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Your brand logo is the face of your company. People identify your brand from your logo. Look at the logos of some of the most successful brands in the world and you will realize that one factor that played a big part in their success is their logo. Whether it is Nike, Apple, or McDonald’s, they are simple so users can remember it easily and convey their brand message to create an emotional attachment with the customers. Great brand logos are not created overnight and require attention to detail. Whether it is logo color, typeface, or image, all contribute to creating your brand image. To create an attention-grabbing logo for your brand, you should be aware of different types of logos. More importantly, which type of logo suits your brand personality better? This infographic will not only tell you about different types of logos but also guide you on which one you should choose and why. Here is an infographic that highlights some of the major types of logos so that you can easily select the right type of logo for your brand.

From traditional to digital, marketing has gone through a paradigm shift. Slowly but surely, digital marketing is replacing digital marketing. More and more users are using their mobile phones to access the internet. With the exponential rise in the popularity of social apps, marketers have to adapt to succeed. Among those popular social apps is Instagram, a photo-sharing app that has attracted more businesses than any other social app. It offers businesses the opportunity to showcase their products and services in front of its massive user base which is very active on the platform. The added advantage of seeing products and services in action along with the opportunity to explore new products and services brings customers to Instagram. Brands can get the best out of Instagram by implementing effective marketing strategies that are focused on increasing brand awareness, reach, and user engagement. But, what does a successful Instagram marketing strategy look like? Here is an infographic that shares 10 successful Instagram marketing strategies that can take your brand one step closer to Instagram success.

Despite knowing the statistics and click rate, everyday marketers come up with the latest banner ad ideas. Or more irritating, autopay video. And the reason is simple! Okay... do you remember when was the last time you intentionally clicked on the banner ad? And what was the sole reason behind it? There are a ton of spammy, horrible ads floating around because they are being presented with no value and lack context, and eventually, many of us think they are untrustworthy. More than 60% of banner ads are clicked accidentally. While only 9% of them are viewed for more than 1 second. Marketers always struggle hard to increase sales and generate more and more website traffic using marketing techniques such as content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, webinars, influencer marketing, video marketing, or any other technique that can boost their bottom line. But modern consumers are more intelligent than ever before, they sense these techniques and easily get irritated by belligerent ads. But sadly, marketers aimlessly sell banner ads despite knowing the fact that consumers won’t click purposefully on those banner ads. In 1994, Joe McCambley created the first banner ad for AT&T and it disseminated very quickly. The banner-ad pioneer, McCambley said in his article for Harvard Business Review.

“Banner ads didn’t always suck. I should know. I helped create the first one. My children tell me that’s like inventing smallpox”.

To prevent this digital disease, many browsers such as Safari launched a feature that disables cross-site cookie tracking, whereas Google Chrome is soon launching its built-in ad blockers for its users. In March 2017, SmartInsights reported that across all ad formats and placements, the ad click-through-rate is only 0.05%. Online marketers are unable to increase digital revenue and the amount of traffic through banner ads selling. However, they can improve their sales and conversion rates by effectively using digital marketing channels. Here are some tips and tricks for marketers that help them improve their marketing strategy and increase their digital revenue.

Improve the Speed of Your Mobile Website

Well, it’s no wonder if your website is slow or takes forever to load, no one bothers to stay on it. And if no one stays on your website, no one is purchasing any product from your website. Improving your website speed must be a high priority. If you improve your website speed, especially on mobile by 30%, chances are you will grow your mobile revenue by 25x.

Improve Your Customer Acquisition Strategy

Stop investing your time, energy, and money on low-intent or irrelevant customers. Instead, focus your efforts on determining the right customers who are actually willing to spend consistently. These are the best customers on which marketers should be investing their time and efforts and drive them to your websites.  

Embrace the Power of Behavioral Email

Sending the same email out to your prospect list, regardless of their interests won’t help your customers. It will only increase the unsubscribe rate. So, if you are aimlessly sending your emails to your prospects without knowing their pain points and interests, and emailing at a 0.3% unsubscribe rate, then in the near future you are simply not going to have anyone left to send a newsletter or email.   Instead, start focusing on sending behavioral emails. In behavior emails, you can send the most relevant and to-the-point message to a targeted group of people based on their interests, and actions they are actually taking in real-time. This includes shopping behavior, cart abandonment ratio, sending messages on their devices, and realizing the fact that it takes at least four to five visits for a new user to purchase for the first time from your website.

Discover New Revenue Generating Tactics

Let’s face it, consumer-based marketing is the future. Brands are not marketing to cookies anymore, they are marketing to real people. So, the first step you can take to generate revenue is to identify who is actually visiting your website and observe what they are doing when they stay at your website. Online marketers who accept changes and prefer a consumer-centric approach are able to generate more revenue across all the existing digital marketing channels. By smartly using these channels, marketers can attract the right customers using the right strategy.  

Key Takeaways

The digital landscape is changing, marketers need to stay ahead of the curve by using smart tactics and marketing strategy. You can generate the best ROI by solving customers’ pain areas with valuable information, outstanding customer experience, and incentives. No matter the type of marketing channel you are using, the rules are the same. Identify your audience, know their interests and pain areas, create things they’ll love, and then measure your marketing impact.

Did you know that more than 55% of consumers plan to shop online and in stores on the biggest shopping weekends of the year – Black Friday and Cyber Monday? The holiday shopping season is just around the corner. Excited? Me too. Some statistics suggest, that in 2016, Black Friday generated 3.6x more orders, whereas, Cyber Monday generated 3.1x more orders than the average number of orders received in November. Adobe named Cyber Monday 2016 was the biggest online sales in the history of US retail as it made $3.39 billion online in a single day… which is a 10.2% increase year-over-year. Frankly speaking, it is one of the most revenue-generating days of the year for many businesses and your social media campaign plays a crucial role. Nothing entices shoppers more than a good shopping deal, all you need a marketing magic to generate more leads and sales. So, what does your digital marketing agency need to do during the largest sales days?    To better prepare you for successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday social media campaigns. Here are some amazing social media marketing campaign ideas you can freely steal and implement to make some new sales records this season. Let's get to it!

Stick to the Basics

Whether you are going to start an email marketing campaign for Black Friday or Cyber Monday or planning to come up with some unique social media campaign for this holiday season. Keep these basic things in mind as you need to stand out from the rest this holiday season and make more money.

1. Offer Inexpensive Shipping

Appropriateness and reliability matter more especially in this holiday weekend. Free shipping is a number one incentive for the majority of shoppers. While same-day and two-day shipping also makes shoppers shop online. So, make sure you have a smooth and fast shipping process to attract more and more customers this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  

2. Don’t Forget Mobile Buyers

As more and more people are turning to smartphones when it comes to online shopping, still mobile conversion rates on smartphones were only 1.9% as compared to desktop conversion rates of 4.3%, according to Adobe report. Smartphones play a key role in generating Black Friday Cyber Monday traffic, so there is a huge opportunity for brands to avail this opportunity and make the traffic double, triple, or even quadruple. Make sure your website is responsive, looks perfect, and works well on all mobile devices.  

3. Focus your Efforts on the Right Channel

Always invest your time and efforts in the channel where your audience is present. It is advised to focus on a few networks that can generate more traffic, engagement, and eventually revenue. Your brand doesn’t need to be present everywhere.

4. Start Planning and Implement Early

Don’t wait until the last minute to run your social media campaign and expect big results. Start planning your campaign ahead of time. Decide what you want to achieve with BFCM social media campaigns. What are your goals, success metrics, and target audience? And how do you reach them? So, start preparing and execute as early as possible.

5. Create a Landing Page  

If you are planning to promote your Black Friday Cyber Monday deals on social media, creating a landing page is a worthwhile option. You can create separate landing pages for both occasions. This way you can convey your brand message and offer special deals while increasing your chances of an improved conversion rate. You can create different landing pages for your sales efforts in different product categories. Okay, let's jump into some great ideas for your BFCM social media campaigns.

Special Deals and Discount Offers

Adobe reported prices of televisions, tablets, toys, and pet care were unbelievingly dropped in 2016. So, you can also come up with an amazing discount deal for the BFCM season. You can start sharing your top selling products or discounted deals on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and can get some orders through special sale offers of BFCM. If you add high levels of creativity, you end up with great results. eBay offered the best deals on Black Friday in 2016 and announced it on Facebook. Have a look at Amazon's top lightning deals, especially made for Black Friday. They show amazing discounts, urgency, and a shortage of products just to create BFCM madness. Chubbies come up with a unique idea of Cyber Monday or Thighber Monday deal - they offered 12 different gifts for 12 different hours. This trick not only makes the customer pay money for cool gifts but also creates curiosity among shoppers to keep checking back for more gifts that Chubbies brings every hour. Oh and by the way, if you want amazing hosting deals, do check out Black Friday hosting deals on HostNoc. 

Boycott BFCM

Have you ever thought of boycotting BFCM? Of course not! They are the most popular shopping days of the year, in fact, the best time for retailers to take the cash from customers. At this time of the year, when everyone is getting mad about Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, why not boycott BFCM? Let’s take an example of REI, an outdoor clothing and gear store. They suspended their online sales on Black Friday and started an amazing #OptOutdoors campaign. If REI can do it, so can you. Change the perception of BFCM, come up with a unique idea to attract customers, and make a good profit from this BFCM.

Use Live Streaming Videos

Live videos are one of the hottest digital marketing trends these days. Nowadays, users prefer to watch Facebook Live videos 3X more than those that are not live, Facebook reports. In addition, users comment 10x more on Facebook Live videos. Also Read: Latest Trends in B2B Digital Marketing for Brand High level of engagement, instant feedback, real-time value, and users’ interest - the benefits of live videos are unlimited. The idea of going live streaming with Facebook Live can do wonders this BFCM season. Yes, try it! Let’s take an example of boohoo.com here, they ran a campaign: “We are giving away a prize a minute, just comment your answer for the chance to win! Head over to Boohoo for up to 50% off + free delivery for Black Friday” So, invite your fans to attend the live session and offer special deals for them to hold their interest.

Add a Pinch of Humor

Insert some humor into your social media posts and it can do wonders for your brand. Make your customers laugh, if you add a little humor to your campaigns, people will open their wallets for you.

Still not Convinced? Here are a Few Reasons:

• Humor works because it attracts the attention of people, especially on social media.
• Humor makes your brand unforgettable and creates a strong emotional connection.
• Humor puts customers in a pleasant mood and this happiness becomes associated with your brand.

Stay away from serious, generic BFCM social media posts, and come up with some funny social media copy, just like Amazon did. Any brand can be funny, add social media humor this holiday shopping season.

Run Paid Campaigns

Your options are limitless when it comes to paid social media campaigns. Run your paid campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other channel where your audience spends most of their time. It is advised to retarget campaigns for BFCM this year and you will be all set to stay ahead of most competitors.

Key Takeaways

Go beyond creating a tweet, Facebook post, or Instagram hashtag for the biggest sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Social media is filled with endless opportunities around the shopping season, it’s up to you to get the most out of them. There is no need for a massive fanbase to run a BFCM social media campaign, all you need is a creative idea, proper planning, the right channel, the right audience, and a pinch of humor to run a successful BFCM social media campaign.

Marketing managers and team leads of all the companies look to achieve the target given to them to succeed. It’s a race to the top! Each company looks to attract a maximum number of eyeballs on its website and ultimately convert the visitors into leads. A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a lead judged more likely to become a customer compared to other leads. Getting the right leads is not just difficult, for some brands it is difficult. It is wise to work with a sustainable strategy to get qualified leads and help customers come back for more business. A good lead takes time to close. It is nurtured and takes a lot of time to convert. A qualified lead is something which is ready for the salesperson to convert. It is more like a baked cake ready to be eaten. If brands take time to understand the MQL process. And how it can be leveraged to generate leads that convert visitors into raving fans. In fact, the digital marketing and sales teams work together to generate the lead. If we talk about the actual marketing qualified lead definition it is agreeing the customer to buy the product. This is done by figuring out the problem of the customer and convincing the customer to buy the product. Unless the MQL is not clear it will not help anyone in the company. The marketing qualified lead definition needs to be transparent to the whole company. Everyone from sales to marketing should know that everyone is on the same page when it comes to converting the customer, it is important to consider the fact that a lead should be solid enough to bring back the customer for more. Companies spend millions of dollars in devising the perfect marketing campaign through which they can maximize their sales. Nothing comes easy. For everything to work a company needs to start from somewhere. Starting with the MQL is the first step and this Infographic deals with 6 tips that marketers can use to reach their goal in this regard.

Believe it or not, operating restaurants in this competitive digital space is a challenging task. The massive growth of social media and smartphones makes it easier for your audience to publicly criticize or appreciate the quality and taste of your food. And you can’t stop everyone from criticizing, especially millennials. Running a restaurant has now become a challenge as it is all about providing quality food with great taste and a pleasant atmosphere. This is why a perfect digital marketing strategy is what every restaurant owner should devise to succeed.

A Fully-Functional Website

Your business website should have easy navigation and be fully functional. Make sure the website is mobile optimized as there are still many restaurants that are not mobile optimized or even the menus can’t be downloadable. And low-quality or blurred images or numbers can’t be clickable. Having a nonfunctional or poorly designed website is just like having a bland steak in a steak house. If truth be told, a website is the foundation of your business. You want people to visit your website and place an order or make a reservation. Make it intuitive and friendly. Your website should be structured in a way that people can easily find desired information for the deals you offer, contact information, menus, customer reviews, an image gallery, and more. Do you know the restaurant industry is one of the top industries that get the highest mobile traffic? So, it makes perfect sense to design and develop your website to be mobile-friendly and offer an intuitive-to-user experience.

Google Map Listing

This is one of the most important steps that can improve your rankings on SERPs. Google usually displays Local 3-Pack search results with a map that contains three suggestions. For instance, if you type Italian restaurants in New York in the Google search bar, you will find a list of three restaurants.    There are many factors that Google considers to figure out which restaurant to display in the Local 3-Pack listings and it is constantly changing. According to Moz, proximity to the user’s place is one of the main factors at 19% and customer reviews contribute to 13% of the search listings. Owning your Google business listing greatly helps restaurant businesses gain online visibility and increase their local search rankings. Make sure you secure your listing and all the contact details are accurate. Simply check Google My Business and you are all set to own your Google Maps listing.

Social Media Strategy

A perfect social media strategy is a vital part of your restaurant's business strategy. And you already know that. But what you don’t know is the process of implementation. Many restaurants hire the wrong person to manage their social media which usually results in low rankings, blurry or mediocre images, no user base, no customer engagement, meaningless posts, and neglected pages. Social media can lead your business to new heights of success. All you need is the right person who knows how to devise a perfect social media strategy and execute it properly. Otherwise, you have a simple option, hire a professional digital marketing agency. Boost your restaurant's success with a perfect social media strategy; avoid pitfalls seen on a poorly managed restaurant business card. Social media channels provide you with a great opportunity to engage with your customers and promote your restaurant’s amazing food deals to new customers. It is something that must be taken seriously - avoid these common social media marketing mistakes:

•         Synchronizing social media feeds with your website.
•         Using excessive and irrelevant hashtags
•         Posting mediocre and blurry images
•         Lacking a system to create new images

If truth be told, social media is not as difficult as it sounds. A thought-out and comprehensive approach with proper execution can do wonders.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a robust type of digital marketing that experiences many ups and downs from time to time. It was totally neglected by digital marketers a decade ago when spam emails became a major issue for all. And with the advent of Facebook, it also gained a massive drop as businesses find Facebook a great option to connect with their target audience. But when Facebook changed its policies and started charging money to boost your posts to a wider audience, email marketing was revived once again. Being a restaurant owner, you are supposed to send limited discount offers, special deals, new menu additions, event information, and anything special to your customers via email. You can use MailChimp which allows send emails to 2,000 contacts for free. You will soon get better click-through rates with your email marketing efforts. Strengthen your email marketing efforts by collecting more email addresses of your prospects. Forget about all the cold strategies of collecting email addresses. Simply install Wi-Fi that asks your customers their email address to gain access. And you are all done!

Over to You

Digital marketing for restaurants is terribly complex. But if you mainly focus on your customers, improve the quality of food, and follow the above-cited tips and tricks. You can really hit the revenue graph. Concentrate on quality and delicious food. A pleasant environment, and cleanliness – along with the perfect digital marketing strategy and you are all set to reach new heights of success.

B2B marketing is among the most widely used channels on the Internet. The dynamics of modern marketing are evolving rapidly. Many businesses use different digital marketing tactics like PPC, landing pages, social media channels, etc. to get great results successfully. But it’s a common observation these days that many businesses are not getting the most from today’s marketing tactics. Since they don’t have a planned approach based on a comprehensive marketing plan. Many B2B marketers think that these are exciting times and that the changes in the coming years will be in the direction of data-driven marketing that focuses on businesses as well as individuals. Top brands in the world now use social media channels to interact with their current and potential customers, but is that enough? Like yester years, in 2017 too, B2B marketers are continuing to deal with tangible growth and marketing ROI pressures. There are certain B2B marketing trends and tactics for B2B brand strategists so that they can come up with an approach that can yield good results in less time. Below is a visual guide dealing with critical aspects that digital marketers and brand managers need to apply in their marketing plans. The companies and other stakeholders can also learn a lot about what needs to be done to shape their B2B marketing.

The digital advertising world is murky and it is gradually becoming very clear that users don’t bother to see every single ad appear in their newsfeed. Thanks to ad-blocking technology, it is possible. And even when they do see ads, approximately 60% of users say that those ads are annoying and intrusive. Users have been shifting to mobile as a primary media consumption device for the last few years. In reality, the digital ad industry is more reactive than proactive. But video through augmented and virtual reality has totally changed the game. Many brands are turning to immersive video, particularly 360-degree video for providing attention-grabbing and unique experiences to their consumers.   Brands across many industries are getting the most out of 360-degree, VR, and Live videos. Let’s take the example of Hong Kong Airlines, which has created a 360-degree ad that was 35x more effective than any other traditional 2D ad.   Google, YouTube, and Facebook continue to dominate the digital ad world as brands use these mediums to share their 360-degree videos, virtual reality, and augmented reality experiences across different industries. Google officials stated, “We created a 360-degree video on YouTube by allowing our viewers to see the video from every angle simply by moving the phone or tablet around.” More and more brands are investing in this rising trend of immersive videos and live videos to bring consumers into the fold.

Immersive Video is a Growing Market

A research report for Business Insider analyzing how augmented reality, virtual reality, and immersive videos are shaping the future of content creation suggests that the global VR market is predicted to grow at approximately 81% CAGR from 2016 to 2024. This prediction is one that most of the digital marketers agree with. Marketing Tech also revealed that advertising would change as the digital marketing space is going to see a significant rise in 360-degree video ads and even ads that integrate the mobile device itself, touch, and vibration. This smart integration of mobile devices into 360-degree content creation is now easily available through action cameras, such as the Kodak Pixpro camera model SP360 has the potential to use a complimentary Remote View App for Android and iOS devices. So, it’s a great news for camera lovers to see exactly what they are actually recording through their smart devices. Viewers can then upload their 360 photos and videos to social media accounts.

Immersive Video is the Future of Digital Advertising

It’s interesting that more and more consumers are watching more digital videos these days compared to the previous year. Therefore, advertisers and publishers must be better prepared to invest more to greatly increase engagement with some new formats and technology to amaze your audience. Many brands are paving the way for providing truly amazing immersive video experiences that reach customers. To create better user engagement, advertisers and publishers should come up with some strategies and formats that are well-suited for their platforms. They must create personalized content and tell brand stories to customers by framing them in the best way possible. Ad publishers including, mobile app development companies, web development agencies, fashion brands, ecommerce stores, and other technology industries should clearly understand their audience, and test and learn with the new content streams by utilizing emerging technologies. If truth be told, they can bring the digital ad industry to new heights by sharing insights and helping brands transform their content in this amazing new world of immersive videos. Brands need to stay ahead in this increasingly saturated internet world by creating memorable experiences for consumers and incorporating immersive formats such as VR, Live, and 360-degree videos.

Drive More Emotional Engagement

VR content has great potential to elicit more emotional engagement than traditional 2D videos. Let’s take an example of IMAX that has generated impressive revenue from its VR Centers. In the first quarter of 2017, IMAX got more than 25,000 admissions and generated revenue of $15,000 per week from its single VR Center. With nearly 1000 centers, IMAX predicts it would make approximately $25 million in revenue per year. Due to the rising demand for 360-degree cameras and the great impact of VR on the digital world, Kodak Pixpro will soon launch the virtual reality camera 4KVR360. This camera can capture 360-degree interactive photos and videos that can easily be shared on social media. Immersive video and virtual reality will continue to grow rapidly and will become prevalent in marketing technology and other business industries over the coming years. If truth be told the digital video revolution is amazing. Modern consumers have remarkable amounts of data, news, and content at their fingertips. The rising technology is continually reshaping and transforming the ways businesses operate and foster relationships with their customers. Immersive video formats such as VR and 360-degree blend the physical and digital worlds to create a seamless, memorable storytelling medium.

In Closing

So, brands are advised to engage their consumers better and bring them along on the user journey that will take them to a whole new world, time, and level. This type of engagement is what most digital marketing businesses need to tap into to better engage with their customers.

Gone are the days when businesses consider marketing as a secondary business activity. Things have changed quite a lot since then. Today, the marketing department is a pivotal component of any business. In fact, you can never achieve business success if your marketing objective does not align with your business objectives. To put it simply, you cannot separate marketing from business. With competition getting fiercer with each passing day, your business needs to stay one step ahead. This would only be possible if you have a well-thought-out marketing strategy and plan. It will give you a competitive edge over your competitors that every business craves. Whether you want to create awareness about your brand among the masses, promote your products and services, or increase sales, you can never achieve these goals without a comprehensive marketing plan. Even a perfect marketing plan will not guarantee your business's success if you cannot execute marketing activities and implement the plan completely. Unfortunately, a sound marketing plan is not that easy to create, especially with the changing dynamics. This infographic will explain the process of creating a perfect marketing plan in five easy-to-follow steps.

Influencer marketing is the latest buzzword and I am sure you must have heard this phrase. And I am sure about this too that you don’t know what the heck is that and how digital marketers are using it to their advantage. Before the actual Infographic, I will try to guide you about what is influencer marketing and how top companies can make sure they get the most out of this latest marketing tactic. Influencer marketing is focused on specific key individuals rather than the target market as a whole. An influencer has a different image for every brand and usually for every campaign of a brand which makes it intriguing but also more exciting than other forms of marketing. An influencer is like a third party which fills the gap between a company and its target customers as people tend to trust the recommendation from a third party more than a company itself. Companies virtually obsess about their target audience and try to come up with lots of strategies, campaigns, and tactics based on a huge amount of research to make sure they can get the nod from them about their product. The influencers make this task easy by reaching the potential customers of a company giving them the information and showing them the benefits of buying a product. That’s where influencer marketing succeeds big time. The following Infographic will describe in detail how influencer marketing has gained a foothold in the last 2 years or so and where it’s heading. The future looks definitely optimistic and this Infographic indicates that influencer marketing is truly mainstream now.