How to Design Digital Experiences for Social Impact

Many people in technology field want to help others using their skills. However, building a digital product which solves the issues of the society is much tough than it sounds. Many launches have been organized but failed. Let’s know the reasons why this experience is so common and how to avoid it.

Since the last century, technology is impacting our lives in many ways and because it is responsible for improving so many things, people view it as a solution for every issue. Though, it doesn’t always make things better. People should choose to use them as it can help.

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• Trends

Effects which take over the social media are the perfect example. When they catch on and become a habit, people gain wide reach. Twitter and Facebook are the most popular platforms where people can easily share ideas with friends and other people. Many networks fail to save their users from negative experiences. Facebook and Twitter are famous for allowing hate speech and harassment, despite reports being done constantly.

As social media is a useful way to highlight social issues and spur a conversation, however, it can’t change society by itself. We need to modify the way of thinking towards technology. It has to be less idealistic.

• Process Aiding

Technology is great, given that the skill set is limited; it is how the work gets done for humans. There is always more to learn. Before beginning any project, acknowledge and keep aside all your biases. It will only harm you in the long term.

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• Do Research

Locate target audience through data found in books and studies. If that doesn’t yield any results, go for empirical research. Through social media connections and shares, a Google results can be garnered quickly.

• Data used in Design

Question your guts every time. Explore on who, why, when, where and what and that will define the how. Look beyond your skill set.

• Sink yourself in

Interact with your customers and audiences quite often. Observe how they think. Come up with those who interact with your audience like constant community organizations which will help you look your project more relevant.

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• Consider Negative Situations

Bad things happen all the time so don’t label them as edge cases. Consider all kinds of situations. Create reserves for the ones where things can go worse than you’d like.

• Adopt a slow pace

Social change takes time. Things won’t change overnight. Issues like sexism, classism, racism and generations still exist. Technology requires people to work. Make sure that your work is taking right direction, only then socially impactful designs can be created.

Current and Future Trends of Digital Marketing Solutions

The digital marketing is dynamic and the future scope in this industry is decided by the developments and ideas which requires intertwining of various means. Marketers are trying to figure out the future, predicting the next big trend to stay updated in the run.

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FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE TRENDS OF DIGITAL MARKETING WHICH WILL DECIDE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE SAME:-

1) Data Driven – The successful marketing results from collecting, analyzing and using the data regarding when and where the customers want to spend their time. Creative messaging and strategic campaigns happens when marketers learn from their behavior. The difference in digital marketing reflects when there is some efforts put in through emotional connect through messages, design, social engagements through media and advertisements.

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2) Ecosystem of Marketing – Traditional system of marketing still has many loopholes. First of all there are multiple steps which refer to losing many prospective customers at a time. Marketers have now realized that traditional approach to digital marketing in today’s world is not the key and the right effort is in transforming the whole ecosystem in which no 2 customer behaves in a similar way. There are various ways in front of the buyer for the conversion and engage with the brand, product research and make the decision accordingly.

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The journey of a consumer today is dynamic and ever changing. So it is important to get a single view of the buyer interactions online as well as offline. For the brands to build an impactful cross channel campaign and also to make customer intelligence it requires, it is crucial. It also serves good for the continuous conversions and consistent experiences.

3) Mobile Marketing- From gadgets to Smartphones and tablets, the evolution of mobiles are one among the top reasons for influencing the marketing world. The brands today needs to create a personal relationship with the customers as the focus is shifting to smaller screens.

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4) Testing – With the trends changing, technology related to advertising can be channelized to a certain factors like keywords, type of product, interest and demographics, etc. The key aspect of a marketing strategy is focusing on the prospective buyers and right audience effectively and with efficiency. Businesses these days are required to find creative elements within their advertisements. Some online sites have special variables for ads. You can channelize down by age, interest, views on politics, location, behavior and more factors which helps the business to look what works for their audience.

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5) Social Engagement – It is crucial to get a real feedback on the performance of your campaign from the audience. By implanting the interpretation of customers’ opinions about your brand, fresh content can be created. Invite your customers to send images, videos and reward them for participate & brand loyalty. Ensure your posts are aimed at the customer. The more transparency you keep, the more it will reflect in your relationships with your customers. To survive in the competitive market for the long run, create real brand value.

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The future of digital marketing is based on how the marketers blend the traditional and new media together. The good & fresh content will never go out of place. Though, visual one will rule the world of digital marketing.

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Source Url :- http://surevin.com/blog/current-future-trends-digital-marketing-solutions/

Curb The Non Manageable Metrics From The Unimportant Ones

Marketing campaigns reach new heights as business flourishes, so does the volume of data. You try to measure the results, set standards and achieve them whilst managing the sales team. The amount of data that you refine through social and blogging efforts is quite vast- demographic, audience reach, follower engagements, casts per action, page views, impressions, posts reactions, shares, link tracking, targets achieved, etc.

Overloading happens when data is approached from the front end. Analytics and data are heavily layered and unmanageable metrics drags the attention away from important things that are within our control. Metrics are effective only if the analysis is prioritized and if you track the right things.

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1) What is Unmanageable Metrics?

Every data has a purpose or else it wouldn’t be tracked & displayed within analytics tools- this is partly true because the value of data can vary. Stop controlling the elements & metrics. An unmanageable metric is the one in which the results can’t be affected directly. For instance: – customer acquisition & retention, market share, web traffic & profitability.

The metrics can be influenced but the profitability or market share can’t be transformed by that.

2) Set the Ultimate Aim

Set multiple goals and define them on the basis of what is relevant to your business, results that you want from the campaign and what actions you want your audience to make. Some goals might involve: – getting the customers to buy a specific product, getting more engagement, increasing the social shares of the content. Goals like these are easily quantifiable with the key performance indicators.

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3) Analyze your Direction and your Customer’s Journey

Keep an eye on you current sales and customer data. What paths were taken in the past to reach to the conversions? Breakdown all your data like 20% sales from ads on facebook, 10% from email marketing, and 50% from blog posts, etc.

The conversion metrics allows looking for a clear picture of the most effective tactics which are producing results. Also consider also the areas which aren’t performing well. Sometimes temporarily avoid lower performing sources and focus on what is working best for you.

4) First Step towards Conversion

Analyze the consumer’s behavior pattern from initial stage and find out what made them convert. What exactly grabbed their attention? It will vary with various channels and with each customer. After you identify the source, examine your funnel. Each channel needs to be examined in order to find the co-relations. Because of this you will understand what type of content has made your target audience to engage and convert.

5) Critical Metrics for Monitoring and Managing

Define the campaign goals and metrics for monitoring the success, measure actions, comments, and clicks through social ads. Expand the blogging efforts, marketing outreach through split tests and include customer acquisition costs.

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Source Url :- http://surevin.com/blog/curb-non-manageable-metrics-unimportant-ones/

Digital Revolution Becoming An Overpowering Thing For Telecom Sector

There was once a time when driving a car was easy and simple and all the transported had to do was go from a location to other one in order to save time. Now we are continually updated with route tracking, knobs of the car, performance of the engine, accident support and other future oriented features. There is a mobile app which talks to the car through a data connection which is taken care of by the car manufacturer. The telecom company for the data connection can be a ghost for all anyone knows.

The telecom companies know everything about the minute details regarding our preferences. Although these companies have brought the digital revolution, they do not seem to be going on with the same. In consequence, several companies like Google, Netflix and Skype which offers video, audio and other media content through internet have leveraged their basic services.

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By 2020, most of the electronic devices will be paired. The then life will revolve around forms of communication and social engagements. Skype will be like every moment thing. Also there will be a rise in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technology experience which will not only be confined to just games. Applications will be the way of life. Everyday necessities will be the data plans and they will also be considered as luxuries by many.

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Clothes are huge already in the market and it will become indispensable in the future. Intelligent robots will help customers gain quick and personalized information. Except for enhanced vision, AR lenses and Google will allow offering information such as brand preferences, behavior, patterns, trends, location, etc. to the relevant service providers. They will offer the customers the fine tune to customers. Ironically this kind of dependency will make life intrusive and pervasive.

Telecom Sector Will Aim More For Businesses

Telecom companies are going to enter long term agreements with enterprises and governments. Services will be designed with online chip bundled with the plans and data through which the customers will know every minute detail about the providers.

What To Be Done Today

Create strong relationships with fast moving consumer goods, products and Over the Top operators (service providers allowing media content through Internet)

Once the appliance are connected, the demand for the online chips will rise and companies need to invest in research and development for creating eco friendly system around the Online chip business plan for the businesses.

Plans should be according to the data speed and the customers should be given their worth of money.

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Customization Will Rule

Companies will offer comprehensive data plans customized for every customer as more no. of devices will be connected. Each device will be connected to the internet.

The plans will differ depending on the device. For instance a connected refrigerator will discern the ingredients stored and will suggest various recipes of the internet for the user to utilize them.

Rise of the platforms where the customers can customize their requirements will also be experienced. Customers will be able to view their bills, value added packs, request for certain packs on the apps.

Number of glitches will also increase and agreements will become a necessity between the manufacturers and the service providers.

What Should Be Done Today?

Telecom companies should-

• Aim on providing Responsive Web Design which can change the plans based on the machine being used.
• Re-design self care applications which can be customized, retail and call center operations.
• Put customization in the hands of the customer.
• Restructuring the process of billing to include new line items for end point consumption’s and build plans to factor delayed payments.

Source Url :- 

http://surevin.com/blog/digital-revolution-becoming-overpowering-thing-telecom-sector/

Top 5 Threats usually faced by Marketers/Brands

In today’s dynamic and continuously changing world, marketing has acquired a new dimension and with the use of rapid leaps of social media on one hand, an economy that’s unstable and challenging on the other, brands have to adjust to a new landscape and adopt a new strategy to be effective.

Initial step is to look around and face the threat and then build the digital marketing plans to grow the business. Here are a few challenges businesses face as they endeavor to market their brands.

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1. Uncertain Digital Outlook

The digital outlook changes every day and businesses have to make sure they stay updated of the trends. Social media services provide the opportunity to connect with the customers directly. Website and social media accounts acts as a bridge to the consumers. Clear strategy is vital otherwise one will end up losing a major opportunity to get return on investment on the spending and effort. On a daily basis, 250 billion pictures are posted on facebook and 100 hours of video content are uploaded on YouTube, brands have to cut through the chaos and stand out among 2.3 billion active users.

2. Quick Customer Feedback

Website Content has to be engaging because it bears the message of the respective brand and connects emotionally with the customers. Effectively created one has the potential to reach millions in minutes and at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. The customers can be made brand ambassadors through their reviews. A negative feedback can kill a brand. One needs to plan to counter the sentiments effectively.

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3. Searching Skilled Marketers

Organizations today need personnel who can go deep into the minds of the consumers in order to create effective strategies. It is difficult to find people who think like consumers, stay updated on trends and be flexible about the execution and implementation of plans. They should be the one thinking out of the box and hit the ground running.

4. ROI Calculation

Organizations are always looking to cut out on cost thanks to inelastic budgets and shrinking profitability. Customer acquisition and retention is a challenge and most important agenda for an organization. Usually digital marketing tends to take a hit in these outlooks. Organization needs to understand that it is an investment and not a cost.

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5. Troublesome Business Models

Marketing is as much about reinventing as it is about creating demand. When the organizations feel they can operate on their own, they forget to look at things from a consumer’s point of view. For instance Uber has changed the taxi hiring business and Whatsapp has eaten up the texting revenue of telecom business. Therefore marketers need to study the pain points of consumers and questions if there is an easier way to come up with solutions.

Source Url :- http://surevin.com/blog/top-5-threats-usually-faced-marketersbrands/

Success Tips For PPC Advertising From Experts

Pay per Click advertising is a common component of some of the most successful online marketing strategies. PPC advertising is a great way to generate traffic. Once you learn some basic hints of this platform, you can literally put yourself in front of any audience you want to. In opposition with optimizing websites for keywords in attempt to achieve high ranking, PPC search engines like Google AdWords allows jumping onto first page with less efforts. Choose keywords and then write ads and bid accordingly.

Finding success from PPC is a challenge for newbie internet marketers. The reason for this is that most jump too quickly without taking the time to actually learn the strategy and technique needed to pay less for more clicks. Most people just started out tend to pay too much and attract wrong visitors to your websites.

 

Most important point to remember with Pay Per Click is to stay relevant. Google wants to give searchers what they are looking for. Google rewards relevancy and congruency. Ensure congruency of your keywords, landing pages and ads. Next, make sure that your landing page is related to your keywords.

Hence, your ad is relevant to your keywords and the landing page is relevant to both your keyword and ads. When it’s all done, you will be on your way to receive higher quality scores from Google which further gives you attractive costs per click and also higher rankings. There are other factors which comes into play in determining costs per click and ad positioning but if you maintain congruency and also to remember to be relevant, you will be on your way to achieve better results.

 

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If you want to boost your online campaign, here are some of the top reasons why PPC might be worth the investment.

• Competition for search dominance and online visibility is getting fiercer. This is all the more reason why you should look for better ways to improve online presence. PPC can help you gain more real estate, alongside SEO (Search Engine Optimization), for your website and brand on search engine results pages. Your competition will be visible there if you are not which will hurt your popularity and chances of getting noticed by your targeted audience.

• Because PPC can drive revenues quite efficiently, a good reason for big brands that is also big on their PPC efforts. Its benefits revolve around the amount of visibility and control that PPC programs bring to marketing efforts. If done rightly, PPC puts you in control of your marketing and also it can drive great success to overall marketing efforts of yours.

 

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• You pay for your ads with PPC when people actually click on them. This one of the main reasons that PPC is such a straightforward marketing strategy – giving control over where your marketing money is going as opposed to traditional advertising where you spend x amount of money and wish that your target market engages.

• Another major advantage of PPC is that you reach your target audience at the right moment and with right advertisement. This kind of control is expensive to achieve with traditional forms of marketing and simply not possible. Pay Per Click services allow location targeting and flexible delivery options, including device specific preferences which allow delivering a particular message to targeted customers.

• PPC services are quick in opposition to SEO, which make you wait a while for the results to be evident. SEO is a must for long term marketing goals but when you need a quick boost to your traffic, specifically for seasonal product offerings, pay per click is definitely a way to go as it allows results at once which are visible the day followed by your campaign launch.

 

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While trying to manage paid advertising is good but it’s not serious marketing. It’s expensive and need the help of experts to optimize the campaign to gain success. Creating proper ad copy, quality score and optimization of the campaign is necessary to minimize cost of click. Optimal position for the ads needs to be selected to get more traffic and clicks at an average cost in the campaign. All these settings can be done by an expert to achieve success in PPC.

Source Url :-

http://surevin.com/blog/success-tips-for-ppc-advertising-from-experts/

Not yet have gone Digital? Invest in Digital Marketing Now!

During the past few recent years the world has been changed dramatically, no doubt that people are shifting from analogue to digital at a faster rate no one has imagined. All have mobile phones, laptops in our hand all the time. We are consuming the digital content more on a daily basis. Many companies have not yet recognized this in their marketing strategies. 

 

Those companies which are not inculcating digital marketing as their company’s strategy are on the losing end. The answer is simple. Digital marketing is growing force in the marketing field. It is the present as well as future of marketing and has overtaken on traditional marketing strategies to a great extent.  

 

Reasons you need a Digital Marketing

1. You can narrow the focus of your marketing efforts and broaden your horizons simultaneously with digital marketing.
2. You lack strategic direction if you don’t have digital marketing as your strategy. This will hamper you from gaining new customers and also building more profitable relationships with the existing ones.
3. You are definitely behind your competitors if you are not leveraging on digital marketing solutions. You are only wasting your resources in traditional marketing strategies.
4. Integrate digital marketing strategy if you wish to dominate the digital landscape.
5. Leverage traditional as well as digital marketing strategy. Try to integrate both the methods to fetch the desired result.

Shifts in Brands Reaching Consumers through Mobile

There has been a growing shift towards brands reaching out to the customers via mobile. In India, where mobile internet penetration is still getting worked upon, we are seeing mobile and digital advertising growing at a good rate and it will continue both in India and globally. The scenario with Indian market is that they are likely to skip straight to mobile. This seems to be a great opportunity and innovation from India.

 

Focus on Consumers on Mobile: Development of Content Accordingly

With increasing focus on targeting consumers through mobile, are the brands really developing the content in order to match with that? The best marketer is the one who realizes that different platforms require different content in order to maximize the user engagement with effectiveness. It is important to take into consideration that how well the platform is used, who are the consumers and what is the content?

However, a lot of replicated content can be seen across devices which limit the potential and might not provide the best user experience.

Tackle the Challenges Posed By Mobile Platform

Well every market can tackle the challenges posed by mobile platforms since there is rapid growth in mobile penetration throughout world markets. It means that those who experiment and innovate along with clear objectives and measurements in mind are likely to be successful.

 

Measurement of ROI

This includes qualitative analysis of the impact of impression, ROI and development of a strong system in order to calculate ROI. The question is how to reach out to different markets on digital platform. One can measure ROI by choosing right metrics which match with the company’s objectives and that’s where the solution lies.

2016’s Market Focus

Plan what you are trying to achieve and then use the right method for your brand to communicate it to the audience. Take care of the context and content which suits your objectives. In digital atmosphere, customer has more control. Tailor the content and measure the impact. Different ways of execution of the elements of digital media needs to be considered. If you are not leveraging upon digital media than you must know that what you are losing because it’s growing at a faster pace.

Source Url :-

http://surevin.com/blog/not-yet-have-gone-digital-invest-in-digital-marketing-now/

Increase your Traffic and Conversions with Integrated Digital Marketing Solutions

Digital Marketing is growing at a faster pace in India. Companies and brands are taking it more seriously than ever before. One of the advantages that digital marketing brings to the table is measurement. It solves the problem with reporting and analytics and helps in optimization of ad campaigns. Email ads, display ads, social media ads, etc. all is measurable and computers do not make mistakes in calculating. We can find out which of the banner gets maximum CTR, which ads convert the best and how to get highest open rates on what subject lines for the emails.

Display ads social media marketing, PPC and content marketing, email marketing, all these are the digital marketing methods which has the most attention of the companies which usually invested only in traditional marketing.

 

Forget the Old School SEO. It may hurt you.

SEO has also gained momentum but because of the recent algorithmic changes by Google, marketers are not sure about the right approach to it. By now, I guess many companies have realized that hiring a SEO agency to do traditional SEO stuff like link building, directory submissions and article making can do more harm in the long term than good.

There are so many digital marketing methods now to be exploited; the question arises as to how to use all of these in a way that every method complements each other?

Investment in social media must help SEO; SEO must help content marketing which further helps in social media and SEO. The art of blending all digital marketing activities into a single efficient system is known as Integrated Digital Marketing Solutions. 

 

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Integrated Digital Marketing

It works in such a way that all the digital marketing methods complement each other instead of trying to achieve the goal of increasing branding or sales on its own. For e.g. since conversion rates are low, social media advertising gives a poor ROI but it happens only when the marketers tries to use social media ads to drive the sales directly.

When trying to build a following, spreading the word about ideas or brand, social media is best utilized as a listening tool instead of sales machine. From the following diagram, it is clear that how each digital marketing method can complement each other and helps to build a following/ tribe which further helps in branding, lead generation, sales and getting feedback regarding products and services of a company.

Content marketing is the central focus in integrated digital marketing. Content development in marketing helps build a brand online, build trust authority in the market place. 

 

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Content Marketing is Vital

Search engines pick up quality signals through behavior of the users when a good content is published. For e.g. if a search result is clicked and the visitor spends a lot of time on the page without clicking the back button, then it’s obvious that the page is of good quality and relevant to the search keyword.

Thus, content marketing or rather quality content marketing can help in SEO. In the above diagram, orange lines are for signals and black ones means the traffic flow.

Social Media Marketing

When new visitors come through search engines and find the content very useful, they will be encouraged to share it with their friends. They gain credibility among their followers by sharing something useful it with their friends. Quality content is the key to an effective social media strategy. If a page is shared 100 times over Facebook, that information helps the search engines in ranking the pages. 

 

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Off Page and On Page SEO

Off page optimization is dead but not SEO because off page signals are to be sent to the search engines through user behavior and not webmaster. No social sharing or less time spent on site signifies that the web page is either of poor quality or of low relevancy. You cannot off page optimize a website. There is no such thing as off page optimization now days. Webmaster has nothing to do about off page signals.

On page optimization is webmaster communicating to the search engines about the quality and relevance of a website. It has to be done properly because the search engines are robots and not humans. The data has to be spoon fed to them so that they understand what the site is all about. This information blended with off page signals help them to rank a website accordingly.

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How it all comes together

When a new content is published, email subscribers are updated with it and those will share it on social media. This sends user behavior social signals to search engines and new users will come to the content channel via search engines which will help in increasing the social media followers and email subscribers as well.

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http://surevin.com/blog/increase-your-traffic-and-conversions-with-integrated-digital-marketing-solutions-2/