How Can You Effectively Track and Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns

The importance of a sound email marketing campaign cannot be stressed enough. Reports have shown that emails can generate an ROI as high as 3800%. However, to get this promsing ROI, you need to keep an eagle eye on the performance of your campaigns and adjust your strategy wherever it might be found lacking. You can do this by tracking the right metrics.

                             

Let us have a look at what these metrics are, what they indicate, and how you can turn them into useful insights -

Open rate

This metric indicates the percentage of subscribers who have opened your email, out of your total subscribers.

If your open rate is low, this is a strong indication that the subject lines of your emails need your attention. A relevant, attention-catching subject line will ensure that your emails get opened. Of course, the problem might be that you are sending emails at a time when your prospects are too occupied or busy to look through them.

To improve your open rate, test out different subject lines and research the best times to send out emails based on the behavior of your target audience.

Click-through rate

This metric indicates the percentage of subscribers who have clicked on a link you have placed inside your email. This is a vital metric as it represents how inclined your subscribers are to take further action (such as subscription or direct purchase) through your emails.

If it is low, you will want to examine whether the anchor text you have used for the link is compelling enough for them to click, and whether it is placed in a position where it is easily visible to the reader.

Bounce rate

This is the percentage of the total emails sent which were unable to successfully reach the intended recipient.

In some cases, the email can bounce to due a server or other technical problem at the receiver end; however, it could also bounce due to an invalid or non-existent email. Thus, you need to carefully validate your subscriber list before sending out emails to prevent a high bounce rate.

Unsubscribe rate

This is the percentage of your subscribers who have opted out of receiving any further email communication for you.

A high unsubscription rate is definitely undesirable. There can be many factors responsible for unsubscription such as irrelevant/low-quality content, too high frequency of sending emails, and so on. You can simply send out a short survey to the unsubcribers to find and remedy the root cause, in order to reduce this occurence.

Of course, it can be quite difficult to execute a campaign and manually track these metrics. Using an email automation software will help you improve your campaign efficacy and get detailed, periodic analysis so that you can have more time to focus on your business strategy. You can also engage the services of a digital marketing company to strategize and execute creative email marketing campaigns on your behalf.

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.

How to Run an Effective Social Media Advertising Campaign

Every business needs a strong social media presence for increasing their brand awareness and engaging with consumers in the digital world. Sharing useful content and participating in relevant discussion threads is of course useful, but running an optimized social media advertising campaign gives an extra boost to your organic efforts.

                     

If you are doubtful whether your ad spend will provide sufficient ROI, consider this – 52% of all online brand discover is attributed to public social feeds (including both paid and organic ads), and a staggering 92% of Instagram users have admitted that they have followed a brand, visited their website or purchased a product or service after becoming aware of it on the platform.

Before you start with the execution of your social media advertising campaign, make sure that you have considered the following -

•  Campaign goal (Whether you want people to purchase, follow your brand, install an app, and so on)

•  The platform(s) you are going to use (based on target audience behavior)

•  Your budget (either for a specific time period or for every ad)

Set up a schedule

Setting a schedule will help you manage your campaign in a more organized manner, and leave plenty of time to create quality content and design in advance.

Mix up your formats

Instead of using only plain text ads, Stories and video formats will help you generate more engagement.

Optimize your CTAs

A clear, compelling CTA will bring you a higher click rate. Offering a special discount or freebie will work even better.

Create a custom landing page for your ads

A custom landing page that matches the intent of the ad will help drive a greater conversion rate, instead of just redirecting the users to your website.

Don't use the same ad for every platform

Consider the characteristics, best practices and target audience behavior on the respective platform before you post the ads.

Review the analytics regularly

Doing so will help you determine how well your campaign is performing, so that you can re-adjust your strategy or reallocate your budget based on the results.

You can get in touch with a digital marketing company to help you strategize and execute optimized social advertisement campaigns that match your marketing and budget goals, as well as target the accurate audience.

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.

How to Plan an Effective Digital Marketing Campaign for Your Customers

Planning a digital marketing campaign involves a lot of careful considerations and requires a tremendous amount of skill, especially when you are doing so for a third party.

How effectively you plan and execute a campaign for your customers will form the crux of customer satisfaction and your future relationships with them. 

Let us see the best practices you can adopt while crafting a digital marketing campaign that will maximize the ROI for your customers -

Define the marketing objectives

Naturally, the first step for any campaign will be to define the ultimate objectives. This will help you gain a clear sight of the steps you need to take to achieve these objectives. It is best to limit the number to two or three, as working towards too many objectives can scatter your efforts in different directions. Along with objectives, you will also need to set a timeframe and budget for the campaign.

Some possible objectives for a digital marketing campaign are -

•  Increase brand awareness

•  Improve SEO to increase online visibility and traffic

•  Generate quality leads or enquiries

•  Engage customers on social media

Define the target audience

The next step will be to determine who you will be speaking to, their business needs, pain points and how your customer's solution can help them overcome their problems. You can further segment your audience into smaller groups according to factors such as demographics, geographical location, job titles and so on. This will enable you to hyper-personalize your messaging for generating a better response and engagement.

Choose your digital channels

Once you have identified the personas you want to target, you need to decide how you are going to reach them. The selection of channels will be based on your marketing objectives, behavior of target audience and your budget.

Some of the most effective and popular digital channels are -

• Website and landing pages

•   Emails

•   Social media

•   Content marketing

•  Paid advertisements

Set the right KPIs to measure the campaign performance

Once you start implementing, measurable KPIs will let you know whether or not your digital marketing campaign is working as expected. You can adjust your strategy based on the results of the execution metrics. 

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.

4 Important Content Factors to Check While Performing SEO

Unlike a decade or so ago, where the only consideration for SEO-optimized content was using as many keywords as possible, only value-rich and quality content is favored by search engines.

               

Let us have a look at some of the most important content factors you should pay attention to while performing SEO, so that your website, blog or any other web page has higher chances of ranking for the related search queries -

Uniqueness and value of the content

Ask yourself the following questions while checking your content -

•  Is the content unique and original, or has it been paraphrased or copied as it is from other websites?

•  Is the content written by or has been reviewed by an authorized industry expert?

•   Is the content relevant to your intended target audience?

•   Does the content add to the knowledge of the readers?

The answers to these questions will give you an indication of how well your content can perform on the SERPs.

Use of keywords

Keywords may no longer be the be-all and end-all of an optimized SEO strategy, but they are still important. Correct keywords give search engines an idea of what your page is about. Check whether the relevant keywords are naturally used in the following sections of a web page -

• Page title

•  Meta description

•  Content

•  Images/videos alt text

•  URL

•  Link anchor text

Site architecture

The content must not only of high quality, but also be easily found across the website. A well-designed website architecture makes it easy for Google to crawl and organize your content more effectively.

Backlinks

Backlinks are very important for SEO. Inbound links from high-authority websites and outbound links directing to quality content increase the trustworthiness and credibility of your website.

A digital marketing company can help you perform a detailed SEO audit for content as well as technical soundness, and help you implement an effective strategy to increase your online visibility and traffic.

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.

3 Ways to Convert Organic Traffic into Quality Leads

So, you are getting a healthy amount of organic traffic to your website and are naturally very happy about it. However, this is only half the battle won. A large quantity of traffic will amount to little in the long run if it does not translate into leads and subsequent customer conversion.

Let us see some of the most effective ways to convert your organic traffic into quality leads -

Keep user intent in mind while creating content

While selecting keywords it is natural to gravitate towards those with the highest search volumes. While these are also important, it won’t do to forget that users are getting increasingly specific while searching for the product or service they need.

Do a thorough analysis of the type of content that is preferred by your target audience and gauge whether their intent is only to educate themselves or make a direct purchase.

Once you do this, make sure that your content reflects these intent-based keywords. As your website is already attracting organic traffic, you can simply improve your existing content instead of starting anew.

Give something in return of their personal information

Even if your visitors like your website, they can still be reluctant to hand over their contact information. Offering an incentive like a free ebook or a free trial in exchange for their email address will make them more willing to share the information, as they too are getting something beneficial in return.

Create landing pages whenever necessary

If you offer several products or services, your visitors may find your website content too generic or even irrelevant for them. They might not like trying to search through the entire website for the information that concerns their own business needs. In such cases, you can create highly specific landing pages tailored to a particular product or service, to encourage more lead generation. You can contact a digital marketing company to help you create highly-targeted landing pages designed for conversion.

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.

Characteristics of a great lead magnet

Most of the visitors to your website are nowhere ready to convert or even give up their contact information for further communication. Lead magnets are the extra incentives used by B2B marketingcompanies to encourage visitors to provide data and convert into potential leads. The lead magnet can be anything from free content such as eBooks, whitepapers, case studies, videos to a free trial or product demo.

Let us see what type of content or resource is considered as a good lead magnet -

• The content should provide value or convey how you can solve the lead's business problem

• The content should be simple and easy-to-process

• The resource (such as free trial) should be immediately accessible

•  The content should reflect your experience and/or industry expertise

Common B2B marketing mistakes to avoid

Done right, B2B marketing can bring a sustained stream of quality leads that turn into revenue generating customers; however, there are a few common mistakes that hinder you from achieving your goal. Let us see what they are and how B2B marketing companies can avoid them.

Having no clear plan in place

Posting on social media one day and sending an email the other day will confuse your target audience, and they will cease to take you seriously. Develop a clear plan for every stage of the buyer's journey and how you will progress your prospects throughout it.

Not taking the customer-centric approach

Talking only about your brand or product/service will get you nowhere. Exert yourself to understand your audience's pain points and convey that you are ready to help them find the right solution for their business.

Not paying enough attention to your website

Even with all the emails you send them and the posts you publish on social media, your audience will still want to visit your website to learn more about your solution and brand. An outdated website can make them turn away from you. From content and design to mobile-friendliness, your website must be optimized for new leads.

Why is SEO the Most Important Factor for Digital Marketing

You have a newly minted digital business, are faithfully publishing blogs and social media posts, and are confident that your product or service ranks among the best in the industry. However, you find out that you are not getting the expected amount of traffic and leads. 

This situation is the result of forgetting or ignoring the most important ingredient in your digital marketing mix – Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

All your content, website design and user experience will come to naught if you are not visible in search engine results. As most of the buyers prefer to search for the products or services they need by themselves, it is of paramount importance to practice ethical SEO techniques to be visible in the right place at the right time.

Here are all the ways SEO helps a digital business -

Increases your traffic

Being displayed among the top search results is a seal of approval from Google in terms of the credibility and quality of your website, as well as brand. This naturally increases your click-through rates, and can translate to greater conversion rates.

Increases brand awareness

As you start ranking higher, your website and brand will be exposed to a greater number of users. You will see an increase in the number of page impressions and views.

Proves to be cost-effective

SEO costs significantly less than the traditional methods of marketing. In fact, practices such as publishing SEO-optimized content, guest blogging, improving the user experience of your website will not even cost you anything.

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.

Developing an effective video marketing strategy

There can be no doubts about the effectiveness of videos in a B2B digital marketing strategy. More than 80% of businesses are already using videos in their marketing strategy, and not doing so will leave you at the risk of getting left behind by your competitors. However, you cannot expect success by posting a random video once in a while. 

Here are some considerations to keep in mind while devising your video marketing strategy -

• Understand your audience and your own marketing goals, so that you create videos that will appeal to the audience and publish them on the right channels

• Optimize the content used in the video descriptions and title for SEO to ensure greater visibility

• Make sure that your description states clearly what your audience will learn through the video

• Engage with the viewers by responding to their comments and asking for feedback

•  Use paid advertising tools to promote your video far and wide on social media channels such as Facebook and YouTube

• Analyze the performance of your videos to make sure that they are reaching the right target audience and fetching the engagement you expect

Tips and tricks for social media advertising

Advertising on social media is an integral part of any B2B digital marketing strategy. It helps you to reach or target a large base of target audience in a short amount of time. 

Let us have a look at some important tips to optimize your social media advertising campaigns -

• Set an objective for each type of social media ad you create, so that you choose the right advertising platform and come up with better content

• Set your budget based on the objective more important to you – impressions or engagement

• Create a customized landing page to match the intent of every type of ad, so that your audience can directly access the information they want without the confusion of going through your entire website

• Use short, engaging video ads in your advertising strategy for better engagement and conversion

• Use advanced features like Facebook lookalike audience to enhance your targeting

• Regularly monitor the performance of your ads to adjust your strategy and budget based on the results

Combine paid and organic ads for optimum results.

Effective ways to improve your email marketing campaigns

Email marketing is reputed for fetching one of the highest conversion rates amongst all the digital marketing channels. Yet, many marketers are faced by low open rates, click-through rates and a growing list of unsubscribes. 

Let us have a look at some of the most effective ways with which you can improve the performance of your email marketing campaigns -

• Segment your email list according to a specific criteria such as interest level, job title, geographical location, etc., to increase relevancy of the email

• Write precise, straightforward and compelling subject lines to improve your open rates

• Leverage customer data to send personalized emails to improve click-through and conversion rates

• Make sure that your emails are optimized for mobile devices

• Have clearly defined Call-to-Actions in a prominent place to improve click-through rates

• Test different types of subject lines, content and layouts to find out which of them are best preferred by your audience

• Ask your subscribers for their feedback on what kind of emails and content they would like to receive from you

Developing an effective video marketing strategy

There can be no doubts about the effectiveness of videos in a B2B digital marketing strategy. More than 80% of businesses are already using videos in their marketing strategy, and not doing so will leave you at the risk of getting left behind by your competitors. However, you cannot expect success by posting a random video once in a while. 

Here are some considerations to keep in mind while devising your video marketing strategy -

• Understand your audience and your own marketing goals, so that you create videos that will appeal to the audience and publish them on the right channels

• Optimize the content used in the video descriptions and title for SEO to ensure greater visibility

•  Make sure that your description states clearly what your audience will learn through the video

• Engage with the viewers by responding to their comments and asking for feedback

• Use paid advertising tools to promote your video far and wide on social media channels such as Facebook and YouTube

• Analyze the performance of your videos to make sure that they are reaching the right target audience and fetching the engagement you expect

Applying the SMART methodology to your content marketing goals

The SMART methodology is widely used while setting personal, professional or academic goals. 

Let us how it can be applied to your content marketing goals, and ensure greater success from every piece of content you create -

                           

Specific -

Set a highly specific goal for your content strategy (Example – I will publish five long-form articles every month)

Measurable -

Setting measurable goals will help you assess your progress (Example – I want to increase my social media followers by 25% from last month)

Attainable -

It is good to be ambitious, but you have to make sure your goal can actually be accomplished (Example - Wanting to increase your organic LinkedIn followers by 100 to 200 in a month is attainable, but going for 1000 new followers is not)

Relatable -

The goals should be relevant your overall marketing or business strategy (If your goal is to increase revenue, consider whether investing time and efforts into social media advertising will help you accomplish it)

Time-bound -

Of course, any goal has to be bound by a time frame to make sure you achieve it and do not fall off the wagon (Example – I will publish 3 social media posts by the end of this week)

If you need help with creating content, a digital marketing company can strategize and create value-added content that aligns to your marketing goals.

Improving customer experience during the Covid-19 period

Customer experience has always been prioritized by B2B marketing companies, but it has become more important than ever in these uncertain times. 

Here are some tips on how you can improve your customer experience and service to reassure your customers -

                     

• Keep them periodically informed on how you plan to help them ensure business continuity

• Keep your tone empathetic and compassionate

• Do not try to push for a sale, focus on providing them what they need the most at the moment

• Engage in open-ended communication to figure out their changing business needs

Use online channels such as emails and social media to the fullest for more prompt digital customer service

Are you caught in the trap of thin content?

Content is arguably the most important part of an organization's SEO strategy. However, if you find that you are still not seeing any improvement in ramking or traffic no matter how much content you create, you are possibly creating 'thin content'.

                                                      

As per Google, thin content is the content that provides "little or no value". Naturally, as Google has made clear its emphasis on user-relevant and quality content since the days of Panda update, thin content will not go far. Some examples of thin content are -

• Low-quality content on affiliate pages

• Content created through tools like article spinners or directly translated from another language

•  Content copied directly from another website

•  Page with negligible or no content at all

•  Pages stuffed with keywords

Today, it is vital to produce original content that matches the search intent of the user, to fare well on the search engines. A digital marketing company can help you create such quality content that provides the value of your solution to your target audience.

Effective B2B Lead Nurturing Strategies

More than collecting interest leads, it is important for B2B marketing companies to nurture them and keep them moving through the funnel till they convert into customers.

                                

Break your leads into different categories

Categorizing your leads as warm, hot or cold will give you an idea of the stage they are currently at, and the amount of nurturing they will require to move further.

Use email marketing

Segment your leads into hyper-focuses categories and send personalized messages.

Leverage marketing automation software for quick response

Lacking a fast response, you stand at a risk of leads going cold.

Use targeted content

Send your leads useful content that is tailored to their interests and business challenges, to engage and delight them.

Clearing the air between content marketing and content strategy

We have often noticed our clients get confused between content marketing and content strategy. They think both the terms have the same meaning. It is true that they overlap each other, but there are marked differences between the two.

                     

In the simplest terms, content marketing deals with creating and publishing content on various social platforms, in a way that it is readily available to your target audience. Often, the aim is not to promote or sell, but to simply add to the readers' knowledge and provide an actionable takeaway. It helps you establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and be recognized as a trustworthy source of information.

On the other hand, content strategy is one of the pillars of a successful content marketing campaign.

Apart from deciding what kind of content you should create, it deals with the following considerations -

•  What is the goal of your content piece?

•  Who are you writing for?

•   What are their pain points?

•  How can your solution overcome their problems?

To sum up, both content marketing and content strategy are different, but one cannot exist without the other. Both are necessary to achieve the ROI you desire.

Are you selecting the right digital marketing channels for your business?

Often, we have observed that many of our new clients have a notion that digital marketing does not work for them. After an analysis of their previous campaigns, we find that they simply had chosen the digital channels that were not at all suitable for their business.

On questioning why they selected the particular channels, the answers are usually that they were used by the client's competitors, or their previous marketing agency had suggested them as low-cost channels for getting quick results. Neither of these are good reasons to select a digital marketing channel. Even if you are working in similar domains, what worked out for your competitor may not work out for you. And yes, budget is an important consideration, but it is far more important to check whether the channel can further your digital campaign goals. If you want to establish yourself as a thought leader, posting on social media platforms will not help you. You will need to consistently publish high quality content in the form of blogs, whitepapers or case studies, and in a way that provides real value to your target audience.

Even more important is taking the time to find out which online channels which are frequented by your audience, and the type of content that is readily consumed by them. It will give you a clearer picture of the channels you need to adopt, and the kind of content you need to furnish them with.

The success of your entire marketing campaign hinges on your choice of the digital channels. So when you set out to select them, make sure that you have a clear picture of your marketing goals, your budget and the needs of your target audience in your mind.

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.