Approximately 93% of online searches begin with a search engine. Let that sink in for a second.
With more consumers than ever turning to the internet to solve their problems:
It is mission critical to understand what SEO is and how it works to ensure you (& your clients!) are successful in navigating the web’s most popular search engines, namely Google. …
The post SEO 101: The Top 5 Things You Need to Know appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Since 2005 we've published articles, seminars, and podcasts to help ecommerce merchants improve their business. What follows are the 10 most popular articles (based on page views) that we published in August.
The post August 2019 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts appeared first on Practical Ecommerce.
This is a marketing strategy that may change everything you know about content marketing and SEO.
The customer feedback loop is an effective way to improve your offerings to your customers and modify what they get based on their feedback. It’s a business strategy that has been in existence for quite some time, but here, it’s refined towards content marketing and SEO.
Surely, there are ways you can make use of one of the most effective business and marketing strategy in human existence. And it’ll improve your content marketing and SEO efforts and help grow your brand. I’ll be taking a deeper look into the feedback loop, how it works in marketing and how you can apply this to your content marketing and SEO efforts.
Firstly, let’s try to understand what marketing feedback loop is and how it works in the traditional marketing world. Done correctly, and with a well documented and measured process, the marketing feedback loop can improve your content marketing and SEO results.
According to HubSpot author, Caroline Forsey,
“A feedback loop is a process in which the outputs of a system are circled back and used as inputs. .. this refers to the process of using customer or employee feedback to create a better product or workplace.”
Marketers will understand that there are gems to be found in the feedback their businesses and products receive online. Both the positive and negative feedback you get, if utilized properly, can significantly transform how customers perceive and interact with your brand.
A marketing feedback loop is created when a business utilizes the responses they attract from a campaign effort or a product on the social web, and this can be later utilized in their marketing efforts. This may also include feedbacks from surveys and research campaigns.
Here, we’ll look at how it can be utilized to improve content marketing and SEO efforts.
Identifying opportunities for marketing feedback loop is just as important as how to make it work for you. Customers will take to social media to raise concerns or praises about your products and services where potential customers are actively participating in discussions that will determine whether or not to choose you over the competition.
Naturally, you’ll incorporate praises about your services into your testimonial campaigns to promote your business. These content are easily seen. Negative feedback, on the other hand, is where the treasure lies. And you will almost always miss them.
Below, let’s take a look at ways to identify marketing feedback loop and ultimately how you use it to improve your content marketing and SEO efforts.
Customers’ feedback can be looped into the whole brand experience output, which includes user experience(UX), answering the right questions on your website (enabling for richer content experience and broadens keyword opportunities).
Getting content marketing and SEO benefits from implementing feedback loop in your marketing would be a successful effort if done the right way. The following procedures will not only ensure you’re creating a better experience for your users but also gaining SEO advantage in the process.
The most significant drawback to most businesses’ web presence is the user experience, and Google — growing ever-smarter with its constant algorithmic updates — is now effective at scoring a website’s rankings based on overall UX score. The best way for businesses to know how their UX measures up is through direct feedback from those using it. Here, customer feedback can be looped to the design team who can improve upon the website feel and accessibility. The result is a website with better UX and improved search rankings.
Say your content marketing team have been working tirelessly, analyzing trends and interviewing industry experts just to improve visibility and rankings. But the result is slow or abysmal. Here, the marketing team should be tasked to score through the complaints that have been left by your customers and come up with problem-solving content to line up your content calendar. This will not only directly address your users concerns but will help you see improved content marketing efforts.
In 2018, I and my partner at Effective Inbound Marketing, Ayodeji Onibalusi conducted a survey asking people to go visit our website and give feedback about what should be improved on. Majority of the responders wanted us to improve navigation and some others wanted us to produce more marketing content on the blog.
We incorporated the feedback loop by upgrading our content output and introduced breadcrumbs that’ll show the users how they navigated our website. These improvements saw our Alexa ranking move from 850,000 in December of 2018 to 272,000 as of today (August 2019) and our navigation improvement saw our users spend more time on site, dropping bounce rate by 50% and also increasing the number of pages visited per user. This has trickled down to our rankings, with terms like “Amazon” and “Russian Marketing” now driving users to our website.
Getting marketing feedback loop right shouldn’t be tricky if you follow best practices. The core purpose of a marketing feedback loop is to use constructive complaints from your customers to improve your content marketing and SEO efforts. This can be accomplished by identifying their pain-points and incorporating this into your content and SEO campaigns.
Successful marketing feedback loop must follow these rules to positively have an impact on content marketing and SEO.
Customers feedback should be looped to the right department as quickly as possible. Ideally, the customer should already get a response within the first hour, on the same channel. If it’s worth incorporating into a content, your content marketing team should already have a well-thought-out long-form content that addresses critical factors and answers questions such as:
– Was the complaint legitimate?
– Would other customers face this same issue?
– Was there a solution in place before?
– How did the company help the customer resolve the complaint?
– What did the company do prevent future customers from experiencing the same?
Marketers should not make the mistake of addressing issues on different channels from where feedback originated from. Instead of providing a solution to a problem, this may escalate situations as the customer may assume you’re being defensive and trying to manipulate the situation.
If complaints are generated on social media, the complaints should be acknowledged on the same medium. Then support can take it up from there either through DMs or tickets. After which marketing feedback loop should be implemented once there is satisfaction, and then a campaign can be created out of it.
For example, if users complain about the inability to access your products due to lack of breadcrumbs and poor navigation features — like the absence of a search tool, a short term solution may be to point them to categories or help them identify tags. But going further to introduce the features that’ll create a better experience would serve a longer-term purpose.
If the above approach is implemented, then a content marketing campaign around the customer’s feedback and the success achieved would be a welcome step. This would not only help attract more users through content marketing but would also show your brand as a listening one.
Getting content marketing and SEO right is critical to the success of your business if you’re competing online. Then the goal is to discover strategies that’ll keep your efforts successful and help you serve your users better. Marketing feedback loop helps you get this done.
Have you tried using a marketing feedback loop to optimize your SEO efforts? What results did you get?
Femi Haastrup is Founder and CEO of Femtrup LLC. He can be found on Twitter @Femihaastrup.
The post Four ways to use marketing feedback loop to optimize SEO efforts appeared first on Search Engine Watch.
Are you ready for SEO in 2020? I know you’re probably saying, “But Eric, 2020 is months away! Why do I need to worry about that now?” I’ll tell you why. Things are going to change in a big way and if you aren’t preparing now, you’re going to miss the boat.
The biggest change to SEO next year is going to be the growth of voice search. Consider these statistics:
Are you getting nervous yet? You should be. With voice search on a smartphone or desktop, it’s still good enough to have your links appear on the first page of Google search results. But on a smart speaker, it’s not enough.
If you’re not worried yet, let me lay it out for you: When voice search overtakes text search, only one search result will matter. If it’s not you, you’re going to lose, big time.
Now that I’ve probably totally freaked you out – and I hope I have, because this is serious – let me tell you what to do about it.
When you Google something now, you usually get a box where your query is answered, either in a paragraph, list or table. That’s called the featured snippet. In almost every case, the answer box text is pulled from one of the top 10 search results for that query. About 40% of Google Home results come from the featured snippet.
For example, I did a voice search on “how do you meditate?” and this is what came up:
This information is from yoga purveyor Gaiam, and it’s the second search result for the term. The snippet gives you a nice 4-step beginner’s guide to meditation with images. Because it’s so thorough, it pushes the actual search results way down, below YouTube video results and the “People Also Ask” section.
This is actually a good snippet for SEO, because it doesn’t give you all the information that you need in order to meditate; you have to click over for the rest of the information. But if I want to know how old Taylor Swift is?
You can see how that’s a problem for SEO. There’s my answer – no need to click anywhere or even figure out where the information originated.
To further complicate things, smart speakers don’t all use the same algorithms for answering queries. If I’m Gaiam, I’m happy with that spot on Google, but when you ask Alexa the same question, you get directed to wikiHow’s How to Meditate for Beginners.
WikiHow’s content is also a first page result for “how do you meditate,” but it’s much farther down than Gaiam. The smart speakers are optimizing results based on what works best for voice, and Google will likely follow suit as voice search grows in popularity.
Here’s how you get into Google’s featured snippet spot and dominate voice search:
These are good strategies to use when creating new content, but it’s also a good idea to go back and optimize old content, especially your most popular, evergreen pieces. Again, think of the main question that each article or blog post answers, and optimize for that.
You might already have featured snippets that link back to your website and not know it. Ahrefs’ Site Explorer tool can give you that information without your having to manually look up every keyword you rank for in Google:
If you do find out that you have content in featured snippets, don’t think that your work is done. You need to lock that down. Make sure that your content hits all the bullets I listed above, because if it doesn’t, it won’t be long until someone else creates something that does. Make sure there’s no room for competition in that spot.
Dive Deeper:
A lot of people don’t think of brand building as a way to positively impact SEO, but it absolutely does. Branding gives you authority and trust, two things that search engines look at when determining where your content is ranked.
One of the big factors in Google’s algorithm is brand queries. You want to make sure that most – if not all – of the first page real estate for searches for your brand is made up of your own links. And you definitely want to make sure that nothing negative about your brand comes up there:
So how do you build a brand? You take an omnichannel approach to marketing. By using several different platforms for your marketing, like blogs, social media and podcasts, you’re building brand awareness and also giving Google more brand links to index. It’s a win-win.
The more first page results your brand has for search terms related to it, the better positioned you’ll be when voice search takes over. You’ll have full control over the messaging.
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Building your brand also means that you’ll get more links, which are one of the most important ranking factors on Google. Social shares and inbound links from websites with authority count for a lot.
Start building relationships with potential customers and deepen relationships with existing ones, but also reach out to influencers and experts in your niche. If you can get them to share your content, you’ll build your brand much more quickly.
Dive Deeper:
Amazon Polly is a speech recognition tool that will read a piece of content out loud for you. It’s available as a WordPress plug-in, so it’s easy to integrate with blog posts. We added it to some of our content, and it increased dwell time on our website by 19%. And dwell time is an important factor for SEO.
Some people like to read content, while others prefer to listen to it. With Amazon Polly, anyone who visits your website has both options. And they’ll stick around as long as the content is interesting, useful and easily consumed.
Having your content already optimized for voice can only help you when search moves that way completely. In the meantime, your content will get ranked higher because more people are engaging with it.
Remember that earlier stat that 31% of smartphone users worldwide use voice technology at least once a week? Do you think Google is going to serve them up a result that isn’t mobile-friendly? No way.
You can check whether or not your website is fully optimized for mobile with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Here’s what it looks like:
If your site doesn’t pass Google’s test, you’ll need to make some adjustments. If you use a CMS like WordPress for your website, try switching to a new theme that’s responsive – meaning that it will have a flexible layout that allows it to reconfigure for different screen sizes and still look great.
When creating mobile-friendly content, keep these principles in mind:
If you don’t have the chops to write mobile- and SEO-friendly content yourself, hand it off to someone else within the company or outsource it to a freelancer or agency.
When optimizing for voice search, it’s important to have the best content, not the most. One long-form article that clocks in at 2,500 words will do much more for you than four 500-word blog posts that barely scratch the surface of a topic. Content is an investment and if you do it right, you’ll recoup the money you put into it and then some.
Dive Deeper:
Backlinko recently analyzed 10,000 Google Home results to learn about voice SEO, and they found out that there are some other factors that help determine who gets the coveted spot, including:
There’s tons of great information in the study and I highly recommend you read it all. But definitely try to incorporate these takeaways into your voice SEO strategy.
Voice search is going to be a big deal for SEO in 2020 and beyond, and everyone needs to start paying attention. It may still be 2019, but the reason I’m telling you this now is so you have time to prepare.
If you do everything I outlined here, it'll probably take 2-5 months before you see real results. It takes time to climb in the rankings and also to figure out which keywords are going to work for you. Plus, you have to either create or optimize all the content. It’s a lot, and you need to do it yesterday.
I want you to be prepared for the Voicesearchageddon (I’m still workshopping that name) before it arrives. So please, start optimizing your content, stat. If you wait too long, it will be too late and someone else will take your spot. And knocking someone out of first place is much harder than sliding in there with no competition.
The post How SEO Will Change in 2020…and You’re Not Going to Like It appeared first on Single Grain.
There are two types of sitemaps: HTML and XML. HTML sitemaps guide visitors, mostly. XML sitemaps guide search engine bots, to ensure they find a site’s URLs to index. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each will help with your search engine optimization.
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This Weekly Wrap episode is all about people. Why aren’t superstars key to great teams? Is Allstate’s new content internal team in good hands? How do you create a content team powerhouse? And what’s Agile got to do with it all? Continue reading
The post The Weekly Wrap: Your Content Team Doesn’t Need Superstars. It Needs This. appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
If there is one thing my family can tell you, it is that I am cheap. I will look for any and every way to save money. My mother says that I “Squeeze a nickel until the buffalo poops.” So when it comes to PPC, one of my favorite reports to analyze is the search query report — not only to see some of the crazy queries Google or Bing decides to match to a keyword but to also find negatives I can add to save on spend.…
The post The Positive Negative: How to Use Negative Keywords to Save on Spend appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Let’s take a pause. You’ve been running on the content hamster wheel, hopefully executing on an informed and actionable content marketing strategy. But what’s it all for? Why are we doing it in the first place?
For starters, in 2019, roughly 25.8% of internet users were blocking advertising on their connected devices. Ad targeting is going to get increasing more complex with new privacy regulations being introduced and the implementation of cookie-blocking technology being led by Apple and Firefox.
Advertising will continue to become increasingly more expensive and complex. And not to mention, consumers prefer content to advertising. In fact, 70 percent of people would rather get information about a company or learn something from an article or blog post rather than from a traditional advertisement. (Demand Metric)
70% of people would rather get information about a company or learn something from an article or blog post rather than from a traditional advertisement.
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Throughout the funnel, good content is becoming increasingly important. Whether creating your own, aggregating content from experts or facilitating UGC, content can bring exponential value to your marketing efforts.
Let’s take a look at the impact of content throughout the marketing funnel with these 15 content marketing statistics:
1. Knowing your audience and understanding their preferences is essential. For instance, only 22% of millennials want to see email from a brand they support, while 57% of 45 – 54-year-olds do. (HubSpot)
2. Conversely, 52% of millennials want to see video from brands they support while only 25% of those 45-54 do. (HubSpot)
3. 71% of a B2B respondent pool stated they reviewed a blog while on their buying journey. (Demand Gen Report)
4. 32% of consumers check out a brand’s social media presence before checking out their website. (Animoto)
5. Podcasts were cited by 64% of B2B respondents as a valuable content format in the early stage of the buying journey — only falling short of infographics (76%) (Demand Gen Report)
6. People today have 2X more interactions with brands on mobile than anywhere else. (Think with Google)
7. Cisco projected that more than 80% of all Internet traffic will be video by 2021—which means brands definitely need a video content strategy. (Cisco)
8. 87% of consumers want more video from brands. (Hubspot)
9. Instagram is the fastest-growing platform for driving purchases with video. (Animoto)
10. When asked how they’d most like to learn about a new product, over two-thirds (68%) of consumer said a short video would be best, way ahead of text-based articles (15%),infographics (4%) presentations and pitches (4%) ebooks and manuals (3%). (Wyzowl)
11. 65% of B2B content consumers strongly agree they have higher preferences for credible content from industry influencers. (Demand Gen Report)
12. 73% of consumers have been impacted by a brand’s social media presence when making a purchase decision. (Animoto)
13. Per dollar, content marketing produces 3 times more leads. (Kapost/Oracle Eloqua)
14. Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less. (Demand Metric)
Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less.
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15. On average, content marketing costs 41% less than paid search, (Kapost/Eloqua)
On average, content marketing costs 41% less than paid search
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If this feels overwhelming and you still find yourself on the hamster wheel day after day, unclear of what to create and where to distribute it, you are not alone. In fact, only one out of three B2C marketers surveyed in CMI/Marketing Profs 2019 B2C Research Study had a documented content strategy.
Only one out of three B2C marketers surveyed in CMI/Marketing Profs 2019 #B2C Research Study had a documented content strategy.
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To help you up-level your content marketing efforts, we created a 7-page content marketing guide. Fill out the form below to grab your copy of What Great Brands Do That Good Brands Don’t in Content Marketing now.
The post 15 Content Marketing Statistics that Prove the Value of Your Efforts appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.
In June, Facebook rolled out its new Marketing Partner for Agencies Program, and following a thorough vetting of campaigns, tools, and strategy, Seer was named a Preferred Facebook Marketing Partner!
Only 25% of all Facebook advertisers received this designation, putting Seer in an elite class of agencies who can claim access to dedicated representatives, advanced technical support, exclusive events, partner only trainings, and more that are all afforded to only the best of the best. …
The post Seer Interactive Becomes a Facebook Preferred Partner appeared first on Seer Interactive.
As a small- and medium-sized business owner, you are always looking for ways to reach your ideal customers.
There are several strategies that you can apply to market your business, but it is always recommended that you follow industry leaders to understand the marketing strategies that have worked for them, rather than reinvent the wheel.
And if there is one industry leader that can teach you many strategies about effective marketing and business expansion, it is undoubtedly Amazon.
As the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace and largest Internet company in terms of revenue, Amazon’s business success is a lesson for all companies, not just e-commerce or online companies. Their annual revenue for 2018 was $232 billion, which was a 30.93% increase from 2017.
Have a look at the below chart from Statista that displays Amazon’s impressive long-term growth from 1997 through 2018:
The company’s revenue really took off around 2004 and it continues to improve with every passing year. So what was so special about Amazon’s marketing strategy that made the company such a huge a success?
Let's take a look at what SMB owners or entrepreneurs can learn about the tactics employed by the Internet giant in order to improve their own marketing strategy.
Ready? Let’s start!
Amazon is one of the first companies in this world that adopted a highly personalized approach to email marketing.
They send 9 different kinds of emails to every customer based on their purchase history, location, age, on-site browsing, etc. Right from the on-boarding of a new customer to upselling and review solicitation, Amazon has got you covered.
Why is Amazon’s email marketing one of the best in the world? The answer lies in tracking data.
Amazon tracks a lot of data related to their customers, like:
In addition, Amazon keeps their email template consistent and regularly sends out cart abandonment reminders, product recommendations or membership upgrades for Prime:
Amazon is not afraid to send a lot of emails. They send about one daily email to customers just to remind them about any deals they had been browsing:
By keeping the customer updated regarding their past purchase behavior and by sending the latest offers related to their interests, Amazon is able to drive a lot of traffic to its website that eventually helps in maximizing conversions.
Dive Deeper:
There are three big reasons behind the success of Amazon:
As per the Prophet Brand Relevance Index of 2018, Amazon was the second-most-loved company in the U.S.:
Why does Amazon beat Google, Disney, Uber, etc.? They have always delivered on their promise of being the earth’s most customer-centric company. If you've ever had an issue with a product and needed to return or replace it, or speak to a customer service rep, you've experienced this firsthand. Their customer service is outstanding.
And they are constantly upgrading their product delivery method to align with the world around them. With the help of Alexa, you can shop millions of products from Amazon. Yesterday’s science fiction of ordering a bottle of cooking oil using voice commands while you are in the kitchen cutting vegetables has become a reality.
At your (voice) command, Alexa will get the cooking oil delivered to you on a Sunday, within the hour and will even deposit it inside your house. How is this possible? With Amazon’s customer-first and inventive approach.
This is a great lesson for SMBs: Always think about the customer and don’t be afraid to innovate.
Dive Deeper:
The best marketing strategy in this world is word-of-mouth marketing. It is better than any other advertising strategy, including TV ads which have been around for almost a century.
How does Amazon generate word-of-mouth referrals from their customers? As mentioned in #2, the answer lies in exceptional customer service.
Fifteen years ago, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said:
“We don't do any television advertising, and we take all of the money that we would put into television advertising, and instead put it into things like free SuperSaver shipping [free shipping on most orders over $25], lower product prices, category expansion, and invention of new features. Absolutely. The thing that we did early on is that we made it very easy for people to find very obscure products. That was something people remarked on. If you're not doing something that people will remark on, then it's going to be hard to generate word of mouth. The only way to do this consistently over time is through invention.”
And it's still true today, as any marketer will tell you.
Hence, the key to generating referrals from your existing customers is to invest in exceptional customer service that makes buying easier and hassle free.
There is no point in bringing in more customers by spending huge amounts of money in advertising if the customer doesn’t stay for long. Instead, first invest in customer service and then increase the customer retention rate in order to improve your bottom line.
Dive Deeper: Word-of-Mouth Marketing — What Is It and How Do You Do It?
As an SMB owner or entrepreneur, you need to understand every aspect of your business if you want to excel in it. Take your time and write down the answers to the following questions:
As you can see, there are so many questions that you need to answer if you really want to dominate your niche market. Amazon has always taken a step ahead in order to understand its business model and this is one of the biggest reasons for its success.
Learn the secrets to success from entrepreneurs who have grown multi-million or -billion dollar companies on our Growth Everywhere podcast!
Ratings and reviews play a very important role in the purchase decision of customers. Can you imagine browsing an e-commerce site today without a review system in place? You'd probably leave the website!
This is because Amazon has helped e-retailers widely adopt the practice of adding reviews to their website.
Amazon was the first company to allow customers to post reviews of products way back in 1995 when I was just a kid – and in 2010, Amazon was the largest single source of Internet consumer reviews. At that time, many thought that asking customers to review products would give the people a public platform to say negative things about the product or the company.
Critics termed this practice a recipe for “retail suicide“. But Bezos' response was that Amazon was “taking a different approach…we want to make every book available — the good, the bad and the ugly…to let truth loose.”
By the way, here's what Amazon looked like in 1995 (who'd've thought they'd ever become a business that would reach a market cap of $1 trillion??):
After 24 years, it is impossible to think of a retail website that does not have a review system in place. This is the power of “future thinking” by Amazon. When leaders lead, others just follow.
Why is the Amazon review system so helpful and what unique features does it have that makes it better than its competitors? Here are a few reasons:
In the words of Amazon:
“We've worked over the years to make our millions of customer reviews as useful as possible – we’ve added features like Amazon Verified Purchase, helpful votes, and review comments in the pursuit of a system that’s open and flexible and yet structured and helpful for anyone who wants to learn more from other customers about anything we sell.”
Dive Deeper:
One of the inventive ways that Amazon has been growing tremendously is by leveraging the power of Amazon Prime, which is one of the best customer loyalty programs in the market today.
In his annual shareholders letter of 2018, Jeff Bezos wrote:
“13 years post-launch, we have exceeded 100 million paid Prime members globally. In 2017 Amazon shipped more than five billion items with Prime worldwide, and more new members joined Prime than in any previous year – both worldwide and in the U.S. Members in the U.S. now receive unlimited free two-day shipping on over 100 million different items.
We expanded Prime to Mexico, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, and introduced Business Prime Shipping in the U.S. and Germany. We keep making Prime shipping faster as well, with Prime Free Same-Day and Prime Free One-Day delivery now in more than 8,000 cities and towns. Prime Now is available in more than 50 cities worldwide across nine countries. Prime Day 2017 was our biggest global shopping event ever (until surpassed by Cyber Monday), with more new Prime members joining Prime than any other day in our history.”
A business' need for loyalty has been changing. Nowadays, businesses have to rely on a customer's experience to remain loyal to a brand. Sending discount offers alone won’t do any good.
Amazon Prime has been a game changer because it provides so many benefits to the customers, such as:
When there are so many benefits to becoming a loyal customer, then you definitely want to become one.
One of the vital aspects of the Amazon marketing strategy is its acquisition of smaller companies, which helps them provide high value to their customers.
Almost every one of us has played the classic game “Snake” as a child in which a snake feeds on apples to grow bigger and bigger:
The same holds true with business. If you want to expand your business, the best way is to acquire small businesses, depending on your niche, target location and budget. The more you acquire, the more you are able to expand your business.
Here are the top companies that were acquired by Amazon in order to expand its market and reach:
These are just some examples of company acquisitions by Amazon. There are several other companies that Amazon acquired or is in the process of acquiring as of now. The idea behind company acquisition is simple: you get new customers, you get employees to continue looking after them, you enable the product of the smaller business to expand its reach, and you don't need to start all this from scratch.
Amazon does not invest for the short-term; instead it always invests for the long-term. In fact, in 1997, Jeff Bezos issued a manifesto called “It’s all about the long-term.” As Inc.com noted, “Amazon's famous founder didn't just predict the future. He helped shape it.”
In his manifesto – which he has published and sent to all shareholders every year for the last 20 years – Bezos explained his plans for business expansion, keeping only their long-term success in mind:
As an SMB owner, it's important to see the bigger picture, to continue innovating and investing, and to never stop learning and thinking about the future. For instance, when the light bulb was invented in 1879, the candlemaking industry was about to go belly-up. Rather than try to hold back progress, they eventually turned to decorative candles, which continue to increase in popularity even today.
The vision for the long-term is what keeps Amazon profitable with every passing year.
If you are a business owner, you need a team to excel, and if you have a team, there are meetings and meetings and meetings.
Almost every one of us has faced boring and unproductive meetings at the workplace, so how can you make your business meetings more productive? Follow Amazon's three rules when conducting meetings:
Get your meetings right and stop wasting time by following the 3 rules as suggested by Amazon's successful founder.
If the people on your marketing team can convey their message in a better manner, discuss it in a comfortable environment, and are then able to make fruitful decisions, then you will definitely be able to drive maximum conversions from your marketing campaigns.
Amazon is not afraid to promote products across its various social platforms.
With around 2,92,74,382 likes and 2,84,50,645 followers on their Facebook page, Amazon has reached this massive figure by using social media as a platform to help its customers. Amazon always responds to user comments in a timely fashion and polite manner.
Have a look at the below screenshots where Amazon employees reply to customers by name (and give their own name). It adds a human touch to each of a brand's posts, which is definitely appreciated by customers:
Amazon uses the Facebook platform to educate customers about its new product offerings and also to respond to negative feedback in a prompt manner.
When someone asks a question, Amazon representatives answer it quickly, and whenever a customer is frustrated, the retail giant not only responds, but always tries to help the customer.
Amazon uses Twitter to promote its blog and also to get more customers to its other product offerings like Prime and Amazon Music. They have over 3.1 million followers on Twitter. In many cases, their Facebook posts are also shared on Twitter in order to gain more exposure.
The Pinterest page of Amazon is an extension of its main store. Amazon is extremely careful regarding what it promotes on the image-based platform. Only unique, image-friendly products are selected to be promoted on their Pinterest page as well as their “Handmade at Amazon” (for artisan crafts) page:
Amazon also uses Snapchat in the best manner. Messages disappear rather fast on platforms like Snapchat, hence time-based offers are shared to gain more publicity and persuade users to take action. Amazon shares deal codes on Snapchat which can be redeemed during checkout.
It has also partnered with Snapchat to create a visual search tool. Users only need to take a photo of the object with Snapchat's camera and Snapchat will show a card that displays the product name, price, reviews and Prime availability. In short, users can directly order a product from Amazon simply my clicking the Snapchat camera. Amazing, isn’t it?
With an impressive social strategy, Amazon is constantly looking for ways to drive more exposure, gain more followers, enhance engagement and generate direct sales from social media.
Dive Deeper:
Amazon always think ahead of their competitors and one of the best examples to prove this point is the Amazon Influencer Program:
People who have a qualifying YouTube, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook account are invited to create their own storefront on Amazon with a custom URL to house all their recommended products.
Influencers can use the custom URL to guide shoppers to buy products from Amazon and in return they will receive a commission from the e-commerce giant.
In the words of Amazon:
“The Amazon Influencer Program allows you to get your own page on Amazon with an exclusive vanity URL to showcase the products you recommend to your followers. Promote your URL, make it easier for your followers to shop your recommendations and earn money on qualifying purchases while doing it!”
The way that Amazon handles their influencers is simply remarkable. As a small- to medium-business owner, you need to learn how to use affiliate marketing in the best possible manner in order to grow your business.
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Now that you have a good understanding of Amazon’s marketing strategy, you can replicate it to win more customers for your own business! Just as Amazon used Prime to reach new customers, you need to think about new ways to expand your business. Keep the customer happy, never stop inventing, think ahead into the future, make the best use of technology and always have patience. Happy marketing!
The post What Amazon’s Marketing Strategy Can Teach SMB Owners appeared first on Single Grain.
