Haley D Blogs

In this day and age, nearly everyone is online. This is great; everyone across the world can now communicate with a blink of an eye. However, everyone being incredibly connected also does have some downfalls, such as the spread of negative content. As the age of technology spreads and becomes a huge aspect of everyday business life, there a few things digital marketers need to know to manage their online brands better.
My personal experience with this is at my current job as a marketing intern for a nanny agency. As we received negative feedback online through Yelp, we aim to respond within two business days, directly on the comment reaching out, but also in a direct message to the person who placed the complaint to try and reconcile the issue directly. Usually, this process works in our favor, and they typically change their review to something more positive. However, if they are unable, there are a few different free things we offer to try and further reconcile the issues such as a free date night voucher.

As mentioned, information can spread across the globe in a matter of seconds; this goes for negative and positive content. Say a company does not do its diligence and publishes content that produces a negative response. Yes, they could quickly delete the content and hope that not a lot of clients or consumers say it. Nevertheless, the chance that someone was able to save, share, capture that negative content before it was deleted it increasingly high. This will then make it easy for that person to share that content with others and still have it circling the web and real life long past it being deleted.

Digital marketers need to have the tools to be able to not only bounce back from situations similar to what I stated above but also be able to prevent this from happening in the first place. There is a huge need for developing processes and procedures to address these issues before they arise. As time goes on and we advance further into the tech bubble, these issues are going to be more prominent. Therefore it is essential to provide digital marketers with the tools before they find themselves in these situations.

Developing a process for how you and your company will address negative feedback is crucial. Such as formulating a plan including how to respond, how soon to respond, what can you offer to fix the issue (gift, coupon, voucher); if you cannot resolve the situation, what do you do next, etc.

Utilize an effective emergency response by using the three T’s, timeliness, transparency, and training. By choosing to respond promptly, you can potentially change the way this negative content is talked about in the media. If you respond quickly, there is the potential that your media coverage will focus more on your response than the actual issue at hand. Transparency is essential because once you have admitted wrong, it is easy to move into the process of taking steps to resolve the issues; admitting wrongdoing jump-starts the process of fixing these issues. Finally, training, as I mentioned earlier, having a process in place that each employee is aware of to keep things routine when addressing negative content or feedback. This ties into the common business theory touched on by the Expedia Group. If you were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, who would do your job? Although this is a less extreme example, this still applies. You must have one reliable process in place to deal with these situations. If each of your employees is addressing negative content and feedback differently, it will likely increase the negatively surrounding the issues because people will see our organization as unable to handle and resolve particular situations.

When using emails as a marketing tool for your business there are a few different things that need to be decided on before the process begins to be successful.

Such as chewing if you are going to have opt-in and opt-out emails. Knowing the difference between the two terms is absolutely vital to the success of an email campaign. Opt-in is short and sweet. Typically playing by the rule of less is more. The majority of reputable companies will use opt-in emails.
The other option would be to include the opportunity to opt-out or unsubscribe if you choose to send out one large mass email versus waiting or your clients to sign up for the newsletter themselves.

Perhaps the option would be the have a double opt-in process. This is an extra confirmation that the client is indeed signing up for the emails and has a pretty good idea of what those entail.
When it comes time to develop your mailing lists there are also a few things that need to be considered. Such as the understanding of purchasing mailing lists. It could be tempting to purchase a list of clients that will boost sales. But this is not sustainable when it comes to growing your business. Most businesses are adding email campaigns because they are growing and need extra marketing efforts. Growing companies want to be reputable companies. The majority of reputable email services will not allow you to use purchased lists of email subscribers according to Hubspot.

In addition to most reputable companies that should allow opt-in emails, you are not able to truly purchase a good list. Keep in mind that if those addresses are for sale the likely hood of them being for sale is due to them not being very responsive or worthwhile.

These are just a few different tips to keep in mind when expanding your marketing efforts into email campaigns. Always choose an opt-in email versus opt-out but provide an unsubscribe option if that is the chosen route for you. Also, it is better to take the time and develop a list of clients for emails that will be responsive.

It comes as no surprise that the current model of online advertising is increasingly becoming worse and worse for the daily consumer. As news broke about Facebook and the Cambridge Analytical Scandal, people became even more reluctant when it comes to sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. 

 Many potential hazards come to mind when thinking about the sale of our data. Not necessarily knowing what its purpose is and if it’s going to be used for you or against you. One hazard that has been int he media a lot recently is the Russian bots used to influence the election. The spread of fake news is a tremendous risk when it comes to change votes in the upcoming 2020 election, possibly. Data from the article “Can marketers Repair Social Media’s Crisis of Trust” supports the idea that the majority of the globe is in fear of fake news being used as a weapon, whether this is false information or false news articles. The US and Mexico are at the higher end of the scale of 71-75% of people in the US experience this fear and 76-80% in Mexico. 

 Another significant hazard that we neglect to realize is that we are sometimes offering our data on a silver platter without even knowing it. A common reason for this is because many people, including myself, fail even to read the first sentence of terms of service. Although marketers are not afraid to stash as many cookies as possible within their sites to track your data for marketing purposes, this is not the most helpful of ways to resist yourself becoming another little bit in their mass of marketing data. According to an article in Times Magazine, if people read each of the terms of service they come across, it would take about 76 hours a year. A better route to this growing problem is to strengthen your password and remove any names or dates that are common to you, such as your mother’s maiden or your first dog. 

 I believe the level of hazard in the current model of digital marketing is about a four on a scale of 1-5. I do agree that it is a growing issue, and it could potentially be a hazardous tool had it come into the wrong hands. But, I do believe it is more so an annoyance than a command anger people share. I think people’s current attitudes are the annoyance of continually having ads pop up for things they search for one of Google or having information about a place, product, service, or even another person being brought up advertisement an ad once having a conversation surrounding that topic earlier that day or in the week. As I see these ads pop up in my own life, I feel more annoyed and confused than I do worried and scared. As time goes on and we do not continue to put pressure on networks like Facebook and other data goldmines to become more transparent with whom they are selling data, the purpose, etc. We need to work on more regulations when it comes to the use of big data and develops ways to simplify the topic, so it is easier for every user to understand what they’re being subjected to. A lot of users, not the internet, are not tech-savvy enough to understand the technical jargon used by marketers and developers, so they do not know what rights they are signing away. 

 If I could write a small code of ethics for online digital marketers, it would include:

• Include a short bulleted/bold list of necessary permissions you are giving the site by completing the signup process. 
• Require password requirements (do not allow users to use any personal data used while creating their profile such as their name, email, last name, birthday, etc.) 
• Provide quality content and occasional offers. Build a strong relationship with your clients and develop yourself as an authority and gain more credibly as the medium.com article mentioned. You want to gain their trust and have you be top of mind. Demonstrate that it is not all about the sale for you, but you care about their experience/ safety/ privacy. 
• Include privacy policy and terms of service at the bottom of each of your webpages. This builds credibility and is easily accessible wherever they are within your website. 
• Start the conversation mention on your website tips to protect their data and privacy, starting the conversation with creating more credibility. 
• Offer a statement of transparency. Above the links to the terms of service and privacy policy include a few sentences of your goal to obtain transparency with your clients. If they have any questions regarding the use of their data or personal information, they can reach out via phone or email.

Search engine optimization plays a significant role when it comes down to the ranking of your webpages. It is the deciding factor of people seeing your pages, or they do not. As our textbook stated, many factors come into play with SEO, such as URLs, title tags, header tags, main content, and much more!
That’s a lot to think about when creating webpages that will rank high in multiple search queries. A great place to start is to create a keyword bank for your website or webpage. This includes all the possible words and search phrases people would put into google to hopefully find your page. A great example of keywords is for my current job; we are a nanny company offering different services. A high keyword phrase for us is “nannies in Lake Tahoe.” This not only includes a keyword nanny, but it also includes a keyword associated with a particular location, which will have a huge benefit.
When it comes to adding your keywords into your content, you want to make sure it flows right. Google is continuously improving its algorithm to allow it to spot keyword stuffing. You want your keywords to play a significant role in the content of your page, but you still want it to read naturally. A good rule of thumb is to have 3-5% of the content on the page keywords or phrases.
Another great way to increase your site ranks is to include a lot of inbound and outbound links. This would include people linking to your website from theirs or you linking other people’s websites within your content. We utilize this at work by including guest contribution blogs. This not only helps with rank, but it creates a great relationship with other websites, which will drive traffic to each other’s websites.
One thing that can be overlooked when it comes to ranking is the name of your images on your webpage. Google is getting better at reading images, but for the most part, it goes off the alt text and name of the file. That being said, it is increasingly more critical to have your files named appropriately, including a keyword or phrase.

When you are creating a new webpage, include don your website make sure to check your URLs . These are very important for ranking. One thing that you need to keep in mind is that you must separate the words with dashes (-). This makes it easier for Google’s bots to read the page. If you do not separate the words, it will have trouble reading your pages, and therefore, your page will be ranked lower than others that include dashes. Another rule of thumb while creating custom URLs is to use all lowercase letters. If someone is directly searching for your webpage in a browser, it is easy for them to mess up the URL if it includes capital and lowercase letters; simple is better.

These are only a few recommendations when it comes to improving the ranking of your webpages. There are endless tricks you can do to utilize SEO better. There are countless resources online, as well! A great resource that has helped me throughout my job as a social media intern is The Beginner’s Guide to SEO write by Moz a link to their guide can be found here: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

When I started my journey as a Marketing Intern for Joanna’s Nannies, I was in way over my head. I had not gotten too deep into my major-specific classes yet, and I was learning what to do day by day, project by project. Looking back seven months later, my experience has given me many more useful tools than I previously had.
Though, through my experience and classes since my first day on the job, my knowledge of marketing was still just at the surface, especially when it came to SEO, SEM, Landing Pages, Conversions, etcetera.
As I dive deeper into my journey of becoming a digital marketing wiz, I am going to share the insights I have gained through Marketing 484, the material we discuss, its correlation to my current job, and finally, the importance it plays in the marketing world in general.

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The main topic of this blog is landing pages and how to increase conversions to ensure you are reaching maximum profitability. By discussing five ways to increase conversion, you will be able to increase efficiency when it comes to digital marketing.

Five ways of increasing conversion

Testing

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You will not know what elements are hindering conversion if you do not conduct tests. A great way to do this is by providing prospects with the same ad but sending them to separate landing pages. Not necessarily a completely different page, but as Ryan Osman at Obility does, he provides one ad with a short-form landing page and one with long-form, including more content.

Principles of Conversion

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Oli Gardner describes seven principles that can be used as a guide to ensure you are marketing campaign is successful. On a scale of delight to friction, go through each of the following areas: attention, context, clarity, congruence, credibility, closing, and finally, continence. This will give you a feel for what is working and what is not; fix what is not working, and leave what is.

Attention-Driven Design

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Familiarize yourself with the 23 principles of attention driven design, including proximity, anomaly, and dominance. Going through each of these elements will increase your conversion rate tremendously. A great example comes from our website; testing proximity of what is in the radius of your Call-to-action button. Things that are in close proximity to each other are going to be perceived as being related.

Mobile-Friendly

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It is essential to ensure that your landing page is mobile-friendly. Mobile traffic is much higher than desktop traffic. Check out these statistics from BroadbandSearch:

A key to success is test using your mobile version, The majority of the time your desktop version will look just as good as long as your mobile version is working correctly, but that does not go the other way around! Mobile search is easy, effective and fast therefore if your page isn’t fully loaded within seconds you lost their attention and their sale.

Make a Match

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You must expect that each prospect isn’t aware of who you are, what you do, and what you can offer them. That being said, you must be clear and concise with what you can offer and what you want them to do next, no confusion. The easiest way to confuse is for your advertisement not to match your landing page. Assure your product and service aligns with your message, and both of those align with each visual component. A great example of this comes from OSU in their marketing newsletter. The email matches perfectly with the landing page. It includes the same image, the same headers; I knew exactly what to expect and what I wanted to see upon clicking the link to the entire newsletter. Email on the top and landing page on the bottom.  

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