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Thursday, December 1, 2016

6 Reasons Instagram Is Becoming The Ultimate eCommerce Tool for 2017

We all know Instagram as one of the most visually appealing platforms on the web. With it’s visual design, Instagram has done for photographers, models, and fitness entrepreneurs what YouTube did for filmmakers: provide a previously-unavailable platform to a community of creatives. For these influencers and entrepreneurs, Instagram has been an absolute godsend for their business.

However, from the standpoint of most ROI-focused brands, Instagram has proven nonessential at best.

This comes to no surprise because what makes Instagram so unique also makes it difficult to monetize, convert leads into sales, and so on. I’m sure those who work at Instagram (and especially the platform’s mother, Facebook), know the downside of this chink in the armor of the social media giant.

But change is coming…Well, actually, it’s kinda already here.

A few recent, strategic updates could result in a tumultuous shift for the platform. These new features, along with Instagram’s existing design, could mold the platform into the strongest selling tool for ecommerce we have seen since over two decades. Period.

Here’s why…

1. The Shop Now Button

In early November 2016, Instagram announced it would be adding a Shop Now button (article here), where brands can link checkout carts to their products displayed in posts.

Here’s an example:

At the moment, brands like Warby Parker and JackThreads are experimenting with the feature.

Think about it: More than 84% of smartphone users in the US browse, research or compare products via a web browser or mobile app. Thus, when it comes to brand’s funneling money into a social media platform (aka monetization), what could be more powerful than linking products as they appear in high-resolution, lifestyle photography?

Note: If you think of any tools more powerful, let me know and maybe I’ll join you in creating it!

2. Instagram Stories

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Selling stuff takes time. It takes explanation. It takes contemplation. Why do you think infomercials are so damn long? Because it takes hard work for a consumer to gain trust in you as the seller.

Yet, the most important factor in selling is context. Social media mogul, Gary Vaynerchuk, goes as far to say “content is king, but context is God”.

When it comes to social media however, context is exactly what is missing. Previously, YouTube, Snapchat, and blogs were some of the only mediums that enabled users to nurture an intimate, authentic relationship with their audience.

That changed when Instagram Stories hit the market.

Now, Instagram has the potential to hold the same power, the same authenticity and intimacy Snapchat gives users.

I’m not saying Snapchat and Instagram Stories are now equals. In fact, one could reasonably argue Snapchat’s secretive brand will only gain more momentum as other platforms try to replicate it.

What I am saying though, with the addition of Stories, Instagrammers now are able to connect with audiences on a much deeper level in a Snapchat-esque fashion.

Which brings us to our next point…

3. Links Within Instagram Stories

Not only will Instagrammers be able to create Snapchat-like intimacy with their followers, they’ll also be able to promote and share content via a recent update to Stories: link sharing.

While this may not seem like a huge deal, it comes from a company that has lasted 6 years with only allowing one link per user at a time, so the update marks a shift from it’s original design to one eager to monetize. In a recent piece, The Verge told readers that Nathan Sharp, an Instagram product manager, said the company added links in Stories in response to the large number of brands using the feature to promote content there.

Now, imagine if you are an entrepreneur promoting your newest product on Instagram. Using Stories, you would be able to showcase your product, explain the reasons to buy it, then link up the checkout page so your users can purchase it right then and there.

Essentially, you’ll be able to host your own mini-webinar using only your smartphone.

4. Influencer Marketing’s Dream Child

If you keep a close pulse on marketing trends, you know influencer marketing is growing by leaps and bounds regarding brand budgets.

When it comes to influencer marketing, one of the biggest hurdles is driving direct traffic and conversions for the brands who are paying for it. At the end of the day, awareness is great, but conversions are the true marker of a “successful” campaign.

Because of this, most of the influencer marketing on Instagram has centered around generating awareness. This strategy definitely makes sense given the typical CTRs on the channel being 0.4%.

With the addition of links to Instagram Stories, brands will be able to measure conversions easier than ever before. Influencers can tag the brand in their Stories and link up their products they are wishing to sell.

If you’re a travel blogger paid by a brand to visit and review a destination, you’ll be to capture raw footage of the location via Stories, then link up your blog post covering the campaign promotion.

If you’re an Instagram fashion influencer paid by a brand to wear their gear, you’ll be able to scroll through the various products you received, link up the specific product page of each, and direct your audience further down the sales funnel.

5. Discoverability

In addition to all of the other new features, Instagram has also announced Stories will now be displayed on Explore.

The success of Google and proliferation of SEO proved how much brands will shovel money into increasing the likelihood of being “discovered” by consumers. On Instagram, if all goes according to plan, brands will eventually invest in securing high spots on the Explore tab.

In this sense, brands with similar products and services will now be able to capitalize on audience’s similar interests, making Instagram an even more enticing platform to throw money at than ever before.

6. Concision

While the other points made in this article are either features or implications of those features, this point is more high-level. More than likely though, it is the most important aspect of Instagram when it comes to molding it into the most powerful eCommerce tool we have seen in a decade: concision.

Instagram is completely visual. It is free of clutter. With only 87 characters before the Read More option appears in the caption, it is also free of over-explaining. Thus, it is up to the user to interpret the highly-visual content for themselves.

Instagram is a platform completely focused on mobile. On your smartphone, you can’t have 20 tabs open at once. On your smartphone, you can’t split-screen with two monitors. On your smartphone, it is just you alone with a single screen. It’s a much less distracting, almost intimate experience when compared to desktop.

Based on these factors, Instagram has forced creators to do what they do best: be creative. It has forced them to be succinct and tell stories through pictures, not words.

I would argue this makes Instagram the most formidable for selling products because it boils down consumer’s options. And what is the first thing any marketing course teaches you? To always have a clear, concise call to action. For this reason, Instagram would get an A+ in any marketing course.

Instagram is making moves. Big ones. Yet, with how fast the social media landscape moves, it’s easy to think of a platform’s new features as “just another new update”.

Taking a step back and looking at the big picture would be extremely beneficial for anyone who utilizes social media for their business, for their stock portfolio, or for enjoyment.

One of the many big pictures we are looking at here is this: if Instagram continues on this trajectory, it has the opportunity to become the biggest selling tool we have seen in the last 20 years.

The post 6 Reasons Instagram Is Becoming The Ultimate eCommerce Tool for 2017 appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

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Advanced Reporting Is Awesome: Part 1 — Device & Browser Breakdowns

Here at VerticalResponse headquarters, we’re pretty excited about all the insights Advanced Reporting offers users. To showcase the unique edge Advanced Reporting brings to your email marketing, we’re examining each feature individually to highlight its advantages.

First up are Advanced Reporting’s device and browser breakdowns. It’s easy to see how this knowledge allows you to create even better emails.

Device statistics

We’ve talked for a long time about how important it is to send out emails that are mobile-friendly. Now you can see the proof on every email you send.

Click on “Device” in the Advanced Reporting navigation bar to see how your readers opened your emails. Were they on desktop or laptop computers, or were they using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets? Knowing how your customers read your messages helps you create emails that perform best.

As you see in our example below, our email campaign had 288 total opens. Of those, nearly 52 percent used a mobile device, and only 41 percent used a desktop computer.

When you look at your emails’ device statistics, what will you see? If the majority of your readers use phones and tablets to read your email, you’ll want to be certain your emails look and perform best on those devices.

Browser statistics

Computers and smartphones are only half the story, however. What looks beautiful on an iPhone’s Gmail may not look as amazing on an Android’s Yahoo or a MacBook’s Safari. Every operating system, browser, and email client works differently — and displays messages differently.

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I sure hope this looks good,” when you’ve hit Send on your email campaigns, Advanced Reporting clears up some of that mystery.

By showing how your readers open your messages, Advanced Reporting lets you test and optimize your emails so they look their best where a majority of your subscribers open them.

In our example below, Safari (on the mobile side) and Firefox (on the desktop side) are the clear favorites.

What does this mean for your emails? Similar to knowing which devices your readers use, information about their preferred browsers helps you test your emails to make sure they look and perform the way you intended them to. And when they look and perform their best, that means more opens and more clicks.

Focus your time and efforts on designing an email that looks best, performs the best, and makes the maximum impact. Upgrade to a Pro plan to start using Advanced Reporting right away.

Don’t Have a VerticalResponse Account Yet?

It’s easy to use and free to get started. Sign up and send up to 4,000 emails per month for free.

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The post Advanced Reporting Is Awesome: Part 1 — Device & Browser Breakdowns appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.

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3 Reasons Your B2B Marketing Reports Stink and How to Fix Them

Author: Jeff Coveney

According to B2B Marketing and Marketscan, only 32% of marketers pursue a data-first strategy, and less than half of marketers feel prepared for a data-driven marketing future. So it’s no surprise that a question I hear often is: “How do we gain insight into the effectiveness of our marketing efforts?”

Many companies aren’t able to report on marketing and sales efforts due to data and process issues. It’s like trying to put the pretty siding on your house before the foundation is built. The end result is reporting that doesn’t make sense–or does it?

Most likely, there’s an underlying problem that’s preventing those reports from providing positive intelligence. In reality, the reports and dashboards might function great, but bad processes and bad data will result in inaccurate reporting.

I’m a baseball fan so I’ll use a baseball analogy to break down the problem. How do we know that Ted Williams is one of the best hitters that ever lived? (Williams is the last player to hit over a .400 batting average, batting .406 in 1941.) Baseball’s efforts are measured in a consistent fashion and recorded properly.

What if there was no process for the scorekeeper to record statistics? What if one scorekeeper considered errors to be hits? What if the scorekeeper called in sick and didn’t record the stats of the game? All of these inconsistent processes and data issues would result in inaccurate measurement–just like what many businesses experience.

Let’s dive into the root causes of three common reporting challenges and how you can get back on track:

Challenge #1: Bad Data Equals Inaccurate Results

Many times, companies are trying to report on results when no data exists or the data is poor. For example, let’s say you want to break out all of your revenue by country to gain insights on which geography is producing the most revenue or generating the most leads. If you don’t capture the lead’s country or you’re using inconsistent values like United States, USA, and Lisa (yes, we’ve seen data like this), your reports won’t provide you with the metrics you need.

Before your reports can produce positive insights, you must improve the underlying data behind them to get the vision you need. Data management is a big picture initiative but here are a few tips to get started.

Pick ten important fields (Lead Source, Country, Industry, etc.) that your organization leverages and perform an audit.
Assess your data quality by running field-specific reports to understand the gaps that exist. Is data blank? Which data is incorrect?
Normalize the data that matters. For example, if your “Country” field has values of USA and US, adjust that data to a single value like US.
Fill in the blanks. Don’t have the data you need? Consider appending the data with a data services partner.

Challenge #2: Lack of Process

To understand how their efforts translate into revenue, B2B marketers need to perform closed-loop analysis across the customer lifecycle. How many new names turn into qualified leads? How many qualified leads then turn into customers? How many customers continue to buy additional products and services? These questions are important, but the answers require massive process consistency in both sales and marketing. Unfortunately, some companies don’t have the processes in place that will drive the insights.

For example, if marketing generated 100 trade show leads, yet sales never contacted them because they were stuck in the system, there would be no way to gain vision into those funnel metrics. Or, maybe a sales rep created a duplicate record for a new deal when the original record had all the marketing intelligence. The end result would be that marketing activity would not be tied to the deal’s success, and marketing wouldn’t get any of the revenue attribution.

Process definition and change management are some of the most difficult initiatives a company can tackle, but they’re critical for ensuring your reporting is accurate. As a next step, begin working on processes that can set the foundation for long-term reporting success.

Document every piece of your lead flow process. Which forms do leads come in from? How do list imports affect data? How do you account for leads generated from your CRM? You will be surprised by how many gaps you’ll uncover.
Develop a lead lifecycle process that both sales and marketing can agree on (and follow).
Define roles within your marketing organization to ensure consistent process is followed. For example, define who sets up trade shows in your marketing automation platform and who imports the data. Too many cooks in the kitchen can cause process inconsistencies.

Challenge #3: Measuring Successes Instead of Efficiencies Gained

When you first get started on your advanced reporting journey, set expectations that process and data issues will arise. Consider shifting your thinking to efficiencies gained rather than successes measured. For example, we recently engaged with a client to provide better vision into their marketing and sales successes. Instead of finding the successes, we collectively identified $250,0000 worth of efficiencies that the client could gain with several process enhancements and technical adjustments. This change in mindset put the company on a path for long-term success and set benchmarks for future comparison.

Identify process and data gaps in order to improve your insights for the long-term. Ask yourself:

Is sales following the proper process for moving leads through the system?
Are marketing qualified leads thrown over to sales without anyone following up?
Is the marketing team following a process for attributing successes to programs?
What data is considered good and bad?

Your reports don’t suck–it’s the data and processes underneath that need improvement. This is not an overnight process so the sooner you start, the better your long-term vision will be.

What other reporting issues have you come across and how did you fix them? Share your insight in the comments below!

3 Reasons Your B2B Marketing Reports Stink and How to Fix Them was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

The post 3 Reasons Your B2B Marketing Reports Stink and How to Fix Them appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

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3 Reasons Your B2B Marketing Reports Stink and How to Fix Them

Author: Jeff Coveney

Let’s dive into the root causes of three common reporting challenges and how you can get back on track:

Challenge #1: Bad Data Equals Inaccurate Results

Pick ten important fields (Lead Source, Country, Industry, etc.) that your organization leverages and perform an audit.
Assess your data quality by running field-specific reports to understand the gaps that exist. Is data blank? Which data is incorrect?
Normalize the data that matters. For example, if your “Country” field has values of USA and US, adjust that data to a single value like US.
Fill in the blanks. Don’t have the data you need? Consider appending the data with a data services partner.

Challenge #2: Lack of Process

Document every piece of your lead flow process. Which forms do leads come in from? How do list imports affect data? How do you account for leads generated from your CRM? You will be surprised by how many gaps you’ll uncover.
Develop a lead lifecycle process that both sales and marketing can agree on (and follow).
Define roles within your marketing organization to ensure consistent process is followed. For example, define who sets up trade shows in your marketing automation platform and who imports the data. Too many cooks in the kitchen can cause process inconsistencies.

Challenge #3: Measuring Successes Instead of Efficiencies Gained

Identify process and data gaps in order to improve your insights for the long-term. Ask yourself:

Is sales following the proper process for moving leads through the system?
Are marketing qualified leads thrown over to sales without anyone following up?
Is the marketing team following a process for attributing successes to programs?
What data is considered good and bad?

Your reports don’t suck–it’s the data and processes underneath that need improvement. This is not an overnight process so the sooner you start, the better your long-term vision will be.

What other reporting issues have you come across and how did you fix them? Share your insight in the comments below!

3 Reasons Your B2B Marketing Reports Stink and How to Fix Them was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

The post 3 Reasons Your B2B Marketing Reports Stink and How to Fix Them appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

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12 Small SEO Fixes for 12 Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love said to me, “How about you spend some of this holiday vacation time beefing up your site’s SEO and getting ahead in the online marketing world?” And so I said, “Well […]

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

12 Small SEO Fixes for 12 Days of Christmas

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Written by Tim Dugan, Web Services CT & ZGM

The post 12 Small SEO Fixes for 12 Days of Christmas appeared first on Search Engine People Blog.

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2016 Small Business Social Media Trends Trump Understood

Buffer's State of Social Media highlights 3 key small business social media trends. This analysis and tactics will improve your social media use.

The post 2016 Small Business Social Media Trends Trump Understood appeared first on Heidi Cohen.

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Google Mobile Friendly Test Tool Allows You To Submit Pages To Google's Index

Google has added the ability to submit a page to Google's index directly from the new version of their mobile-friendly testing tool, which is at http://ift.tt/1WCtHEO...

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