running advertisements and they want to gather traffic data on a new website for a future advertising order. Website developers want to know if the websites they built are successfully receiving traffic making their clients happy.

Web Analytic Tools

If you own a website, the best way to track your traffic is using a web analytics tool. The most common free web analytic tools are Google Analytics and Yahoo Web Analytics. These tools will provide detailed statistics such as unique visitors, page views, and time on site. This data will be very valuable if you plan on selling advertising space to your potential buyers and can be used to develop a media kit. Website developers should install a web analytic tool on all websites that they build. If you are willing to spend some money and feel that the free basic tools are not giving you what you need, you may want to try a more advanced solution like WebTrends, Adobe’s Omniture or IBM’s Coremetrics.

Online Traffic Estimators

If you want a quick and free estimate on the amount of traffic a website is getting, visit any of the popular ones briefly described directly below. These sites are great if you want to spy on your competition or as an advertiser, want to confirm the data provided by a publisher.

Alexa provides an estimate on the percentage of Internet users that may have visited a website during a certain period of time. It works better for websites with high traffic. The estimator can be used to understand traffic trends as well. Furthermore, Alexa supplies audience demographic data such as age and education level.

Compete displays an estimated amount of unique visitors in the U.S. Data is gathered using ISP data, internal tools, and other data sources to provide a fairly accurate estimate of traffic statistics. Again, if the website has a low amount of traffic, only a very rough estimate is provided and in some cases, there is no data available. Compete allows you to export the report into different formats if you wish to analyze or share it.

Quantcast is another traffic estimator which provides a rough estimate of traffic in the U.S. In terms of demographics in the U.S., the site displays data on gender, age, race, education level, whether the visitor has children, and income level. These statistics are again just estimates. Interestingly, the site also offers data on traffic frequency (i.e. regular visitor vs passer-by).

Data Aggregators gather information from multiple sources such as Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, Google, Yahoo and other data sources to provide a comprehensive report. For example, MyDomainStats displays different traffic estimates, a graphical snapshot of the homepage, backlink statistics, Google page rank, and even an estimated monetary value. You can click on the individual data points to go to the particular site of interest if you want more in-depth information from that specific site. These tools are great if you want data from multiple sources as it saves you the effort from visiting each one individually.

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How To Calculate Your Advertising Budget

To calculate your advertising budget, you need to determine your gross mark-up, or gross profit. This number is important because you can use this fund to help your business grow. Say you take in $7,000 a month as gross revenue and $3000 is your gross profit. From this total, you will need to subtract any mandatory expenses. One of the most common mandatory expenses is rent. If your rent each month is $1,000 that will leave you with around $2,000. You will use this number to determine the fund that you can spend on advertising services, such as creating the ad, buying ad space, serving and tracking ad views and clicks via an ad server.

You will now take your $2,000 and multiply that by 12 to get your annual amount, which is $24,000. Next, you need to choose a range that you can or want to allocate for advertising. Depending on your business stage and type, this range can be low or high. Newer businesses might need to spend more on advertising so that people get to know your products and services. On the other hand, word-of-mouth businesses do not need to spend as much. For example, if the range is between 10% to 12%, then you have about $2400 to $2880 per year, or $200 to $240 per month, to spend on online advertising with the goal to boost sales, which in turn can allow for more advertising in the future.

When you have a budget, you need to consider your ad targeting. Unless you have a specific preference and/or previous experience, you will want to consider different traffic sources and audience as an effort to boost and diversify the amount of potential customers. That means working with an ad management company who can maximize your click-through rate with your available budget.

You should not use all of this fund to focus on one or two ads on any single website. It is like putting all eggs in one basket and that is risky. Depending on the budgeted amount, you may want to consider some or all of the following forms of advertising. If you have more money to spend, you can use some amount to explore and experiment with a new marketing channel. Conversions and leads will likely come from multiple sources, including from online publishers or ad networks to local community newspaper ads.

- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help boost online sales from organic traffic

- Pay-per-Click can help drive direct results to your business and you only pay when potential customers click on your link

- Local Marketing should be in play to ensure that you have foot traffic if it is suitable for your business type

- Email Marketing can be useful if you have relationships that are already in place

- Press Release (PR) is great for generating new buzz and interest in your products and services

Make sure you obtain a realistic and specific advertising budget and then utilize it to help your business grow. Ideally, what you find is that over time, this amount will continue to grow as you generate new business and that can help you to invest more into the types of advertising that are giving back the best returns on investment.

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