How to engage your audience to create deeper relationships?

Being in the business world is all about being strategic, clever and making the right decisions and at the right times. Digital Marketing in specific is built within a web world where lots of frauds exist, so in order for a business/ company/ brand proves itself in the web world they have got to focus mainly on gaining the trust of their audiences and customers alongside with focusing on the creativity, planning and all the other parts which Digital Marketing as a field involves.

It's easy to reach people through Digital Marketing as we live in a digital era where most people have at least one digital device if not more, But the difficult part is to create a trust bond between companies and customers, and create deep relationships with them. Although its a difficult thing to do but with having a guideline and steps to follow creating deep relationships with audiences/ customers becomes an achievable task. & That's what I'm here for, I did my research about 'How to engage your audience to create deeper relationships?', and I found a variety of answers to this question as its a vital aspect in the business world and its importance is rising in the Digital Marketing and specifically the Internet part of it.

The way I understand creating deep relationships with audiences/ customers is that It requires hard work and determination, it's like working through a relationship. The partners have to be opened, understanding, patient and just try to please each other in order to reach a settlement. After that, a relationship becomes great because both sides know each others very well and even if they face problems along the way, they are able to make compromises and forgive because they have a trust bond and a deep relationship which reflects the way they deal with each others.

"When you are holding a private conversation with someone there are ways of assessing how much someone trusts you but this isn’t so easy when faced with a large audience." - Sharren L Bessant.

Marketers have to know their audience before starting anything, it is important to understand the audience/customers in order to produce effective digital marketing based campaigns and businesses/companies/brands.

Knowing and addressing the audiences is the top consideration for engaging online content marketing, as mentioned in an article called 'Creating Engagement with Online Content Marketing' By Chris Sturk: "The Internet is packed with content nowadays. How can you assure your content is going to get read? Beyond paid and organic promotions, creating engaging content will interest readers and keep them coming back for more, especially if you interact with them."

Addressing your audiences:

Knowing your audience is the best way to gain their trust. Show them that you understand the negatives and positives that they experience. For instance, if you are talking about SEO strategies, be transparent about your own struggles. Share what has worked and what hasn’t. Identify with the reader and let them know that they’re not alone in their battle with SEO. If you’re a cooking publication and have always had a hard time getting the right consistency in soups, share what you’ve learned about flour and corn starch. Showing humanity creates a bond between you and the reader.

I found an article based on a book called "Get Content, Get Customers" by Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett , as the writer of the article describes this book he says: "Content is at the heart of today's marketing" - Dave Chaffey. I Believe that content is the main way of hocking customers bringing them to like your business/company/brand and then it creates a space for them to learn about you in general and in specific. Also, the more clear and honest the content a Digital Marketing campaign or business provides the audiences and customer, the more there's a form of transparency which is always the key for trust.

"Get Content, Get Customers" is a great book because it provides practical, structured advice on creating a content strategy based on real/specific case studies to inspire you to develop a content strategy.

Some of the strategies the book provides are summarized by Dave Chaffey - who is an author, consultant and trainer specializing in E-commerce and E-marketing education and guidance. The strategies that the book offered are the following:

The B.E.S.T. formula

As an example of the structured practical guidance, we liked this formula for creating a content marketing roadmap. B.E.S.T stands for:

▪ -Behavioral. Everything you communicate with customers has a purpose. What do you want them to know?

▪ -Essential. Deliver information that your best prospects need if they are to succeed at work or in life.

▪ -Strategic. Your content marketing efforts must be an integral part of your overall business strategy.

▪ -Targeted. You must target your content precisely so that it’s truly relevant to your buyers.

Top 10 content marketing lessons from successful practitioners

Here’s our take on their Top 10.

1. Content must have intrinsic value. Content is a key part of your online value proposition. You must define it’s relevance to customers – help them live their lives, do their work better.

2. Understand what content customer value. You need to do the research to understand the value. Enough said.

3. Content marketing strategy may completely or partially replace traditional advertising and marketing. You need to prove the relative importance of content marketing within your budget, for your market.

4. Print magazines can be a powerful weapon. We still spend more of our time offline than on, so reaching your audience offline through third-party or offline content can still be important.

5. Great design adds value. Invest in design to help prove the value and encourage engagement and advocacy.

6. Invest in a dedicated internal or external team (maybe). The authors aren’t clear on this, but clearly many content initiatives fail because of poor quality content or not sustaining the content.

7. Drink your own Kook-Aid. Relate it back to your products through showing your products or services in action.

8. Get your customers to participate. Yes, interaction is the name of the game online – don’t just push, engage and share – comments, polls and surveys all help.

9. Make it easy to buy. Content must fit with your ultimate goal in investing in content.

10. It’s not the investment in content, it’s the content marketing mindset that counts. This helps level the playing field and arguably makes it easier for small organizations to master content marketing.

Check out the full article, the comments and related articles. Click here.

So, now we know that content is the core of engaging audiences/customers, but content has to be supported by various things that can promote it and make it stand out. It can't succeed by itself.

Seth Godin recently posted about the need to hire an architect for your organization. He writes "Architects don't manufacture nails, assemble windows or chop down trees. Instead, they take existing components and assemble them in interesting and important ways." We'd like to take that concept and apply it to the content world. - Content Marketing: Who's your content architect?

I personally believe that Design is a major factor of engaging the customers and getting their attention, it makes content look pretty for the eyes and more digestible - Its a treat for the eyes. Also, the way that the content is distributed and put in the website is important, thus marketers have to be aware of the eye movement of the audience and customers on websites in general where are the spots that they mainly focus on and according to the place the information in the proper places/positions.

According to '10 Tips from Tim Frick for Increasing Online engagement':

Design Tip: Reading gravity is the natural pattern our eye takes when viewing or reading a page, typically top left to bottom right (a concept also known as The Gutenberg Rule).

Design your pages with this in mind, putting items with strong brand identity such as logos and important content headers at top left and calls-to-action at bottom right.

Furthermore, it is important to be Interactive with your audiences and show them that you are available and reachable for them to talk, comment, complain, praise and just express anything they want to. Knowing that there's someone real on the other end of the Web and Digital world creates comfort and trust. Always pay attention to what the audience says and suggests, and also pay attention to what they complain about and work to improve it. It is important to satisfy the audience because without them the business isn't worth anything.

In addition to your own personal website it is always helpful to have a presence on Social Networks as they provide an easier way to communicate and interact with audiences, which is vital. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts 'Top 10 considerations for an Effective Online Marketing Strategy': Create a Social Media strategy, Not just a presence. As many companies/businesses tend to create accounts on Facebook, Twitter, etc. just to be a part of the social networks trend but they are not paying so much attention to the importance and the benefit they can get from these accounts. Therefore, I think Social Networks should be given more attention and strategic planning from Digital Marketers as it will work for their own good and to create bonds with their audiences/customers. According to 'Social Media Marketing in 10 Easy Steps' By Susan Gunelius: "The key to developing a social media marketing strategy and plan that will position you for success from the start is to focus on the fundamental principles of marketing and branding that should drive your social media initiatives."

One of the points the author mentions and which I think is very important is the following:

Diversify your social media presence to broaden your audience and network

The ultimate goal of social media marketing is to surround consumers with branded online experiences, so they can self-select how they want to interact with your brand. There are some people who like to read blogs, and there are other people who prefer to use Twitter or watch videos on YouTube. By diversifying your social media presence and creating varied branded online destinations, you’ll be able to connect with a wider audience.

This article is very useful as it takes you through the steps you need to undergo in order to reach an effective Social Network Marketing Strategy. For the full article, Click here.

In conclusion, Be real, honest, accessible, engaging, true to your promises and never give up! There's always a light at the end of a dark passage - Keep on walking towards it. When you fulfill and follow the core factors of creating trust between you and your audiences, only then will deep relationships will be formed and then you know that you are safe and those people will be loyal to you and never let go. It’s a give and take relationship at the end of the day so the more you give the more you receive.

For extra information, I have gathered a few links to articles and websites which I thought were brilliant and worth a visit:

- 'Using Content Marketing to Build Credibility and Engage with Your Target Audience' By Ardath Albee. In this article Albee provides a Content Digital Marketing framework and steps to guide you through creating Content Marketing Success.

- 'The Engagement Era: How Content Marketing Will Save Your Brand' By Carin Galletta. The author focuses on the importance, effectiveness, advancement and benefit that new digital and interactive marketing have brought to companies.

- '10 Tips from Tim Frick for Increasing Online Engagement' By Garin. This article is based on a book called 'Return On Engagement' By Tim Frick. It's like a summary about Content, Strategy and Design Techniques for Digital Marketing to help you build credibility and ultimately foster engagement with customers, connections, community members, and so on.

- 'Amy Ganderson: Engage Your Audience Through Social Media', this is a video about a real experience/ Case Study of 'The Nature Conservancy'.

- 'Six Rules for Successfully Engaging in Social Media For Marketing Communication' By Kim Harrison. This article provides a guideline on how to use Social Media the right way to reach customers and stakeholders.

- 'How to Measure Engagement' By Michele Linn. This article provides different opinions of different professionals on engaging audiences and how to measure the success of engaging strategies.

Create and Provide your Customers a good Web experience so they repeat it and share it.

Good luck! :) x

Innas A.

How To Deliver a Digital Marketing Project on Brief, Time & budget?

By now, if you followed my blog posts I think we have reached a complete understanding of Digital Marketing and its effectiveness. I talked about different kinds of Digital Marketing and the ways in which we can make digital Marketing campaigns successful by targeting the right audience, considering the competitors, analyzing companies’ situation and simply just making the right decisions.

This week I'm going to talk about starting a digital marketing project, how to deliver it on Brief, Time and Budget…

Let's assume that the project we want to work on is creating a website for a London local designer. We have 6 months to create the website and put it into action. As the designer is local and fairly new to the market we need to be careful with the budget. We need to create a smart digital marketing campaign on a limited budget, and we need to deliver it on time, which is 6 months from now.

Client Information:

Designer: Alex Wood.

Clothing Line: Glamorous Bikinis, Bathing suits and Beach wear.

Description: creating a fabulous swim wear for women, because summer is all about looking hot and tanned, and a swimwear can either bring it out or hide your summer beauty.

Goal:

- Create a website for the brand.

Lets bring our efforts together and make this 'Website' project successful.

First, we need to consider the project phases, 'The 4 D's':

1. Discovery:

Meetings, Research, Gather requirements, Technical specs and Project planning.

2. Design:

Create Wireframes, Revisions and Interactive designs.

3. Develop:

Programming and Testing.

4. Deploy:

Project launch, Style guide, Possible additions and Finally Tracking success.

Second, we should also consider the 'Project Success Factors':

1. Agreement on goals.

2. A good plan.

3. Progress measurement.

4. Constant communications.

5. Management support.

6. Controlled scope.

Moreover, There are two common project methods:

Agile: Based on short, task oriented periods of time. project end is harder to define.

Waterfall: Based on a fixed length of time. Clear project end. Traditional Project plan.

For Alex's Website project we will follow the Waterfall method, As we have set goals, we have a clear vision of the project outcomes. Its not neccesarly a traditional project plan, as the web world is getting larger and websites are inceasing by the day, so we have to be very strategic and think of other contributors to the website's success,

Such as: Affiliate marketing, social media and SEO.

How?

Affliate Marketing: By advertising on other fashion and department stores websites. Also, as Alex is new in the market we can get some of the fashion blogs to write about him and link the article to his website, if bloggers are purely fashion lovers and would like to support a new fashion talent they would do it for free or maybe for just a little percentage. Maybe they can get exclusive news about Alex’s brand which will motivate them to write about it.

Social Media: its always good to get involved and social with the people, we can link Alex’s FaceBook and Twitter pages to the main website so his fans and customers can join them, and then they can send their friends requests to join his pages as well. So its like creating a network of people and providing them with the lastest designs, news and updates. Lately, Twitter has become an excellent marketing tool as celebrities use it and brands like Alex’s can use those celebrities to make them advertise for the brand and tag and link their status updates to Alex’s page.

SEO: As we all know by now, and as I mentioned in my blog post: ‘Top 10 Considerations for an Effective Online Marketing Strategy’ - Being highly ranked on search engines is something vital and companies should pay a lot of consideration into it as it increases the website's traffic and generates more customers and visitors. Remember to focus your website's content on keywords that you provide and are related to your brand.

Now we know the plan and objectives, Lets start budgeting!

According to SoloSignal, For an interactive website with custom design and quality coding, I would expect to pay somewhere in the range of $2,000 to $15,000. If you are paying less, you are probably getting an off-the-shelf CMS with a generic design template. For more complex sites or online applications, expect to pay $20,000+.

You may think that this is too much, Or where does this money go?

SoloSignal provides the answer to this Question in the following article 'How much should Web site Design, Development and Hosting cost?'

Behind every website is a programmer and a designer. The knowledge that these individuals possess and the time they put into every project is often overlooked and not considered when pricing a project. Sarah Lewis of Blogging Expertise explains this value nicely in A Frank Discussion About Pricing:

· Details. Professional designers and firms pay particular attention to the details that will make or break your site.

· Time. Most people who end up using a professional designer or firm understand that their time is worth something, and that spending your time on your core business is one of the best places you can invest your time. Working with web professionals allows you to tap into our experience and knowledge and save hundreds of hours.

· Experience. A professional designer or design firm isn’t just selling you hours on a project; we’re selling you years of experience in the sometimes-overwhelming world of the Internet.

· Knowledge. When you hire a professional designer or firm, you are also getting access to a wealth of information that we’ve gathered and are happy to share.

I like the way this article is written, as it puts together everything you need to know about website pricing. SoloSignal is a blog that has a lot of information about different areas of website development. It’s very useful!! For further information, pay a visit and check out their articles. Click Here.

We should always keep in mind that it’s very hard to stay within the budget. According GartnerReport, only 30% of IT projects, once started, never come to a fruitful conclusion. It also found that on average, 51% of projects exceeded budget by 189%, while delivering only 74% of the original functionality.

So in order to avoid that, speak to a few suppliers to establish a solid budget, and ALWAYS specify and mention your budget in your project proposal or brief.

Time is very precious and valuable, Thus it is important that it is divided according to the importance of every step and phase of creating a project. Its important to have Project Management, as it adds value to the project and the organizations themselves, because it creates an arranged and precise process of planning a project, moving to working on it and then eventually applying it. ManagementHelp defines Project management as a carefully planned and organized effort to accomplish a successful project.

"Project management includes developing a project plan, which includes defining and confirming the project goals and objectives, identifying tasks and how goals will be achieved, quantifying the resources needed, and determining budgets and timelines for completion. It also includes managing the implementation of the project plan, along with operating regular 'controls' to ensure that there is accurate and objective information on 'performance' relative to the plan, and the mechanisms to implement recovery actions where necessary." - ManagementHelp.

REMEMBER, always spend time and effort on making a good project plan, because if you have a set and solid plan it reduces that amount of work you have to put into implementing it. Also, the projects most probably will turn out more effective and successful.

There are many ways of achieving projects on time and budget, but it always depends on planning as it is the most important element in the process of constructing a project.

ShawSystems has a very clear and brief article called: '7 Steps to Delivering Projects On-Time and On-Budget', I think you should take a look it as its very useful and gets straight to the point.

Also, Here’s a slideshow about ‘How to Complete a Project On Time and Under Budget’, It’s a really good and informative slideshow, it talks about lots of “Project Planning Aspects” including Project Management, Project phases & methods and more.

Hope this information is useful & will get “Alex” to start a great and successful website for his swimwear brand on TIME & BUDGET!

Innas A.

My Favorite Digital Marketing Creative!

Okay this week I decided to look at different creative uses of digital media in web world! I wanted to see how agencies, businesses, brands and others implement the Digital Marketing techniques that I’ve been talking about in my previous blog posts.

Well, because the online market is massive, its hard to locate the best and most creative ones, so the best way to find them was through Web Creative Awards, Like: NMA, BIMA and Webby.

It was really hard to choose A FAVORITE creative, as they are all very professional, creative, original and successful! I looked at many of them, and I finally settled on Channel4/ 4Food, they won the NMA effectiveness award of the Media category in 2010. 4Food is the best media website, and winning the award is an indication of their success and a result of the hard work they put into it.

I personally absolutely loved the website because I thought it had a vast amount of content for everyone! It’s literally for everyone; it’s fun, interactive, user friendly, informative, diverse and MORE!

4Food uses a combination of Digital Marketing channels and techniques which makes it effective and appealing to a variety of audiences – starting from younger generations to older ones and families.

Now, I’m going to take you on a journey of my 4Food fascination. The first thing that caught my eyes was the game box, well it’s not really a game but it’s like a “food slot machine” which I think was really cool. You basically press on the ‘Inspire Me’ button and it generates food, for example: Chicken and Bacon and then you press ‘Find Recipe’ and it finds you a recipe with both ingredients which is cool because it makes people try different foods and recipes that they haven’t thought of. This little game/ slot machine is sponsored by Hellmann’s they provide GDA (Guideline Daily Amount) information. I thought it was a really smart and fun way of helping people finding new innovative recipes!

Here 4Food used the In-Game advertising as they are advertising for Hellmann’s and at the same time they have a cool kind of “Recipe Generating Game”. This technique is definitely useful as it’s a new way of attracting customers.

Also, 4Food uses Affiliate Marketing, by allowing other companies/brands to advertise on their website, like: Google Chrome, Barclays, Nissan, Blackberry, Yoox and MANY MANY more. When you press on any advert it leads you the company’s website. This is good for both 4Food and the companies that advertise on it. It brings Website traffic for both and it generates profits too. In addition, having such big companies advertising on 4Food is just a proof of their credibility, success and popularity.

Now I know that there are many other channels or Food websites that are really good and well done! But are they as creative as 4Food?

Well, I’m going to compare

it with BBC-Food, which has the exact, same “food theme”. They dedicated a whole section to their food programs and to provide people with recipes and suggestions for using specific ingredients, but for me it seemed a little boring! With all respect for BBC as its one of the best and best TV channels and its actually one of my favorite, but still it looks like its targeted towards only older audiences and its not as interactive, fun, cool and “fresh” like 4Food.

What makes 4Food special is that the recipe generating section of their website is more creative and fun as its like a game, on the other hand BBC has a more specified criteria and an organized way of searching which I think is ordinary. Also, 4Food is more modern in terms of using new social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, while BBC is still on blogs which are good but not as accessible and outreaching to people as Twitter and Facebook. Another technique that 4Food uses is attracting customers and visitors to their website through having celebrity chefs like, Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey who generate traffic – they’re like a Magnet. Having celebrity chefs on their website increases their SEO ranking; people internationally search for those chefs and 4Food comes up which makes it popular everywhere, Not only in the UK, while BBC has national chefs who most of them are only known in the UK.

BBC:

4Food:

Another example of a media channel website it the ITV website’s Lifestyle/Food section. First of all this section is not totally dedicated for their Food programs and chefs. The section is about different lifestyle shows like Fashion – this obviously doesn’t target the “food audience”. Another thing I didn’t like about their food section was that I found some outdated content like Christmas recipes (which appeared on a main “food section” page), and it seems to me that they don’t update and generate new recipes and content which they should in order to attract customers.

Obviously every website has it pros and cons, and one of the ITV food section pros which I liked was that they had a ‘Shop’ section where website visitors can buy things that could help them in their cooking processes, for example pots and pans! Also, they have a BMI calculator on their page which is cool because it helps promoting good health and help people maintain and reach their ideal weights and not eat excessively. I think 4Food should adapt this into their website.

In my opinion, channel 4/ 4Food really deserved winning a creative media channel prize for being one of the best websites to represent a TV channel, it transformed all the Food information, programs, competitions and more into a lovely website which serves a lot of people digitally. Also, the availability of content online on the main website other than for example Youtube or Facebook is a very good way of allowing people to watch the shows they missed and watch a recipe they loved again. In addition it allows them to explore more about food it’s like an interactive, playful and online food book.

Woorank have some statistics about Channel 4 which show that the most popular page after the home page of their website is the 4Food section. Check out the report, its Fascinating.

According to the Guardian, in a 2007 article ‘Chefs to lead Channel 4 food campaign’: “The celebrity chefs, who are three of the channel's most recognizable faces, will attempt to change the nation's eating habits in a similar way to Oliver's crusade to improve school meals on his award-winning series Jamie's School Dinners” – John Plunkett. This was one of the early campaigns which boosted the popularity and social responsibility image of 4Food.

As for the new/2011 plans of 4Food and as it became a brand in the online Food world; Codorníu which is a Spanish sparkling wine producer will be sponsoring the new 4Food series ‘The secret supper club’. According to TheDrinksBusiness: Codorníu will be building associations with supper clubs throughout 2011, “helping to build awareness and encourage consumers to participate in the informal dining experience, through sponsoring London-based Supper Clubs and sampling wines at supper club events.”

I think 4Food’s digital marketing tools were implemented very effectively. It’s amazing how they used digital marketing to enhance and create an online brand which originally existed on another digital form (TV). Not only does 4Food online has food recipes, videos and TV show timetable, they also promote for healthy eating habits and Helping people get better lifestyles - Food is a way of living. Furthermore, as we are living in a digital era it is very useful to have an online channel because we are all converting to watching programs online rather than on the TV so 4Food’s digital approach comes as successful, creative and unique.

I personally love their website and I used some of their recipes which were delicious! Having the recipes online and having video tools allowed me to repeat, pause and go back to it any time I wanted! I also like the fact that I can follow them on Twitter and see their status updates and get reminders and sneak peeks to shows and programs.

4Food deserved the NMA creative award and I congratulate them for that!

So everyone, what did you think about 4Food? Do you think they are creative and deserved the award?

& Also tell me what’s your favorite creative, and why? :)

Innas A.