May 2021 – A4 Team Your Marketing Force

Monthly Archives: May 2021

Do you know that Amazon is the pioneer of personalized marketing messages? The company uses sophisticated analytics to customize products offered to its shoppers. It normally sends a confirmation email after a purchase, with suggested bundle offers relevant to the recent item, bought by the customer. Recently, Amazon launched the Prime Wardrobe services for Prime members. Through such services, a team of stylists will do personalized recommendations from millions of brands across Amazon.

Modern shoppers expect a personalized experience among brands. That is why brands and businesses should craft customized messages relevant to each shopper. This can differentiate them from their competitors and enable them to survive. On a scale, personalized marketing messages lift total sales by 2% plus reduce marketing costs by 10 to 20%. They have also proven to drive customer loyalty and retention. As a result of positive customer interaction, they yield 3x higher return on investment (ROI) than mass promotions. Below, feel free to know how to craft personalized marketing messages to boost customer loyalty.

3 Fast Facts About Personalized Marketing Messages

A digital marketing speaker Hong Kong has noted 3 fast facts about personalized marketing messages. These are:

2 in 3 online shoppers would rather buy from brands that are aware of their purchase history.
72% of online shoppers engage with marketing messages crafted according to their interests.
90% of customers find irrelevant marketing messages annoying.

These fast facts further showed that modern customers prefer marketing messages that feature product details, make them laugh, relevant to their interests, and tell a good story. If a brand is successful in crafting personalized marketing messages, it will eventually achieve brand loyalty, conversion, customer retention, and engagement. On the reverse side, a brand that fails to craft personalized marketing messages drives customers away and fails.

Tips to Craft Personalized Marketing Messages to Boost Customer Loyalty

There are three categories where brands and businesses can craft personalized marketing messages to boost customer loyalty. These are through email, in-app messaging, and text.

Personalized emails increase click-through rates by 41%. It is important to add first names to your subject line. A person’s name is the sweetest word one can ever hear or read. It increases an email open rate by 20% and reduces the unsubscription rate by 17%. As an extra pro tip, it is best to keep your subject line at 25-30 characters. This makes them mobile-friendly. Remember that a majority of modern shoppers access their email on mobile devices. If an online shopper abandoned a shopping cart, send them a reminder email possibly with a discount code to entice sales. Alternatively, brands can also send behavior-triggered emails when an online shopper completes a certain action on the website. This type of email increases the open rate by 70.5%. Through an automation system, behavior-triggered emails are commonly sent to customers who click the buy button, download an eBook, and sign up for a subscription, etc. According to a social media agency Hong Kong, one way to drive viral growth via personalized marketing messages is to encourage customers to share congratulatory emails on their social media accounts.

One way to improve the content of an email marketing message today is by adding a video like what a video marketing agency Hong Kong does. The most effective email messages are limited to around 50 to 125 words. So, adding a video to the email can help brands engagingly convey more information. Besides, adding the word “video” on an email subject line increases the open rate by 6%. A 2-minute video is recommended as great email content.

Personalized in-app messaging provides an exciting journey among online shoppers. Most modern consumers download apps on their devices to make their shopping experience convenient and easier. These shopping apps allow them to access and explore new products and services anytime and anywhere. In-app messages are hyper-targeted messages sent to a user when they are actively online on a shopping app. They allow brands and businesses to send a message to the customer or prospect at the right timing. These include customer support, product updates, relevant updates, etc. Some best practices using in-app marketing messages are

Sending welcome notes with quick beginner’s tutorials
Sending daily users with referral codes or special discounts with a simple redemption process
Creating pre-built templates to highlight exciting user data or shareable brand stories

Personalized text messages can also add value to a brand’s overall marketing campaign. SMS messages are cheaper and more personal than other forms of marketing messages. Through text messaging, brands can send a welcome offer guiding users on how to explore the brand’s app or website. Creating a unique coupon code can make the receiver of a text message feel more special and evokes brand connection. Modern customers also prefer to get appointment reminders, confirmation of a reservation, or status alerts. Brands can use text messaging to complete them together with a help desk link to cross the extra mile in providing customer service. It is also best to remember investing in a two-way text messaging platform. Reply to text messages received from customers and prospects. SMS yield a 45% response rate and this can make a big difference to the success of your marketing messages.

Reference: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/10-ways-to-personalize-your-marketing-messaging-to-create-loyal-customers/600643/

Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing

Does Email Marketing Still Work?

May 24, 2021 Alex Torres

Social media has been very powerful today. It is where people connect to the world and search for products and services. SEO has also been a great marketing strategy. By posting quality content on a business website, search engines help brands get discovered. There is one marketing technique still used today by B2B marketers – email marketing. It reaches out to target audiences in a different way. This is by sending them messaging content on their email addresses. It has not been so popular nowadays. And the question is – does email marketing still work?

WHAT IS EMAIL MARKETING?

As mentioned, email marketing is a digital marketing strategy of sending out emails to customers and prospects. It has been around for more than two decades and has become a marketing mainstay. A digital marketing speaker Hong Kong noted that some businesses believe that modern technology has killed email marketing, yet this isn’t true. Email marketing is the most effective way of directly connecting with leads to convert them into customers. It is the number 1 communication channel as 99% of consumers check their emails daily. People who receive email offers spend 138% more than those who do not receive them. That is why email marketing has steadily recorded a 4400% return on investment (ROI). This is 3x better than social media conversions. In other words, email is the best way for businesses to get online sales.

Another unique power of email marketing, according to a social media agency Hong Kong, is that it can boost the discovery of social media posts. Email is the safest way to inform social media followers about any promotion or updates. There are times when social media pages are tagged as too pushy with their followers and these pages become deactivated. With email marketing, no one can take away the list of leads from a business.

HOW TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LISTS

For email marketing to work and have a larger reach, brands and businesses first need to grow their email lists. An email list is a collection of names and demographics from customers, event attendees, website visitors, etc. There are several ways brands and businesses can build an email list. Some of the best ways are:

CTA buttons through social media
Embedded signup forms
Loyalty and referral programs
Pop-ups
Sign up notifications for discounts and deals
Squeeze pages, a dedicated page to capture leads on a business website

A video marketing agency Hong Kong has noted that videos can also be used as lead magnets. An explainer video, how-to, live streams, unboxing, and webinars are great examples of them. Most marketers recommend placing an email request when 20% of the video has already been played. Such a technique captures 43% conversion rates.

DOES EMAIL MARKETING STILL WORK?

In 2021, email continues to be the simplest method to market a business online.

Email Marketing Complements Social Media Marketing

Digital marketing is not a single process. It needs different strategies and techniques to work. Email marketing can complement social media marketing. Pairing these two digital marketing strategies side by side can ensure successful ads and campaigns. Using emails, social media pages can remind subscribers about their active social community. They can notify them of any new post, product launch, upcoming events, or updates from the business through email. Social media pages can also launch contests and giveaways via emails. All these efforts lead to boosting connection and engagement among customers and prospects.

Email Marketing Increases Brand Recognition

Most people are not ready to buy products and services online. They may see a brand or business in social media the first time around, but it does not provide them any major buying impact. Email marketing can help increase brand recognition. By sending targeted emails, a brand will be exposed to potential customers. They can help brands stay on top of people’s minds so that when they are ready to make a purchase, it is the brand that they will consider buying.

Email Marketing Is Cost-Effective

When compared to social media marketing and traditional marketing, emails are less expensive and cost-effective. You don’t need to pay artists or creators to curate social media content. You also don’t need to pay for ad spaces, postage, or prints. At the same time, email marketing has a higher ROI. The Direct Marketing Association estimates that emails result in a $40 revenue for every $1 ad spend.

Email Marketing Is Measurable

One way to make digital marketing effective is to measure its results. Email marketing still works because it can very well be measured. Bounce rate, click-through rate, and open rate are some ways to measure the effectiveness of email marketing. The average email bounce rate is 2%. The average email open rate is 18%. On the other hand, the average click-through rate for email is 2.6%. These metrics give valuable insights that email marketing still works today. Other email marketing insights can also help brands and businesses discover their customers’ behaviors and interests. This is by finding out what email content they commonly open, ignore, and reply to.

Email Marketing Is Target-Focused

When a brand or business runs a television ad, there is no control over who can see the ad content. When these ads are run on social media, a brand or business can segment the target audience. Yet only interested readers and viewers can reach those segmented campaigns. Like social media segmentation, brands and businesses can send emails based on demographics, locations, and lead status. Customizing email messages based on these elements can lead to higher open rates and, eventually, conversion and sales.

To wrap it up, email marketing still works! Being the easiest and simplest way to market, it has stayed for more than 2 decades and will stay a decade more.

Reference: https://www.webfx.com/internet-marketing/is-email-marketing-still-effective.html

Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing

Tell Your Brand Story Through Animated Videos

May 20, 2021 Alex Torres

Animated videos have found their way as an effective marketing strategy in the digital world. According to a social media agency Hong Kong, these types of video formats are set to boom in social media marketing this 2021. It is because they have a unique storytelling power to uplift brands. They also never run out of style and are the most beloved types of online video ads. They are very engaging, fun, and informative to watch. History has shown how powerful animated videos are when it comes to marketing.

Nike’s “Air Max Reinvented” brought back the glory of the air max shoes in 2013.
Cadbury’s “Dancing Alien” revolutionized a new dance craze and taste push in 2016.
McVitie’s “Sweeter Together” cemented the company’s position as the number 1 UK biscuit brand in 2018.

Let us now take a peek at how to tell your brand story through animated videos. If you do them right, you can hit the sweet spot of your target audiences.

What Are Animated Videos?

A video marketing agency Hong Kong defines animated videos as cartoons, puppets, and quirky objects converted into video mode by adding music and voices. Unlike regular videos captured by a camera, animated videos are a series of illustrations compiled together to simulate a short video format. An animated video ad commonly lasts for 15 to 60 seconds to quickly promote a brand, product, or service. Creating animated video ads is more difficult than curating a regular video ad. It requires creativity, precision, and the right technology.

There are a lot of ways to use animated videos in advertising. Some companies use animated videos to create a character for a brand. Animated infographics are a lighter approach to educating clients. Explainer videos help people better understand the benefits of a brand. They can also be used to create a story where either the brand or customer is the hero. So, animated videos are not just for kids. Around 80% of people – young and adults alike – love animated videos.

How Can Animated Videos Boost ROI?

No matter how funny or serious a brand is, no matter what product or service you sell, animated videos can significantly boost the return of investment (ROI). According to a digital marketing speaker Hong Kong, animated videos rock in hitting a brand’s goal.

Animated videos help a brand stay ahead of its competitors. It makes a brand stand out as creative, futuristic, and innovative.
By guiding and inspiring a brand’s target audience, it turns customers into buyers.
Embedded animated videos increase a brand’s visibility on search engine results. Thus, it boosts traffic to landing pages.
Explainer animated videos help customers better understand a product.
They are also cost-effective, avoiding the expense of hiring humans to act on a video.
They can easily bring ideas into life through simple drawings.

How to Tell a Brand Story Through Animated Videos

Modern consumers prefer videos over images and written content. They search for videos to learn about new products, how to use them, and hacks to make their lives better. Through videos, they can save time by learning a lot in just a few minutes of viewing. Animated videos are a great way to tell your brand story. To build an online presence, here are ways on how you can use them.

Brand Imaging

Many brands have to use animated videos to create a persona representing their characters. Animated video is a budget-friendly way of making the viewer’s imagination fly by using augmented reality. A great example of a branding story using an animated video is Toyota’s “Stories for Better.” Toyota has successfully shown in the Paris Motor Show event that their cars made lives better. Rather than promoting a single car model, the company advertised their suites of vehicles through creative and fun animations.

Cartoon Stories

Stories can evoke emotion and help gain customer loyalty. Cartoon videos are an excellent way to create human connections in the absence of real-life actors and actresses. In 2017. Heinz Beanz: A Can Size for Every Aussie successfully captured the heart of Australian households and created a large community of loyal followers for the brand. The animated cartoon story showed how Geoff innovated a can size Heinz Beanz for one, two, and four people highlighting the value of love and family.

Demo Videos

Using animation allows brands to introduce their products and services in a fun and creative way. It has no limit in adding characters, locations, and styles to the video. This format allows brands to demonstrate their product details and features and how to use them. Even modern tech companies tap on the power of animated videos for their product demos. Western Union, for one, used an animated demo video for US Mobile Payments. With a consistent and minimalist design approach, it has provided simple and to-the-point information on how to use Western Union mobile payments.

Explainer Videos

The best way to use animated video in telling a brand story is through explainer videos. It can help brands communicate complex ideas by using unlimited images and effects to engage the viewers. As such, brands can clearly show how they solve the customer pain points through entertaining animations. Apple’s “How to Move from Android to iPhone” has greatly helped Android users in switching to iPhone devices. It has successfully highlighted that the iPhone is easier to use than Android with spitting at Android’s face. That’s good marketing!

Reference: https://customerthink.com/animated-brand-storytelling-how-brands-can-use-animated-videos-to-grow/

Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing

The Scope of Digital Marketing This 2021

May 4, 2021 Alex Torres

Digital marketing or online marketing is any strategy to promote a brand, product, or service on electronic devices. This can be a computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet, and any other devices that can be connected to the Internet. In essence, digital marketing is a way to connect and influence your target customers through Internet advertising. It covers blogging, eCommerce, email marketing, pay-per-click, and social media advertising. Among the common assets of digital marketing are:

A business website
Branded assets like a brand’s acronym, icon, logo, slogan, etc.
Branded images like company photos, infographics, product shots, etc.
Branded videos like product demos, video ads, etc.
Online products or tools like AR try-on, interactive content, SaaS, calculators, etc.
Social media pages
Written content like blogs, eBooks, product descriptions, testimonials, etc.

According to a digital marketing speaker Hong Kong, digital marketing is more cost-effective and reaches a larger audience than traditional marketing. Through it, brands can track campaigns daily and control their ad spending based on ROIs. They can also target global prospects who have higher buying intent which can result in more sales. It also levels the playing field among big corporations and small businesses. Social media agency Hong Kong notes that social media platforms balance advertising and marketing among all users.

As of April 2021, there are around 4.7 billion global Internet users. That is almost 60% of 7.863 billion people in the world. This means that digital marketing is very important among brands because of the growing Internet usage from time to time. The scope of digital marketing can be defined through the numerous channels and strategies that connect brands and customers. Such a scope differs as trends change. Below is the scope of digital marketing this 2021.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is some kind of promotional partnership between a brand and a website. This can be done by hosting video ads through YouTube’s partner program and posting affiliate links on social media pages. Every time a consumer clicks on the affiliate link and buys a product or service on the link, the affiliate website will earn a certain commission. The affiliate can be an individual or a company. Today, affiliate marketing commonly involves social media influencers.

Content Marketing

Content builds relationships out of trust, and trust can drive revenue among brands. This is the principle of content marketing. It is the process of creating and distributing valuable content to highlight the benefits of a brand. The process includes writing blog articles, eBooks, infographics, and whitepapers. Yet content marketing also involves podcasting, posting on social media pages, webinars, and updating website content. A video marketing agency Hong Kong highlights the importance of videos in content marketing. In 2021, video is still the king. Most consumers today prefer watching videos over reading long posts. Digital marketers noted that video marketing is 68% more effective than Google ads and 74% more effective than static images. Today, most social media channels support the hosting and sharing of branded video content. One trend to watch out for this 2021 is the search engine optimization of images and videos.

Email Marketing

Most companies use email marketing to connect to their audience by promoting content, discounts, or events. It comes next to social media and content marketing as a digital marketing strategy. Around 87% of B2B marketers use email to distribute ads and campaigns.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is one of the most cost-effective scopes of digital marketing. It is 61% less expensive than PPC, paid social media ads, and traditional advertising. Among the tactics used by brands on inbound marketing are automated messaging, email spam, pop-up ads, true view video ads, etc.

Pay Per Click

Most digital marketers pay search engines like Google to drive traffic to their websites. The best example of PPC is using Google Ads which show on the top slots of Google’s search result. Every time a searcher clicks the ad, Google will charge the brand per number of clicks. Social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter also allow PPC. Facebook paid ads are featured on top of the newsfeed of matching business users. Twitter displays profile badges and tweets among a dedicated audience segment. On the other hand, LinkedIn allows sponsored direct messages based on the member’s background or industry.

SEO.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing website traffic through content and website improvement. There are 3 approaches to SEO.

Off-page SEO is done through backlinking using relevant links within the website. This is to allow a connective flow among the pages of the website. Off-page SEO also uses links from another website to increase the audience reach of page content.
On-page SEO is done by using relevant keywords on the site’s content to rank higher among search results. The key is to target the most common words that users type on the search box and answer those queries in the most informational manner.
Technical SEO focuses on the website’s element. These include the number of clicks to access a page, data structure, image compression, speed of loading, etc. Its main goal is to provide a better website experience among guests and visitors.

Social Media Marketing

Brands and people are going social. This means that they are commonly on social media platforms connecting with family and friends, searching for products and services, and watching out for news and trends. This scope of digital marketing aims to drive brand awareness and generate leads for a business. This 2021, the top social media platforms for marketing are:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
Pinterest
Instagram

The scope of digital marketing is getting bigger and larger as people find new ways on how to access and enjoy the Internet. As such, digital marketers should always be flexible and on the lookout for the latest news and trends.