Benefits of affiliate marketing for your business

You might have heard mixed reviews about affiliatemarketing. While some say that it is a very effective digital marketing strategy than can fetch high returns, others think it is more trouble than its worth as it takes time before you see the results. 

Done right, with consistent efforts and patience, affiliate marketing can prove very beneficial to both your business and your affiliates. 

The benefits for you include -

•  Increased brand awareness through the extended reach of your affiliates

•  SEO benefits such as higher ranking due to increased domain references and social links to your website

• Increased organic traffic due to both higher ranking and referrals from affiliates

• Increased sales and conversion as the people who follow your affiliates will more easily trust their recommendations

• Allows easy tracking of affiliate links and the number of clicks and genuine traffic so that you can adjust your campaign strategy accordingly.

Types of keywords in SEO you need to be aware of

Needless to say, keywords are an integral part of an SEO strategy. However, choosing the right kind of keywords that will maximize your SEO efforts can be confusing. Let us understand the different types that are available to us -

Short-tail keywords

Made up of three words or less, they have a high volume of search; however, they are also very competitive and difficult to rank for. It is also difficult to pinpoint the user intent for these keywords. You can use them across your content, as they can be helpful for signalling topical authority.

Long-tail keywords

Made up of more than 3 words, they are more specific than short-tail keywords and are easier to rank for. You can use them for drawing traffic to targeted landing pages or blogs.

Seasonal keywords

They are typically related to a specific trend or event, such as the release of a new movie. You can get a great search volume from them, but only for a short amount of time.

Geographical keywords

Keywords that revolve around a specific location, can be very helpful for local business SEO.

Intent-based keywords

Keywords that match a specific user intent such as informational ("how to", "best ways to"), navigational (direct name of a brand or a website), or commercial ("buy", "comparison").

A digital marketing company can help you choose the right kind of keywords for your business and marketing goals, and run optimized SEO campaigns.

Benefits of Referral Marketing

Referral marketing essentially turns your customers into marketers for your brand. As it involves providing incentives and rewards to customers to encourage more referrals, marketers can tend to shy away from this tactic. 

However, the following benefits will convince you to seriously consider referral marketing in your digital marketing strategy -

Generates trust

Customers tend to trust their peer reviews and testimonials more than any advertisements. It has been shown that people are four times more likely to purchase something when a friend refers it to them.

Increases outreach

When you turn your customers into an advocate for your brand, you are naturally expanding your outreach to the customers' own networks, giving you an opportunity to tap into a completely new customer base.

Increases social engagement

As your customers start referring your products, they are more likely to keep returning to your website and social media accounts, thus generating more engagement and solidifying your online presence.

How to overcome banner blindness

Can you remember the last ad you saw on a web page, or any ad at all for that matter?

As consumers started getting bombarded with similar, intrusive and sometimes even boring ads, they started ignoring the areas where banner or display ads are typically present on a web page – leading to banner blindness, and a low CTR. Let us have a look at some ways we can avoid this problem -

•Design your ad such that it stands out from the web page and catches the eye of the site visitor

•Ask yourself if the ad is providing value to the user and whether it is relevant to the target audience

•Experiment with different ad formats and placements, as users know where ads can be found on a web page, and will actively ignore these areas

• Use rich media such as animation or videos to easily catch and retain user attention

A digital marketing company can help you create such attractive and immersive ads that will help you fight banner blindness and improve your click-through rates.

Avoiding information overload in content marketing

Digital marketing or content marketing entails reaching out to your target audience on multiple digital channels and educating them through content. However, the constant barrage of information from all channels such as emails, social media posts, blogs and newsletters can confuse and overwhelm the person at the receiving end, thus leading to information overload. 

This renders the person unable to take an informed decision, leading them to abandon your brand altogether.

Here are some tips to help you avoid information overload -

•                     Keep the content absolutely relevant to your audience's business requirements

•                     Break it down into easily consumable pieces and use visual content for easy comprehension

•                     Create non-screen content such as podcasts, so that users can consume information while mullti-tasking

A digital marketing company can help you strategize and create content in a way that engages and educates your target audience, without overwhelming them with information.

How to convert your blog into a lead magnet

B2B marketers who blog get 67% more leads than those who do not.

Yes, blogs are worth more than establishing yourself as a thought leader and increasing website traffic. Done right, they can bring an influx of qualified leads for your digital marketing efforts.

 Of course, the basic requirement is that the content should provide value to your readers, but the blogs should encourage them to strike a conversation with you. Make smart use of the comment section to engage readers, answer their questions, and if possible, schedule a call or set up an email communication.

Apart from comments, set clear and easily visible CTAs that will prompt readers to either subscribe, sign up, or download. Give them as many avenues to engage with you as are practical. 

When they subscribe, take the opportunity of the welcome email to communicate what kind of content they can expect from you, and direct them to your website or social media.

Thus, with the combination of quality content, clear CTAs, and open-ended communication, your B2B blog can be an effective lead generation tool.

How much content does a B2B buyer consume before making a purchase decision

It has long been established that the greater part of the buyer's journey takes place online. Majority of buyers turn to Internet searches when they find themselves in the need of a product or service. Obviously, this process does not go on indefinitely. There has to be a certain limit to the amount of content consumed by the buyers, before they settle on a vendor.

A recent study from Forrester has shown that this limit is 13 content pieces for the average B2B buyer. These pieces are further broken down into 8 pieces from the vendor and the remaining 5 from third-party sources. The type of content covers a wide range from blog posts and whitepapers to videos and customer testimonials.

The study also revealed that the vendor website remains the topmost source of information for the buyers and is consulted throughout all the stages of buyer's journey. Along with internet search, social media and emails, peer reviews also play an important role in the purchase decision.

The results have once again highlighted the importance of quality content. With just around 8 content pieces to sway the buyer to your side, you need to make every one count.

Differences between B2B and B2C email marketing

On the surface, the ideology behind email marketing for both B2B and B2C brands appears quite similar. After all, both of them have to send targeted emails to the respective target audience with the aim of attracting leads or building business relationships. However, when you look deeper, you can make out marked differences between B2B and B2C email campaigns.

Subject matter

While B2B emails tend to educate a prospect or focus on the business value of the brand's solution, B2C emails place more emphasis on providing entertainment value for the reader.

Tone

B2B emails are usually restricted to a formal and professional tone of communication, while the tone of B2C emails is usually informal and friendly.

Length of sales cycle

As B2B sales cycles are longer and more complex than B2C, the emails focus on prospecting or building customer relationships, rather than pushing the reciever for immediate sales. The B2C email can be as simple as addressing the individual, and including a CTA directly for purchase.

How to leverage videos for B2B marketing

Videos have shown their merit in increasing brand awareness and conversion rates for both B2C and B2B brands. 

Of course, many B2Bmarketers are creating product demo videos, but there are many other ways through which you can explore the potential of videos to the fullest -

Today, customers want to get to know the brand they are purchasing from, just as much as the product or service they are offering. Creating a short, engaging video that introduces your team, your company's mission and vision will hook audience attention and make you more memorable than your competitors.

You can also create videos about your client success stories. If you can get your client themselves to speak for you, the potential customers can hear the benefits of your solution straight from the horse's mouth.

Videos also offer you a way to connect live with your audience through webinars. You can interact with a large audience base simultaneously, showcase your expertise and answer their queries.

Digital marketing tips for beginners

Stepping out in the already crowded and fiercely competitive world of digital marketing can prove to be daunting. 

Let us have a look at some simple tips to ease your journey -

Understand your marketing goals

Without a clear goal, your campaigns will not be effective. Before starting any campaign, make sure that you decide whether you want to generate leads, build brand awareness or simply increase audience engagement.

Optimize your website

Your website is one of the most important digital marketing channels, as well as the first impression of your brand for your audience. Start optimizing it early for SEO, content and user experience for best results.

Be active on social media

Social media platforms are the best way to connect with your audience and industry peers, and increase brand awareness when you are just starting out. Posting interactive and user-oriented content will help you drive more traffic to your website.

Start creating an email database

Email marketing is one of the most effective and cost-efficient digital markeitng channels. Writing short, personalized emails with compelling CTAs can greatly increase your traffic and conversion rates.

Marketing Qualified Lead vs Sales Qualified Lead

Qualified leads are important to streamline the sales process, but the different technical terms can be quite confusing. 

Let us understand the exact difference between the titular terms -

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

MQL is a lead who is more likely to convert into a customer, compared to other leads. They fit your ideal buyer demographic or job title, and have shown interest in your product or service by placing enquiries, viewing your pricing information, etc. However, there is no guarantee that they will make a purchase. They have to be nurtured more, before they are ready to buy.

Sales Qualified Lead

A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a lead who is actively considering making a purchase and is willing to get in touch with your sales team. An SQL will be typcially researched and vetted by your marketing team, and handed over to the sales team upon being deeemed qualified. Essentially, SQL is an MQL who showed readiness to talk to your sales team.

What is the importance of qualifying marketing leads?

A large pipeline full of leads sure sounds nice, but it does not indicate sales in the same proportion. 

Every lead will not, or cannot, turn into a revenue-generating customer. In an eagerness to close sales, digital marketing teams often pass on their leads to the sales team without proper evaluation. 

As a result, sales team has to go over the process again and very few leads are actually converted into customers. The time and effort of both marketing and sales teams is wasted, which can also give rise to contention and lack of trust between the two.

Thus, it is important for marketing and sales teams to work together and decide the criteria for the ideal lead. If and only if a lead fits this criteria, it would be labelled as marketing qualified and be passed over to the sales team. This will help quicker closure of sales, save unnecessary efforts and enable steady revenue growth. You can use qualifying criteria such as BANT to create the profile of your ideal buyer.

Important channels for digital marketing

Digital marketing offers you a wide choice of channels for promoting your brand, product, or service. Let us have a look at some the most important of these channels -

Content marketing

Content is the main pillar for all your digitalmarketing initiatives. Publishing helpful, relevant and original content in the form of blogs, videos, infographics, etc. is necessary for moving your prospects further through every stage of the sales funnel.

Website and landing pages

Arguably one of the most important digital channles, website is the top source of information for prospects about your brand and products. A well-designed website with useful content greatly increases chances of conversion.

Social media marketing

Relevant social media platforms will help you increase brand awareness, and strengthen business relationships by engaging your customers.

Pay-per-click advertising

PPC ads are a great way to quickly boost your visibility and increase relevant traffic to your page.

Email marketing

Personalized, well-designed emails can help you increase conversion rate. Email marketing facilitates both customer acquisition and customer retention.

SEO

SEO ties all your digital marketing efforts together by increasing your search engine visbility, brand awareness and organic traffic.

How to ask for a testimonial from customers

Not every customer is going to leave a glowing review on your website, even if they are happy with your product or service. Sometimes, they only need a prompt from your side to do so. But, many business owners hesitate to ask for testimonials, as they fear nagging the customers.

However, you should not overthink about it. Most customers will be happy to leave you a review, if you ask them in straightforward and simple words. The first rule is to act quickly. Ask them for a review within the first one or two days of the purchase, while you are still fresh in their mind. 

Simply send them an email and SMS asking to take some time to leave a review on your website. You can even register on third-party review sites and give them a choice of where they want to leave the review.

Sometimes, a customer might even praise you while conversing verbally. Ask for permission to put their words in writing and post it on your website.

You can even offer incentives like a discount on the next purchase on leaving a testimonial, to encourage more reviews. Ultimately, they will greatly help you boost SEO and add to your credibility. Thus, all you need to do is to shed any hesitation, and simply ask what for what you need.

3 alternative search engines to Google

Google might be the undisputed king of search engines, but due to privacy issues many users have moved on to other search engines. Digital Marketers will do well to take these alternatives into account, as they will face much less competition to rank and draw traffic on them.

Here are some of the most popular alternatives to Google -

Bing

Considered by many as the most popular search engine after Google, Bing is easy to use and offers many features similar to that of its main competitor.

DuckDuckGo

Favored for the privacy it offers, coupled with a clean interface and minimal ads.

StartPage

Another search engine which values user privacy, StartPage does not track or store user data, or serve ads based on browsing behavior.

Key benefits of Email Marketing

Chances are that you have heard a lot of talk about email marketing being dead. However, statistics show that more than 59% of marketers consider emails to be their biggest source of ROI.

If you are not already including emails as a part of your digital marketing strategy, here is why you should start doing so -

Improves personalization

Emails enable you to send targeted content to a very specific group of your customers or audience. Sending the right message at the right time can greatly increase your lead flow and conversion rate.

Helps strengthen customer relationships

Communication with customers is very important for inspiring brand loyalty. Emails let you stay in touch with them, without being intrusive.

Helps increase website traffic

Using compelling CTAs, you can use emails to drive traffic to your website, social media accounts, blogs, or any landing pages you have created.

Is cost-effective

Email marketing will cost you much less compared to traditional marketing channels like print and radio advertisements, even if you are investing in an email automation software.

Why should B2B marketers pay more attention to voice search

Though a novelty around a decade ago, voice search has rapidly become a norm thanks to advancements in machine learning and speech recognition algorithms. There are tons of statistics that only confirm how much voice search has, and will continue to grow in the foreseeable future.

Now, B2B marketers have always been a bit slow to adopt major technology changes, but it's a different story with voice search. Users have long passed the stage of using voice searches for weather updates and traffic conditions. They are using it for obtaining more in-depth informations, such as questions that include "how", "why", "what" or "where". Moreover, featured snippet results are also pulled from voice searches.

Thus, optimizing for voice search will tremendously help SEO and help you get in front of your target audience at the right time.

Creating a Facebook group for your business

Groups on Facebook are popular for the simple reason that they unite a lot of like-minded people for meaningful discussions. 

Creating your own business group gives you an opportunity to bring a large part of your audience under one roof. Keep the following points in mind to reap the maximum benefits from your group -

•  Set a clear purpose of the group, i.e., decide whether you want to create the group to sell, to increase brand awareness, or simply to engage your existing customers. This will help you narrow down the members from target audience you want to be a part of the group.

• When you are inviting members, make sure you send a personalized message to them, to increase chances of a positive response.

• Keep your group public or private based on social media marketing goals. If you want it to be exclusive, keep it private.

Make sure that the content you post is aimed at helping them solve their business challenges, and encourages open communication with you and other team members.

Why should you optimize for visual search?

Visual search is all the rage today, and the trend will only continue to rise. A recent study has shown that more than 60% of millennial's were comfortable with the inclusion of visual search into their digital shopping experiences.

The reason for this preference is simple. Not every person knows exactly what they are looking for, or can articulate the appropriate search query with ease. If they simply have the image of the product they are looking for, the results will show it along with similar products.

Thus, brands who are dealing in products will benefit from optimizing their digital marketing strategy for visual search in the long run. For this, the most important part is to make sure that you name your images precisely, with target keywords included in title and alt-tags.

5 black hat SEO techniques to avoid at all costs

Black hat SEO is a set of practices that go against Google guidelines. They might help you increase your ranking in a short time, but will prove harmful in the long run. Those who are new to SEO may have trouble recognizing black hat practices, and can inadvertently fall under Google's axe. 

Here are the most prominent black hat SEO techniques you should steer clear from -

Keyword stuffing

Repeating the same keyword over and over in the same sentence or paragraph, rather than strategically placing it across your content.

Cloaking

Creating two separate versions of a web page, one for human visitors and one for search engine bots.

Duplicate content

Copying content from another website and posting it as it is (or just paraphrasing it a little) on your page.

Clickbait

Using clickbait titles to generate curiosity among users and directing them to an irrelevant page.

Link buying or link farming

Paying another website for obtaining backlinks, or using invisible text or links to hide it from human visitors, but visible to search engine bots.

Dos and Don'ts of B2B marketing

Dos

Segment your target audience

Even if your target organizations appear similar, each of them will have unique needs and business challenges. Focus your messaging to fit their individual needs for a shorter sales cycles and increased conversions.

Have a lead nurturing strategy in place

Dealing with a large volume of leads can cause many of them to fall out from the pipeline, owing to lack of attention on your part.

Choose the right KPIs

Instead of focusing on vanity metrics like page views and number of likes on social media posts, focus on actionable KPIs like conversion rate that will help you steer your digital marketing campaign in the right direction.

Dont's

Copy your competitors blindly

Competitor analysis is important, but what worked out for them might not be right for your business.

Focus only on your product or service

Focus on helping your customers and target audience solve their business challenges and meet their requirements.

Underestimate SEO

All your efforts to reach out to your target audience will be in vain if you are not visible on search engines.

How to deal with duplicate content issues

Duplicate content can seriously harm your SEO, and can even cause your website to be penalized by Google. Even if you remove the possibility of duplicacy through manual actions, there are certain technical issues that can lead to duplicate content.

These technical causes involve URL issues (www, http, https etc are considered different even if they are point towards the same page), different session Ids stored in the same URL, etc.

Here is how you can avoid duplicate content through such issues -

301 redirect

Informs search engine which URL is the original one, and links duplicate versions to it.

Domain

Set a preferred domain to avoid URL issues.

Rel=canonical

Informs the search engine that the URL in question is the copy of original

Ways to increase the credibility of your website

In an era where online frauds are so rampant, consumers are wary to trust any new brand or business they come across. Trust factor becomes the basis of their purchase decision. As your digital marketing website is the top source of information about you and your brand, it is essential to establish your credibility through this medium. 

Let us have a look at some ways to increase your website trustworthiness and credibility -

1.                 List your physical address to show that you are an authentic and operational business

2.                 Make sure that your contact information is easily visible

3.                 Improve overall website design, user experience and content

4.                 Showcase information about your staff, their expertise and credentials

5.                 Include testimonials and reviews from your existing customers

6.                 Get an SSL certification for website security

7.                 Display your professional partnerships or your biggest clients

How can businesses make the most of social media

If you are a business, you are most definitely created a presence on one or more social media platforms. However, there is a huge difference between using your accounts effectively for social media marketing, and just using them for publishing an occasional post. Let us see how you can exploit the full potential of social media -

Before you start posting, decide why you want to use social media. Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or simply connect with your peers and customers? This will give you more clarity on the kind of content you want to post.

Rather than publishing cold, promotional content, focus on showcasing the human side of your brand and the thought process of company leaders. Customers today look beyond the product and into the credibility and mindset of the brand behind it.

Engage in meaningful, personalized communications with your customers. The ultimate goal of social media is not to gain followers, but to build strong relationships that help you enable revenue over a long term.

Benefits of affiliate marketing for B2B

Word of mouth has always been one of the most powerful influencers for a purchase decision. B2B marketers can further leverage this influence with affiliate marketing. In this approach, another business or person will place an ad, or promote your product on their website, blogs or social media. 

Whenever their link sends over a revenue generating lead to your business, you will give them a commission based upon the leads, traffic and sales. Thus, both you and the affiliate will benefit from the arrangement.

                                          

Not only will affiliate marketing increase your lead flow and traffic, but also let you tap into a new customer base if you have entered into an arrangement with another business. Provided you nurture and engage them consistently, they can turn into regular customers for your brand as well.

Embracing empathy marketing in B2B

The B2C space has excelled in the area of evoking empathy in their target audience, the B2B market has been lagging behind. Considered to be a logical and a more professional process, empathy has little space in the B2B buyer journey. However, studies have shown that it plays an important role in influencing the buyers' purchase decision.

Customers are constantly bombarded by marketing content, so much so that it can become difficult to even distinguish content from each brand. In such a scenario, they will search for a brand that they can personally connect to. By adopting an empathetic approach, you are essentially putting yourself in the shoes of your customers and understanding business problems from their point of view. Doing so will enable you design a strategy that appeals to their emotions and lets them see a personal value in your solution.

For truly effective empathy marketing, engage in open-ended conversations with your target personas and provide content based on their problems, rather than pushing them towards content which you think they should read.

3 Effective Ways to Increase Your SEO Traffic in 30 Days

SEO is a game of patience. It takes anywhere between three to six months to truly see yourself ranking higher for relevant search results. Until you achieve your final goal, following the given practices will help increase your organic SEO traffic within a month's time -

Publish content regularly

Quality content, whether it is in the form of blog posts, infographics, ebooks or videos is one of the best ways to draw traffic. Once you have published it, make sure that you actively promote it on all the social media channels relevant to your audience.

If your content strikes the right chord with your audience, they will happily share it with their own network and drive more traffic towards you.

Even guest blogging on high-authority websites in your niche will greatly help increase brand awareness and increase traffic through quality backlinks.

When you are creating content, prefer targeting long-tail keywords as they are less competitive to rank for.

Practice email marketing

Targeted and personalized emails are a great way to drive traffic towards both your website and social media channels. Keep them engaged through the kind of content they are interested in. For example, some subscribers will prefer reading blogs, some will prefer downloadable content, while others will be interested in any new offers or deals from your side.

Improve the user experience of your website

User experience is one of the key factors of good SEO. Optimize the loading speed of your web pages, find and fix any broken links and make sure that your visitors can easily find the information they need.

TSL Consulting Pvt Ltd is an integrated marketing company based in India. We offer customized outbound marketing, inbound marketing, digital marketing and data profiling services to a wide spectrum of small and mid-sized organizations.