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COVID-19 and lockdown – A boon for numerous startups and brands

Well, a phenomenon that comes as a curse to some business organizations, is the same phenomenon that works as a boon to other businesses. Let us take the scenario of the COVID-19 and lockdown. With the coronavirus outbreak, the whole world came to a standstill for sometime. However, that didn’t stop a lot of business organizations to continue their business as usual. The “new normal” helped them adopt and they flourished.

We all must have heard “desperate times require desperate measures”. This global lockdown was definitely a desperate time for a wide array of businesses. So what caused them to flourish? This blog explores multiple business organizations, startups and brands that showed significant growth during this situation.

SL NO Top digital marketing trends in lockdown Growth in usage
1 Social media marketing/advertising 51% of Indians use social media. Social media ad spending reached $730M (+3.4% increase than 2019).
2 Influencer marketing Influencer marketing budgets increased by 65% where 19% of the marketers spent between $1000 – $10,000 on influencer marketing.
3 OTT advertising Increase in users in OTT platforms by 20%. Ad insertions on OTT platforms increased 35 times in COVID-19..
4 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 64% marketers actively invest time in SEO and 25% of the companies invest in mobile optimization as their top SEO tactic.
5 Pay Per Click (PPC) 30% of the organic web traffic comes from PPC. Google’s responsive ads performed 6% better and generated 9% more conversion.
6 Content marketing Use of content marketing as a digital marketing strategy increased by 16.2% in 2020.

The COVID-19 effect on Indian startup ecosystem

Before we start getting into the companies that are doing great even in the coronavirus situation, let us tell you that there has been a paradigm shift in the thought process of business organizations, especially due to the lockdown. Instead of the sole focus on profits, companies are prioritizing growth.

Now, whether this proves to be effective or not, that is debatable. However, the rising number of startups and the way these companies have grown in this tough time, is commendable. In India, the number of startups have increased from 7000 in 2008 to 50,000 in 2020.

To support the people of the country with tech-enabled innovations a lot of organizations are closely working with state and central government authorities. Overall, this has led to a mass digital awareness among the people in India.

Consider the e-learning startups

The e-learning segment of startups in India was the least expected sector to have a positive impact during the COVID-19. However, the companies like BYJU’s, Unacademy, Vedantu, Whitehat Jr and Toppr have experienced a 3 times surge in their usage since the first phase of lockdown in March 2020.

Consider the e-learning startups

Since the schools, colleges and universities were closed these startups helped in bridging the gap while taking education to a digital level in India. The e-learning firms, which used to have monthly visits of 102.2 million, recorded almost 130 million visits in the initial 30 days of lockdown.

The overall engagement of students and professionals increased to 8.5% during the lockdown period. E-learning startups saw a rapid growth both in terms of user engagement and new users amidst the lockdown.

The e-pharmacy startups

E-pharmacy has become the backbone of multiple cities in lockdown to fight against the pandemic. Online pharmacies like Medlife, PharmEasy and 1mg are offering contactless home delivery of medicine in bulk. Not only that, you get a wide array of medicines in one platform and also online prescriptions from a registered set of doctors.

The e-pharmacy startups

Due to these benefits, more and more people are buying essential medicines and supplements from these online platforms. The online pharmacies store and analyze a wide range of customer data. This is very helpful in planning different public health policies. It is beneficial for the Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

Moreover, the consumers can check the enrollment materials available or the various health plans for information. The online pharmacies have their own app that sends frequent reminders for medicines. These features have become quite helpful to keep a track of your health.

Online grocery startups

The biggest online grocery startups in India, Grofers and Big Basket, doubled their daily number of deliveries! In fact the demand was so high that it was impossible to get available slots for grocery deliveries for the first few weeks of lockdown. Another reason for lesser available slots was that the migrant workers have returned back to their homes.

Online grocery startups

However, despite these obstructions BigBasket claims that they delivered almost 2,83,000 orders per day. The number was 1,50,000 before the lockdown. On the other hand, Grofers mentioned that it delivered almost 1,90,000 orders daily which was 1,00,000 before the lockdown.

Both the online grocery startups have ramped up their supplies from different manufacturing partners and brands for meeting their consumer demands. BigBasket and Grofers both have hired a new workforce to meet the increasing consumer demands. While BigBasket hired 10,000 new employees, Grofers hired 4500 new employees.

A case study on IndiaMart – how the profit doubled during the lockdown

IndiaMart is one of the biggest online marketplaces for business organizations. This company has achieved something that a lot of companies could not during the COVID scenario. In the lockdown period, April to June, the company posted more than 100% jump in profits.

The best part is, IndiaMart founder Dinesh Agarwal was able to do this even though the company was not able to carry out the field sales. We know that IndiaMart depends mostly on field sales, yet when it was impossible to conduct field sales, then too, the organization flourished.

A case study on IndiaMart - how the profit doubled during the lockdown

Work from home was never an option for IndiaMart. However, what worked is, the team of IndiaMart was better prepared than any other company. How? From February itself, Agarwal had anticipated a slowdown when China was shutting down. They didn’t expect a complete lockdown though. According to Dinesh Agarwal, ”

“We started figuring out as the demand for sanitizers and health essentials shot up. By the second half of March, our focus was on how to maintain business continuity and how to ensure employee safety while making sure the website was running and the call centre too was operational.”

What are the factors that worked perfectly for IndiaMart?

Innovative Thinking

IndiaMart always incorporated a healthcare category. However, within the initial weeks, they realized that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ‘healthcare essentials’ would be an on-demand category. This is where they turned the tables.

“We started calling up the suppliers, did some innovative thinking. We called up the bike helmet suppliers and asked them since you have a helmet shield can you make face shields? They happily agreed. We also went to the undergarment manufacturers and asked them to make face masks. So, we started to build category by category.”

Variation in Products

Well, to be precise, IndiaMart has got more than 68 million product listings through 1,00,000 categories. Thus, if you don’t find something on Indiamart, chances are, you will not find it on the internet.

However, the variety of products also pumped the revenue, because by then, the companies were not only coming on the platform to get finished products, but also discover different elements like bottle caps and elastic.

Also, this is an important factor that separates IndiaMart from other B2B e-commerce competitors like Alibaba, Walmart, Amazon or TradeIndia. IndiaMart has a different set of targets.

The other companies focus on the top 2000 products that are mostly branded, but IndiaMart doesn’t go like that. “Right from the steel bars to trucks and everything in between is what IndiaMart sells”.

Balancing the costs and customers

In the beginning of the lockdown, the revenue took a massive hit because most of the businesses of the customers were paused. The buyer traffic dropped by 50%. Only one-third of the sales were from telecom or online. This is when IndiaMart started looking for places to reduce costs.

They started automation of multiple processes and eradicated any plans that caused a dent in their pockets. The best thing was, a lot of employees opted to give up the salaries, the company didn’t lay off anyone. According to Agarwal, “We are a slow hiring company, so we didn’t want to fire anyone”.

That was not all. IndiaMart also offered moratoriums to customers that could not pay during the lockdown. With the economy gradually opening up, things started to look better and because of their initiatives, both customers and buyers saw value in IndiaMart.

Balancing the costs and customers

Technology has been the key driver for IndiaMart

In recent years IndiaMart has added layers into their offerings through technology. IndiaMart enabled buyer and seller interaction with a CRM and it has become a place for price discovery platforms for multiple buyers in India.

Even if you don’t buy from India, they have been able to democratize the prices for the buyers. Out of the total expenses, 20% goes into investment for technology and products, while out of 4500 employees, 20% of them are in technology and innovations.

What worked for IndiaMart as their online marketing strategy during the lockdown?

During the lockdown period, most of us used our smartphones to get our essentials delivered. While the COVID-19 has adversely impacted most businesses, it has opened up opportunities for a lot of e-commerce players.

First of all, IndiaMart was the first company to harness the power of the internet in the industry five years ago. The brand segregets its annual marketing budget of 40-50 crore (roughly 12% of the total turnover). 40% of this budget was allocated for TV, 40% on digital marketing and 20% for outdoor marketing.

Mobile marketing has paved the way for IndiaMart during the COVID-19 scenario. Social media marketing, especially using Facebook and WhatsApp further helped in the growth curve. IndiaMart has got more than 70 offices throughout the country.

Every industrial area comprises a service and sales office with the objective to explain the concept of online/internet and how it can solve a wide array of problems. 70% of the businesses started their journey with IndiaMart.

The use of mobile marketing

Mobile marketing has played a crucial role for a large B2B category player like IndiaMart. In the B2B category, IndiaMart is the only app that crossed two million downloads in a year. However, IndiaMart clearly stated that they will not shift to an app-only model because there will always be businesses that are comfortable on desktops.

The target group of IndiaMart includes corporate houses where a wide array of procurement or purchase officers access their platform through desktops. The core target groups include purchase managers, small or large businesses and suppliers in the age group of 25-45 years.

The use of mobile marketing

Mobile has become a conversion tool for IndiaMart where 57% of the traffic comes from mobile. As a part of digital marketing or online marketing, IndiaMart mostly spends on online events, digital and direct mailing. In collaboration with Zee Business, Indiamart targeted tier II cities where they reached 60,000 SMEs in 40 cities.

As stated by Dinesh Agarwal,

“Given the overall uncertainty of how long this continues, our strong balance sheet and a resilient business model will help us navigate the ongoing crisis. As businesses realise the need to migrate online, our strong value proposition will help us get back to growth soon“.

The extraordinary performance and potential attracted long-term investors. On July 23, the Government Pension Fund Global and Norway’s Oil fund bought a stake in the company.

A case study on how BigBasket managed to double its sales in lockdown

Online grocery retailer BigBasket faced a disrupted supply chain and manual labor exodus due to the lockdown. It reduced the operational capacity by 50%. At one point of time, the online grocery store had to shut down its services.

Dealing with the crisis

The Janata Curfew was announced on 22nd March and the whole country went into complete lockdown from 24th March. The day before that, BigBasket had obtained all the local permissions to operate. However, because of the on-field confusions, all the deliveries were stopped by the local authorities and warehouses were shut down.

According to BigBasket Co-Owner Hari Menon, “We had to shut down our delivery services immediately after the lockdown announcement due to a lack of awareness around ‘essential workers’ like our delivery service team. They were repeatedly halted at checkpoints or sent back home.”

Dealing with the crisis

The single biggest issue was the shortage of staff because the majority of migrant workers were leaving for their hometowns. This is when BigBasket had to switch only to the essential supplies. From a listing of 32,000 stock keeping units, it came down to 3,500 units. They were able to deliver only 30,000 orders a day while the usual number of orders were 1,50,000 per day.

However, in the last few years, BigBasket had invested heavily in the development of the infrastructure capabilities, supply chain and network warehouse. This proved useful in the lockdown.The farmer partners, mills and fast-moving consumer goods helped with the supply-chain. Also, BigBasket partnered with the National Restaurant Association of India, Uber, etc. to ensure that it was possible for them to deliver to more people.

Bouncing back to full-on operations

With the limited workforce, BigBasket carried out a lot of tweaks and automation. With all the changes the productivity increased to 23% and it was possible to deliver more orders with lesser people. What were the changes?

BigBasket started by thinking how to get more people to utilize one slot. They encouraged people to buy together. For instance, they urged people to encourage their neighbours to place orders together or use WhatsApp to order together or call them.

They also introduced a concept called “community selling” where they asked the residents of apartments or complexes to order together. It was very helpful for the last-mile delivery optimization. Earlier people would visit a single apartment to provide a delivery three to four times in the same area. Now, they are out for deliveries three times a week.

BigBasket also optimized the resources. They rationalized the stock keeping units in different areas and cities in case of shortage of manpower. Also, the government support enabled them in scaling up the operations. Business process re-engineering has been the key to deliver and increase productivity.

At present, the BB Accelerator program has worked as a launchpad for a lot of new brands. The BB Accelerator team will work with a lot of potential new startups and get emerging brands on BigBasket platform.

As stated by Hari Menon, “Our sales have since doubled however, but what’s even more important is that our business has become profitable. We were one of the earliest players to adopt contactless delivery. And we saw a great demand from tier 2 cities and we continue to see exponential growth from tier 2 cities even today.

How BigBasket worked on its online marketing strategy amidst the lockdown?

Search engine optimization – BigBasket used search engine optimization to improve the organic search rankings for attracting authentic traffic on the website. They targeted the use of keywords like grocery shopping online, online grocery, online grocery shopping and more.

For instance, if you search with the keyword ‘grocery shopping online’, you will find BigBasket in the 1st rank of the SERP. BigBasket also optimized the articles and blogs for easy crawling and searching through Google.

How BigBasket worked on its online marketing strategy amidst the lockdown?

Social Media Marketing – BigBasket has a strong social media presence and leveraged Facebook and Instagram for engagement, promotions, campaigns, and inbound lead generation. Also, it advertises a wide array of products, offers and posts videos of a lot of influencers on Instagram.

Content Marketing – BigBasket used the power of content marketing to keep their customers engaged. They used different content strategies like blogs, reviews, how-to videos, DIY videos, funny contents, memes, GIFs and collaborated with influencers to promote different contests and offers.

YouTube Marketing – Amidst the lockdown, BigBasket used YouTube to keep their audience engaged. BigBasket kept posting YouTube videos on different contents like how-to videos, DIY guides, food recipes, beauty and wellness tips and more.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzI3vmX5uVNPpVl8Y2-GbmA/videos

Also, BigBasket tapped into the power of online reputation management by using platforms like Trusted Company, Quora, Mouth Shut, Google Play Store and Yahoo.

A case study on how Practo increased its services in lockdown

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for digital health solutions have continued to increase. It highlighted the importance of a strong technical ecosystem with healthcare, not only in India but across the globe.

Patients are now opting for telemedicines as an alternative to healthcare. Also, the doctors are promoting this new digital technology. Corroborating this fact, Practo has observed a surge of 500% since March 1st, 2020.

Practo’s response to COVID-19

  • The online consultation and queries on Practo increased 16% per week which previously was 20% per month.
  • Most of the queries were regarding the symptoms of COVID-19 like high fever, cough, cold, sore throat and more. The number of queries increased to 200% in one week after lockdown.
  • There has been a 250% increase in the query on Gynecology.
  • Practo typically consults 25-30 patients every day while in the last few months, the consultation requests spiked significantly.

Practo's response to COVID-19

To deal with this, Practo changed its operating model significantly.

Firstly, Practo developed an Artificial Intelligence for collecting the basic information from the patients by guiding them through a set of questions related to their age, health and symptoms. The tool uses WHO protocols for profiling high-risk people by noting their travel and contact history.

Secondly, Practo increased the doctor base close to 50% in a month to handle the increased consultation requests. Practo also created a rich pipeline of doctors and hospitals. It has created a unique task force of senior doctors that are exclusively recruited to train the practitioners through digital media to encourage high-quality consultations.

Thirdly, Practo also launched a monthly healthcare plan that offers unlimited online doctor consultations for COVID-19 symptoms. The patient will be able to consult with doctors without worrying about the fees everytime.

Fourthly, Practo collaborated with Thyrocare, a diagnostic lab from the Govt. of India for conducting COVID-19 detection tests. When the test is booked through the Practo app, a phlebotomist will collect the samples from the patient’s home directly. The patient will not have to step out of the home for testing. You can have the report on the Practo website in 24 to 48 hours after the collection of samples.

How Practo used digital marketing to grow amidst lockdown

Google Display – Practo used Google Display ads for targeting options like age, profession, geo-location and more. It helped the brand to reach out to the relevant set of audience and helped in generating awareness and website traffic.

Google Search – With Google Search Ads, Practo drove website traffic directly from people that are looking for online healthcare services, online healthcare consultations, or purchasing medicines online.

How Practo used digital marketing to grow amidst lockdown

Hotstar – Since Hotstar offers advanced targeting options like age, gender and category interest like healthcare services, it helped Practo in generating awareness among the relevant group of audience.

The YouTube Ads and influencer marketing also helped Practo in getting the necessary highlight and engagement.

How Practo used digital marketing to grow amidst lockdown

Also, they launched a digital initiative of India Health Hour for offering free consultation to all Indians for an hour through the platform. With this initiative, the doctors have the opportunity to volunteer and offer free services for the needy.

Apart from that Practo also used digital resources like video conferences to enable doctors in handling the COVID-19 symptoms and online consultations.

Also, Practo launched an online campaign called #BeingADocto on National Doctor’s Day. This campaign was a tribute to the doctors and the sacrifices that they made during this period. The video showcases the struggles, trials, tribunals, responsibilities and also the joy of being a doctor.

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Effective digital marketing for a stronger 4th quarter of 2020 and a profitable 2021

The digital marketing landscape is evolving constantly. It is important to stay ahead of the curve if you want to be on top of your game. When it is about digital marketing, the focus remains on the future. Since 2020 is almost coming to an end, the question that comes up here is what does the final quarter of 2020 hold for digital marketing?

Yes, we shall get into it, but before that, let us have a quick look at the existing digital marketing trends in 2020.

What are the already-existing digital marketing trends in 2020?

In 2020, we have seen new and effective marketing trends. They are as follows:

Video marketing – Hosting videos became very much popular and an easier way to increase engagement and this is going to boost dramatically in 2021.

Voice searches – Since more people are using digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, SEO has inclined towards voice searches along with keywords that are based on how people talk and not type.

Chatbots – These are personal assistants without the personnel. 2020 tech trends have brought new life into the chatbots and AI, using them more convincingly in digital marketing.

Shoppable posts – This is also known as social commerce. You don’t need to leave the site or the app. These things came into existence in 2020 with Instagram and gained quick popularity in 2020. With 54% using social media for product research, the shoppable posts are great tools.

Direct messaging – This is one of the hottest marketing trends in 2020 – The DMs! Through Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, Twitter, and Instagram, brands have built a stronger connection with customers.

Micro-influencers – Influencer marketing was popular for a few years. In 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of social media peaked. At present, influencer marketing has become a commodity and it is a significant one. Micro-influencers are medium-sized influencers with narrow niches that are popular enough to be influential yet not too overloaded with offers.

Sentiment analysis – This is also known as social listening. It is the practice of analyzing the reactions of the users and customers on social media on a certain product or service. Sentiment analysis includes using data-collecting tools and algorithms to scour online responses.

Alternative social channels – The alternative social channels like Medium, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat are becoming new favorites for marketers. If you are a niche brand, then more specialized platforms are better to reach your target audience.

Programmatic advertising – AI and machine learning algorithms are now designed to make things easier. Starting from ad placement, performance tracking, media buying, and customer targeting, everything can be done through software.

Optimizing for the featured snippets – One of the primary reasons the digital marketing trends change is because the platforms change rapidly. Search Engines have become smarter, more search queries have featured snippets. Thus, at present, every piece of digital marketing content is created keeping in mind the featured snippets.

Now that we know the on-going digital marketing trends, let us have a look at the top digital marketing trends that will continue to exist in 2021 as well.

SL NO Digital marketing trends for 2021 Brief Summary
1 No click searches – aka featured snippets At present, when you search for something in Google, sometimes the answer is suggested at the top within boxes. This is the position zero box, aka the featured snippets where you get the answer without any clicks.
2 Google verified listings for local SEO For the businesses that operate on a local level, Google My Business offers valuable information and helps in establishing your brand in your location.
3 Visual search Instead of typing, the users have the option to upload an image and get information about any item.
4 Automated Smart Bidding in Google Ads These allow Google in using machine learning for analyzing a large amount of data on the users so that you can adjust your bids in real-time.
5 A change in the adoption of social networks Social media usage has naturally increased due to COVID-19 pandemic. With the social media platforms expanding its advertising and publishing options it will be interesting to see how brands use these short-form video platforms.

A few digital marketing tips for the 4th quarter of 2020

Here are a few things that you can do in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The 80-20 rule:

The 80-20 rule is applicable to a lot of things. Now here is how it relates to marketing and sales.

  • You get 80% of your profits from 20% of your customers.
  • 80% of the product sales will come from 20% of the products.
  • 80% of the sales are obtained from 20% of the products.

Now, the fourth quarter of 2020 is the right time to adjust your efforts to attain optimal returns.

  • Keep your focus more on 20% of your customers that generate 80% of the profits.
  • Also, put more energy into the campaigns around 20% of the products.
  • Increase the amount of expense on 20% of the ads that bring results for your company.

Use the holidays effectively

The final quarter of any year brings up the holiday season along with it. There are numerous upcoming festivals and in India where you as a brand can offer a lot to your customers. Instead of the boring discounts and price cuts, you can offer your customers something that connects with them emotionally.

Connecting with your audience emotionally is more important these days than offering simple monetary discounts. Thus, think about something creative to connect with your audience during the festivals. Have a look at our blog here on how you can make a content marketing calendar for the festivals in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Use the free time to your advantage

Since the fourth quarter of the year is a festive time there are opportunities to plan a lot of activities to engage your audience. You can do the following:

  • Start an email marketing campaign with a holiday theme.
  • Promote holiday offers through social media available until 31st December.
  • Line up a fourth-quarter social media strategy that revolves around Instagram, Facebook, Blogs, and Email.
  • Send virtual gift cards to clients and customers
  • Run a contest to grow your database, sign up people, partner with vendors for sharing expenses.
  • plan a get-together with clients, face-to-face, or through video calls.
  • Start a gift idea board on Pinterest and share it weekly.
  • Create a blog on the main product that you offer and use it to educate your customers.
  • Update the website to a new and more blog-friendly platform.

End of the year 2020 digital marketing aspects to monitor carefully

The New Year is almost around the corner. Sure we have talked about a lot of existing digital marketing trends like video marketing and voice search that will account for over 50% of the search queries by 2021. However, there are few interesting digital marketing aspects that no one is really talking about. Here are certain digital marketing aspects that you have to monitor carefully, especially now, when we are at the end of 2020.

  1. Companies that rely too much on Google Analytics will be beaten by their competition

We all love Google Analytics and there is nothing wrong with it. However, marketing is changing and new channels are introduced (like voice search). Transactions are no longer simple. There are upsells, downsells, repeat purchase, checkout issues.

Also, you can generate more revenue for your online business through affiliate marketing, partnerships, and even webinars. This is what led the companies to start using analytics solutions that tie to their database better, like Amplitude.

More companies are using business intelligence solutions like Google Data Studio. You can pass more granular data from the Facebook Ad Campaigns into Data Studio. This phenomenon would be difficult with Google Analytics.

Thus, if you want to win big, you have to combine Analytics with other tools like Google Data Studio to access advanced data for more informed decisions.

  1. Organizations will optimize for the voice searches but not for the revenue

In 2020, more than 50% of the searches are through voice search. However, that is not a new trend. So what is the big deal? To optimize for the voice search. Optimizing for the voice search is a great way to get your brand out there. The best example here is Jetson.ai.

If you are not familiar with Jetson.ai, it enables people to buy from your website using a voice search. It doesn’t matter whether it is Alexa or Google Home. It works with most of the popular devices. The best thing is, it can learn from the customers and customize the interactions.

For instance, if you order the same toothpaste from the same store, it will keep a track of it and help you to order the same product repeatedly.

  1. You have to look for alternative communication channels

Well, we all know that email is something that we use in the corporate world. However, the click rates from email marketing have dropped by 9.4% in 2019. Does that mean email marketing is obsolete? Absolutely not! Email is here to stay but the companies need to leverage other communication channels.

Chatbots, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp messenger is an even better marketing channel. Also, it is important to leverage tools that allow push notifications like subscribers. You can wait till next year for the chatbots and push notifications to get more popular but the sooner the better it is.

  1. Automation in marketing

Automated SEO solutions increase page views per visibility by 60%. Also, it offers 21% more keywords on page one. Yes, it is applicable to larger organizations. However, some startups like Ubersuggest, are starting to leverage AI.

In simple terms, the marketing field is getting even. If you want to do well, you need to leverage AI and automation. It will make quick changes and more accurately than any human.

There will be affordable AI options as well. It is just a matter of time. Now, if everyone is using it then how do you beat your competitors? Simple, you use what everyone else is using, which are the -price, customer service, upsales, operations, etc.

  1. No more silver bullets

Previously, a lot of businesses were built on a single marketing channel. For instance, Dropbox grew by referral marketing where you used to get more space by inviting more friends. Facebook grew by email address book where Facebook could tap into it and invite your contacts to use Facebook on your behalf. Yelp and Quora were built on SEO.

Yes, all these factors help in driving the business. However, you can no longer do business with a single marketing channel. Good channels get saturated. Also, when a single channel works, your competitors will jump on board and make things harder for you.

This is why, marketing today, is shifting towards marginal gains. Digital marketing today is about improving in multiple marketing channels instead of sticking to a single “holy grail of marketing”.

Starting from the split testing of the title tags to tweaking a few ranking improvements, to adding a few check-out bumps to spend a little more on your paid ads to using the Google Data Studio to optimize for your lifetime – it is all about the little things now.

Practical digital marketing recommendations for a profitable 2021

It is important for all business organizations to review how they can harness the latest marketing trends. It will help them in applying the latest innovations.

According to Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist,

“70% of the time we’re going to focus on things that we know that are very core to our business. 20% is where we’re trying to push the boundaries. You get into the known unknowns. And the last 10% is true crazy experimental stuff. Trying to figure out how to do uncomfortable things that we’re going to fail at more than we will succeed at. But with every success, you build a competitive advantage.”

Thus, evaluating the innovations will help you push boundaries and help you improve digital marketing activities.

  1. Monitor the core Google Updates on organic search

In 2020, the core updates had a significant impact on organic visibility for multiple brands and businesses. According to Google,

“Each day, Google usually releases one or more changes designed to improve our search results. Most aren’t noticeable but help us incrementally continue to improve. We aim to confirm such updates when we feel there is actionable information that webmasters, content producers, or others might take about them”.

  1. Check out the opportunities from structured data and SERPs features

Structured data will reshape the future. It is true because, by September 2020, Google implemented structured snippets with SERPs. As you can see the “how-to” schema carousel is right above the featured snippet. Once you click on the steps on the how-to schema, it will take you to the site listed within the featured snippet.

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Skyram Technologies – Enabling a digital transformation through Hybrid Digital Solutions

Hybrid digital solutions refer to the hybrid between the styles of digital and traditional campaigns. In the present business landscape, there is no doubt that digital solutions offer profits to customers and enterprises. However, traditional advertisements and marketing are not completely obsolete. In fact, it has a sturdy advantage in some marketing fronts.

According to Futurum Research,

“Brands must reinvent their operating models to act at the moment. They need a holistic data and technology strategy that they can individualize at scale, customer journey capabilities that can adapt in real-time and intelligent decisioning to automate the self–reinforcing cycle of tailored experiences.”

This is from a 2019 survey on the evolution of customer experience. To cope with the ever-increasing customer demands, it is imperative for all brands to implement digital transformation. Yes, it is true that a lot has changed in the last year. The COVID-19 has forced all the marketing activities to shift to the digital channels, regardless of whether the organizations were ready or not.

All the leads tracking, sales discussions, and customer conversions are digital now. According to the digital survey done by Econsultancy and Adobe – the three digital-related areas that are priorities in 2020 are:

  • Customer journey management (36%)
  • Targeting and personalization (34%)
  • Customer data management (30%)

Hybrid digital solutions improve organization maturity in all three areas.

The benefits of Hybrid Marketing

SL NO.

Benefits of Hybrid Marketing

Brief Summary
1 Customer Data Management Customers don’t segregate, so the brands shouldn’t either. Hybrid marketing enables brands to merge direct and digital data sources. Create and manage direct and digital data through a single customer profile.
2 Targeting and Personalization With a merged or hybrid customer data profile, it becomes easier to target and personalize. With a hybrid marketing profile, cross-channel analysis, and insights on all the levels are more powerful.
3 Customer Journey Management With a complete customer view from both the direct and digital, target and personalize, the marketers can create more advanced journeys. They can merge the inbound and outbound channels, real-time and batch data, machine learning, and integrate adjacent applications.
4 Cost-effectiveness With a hybrid approach, it becomes easier to take advantage of the low-cost internal creative help full-time while attaining flexibility and skill diversification from a digital marketing agency.
5 Accountability With accurate insightful data to guide the marketing strategy, it becomes easier to maintain accountability. Providing meaningful data helps in coping with the evolving demands of clients.

Why do startups and SMBs need hybrid digital solutions?

Now, digital marketing is an aspect of marketing that focuses on online activities. When the online activities are combined with other forms of promotional and brand awareness activities, it leads to hybrid marketing. Brands that mix both traditional and digital solutions have more chances of engagement and profits.

A lot of small brands struggle to deploy an omnichannel approach to sell goods and services. Sometimes they are simply not aware of the benefits of maintaining a few social media accounts and maintaining a Google My Business page. The total worldwide e-commerce sales will increase 3X times than they were in 2018.

The age of hybrid digital solutions is here because the advertising and marketing landscape is suddenly much more connected. Businesses cannot separate brands and communications from social media marketing or email marketing. Going hybrid is the new trend in the Indian e-commerce sector.

In order to differentiate their own brands from the cluster of other online brands, a lot of e-tailers are setting up offline shops. For instance, online brands like Pepperfry, MakeMyTrip, Lenskart have opened a dozen physical stores. According to JLL India chairman,

“The biggest nightmare for every online seller is to deal with a shopping cart abandonment rate of 70-80%. The sweet spot is to be in a middle zone where online sellers connect with actual customers and also promote their products in multiple avenues. Expect this trend to continue in times ahead, which is why they need hybrid solutions“.

  • The types of solutions offered by startups and small businesses include services and products.
  • These services or products could be online or offline
  • The selling proposition may target business and consumers
  • The main sales can be a local shop or a digital mediums
  • Sellable solutions can be limited to a region or worldwide

The reality of the Indian marketing sector

The reality is, e-commerce is still a fraction of the overall retail and it is still going to be this way even after the COVID-19 crisis. The reason is a significant share of the customers still prefers to buy offline. They use online websites as a research tool. The higher valued products, items, and services are mostly bought offline.

According to RP Yadav, the CMD of Genius Consultants,

“A larger portion of the Indian society is middle class dominated. This clientele is very skeptical about what, how, and where they spend. For this strong bastion of middle-class milieu, offline models like retailer shops have mushroomed all over“.

Some experts believe that the hybrid digital model will sustain itself while the pure-play online marketing will continue to stay. As stated by Dinesh Gulati of IndiaMART,

“We can neither call this trend a passing fad nor conclude by saying that it is something that is here to stay as there is a huge gap between the online and offline models of e-commerce“.

What are the hybrid digital avenues of Skyram Technologies?

There is no doubt that Hybrid is the buzzword these days. Whether it is hybrid cars, hybrid seeds, or hybrid mutual funds, the term hybrid is noticed everywhere and digital space is not an exception. One size fits all is never a good idea for consumers because every business is different.

The basic premise of hybrid models is to combine the best of two or more alternative solutions and offer a balanced approach. A flexible business organization incorporates collaboration, partnerships, and new ways to approach the market requirements and services.

A hybrid digital solution offers you the best of both worlds. The objective of Skyram Technologies is to maximize the performance and agility of applications while implementing hybrid digital solutions.

Skyram Technologies is exploring a wide array of avenues to help customers in placing their ads in multiple formats and screens for increased engagement.

1) Columbia Audience Network

We have partnered with Times Internet Columbia Audience Network where you get to feature your ads in front of 470+ million active users per month. Columbia Audience Network is the ad-tech stack of Times Internet that helps publishers in acquiring, engaging, and monetizing the audience with a hassle-free and non-disruptive experience using native advertising, display, and video advertising.

Now, through Skyram Technologies, any businesses can publish ads on Times Internet. What’s more, you can also place EPG Channel Ads in set-top box enabled TV sets throughout India and Hotstar OTT platforms through Skyram Technologies.

What is in it for you in Columbia Ad Network?

  • This is your chance to reach up to high-quality users through premium sites to drive business results.
  • Columbia Audience Network is the only network that incorporates more than 45 premium publishers along with 39 Times Internet products in 9 languages.
  • Get featured in India’s top content network with a reach of over 50% of Indians online.
  • You can engage with your customers with targeted features and Columbia DMP.
  • With more than 7000 types of audience segments, the advertisers will be able to reach out to a wide array of users.

Here is an update of the monthly viewable impressions in India and other countries through CAN.

Brands like Nissan, Uber, Bose, and LG Electronics use Columbia Audience Network to reach new users. The Ad format is a prominent position on the second story for a day along with a click to site CTA across Mweb & App on the Times Internet sites.

You can drive awareness for all the users visiting the site. The Native Ads run through the Times Internet sites with or without the audience targeting and it is best for increasing the reach & frequency for engagement metrics.

You will have options to place Carousel Ads. These are engaging ad units for showcasing six images, promo text along with the CTA, and distinct links from each card. It is ideal to highlight different products, showcase details about products, service, promotion, and narrate a brand story. You can also add App Install Ads to run across the mobile web & add. These ads can be audience targeted.

2) Update Geotarget

Update Geotarget is another platform where you can place direct ads through Skyram Technologies. This is India’s only regional TV Advertisement focused TV advertising platform with more than 2500 curated channels connecting 500 brands. Your ads will reach 120 million households in 640 districts and 200+ cities.

With cable subscribers on the rise, this is a great option to reach a larger segment of the audience. Cable viewership has increased by 43% during the lockdown. TV has grown by 40% and there has been a 25% increment in the time spent on watching TV during this lockdown. Cable viewership is still the primary source of entertainment. The regional movie consumption has increased by 25%.

Regional News Channels are the new General Entertainment Channels these days. 52% of the total television growth comes from the News Channels. 64% of the TV viewing is spent on the news channels. Regional news consumption has increased to 65%. There is no denying the fact that the consumer always think in their mother tongue. This is why local/regional news drives more consumer relevance.

What is in it for you choosing Update Geotarget?

This is your opportunity to reach out to a wider array of the audience with multi-product geo-targeted solutions. Rest assured to enjoy maximum reach with minimum spill over. Update Geotarget brings you 1500+ Hyperlocal monitored movie channels with much better, relevant and relatable content into customers’ attention.

A comparison of Regional Satellite TV presence and Update Geotarget presence in India

The premium solutions offered by Update Geotarget

i) Insta Reach with Bootup, EPG, Volume & Menu bar

  • Set top box (STB) based solutions
  • Catering to more than 60 million HH Pan India
  • Channel Agnostic Solutions
  • Applicable for all channels on STB

ii) Brand building with 2500 FTA Channels

  • L Band, A Band, Corporate Logo, sponsorships, song fillers
  • Catering to more than 120 million HH Pan India
  • Offering fresh, relevant and relatable content through content branding

iii) Increasing conversions through 2500 FTA Channels

  • Long format product/concept story telling
  • Catering to more than 120 million HH Pan India
  • Relevant and relatable audience
  • High audience engagement

iv) Some additional features

  • You will avail the tactical messaging through EPG in this IPL season, visible through all subscribed channels on STBs, select specific match days along with specific markets.
  • Boot-up screen advertisement feature – as soon as anyone switches on the set top box, the brand exposure will be on the present channel.
  • Brand ads will be there every time the volume button is used and the menu button is pressed.
  • With 270+ news channels, you can reach the audience that matters.

With Skyram Technologies, you can also opt for AD units that are handouts for specified ads. This is also another feature offered by Times Internet. This is a service from Times Internet where you can place your ads in multiple formats in Standard Banners and Rich Media Banners.

An example of different ad formats.

Here is a Standard Banner format for ad placement.

3) Hotstar

Beyond any doubt, HotStar is one of the best and most engaging platforms to place your ads. The good news is Skyram Technologies offers you the opportunity to place ads directly on Hotstar. The best part is, this is just like TV but you can drive awareness through different sporting events too. So what is in it for you in Hotstar ad placements?

Hotstar brings you:

  • 300 million monthly users
  • 42 minutes of watch times per day
  • 1,00,000 hours of content library
  • 200+ shows with a watch time of 30+ minutes for every user
  • 60% traffic in the time slot of 7-11 PM
  • 5X times the reach of TV ads on marquee English shows
  • 50% viewer retention every week

You cannot ignore these opportunities to tell your story along with an engaging ad. With Skyram Technologies at your service, you can place direct ads on Hotstar and reap the benefits of:

  • 95% viewability
  • 100% brand safety
  • 90% completion rate.

The full-stack ad formats from Hotstar drive brand awareness and performance. The ad formats include:

1) Billboard ad format

  • Available in the form of photos, videos and carousel for all platforms of iOS, Android and Windows
  • Useful for a quick and enhanced reach of your brand, generate video views or traffic to the website or app

2) Native Image ad format

  • Available in the form of app installation ads and content ads
  • Useful when generation more downloads and installs for your app, make more people visit your website and take action on your app.

3) Bumper ad format

  • Available in of video on demand (VOD) slots for live TV shows
  • It is useful for increasing brand awareness and delivering a short actionable message within 6 seconds or less.

4) Mid Rolls

  • This is also available in the form of VOD for live TV shows
  • It is useful for increasing brand awareness through an engaging story (20 sec+) in a brand safe environment.

5) Carousal – useful in making the mid roll ads interactive and showcase different product or details about a single product.

  • Get to know how your ads perform through complete transparency. You get to see how many times your ad was delivered and to how many people.
  • Hotstar offers you industry-best viewability and brand safety metrics.
  • Brand lift study helps in measuring the effectiveness of your ads by getting response from the audience who saw your ads and compare them with people that didn’t.
  • You can avail in-depth analysis of the impact on ad recall, brand awareness, purchase intent and more.

4) IndiaMART

Very soon, Skyram Technologies will be able to provide their customers with the provision of placing direct ads in IndiaMART – a community of 39 million monthly matchmakings. With 100% organic users and 68.8 million monthly users, you cannot ignore this opportunity of engaging with such a wide array of audiences.

IndiaMART is India’s largest online two-way business marketplace with 1.3 million+ daily inquiries. Skyram Technologies will soon offer you the chance to get your ads placed in multiple formats. Starting from industry-specific banner ads to category-specific banner ads you will have a plethora of opportunities to expand your buyer outreach.

Why IndiaMART?

Why not? IndiaMART incorporates a diverse range of industries & geography.

  • IndiaMART obtains 100% organic traffic and 76% through mobile
  • 66+ million monthly visits with 1.3+ million daily enquiries
  • 10 million+ downloads and 4.7 star app rating – making IndiaMART as one of the most trusted and credible online business.

Also, IndiaMART is India’s most cost-effective digital platform.

With effective email marketing, industry-specific banner and category specific banner, IndiaMART ensures an expanded buyer outreach to make it easy to target more relevant audience. Have a look at the samples of email marketing, category-specific banners and industry-specific banners.

1) Email Marketing inventories to target:

  • 54 specific industries
  • Reaching out to the sellers of the target industry
  • Contact with GST verified sellers
  • Email verified sellers
  • Available filters include – turnover, employee count, industry business type, and geography
  • Assured wide reach without any leakage

2) Industry-specific banner

  • 54 target industries
  • Reaching out to buyers (B2B, B2C, business owners, traders, resellers, purchase heads, distributors, end users and more)
  • 100% industry coverage without any leakage
  • PAN India reach

3) Category-specific banner

  • A fixed 3-side roadblock advertisement
  • Reaching out high-intent buyers
  • All-round and complete sub category coverage without any leakage
  • A wide reach while covering competition categories

5 essential hybrid digital marketing skills to develop in 2020 and beyond

These are the specific skills that stand out as helpful for marketers, especially in the hybrid digital marketing arena.

  1. Cross-Channel knowledge

Marketing professionals that have a strong cross-channel knowledge, have a good understanding and helpful insight on different digital mediums. They can guide their team in developing integrated strategies and campaigns. With their contributions, the brand’s presence on multiple platforms is more consistent and successful. This is why it is important to communicate with different members and indulge in online courses to come together in building a brand’s presence.

  1. Marketing and Business Acumen

When you have to present your brand in front of potential customers, you have to have marketing skills. Whether it is a startup or a well-established business organization, a customer will always see how your company can solve their problem. Marketers, who can fuse this knowledge with business acumen, make valuable employees. They can not only reach the customers but also how to optimize the marketing department that impacts the rest of the company as a whole.

  1. Technical Skills

Technical skills are very much valuable for marketers. For instance, if you understand coding, then you can make the basic changes needed to the website without involving the IT department every time. Also, you have to be familiar with the analytics and how to judge the progress of a digital campaign.

You have to be able to implement your efforts with more insights and data to back up your decision. Learning technical skills can be done on your own. There are multiple resources available both in-person and online which can help in learning a lot.

  1. Interpersonal communication skills

With strong interpersonal communication skills, you can collaborate more productively with other departments. As an organization, if you can remove the silos and barriers that separate different departments, you can develop a more holistic marketing effort. Understanding people is necessary for a hybrid digital solution. With more team-building actions, it becomes easier to encourage people in reaching across departments and work on different projects together.

  1. Passion for the product, industry, and market

Regardless of the experience and skills in digital solutions, if you are not passionate about your brand or product, then your efforts will not span as far as they should. It is important to be emotionally intelligent as well. You have to identify your drive and funnel it towards making your work successful.

Since its inception, the online marketing space has continually evolved, especially in the past five years. As the industry and consumers have become more sophisticated, the world of multiple barriers needs to come down quickly. Not only it changes the way brands engage with customers, but it also changes the roles of the professionals in the industry.

Learning to become a hybrid digital professional needs the marketers to cultivate skills outside their forte. This is how you become equipped to handle multiple challenges of integrated campaigns.

In conclusion, if you want to survive as a brand, you cannot neglect the digital channels and the myriad of information they offer. Yes, it is true that the concept of digital transformation was forced on numerous brands. Some of the brands were prepared while some others struggled.

In this time, customer retention is the top priority and you have to offer exceptional customer experience to achieve this. Thus, now is the time to embrace hybrid marketing to help navigate through the uncharted waters.

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How to create a content marketing calendar for festivals in India 2020?

India is a land of festivals. Every festival in India is celebrated with passion, be it Diwali, Durga Puja, Eid, or Christmas. Festivals are a time of celebration, sharing happy moments, and most importantly, shopping. This is why these are the best times for the brands to leverage this to showcase their products.

Festivals or occasion-based marketing and advertising campaigns have been the tactical nature with brands. The focus is on discounts or freebies to trigger a purchase. A wide array of brands has started crafting festive and occasion marketing. Thus, it is important to create a content marketing calendar.

At present, the marketer’s job is no longer to rush a prospect through the funnel for purchasing. Instead, it is important to educate and empower the customer to make their own decisions. We need a content strategy for it.

In general, the “ideal” customer journey is the one that results in a quick purchase with the least touch-points. However, the ideal customer journey today is the one that presents the right content, at the right time, in the right place with a seamless transition between assets and channels.

How to create a content marketing calendar – A generic approach

SL. NO.

Facts to remember

Brief summary
1 Audit Audit your social calendar! Develop a clear picture of your present social media efforts and identify the areas for improvement.
2 Social channels Choose your social channels wisely and review the best practices for every social media channel you publish your content.
3 Tracking your data Decide on what data your content marketing calendar needs to track, like time zone, visuals, insights, and more.
4 Content library for assets This will be your content repository or media resource database where you can re-use existing content for the festivals.
5 Establish a workflow Once you have collected all possible information, start sketching your daily, weekly, and monthly activities for the festivals.

Creating an approach towards relevant festive marketing and advertising

There is no doubt that every festival witnesses a surge in marketing efforts. There are innumerable brands that try to spread awareness and bring more sales by creating campaigns leveraging the festive spirit.

Yes, discounts work but they are not a long-term plan. Also, with so many brands offering similar types of discounts, you will get lost in them. Also, most of the freebies come from the manufacturer’s perspective. This is why they will have little relevance to what the customer would actually like.

The best marketing and advertising approach for the festivals is to create an emotional and intangible connection. This is how you can make your brand more relevant in the crowd. Gen Z is a business opportunity that you cannot miss out on.

40% of the population commands over $40 billion in spending power. Thus, modern marketers need to build compelling strategies for engaging with Gen Z. Personalized, authentic and experimental conversations and content are important in a purposeful engagement. However, this is where most marketers struggle.

Everyone wants to go viral these days, but not everyone can do that. So how do you execute your content marketing and advertising plans perfectly? Any content marketing campaigns should promote your product, build brand awareness, and also engage with humility.

To do that you have to be shareable! Any campaign is all about shares, especially on social media. If you can make people share your content, you can rest assured that people will notice your brand.

Some unique festive content marketing campaign examples from the last few years

Mochi

Recently, Mochi, a very popular shoe brand did something interesting for Raksha Bandhan. They collaborated with Indian standup comedian Akash Gupta and created a video on “how can a guy avoid getting into the bro zone on Raksha Bandhan”. This is one of the best examples of festive influencer marketing. There was no Happy Raksha Bandhan message, discounts, or offers, just a simple and insightful communication that connects with the chords of the millennial culture. This drove better engagement and conversions compared to any discount.

Pantaloons

Whether it is about spending quality time with your friends and family or catching up with your old friends after a long time, or starting a cute romance with your crush-next-door, this beautiful advertisement from Pantaloons will make you want to leave everything and get into the festive mood. This was one of the best festival ads in 2019.

Bajaj Allianz

Bajaj Allianz, one of the prominent financial institutions of India came up with an advertising campaign with an ad film. It was circulated with the hashtag #ProtectSeZyadaSupport. The idea behind the campaign was to bring a change in the perspective of society. We live in a world where men who have sisters, are always taught to protect their sisters. In this content marketing campaign for Raksha Bandhan, Bajaj Allianz presents a strong message of offering something more than protection and supporting women to achieve their life goals.

Oh! Calcutta

Specialty restaurant Oh! Calcutta created a video for the occasion of Durga Puja. It perfectly captures the essence of how someone feels if they cannot return to Kolkata during the “Pujo”. Not only it created a video, but the brand further went into Instagram for driving engagement asking customers to visit their outlet, capture a moment with their family and friends and upload it with the hashtag #AddaAtOhCalcutta to win vouchers.

Oh! Calcutta
Oh! Calcutta

Image Source

Tanishq

One of the most popular jewelry brands, Tanishq narrated a beautiful story about how a woman, who is organizing the Durga Puja for the first time. She is anxious to make sure that everything goes fine. Her father gifts her a pair of bangles as a blessing and comforts her by saying that she has done a brilliant job.

Century Ply

Century Ply is a furniture and wooden products manufacturing organization. It celebrated the unsung clay artisans of Kumortuli without which a Durga Puja would be almost impossible. They created an advertising campaign by urging people to send pictures of the idols being made or the finished idols of Durga Puja along with the name of the artisans making them. Three of the artisans getting the maximum entries were awarded and the top five photographers would win prizes.

GoAir

GoAir leveraged Diwali activation to create digital engagement. They planned a surprise Diwali for the passengers at 30,000 feet. To curate a campaign that will bring a feel-good moment for the GoAir passengers, the brand wanted to make sure that every passenger feels a part of the festivities. It was just another day for the passengers of GoAir because they were boarding the Mumbai flight from Delhi on the eve of Diwali. The cabin crew on completion of the mandatory task of ensuring the safety and comfort of every passenger on the aircraft lit over 180 fireless LED lamps, 30,000 feet above the ground for celebrating the festival of lights with everyone on-board.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4FYg33pDy4/?igshid=16p9u3cpvsrb9

Vodafone

Vodafone touched the right chord with their Diwali Ad. The advertising campaign showed how people have forgotten to use their own words to connect with people. Instead, we have switched to forwarding messages to our loved ones. Vodafone encouraged us to connect with our loved ones on a more personal level. They started using the hashtag #YourWordsNotForwards.

https://youtu.be/BSy3DAXCjKg

If you want more such examples, here is a compilation of the top 10 Durga Puja themed India Ads.

Few things to remember while creating content marketing calendars for festivals

In the above section, we shared some of the best content marketing for festivals in India. Here are some of the factors to remember while creating a content marketing calendar for festivals.

The idea of creating a content marketing calendar for the festivals should be based on a theme, something that connects. You can also make your festival as the theme itself. Start with the existing content assets.

While creating a content marketing calendar for the festivals, a lot of the marketers focus on creating brand new contents from the scratch. Instead, start by taking notes of the existing contents and resources to see what can be repurposed and remixed.

Since you will be creating a content calendar for the festivals in India, you will have a lot of time to plan, schedule, publish, promote, track, and tweak the contents. Start by creating a hyped content about something upcoming in the festivals and post it on different mediums.

You can plan your own unique hashtag. Keep regular editorial meeting plans for editing and bringing new content before the next publishing period. You can also use these meetings to track engagement, conversions, and revenue.

Don’t get stuck into ideas that you cannot implement immediately. Also, don’t get hung up on the “we’ll never be able to do those ideas”. Instead, create a repository of content ideas which you can tap when needed.

How COVID-19 will change the face of the festive content marketing this year?

Advertising is the mirror of society. With the onset of the festive spell, the second half of the year in India is always full of opportunities for small and large scale brands and startups as well. Meeting with friends and family during festivals has been a part of the Indian culture for centuries. This has been captured by the brands in most campaigns. However, this festive season is not the same as the previous years and we know why. This is why the brands have to focus on a new narrative keeping in mind the safety, hygiene, and the need to be careful.

According to Ashish Ohlyan, the Head of Marketing at Cholayil (make of Medimix soaps),

“Our brief to the agency always includes being careful and sensitive to the current environment“. It is important for the brands to be positive and high on hopes. People want to be free from the shackles of the current situation and live a life in the way they always have. He added,

“While we cannot change the situation, we can prepare our mind to be ready and take it head-on. A low-cost FMCG brand can create a new narrative for itself and touch upon the lives of consumers rather than just the usage of the product”.

Shirish Agarwal, the Marketing Head of Communications in Panasonic India, stated that with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the brands will be more aggressive in offering as far as festival schemes possible. At the same time, IPL is also scheduled in this period. Advertising agencies feel that this phase is an opportunity for creative storytelling along with integrating social distancing messages, work from home norms, and hygiene protocols in the marketing campaigns.

Sandeep Sreekumar, the Managing Director at Media Moments mentioned,

“As an agency, we are brainstorming on creative ideas to craft digital campaigns for our brands to promote social messages along with the brand products. Following the idea to be creative yet contextual, we are emphasizing on giving out the message in a manner that sounds interesting to the listener. We are demonstrating innovative communication to support such social messages through our campaigns“.

According to Bhatt, the ads that brag too much about luxury will not be appropriate because the economy has gone down. This is why showing too much luxury and grandeur in the marketing ads will not go well with people this year.

“This year we won’t promote how the festival should be celebrated but we will show how it was celebrated in past years and tell consumers why this year is different and how people in all kinds of situations should and can cherish it in multiple ways,” Bhatt mentioned.

How startups and SMBs can create an effective festive content marketing calendar 2020?

To create an effective content marketing calendar for the festivals, startups and SMBs need to focus on the following factors. Optimal usage of the online mediums is the best way for startups and SMBs to create a great content marketing campaigns within a limited budget.

Embrace user-generated content

There is no doubt that any user-generated content will encourage a whole community to create and share the content of your brand. The content can be anything. It can be photos, videos, infographics, blog, or even a GIF. Thus, brands can create user-generated content campaigns around festivals or create an ongoing activity to keep things rolling.

For instance, Apple started the #ShotoniPhone hashtag to help users in sharing their photos and videos with an iPhone. To date, over 10 million posts have been shared in this hashtag. Using Twitter Moments is also a great alternative for featured content, with, for example, #PujoMoments or #FestiveMoments hashtags.

Apple
Apple

Image Source

Use Instagram Shopping

This is very useful for the brands during the festivals. Instagram allows brands that sell physical products to tag them in Instagram posts and stories. When anyone taps on the tag, the user is redirected to the website to complete a purchase. As brands, you have to get your store approved by Facebook and then publish the inventory on Facebook. This feature is available in more than 40 countries.

Make use of Spotify for Marketing

Display ads during the festivals are something that you cannot miss out on. It is important for any brand. When it is about social media marketing, Spotify will not come upon the marketer’s radar. If you don’t use it, you will miss out on 217 million monthly active users. Brands with brick and mortar outlets are using Spotify for creating custom playlists for their retail stores. You can experiment with sponsored playlists, audio, video, or display ads on Spotify. B2B organizations can show the humanitarian aspect of the organization by releasing curated playlists for their employees or dedicated to their customers.

Engage with Instagram influencers to host contests or giveaways

For the startups and SMBs, it is crucial to identify the micro-influencers of your niche, with good following and engagement. The next step is to run social media festive contests and giveaways. Feel free to experiment with multiple platforms.

Build a hype

This is especially useful for festive marketing advertisements and campaigns. A successful pre-launch campaign on a product or an offer will get people to talk about your brand, increase product anticipation, and ensure that your product sells well. Have a dedicated hashtag, create cryptic posts or you can simply take pre-orders.

Feature your customers and find a way to inject humor

While creating content for marketing and advertising campaigns for the festive seasons, make sure to add your customers and inject a bit of humor into the content. Adding your customers will increase credibility and inject a tinge of fun will help you engage your future audiences. It can be a playful jab at your competitors, goof-ups at the company events, and so on. A little humor never hurts anyone!

That’s it guys. These are the ways to create a content marketing calendar for the festivals in India. We are pretty sure that this blog will help you in crafting your unique content marketing calendar for this festive season.

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The best landing page builders for the top 1 million websites in 2020

In 2020, we are aware of the fact that a landing page of a website is very important for the conversion funnel. A lot of us might have read multiple articles on creating an effective landing page. However, not everyone can have impressive results. The reason is, no matter how many A/B tests you do, creating a useful landing page is often more challenging than it seems to be.

When it comes to digital marketing, it is important to increase the number of leads and conversion. Generic homepages will not do any good anymore. An effective landing page is a very crucial weapon for generating leads and increasing conversions. The bad news is a landing page doesn’t build itself. The good news is, there are numerous landing page builders that will make things easy for you.

What is a landing page?

Simply speaking, a landing page can be any page that is created specifically for marketing or advertising in a digital marketing campaign. A landing page can be any page. It can be a homepage, a page within the website, or a standalone page that you created for a special event. This is the page where the visitor will “land” when they click on a link. It can be redirected from a social media page, a paid ad, YouTube, or any other medium.

Unlike the other website pages that have many goals, the landing page is focused on only one goal – the CTA (call to action). It is this focus that makes them the best option for increasing conversion rates of the marketing campaigns. Also, it helps in reducing the cost of acquiring a lead or a sale.

What is a landing page builder software?

Landing page builder software helps in creating an effective and easy landing page. It will increase conversions. There are a lot of templates from where you can choose your landing page. These landing page templates are tried and tested.

They are useful in converting visitors. A lot of landing page hosting services offer drag-and-drop features that will help you in customizing the landing pages to match up with your site. It includes a CTA, text, image, and color options that are customizable.

Why should you choose landing page templates?

Here are the reasons why you should use the landing page builders.

  1. The landing page builders are created with conversions in mind

While creating a landing page, the general tendency is to replicate an existing page or create a new page, add images, and copy the goal of another page. This might fulfill the requirement of a landing page for an advertising campaign, but this will not generate the results you want.

However, when you use a templated landing from a landing page builder, you start with a canvas that is designed for driving visitors to convert. Along with that, many of these platforms also come with testing tools for making your landing pages even more valuable for the site.

Thus, when you are using a platform like this, you will not only get a template that is conversion-focused but also the ability for customizing the template for your audience.

  1. The landing page templates are less costly than the custom designs

Creating a unique landing page for every ad campaign is expensive. This is especially true if you have to design completely new pages. However, the good news is, the ready-made pages will reduce the cost significantly.

Most of the landing page templates will help you in producing effective pages because they are created by effective designers. Thus, if you want an effective landing page but don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on custom design, then the landing page builder is a great option.

  1. The landing page builder is a faster option

If you want to get your ad campaign up and running quickly, you will not want to spend a long time building a landing page for it. This is where the landing page templates can eliminate the waiting period because the graphic design process of the page is already done.

You are already starting with a basic framework that comprises everything you need in creating a successful landing page. You can make any alterations you need to make the landing page fit for your campaign and goals.

Thus, it is a win-win for you. If you want to spend time on experiments, then you are free to do that. Also, if you don’t have time, then all you have to do is replace the placeholder texts with your own text.

What makes a good landing page builder?

Here are the features of a good landing page builder.

  • Quick and easy for building new landing pages
  • Smooth performance
  • Effective and customizable templates to work with
  • Complete design freedom
  • Integration with other tools like website builder, email marketing software, and more

What are the best landing page builder tools available?

The following are the best landing page builder tools.

  1. Unbounce

Pros

Cons

Completely featured

Not a cheap landing page builder

Excellent templates

You need a bit of learning

Comes with a powerful and flexible editor

Not for the beginners

Best A/B testing options available

Comes with Unbounce Convertibles

This is probably the first name that comes to mind when choosing the landing page builders. It is one of the best drag-and-drop landing page builders available. This is an advanced tool for landing page building.

Unbounce is much more than a simple landing page builder. It makes sure to help you create an effective landing page that will convert. Along with A/B testing, AdWords integration, and visitor stats, Unbounce is the best all-round builder.

Yes, it is true that Unbounce is more expensive than a lot of other landing page builders. However, it also offers a lot more than other landing page builders as well.

The difference lies within the packages, the number of landing pages you can add live at one time, the number of convertibles that you can have running, and also the ability for creating sub-accounts for clients. Along with that, the primary difference lies in the range of integration with platforms like Marketo and Salesforce.

  1. HubSpot

Pros

Cons

A simple landing page builder

You need to be a HubSpot customer to get the tool

It is very much flexible

Cheap plans have limited options

It comes with strong A/B testing facilities

Templates are a bit mundane

Great customer support

HubSpot is another tool that excels in creating the best landing pages. The company has successfully created a great landing page builder where you get a lot of features, customization, and templates.

Yes, it offers a paid version where the starting price is 42 pounds per month for the starter pack. This includes a limited version of the landing page builder. To get complete access, you have to choose the Professional Pack which starts at a price of 65 pounds per month.

  1. Instapage

Pros

Cons

High-speed landing page creation options

Not very flexible as Unbounce

Offers excellent analytics report

There are no popup options

Comes with a strong drag and drop editor

A/B testing facility no available with the starter pack

A great option for the beginners and experts

Another great landing page builder, Instapage is all about the speed. The best thing about this landing page builder is, the landing page will be live within minutes. You can choose from a wide array of 100 templates. The builder is basic than Unbounce, offering better customization, even for a layman.

Instapage comes with the A/B testing feature and real-time analytics. The Instapage packages are cheaper than Unbounce but you will have to pay for the Optimization Package for the A/B testing features, personalization tools, and heatmaps.

  1. Leadpages

Pros

Cons

Less starting price

All templates are not free

Offers great landing page editor

Offers limited customization

Comes with a great A/B testing and analytics feature

The cheapest package doesn’t offer an A/B testing feature

This is the cheapest platform to date yet it offers a lot of features and customization options considering its price. There are more than 160 templates to work. The Leadpages drag-and-drop feature is a great feature to work with. A/B testing is not available with the standard package.

However, at a price is $25 per month, you get quite a lot. The pro package will get you the A/B testing features and advanced options that bring integration facilities with other tools like Marketo, Salesforce, and Hubspot.

  1. SendinBlue

Pros

Cons

Excellent drag-and-drop feature

You have to be a SendinBlue customer

The templates are unique and modern

Only premium version available – no free version

Offers A/B testing

Comes with integrated email marketing facilities

Dedicated landing page goals, reports, and analysis

Comes in affordable pricing

SendinBlue has come up a long way as a landing page builder over the years. Initially, it was an email marketing software platform and now it has grown to be a fully-fledged marketing, lead, and sales management system.

The templates it offers are great to work with, especially for the novice. You will be able to modify them quickly and get the new pages published. Yes, the landing page builder comes with paid versions, but it is very much affordable.

Not only you will have the quality landing pages but also a great tool for email marketing, A/B testing, instant chat, marketing automation, and a lot of other features.

  1. GetResponse

Pros

Cons

It comes with a wide array of features

There is a lag in the drag-and-drop editor

Offers A/B testing

Some of the features are not available only in paid versions

There are integrated email marketing features

Users are forced to upgrade to 1000 pageviews

Affordable starting price

Extremely flexible

Great analytics and reporting functions

GetResponse should get more credit than it gets because of the numerous marketing features it offers in its software. The best part is, all the features come at a very affordable price. The starting price is $15 per month and it includes unlimited landing pages along with comprehensive email marketing, e-commerce, and automation features.

Whichever plan you choose, you will get a lot for your money. However, the catch is, all these features are available for a limited amount of traffic. The moment your landing page reaches 1000+ visits, the landing page builder will become expensive.

  1. Wishpond

Pros

Cons

Create unlimited landing pages, social media contests, and popups

This is not a dedicated landing page tool

Users will get basic marketing automation features

Offers limited customization

Starting prices are cheap

Editor is good but not like Unbounce or Instapage

The pricing is based on the number of leads and not the features

This is more than just a landing page builder. You will be able to create social content, run basic automation tasks, create popups, and more. Even if you choose the basic package, there will be no limit to the number of landing pages, popups, or social media content that you can create. The limitation comes with the number of leads that you can generate per month.

For the $49 per month package, you will be able to get 1000 leads, for $99 per month you can get up to 1500 leads, and for $199, you can get up to 10,000 leads per month. If you choose to go higher than that, then you can opt for the pack of $3000 where you can get up to 1 million leads. For further customization, you can get in touch with them.

  1. Lander

Pros

Cons

The subscription prices are very affordable

The editor is not good

A/B testing is available on all the packages

The customizable options are not satisfactory

Offers Facebook landing pages

Integration options are not flawless

There is a custom code editing facility

Well, Lander is specifically designed for small businesses and this reflects in its prices. You may not find a plethora of features in Lander, but it is a good landing page builder. The main difference between the paid packages of Lander is the amount of traffic that you can expect these landing pages to generate.

If you opt for the basic pack, it is good for at least five thousand visitors, but this should be your landing page traffic only. Thus, you have to think about how much traffic the Pay Per Click and organic SEO strategies will generate. If you feel there will be more traffic, then you can opt for the custom packages.

The best thing about Lander is, you will have the option to completely customize the code of the landing page templates. The code-level customization offers you complete control over the pages and also ensures a faster loading time. A/B testing is an additional feature that comes with Lander.

  1. Landingi

Pros

Cons

It comes with a unique design features

A/B testing is not available with the starter package

You can create unlimited landing pages, traffic, domains, leads, and users

Integration feature is limited with the starter pack

The editor is stable and offers seamless functionality

It comes with basic automation features

Offers analytics and reporting

Last but definitely not the least, Landingi is unique from other landing page builders because of the number of templates available with it. You will be able to choose from templates or you can create a landing page from scratch. Another interesting selling point is, you can also call the Landingi team to create a unique landing page for you.

There is no limitation on the amount of landing page traffic, domains, or anything. The difference between the Landingi packages comes with the facility of A/B testing, automation, and integration options. All of these are available with the $49 per month package.

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The most-used CMS in the top 1 million sites – Where is Webflow?

If you too are wondering about what CMS platform you should use for your website, let us tell you that you will have a myriad of options to choose from. The question is, are you choosing the right one?

A Content Management System helps you in creating, managing, and modifying the content of a website. For this, you won’t need to know anything about coding. In simple terms, a CMS helps anyone to build their own website or a blog.

There are a lot of CMS options available. Thus, you will not find it difficult to choose one. A CMS is a tool for the non-techies to take care of the website. However, you have to be aware of certain factors so that you can choose the right CMS.

Normally, the web pages are built in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS programming languages. Thus, if you have to build a website without any CMS, then you have to learn how to code. The CMS platforms solve this problem, which means, no coding needed.

The 10 most-used CMS in the top 1 million websites

SL NO.

Content Management System

Used in Websites

Marketshare
1 WordPress 27+ million live websites 60.4%
2 Wix 3.8+ million live websites 1.9%
3 SquareSpace 2.2+ million live websites 2.7%
4 Joomla 1.5+ million live websites 5.2%
5 Shopify 1.4+ million live websites 2.7%
6 Progress Sitefinity 1.4+ million live websites 28.8%
7 Go Daddy Website Builder 1.2+million live websites 0.4%
8 Weebly 935+ thousand live websites 0.6%
9 Drupal 562+ thousand live websites 3.4%
10 Blogger 459+ thousand live websites 1.3%

How to choose the best CMS platform for your site?

Here are a few tips that will help you in choosing the right CMS platform.

  1. Ease of use – You should choose such a CMS that makes things easy for you to create and edit content. This means a CMS with a drag and drop interface for easily adding elements on the page.
  2. Design options – The CMS software should offer numerous design templates to choose from. It should also help you in customizing those designs according to your requirements.
  3. Data porting – A CMS platform must have the tools to export the data and then move it elsewhere. For instance, if later on, you decide to choose a different platform or a different hosting organization, the data portability option will make things easier to shift without any hassle.
  4. Addons and extensions – It is true that all the websites are not the same. Thus, a CMS platform cannot fulfill all the requirements of every website. Addons and extensions fix the problem. These are software that you install separately to add new features on your website when needed.
  5. Help and Support – Yes, it is true that the CMS platforms make it easy to build a website, yet you might have a few queries. Thus, you have to find out about the help and support system of the CMS tools. Some of the CMS platforms offer different FAQs while some others have a strong support community.
  6. The cost – There are a few CMS platforms that are completely free, while some others will charge you monthly. Even with the CMS platforms, you have to pay for third-party extensions, designs, and other web hosting services.

What are the most-used CMS platforms in the world?

The following are the most-used CMS platforms in the world.

  • WordPress
  • Wix
  • Squarespace
  • Joomla
  • Shopify
  • Progress Sitefinity
  • GoDaddy Website Builder
  • Weebly
  • Drupal
  • Blogger

Now, if you observe the above table, you shall find that the Webflow is not there in the top 10 most-used CMS in the world. Thus, the question that comes up here is, if Webflow is not in the top 10 most-used CMS, then why is Webflow gaining popularity as a CMS?

Webflow has been gaining more popularity than WordPress or any other content management system. If you observe the trend of the last five years, the popularity of Webflow has gradually increased surpassing WordPress.

A comparison in the trending usage of Webflow and WordPress
A comparison in the trending usage of Webflow and WordPress

In the following section, we shall describe why Webflow is a very preferred and trending CMS tool at present.

What makes Webflow a preferred Website building platform?

Webflow is the one platform that seems to stand out amidst a plethora of website design tools and content management systems. It is a cloud-based website builder that will rely on the SaaS platform. It will come with a lot of tools and options that make it an all-in-one platform.

There are a lot of developers that refer to Webflow as the “Photoshop” for the websites because it comes with a drag-and-drop style editor. It will allow the designers to create a website without requiring a single line of code. It also helps you in making your own content management system for hosting and publishing any sort of content. This is one of the primary reasons why the Webflow website building is trending now.

How does Webflow work?

The core services of Webflow are similar to an illustrator or a photoshop, but it is right within your favorite web browser. There is a large toolbar that helps users in dropping photos and headers, edit the white space, and develop custom-built animations on the website.

Webflow has a feature known as Dynamic Data Management. This adds fundamental logic to all the other things on the platform. There is a Data Manager that allows you to build this fundamental logic using categories.

Webflow also makes the use of the “Box Model” approach for creating websites. The users will have the option to add, move, and edit individual elements. Webflow will also place these elements in the box and then allow the users for adjusting them as if they were some physical elements.

What makes Webflow design and development unique is, the CSS and HTML coding is executed automatically. The users don’t need to do anything. Yes, you can, of course, manipulate the code to create a customized site, if you know to code.

Webflow templates

Webflow offers website designers with a wide array of options while starting a website. You can start with a blank canvas or you can also start with a website builder. There are more than 40 templates available for free. The premium templates will cost around $149 because the expert website developers create them.

Webflow Wireframes

Webflow offers three wireframes that will look like the standard templates. However, the wireframes will offer flexibility because they don’t have any graphical elements. The three wireframes of Webflow are Business, Startup, and Portfolio.

What are the benefits of using Webflow?

Here are the following reasons why Webflow is so much preferred.

Webflow offers a fast and clean code

In most of the cases of WordPress or other website design tools, the website becomes somewhat slow. You have to go out of your way to make sure that they are as clean as possible. There are disoriented theme files and multiple plugins that cause the bloating of the code behind WordPress.

On the other hand, those who create websites with Webflow, they have reported that Webflow offers faster loading times compared to WordPress sites. Since Webflow offers a clean code, it also makes a significant difference, especially when you are using meta images for Facebook and Twitter. Webflow allows you to be in complete control over the content.

Customized CMS

The WordPress users will be locked into the default page template styles. The only way to change the field is to use a re-coding template file and then get a new template coded or add a new plugin.

You will not face this problem with Webflow. For the users with Webflow, you can include any new CMS you want and then customize it accordingly.

Easy Editing

Webflow offers you an easy editing facility. What if you want to change the way the website footer is displayed? You have to go through CSS and PHP for editing it, hoping that your theme offers you permission for changing it the way you want it. If not, then you have to buy a new theme. These are some of the options that you are stuck with.

You have a better option with Webflow. It will take a few drag-and-drop adjustments or direct copying over elements obtained from other unrestricted Webflow projects.

Complete control

This is one of the most important aspects of Webflow that the users enjoy. You can decide to change anything that you want, tweak the website, and do everything very quickly.

Extensive support group

There is no doubt that every CMS and website building tool comes with a large community of support. However, there is no dedicated support team that will be able to help you if you cannot carry out a certain task.

On the other hand, Webflow offers top-notch support. They will respond to the most mundane questions and help you quickly. The forums offer creative tricks and tips to figure out how to get around common issues while building a website.

What are the reasons for choosing Webflow as a content management system?

Along with being a powerful website builder, it is also a great content management system. The Webflow CMS is focused on flexibility and agility. You will be able to create the content that you need without being limited by the templates, blog-centric structures, and the complex coding languages. What Webflow offers are the schemas that you can use for designing your website.

While working with content, you will be able to use almost anything that you can think of, including the images, colors, numbers, and texts. Since you will have a customer-centric data available, you will be able to change the content. Thus, the pages will be customized based on the visitor.

What are Webflow hosting options?

Just like any other site builders, Webflow includes hosting services along with the packages. However, instead of including what is essentially a shared hosting plan, Webflow hosts the sites on an “infinitely scalable server fleet”.

Since Webflow comes with more than 100 Global Data Centers, the hosting technologies of Webflow are ready to handle any amount of traffic that your website generates. The Webflow fleet will include more than 100 data centers along with a content delivery network (CDNs) that is powered by Fastly and Amazon CloudFront.

The site will load in milliseconds. Webflow ensures that every user will have enterprise-grade reliability that offers the following;

  • 99% uptime
  • The site pages will load in milliseconds
  • It offers support even for the largest levels of website traffic because of the AWS-based foundation.

You will also have the SSL certificates, infrastructure along with HTTP/2 compliant and collaboration tools so that you will have the team members working on the site with you.

Webflow editor

When you are using Webflow, adding content is just as easy as filling out a form. When you are ready for publishing the changes, you can do it with a single click. Since Webflow separates the content from the underlying support features, you will be able to edit anything without worrying about breaking any section of your site.

It is easy to collaborate with your colleagues on anything you create because you will know exactly who changed something, what was changed, and when was it changed.

Search Engine Optimization tools

When it is about SEO of a website, Webflow offers this facility without the addition of any plugins. You can set your Meta title and description in the editor and you will immediately get previews of what the website will look like when it is live.

Since the Webflow Editor is a part of the site builder’s content management system and offers multiple highly efficient publishing tools. This is the beauty of this CMS because there are no plugins needed. Webflow comes with an inbuilt functionality.

E-commerce site customization

At present, Webflow offers multiple templates for e-commerce stores. This allows you to create custom product grids, optimize landing pages, custom product pages, customized shopping carts, and other checkout pages. Webflow e-commerce platform will help you in:

  • Managing the inventory and complete orders
  • Enrich product listings through CMS
  • Customize the receipts and update emails
  • Creating blogs and landing pages in the CMS
  • Allowing customers for securely checking out

Webflow has made it easy for the users to create and manage multiple intuitive e-commerce sites through different templates in the platform. Of course, the users will have complete control over the online stores.

Webflow has got a lot to offer the individual website owners and also the e-commerce site owners as well. It is not only an intuitive website builder but also a great CMS platform offering reliable hosting service.

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Weighing the Pros & Cons of the Top 5 Digital Marketing Platforms

There is no doubt that starting a business is a challenging task. Any business owner, at present, will have endless options, especially in digital marketing. The question is what should a business owner do?

You cannot sideline digital marketing these days because it is THE most important weapon for any business to grow. There are multiple mediums of digital marketing. Every medium comes with its fair share of advantages and disadvantages.

When it comes to the optimal utilization of digital marketing, it is important to remember that every business is unique. Yes, two businesses can be of the same industry, but that doesn’t mean the goals and objectives of the businesses are the same.

The important thing is to sync your digital marketing strategies and use digital marketing platforms according to your business goals. In this blog, we are going to share the pros and cons of the top 5 digital marketing platforms. However, before we get into that, let us offer a brief summary on the top 5 digital marketing platforms.

What are the top 5 digital marketing platforms?

  1. Search Engine Optimization

There is nothing more important to digital marketing than search engine optimization (SEO). Why? Because SEO is the best thing that can get your website ranked in SERPs, help you reach your target audience, and increase organic traffic. All these are extremely important, whether it is a well-established business organization or a simple startup.

Yes, it is true that Google algorithms can be confusing but if you can get a hold of the SEO of your website, trust me, you are sorted. It is always a better option to have an SEO expert on board if you want to get your websites ranked. You can always learn some basics. However, it will be better if you take the help of a full-time SEO professional.

Search Engine Optimization tricks are pretty much simple. For instance, the new HTTPS requirements will impact your website rankings. How? If you are using HTTP pages, Google algorithms will consider it as a non-secure page and this is why it will suggest you switch to an HTTPS format. If you don’t shift to an HTTPS format, your website rankings will be hampered.

Even a simple change in the image alt-tag, title, Meta descriptions and keyword research are also considered as doing SEO for your website. The goal of SEO is to direct more traffic to your website from your target audience.

These are the consumers who are actively looking for similar products and services that you offer. Thus, you have to think about SEO as a necessity. The reason is, almost every user starts their search for a new product or service with a search engine.

80% of the consumers will do their search online before buying anything. More than 30% of the searchers will click on the first page results.

Pros and cons of search engine optimization

Pros

Cons
Free of cost SEO doesn’t guarantee results
Can help in improving localized traffic Difficult to measure how well every tactic is performing
Works as a proof for mobile-friendly and responsive sites Black hat SEO strategies will lead to penalties
Good SEO shows you are professional and your site is secured, also no grammatical errors SEO is vulnerable, a single change in SEO can downgrade your website tracking
Long term benefits like ranking well for your niche will pay off in years to come Results take time

  1. Email Marketing

Yes, it might sound a bit old school, but email marketing is still one of the best digital marketing strategies. This is a great way to generate more quality leads than most other marketing methods. It helps in increasing sales and conversion rates.

One of the best things about email marketing is if you are suffering from over budget in digital marketing, then email marketing can offer you an affordable solution. In some cases, it is free, unless you are using some outsourced services.

Since you can combine email marketing with other marketing methods, it is also one of the most-integrated marketing methods. Email marketing helps in shortening the sales cycle if you can use compelling content.

Email marketing is a bit more focused on retaining existing customers, and also gaining new ones. It is a great technique for building brand awareness and encouraging repeat purchases.

An important part of email marketing is developing and refining your campaigns. It offers users with valuable information. The idea is, your users may not need your products or services, but they will remember the brand name. This brand awareness encourages them to buy from your company when they are ready to buy.

A great benefit of this digital marketing strategy is you will be able to segment your audience and personalize the email campaigns. For instance, you can create a campaign for the users that bought a certain product or visited a certain webpage.

80% of the companies use email marketing, right from the manufacturing operations, retail stores to the technology business. It helps in creating 50% more sales and generating leads.

Pros and cons of email marketing

Pros

Cons
An affordable way to engage your audience People get too many emails, so they have a tendency to ignore
A great tool for other platforms to use (Facebook custom ads) Email marketing doesn’t grow itself. It is a by-product of content marketing, PPC, and social media marketing
Helps in building customer relationships and enhance brand recognition Poorly designed emails will not get delivered. Thus, high-quality design is important
Email marketing campaigns can be created and launched quickly The files have to be small enough for easy download
Email marketing campaigns are customizable, the data and analytics are easy to capture and track Requires proper resources and skills
3 out of 4 people use email. It is a real-time digital marketing option.
Can be created in flexible designs

  1. Pay per Click (PPC)

PPC is a type of paid advertising that depends on an auction-based system. A lot of us might not be aware of how PPC works. It works in a pretty simple way. You bid on certain keywords where you want your ads to show up, the ad will trigger a search when a user’s search includes the keyword. Then your ads come up at the top of the search results above organic listings. If the user decides to click on the advertisements, you pay for that click.

So what happens is, the search engines are bringing you clicks and you are paying the search engines for those clicks. You only pay for the results. You can use PPC to advertise on the search engines and also on social media platforms as well. The end-goal of PPC is to reach users with transactional queries. This means PPC will get you those users who are ready to buy your services or products. This is a form of target marketing.

When they click on the ad, they come to the landing page and see the Call-to-Action. It could be signing up for an email newsletter, purchasing a product, or any other action. PPC is one of the most cost-effective strategies. It drives your website to the top search result. This can help in the organic search result ranking in several pages.

Google handles more than 60,000 searches per second. This is why it is a go-to platform for the PPC campaigns. A lot of companies invest their PPC budget in Google Ads that offer an impressive ROI. In fact, businesses earn $8 for every $1 spent on Google Ads.

Pros and cons of Pay per Click

Pros

Cons
Offers retargeting and remarketing of viewers PPC is not free, the ads will disappear when the campaign ends
PPC gives you measurable and analytical results It is not a sure-fire way to increase conversion
Allows you to track ROI and conversion pixels Requires a lot of activities like testing landing pages, keywords, bids, and ad copies
PPC offers quick results and is affordable
Allows you to track the ads in real-time
Drives better control and exposes your business both locally and globally

  1. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is more focused on increasing brand awareness and conversions. The social media campaign can feature on different social media platforms according to your target audience. Some of the popular social media platforms include:

Along with focusing on social media platforms, it also focuses on advertising as well. It also helps in building an online reputation of the company. This is why social media marketing emphasizes on creating informational and promotional content along with interacting with users on different platforms.

The reason why social media marketing is so important is that 70% of the consumers today, use social media to seek customer services and make buying decisions. Since customer services can make or break a brand reputation, you cannot ignore your social media presence and responses. People these days use social media to connect with companies.

If you are not active on social media, then you are leaving users with very limited options to contact your business. This also leads your consumers to overlook your company. Regardless of your industry, social media serves as a digital word of mouth promotion.

Pros and cons of social media marketing

Pros

Cons
A low-cost digital marketing option Sometimes it can be time-consuming if not targeted properly
Can cater to a wide array of audience Can generate negative brand perception in a short time
Increases visibility, brand awareness, and brand recognition ROI is hard to justify
Helps in increasing accessibility for customers and also increases customer interaction
It is fast and nurtures brand loyalty
Good for customer service

  1. Content Marketing

In content marketing, the businesses focus on creating content to reach out to the consumers. It can be any form of content, video content, a blog post, pictures, infographics, GIFs, and more. The end goal is to provide valuable information to the user. It should not be a sales-oriented copy, it has to be informational.

For instance, when you run a business that sells ski and snowboard supplies, you can write an article about what a beginner requires for his/her first outing. You can also create content on what kind of accessories will be suitable for ski performers or how to take care of the ski board. All these are individual pieces of content that you target with specific keywords.

Regardless of the format of your content, it has to be relevant and beneficial to your audience. Considering a technical standpoint, content writing & marketing should also focus on optimizing the content for the search engines for improving the visibility in the search results.

The best part of content marketing is it is 62% less than the traditional marketing strategies. It is a long-term and ongoing strategy that offers an impressive ROI. More than 60% of users prefer that companies create content to help them stay updated.

At present, online viewers have a lot of power. They can choose to read content or ignore the content of your company, irrespective of promotional or informational content. This is why it is important to provide quality content. With the ability to connect with your users through your content, you can increase leads and conversion.

Pros and cons of content marketing

Pros

Cons
Content marketing helps in building authority and is affordable Sometimes can be expensive, especially for video and podcasting
A long-term process that creates lasting effects on users Takes time, creativity, and diverse skills
Can be used in other forms of marketing and in customer services as well Requires paid advertising promotions
Enables you to reach the right audience
Provides better results and is cost-efficient

In conclusion, it can be said that these are the top 5 most used digital marketing platforms and strategies that ensure optimal ROI. This is why it is important to make effective use of all the above-mentioned platforms by analyzing the pros and cons of every digital marketing technique. Hope this blog helps you in using the right digital marketing platform for your businesses.

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Top Webflow design trends of 2020 – The game-changers of web designing

Website design is no more about just the look and feels about a website. Website design also needs to ensure the seamlessness in the functionality and navigation of the site. With Webflow being one of the most preferred website building tools this year, a lot of the web design trends have changed.

This year, the focus is on what actually matters. Last year, the web design trends were mostly on Virtual Reality and voice UX. This year, we bring you the trend predictions from those people who are at the frontlines of web designing.

At present, web design trends are more focused on making the site responsive. Also, Google has declared that mobile-responsive websites will be prioritized while ranking in the SERP.

SL NO. Key Webflow design trends A summarized explanation
1 Keeping the design truth Label your content clearly for sponsored content to avoid misinformation. Promote your sources so that users know where your source of information is. Use related content to add context.
2 Ensure Accessibility A functional website and mobile application design to be usable for all individuals with visual and hearing issues and to be published in different mediums.
3 Content design is more important than style The website design has to convey the message/information content to the audience. The content strategy and UX have to be in sync.
4 An all-inclusive web design Creating UX designs that are useful, usable, and valuable for every user regardless of their identity.
5 No more codes Webflow offers visual website design and development tool that offers to create your own website design.
6 Visual developers Experienced and masters of a visual website development tool to create fully functioning website designs in a short time.

Why should you invest in a responsive web design for your site?

Responsive web design will help you solve a lot of problems for the site. Not only it will make your site look good on different devices, but it will also increase the time spent by visitors on your site. It also helps with the rankings of your site in the search engine results pages.

You don’t know what device your audience is using. Since we live in a multi-screen society, it is important to make your site look good in all the devices. There are more reasons to invest in responsive web design. They are as follows;

  1. Cost-effectiveness

There is no doubt that if you have to maintain separate sites for your mobile and desktop audience, it will become expensive. If you choose a responsive design, you will save a lot of money by reducing the cost of paying for a separate mobile site. You have to invest in single-site design to appeal to your visitors irrespective of the device.

  1. Flexibility

With responsive website design, it becomes easier to make changes quickly. You won’t need to worry about making changes on two websites. This is a major advantage when you have to make a quick design change or fix a typo on the site – you just need to do it once.

  1. Offering better user experience

User-experience is THE most important aspect of a website. Everything that is done to a website, all the design trends, and updates are based on offering a better user-experience to the audience. When someone visits your website and he/she finds that it is taking forever to load, they will not want to stay on your site and the bounce rate will increase. A responsive website design reduces load time, you can view the contents quickly and your audience will have a better impression.

  1. Better SEO goals

Great web design also has a positive impact on the SEO strategy of a website. At present, every business needs to have a proper SEO strategy. Without a proper SEO strategy, you cannot boost your site to the top results of the search engine results page. A responsive website can help you with the search engine optimization of a website because as we already mentioned Google gives preference to those websites that have a responsive design. Thus, it works like a big boost to the search engine results.

  1. Efficient website management

Most of the businesses, especially the smaller ones, don’t have a lot of time and resources to update the way their website looks. Not every time you can hire a designer to make changes to your website. Responsive web design allows you to make changes quickly and easily.

The Game-Changing Webflow Design Trends

In the following section, you will find the top Webflow design trends in 2020. These are just the right design trends to focus on if you want your web design to include accessibility and functionality.

  1. Ensuring the design truth

We are living in an era where fake news and misinformation spread like wildfire. This is why the major social media platforms have come up with policies to flush out and eradicate the misleading information. This is why here are some web design ideas.

  1. i) Label them clearly – This is important because, in 2016, 82% of the middle-schoolers could not distinguish between an ad-labeled “sponsored content” and real news. Most of the ad formats like the sponsored contents are hidden within the fact that they are simply ads.

The reality is these are just ads, even if they don’t come in direct ad banners. This is why we have to label them clearly. Also, design work needs to be clearer. A lot of websites try to integrate sponsored content on their site’s homepage. The sponsored stories are simply from faceless brands. The real articles come with a proper category title (i.e. politics or news) while the sponsored stories lack any prominent header.

  1. ii) The sources have to be more obvious. For any news or information, you have to consider the source. The designers can do their part. For instance, creating a design where every business can include their Twitter profile or include a link to the Wikipedia page or a Google search of the business name.

This will encourage readers and visitors to consider different sources. Finally, when a designer works on a blogging site, try to make the author and their credentials more obvious in the content-driven experience.

iii) Using related content for context and contrast. This is a different content on the same topic, most of the time starting with “You might also like…” This offers the designer with a useful tool to add easily accessible content for the reader to understand a topic.

  1. Accessibility is the key

Web accessibility is the practice of ensuring that the site and its apps are accessible by anyone and everyone, even by a layman. This is a vital part of web design. It is important to make sure that even an individual with a disability is able to access the website or the application.

Did you know that majority of the websites and mobile application designs in the USA have to meet the ADA requirements? Making your websites and applications accessible is a priority these days and not just something “nice to have”. The work on accessibility is much more than a few checklists and automated checks through browser plugins.

Accessible web design includes reconsidering the ways we publish. For the videos and images, consider the use of right captions, transcripts, and other non-visual mediums. In the case of podcasts, you have to think about how you can make content available to those that have low or non-hearing issues. For infographics, think about how to make the content available to those who have visibility issues.

Previously the designers used to focus on the visual formats and low-contrast aesthetics. It is important now to consider the visual formats for the differently-abled. The truth is, none of us are getting any younger and this is why there will be some form of disability among all of us as we age. Thus, the web design formats cannot revolve around only for the young and healthy anymore.

  1. The “Design-Content” is more important than the style

A lot of web designers cannot accept this. A clear and simply well-written content in plain typography will always have better performance than a good-looking site with poorly written content. It is important to realize that the “content” is more important than the design.

By this, we don’t mean just the written content. It is the way content is presented, the message it portrays should always come before the design. Otherwise, there is no point in designing something if it cannot relay the content to your audience.

For instance, before you design the cover of a book, you have to think about what you are going to write inside it. And before you write something, you have to come up with a concept/idea of what you are going to write.

Now we are not comparing a book with a website. The point is the purpose of a book and a website is the same. Both of them have to convey a message/information to the audience. Content is not about the blog posts or the words you write. It also includes the products you offer, the services, and the user experiences.

You have to align the content and the interface. This means the content strategy and UX design should be in sync.

  1. Ensure an all-inclusive design

There is no doubt that designers consider others’ views, experiences, critique sessions, use A/B testing, and multiple other methods. However, at the end of the day, we all feel that what works for us, will work for others as well.

This is where our assumption is wrong. Inclusivity is about thinking about how to offer something that is valuable to anyone and everyone who is looking for it. Designing with inclusivity means, creating space for all sorts of the audience in the web designs and mobile applications we offer.

This is what gives out the idea that everyone is a part of us even when everyone has a separate identity. This is why excluding anyone due to a particular issue or a disability will affect the overall user experience. And that will cause a business risk, especially in these days, where a single tweet can either create or tarnish the image of a company.

The practice should be to create UX designs that are useful, usable, accessible, and valuable for any user irrespective of their identity.

  1. Say no to codes

Webflow, one of the most preferred website designing tools, is all about no codes. This is a new way of presenting the web and software development that helps you to get rid of the age-old coding paradigm.

The reason why Webflow prioritizes so much about no-codes is that it has helped everyone to bring their ideas to life. Again, the concept of inclusive website design tools comes up here. Instead of learning all about codes, you can use Webflow to create your preferred website design.

The best part is you won’t have to look far back in history to seek analogous transformations. All you have to do is just go back to the first graphical user interface. No code aims to empower people in building their websites and applications without a single line of code.

This is ideally a form of visual web development service where the primary front-end web-development tools are accessible to more people. In 2019, Webflow CMS became the core of all kinds of powerful web-based applications.

  1. Visual developers rising

With no-code tooling, comes the no-code tool’s user or also known as the “visual developer”. Similar to the desktop publishers that use tools like MS Word/Publisher, Adobe InDesign, visual developers have become experts in operating the translating machines that turn the design decisions into functional code.

It is now possible to automate the tasks that used to take hours of manual labor. Static wireframes can now be converted into fully functioning web experiences. Most importantly, in modern web design workflows, it helps in enabling brand growth. The marketing teams can move faster. With no-code becoming more and more natural, we might see the concept of visual developers becoming more and more natural.

Final thoughts

Yes, it is true that web design is a key differentiator. The design-oriented content is getting prominence, but what matter in the end are the business value and the shareholder gains. What should be important is the way web design is approached. It is imperative to have a conscious and principled approach to the design systems that will affect every landscape of business.

Because, like it or not, everyone has a web design in mind. The important thing is will the web design allow you to thrive in an organization or as an organization? Just because we all can design, doesn’t mean we are good at it. The difference is, in the skill level, the education, and the context.

This is where you get a web design that is devoted to helping people understand what the objective of a business is. This is where you get an all-inclusive web design for all, regardless of ability and identity.

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Digital Branding Agency: Expectations vs. Reality – Everything to Know

Whether it is about digital marketing or online branding through digital marketing, there are a lot of misconceptions floating around. Most of the brands, especially the ones who are newly starting their business, think that digital marketing or digital branding will bring instant results.

This is not true at all. And when the results are not according to their expectations, they think that digital marketers are not efficient enough or digital marketing is not for their business. Here is where a lot of brands have a preconceived notion about the ill effects of digital marketing.

On the other hand, there are a plethora of brands that consider digital marketing and branding to be one of the most effective tools for their growth. In fact, they also agree that with the increasing use of the internet and social media platforms, digital branding creates faster and better ways of brand awareness.

Regardless of the numerous advantages of digital branding, there are a lot of myths and beliefs. It is important to confront these needs. This is why, in this blog, we are going to share a detailed on the expectations vs. the reality of a digital branding agency. It will help you understand how a digital branding agency works and why should you trust it.

Digital Branding – Expectation vs. Reality

SL NO.

Digital Branding Expectations

Reality Check
1 More visibility, more traffic, more business Not true – visibility doesn’t mean business, organic traffic leads to more conversions which eventually leads to more business.
2 More followers, more business Followers doesn’t mean business. It indicates how popular your brand is on different platforms.
3 Daily X number of posts will drive results No it won’t because X (number) of posts doesn’t matter, the data-driven content of a post matters.
4 A good social media post on any platform is good enough No it is not. The type of post varies according to the type of platforms. The content should be relevant and have the potential to engage.
5 Digital branding is for big companies Not true – digital branding is necessary for all the companies regardless of their size.
6 Digital branding is a one-time-process Not true – digital branding requires constant monitoring and analysis tracking of the branding and marketing metrics.
7 Digital branding will bring instant profit Effective and profitable digital branding takes time.
8 More brand awareness will increase conversions Digital branding works on targeted audience to drive conversions
9 Digital branding is quick with unlimited revisions Digital branding requires a deep understanding of your brand with a timeline based on the number of rounds for revisions. Multiple revisions increase cost and presents unstable brand image.

What is a brand?

A lot of people think of a brand as a simple logo. Also, they think that the concept of a brand is exclusive to big shot brands like Adidas, Puma, or KFC. This is not true at all. A brand is a name or a symbol that represents any seller’s goods or services. It is unique to every business.

What is branding?

Branding is one of the vital aspects of a business. Whether it is a small business, a retail one, or B2B, branding should always be done. It is an iterative process and you have to touch the heart of your customers.

For any company, it is important to be unique and different from its competitors. Branding includes the promotion of your business brand. If you want your business to survive this competitive market, you have to ensure a planned branding. Branding helps you in:

  • Getting to know your customers better and you can relate to them more
  • Creating a strong relationship with your customers
  • Creating your own business identity
  • Ensuring that your products and services sustain a high-quality
  • Offer better value
  • Create uniqueness of your business from the competition

What are the different types of branding?

There are different types of branding. They are as follows:

  1. Product Branding: This is the most common form of branding. It is a compulsory branding technique because it helps in identifying the product easily. Also, Product branding is the reason why the products are easily noticeable in shopping malls or supermarkets.
  2. Personal Branding: It is a compulsory solution for renowned individuals and eminent personalities. It can include politicians, celebrities, athletes, and more. We are in an era where self-branding has become a very important tool for someone looking for jobs as well.

It is important to have personal branding skills because they help you in presenting yourself as an “expert” in a certain genre. When high credibility is combined with higher consumer demand, then it becomes easy to ask for higher prices or salaries and still get the job.

  1. Corporate Branding: This kind of branding is important to ensure a proper reputation and maintain the good name of your brand. Corporate branding includes a lot of strategies. These include logo designs, treating employees in a good way, offering great customer service, maintaining a good quality of products and services, and advertising.

With corporate branding becoming more and more important, many corporate organizations change their strategy accordingly. It is very important at present because a lot of consumers ask about the company philosophy, their values, stance on sustainability, and contribution to society.

Digital Branding Agency: Expectations vs. Reality

Expectation – More visibility will bring more traffic and more traffic means more business

Reality check – Yes, it is true that getting traffic is very important for a website and a social media page. However, you have to know that getting visibility doesn’t necessarily mean more traffic and more traffic doesn’t mean more business.

The reason is a website or a social media page can get millions of traffic through different tactics, but not all of them could be interested in being their customers. Thus, you have to understand, do you only want random traffic or you want organic traffic?

For instance, if you are in the business of selling tables and chairs, then you need an audience looking for furniture, not for sports products. Organic traffic takes time! Also, getting high traffic is not enough. It is important to have a good conversion rate as well. To have a good conversion rate, you have to get relevant organic traffic for your business.

Expectation – More followers means more business

Reality check – This is a common misconception that is faced by almost every digital branding agency. A lot of business owners, especially the ones who are looking for digital marketing services for the first time, think that the more followers they can get the more business they will do. This is not true.

The number of followers is a metric that is tracked by the digital marketing team. It merely indicates how popular a post has been or rather your brand has been on different platforms. The ‘number of followers’ acts as an anchor to test the performance of your business against your competitors.

Also, this is a metric that is used to test the performance of the contents and posts on a social media page. With better performance come better conversions, leads, and sales.

Expectation – Publishing a certain number of posts daily will generate results

Reality check – It is not the number of posts, but the content of a post matters. For instance, a single data-driven post will drive more results than four random posts. Also, it is important to consider the timing of posts on different social media platforms.

A lot of brands expect their digital marketing team to publish a certain number of posts on a daily basis. The more important thing is to understand the best time, frequency, and post something that carries information or adds value.

Expectation – Creating good social media content will be GOOD ENOUGH!

Reality check – Well, to be honest, creating a good social media content is just a part of the process to impact your business. It is important to make sure that the content has the potential to engage. That is how you involve people to find relevant information and make purchase decisions.

Therefore, whether you publish video content, a social media post, audio, a podcast, a gif, or anything, make sure it is of high-quality and offers useful information. At present, video content has become very popular in multiple social media platforms. Thus, for the time being, you can dedicate your resources to create high-quality video content.

Expectation – Digital branding is only relevant for big companies

Reality check – This is not true at all. Digital branding is for anyone and everyone. Whether it is a big company or a small startup, to run a business, you have to be online these days. More than half of the audience today is on social media and they are always looking to buy products or services online. This is why, when the business is online, digital marketing has a huge role to play.

Expectation – Digital branding is a one-time process – ‘set it and forget it’

Reality check – Once again this is a major misconception. Digital branding is not at all a one-time process. Whether it is about running a campaign on social media platforms or a paid ad campaign on Google, you cannot just set it and leave it. It is important to monitor them consistently.

Sometimes the audience might get exhausted, sometimes; the frequency with which the ad was working last week might stop working this week. This is why it is important to keep an eye on ad campaigns and social media platforms. Also, you have to keep changing the written copy design of the ad time to time.

Expectation – Digital branding services will bring instant profit

Reality check – Yes, it will bring you profit, but only when you can set up campaigns accurately in conjunction with historical and actionable data. This is where a professional digital branding agency comes in. Even Google talks about the importance of setting up a correct campaign with the right goals in mind.

Almost everyone underplays the amount of hard work that goes into running a profitable paid ad campaign. You have to create relevant ads for the target market, you have to test and retest them, you have to add retargeting and the list will go on. Also, you have to monitor these segments of your campaign and all the possible variables, all the modifiers, bid adjustments, device, audience and so much more.

All of these things take time. Thus, you ought to have patience and trust your digital branding agency. You cannot expect magical ROI’s and flowing profits in a week.

Expectation – Expanding brand awareness will increase conversions

Reality check – This is only true if you can optimize the conversions. A lot of brands consider the “spray and pray” approach while using the display advertising and marketing tactic. In simple terms, if you cast the widest net, you will catch the most fish out of anybody.

This logic is not useful because it doesn’t go with the present best branding practices. The best branding practices teach us that brand awareness will not mean anything unless i) you know your target audience and ii) drive them to convert.

In reality, casting a wide net will be expensive. If you are not aware of the right cost-of-sales, cost-per-acquisition or the returns on ad spend metrics, then you will run the risk of not hitting the optimal ROI. This is where professional digital branding agencies take time to do the homework that enables them to cast the good-size net for your ideal potential customer.

Expectation – Digital branding is quick and you get unlimited revisions

Reality check – Digital branding is not a quick process. It requires a deep dive into understanding your brand to unearth the good, the bad, and the ugly. The more you know, the better it is to create proper digital branding strategies.

If you are working with the right people, digital branding will not be a quick process. You will work with your agency to determine your target market and pain points. Then, the agency will create a timeline based on the number of rounds for revisions.

Understand that if you throw things back and forth over and over, costs will go high up. Most importantly, the brand image starts taking up a hit because your brand is not showing a sign of stability.

In conclusion, it can be said that digital branding is an investment to grow your business. It is not a magic mantra to make your business/brand successful overnight. It is not just about a logo designing service or a social media campaign or a Google AdWords/PPC campaign.

You need to have a consistent, detailed, data-driven approach to make your digital branding a successful one. If you decide to brand your business professionally, you have to get in touch with the professional agencies that align with your brand objective. In an ever-changing world, work with those that want to lift you up and see you succeed.

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Best Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups to Expand Business

For startups to develop a digital marketing strategy, where do they need to start? This is a common challenge that almost every startup has to go through. However, the good thing is, a lot of startups are aware of the fact that digital and mobile channels are vital for acquiring and retaining customers.

The problem is most of the startups don’t have an integrated plan for growing and engaging their audiences. It could be due to a possible fear of creating massive reports and analyses. However, the plan doesn’t have to be a massive one, but lean planning works the best.

Another possible challenge is the sheer scale and scope of digital marketing. There is a wide array of digital marketing techniques like social, search, display, email marketing, social media marketing, and more to improve the digital experience.

Within every digital marketing technique, there are a plethora of tricks that are important for success. This is why you have to prioritize the strategies and evaluate them accordingly. For instance, you will need dynamic content for email automation, website personalization to programmatic, skyscraper, and retargeting content for organic search.

Some statistics on the top 10 digital marketing techniques

SL No.

Elements of Digital Marketing

Statistics
1

Email Marketing

 Email marketing delivers a strong ROI. The average expected ROI is $42 for every $1 spent on email marketing.
2

Social Media Marketing

 73% of marketers believe that social media is very effective for their business.
3

Search Engine Optimization

 93% of the global traffic comes from Google Search, Google Images, and Google Maps.
4

Pay Per Click Marketing

 On average the cost of PPC ranges from $108,000 to $120,000. Google Ads can increase brand awareness by 80%.
5

Influencer Marketing

 89% of the marketers suggest that the ROI from influencer marketing is better than other marketing channels.
6

Retargeting Ads

 Retargeting ads can lift engagement upto 400%. 60% of the online buyers say that they see ads from other websites they have searched on.
7

Content Marketing

 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach their target customers.
8

Viral Marketing

 80% of the online firms use viral marketing and 56% of the browsers look for new sites through viral marketing.
9

Referral Marketing

 85% of the Millenials and 83% of the Gen X population trust referral marketing. It is the most trusted form of marketing.
10

Affiliate Marketing

 For marketers, Affiliate programs generate 15-30% of the sales, and Affiliate Marketing will hit $6.8 billion by the end of 2020.

Why do startups NEED a digital marketing strategy to expand the business?

The reason why we are stressing on this is that to date 45% out of 1000 startups don’t have a well-defined digital marketing strategy in place.

Here are the following reasons why every startup should have a proper digital marketing strategy in place.

1) Enables startups to be aware of their online target audience

With online business, the dynamics will be completely different from any traditional marketing medium. There will be a wide array of customer profiles, behaviors, competitors, and propositions for marketing communications. There are numerous tools that help in understanding the level of customer demand.

Use Search Gap Analysis or Google’s Keyword Planner to check how you are tapping into the intent of the searchers for attracting them to the site. These tools will help in knowing how many people are interested in your products or services.

2) Helps in creating a strong value proposition

Most of the startups don’t have a strong value proposition. Now, if you don’t have a well-defined value proposition tailored to the different target customer personas, you will not be able to differentiate between the online service between the existing and new customers. Thus, it will be difficult for you to make new customers into loyal customers.

Developing a proper digital marketing strategy is the key to a wide array of organizations. The reason is, the content will engage with your audience through different channels like search, social, blogs, and email marketing. Digital marketing strategy involves true engagement

3) Cost-effective

This is one of the primary reasons why digital marketing strategies are important. With a proper digital marketing strategy, you will be able to reach out to a myriad of customers without spending a lot of money. It is very cost-effective. This is why it is a great marketing tool for startups and small businesses that don’t have a major source of capital. Also, digital marketing techniques bring better results than any form of traditional marketing.

4) Digital marketing strategy brings integration

With so many things to do in digital marketing, it is important to create an integrated plan of action. This will help in ensuring an effective marketing effort that will have much better results. Digital media will work best when it is integrated with the traditional media and the response channels. With an integrated digital marketing strategy, the digital marketing activities will become a part of your business as well.

5) A digital marketing strategy enables you to optimize

With a proper digital marketing strategy, you will have the basics in order. Then you can track the progress of every aspect of your business in the right way and ensure continuous improvement in different segments like site user experience, search marketing, social media, email marketing, and more.

Now that you know why it is important for startups to have a proper digital marketing strategy in place, here are the top 10 digital marketing strategies for startups.

Best digital marketing strategies for startups
Elements of Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups

1) Email Marketing

A lot of people might consider email marketing to be a bit of an old digital marketing strategy. However, emails are offering a good return on investment to the marketers. According to a recent survey conducted by Demand Metric and Data Marketing Association, it was found that email marketing has an impressive ROI of 122%.

This is four times higher than any other marketing channel. It is true that a lot of startups are aware of the power of email marketing. However, they are not able to harness it.

Follow these to create a successful email marketing campaign:

  • Create a catchy subject line
  • Avoid all sorts of jargons
  • Break up the text
  • Talk clearly about the benefits
  • Optimize the email for mobile devices
  • Include a professional email signature

2) Social media marketing

There is no doubt that social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools these days. Social media increases traffic and exposure, helps in developing loyal customers, improves search, generates leads, conversions, and whatnot.

However, to build a strong authority on social media, you have to create good-quality content on a daily basis. It is important to maintain consistency and engage with your audience. You can use social media marketing tools like Hubspot for engaging with your audience and monitor the social media mentions.

You have to choose the right social media platform and then create a marketing strategy. If your target audience is mostly on Facebook, then Facebook should be your focus point. As a startup, you have to keep track of where your target audience is. To build a good social media marketing plan, you have to build a customer persona and then create a strategy.

3) Search Engine Optimization

It is common to think that when you have an awesome website design and optimized service pages, people will come to your site. You are wrong! There are thousands of websites on your niche. So how will your website come up on top when people look for similar services or products?

This is where SEO comes in. Search Engine Optimization not only increases traffic to your website but it also builds trust. When the website ranks high in the search results for keywords related to your services or products it indicates that you are a reputed brand.

Search Engine Optimization strategies like on-page SEO, off-page SEO, local SEO, and content writing, are must for any digital marketing strategy to work. Use tools like SEMrush to keep track of your website’s SEO.

This will help you in conducting keyword research, track the SERP rankings, monitor the competitors, and help you find out where you are compared to them. To get your search engine optimization attributes in order, you can opt for a good SEO company.

4) PPC marketing (Google AdWords)

Pay-per-click marketing is a form of using search engine advertising to get more visitors to your website. This is a very powerful marketing tool for generating sales-ready leads. Pay-per-click advertising brings a lot of advantages. They are as follows:

  • It helps to reach your customers at the right time with the right ad
  • It offers a high ROI because you will have to pay only when someone clicks
  • You will have control over how much you want to spend.
  • You will not have to wait for results
  • Data insights to optimize other marketing strategies

5) Influencer marketing

The trend of influencer marketing has become very popular in the last few years. It was observed in a study that 84% of the marketers expect to launch at least one influencer marketing campaign in 12 months.

Influencer marketing is a very useful tool for startups for growing their brands. Here are a few reasons why every startup should consider influencer marketing.

  • Most of the customers don’t like traditional marketing channels
  • Influencer marketing is less costly than other promotional strategies
  • It is easy to execute
  • With the word-of-mouth promotion, influencer marketing builds trust for the brands
  • Customers engage with brand because influencers feel much more authentic

Even if you don’t have a high budget, you can find micro-influencers for startups. They have higher engagement rates than macro-influencers. The best part is, they charge less because of a comparatively smaller follower base.

6) Retargeting Ads

You started your business because you believed in your idea. However, that doesn’t mean that your audience will believe in your products or services.

You have to convince them about your products and services. They will need one or more nudges before they would want to become your customers.

Retargeting does the job for you. Retargeting is a means of marketing where you show the relevant ads to those that have already visited your website.

When anyone visits a website, a pixel (a piece of JavaScript) is placed within their web browser. In simple terms, your visitor’s web browser is cookied.

With effective retargeting ads, you will be able to convert the visitors that have earlier shown interest in the products or services and enhance the conversion.

7) Content marketing

Content marketing is something that no business can avoid these days. 90% of the B2C organizations are serious about content marketing and 88% of the B2B marketers agree that content marketing is a very important segment of digital marketing.

The reason why content marketing is so effective is that it helps in mapping the content strategy for following the different stages of a buyer’s journey. You will create new content that your target audience will love.

Using content marketing, you can do the following:

  • Increasing the visibility of the brand
  • Create long-lasting relationships with the customers
  • Boost brand awareness and brand recognition
  • Develop credibility and brand authority
  • Content marketing also supports SMO and SEO efforts

8) Viral Marketing

For startups, the best way to create a buzz on the internet is to go viral on the internet. If it is done in the right way, it can help you get your business an overnight success.

The interesting thing is, viral marketing is a combination of all the marketing efforts we mentioned above. So how do you go viral? Well, you can do something that is out of the box and leverage social media to get attention.

It will cause an intense surge in traffic to your website for a certain period. This works as a boost to your brand recognition and awareness plan. Once you are trending in social media, your job is half done. Now it will be a lot easier to convert the traffic into your customers.

9) Referral marketing

Doesn’t it feel good to let your audience do the promotions for you? This is exactly what referral marketing is all about. This is one of the best digital marketing strategies where your audience does the promotion of your brand.

When you launch a referral program for the promotion of your products and services, you can share a referral code with every customer and they can share those in their circles. Now, when anyone of their circle purchases from your brand, you will be able to provide a freebie or discount to the referring customer.

This will motivate them to refer more people and that in turn, will help you grow your startup. To set up a referral program you can use different tools that will help you set up a campaign on social media or mobile apps easily.

10) Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a lot similar to influencer marketing. It also relies on the influence of people to draw in more sales. This is why you have to consider integrating affiliate marketing campaigns with influencer marketing.

In affiliate marketing, you can just sit back and enjoy the show because others will be doing the marketing for you. What happens in Affiliate marketing is, you recruit affiliates for your brand to draw leads.

Think of them as salespeople who work on a commission. You will decide on the commission. Whether you want to pay them according to the sales they generate or on a flat fee per product, will depend totally on you.

Now, the question is, how do you keep a track of these sales? You can do it through affiliate links. The affiliate links are customized links that you offer to your affiliates. They share the link in their social media circles and their social media contacts can use the link to visit your site and buy anything.

You can use tools like Google Analytics for generating customized links. Along with that, you can also track the number of incoming sales from every link. This will also help you in tracking the performance of your affiliates.

In conclusion, It can be said that building up a successful startup is surely an uphill battle where you have to go through intense competition. However, using these digital marketing strategies for your startup will help you establish your brand and your startup. All these above-mentioned digital marketing strategies are proven to deliver high ROI.