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Jan 19, 2023
How to Create an Email Marketing Strategy in 2023
A well-designed and effective email marketing campaign is the most cost-effective way to attract new customers and stay in touch with existing ones. A good email marketing strategy can help a business earn at least $50 from every $1 invested into email marketing — a weak strategy will not be able to achieve the desired ROI. Keep scrolling to read about how to create an effective email marketing strategy. Set up your goals and metrics Before you start working on an email marketing campaign, you must have a clear goal in mind. A clear purpose will allow you to measure how far you have come in achieving your targets. It would help if you also determined the various metrics you’ll use to measure your success. One goal and one KPI is a great way to start. Research your target audience Time to gather information about your potential target audience to identify areas of interest. Conducting an external survey or interviewing your sales team will give you insights on how customers interact with your products or services. Analyzing the activities of your competitors, as well as reviewing and auditing your previous blog posts and social media, will help you understand your target audience better. Now that you have your target audience, do some research about their behaviours and values to find out what type of content they would like to see or what features matter the most to them. For example, if your target audience is Gen Z and your product is environmentally friendly, you might want to put an emphasis on this because they care more about social justice issues than any other generation. According to a study, 71% of consumers prefer buying from companies that share their values. All this research will help you think about the various topics and themes that will be included in your subsequent email campaigns. Build your email list Since you’ve done the research part of an email marketing campaign, it’s time to build a list of subscribers. Here are some tips for building an email list: Define the type of content that you create. Creating content is a great way to build trust with your audience because it provides valuable information while allowing them to build a relationship with you. Make one-time offers. A free offer is a great way to build a list. It can be a tip sheet, an e-book or a template. Before your audience downloads the content, they must provide their email address. Opt-in form. Many companies place an opt-in form on their website, allowing potential customers with an easy-to-follow link to sign up for your email marketing campaign. Choose your email marketing campaign type Deciding on the type of email marketing campaign that you will run can be very challenging. You might wonder, how often do I send out emails? What should be included in them? Every marketer has their own way of answering these questions. After gathering information about the various types of email campaigns, you can decide which one is ideal for your audience. You should also create separate lists for different types of emails to ensure that your customers and prospects are only interested in content that is most relevant to them. Here are several campaign types that will help you decide which one to use: Traffic-generating campaigns One of the most critical factors that you can consider when it comes to implementing email marketing is the ability to get click-throughs to your website pages. This can increase your referral traffic count and make it more likely that your potential customers will act once they’ve found your site. It’s a great way to promote your website’s high-quality content that will eventually boost the traffic to your blog posts and product pages, with a higher chance of converting those visitors into buyers. Brand awareness campaigns With email marketing, you can stay relevant to your potential customers while providing them with the most current educational content. A brand awareness campaign can help you establish yourself as a leader within your industry and attract more potential customers. By hearing more from you, subscribers will likely rely on you when they need to know more about a certain topic or product. Lead nurturing campaigns A lead nurture campaign focuses on targeting your ideal customers with the highest purchase intent, helping you attract more potential buyers and convert them into sales. You can incorporate shopping-centric CTA’s designed to encourage recipients to add products to their cart. Try analyzing your website’s behavioral and purchasing data to determine which emails to send to potential customers. If you’re planning on sending these to first-time subscribers or casual visitors, you might rush them and, possibly worse, discourage them from making a purchase. Revenue-generating campaigns Creating cross-sell and upsell marketing campaigns for existing customers that target leads close to making a purchase decision is one way to generate revenue from your campaign. An example of this is creating an “abandon cart” campaign that aims to recover lost sales or a promotion to get users to upgrade their current equipment. These campaigns are usually reserved for those at the bottom of the funnel and have shown strong purchase intent. This campaign type isn’t for first-time visitors. Schedule your email marketing Think about how often you want to send out your emails, so eventually your target audience looks forward to your email. If you have a B2C business model, consider sending weekly newsletters that include product launches or promotional and seasonal campaigns. As for B2B, it’s better to run campaigns for new blog content, surveys, free trials and upcoming webinars. Review your campaigns to improve next results Regularly measuring the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns should be on your agenda at the end of each quarter. You need to know where you are succeeding and where your campaign needs improvement. Here are four factors that you should consider when it comes to assessing the effectiveness of email marketing: Deliverability — how often your email reaches the audience Open rate — the percentage of the audience who open your email from their inbox Click-through rate — the count of people who click your CTAs Unsubscribe rate — how many people opt out of your campaign Although there are only so many perfect strategies for email marketing, these basic techniques can help you create a successful campaign. An effective email marketing campaign is the most cost-effective way to attract new customers and stay in touch with existing ones. With that in mind, you should identify the best design that will help you achieve your goals of creating profitable email marketing campaigns.
Read moreJan 17, 2023
Social Media Monitoring and Screening for Human Resources
Two of the greatest challenges facing Human Resources professionals in their day-to-day recruitment operations are: Gaining a true, in-depth understanding of their candidates. Eliminating unconscious bias during the hiring process. Even with criminal background checks, professional screening services, and Google, it can still be daunting for organizations to decide whether a potential hire is a good fit. This is where social media screening comes in. Billions of people are active on social media platforms every day, collectively posting an endless stream of content about their activities and interests. But under the surface of all the joke memes and cute cat videos, much of the content created and published by social media users provides deep insights into the intimate thoughts and beliefs of people around the world. For this reason alone it’s critical that Human Resources departments utilize publicly-available data found on social platforms to learn more about prospective hires, current staff, and ex-employees. Below, we’ll explore some of the use cases in which HR departments can leverage social media data to their advantage, as well as the direct benefits that can be gained from social media monitoring and screening. Social Media Screening for Job Candidates When it’s time to fill an open role at an organization, the process will usually look something like this: Job Posting: Human Resources specialists create a detailed job description, which is then published across recruitment platforms. Application: Potential candidates respond to the posting by sending in their resumes and cover letters. Evaluation: HR teams evaluate applications according to their criteria, and begin reaching out to suitable candidates to book interviews. Vetting: Once the interviews have been successfully completed and the preferred candidates are shortlisted, HR teams begin the vetting process of background checks, including references, criminal record checks, social media history audits, and cursory Googling. But what if you could identify desirable candidates earlier, more efficiently, and accurately – while removing unconscious bias at the same time? According to research from Inc.com, over half of employers have rejected a candidate for inappropriate social media activity. What’s more, research from CareerBuilder found 27% of candidates surveyed have lied about their qualifications during the interview process. But manual social media screening is time-consuming, inefficient, and laced with bias—making it ultimately unscalable. Automated social media screening can help filter out fraudulent applications, undesirable candidates, and remove bias during the hiring process to ensure you get the most qualified candidates. With advanced social media screening software, HR teams can begin vetting candidates immediately. Instead of conducting a first-round interview, evaluating the results, and then repeating for each candidate, HR teams can save time and resources by running a quick social media audit on eligible candidates before the interview process has even begun. This way, companies can quickly identify candidates whose social media behavior does not align with their core brand values. Social Media Monitoring for Current and Ex-Employees In many ways, social media is the Wild West of personal expression, where people can voice their opinions freely, but sometimes with shocking, inappropriate, or unintended results. Twitter and Facebook have even been called modern-day “town squares”. The difference is that today’s digital town squares record and catalog every utterance within searchable databases, which anyone can revisit months or even years later. In other words, nothing goes unseen on social media. The benefit of this publicly available social data is it provides organizations with an effective way to monitor the online behavior of potential, current, and former employees. This makes it easy for HR teams to ensure compliance with social media policies, as well as keep track of public comments made by employees. There’s good reason to do so: A joint study found that even a small number of voices bad-mouthing an employer can have devastating impacts on the organization, limiting the ability to attract new talent, retain employees, and foster company culture. Negative comments on social media are costly, there’s no doubt — all the more reason to proactively monitor and screen behavior across social platforms. What kind of social media screening tools should HR departments use? When it comes to detailed social media audits and real-time monitoring of social media handles, organizations need automated tools that are sophisticated yet intuitive. Advanced social media monitoring and screening tools like VN Secure give HR departments the functionality and flexibility they need to undertake social screening at scale, without breaking the bank. What should organizations look for in social media screening tools? Organizations should look for the following features to ensure efficiency, scalability, and cost-effectiveness: Fully customizable settings: Not every organization will have the same risk tolerance for certain types of social media content. For example, one brand may be comfortable with profanity, while another may not. So make sure your solution is customizable. Screen multiple content types: Some social media screening solutions can only screen for text-based content, leaving images and videos untouched. VN Secure enables the monitoring and screening of text, image, and video content, including text-in-image analysis using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Scan complete social media history: Many social screening solutions only reach back a few years into a handle’s history. VN Secure performs deep historical analysis going as far back as the very first post. Automated: AI-powered screening tools free up valuable time and resources while reducing human error in the hiring process, increasing workplace diversity and improving company culture at the same time. While other features should be considered as well, these three primary functions are essential to creating a comprehensive social screening program that will remove unconscious bias and allow Human Resources to operate more efficiently and effectively. Effortlessly screen and monitor social media with VN Secure You’ve seen how important it is for HR departments to monitor and screen social media handles, both early in the candidate screening process and post-hire, to ensure compliance with corporate policies. Your reputation is way too important to not include social screening as part of your standard Human Resources operations. Moving forward, social screening will become as essential to HR processes as standard background checks. In fact, it could be argued it’s been like that for a while — as forward-thinking businesses have already implemented social media monitoring and screening procedures as part of mission-critical operations.
Read moreJan 16, 2023
How AI is Changing the Future of the Marketing Industry
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a revolutionary technology quickly becoming vital to the business world, leaving many in the marketing industry wondering how much change is coming their way. Improving search results, saving time and effort and personalizing encounters with your target audiences are just some of the benefits available to a brand that is leveraging AI. Let’s face it, AI is already a part of our lives. We rely on devices such as Google Home, Alexa and Siri to help us navigate our worlds, whether at work or play. While this technology has yet to reach its full potential, it is becoming a widely used discipline within the digital marketing industry. Continue reading below to learn more about AI marketing and some of the main results after integrating AI into your digital marketing strategy. What is AI marketing? AI is a field of computer science that attempts to simulate or replicate human intellect in machines. In a digital marketing context, AI helps you improve your marketing campaign by gathering, analyzing and summarizing data. It can make automated decisions based on this data collection, along with additional observations of your target audience or economic trends that may impact marketing efforts. What are the results of AI marketing? Before implementing AI in marketing operations and campaigns, your marketing team must clearly understand its capabilities. This will allow them to minimize the risk of errors and maximize the value of your investment. Here are some results you can expect from AI marketing: Save time and effort One of the biggest strengths of AI marketing is its ability to process data quickly. This eliminates manual research and allows marketers to focus on their target customers. It can also adapt to changes in the user’s behavior and interpret large amounts of data. Machine learning enables digital marketers to better understand their target customers’ purchasing habits. In addition, AI can also analyze and interpret data collected from various sources, such as social media profiles and keyword searches.This can then be used to create marketing plans designed to reach their ideal customers at the right time and place. It allows businesses to focus their attention on providing value to their target audience, and less on conducting the initial research. Improve search results By combining big data and AI, you can better understand your target customers’ search patterns through AI-integrated web analytics. This technology collects and analyzes web data to provide valuable insights that will help to improve your customer service and personalize product recommendations. AI can suggest specific keywords that your target audience is searching for to incorporate them on your website or social media pages. You can also create marketing plans designed to reach the ideal customers at the right time and place, with the help of AI determining the best time to post content on your behalf. Personalized encounters Personalization is a buzzword that’s becoming more prevalent in today’s digital world. It involves considering the various factors that affect a customer’s behavior and implementing them into your marketing strategy to make your target audience feel heard and valued. If a customer doesn’t feel your messaging resonates with them, they might lose interest in products or services you’re trying to provide. With AI in digital marketing, you don’t have to spend time making customized campaigns to make your customer feel valued and special. The more data the AI collects, the better this machine learning program will be able to identify the ideal marketing tactics for your target audience. Highly targeted, more sophisticated advertising AI can also provide customers’ past interactions, which you can use to segment your audience based on their specific interests. This can help break through the noise of ad clutter and improve the customer experience. Through predictive data collected by AI marketing, you can determine the optimal time and place to spend your ad budget. This method can then identify areas to increase your resources and decrease expenditures, while of course – making sure your target audience sees your ad! Make a quick but informed decision AI is a crucial component of the future as computers can harness vast amounts of data and make better decisions in a fraction of a second, unlike humans. The technology can help you make informed decisions by allowing you to analyze and visualize your data quickly. AI is uniquely positioned to make sense of this data, especially when the outcome is clear and measurable. It can help marketing leaders make the right decisions in each phase from planning to implementation and discover patterns along the way. Integrating AI in digital marketing The use of AI has revolutionized how companies work. It allows you to focus on your creative and innovative ideas by freeing up valuable time. In the digital marketing industry, many companies are now using AI to improve their strategies and deliver more personalized and relevant messaging. Here are four ways you can integrate AI into your digital marketing strategy: Use AI in conversational marketing, which involves using text, emails, and personalized videos to connect with customers. Leverage video marketing, which involves creating informative, engaging content in a video format. This can include social media videos, how-to videos, or product demonstration videos. Provide shoppable content and personalized promotion to optimize how people engage with your content and increase the likelihood they will move through the sales funnel. Use predictive analytics to analyze and predict the future behavior of your customers. This method combines the insights gained from various datasets and models with machine learning and AI to provide actionable recommendations. AI is a powerful tool that can help improve your digital marketing efforts. Not only does AI speed up the process of performing various marketing activities, but it also helps to automate mundane tasks, enhances your productivity levels and improves customers’ perception of your brand after seeing more personalized marketing campaigns. Start integrating AI into your digital marketing strategy with the four ways above to start seeing results!
Read moreJan 12, 2023
Marketing in the Era of Data Privacy
What are customer data privacy laws in digital marketing? How is customer data used? These are just two of the many questions consumers are dying to get answers to amid the rise of the digital information era. Massive amounts of data are being collected and stored across various organizations, creating a huge potential for loss and misuse. As a business, how can you promise your customers that their personal data is safe? It’s becoming more pressing for your company to remain aware of the obligations to protect the privacy and security of your customers’ data. Continue reading to find out everything you need to know about data privacy in marketing and tips for digital marketers to instill confidence in your consumers. What is data privacy? Data privacy is a concept that describes the way third-party organizations collect and use the information that customers provide. This includes their financial and demographic details, the products they buy and their interests. Digital marketing heavily depends on consumer data to create personalized customer experiences and deliver effective marketing campaigns, so companies must take the necessary steps to protect their customers’ information. Unfortunately, despite the positive impacts of personal data disclosure, the increasing number of scandals involving data misuse and unauthorized access has prompted consumers to become more concerned about their privacy. Why is data privacy important? Data privacy should be an absolute priority for businesses worldwide. After all, people want to be assured that their information will be handled carefully. Would you feel comfortable if you didn’t know where your personal data was being stored and you were at risk of a breach? Unfortunately, many companies do not have the necessary security measures to prevent unauthorized access and misuse of their customers’ data. To prevent these from happening to your company, you ought to adopt effective data management practices. Why should brands care about data privacy? The lack of transparency regarding how much data is collected and stored by commercial and government organizations has led to various data breaches. The number of data breaches has increased significantly over the past decade, and they have been made even more prominent by the rise of social media platforms. As more and more information gets put online, there is an increased number of hackers and companies that work to undermine your personal privacy. This issue has caused many consumers to become frustrated with the perceived lack of control over their personal information. Adhering to proper data privacy and compliance allows you to become one step closer to improving your market reputation, avoiding potential legal risks, and increasing your chances of brand success. It impacts how customers perceive the brand, how employees view your workplace and provides an opportunity for brands to stand out from their competition by having a strong data privacy strategy. Data privacy tips for digital marketers Digital marketers must adapt to the changes brought about by the new laws and user expectations. This means implementing new strategies and methods to improve how to gather and use data. Here are some of the best practices you can apply: Transparency Being transparent about how your company collects and uses your data is crucial and even legally required in some places. You need to be as transparent as possible about how your company plans to use consumer data in order to keep your customers. If your site uses cookies, ask for permission to do so. Try to avoid blocking content if users do not accept cookies because it sends a message that obtaining their personal data matters more than consumers coming to your site for a product or service. If they can’t view content on your site without providing personal information, they may be more inclined to take their business to a competitor. Offer something in return There are ways to obtain consumers’ personal information that are fun and exciting for them as well. Try creating an engaging campaign that asks users for their personal information in exchange for discounts or promotion codes. Another option is gating your content. Provide high quality, unique and valuable content to a consumer if they share their email address or basic contact information to you. Make sure they can unsubscribe or opt-out at any time. Control data visibility An access control model is a vital part of marketing and data privacy. While it is crucial to protect the privacy of your customers’ data, prioritize who can access it. This means that only those who need it should be able to access it. People with access to your customer’s data should be trained to handle it. A data breach or leak can have serious consequences, and the more people have access to it, the greater the likelihood of this happening. To minimize the risk of unauthorized access, you should regularly keep your customers’ data encrypted. You should try to do everything in your power to respect and protect the data you collect. When collecting and using personal data, you must be transparent about how and why you do it. Continuously demonstrating how you are using consumer’s data with their best interests in mind will prompt them to share more information with you, allowing you to deliver a better customer experience.
Read moreJan 10, 2023
Why Social Media is So Important to Brand Reputation Management
Social media is an essential tool for brand reputation management. In today’s world, a single bad review or negative post can quickly spiral out of control and damage your reputation beyond repair. That’s right: those tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram pictures can make or break your company. It’s more important than ever to have a strong online presence, and brands can no longer afford to avoid having conversations about their reputation. Social media allows brands to connect with their audience in a more personal way, while building trust, loyalty, and credibility at the same time. In fact, 64% of buyers who feel a close connection with a brand are more willing to pay a premium price for its products and services. So, what exactly is brand reputation management and what are the benefits that come along with it? What is brand reputation management? Brand reputation management is the process of monitoring and managing your company’s public image. It mirrors how customers perceive your business, its values, and beliefs. Your brand reputation reflects the company’s past actions and sets future expectations. In other words, brand reputation management is a powerful tool to influence how buyers see your brand by proactively responding to potential threats and seizing new opportunities to boost your online presence. It’s important to have a strong brand reputation as it directly impacts your bottom line. It also allows your brand to increase revenue, retain customers, and attract top talent. People buy from brands that share their values, build organic and trustworthy relationships. Moreover, people want to work for companies with a superior reputation as it brings them not only emotional satisfaction but also a sense of fulfillment and prestige. If someone says they work for Apple, for example, there are already certain connotations and assumptions you’ll make, without even knowing what they do, and that’s all because of reputation. The pride employees feel about the companies they work for leads to increased productivity, motivation, and a better workplace culture, which also means greater profitability for brands. Reputation management is an essential part of any successful business strategy that includes many moving pieces, such as communications, marketing, customer experience, PR, and more. Modern companies must invest in a strong corporate culture and show a commitment to sustaining their competitive advantage, and brand reputation is a key part in this. Impacts of social media on brand reputation The impacts of social media cannot be overstated, especially for businesses. Numerous companies wish they could go back in time — imagine how many crises and how much lost revenue could have been avoided! But nothing goes unseen on social media (because if it is unseen, you’re probably doing something wrong!), and it affects your ever-evolving digital brand reputation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Whether a brand will prosper or perish is highly dependent on customer feedback and perception. With the click of a button, people can share their experiences, thoughts, and criticisms with the world — whether good or bad — and this transparency makes reputation management more important than ever. Having said that, this transparency can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, social media can do wonders for a brand’s reputation as it provides a direct line of communication for customers to share their experiences with your product or service. This communication can not only improve customer satisfaction rates but also grow brand awareness. On the other hand, social media is also incredibly effective at spreading negative comments and otherwise badmouthing a brand. It’s why anger and outrage is often prioritized by the algorithms, after all – it’s great for engagement. In some cases, a viral ad can damage your brand’s reputation in a matter of seconds. What’s more, a recent survey shows that 94% of consumers avoid particular businesses due to negative online reviews. The bottom line? Consumers have more power than ever over your brand’s reputation, making it crucial to establish a direct line of communication with your audience. Proactive and positive interactions on social platforms allow consumers to voice their opinion, feel empowered, and ultimately remember your brand. And that’s exactly what you need: even in our technology-driven reality, word of mouth has never lost its power. If anything, it’s only gotten stronger as a recent study showed that 91% of consumers trust peer recommendations as much as online reviews. In cases where customers’ concerns are left unaddressed, they may share their opinions or feelings in a blog article or social media post. This can add an entirely new layer of frustration for companies, especially if it goes viral—which is where social media monitoring comes in. Benefits of strong social media reputation management As the world becomes increasingly digitized, it is time to step up your social media game. Here are some benefits of strong brand reputation management: 1. Attract new customers and business partners Social media is your business card for the digital age. For some businesses, it goes even further than that, to the point where social media is their storefront, catalog, and register, all in one. And you should be mindful that potential buyers will always do their research. Companies with a good social media reputation are seen as more trustworthy and reliable, increasing the likelihood of potential customers doing business with you. 2. Retain your existing customers By keeping your audiences engaged and being transparent in managing your business, consumers will be more likely to stay loyal. This loyalty can go a long way in increasing the customer lifetime value of your brands. 3. Enhance your brand recognition and build trust Better engagement and long-term brand success are powered by authentic connections. According to Harvard Business Review, 64% of consumers say that shared values are the main reason that they have a trusted relationship with a brand. 4. Obtain valuable first-party insights Establishing an open line of communication allows your brand to actually listen to your clients, stay on top of their concerns, and respond accordingly. These insights deliver real-time customer feedback, which allows you to strategize and plan for the long term success of your brand. Strong social media reputation management is one of the best investments that your business can pursue and it should be taken seriously. It ensures that you are not only aware of your customers’ concerns so you can proactively address them, but also helps you earn their trust and loyalty. How to manage your brand reputation effectively with VN Secure When anyone can easily air their opinions, discuss, or criticize on social media, what should brands do to manage their reputation effectively? Brands need to be proactive in managing and monitoring their online reputation, and social media is the key. The right social media screening platform can protect your brand from unexpected crises, allowing you to maximize social media’s potential while minimizing its risks. An effective social media reputation management strategy requires ongoing monitoring, engagement, and a proactive approach. But what if there is an easier and more efficient way to tackle social media monitoring, while also eliminating the need for time-consuming manual research that is riddled with bias? VN Secure is the most advanced AI-powered social screening and monitoring platform on the market. Not only does it provide you with social media reports going back decades and ongoing monitoring across major social networks, but it also sends real-time email alerts as soon as risky social media behavior is detected. With VN Secure, you can automate processes, make data-driven decisions, and increase the profitability of your business. In conclusion Social media is a powerful tool that plays a vital role in brand reputation management. It can make or break your company in a matter of seconds. With the right solution in place and an effective digital reputation management strategy, businesses can quickly pick up any negative sentiment and address it appropriately before it is too late. There is no doubt that social media has made it much easier for brands to connect with their audiences. With that being said, it is imperative to have the tools to monitor these platforms closely to protect against reputational damage and bad publicity. To learn more about VN Secure and protect your brand reputation today, click here to request a demo.
Read moreJan 9, 2023
Marketing Convenience to the Modern Consumer
In the modern world where everything is available at the click of a button, brands should really focus on building their business around convenience marketing. This marketing approach is perfect for modern customers because there has been a significant shift of value, with 70% of consumers saying they would pay more if they knew the experience would be convenient. Before getting started, what is convenience marketing and how important is it to implement this strategy in your business? Keep reading to find out and to learn the best ways to apply this marketing approach. Convenience marketing in the modern era Convenience marketing is making sure products or services that a consumer is interested in buying are available frequently, immediately and with a minimum of comparison and buying efforts. A concept that is driven by technology forces services to become available at the push of a button, anytime and anywhere. Think of how many products you can order within 1 minute online and have them all delivered the next day – or even sometimes the same day. True convenience means the products and services are available to come to you. Younger generations have grown up with high accessibility to media and services, and can get what they want anytime and anywhere. This new value forms their expectations in brands and it’s unlikely they’re willing to go the extra mile to get something, especially if your competitors are willing to provide this convenience. These trends should change the way you market your products to consumers. Customers shouldn’t work hard to get what you’re offering. Instead of waiting for them to come to you, you should bring your product to them. Ways to implement convenience in marketing Utilize easy-to-use platforms If you run a digital platform for your business — which you should — you need to ensure that customers can navigate through its functions with ease. Although most modern customers are tech-savvy, interacting with a poorly designed platform can be frustrating. They may immediately close your page and move on when they can’t find valuable information easily on your platform. Making sure your website is easy to use and ensuring all your social media platforms connect with a similar username are two basic ways to improve your convenience to a consumer. Tip: When using Instagram to promote your products, use its “History” feature to categorize your posts so that visitors can navigate through them easier. Keep engagement high on social media Social media is an effective marketing platform since younger generations spend a significant amount of time there. Most social media users even use social media to research products they want to buy. The easier it is to find you online, the more sales you will gain. Having said that, making your posts visible among millions of posts is a big challenge for brands. Using search engine optimization strategies on social media will boost your visibility. It starts with using captions, hashtags and bios relevant to what your customers often look for in social media. Think about when most of your consumers are online and schedule your posts around that. Tip: To find out the best time to post on Instagram, go to Professional Dashboard, click Account Insights, then Total Followers, scroll down to the bottom under Most Active Times. Keep (and push) delivery costs down As more people make online purchases, delivery becomes a pivotal part of your business operation. The younger generations don’t want to pay a high fee for shipping and delivery because these costs add up the more frequently you make a purchase — some people even make purchase decisions around the shipping cost. It’s important to find ways to push down the delivery costs of your goods. One strategy you can implement is bumping up your product price to cover the shipping costs. Many customers are willing to pay for products with higher prices if brands can offer low or free shipping costs, so make sure you include it in your strategy if you haven’t already. Ensure excellent customer service To market convenience, you must provide no less than excellent customer service. Customers want to receive an immediate response if they need help or have any questions. If it takes you hours to get back to them, they may already make a purchase with another company. Some companies opt to use a bot to provide a fast response or have trained customer service teams available to offer a more personalized response to each customer. Advantages of implementing convenience marketing Convenience marketing seems complicated to implement, but it can give you so many advantages for the business. Here are some of the main benefits. Builds loyalty “Easy” is the keyword for today’s marketing approach. If you can make people’s lives easier, they will be satisfied with your service. When you can maintain that customer satisfaction, they will develop an emotional bond and loyalty with your brand, so they are less likely to jump to a competitor. Best of all, these loyal customers will promote your business to friends and colleagues through word of mouth and give you free advertising. Reduces friction Friction is anything that disrupts the customer experience with your brand. It can happen in any stage of customer-brand interaction, from discovery to post-purchase. Focusing on crafting convenience for your customers can minimize this friction. Identify possible friction by analyzing your current business model, website and social media platforms to see if the consumer journey is seamless. Make sure that all website links work, that customer service or FAQ’s are easily found, and that your different products or services show clear pricing and benefits. Reducing friction will ultimately boost customer satisfaction. Sets you apart from competitors Marketing convenience is the easiest way to set your brand apart from competitors. Using comparison charts on your site to easily show the difference in your products, offering the best customer experience possible and ensuring the consumer journey process is as seamless as possible are all great strategies to set yourself apart. You can also try visiting competitors’ pages to see complaints that customers have to then improve these issues on your end. Thanks to advanced technology and an on-demand culture, services now need to become available at the push of a button, anytime and anywhere. If your business hasn’t adopted convenience marketing, you should start immediately to ensure longevity for your brand and to set yourself apart from the heavy competition.
Read moreJan 6, 2023
5 Reasons You Need an Influencer Marketing Strategy in 2023
It’s finally 2023! And businesses need to consider what kind of marketing campaign they will use to grow their brands this year. More and more brands are leveraging influencer marketing and social media marketing in their go-to-market strategies. This is why the influencer marketing industry was expected to grow to $16.4 billion by the end of 2022, with 88.7% of marketers using influencer marketing by the end of 2026. With all this in mind, you should understand the significance and benefits that influencer marketing can bring. So, here are five reasons you should consider incorporating influencer marketing into your go-to-market strategies in 2023. 1. Social media users trust influencers more Why are influencers generally so well-loved among their followers? Here’s a simple and short answer: Trust. Influencers are often ordinary people who love to share their passion online. If we compare them to celebrities, the outlook may not be the same since they usually hold lavish lifestyles, which ordinary people can’t always relate to. Celebrities feel distant and have different social standings. Influencers are more relatable and have similar lives to their followers. This relatability allows influencers to build a closer relationship with their fans, which allows them to gain trust and credibility. People are more open to suggestions from those they trust. After all, you are most likely to trust your friends’ words over those of strangers. You can use this trust to strengthen your brand’s credibility. By having influencers recommending your brand, fans are more likely to check out your products or services. They know that if the influencers they follow say your brand is good, then it must be at least worth a try. Deloitte conducted a consumer survey where 70% of people admit they will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t know and 40% of people note they rely on social media to browse products, read recommendations and find any deals or promotions. Long story short: sometimes you don’t have to go out of your way to find a high-profile celebrity to endorse your brand — working with legitimate, growing influencers will do wonders for your business and growing your audience. 2. Enhanced content creation and value Influencers are the master of creating engaging content. After all, in order to be a successful influencer and grow their own following, they must be able to charm their audience with engaging and thoughtful content. It certainly helps that most influencers start their account to talk about a topic they are passionate about. Their passion and dedication make them inspiring and authentic to their audience. They are here because they want to share what they love – not just because they are getting paid for it – and people like to hear about it. Influencers are able to inject your brand’s advertisement with passion and turn an unstimulating promotion into something their audience will voluntarily watch. Hearing an influencer rave about a product, giving real time reviews or explaining what a brand stands for are just some of the reasons why audiences find their content to be of high value. 3. Engaged communities Having engaged communities is an absolute must. Their fans’ support and interaction with their content are the basis of their popularity. Influencers often spend time communicating with their fans directly or via the comment section on their posts, creating a positive feedback loop. Strong community management is so important because it increases your level of customer service, increases brand and product awareness and allows you to gain a better understanding of your target audience – all by responding to comments or to direct messages on social media platforms. Brands can tap into these strong and active communities when collaborating with influencers and become more visible to a new audience. If you can turn some of them into a part of your brand’s community, expect to gain new members who are active and engaged with your personal brand content. 4. Increased brand visibility Influencer marketing can help your brand reach new target audiences that you may not gain through traditional marketing. People are starting to view traditional ads as not as engaging, reducing the impact they have on consumers. They also tend to be unfocused and target a broader audience, whereas influencer marketing will allow you to reach a more niche audience. Through influencer marketing, social media users will gain more in-depth awareness of your brand. There is only so much you can tell through a billboard or a five-second ad. The right influencer will share the same values, voice and messaging style as your brand. Influencers can be your spokesperson to social media users, allowing them to create a connection with your brand and speak on your behalf. You can slowly grow this connection into a strong relationship and turn these consumers into loyal customers. 5. Improved search visibility and rankings Collaborating with influencers can help you improve your site ranking by generating natural backlinks. If you work with bloggers or influencers with a website, you can ask them to create content and link it to you, creating a high-quality backlink. Influencers can also help by sharing your link, which will increase the chance of their followers sharing it. If enough people share it, there is a chance that a higher-authority domain will notice and add your link to their website. Once this happens, your website ranking will increase, boosting your Google search results. The higher your website is on the search result page, the better the chance of people visiting your website. There are many benefits an influencer marketing strategy can bring, especially in the modern age, where social media have become integral parts of daily life. Influencers can help brands grow and expand in ways that traditional marketing cannot do. Get started today with your influencer marketing strategy to start reaping the benefits throughout 2023!
Read moreJan 3, 2023
Should Human Resources Teams Monitor and Screen Social Media?
According to research from job platform CareerBuilder, 54 percent of surveyed employers have eliminated a promising candidate due to problematic social media posts. This raises two questions: should every job seeker expect to have their social media history reviewed by recruiters? And should HR departments really be checking out people’s social media profiles? The short answer to both questions is ‘yes’. Today, billions of people regularly post on social media platforms, leaving a digital trail of their activities, interests—even their innermost thoughts—for anyone with a web browser to peruse. As social media platforms increasingly become the places where people chat, shop, and network, the lines around personal privacy are blurring in ways that would have been unimaginable a generation ago. This fundamental shift is transforming our lives in myriad ways, including how people get hired. Below, we’ll explore why every job seeker should expect to have their social media profiles scrutinized during the hiring process, and why every employer should take the time to really get to know who they’re hiring. For human resources departments, the social media background check is quickly becoming as common as the criminal background check—and this can be a good thing, especially when social media monitoring tools make it easy to scale the process. Candidates: Be careful what you post! Ultimately, anyone who uses social media should understand that everything they post can be viewed by essentially anyone, from their grandmother to a new boss. This alone should be enough to give people pause before hitting the ‘publish’ button, but many smart people still post things that would make even the most open-minded person cringe, leading to lost opportunities and embarrassment. So job seekers, take heed: if you don’t want to be singled out for something you posted late on a Saturday night, you can either clean up your accounts, or set them to private. It’s one thing to have an expectation of privacy when chatting with friends in the real world, but posting whatever comes to mind on social media is setting yourself up for problems. Regularly auditing your social accounts, especially when looking for a new job, is a wise practice and should become a habit. Why should human resources teams screen social media accounts? It’s no secret that a brand’s reputation can be tarnished in seconds when an employee, board member, partner or other associated party posts something offensive on social media. This reason alone should be compelling enough for brands to invest in brand reputation management solutions, to ensure that organizations have visibility over what their representatives are saying online. What’s more, screening the social media accounts of prospective hires can also be incredibly insightful for HR teams: research from CareerBuilder found that 27 percent of candidates lie about their qualifications when applying for a job. Having an efficient and comprehensive social media auditing solution can help catch application fraud in real time, simply by reviewing a candidate’s posts to see if their work history and achievements align with their online behavior. From a brand protection and compliance perspective, it’s also critical that HR teams have a strong understanding of current employees and prospective hires—and that includes having a clear view of their behavior online. This is where social media monitoring and screening solutions like VN Secure deliver tremendous value for brands: by making it easy to monitor and screen social media activity at scale, without breaking the bank. VN Secure: The most advanced social media screening solution VN Secure from Viral Nation enables brands to quickly screen the social media behavior of current and ex-employees, vet talent hires, and streamline other HR processes all from a single platform. WIth the ability to screen text, image, and video social media posts—and to enable 24/7 monitoring of social media accounts—VN Secure outperforms other solutions on the market, making it the solution of choice for global brands. And while it’s the responsibility of job seekers to ensure their accounts are squeaky-clean when it comes time to engage with HR, the onus is on organizations to be sure that anyone representing their brand is aligned with their core values. Knowing this, there’s never been a better time for brands to adopt solutions that make social media monitoring and screening a snap. Find out how VN Secure can help protect your organization against social media mishaps by booking a demo today.
Read moreDec 28, 2022
How Influencer Marketing Can Help Increase Sales at a Time of Uncertainty
Consumer confidence may be slowly waning due to inflation, geopolitical tension and looming recession, but despite the arduous time ahead, brands still need to find ways to gain new customers and keep their current ones engaged. In order to tackle this set of future challenges, brands should rely on influencer marketing instead of traditional marketing strategies, which often has unfocused targeting and is less versatile. With influencer marketing, you can gain more reach, increase sales, build trust and more. Keep reading to find how you can use influencer marketing to your advantage at a time of such uncertainty and future predictions for the industry. Why partnering with influencers is the right path in the current economy The biggest hurdle brands have to work through in this uncertain economy is their budget. With the oncoming recession, most consumers will be reluctant to spend their money, or will focus their spending on services versus physical goods. According to eMarketer, persistently high inflation could lead consumers to be more cautious spending their money in 2023. In a stable economy, brands can afford to spend a lot of money on advertisements and have higher confidence that customers will buy their products. That isn’t the case anymore thanks to the recession. Brands still need to spend money on advertising and gain customers, but they must be frugal and thoughtful about which type of marketing they will invest in. Increasing brand awareness while sticking to your budget With such a limited budget, influencer marketing is the right path for brands to gain more customers without the need to spend a lot of money on marketing. Influencers are able to create and distribute their content for a much lower cost than if a brand had to hire production crews to film and design an ad. They have a passion for creating high quality and engaging content and love connecting with their followers. You have a guarantee that your influencer will represent your brand well and create content your target audience finds useful and engaging. Influencer marketing can help increase brand awareness by introducing your brand to potential customers. They already have their own base of loyal followers that their content will reach. On the other hand, relying on paid advertisements is a lot more expensive and may offer lesser returns. You hope your target audience sees these paid ads and are receptive to them, but an influencer can really sell to your target audience on a much more personal level. Leveraging nano or micro influencers Keeping budget in mind, smaller businesses can consider working with nano or micro-influencers. Although most will assume that an influencer with a larger following is better, there are some things that nano or micro-influencers do better than their bigger counterparts. One of the biggest benefits of leveraging nano or micro-influencers is their affordable rate. Although influencer marketing is cheaper than social media marketing and traditional marketing, collaborating with macro and mega-influencers can be rather costly for small businesses. Nano or micro-influencers have higher engagement and conversion rates because of their smaller followings, allowing influencers to connect more deeply with their followers than bigger influencers. This deep connection makes it possible for influencers to convince their followers to try out a product because the followers feel the sponsorship is authentic. They trust influencers and have a certain level of admiration for them – if your favourite influencer recommends a product and raves about it, you’re more likely to purchase it for yourself. A path to increasing sales Influencers are adept at increasing sales. Their ability to produce engaging content and their followers’ trust in them make it easy for them to convince their followers to purchase a product. In fact, 49% of consumers decide which product to buy based on influencer recommendations. By asking influencers to recommend your brand, you will gain more sales than you may get through traditional marketing. Influencers are also motivated to work the extra mile to create a great promotion since they will benefit if the sponsorship goes well. Many influencers hope to create long-term relationships with brands so they will receive future sponsorships, which is why they have to make sure that the first sponsorship is a great success. This incentivizes a win-win situation relationship between influencers and brands. So long as influencers work the extra mile, brands will get more exposure and an uptick in sales while influencers receive more sponsorships. Future predictions More spending on influencer marketing Influencer marketing is here to stay, and it will become even more integral to marketing campaigns in the future. Spending on influencer marketing is expected to increase by 23.4% in 2023 and 15.9% in 2024. As long as people flock to social media, influencers will continue to grow and establish themselves in the market. Taking that into account, more brands will collaborate with influencers who can help them build relationships with new audiences and increase brand awareness. Increase of in-house influencer programs As more brands understand the importance of influencers, some will consider using in-house influencer programs. In this way, brands can focus on building long-term partnerships that may not be possible when using an agency. This does not mean that influencer agencies will be gone — they offer unparalleled expertise and ease of scalability, which is sometimes difficult to find elsewhere. So it goes without saying that — since it’s expensive — not every brand can afford in-house influencer programs. Birth of virtual influencers The existence of virtual influencers is a topic that is slowly gaining traction in the marketing industry. The rise of metaverse and web3 also push forward the rise of virtual influencers. Virtual influencers are computer-generated fictional characters used for marketing purposes, in lieu of human influencers. They provide a unique opportunity to reach a new, younger audience allowing your company to tap into this demographic in a more effective way than you may have previously been able to. There are no physical or geographical limitations to virtual influencers – after all, they are computer-generated – so they can grow their online presence and quickly attract attention, while being able to create content around the clock. A big benefit of working with virtual influencers is that brands get to maintain full control over their projects from conception to completion. You don’t need to vet for the right influencer either because you are creating them through your computer. Luxury brands Balmain and Prada have already leveraged virtual influencers to run successful campaigns. For example, Prada developed a virtual model named after the Prada Candy fragrance to help attract new and existing customers. The threat of recession, the tension in politics and the ongoing pandemic issue have created a storm that reduces consumer confidence. However, brands should stay calm and find their paths through these trials. One way to do it is by collaborating with influencers who can help brands using their authenticity and engaging content. Keep an eye on influencer marketing trends to stay relevant and take advantage of what’s to come in our industry.
Read moreDec 21, 2022
Talent Spotlight – Kendra Austin
We sat down with Kendra Austin aka Kendramorous for our Talent Spotlight of the month! Although Kendra is new to the VN family, she has many achievements to be proud of including bringing Third Cup to life and getting Skims to sponsor it, along with Milk Makeup, Topicals, Hey Rowan, and Chronicle Books! She has been talking about this event since signing with us – and seeing her bring it to life was truly her main goal for ending 2022! Kendra is a model, activist, and creator who loves human connection and advocating for topics she cares about. Continue reading to find out how Kendra became an influencer, her career moves, and long term goals for her biggest project – Third Cup. Who are you? What’s your preferred platform & content vertical? I’m an Instagram and TikTok influencer who promotes radical self-acceptance, spiritual curiosity, and healing. How did you get introduced into the content creator space? I originally came onto the scene as a “body positive” creator in 2017 after graduating college and feeling a bit confused about where to turn next. I hadn’t ever considered myself a particularly creative person, but knew my most authentic path would include creating, writing, and sharing my story. Social media made that simple. What do you wish you knew when starting as a content creator? You have to be intentional about generating creative spirit OFF the internet if you want this job and your sanity. You are a person first. What advice would you give your younger self or someone thinking of becoming a content creator? Building a community is more important than selling things or making money. You are only as special and important as your community engagement and forgetting that your followers are your blessing is the biggest mistake you can make. They are your source. Brand Campaigns What campaigns have you been a part of? Many SKIMS campaigns, PUMA, Glossier Body Hero, Flamingo body care line, Planned Parenthood, Nike Makers program, Arq, Dame Products, Milk Future Fluid, Milk Rise Mascara, Topicals launch, Zappos, Dolce Vita, THINX, Saie beauty, Nike NYC, Savage x Fenty and many more. What was your favourite one or most viral piece of content? Why? My favorite piece of content was a tweet that went insanely viral during the pandemic. This tweet has made it onto the news, articles, facebook pages, and spaces I don’t even know exist and has ultimately defined my impact on social media without trying. It’s a reminder to me about the purpose of even being a creator at all – to make people feel something and tell our stories. Most of my viral content is just that – unsponsored stories. The third TikTok I ever posted is still my most popular TikTok – again, because I was honest. Do you prefer a detailed content brief or full creative freedom? Full creative freedom. I find content that is overproduced/written by clients performs poorly and reads as fake. My favorite collaboration to date was a long term partnership with Nike because they just let me do my thing and paid me for it – all of that content performed very well because I felt my time, creativity, and talent was respected. Dream collaborations – what would be your dream brand(s) to work with? Why? I would love to work with Dove! They have been at the forefront of great storytelling around empowerment and owning who you are, and that’s really commendable. All of their campaigns are stories first and ads second and I respect that. What do you love the most about what you do? Creative sovereignty. I love that I get to just hop on my phone and connect with people without middle men and gatekeepers. A lot of what I have to share are things that gatekeepers find disruptive or too much and I’ve never been the kind of person to compromise my values. Doing what I do means I don’t have to. What content / personal challenges have you come across and how have you overcome them? I think it’s really hard to grow as a person on social media. Audience becomes attached to one kind of content or a person, and won’t necessarily support the growth right away. Trusting that the right audience will find you and reminding yourself that you can’t stunt your creative transformation for the sake of constantly creating viral content is great. The greatest gift I have given myself is refusing to be nice – it has spared me from the whiplash of being thrust into hypervisibility without a plan and allows room for me to grow and ask my audience to grow with me. It is slow and steady for sure. I know my audience trusts me and knows me. What inspired you to start the Third Cup? Everyone is chronically lonely and chronically online. It was true before the pandemic and is even more true after 3 years in the pandemic. I am passionate about helping people remember what investing in in-person connection feels like again. Making friends as an adult is hard – we forget that it’s just like being a toddler in the sandbox; you just need to ask folks to play with you but that’s really vulnerable. I wanted women in my community to feel the healing property of being together again. Playing middle man is the least I can do! How did you come up with the name? I was reading The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg. He is a sociologist who researched the decline in community spaces – what he called “third places” – throughout modern history. Third places are supposed to be community building spots without pretension or class division where people can dream of a better future. Also, I am very spiritual and read tarot/oracle. I’m actually publishing an oracle deck called The Realest Oracle in July 2023! Anyway, my favorite card in the deck is the 3 of cups. It depicts three women holding up chalices in joy and abundance. It’s about friendship, celebration, community, and connection. So I kind of married these concepts. How have you seen the mental health space evolve with creators being more vocal and the influx of content creation solely surrounding mental health? I love it! Mental health has historically been reserved for people who can afford it. Now, that info is accessible and directly from mental health practitioners. I do think there is some context lost on the internet, as always, but it is largely helping people name experiences that have existed in shame and darkness for a long time. We all deserve to name what holds us back and return back to light again. There is a lot of buzz-iness and watering down of concepts that shouldn’t be but we’re all learning together. Who would your ideal sponsors be for one of your events? I would love to work with a huge beauty brand. Beauty is kind of having a crisis because they don’t know how to make themselves un-superficial. I think partnering with community organizers who are making women’s lives literally more beautiful is a great start. I would also love to partner with Nike or Beyond Yoga on building out a healing retreat for our attendees. Bumble BFF and Resy would also be PERFECT! What card in your favourite tarot deck best describes you? The 3 of cups! It depicts three women holding up chalices in joy and abundance. It’s about friendship, celebration, community, and connection. Follow Kendra on Instagram and TikTok for more great content. Stay tuned for our upcoming monthly Viral Nation Talent Spotlights!
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