How Can TikTok Advertising Boost Sales In Small And Medium enterprises?

How Can TikTok Advertising Boost Sales In Small And Medium enterprises?

The world around us in the 21st century is competitive, specifically in advertising. People won’t notice a product unless it’s a brand or connects with consumers by using innovative techniques. Therefore marketing your product through TikTok advertising will appeal to a large number of young consumers in a matter of seconds. 

It is a useful tool for advertisers from small & medium enterprises who want to target a large number of young customers. So if you’re going to use this medium, then start working on the ideas that you want to convey in a short video message that will work in your favor. 

Otherwise approaching teenagers in a traditional way is really not going to work anymore. 

Several new-age business entrepreneurs are going to gain a lot by tapping the potential of this app by advertising on TikTok. Now before moving to that part, let’s have some brief introduction about it:

What Is TikTok? 

TikTok is a video sharing platform used for creating short time mobile videos on smartphones. It went online in 2017 for international users of iOS & Android smartphones.

By the end of 2018, Bytedance (the TikTok owner) acquired & merged ‘Musical.ly‘ with it and converted it into a single app. Users can create & share vertical looping videos with a time limit of 15 to 60 seconds with the help of this app.

Users are free to use the extensive editing tool-kits of this app. It contains a wide array of filters & effects along with a massive music library to tune & score their video contents on this app.

Who Uses TikTok The Most?

TikTok is popular among teenagers. Here are some of the demographics taken from the recent surveys are as follows:-

41% of its users are in the age group of 16 to 24 years old.

41% of users around the world are teenagers, according to the data of the Global Web Index

Moreover, it also encourages users to make and post their original content related to comedy, dance, drama, or songs after following trending videos of other users. 

This app is an excellent platform for lots of youngsters who want to show their talent to the world. Such an app is a great confidence booster plus a one-way ticket to get recognized for millions. 

There are 500 million active users worldwide today.

That’s correct! The app is top-rated only because of its innovativeness. According to the survey conducted by Datareportal, 2019, for TikTok advertisement 2019, it has found that around 500 million active users are using this app globally.

 Hence, it is also one of the few places where advertisers can target and convey their marketing messages to a large number of users by deploying various types of creative techniques.   

 It is also an excellent platform for people from the film & entertainment industry who are looking for fresh faces for auditions for acting & dancing.

Globally, 56% of TikTok users are male & 44% are female.

The demographics shown in the pie chart above suggest that 56% of TikTok users are male & 44% are female. Youngsters from both the genders are active on this app. Both male & female users use this app daily to get loads of fun & entertainment. 

Besides that, they also make videos to entertain others as well as showcase their talent to garner instant fame. This app helps them to enhance their performance on a larger scale for gathering more views & followers.  

Here, there is a good chance for advertisers to approach all such talented TikTok stars to convey their brand’s message via innovative videos.

In 2019, Indians Nearly 5.5 billion hours on TikTok.

Growth in hours spent in TikTok outside of china

Source: App Annie

 

Compared to all other parts of Asia, companies are specifically targeting India. The message of a particular brand has a better chance to reach out to millions of Indians through this app. 

Netizens from India spend more time on this app than any other social platform. In this app, contents have more fun-filled activities combined with the scope of making your original videos.    

According to a survey conducted by App Annie, marketers can find not only teens but also adults to influence who can take the message of the advertisers. 

This app surpasses 1.5 billion downloads 

Until now, branded companies have targeted all kinds of customers by using regular channels of communications such as TV, Print, and social platforms like Facebook.

As this app is new & famous in the market, brands can reach and display their ads to all kinds of young users on this app because it has already hit the 1.5 billion mark in global downloads, as per reports of Sensortower.

Yes, you heard it right. This app has outsmarted even Facebook & Instagram in the downloads race. It is one of the best apps of the century that can be a good target for marketing purposes.

In India, TikTok has 119.3 million users.    

TikTok has penetrated more than 150 countries and currently available in 75 different languages that prove its capacity for global dominance in a short period, especially in a place like India. 

There is a massive market for advertisers from different parts of the world to tap their market growth in India via this app. Hence, the list of these demographics shown by Statista & Priori Data states that India leads all other countries with 119.3 million users. 

The count of users has surpassed even the United States that is far bigger than India. Hence the business of advertising has more scope in India than anywhere else. 

TikTok Advertising In US & UK

As a result of the rising craze of this app, TikTok is looking for new ways to sell its services.  

Inputs from various sources state that TikTok has outlined four types of ads in the testing phase in the US and UK.

If everything goes well as planned, then creators can start advertising for famous brands.

These ads are:-

  • brand takeovers
  • in-feed native videos
  • branded hashtag challenges, 
  • branded Snapchat style lenses.

What are the TikTok ads?

Tiktok-Ads

Source: Medium.com

TikTok ads are short-form video ads, and here are some of the ways they work. You can follow each one of them given below:-

Launch Screen Ad Type Or Format

Your message, products, or services will get displayed as a full-screen ad. It can be either in static, animated, or video form.

In-Feed Ad Type Or Format

This type of ad can create autoplay for the user when he/she is looking at the “For You” feed on their smartphone. It works like the launch screen ad.

Hashtag Challenge Ad Format 

This format is a full-screen ad that is quite innovative. This type of advertisement aims to tell users to create content based on the hashtag you create or select.

Can You Advertise On TikTok?

Yes, you can advertise on this app. To do so, you have to take care of certain things that will make your promotion campaign hassle-free.

To use TikTok for advertising, you must fulfill the following requirements.  

Here are some of the factors below use this platform for your business, are as follows:-

  • Type Of Target Audience

The success of any form of advertisement depends on the type of audience you need for marketing. 

This platform is not suitable for selling financial services. Otherwise, a business that deals with younger audiences will be able to hit a chord.

  • Quality Oriented Visual Marketing Skills & Content

To become successful as a brand, you must have excellent visual marketing skills. Your business must create high-quality videos that can represent your brand. 

As TikTok is a video sharing platform, every user shares several types of content videos.

So, if you want to popularize your brand, then you must create content that stands out from the rest. Thus, don’t hesitate & start now. 

  • Budget For Making Ads

Only some advertisers such as Disney & Grubhub have considerable resources to conduct such ads.  

To create demand for this feature, more brands must have to visit, apply & create their ads.  

Small-time businesses have to wait while preparing for the TikTok advertising budget.

The Cost Of Advertising On Tiktok

Currently, the TikTok advertising cost is more expensive compared to any other platform. 

The price starts at an estimated worth of $10 per CPM(cost per mille) & can go up to $300,000 as the ad campaign gets larger.

Besides, the cost of the ad is small compared to all the positive results & recognition.   

How To Promote TikTok Videos?

You can promote your ads on this video sharing site because all TikTok ads can ensure visibility.

Now here are some of the following ways that will tell you how to advertise on TikTok:

  • Get Free Advertising From Your Followers

The hashtag challenges encourage thousands of followers to promote brands for free. 

To become famous, users will accept any hashtag challenge of TikTok app advertising.

Once your followers post the videos of your challenge, others will be able to see them and your brand name as well.

You will get lots of free advertising from your followers who will pick up the challenge and get it viral.

  • No Need Of Purchasing Niche Ads.

The best part of this video app is that it shows videos straight away without having to follow its makers.

Hence, your ads will be visible to different types of people without you having to buy niche ads.   

Your ads will target the audience with both screen ads & the regular ones after placing them in the videos.

  • Avoid Having A Marketing Fatigue

The average attention span of a user is eight or less than eight seconds currently. It is less than four seconds compared to the time that was in 2000.

It is the ratio before smartphones became very popular among youngsters. With such short attention spans, the era of minute-long videos is over.    

Hence, make sure that all the users watching your video don’t have any marketing fatigue.

TikTok will place your ads between thousands of videos in a way that viewers will not get irritated.

TikTok Advertising In India

 

TikTok Advertising In India

Source : TikTok

This app has penetrated all the countries, including India, due to a large user base along with 43 % new users.  

Thus, all the big brands marketing their products in India can be able to do so by using TikTok for advertising

One of the main reasons for doing business here because India is a massive market with a lot of users.

Hence, by creating suitable ads, you can attract lots of youngsters to get associated with your brand.

Almost anyone from any part of the country can post videos for gaining instant name & fame.

TikTok Advertising Campaign For Influencing People.

Until now, most of the ad campaigns used to influence people in traditional ways. Now, after the arrival, many social media apps in the age of the internet affecting people are a bit tough. 

Campaigns must increase brand awareness among the young public on TikTok. Hence, here are some of the advertising strategies that can do the job for your brand, are as follows:-

  • Using Hashtags

Using Hashtags

Source : TikTok

Always use your unique hashtag because the algorithm of this platform will place your videos in a section where people will view videos made up of similar hashtags.

Use hashtags on the bottom of the screen; otherwise, it will destroy the value of the video that you have posted.

Always use niche hashtags that will increase the chances of your videos shown to the right audience that you want to target.

  • Try Imitating Relevant Trends

Try Imitating Relevant Trends

Source : TikTok

 

Like new trends rule the fashion market, and youngsters start imitating them. You can also do the same on TikTok by replicating popular videos.

Whenever you are remaking a popular video, always add a unique new flavor to it so that people will watch your video with more interest.

For example, In case you are replicating a popular comical video, try to use your styles, gimmicks, and humorous acts to make the video new & exciting for the viewers.

  • Add Musical Flavor To Your Videos

 

Add Musical Flavor To Your Videos

Source : TikTok

To make your videos more attractive, enjoyable & entertaining, you can add some musical flavor to it. It will increase the chances of getting spotted by promoters & marketers. 

You can take the help of lots of musical tracks available in the TikTok music library for making your videos.

Noticing your videos will not be a problem for members who search for videos using musical tracks.

  • Using A Popular Personality

Using A Popular Personality

Source : TikTok

For attracting viewers more, you can use the services of familiar personalities who are famous on TikTok or in the world of media.

You can create content-oriented videos around an influential personality on this app that can provide the ability for your brand to engage a more extensive range of audiences.

Hence, engage influencers who are quite famous among teens, such as TikTok stars known for their charm, beauty, acting, singing, or dancing skills.

For example, Charlie D’ Amelio, Addison Rae, Dixie D’ Amelio, and many more who are popular among teens under the age of 20 on this trending app.

  • Use The “Effects” Tab To Your Advantage

There is an “Effects” tab given in this popular app for a reason. With the help of this tab, you can discover new & trending effects for differentiating videos. 

All these effects have different categories that include Trending, New, Interactive, Editing, Beauty, Funny, World & Animal.

It means that you can recreate many popular videos on TikTok by using the in-built effects tab inside the app.

  • Keep On Posting

To create brand awareness among your followers on this app, you have to post videos because the number of videos will have a direct impact on the speed of the account growth.

Post your videos using various types of features, and content like hashtags, musical tracks & effects will make it easier for it to get discovered.

For example, companies like Flighthouse & Sports Association, Like NBA, can generate massive numbers of followers because of posting a large cache of videos using the avenues mentioned above. 

  • Add Comments & Generate Comments For Your Videos 

Comments get a rank on TikTok based on likes that they receive for the videos posted. Moreover, displaying a liked comment on this popular app will draw immense attention from the members.

  • Adding A Crispy Description For Your Video

Solid video description helps the algorithm of this platform in ascertaining the category of the video and the type of audience viewing it.

To make it easy, add a copy to describe what the video is all about & encourage people to reply. While typing a description, also keep it short & simple.

How TikTok Advertising on Snapchat Will Work?

TikTok has recently launched an audience network for making more money through advertising that appears in other apps such as Snapchat.

Due to this specialized audience network, an advertiser buying ad spots on TikTok can also buy ad spots on other platforms at the same time, and Snapchat is one of them.

Currently, this network is available in Japan, and as far as the reports suggest, it is in the testing phase in East Asia, including China.

The network for advertising on Snapchat, along with TikTok, will be rolling out to other markets soon.

How To Change Your Account Into A TikTok Pro Account?  

TikTok Pro account is similar to that of a standard profile. The Pro Account helps users in getting & going through the analytics data for the past 1-4 weeks after posting a video.  

With a pro account in hand, a user can see video views, trending videos & statistics of his own & other users as well. Moreover, he can also follow growth, gender age & top areas.

Most importantly, the Pro account is free. Here are some of the steps to get your own Pro Account. 

TikTok Pro Account

Source : TikTok

 

Step 1. First, go to the profile page & tap on the Privacy & Settings tab.

Step 2. Now tap on ‘Manage My Account.’

Step 3. Press’ Switch to Pro Account’ and then Press continue.

Step 4. Choose a category for your customized analytics.

Step 5. Then press ‘OK’ on the popped up page, and your ‘Pro Account is all set.  

Is it Possible To Make Money On TikTok?

This app doesn’t offer this platform to make money, as it is still working on that arena. You can generate awareness for your brand by posting TikTok advertising videos. 

But any creator can secure sponsorship & brand deals for individual video posts. Here, the catch is that he has to achieve those deals without any help from TikTok.

What Are TikTok Ad Formats?

On this platform, you can select the format of your choice that is suitable for your ad campaign.

Six different ad formats will help you in conducting your ad campaign:- 

  • In-Feed Video Format

It is a simple ad format that uses the immersive short-form video style seen in TikTok user videos. 

Ads made under this format are 15 seconds of video spots that appear when users survey through the posted content. 

In-feed video advertising helps in gaining exposure & also call users to action.

Brands can use in-feed video ads to redirect their audience towards its website page or take part in the hashtag challenge. 

  • Hashtag Challenge Format

TikTok HandWash Challenge

Source : TikTok

This format allows brands to engage with all the online users of this app & take part in them.

With this type of ad-format, any brand can create a video followed with a song, dance, or stunt and then encourage members of the app to add a touch to the challenge by creating their videos.

All such hashtag challenges create user engagement by fusing brand messaging with user creativity. 

This format also helps brands to leverage influencers or celebrities of this platform for generating buzz around the challenge of the brand.

For getting more exposure, brands can also sponsor all such hashtag challenges & feature them on the discovery page. 

Just watch in the above page, how Dettol encourages its followers not only for a social cause but also for picking a challenge. 

  • Brand Takeover

This kind of ad format usually is one of the most expensive ad purchasing options for a brand.

The specialty of this format is that its full-screen ad appears whenever a user opens TikTok for the very first time.

A brand takeover ad can be a three to five-second GIF image or three-second video conveying its message.

The designing of the ad-format helps in linking back to the brand’s profile or hashtag challenge.

  • Branded Lens

The branded lens of TikTok is an ad format that brings 3D objects, face filters & many more such features for brands to design their ads before posting.

It also helps in bringing a profound level of user engagement as well as assisting users in selecting from a variety of branded lenses to enhance their ad content. 

By integrating a branded lens into a hashtag challenge, a brand can create a stronger bond for promoting its products.

  • Custom Influencers

Like in any other social media platform, TikTok also has its share of celebrities with a massive number of fan followers. As these influencers are very powerful, they can inspire their fans in many ways.

When a brand partners with the stars of this platform, a brand gains more exposure & also reaches out to a target audience more. 

Hence, the brand must work with an influencer whose goal aligns with your vision.

It is also worth noting that at some selected locations, you need to organize influencer partnerships on this platform for promoting your brand. 

  • Top View

It is another version of a brand takeover ad that fades into an in-feed video ad.

Buyers of this 15 seconds ad format can enjoy category exclusivity. It means that a brand can top the charts of his category on this platform.

Throw Some Light on TikTok Advertising Opportunities

This popular social platform has opened self-serve advertising for the first time but limited to direct advertisers in some countries only.

This platform is also working with partners in other countries such as Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, and India. 

Likewise, there are many others to explore the prospects and new ways of advertising that is compatible with their region. For advertisers, 5-15 second video ad slots are available with external links or to an in-app hashtag challenge. 

These ads go through optimization to target users for converting them into prospective customers. These ads target age, location, language, operating system & interest. Even’ audience lookalikes’ group option is also available for dispensing ads.

Note:-Audience Lookalike means the algorithmically-assembled group of social network members who resemble another group of members in a social networking app. 

Go Through Some Finest TikTok Case Studies

Due to the popularity of this app, there are some most exceptional case studies for the brands to learn & plan their advertising strategies, are as follows:-

  • Song Promotion

Brands such as famous music labels can use this app and its influencers on it to promote a new song of any nature to popularise it.

As a marketing strategy, you can use this app to reach a vast number of users in a couple of days.

Apart from brands, even independent artists can turn into overnight stars by creating global hits & sensations by using this app.

One of the best examples is none other than Auckland based Benee for her viral dance video ‘Glitter.’

  • Educational Platform

Some brands, such as Educational insights with their innovative marketing campaign, used TikTok to educate customers about their product known as ‘Playfoam Puffle.’

With the help of this app, they were able to generate a considerable number of followers with millions of views, likes, and comments.  

Conclusion

Given these points above, earning through TikTok paid advertising will take some time for now as it is still experimenting on setting up a formal profit-sharing system for its clients.

Until then, you can popularize your brand through posting lots of videos and garner an unlimited number of likes, comments, replies, and followers.

Most of the young followers following your brand’s videos will grow a liking for your company & will turn into your customers.  

It will take some time for your brand, but you will master all the skills needed for promoting your brand among teenagers by connecting with them on a social level via this app.

To know more about paid advertising strategies on TikTok, please do write to us & we will come back with more answers.

Develop Ecommerce Consumer Involvement in 2020

Develop Ecommerce Consumer Involvement in 2020

As e-commerce involves majorly on the consumer, the relationship between the two should be well-built. It is one of the critical building blocks that you will have to add in your online business 2020. You have to understand how crucial a customer’s feedback can turn out to be. They help you shape up your business flaws, which works like constructive criticism. A simple thing like highlighting your loyal customers monthly on the company’s social media can be a big win.

Areas to Involve the Consumer

One of the areas that are still a challenge for online businesses is safety. As the opportunities to go global arises, assuring consumer’s safety while paying with their credit card is an issue that needs solving. Only then can you take its full advantage. Know the tools that you can use to protect your website. Luckily, you can find a WordPress website design company to have anti-spam tools added to your site. 

Now the internet is way easier to access. People can find and hack your information online. Help your customers to transact through the electronic marketplace comfortably.

Build Partnership

It is an important area, although overlooked. Usually, it costs nothing to offer excellent service to your customers but earns you big. When you delight them, they refer others to your company. Whenever you have an oncoming sale, let them know ahead of time. They feel valued.

Give them coupon vouchers that they can redeem in your store. For your existing customers, you can offer them loyalty cards that will earn them points that can later accumulate into substantial cash, which they can use and save money.

Based on the aggregate of referrals they have brought to your store, you can offer them some discount to encourage them to do so. The whole essence of saving your client’s acquisition is what will retain them. Transparency also plays a significant role in involving clients in your business in 2020.

Make Use of Common Platforms

When you are operating in e-commerce, it is paramount to find out where your clients spend more time for you to reach out. It is so apparent that you will find most of them on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Use them to interact with your clients. If there are questions that need answers, don’t take long to answer them. Clarify when required, and create a meaningful personal connection.

By taking full advantage of the platforms, you can create a community and start a conversation by seeking customer’s insights. Weigh in some exciting trends that will engage as many people as possible. To keep the fire burning, have an open dialogue.

Customers’ Reviews 

What kind of analysis are your customers giving? If you offer commendable service to your clients, then you don’t need to worry about the reports that you will find on your site. New customers will take a view of what previous ones had to say regarding their purchases and overall experience in your brand.

Remember, testimonies can give more weight to your brand, and the majority of people will only buy from you after watching videos of customer testimonials. To emphasize this, you can offer small incentives to your clients to participate in it.

Offer Exclusive Deals

Everyone loves deals. Especially when you mention that it is exclusive. Show a sneak peek of some unique content that you will release at a later date in your blog, to have your clients hooked. You can keep updating it on your site, or even send an email reminder, so your customers don’t miss out.

If you get a WordPress website design company to work on your site, these are things that can get sorted. Provide your email subscribers and those who have a premium membership a 5 to 10% coupon so that they can use it to purchase your products and probably spend more.

Be an Inspiration

We understand you are in business, but a little inspiration goes well with it. Develop a marketing initiative that draws people closer to your brand because it shows that you care for them. Some companies will advertise, “for every purchase, a dollar goes to help the needy.” While those in fashion will say something similar, “buying a pair of shoes from them will warrant one to a poor child.”

Your brand shows that you care and play a significant role in helping the marginalized.

Sharing your vision to the world also can inspire many customers out there. Assuming it carries a relevant message that depicts your care.

Do a Follow-up

customer followup

Most people do a fantastic job of bringing in a customer, and finally converting leads. Little do they realize that one of the other essential business deals of closing the loop is doing a client follow up. Call and check if your customers’ merchandise was according to their needs.

How was the service experience? Not only will this grow your clientele base, but it will bring back the customer for more. Orange Mud CEO Josh Sprague, suggests; “Remember to organize tasks of customer’s follow-up with an intent of executing.”

Since not everyone will appreciate a follow-up call, learn your customer’s behavior. When you do so, it will be way easier to understand their preferred means of communication. Most importantly, the right time to give them a call. If a customer says a call is a bother, it’s good to respect their request unless there is an urgent situation.

Take Them for a Tour

Since you cannot invite everyone to your company, select only the loyal ones. Take them on a tour guide as you explain more about your products. You should be more knowledgeable about your company, and everything that you have there. It is an efficient way of reaching out and involving clients about a brand that they love.

For the sake of those who did not make it, you can record the tour on video and place it on YouTube and all your active social media avenues. These are places that you are likely to attract a lot of views. Remember, there are companies like Animoto that have enabled you to turn your amateur video into a more professional type.

In conclusion, when you develop a strong business relationship with your customers, you are headed to the top. Customers love to be treated special and appreciated. They value responsiveness. Ensure to have a mobile integration to nail this effectively. There are varieties of tools that you can get from the WordPress website design company that can be added to your site to involve customer interaction.

 

How to Use Quora to Promote your Business?

How to Use Quora to Promote your Business?

Quora has gained immense popularity over the past few years, both among businesses and the masses. It is easy to navigate and intuitive the Q&A platform. When I first started using Quora in 2014, it was still popular but nothing compared to what it is today. With over 300 million monthly users, Quora has evolved far beyond a simple Q&A platform.

It is a place where people tell stories and brands share their products and services. Users share their experience of using products or services. In the user’s behavior, Quora finds a place in the same category as other social media websites. A large number of Quora users spend hours on the platform. So naturally, businesses have to develop a marketing strategy for Quora. 

The leads generated through Quora is of better quality and offers more conversions, sign-ups, and reduced bounce rate compared to popular social media sites such as Facebook and even SEO. The reason behind this is people who visit a question on Quora are genuinely looking for an answer.

For example, I was recently promoting a VPN service on Quora. We posted about ten answers for relevant questions, and within a few days, the traffic to the website skyrocketed from Quora. The conversions increased, and the client was having a difficult time handling customer queries. It happened because people who visited the questions wanted to purchase a VPN, and after reading the answer, it motivated them to visit the site, which led to sales.

The benefits of marketing on Quora are immense. One advantage is the long-term traffic that Quora offers. How to drive traffic from Quora, you ask? It’s simple, respond to questions related to your industry and leave a link to your website. The answer and the link will remain on the platform forever. Whenever users look at the response, they can follow it to your site. Marc Hoag was able to drive 82.10 % of traffic from Quora to his business website. The example of Marc Hoag is just one of the many success stories of Quora marketing.

Using Quora to Assist your Digital Marketing Effort

In my opinion, large corporations and multinationals do not require Quora for advertising. Nevertheless, they need Quora for a whole range of other reasons, from customer feedback, interaction, introducing new products and services to reputation management.

It’s the small guys, the startups, SMEs, self-employed, freelancers, and others who stand to gain the most from Quora marketing. Here are some benefits that Quora can bring to a business.

1.     Inbound marketing through Quora

The internet has become a confusing place with an extensive amount of content on any subject. It has also become highly untrustworthy. People want answers to questions from someone they can trust. The co-founders of Quora and current CEO Adam D’Angelo understand this and have developed the perfect platform with a voting mechanism that allows users to recognize high-quality answers. The upvote, which is similar to like button on other social media platforms, also plays an essential role in Quora. It is also a ranking factor for answers. Users are flocking this platform because they obtain genuine answers and reviews of products and services on Quora. As a business, you can share your expertise on a subject and provide resolution to user questions about your offerings.

2.     Quora Content Appears in Search Engine Results Page

Popular search engines such as Bing and Google crawl the content on Quora. As a result, more and more question-based queries on search engines are displaying Quora answers. By responding to such questions, you have a chance of driving traffic from the SERP. Ranking for a particular keyword is tough as you have to compete with highly reputed websites. However, with Quora, you have the opportunity to expose your brand to visitors without all the SEO hard work.

Here is an example of how Quora can attract visitors to my website without competition with Inc.com, which is nearly impossible.

How to promote business on quora.

The unemployed pot-smoking brother of the search world – Bing – recently announced it would be including Quora questions and answers to their Social Sidebar. The search engine is using the Quora platform to provide better resolution to questions asked on their search engine.

The search engine is using the Quora platform to provide better resolution to questions asked on their search engine.

If Bing is not something you care about, it should interest you that Google has been crawling the content on Quora for a long time now. And their algorithm is super advanced in Quora integration. Based on their algorithm, they can choose a particular answer for a question, and it does not have to be the top answer on Quora and display it on the SERP.

3.     Industry Research and Competitor Analysis

The benefits of marketing on Quora extend further than traffic and conversion; it can help you understand your industry and competitors better. Watch what your competitors are doing on Quora. How people value your products in comparison to your competitors. What are they offering with their products and services that are not present in your offering? What are your pros and cons in comparison to the competition? Where it is appropriate, respond in the form of an answer. Carefully observe user queries, and you may even discover the next product idea or improvement that could make your product the best version by far. Overall, Quora is ideal for research and to find out the necessary enhancement in your product and what people think about your offerings.

4.     A Goldmine for Content Marketing Ideas

Small websites often run out of blog ideas. Quora is a great place to find content ideas and generate high-quality content. You can find questions with a high following and form a blog post answering the query; quality content that answers user’s queries is a great inbound marketing strategy. Finding out genuine problems of clients and customers is never an easy task, which Quora addresses successfully. Go to your niche and read what queries people are following the most.

5.     Quora can Assist with Online Reputation

When you monitor the activity of the competition on Quora, you can do the same for your business. By setting up a Google alert for your business with Quora added to it, you will be notified of any post about your brand.

Here is how you can do it.

Simply visit Google.com/alerts and type your ‘business name + Quora’ and create an alert.   

Using the Google alert, you can monitor just about anything on the web and Quora. Utilizing this technique, you can immediately respond to negative feedback about your brand.

Conclusion

Quora with, its new milestone of 300 million monthly active visitors, is the ideal destination to promote your brand. From traffic, reputation management, content marketing to competitor analysis, Quora offers it all. So, do not fear the Q&A platform, be a part of it, and see exponential growth in your business.

Martech 2020: An Expert Guide for Your Company on Future Market Trends

Martech 2020: An Expert Guide for Your Company on Future Market Trends

 

Insights into the marketing technology 2020 and beyond is an online survey conducted by WARC in association with BDO and the University of Bristol on more than 750 brands and agencies to understand their current and future marketing plans for martech tool use, budgets and barriers to growth. This research was conducted on brands and agencies located in North America, the UK, Europe, and APAC.

Moving on, let’s take a more in-depth look at what this 2020 Martech Insights? what are the marketing trends ? and what the future of Matech 2020 is?

You must be familiar with the concept that marketing usually focuses on developing a healthy relationship with customers and satisfying their needs.

Then you must also be knowing that this could not have been possible without technology.

Indeed, these marketing technology tools and needs in marketing are directly proportional to each other. The more the tools, the more their need.

However, due to the modernization of people’s language with time and this marketing technology word clubbed to form a portmanteau, MarTech.

Well, in simpler terms, MarTech is basically a short version of marketing technology. This mixed name concept can be witnessed in various other sectors, such as AdTech (Advertising Technology), a term used in the world of advertisement field.

Well, well, wait! Before hitting the numbers and data, let’s first try to understand the basic concepts of Martech.

What is MarTech?

martech law

Source: Chiefmatec

Like any other term used in the Software world, this Martech is also a term used by the software techies and marketers who plan, execute, and measure their business campaigns.

The planning, execution, and measurements are usually carried out with the help of Martech tools.

These tools help you in streamlining and analyzing your data and provide you with various methods or options to reach out to your target audience and keep them engaged.

What are the MarTech Tools?

Martech Tools ranges from content strategy tools designed for different media to data management tools, analytics, and attribution tools.

Some examples of tools are Photoshop, WordPress, MS- Excel, etc.. To sum up, there are about 7040 Marketing tools readily available for you on a global scale, according to Chief Market Technologies. And these vendors vary from start-up specialists to established providers.
Well, speaking of tools while browsing about this vast topic, did you ever come across the term Martech 5000 and wondered what it stands for?

Like, you and I know what I love you 3000 stands for but Martech 5000?

Well, in 2017, there were around 5000 solutions available globally for commercial purposes are these were nicknamed as “MartTech 5000”.

According to Growth, the top 10 market technology tools are:

martech tools

Source: Growth

Getting back to the basics, let’s understand what a stack is in the retail world.

What is meant by Martech Stack?

A marketing technology stack is an archive of all the technology tools that companies or marketers leverage for improving their retail activities or processes.

In simpler terms, this stack is a collection of the software used by the company for retailing purpose.

I guess you have brushed up your basics, let’s now get into details about insights into the marketing technology aka Martech.

In this article, you will find the current trend, state, use, and future expectations of the marketing technology industry.

Ages of Marketing technology

marketing age
Source: Chiefmartec

Our tech market’s first era began in the early 21st century and was in existence until 2012.

As you can see, 2012 saw the upleap in the tech market, and the era was called the early age of martech. This early age of martech saw the introduction of new marketing tools into the lives of businesses and companies.

Later till 2017, the graphs of software and tools usage hit an excellent steep, and that age was called the first golden age of martech.

But from the 2018 year, you can observe a bend in the graphs of tech usage.

2018 to 2020, a reckoning in the market is predicted. Therefore the era is called the reckoning age of martech.

However, past 2020, it is said that marketing technology will see a drastic change and will be higher than ever.

Martechs law:

martech law 2
Source: Chiefmartec

As you know, marketing is bizarrely complex and is evolving at a breakneck pace. Martec’s Law is a genuine dilemma for everyone in the corporate industry.

Hold on… Before I talk about how bizarre the market is. Let me tell you what the Law is.

What is Martech Law?

Martech’s Law is a graphical representation of the change in the market and change in the organizations.

martech law
Source: chiefmartec

According to this Law,” Technology changes exponentially, but organizations change logarithmically.”

That means the rate at which the technology is updating is faster when compared to the rate at which organizations are adopting the technology.

In other words, the rate at which the organizations are adapting to the new technology is slower than the rate of updation in technology.

Insight of MarTech 2020:

Technical software is developing over time. According to Marketing Technology 2020 Landscape Supergraphic reports by Chiefmartec, the number of solutions in 2011 was 150; from there, it boosted to 7,040 solutions according to  Landscape Supergraphic 2019.

The growth of the solutions from the past eight years can be seen in the image below

martech-landscape-2011-2019

Source Chiefmartec

The estimated market size of the Marketing Industry in North America and the United Kingdom’s (UK) is as follows:

Source: Martech 2020: and Beyond

From the above image, you can see How the market spending has doubled from $34.3 billion in 2017 up to $65.9 billion in 2019 just in a span of two years. The data is combined spending of North America and the UK exclusively.

However, you can observe a massive difference between the increased amount of spending for each individual annum. The increase in marketing size in 2018 is 18.1 BN, and for the current year, it is 13.5 BN.

This means the corporate spending on marketing software has decreased by 4.6 BN in comparison to 2017.

The percentage of overall retail budget spending on marketing technology:

market spend

Source: Martech 2020: and Beyond

The data, in the above image, is split by the proportion of companies spending on in-house and outsourced marketing technology.

As you can see, the results show a rapid growth rate in the spendings in North America
region while the UK has remained steady.

On average, all the brands in North America and the UK are spending approximately 26% of their budgets on software when compared to 23% last year.

That means there is a 13% increase in martech budgets since last year. However, in comparison to 2017 Martech values, there is slight evidence of a decline in the future of the market.

When coming to in-house sourcing and outsourcing by these companies, there has been substantial discussion in the industry regarding the usage of in-housing of tech and optimized utilization of services by brands from their agency partners over the years.

However, what the results suggest is, in the North America region, there has been an increase in both in-sourcing and outsourcing by the brands.

However, when you look at the data of the UK, there has been an evident drop in the outsourcing of resources but a 1% increase in the in-sourcing.

Marketing Technology budget change over 12 months:

The martech budget change of clients by 2020:

The 750 brands and agencies on who the research is done have two opinions on the client’s budget. On analyzing the combined results of these 750 brands, 43% of the brands feel there would be an increase in the client’s budget over 12 months by 2020, 53% of the brands feel there wouldn’t be any change as the clients will still keep their budgets fixed for the annum. However, only 4% of the brands feel there would be a slight drop in the set budgets of the clients.

client
Source: Martech 2020 and Beyond

When you try to look at the results of the analysis for individual regions, each region has its perspective.

Before moving on with the further analysis of the data, you should remember that the analysis reports of Europe excluding the UK while the others are of the whole region.

All other regions except for Europe strongly believe that most of the client’s budget would remain constant while in Europe, 53% of the brands believe there would be a significant increase in the budgets of the clients.

The martech budget increase of brands by 2020:

When the brands were questioned about their budget increase over the next 12 months, the results were somewhat like this:

brand
Source: Martech 2020: and beyond

As you can see, each percentage of brands has its proposals for the budget increase.

On average marketing technology, 2020 budgets by brands are:
  • 22% believe that their budgets might increase by 0-5%.
  • 26% estimate their budget increase between 6-10%.
  • 21% calculate their brand budget increase to range in between 11-15%.
  • 15% of the brands feel theirs might increase between 16-20%.
  • 9% of the brands say their budget will increase between 21-25%
  • 6% of all brands estimated their budgets to increase by more than 25%.

However, from the results, you can analyze that Europe, including the UK, has the highest percentage of brands, on average, 9.5%, which predicts their budgets to be more than 25% of the current budgets.

While North America has no companies which estimate to spend more than 25%, however, it has the highest number of brands calculating to increase in between 0-5% on their budgets.

How has increased investment in marketing technology affected the companies’ Media Spend?

With the development of Chatbots, Artificial Intelligence, SEO tools, and other corporate tools, it has become easier for marketers which media is most effective for their use and promotions.

In the last year’s survey, it was found that the marketers had decreased their market spend when they invested in software tools. But for 2019, marketing technology, the market trends have changed.

trends
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond

From the above data, you can understand how the market trends have changed in comparison to 2018.

Though for about 44% of the brands, their media spend has not been affected, for 32%, it has decreased whereas there was a 57% decrease in 2018.

That means there is a difference of 25% when compared. However, a significant increase of 8% is visible on the media spend from 2018 to 2019.

What do the marketing trends, marketing technology budgets and marketing sizes for 2020 suggest to…..

Brands?

On a global basis for brands the marketing technology, market trends and sizes suggest for the development of in-sourcing resources as well as to maintain good relations with outsourcers too.

Thought the budgets of companies by 2020 are predicted to increase, you can see how more than half of the budget is spent on resourcing.

Hence the companies should focus more on developing their in-source resources or train the pre-existing staff to integrate and upskill their methods and ideas of resourcing.

This doesn’t mean you tend to lose your relations with outsourcers. Incase if the insource resources crash, the only option you have to get your job done is through outsourcing. Hence it is equally important to maintain a balance between insourcing and outsourcing.

Agencies?

From the observations of inhouse and outsourcing future marketing trends, you can see that there is a little momentum in In-housing resources among the respondents.

Hence there is an excellent opportunity for you to grab. You can use this opportunity as an advantage and win back most of your clients, who are about to consider in-housing or have recently shifted to in-housing.

However, winning back is not as easy as you think.

It rarely happens that you go to your client, explain to him difficulties of in-housing, and boom he is impressed and gets back to you.

To impress your client and win him back, you should sell your values according to “COW.”

Now wondering what this COW is?

Well, COW stands for Creativity, Objectivity, and Wider perspective.

Hence, when you are explaining your resources to the client, always try to be creative, objective, and try to have a wider perspective of branding and culture.

Technology vendors?

As you can see, the possibility of an increase in budget spending, there is always a scope of improvement for your tech vendors.

All you have to do is to ensure that your goods and services can facilitate creativity, are easy to operate, and solve the concerns of both brands as well as agencies.

Media Owners?

If you are a media owner and are looking at the data analysis, I bet you must be feeling happy.

Compared to last year, data this year has a piece of positive news for all media owners because there last year had a great decrease in media spent while this year’s research says there is an increase.

For you, the key to making money out of this is by focusing on the importance of data of the brands and agencies as well as keeping yourself transparent.

Now, if you step ahead and prove your effectiveness and relevance to brands concerning the context of increasing usage of technology platforms, that’s it you get clicked just like that.

Now, let’s look at the current usage and capabilities of marketing tools.

Current Use and Capabilities of Marketing technology:

Marketing tools provided by established organizations are where the brands and agencies find their use.

The following are the marketing tools currently in use by most of the brands on a global level.

martech tools
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond

From the above data, you can analyze various categories of tools used by companies for marketing.

In 2018, the usage of tools was

  • Email – 85%
  • Social Media – 75%
  • CRM – 68%
  • Analytics – 64%
  • Content Strategy – 63%
  • Mobile – 58%
  • Data Management – 58%
  • Ad Tech – 57%
  • Commerce, Lead management, sales – 56%
  • SEO – 47%
  • Market Automation – 41%
  • Experience Optimization – 37%
  • Collaboration – 28%
  • None of the above – 9%

Source of the data: Martech 2019 survey by WARC and Moore Stephens

By comparing both 2018 and 2019 data, you can see that for some tools, there is a drop in their usage while some have picked up the graphs.

Though you can observe a negligible difference between the rise of Analytics, Measurements and Insights, Mobile, Data management, and Ad tech’s graph, you can find a significant rise of 3% among Market automation and SEO. A 5% rise in usage of experience optimization can also be seen. But, in the case of collaborations with other software, there is an increase of 9% in comparison to that of 2018.

However, you can see that, and there is a 3% downfall in the usage of Commerce, lead generation and sales, and Customer relationship management (CRM). While coming to Emails, there is a significant drop of 6% in the usage in 2019.

However, the future market trends also suggest that there might be a huge fall in the usage of Emails as only 14% of the population among the 750 brands plan to use it in the next 12 months. Comparatively collaboration usage can be seen to fall as 38% of the crowd have no plans in using the tools.

How can you develop the best MarTech Strategy?

When the Brand respondents of the Survey conducted by WARC in association with BDO, and University of Bristol were asked about the skills they look into while hiring the marketing function for their company the top priorities were somewhat like this:

qualities'
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond

As you can see, the most important criteria for the brands is creativity. On average, 49% of the brands prefer their marketing software to be creative. Later they look at the brand strategy and then the customer experience.

So similarly, even you should have a clear picture of what you need for your brand. Hence planning a martech strategy is very essential.

Here are some great tips for you to develop the best marketing strategy for the future market trends:

Analyze what you need:

Along with the growing market, new tools are launched every day. It is always tempting to get the best tool or a high-end tool. Every organization, just like yours, wants to have the best.

But what will you do with a tool which is of no use to you? It is just like a person with hearing aid buying a high-end version of headsets.

Hence, always sit with your team and analyze which tool is easy for them to work on and to give fantastic results.

Check for Upgradations of the tool:

Now, you know what you want and started to use it. It is giving the best results. But, with the change of time, tools also need to be upgraded for more optimization.

Hence, keep looking for up-gradation of the tool or alternative sources for tools that are easier to adapt and give optimized results for your brand.

You can save your time of research about new tools and use product hunt for the same.

Understand the role of the tool:

Why do you need a tool? Why can’t you do everything manually?

I know the answers, I was just playing around.

You usually need a tool because it serves several purposes that are important to your business team.

First, they help you in understanding your customers through data and analytics.

Second, they help you in automating processes so you can use that data to work more efficiently.

And third, they help you in making the customer experience even more personal and meaningful.

Hence when you are using tools, make sure that it serves at least one of the purposes. If your tool is not serving any of the purposes, I say ditch it and shift it to a useful tool.

Know what your clients look for:

Having a tool, analyzing the numbers or data will not fetch you anything until the client is satisfied. Hence when you are choosing a tool or planning a strategy, always keep clients persona in mind.

To know what your clients need to look for leads from the customer experience department and choose strategies accordingly.

Keep your data up to date:

Always remember, no matter whichever product services your companies provide, you must have your database. The database helps you understand more about the market; it’s functioning and customers’ persona, which helps you and your company develop to the next level.

How are marketing technology and customer experience related?

When the brands were asked about how important is customer experience optimization for their company? The results are:

customer exp
Source Martech 2020 and beyond

As you can see, 57% of the population feel customer experience is very important, and 39% feel it is important. Hence on average, 76.5% of the brands and agencies feel customer experience is somewhat important for them.

What is the customer experience?

Customer experience is nothing but the feedback from the customer. The feedback can be in any manner. It can be the impression on your brand, product, or your services.

For most customer-based companies, the customer is the king.

Technologies used by the brands to learn about customer experience:

According to the research, as you can see, Most of the brands use Customer relationship management and social media management the most to get customer experience.
It’s not always necessary that you should also use what the top brands use. Here are some customer experience tools you can use for your company for better results.

Customer experience tools are:

   1. Customer review suggestion box:

No one knows what is working and what is not better than your employees. So, first, start from your own office. You know, like charity begins at home, feedback also should start from your own office.

There might be a possibility that if you, the boss, is asking about a review, no one would dare tell negatives.

So drop a suggestion box where the employee’s name can be anonymous, and you get the genuine review.

   2. Customer surveys:

Well, well, yes, customer surveys. From your database, you can find out your brand loyals easily, and also you can find brand switchers.

Pick them up and send surveys via online mails, or if you are in the same area, try to meet them up. You can have a little chat about their experience with the brand and then conduct a survey.

   3. Social media listening tools:

If you feel that surveys, the suggestion box is too much, and you don’t wanna do it, then you can always turn to technology for help.

Social media listening tools help you monitor what your customers are looking for. It includes the top searched keywords, your brand products, their reviews or comments, your competitors, and many more.

Now you must be wondering where to get these tools? Don’t worry; we have a solution to every problem of yours.

There are an unlimited number of tools out there based on your preferences, for reference Hubspot, Hootsuite, Sprout Social are few tools from where you can start.

There are other Customer experience tools available in the market that fulfill your preferences, and they are IBM Tealeaf, Satmetrix, WalkMe, Khoros, Podium, Whatfix, and on and on.

By reading the above information about marketing technology and trends, I bet you must have understood what it is about and how are the current market trends.

Well, now let’s look at the future.

With 2019 almost coming to an end, it’s time we take our experiences from it and prepare for the future 2020.

Future of Marketing Technology 2020 :

The most used technology in the current marketing strategy these days is IOT- Internet of Things, 38% of the population among the brands use IOT as their technology in marketing strategy. 26% of them plan to use it in the next 12 months too.

Next, catching up technology is Virtual Reality, aka VR, 26% currently use it, and 24% plan to use in the coming 12 months.

The other analysis you can find in the figure below.

future martech 2020
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond.

As you might be aware of the fact that along with changing times, technology is also evolving.

So, What will happen in 2020?

This is probably going to be the future of Marketing technologies, aka martech:

  1. Companies will optimize to Voice Search
  2. Companies’ dependence on Google Analytics will decrease.
  3. IOT technologies will top the business
  4. Brands will look for alternative communication channels.
  5. Businesses will no longer be built on one channel
  6. Personalization will be the new market trend

#Voice Search Optimization:

Though the research states that the voice search usage in the next 12 months will not be more than 25%, another search, according to ComScore states, over 50% of the future searches in 2020 will be in the from voice search.

Hence, companies to rank on top have to optimize to voice search.

Here we are not just talking about Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa. We are talking about voice searches beyond these.

One such personal best is Jetson.ai. Never heard about it?

Well, Jetson.ai is a voice assistant, which helps in voice shopping.

You don’t have to buy a device; all you need to do is simply connect it to your Amazon’s Alexa or Google Mini.

Then upload the menu and shop.

Voice Shopping in the U.S.is estimated to reach $40 Billion in and $5 Billion in the UK by 2022.”
-OC&C STRATEGY CONSULTANTS

Another wonderful thing about jetson.ai learns from the customers and customize it accordingly.

That means, If you are ordering a particular item from the same store over and over, it understands it, and for the next purchase, it makes it easy for you to order.

# Why will dependency on Google Analytics to decrease?

I am sure that every company at one point or the other must have used Google Analytics or is currently using it.

If you have used Google Analytics, you must be aware of how it functions.

If not, here is a brief intro to it. Google Analytics is basically a web analytics service. Google offers it. It helps you to track and report website traffic as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand.

If you ask me if this Google Analytics is not accurate for research? I would say No.

Now, if you ask m if there is something wrong? Still, it’s no.

I bet your next question will be, do people, not like it? Of Course, no, who wouldn’t like a free tool to check Website traffic.

Then why will it be replaced? Let me give you a living example of smartphones.

Nokia phones were considered the best. Even you must have used it at some point. But with time, smartphones came in and replaced it.

People like you and me preferred smartphones cause work got easy and optimized.

Similarly, with Google Analytics. Over time new updated tools and software are emerging, and Analytics has become the conventional method of data analysis.

Nowadays, there are things like repeat purchases, upsells, down sells, and checkout bumps are seen. On top of that, there are various ways in which you can generate revenue for your online business, like partnerships, or webinars.

As a result, it has caused companies to start using analytics solutions that match their database better, for example, Amplitude. Or something more convenient than that.

In the end, all you are seeing is a big push into business intelligence.

In 2020, you will get to see more and more companies adopting these business intelligence solutions. Due to budgets, they might as well shift from paid ones to free ones like Google Data Studio.

If you have no idea about Data Studio, then I suggest you start getting an idea now.

It is easy for you to pass in all of your business and corporate data into one place.

For example, you can pass in more complicated data from your Facebook ad campaigns into Data Studio with ease as it would be a bit difficult task to perform with Google Analytics.

#How IoT will top the businesses?

As mentioned earlier, 38% of the population among the brands use IOT as their technology in marketing strategy. 26% of them plan to use it in the next 12 months too.

According to a report by Statista, the Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices installed worldwide in 2020 will be 30.73 billion. Currently, in 2019, it is 26.66 Billion.

Which means there would be a rise of 4.07 billion in IoT.

If you have no idea about what IoT is then, The internet of things (IoT) is nothing but the data you share over an internet connection.

In technical terms, IoT is a growing set of technologies based on devices that could share data via an internet connection.

Hence, companies will have to look into this for better optimization, and it is estimated according to a report by Statista that by 2015, this IoT would reach 75.44 billion.

That means 48.78 billion rises from the current use.

#Why will brands look for alternative communication channels?

The most conventional communication channel used by corporates is Email. You and I also use it for our marketing purposes.

In fact, email marketing is one of the E-Commerce business ideas and SEO ideas.

The only problem with emails is conversion rates are low. Buyers, most of the time, do not check inboxes or only look for important ones and skip promotions. Hence it is becoming challenging for companies to only stick to emails.

Hence, companies are looking forward to alternative business channels for better conversion rates, which are effective in turning their leads into customers.

Some alternative communication channels are Chatbots, Customer call centers, toll-free centers, and push up notifications.

# Why will business no longer be built on one channel?

In previous years, a lot have companies have been built on a single channel, like facebook, quora, etc.

Facebook uses the email address book as its channel. Whenever you log in for the first time, you must have seen a pop up suggested friends or import email addresses from facebook.

Similarly, Quora is built on SEO channels. It helps companies ranking on search engines.

But, marketing these days is not unidirectional. It is heading fast towards marginal gains.

If you want to win the market, then you must use all the channels possible for business. Hence marketers will shift to use multiple channels to build their businesses or rank number one.

#Why personalization is important in the future?

Personalization is an SEO trick to grab the attention of your customers. There are two types of personalization to a website:

  • Themed personalization
  • User personalization

Themed personalization:

This is what you do to customize your website according to a festival. Like recently, we celebrated Halloween. So you must have customized your website to a Halloween theme.

Google always personalizes itself to such events. It makes the users happy and attracts them.

Well, if you do not know how to customize your website, you can use organized themes for helping you with customization.

User Personalization:

This is an important point, especially in the field of online marketing. Let it be your ads or products you sell. You should always know your demographics.

User personalization is what you can find Amazon or Flipkart doing. They observe your shopping trends or recent searches. Later, when you use their services, they will show you related items.

Based on your recent searches, here are some suggested products. A message appears, and we find all our related items.

Now, what will happen if this is not there? If personalization was not there, then you or I can get suggestions for baby clothes or dog food.

Well, if you have a baby or a dog, it will be useful, but I don’t have a baby or a dog, so its a spam to me.

But if you give me some search related to footwear- oh, I love browsing footwear and keep on buying them even if I don’t need new pairs- I will browse and definitely buy at least one pair.

So, personalization helps in business growth and attracts customers.

Now, if you ask me, why is it important? In future people will get so busy that they will not have time to look into anything. If you personalize your products according to buyer persona and showcase them on top of the websites or ads, the chances are high that they will end up purchasing some goods or the other.

You might have definitely been hearing about some of the above points or might feel they are irrelevant to you, but this is the future of marketing technology 2020.

Martech is not a piece of cake. You also must have been facing barriers in technology for marketing. However, here are a few topmost barriers for Marketing technology 2020.

Barriers for MarTech:

According to the report, MarTech 2020 and beyond, the brands and agencies have different views on the barriers of marketing.

According to the brands, 50% of them feel budgets will be the top constraint in 2020 marketing. Still, agencies have a different view; among them, 56% feel understanding the technology will be a constraint for marketing technology 2020.

Here is the data analysis of barriers for both brands and agencies

Image:
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond

Conclusion:

On a whole account, Marketing technology 2020 is going to see a lot of ups and downs. But for you, if you have confusion or dilemma about what to do, where to start, how to start, you can always contact us.

Most things mentioned above are either things that you have been hearing for a long time or have never heard about. But whatever it is, it is in the future, and if you want to survive, you should be prepared.

We would always love to hear your views on the marketing trends 2020 and what you think about your future. Do give your opinions in the comments section below or contact us.

We hope that this article was of excellent help to you in understanding marketing technology and 2020 trends.

Quick Halloween Marketing Ideas to Boost Sales This Holiday Season

Quick Halloween Marketing Ideas to Boost Sales This Holiday Season

Are you wondering what quick Halloween marketing ideas will boost your sales up this Holiday month? Don’t worry at all as you have just come to the right place for all your answers. Instead of jumping directly onto Marketing ideas for Halloween 2019, let us first take a quick look at last year’s marketing trends and predicted present trends.

In this article, you will find various solutions to all your queries about ecommerce marketing strategies and how to boost your sales during holiday seasons using social media marketing and current business trends.

What is Halloween?

Halloween is an annual ghostly holiday celebrated on October 31st every year. This 2019 it falls on Thursday, October 31. It came into observation along with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. On this day, people light bonfires and wear scary costumes to stall away ghosts.

Celebrating Halloween is an ancient practice, but with time it has become trending. According to a research in 2018 by the National Retail Federation (NRF), 175 Million American’s celebrated this scary time of the calendar. They, on average, spent 9 Million Dollars for celebration.

What They Buy for Halloween?

This quarter the estimated Trick or Treat holiday shopping trends are

  • 68 percent of Americans plan to celebrate Halloween this year. Top spending categories for 31st October 2019 are:
  • $3.2 billion on Halloween costumes,
  • $2.6 billion on Halloween candies
  • $2.7 billion on Halloween decorations, and
  • $390 million on Halloween greeting cards
  • What They Buy for Halloween:

This 2019 October edition holiday has gained popularity because it is an affordable holiday. Right from kids to adults, each and every person loves to celebrate this spookiest day of the year. Shoppers look forward to Spooky items that are bang for a buck.

90 percent of Americans buy candies for trick or treats, spending about $2.6 Billion. Around 75 percent buy decor, and not more than 70 percent spend on costumes.

Top five trending costumes for adults were:

A witch, vampire, zombie, pirate, and Avengers character.

While for children, the costumes were Princess, Superhero, Batman, Star Wars character, and Witch.

In recent times shoppers even buy weird costumes for their pets. The five most popular pet costumes were Pumpkin, hot dog, bumblebee, devil, and cat (for dogs).

When Should You be Ready for Halloween?

  • 6% of shoppers will start shopping before September.
  • 28% of shoppers will start their shopping during September.
  • 41% of shoppers are likely to get done with their shopping in the first week of October.
  • 25% of the shoppers wait until the latter half of the October month in search of more profiting offers.

If you have not yet started with ecommerce marketing, it is never too late. You can begin with it even now.

What channels you should use to sell your products?

Social Media channels are considered to be the most effective channel for marketing during holiday seasons every year. Most of the traffic for your business flows in through these online channels like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest.

We have included an image below, which helps you analyse how online media has influenced purchases and increased sales over a few years.

socialmediahalloween

Here are a few Halloween marketing ideas that would boost your sales this Scary season:

1. Customizing Your Website:

Customizing your Website is the best way to start your business strategy for this ghostly season. It is an excellent ecommerce strategy. You can customize your Website in various ways.

Here are the best customizing options for your Website:

It is the best way to attract customers, and be a part of this creepy Day celebrations. Even Google uses this method.

  Source: Google

  • Use a Spooky Favicon:

Favicon is nothing but a tiny icon that appears on the top of your browser’s tab for your Website. Though customizing favicon seems to be a small change, it has a significant impact on attracting the audience.

  • Add a Scary theme:

Apart from the logo and favicon, what gives your Website festive feel is the theme. If you are willing to get into the holiday theme, you must revamp your Website by giving it the holiday edition touch. This themed Website modification is for providing your visitors holiday season spirit.

Source: Walmart

Apart from these few customization’s, what could really attract customers to your websites are the use of Chatbots. Chatbots are conversational agents on your site. With the help of chatbots, you get a chance to wish all your customers who visit your website and create an emotional bond with them.

   2. Launch Limited Edition Products:

One Halloween business marketing idea used by many chocolate companies and other brands is they launch limited edition products. This practice of launching customized products keeps fans eager for your companies collections. This practice increasing brand value and trade.

There is an added advantage when the product also targets Christmas. Starbucks, in 2003, launched Pumpkin Spice Latte flavor. This product might not have been wholly linked with this scary day.

Source: Starbucks Coffee Company

However, this flavor is available only during the months of September to December. Along with many other limited-time products, it has become a trendy item. This product is selling more than 200 million units over the last 15 years.

Plan your limited edition products in such a way that they are unique and catchy.

   3. Bring back fun with Halloween contests:

User-Generated Content (UGC) is a successful way to attract customers. Running a themed Halloween social media contest for your Company or business is the best way to get UGC.
This scavenger hunt time is all about Halloween outfits, pranks, fun, and entertainment. By launching such themed festival contests, you can bring in a lot of organic traffic.

            Source: Mochi shoes

Social media algorithms are being modified over a period of time. The algorithms for Facebook are prioritised for posts with meaningful interactions i.e., post which has a greater people engagement (comments, likes, and shares) appears on top of your feed. For Instagram, the algorithm is set to feature new posts on the top.

Hence to avoid such risks of a failed campaign, promote the contest through paid media. This contest idea is to not only get UGC but also to generate brand awareness to a new audience.

For these spooky media campaigns, you can give corporate gifts to the top one to three entrants. Otherwise, you can have one main prize and provide coupons to all entrants to redeem at the store or online.

   4. Offer Spooky Deals or Discounts:

This creepy day is the time where 40 percent of the buyers start their holiday shopping.

When you club coupons, deals, or discounts with holidays, your customers, it encourages them to take up these luring offers. This 2019 Halloween is one that will not ‘trick your customer but will only ‘treat’ them.

 Source: Canva

You can give discount vouchers, coupons, or deals on the themed products of your Company. Else you could do the same for all commodities depending on your companies retail strategy.

Offering discounts or coupons just around the holiday season can lure customers into shopping for more than they would have.

   5. Customize your Social Media Pages:

You can create your vouchers, images, and other similar products in the same manner.

Just like your Website, try customizing your online pages into creepy themes. This ecommerce trick attracts customer’s attention to your establishment. Customizing social media sites is an essential ecommerce methodology. On the other hand, it is a great Halloween marketing idea 2019.

Customizing is necessary as the current trend is all about web networking. Most of the traffic flows through your online channels. When you add a little pinch of holiday touch to your social accounts is always welcomed by the customers.
You can customize your online pages using Dot Template.

 

   6. Launch theme-based Media Marketing Campaigns:

Source: Dominos

After customizing your online channels, you should tailor your social media posts too.

As trick or treat occasion is not as huge as Christmas, you need not have to customize all your online posts. Yet, you should have at least two Halloween posts a week during October and September.

Your themed campaign shouldn’t be only about these one or two themed posts. If any other thematic promotions of your organization are running, promoted them too. Use regular web posts and standard online advertising for promotions.

Online advertising can be done using Google, Amazon or other social media.

Generating Social media campaign templates is very easy.

  • Create an Edit account.
  • Choose professionally created templates from their library.
  • Upload your personalized photos or you can select from their images.
  • Add filter and text.
  • Save the template and share it with others.

   7. Run a Themed Email Marketing Campaign:

Source: media tumblr

Adding a small theme to your email campaign can boost sales, or bring in brand awareness for your firm. When you link festivals to industries such as health, security, or other services, it adds benefits.

Dentists and doctors can share emails about the risks of overeating candy, or the type of candy children should avoid.

A company selling security services could share tips on how to stay safe during trick-or-treating.

A restaurant can share details of exclusive food items and discounts at their place.

One email marketing tip is to include a sized image for sharing on social media. This image can feature one or two tips that allow people to share among their family or friends.

An essential point for you to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t change the frequency of your email marketing. Changing the frequency rate can turn the mails into Spam.

You must always aim at boosting your email conversion rate while you are doing email marketing.

   8. Link this spooky day to your business:

This holiday season can boost up sales for Realtors, Restaurants, and Real estate.

#1. Halloween marketing ideas for REAL ESTATES:

Like other ecommerce businesses, Real Estates can also use a few strategies.

  • You can run a themed email campaign sharing details of your market history, ongoing projects, and why you are unique.
  • Launch deals and special offers for 31st October.
  • Run online creepy home decor contests in the neighborhood.
  • Attach a business card to your trick or treat candies and pumpkins.
  • Send corporate gifts to both old and new clients and make them feel special.

You can use Edit to create your business card designs or flyers.

Top 10 Halloween corporate gift ideas are:
  • Mini Ghost candles
  • Carved Pumpkins stickers
  • Ghostly molded chocolates
  • Horror shot glass sets
  • Customized goody bags
  • Flickering fright lights
  • Personalized cards
  • Flavored box of ghost Cookies
  • Party flavored candies
  • Customized witch survival kits
    .

#2. Halloween marketing ideas for Realtors:

  • Customize cards and send them to the whole neighborhood.
  • Send wishes via email to all your potential customers as well as prospective customers.
  • Write blog posts linked to the ghostly theme Like How to decorate your home this Halloween?, How to celebrate Halloween? Or What to wear this Halloween?

Source: Passion For Savings

Top 10 Halloween party themes for decoration are:
  • Haunted House
  • Willy Wonka
  • Scary Carnival
  • Superhero
  • Graveyard
  • Scavenger Hunt
  • Vampires
  • Pumpkin blast
  • Monster gang

#3. Halloween Marketing Ideas for Restaurants:

The food industry is an evergreen business during all holiday seasons. For this Scavenger hunt time, here is what you can do.

Design a tasty menu using scary names or combinations.
Launch limited edition food items using Pumpkin as the main ingredient.

Top 10 Halloween food recipes are:

Halloween-CupcakesSource: Peppy Kitchen

  • Pumpkin Caramel cake
  • Eerie eyeball pops
  • Eyeball pasta
  • Pumpkin hummus
  • Spooky fruit punch
  • Maggoty Apples
  • Caramel Apples
  • Mac-o’-Lantern and Cheese Bowls
  • Mummy hand pies
  • Graveyard Cup Cakes

Decorate your whole restaurant in a scary theme.
Launch special offers, discounts, coupons, combo offers over food items.

Burger King, during this trick or treat season, launches a spooky campaign every year called, “Halloween Horror Nights.”

Burger-King-Halloween-WhopperSource: Burger King

   9. Host an Event

“What should we do for Halloween?” is the question everyone would have on their minds. Answer their call by hosting an event under your banner. Your event could be a simple Halloween theme contest or a blockbuster show.

One best idea of an event is the Pumpkin Carving Contest. The Carving can be about themes for your Company or Name of your firm. Hosting an event is an impactful ecommerce idea for small businesses.

But whatever you plan for, propagate the event as early as possible so people can block their dates for it.
Promote your event via emails, web channels, or any other media according to your budget.

If you feel that hosting an event is not a cup of your tea, you can always take the help of event managing companies. Top Event Management companies in the USA are Sensis Agency, Bigfish Communications, Blanc and Otus.

“It’s not Halloween unless you go to @horrornights at Universal! Thank you #UniversalHHN for the tricks & treats with some of my favorite people 🎃🖤👻 always a blast.”

source Instagram profile : ddlovato

10. Write Seasonal Blog Post:

Writing a Halloween theme content is an attractive way to grab customers’ attention. You can write about various topics like History behind this Spookiest year? What to wear, How to Celebrate and other related season topics.

Writing about the small articles, and publishing them online increases organic traffic. Along with the post, you can add about the ongoing Halloween 2019 ecommerce campaign or deals you are offering for 31st October. Use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tools for optimizing your blog.

Call to action is a necessary step when you are providing customers with such content. Most of the customers tend to look for a call to action once they feel the blog interesting. Hence you should always guide such leads to your merchandise page.

Blogging is an essential SEO (Search Engine Optimization) recommendation. When your SEO ranking improves, it makes your site rank higher. If you have no idea about how to do SEO or other digital marketing technical works, you need not worry; you can follow the easy SEO guidelines.

   11. Use Hashtags:

halloween hastags

Hashtags are the basics of all social media platforms. Hashtags organize similar events, ideas, and trends together. When you check for that particular hashtag, you can view all related posts at a single platform. Adding hashtags like linked with this creepy night like #happyHalloween, #trickortreat, #HalloweenCostume, add an advantage.

Social media channels are full of videos and photos for these specific hashtags.

A hashtag contest is the simplest way to gather user-generated content (UGC). It increases brand awareness and reaches a new target audience.

If you are facing a problem in creating hashtags or want to cut some time in creating hashtags you can generate trendy hashtags using: Seek metrix for Instagram and Facebook and Hashtagify for Twitter.

   12. Plan for Giveaways:

Free Giveaways are the best way to gather UGC. It is the human tendency to get anything that is FREE. Free Giveaways help in exposing your brand to other customers. When you implement such marketing ideas, people are most likely to participate.

When you plan for giveaways, include aspects such as share, tag, or like our social media pages. This helps in free promotions and increases organic traffic.

Source: Modcloth

Never do a bogus giveaway. When you announce a giveaway, there should always be some or the other item which would reach the winners. When false campaigns are run, customers lose trust in you and would not recommend buying from you in the future.

Giveaways gifts need not be costly. They can be anything related to that particular holiday and promote your brand. For giveaway ideas, you can refer to Give away monkey site.

Here are some of the easiest and effective Halloween social media contest ideas for giveaways:

#1. Run a photo contest:

Photo contests are among mostly loved contests on the web. These contests get your entrants involved in the contest themselves. Running a photo contest helps you in collecting user-generated content (UGC). This content you can use in your future for retail purposes.

Apart from these outfit photos, another vital aspect of this ghostly day is weird makeup photo updates.

halloween make up ideasSource: pinimg

Top 10 Halloween makeup ideas are:
  • Poison Ivy
  • Zombie
  • Vampire
  • Scare-Crow
  • Pennywise
  • Joker
  • Killer clown
  • Harley Quinn
  • Annabelle
  • Creepy Ghost

#2. Run a referral contest

A social media referral contest helps you generate social engagement. A referral is where your giveaway or company page is shared. When participants refer your Company with others, they help in promoting your brand. This is a fantastic way to build a social following and spread the word about your brand to others.

#3. Share entries

pepsi contestSource: Pepsi Nepal

Sharing Entries on Facebook and Instagram has been a best practice for giveaway campaigns. These share entries contests firstly involve the purchase of your Company’s goods. Secondly, they help in the free promotion of your brand on social media. It increases sales of your brand as well as brand awareness.

   13. Team Up with Similar Campaigns:

Teaming up with similar 2019 Halloween social media campaigns is a wonderful ecommerce idea for small organizations. You can create promotional materials that highlight what each Company is offering. This extends the target audience to large portions targeting both organizations. This idea can come to implementation at any point during the year. Yet, it works very well during significant promotional periods.

Conclusion:

So, these are a few tricks which you could put in place this quarter. Remember, these marketing strategies are not limited only to E-commerce. They can also be used for realtors, real estates, apartments, and restaurants. Also, the only mantra to boost your business sales is by planning it accurately.

We hope that these marketing ideas are of great help to you this holiday season. If you have other ideas of marketing, do share it with us.

We also would love listening to your stories about how this holiday season marketing. So, do write to us in the comment section below or contact us.

Best wishes to you and your Company this Spookiest day of October, Happy Halloween!!!

Alert! New report: Indian TV Advertising Market Analysis Forecast

Indian TV Advertising Market Analysis forecast download

Advertising and TV in India have become huge even if the digital media is slowly trying to take the attention of the citizens. However, the Indian Market Analysis says that India is the second fastest growing Ad industry in the world after China. Not just the TV Advertising industry even the Television industry is expected to increase a lot in the upcoming years. India is on the verge of making a lot, in Television history. While the TV forecast or future TV has a lot of new things in the bag.

To make the TV industry and the Advertising Industry easy for all. We made a report that explains in details about the Television and Advertising industry and the market analysis in India. It also includes the forecast for the future, about how TV companies should adopt new technologies to be in a race.

However, to make this report, we did a lot of background research. We had a team of researchers who did background digging, gathered the required statistic, collected even the very minute information that helped in making this report.

TV advertising market analysis

CONTENTS IN REPORT

This report covers all the main aspects that will help a TV organization and an Advertising agency to know the latest trends in India. It includes all the substantial information such as:
TV Industry:

  • How is the TV industry growing in India?
  • What type of TV’s are penetrating in Indian Households?
  • Usage of CRT and LED days in Indian Household.
  • How is digital media giving fierce competition to the TV industry?

Advertising Industry:

  • It has increased Advertising agencies in India.
  • How is the industry saw growth in India?
  • What is the Penetration of Ad agencies in Indian Households?
  • What are the TV viewing habits of Indians?

TV and Advertising trends:

  • How the advertising agency and TV industries can find the trends and target the audience?
  • How the TV industry in India looks?
  • What are the factors that are affecting the TV industry?
  • Which type of content is king on TV?
  • In India which is the best time for showcasing the Ads or what is Prime Time?
  • It contains a brief explanation of Drama Marketing, a favorite genre for Indians.

Major Events in 2019:

  • We are concentrating on some significant events in India 2019.
  • How to do advertisements and TV sales increased during the Cricket World Cup?
  • What are the main ingredients that will make people stick to TV in IPL?
  • How the TV buying rate increases during the cricket season?

Future of TV

  • What is the Forecast of the TV industry in India?
  • What all new technologies the TV industry should adopt to be in a race with digital media?

These are some of the essential things that everyone in the TV industry and Ad agencies wonder for, to make your work accessible to read this complete report. It involves all the in-depth market analysis for TV and advertising industry.

MAJOR EVENTS

This year there are a lot of major events going on in India which include Indian Premier League (IPL), Cricket World Cup, and General election. All this gives a fantastic opportunity for the advertiser to grab the market and make the people stick the TV.

TV viewing in India

However, it is even expected that advertising expenditure this year is expected to rise by 15.8% which will sum up to become Rs 72,662 Crore. This clearly, indicates that advertising platform this year will financially rip off all the records. While this year is a big one and will bring a lot of new milestones to India.

Not, just the major events such as General Election, IPL and Cricket World Cup even the advertisers should concentrate on various other important things that will stick the audience to the TV. This reports will give you complete insight into the trends that the advertising industry should always check on.

The trends include things such as when to concentrate which region people. For example, in the morning time, the people of South India watch a lot of TV which becomes a prime time for them. While for the Hindi speaking people the Prime Time is evening time. This is something which helps a lot to the advertisers and concentrates only on the specific region at that particular time.

FORECAST

We didn’t just end here; the report even contains Forecast for the TV industry. The future of the TV industry is nothing but the Programmatic Tv that will show the Programmatic Ads. Soon, if the TV industry will start having the Programmatic Ads, it will begin giving a fierce competition to Digital Media. Programmatic Ads is a step ahead of the standard Linear TV that we watch daily.

Programmatic Tv will have the Over The Top (OTT) and Video On Demand (VOD) option that will make people fall in love with TV all over again. A programmatic TV will also have the Programmatic Ads, which comes on the screen in a similar way how we can see in the internet platform or any social media. We can see the ads on the bottom or top of the screen and in the left or right side.

If you want to check the advertisements, you can click on the ads on the screen, or if you don’t want to watch it, you have to leave it like that the announcement will go away. Soon the TV’s are going to change, and we will be adopting smart TVs with excellent features.

Programmatic TV

As an end note we can say that if you read this report, it will surely give you a deeper insight into the Indian TV market and Advertising industry. However, we will also get to know what we need to follow and what we were following until now. It is handy with all the statistics and numbers being correct to our knowledge.

Below we attached you the PDF of our report TV and Advertising Market Analysis Indian Forecast 2019. After reading it, if you find out any glitches, please do revert to us we will glad to fix it. If you have any query regarding this Tv and Advertising related thing and need our help, we will provide you the best solution.

Please do leave your valuable feedback about the report in the comment section below!

We hope you love it!

Indian TV Advertising Market Analysis forecast download