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Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly

This week’s articles examine the importance of onsite search for retailers, details of the five retail senses, interesting use cases for customer data in e-commerce marketing efforts, and much more.

• Site search is a top priority for online gift shoppers [Internet Retailer]: Ahead of the upcoming holiday shopping season, a new survey ranks onsite search as the top site priority for consumers.
• Examining the 5 retail senses [Retail Customer Experience]: Understanding presentation, price, quality, availability, and location are important for developing and building upon your relationship with the consumer.
• 5 Interesting Uses of Customer Data for Ecommerce Marketing [Practical Ecommece]: Finding product affinities and rewarding your best customers are two ways companies can leverage customer data to be better marketers.
• Most US Smartphone Users Visit Retailer Sites or Apps Before an In-Store Purchase [eMarketer]: More than half of all smartphone users who made an in-store purchase visited the retailer’s website or app before making the purchase.
• Think Great Innovation Drives Mobile Commerce? It’s Actually This: [Forbes]: Even though mobile is growing in use, it doesn’t mean retailers don’t have opportunities to improve the experiences.
• Email Continues to Get More Mobile [eMarketer]: Marketers are having more success with mobile email efforts compared to desktop.
• How a little A/B email testing can yield big results [Internet Retailer]: One retailer is A/B testing on 90 percent of its emails — and seeing results!
• Travel Marketers Should Follow the Data on Millennials, Not Stereotypes [Skift]: Instead of following after commonly held misconceptions of millennials, travel marketers should focus on what the data is actually saying about this important demographic.
• Relevancy is the currency of today’s successful travel technologies [Tnooz]: Timeliness, accuracy, and flexibility are still important today, as technology drives new innovations and experiences.

The post Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/news-and-resources/38827/

The Future of TV and Advertising in the Golden Era of Digital

The post The Future of TV and Advertising in the Golden Era of Digital appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/advertising/future-tv-advertising-golden-era-digital/

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Adobe Partners with Symphony Commerce and Magento to Transform Commerce Experiences

In today’s hypercompetitive marketplace, what really separates industry leaders from the competition is an engaging customer experience. According to Harvard Business Review, companies that execute successful customer experience strategies have higher customer satisfaction rankings, increased revenues, and reduced customer churn.

Modern shoppers are now using multiple devices across multiple touch points when engaging with brands, and these interactions are now shorter in duration as they multi-task on the go. This behavior has fractured the customer journey into hundreds of micro-moments. Each micro-moment represents a ‘choice,’ creating an opportunity for brands to influence and help guide shopper decisions.

Great experiences engage and influence shoppers during these micro-moments by responding with optimal responses to real-time purchasing intent. Sometimes this may be achieved with rich media such as dynamic imagery and shoppable video or engaging content. But in many cases, the best experiences are so natural that shoppers never even notice they took place. They assist shoppers through their moments of truth, or key decision points, by saving time and making shopping easier. They actively solve problems such as finding the right product or helping with a decision. Simply put, they are effortless and of course, support shoppers’ growing omnichannel habits.

New Omnichannel Commerce and Fulfillment Partnerships
To address these new realities, Adobe is pleased to announce partnerships with Magento and Symphony Commerce. Together, Adobe and our new partners are able to transform brand experiences enabling brands to:

1. Create and manage omnichannel experiences which enable shoppers to buy anywhere
2. Deploy real-time personalization and merchandising that tailor experiences to best respond to each moment of truth across the entire customer journey
3. Deliver omnichannel commerce supported by seamless management of inventory across all channels, ensuring optimal supply allocation for efficient operations
4. Embrace new agile approaches to support the widest range of commerce scenarios and business models

These partnerships are supported by product integrations with Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Marketing Cloud. The result is a nimble, omnichannel experience and commerce platform capable of supporting today’s demanding shoppers.

“The brands that we work with are becoming increasingly obsessed with customer experience – they need to differentiate themselves with innovative concepts that redefine how their customers engage and transact with them” said Peter Sheldon, VP Strategy at Magento Commerce. “Bringing together the power of Magento’s leading commerce and omnichannel order management solutions with the Adobe Marketing Cloud gives these brands the end-to-end control they need to rapidly build and test differentiated experiences that integrate seamlessly across online, mobile, physical and social channels.”

In addition to experience innovation, companies must evolve their business models to support omnichannel realities. “This requires an agile commerce infrastructure that not only delivers rich omnichannel shopping, but also enables companies to execute the perfect order, regardless of channel,” said Harish Abbott, CEO and cofounder of Symphony Commerce. “The modern consumer expects products to be delivered fast and predictably. We’re excited to partner with Adobe to complete the value proposition with Adobe’s industry leading experience management, personalization and marketing technology. Together, Adobe and Symphony will deliver fully personalized, seamless purchasing experiences anywhere with fast and predictable shipping.”

The post Adobe Partners with Symphony Commerce and Magento to Transform Commerce Experiences appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/web-experience/adobe-partners-symphony-commerce-magento-transform-commerce-experiences/

Yoast SEO 3.6

At Yoast, we love to make our work available for everyone. We try to develop products that follow accessibility guidelines to take away any technical hurdles people may stumble on. But we can always take an extra step to help the user navigate the front-end. That’s why we’ve added a wizard to Yoast SEO 3.6, one that guides the user through the initial set-up.

Following hot on the heels of the 3.5 release, which focused on fixing bugs, we now release Yoast SEO 3.6. In this release, we’ve worked hard on getting a better experience when opening Yoast SEO for the first time. It can be rather overwhelming and the amount of setting up you have to do is pretty serious.

Making choices

Settings are a necessity. You have to make the right choices to get the most out of Yoast SEO. To help people navigate this, we’ve added a ten-step process that lets users gradually fill in the details of their site. Among other things, you can specify the environment in which your site is running, the type of site, social profiles, post visibility and Knowledge Graph metadata. You can also set up Google Search Console and choose the title settings.

In the end, the user has a working install of Yoast SEO with the most important settings filled in. After running the wizard, the settings will be hidden. You don’t need these anymore, so they don’t have to be in the sidebar menu. You can turn these back on, of course. If you’d like to rerun the wizard you can launch it from the general tab on the settings page. We hope this feature makes it a little less overwhelming to open Yoast SEO for the first time.

Toggle features

The Yoast SEO dashboard has a new Features tab. Here you can enable/disable certain features. If you want, you can turn the advanced settings page on or off. Should you turn these off, they’ll disappear from the nav bar on the left-hand side as well. We’ve even made it possible to enable or disable the admin bar in Yoast SEO.

We’ve had multiple questions about the admin menu bar. Some people want to turn it off. That’s ok, and we’ve added that possibility, but you’ll lose a lot of handy checks. You’ll have no easy way to validate your HTML or CSS, or the mobile friendliness and speed of your site. But that’s all up to you of course. You can always turn the admin bar back on if you need it.

Full changelog

As always, we’ve posted the full changelog on WordPress.org. Happy updating!

from Yoast • The Art & Science of Website Optimization https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-3-6/

Apple Just Released iOS10: Here’s What Marketers Need to Know!

Apple recently released the highly anticipated iPhone 7 — and with it, a new operating system in iOS10. Both have been the source of much speculation in recent months. Now that the features of iOS10 have been released officially, it’s time to understand what that means for your brand.

Marketers should consider how they can utilize new features, enhancements, and services to best serve their consumers. Normally, this means rethinking the user experience, doing extensive testing, and considering the implications of platform changes on your overall mobile app and marketing strategy.

New iOS10 Features
Naturally, understanding the new iOS 10 features is the first step toward integrating them into your digital-marketing strategy. I’ve chosen to highlight a few major enhancements that marketers should consider to increase the quality of personalized, targeted, and relevant experiences — the experiences customers want. So, without further ado, let’s examine not only the new features made available through the iOS10 update, but also how marketers can use these new features to enhance their customers’ experiences.

1. Messaging
Messaging has received what is probably the biggest overhaul in iOS10. Push and other messaging features that iOS offers have always been vital tools for improving user engagement. In this iteration of iOS, Apple has added audio and video support for push notifications that users can access from their lock screens. Not requiring users to unlock their phones increases both the likelihood that consumers will pay attention to their messages and the window of opportunity for catching their precious attention. Where consumers may have become distracted previously after unlocking their phones, prioritizing the notifications they wanted to check first, they can now address notifications directly from their lock screens.

2. Mail App
The mail app now offers a simple way to unsubscribe from marketing emails. Once you have an unsubscribe button integrated within the mail app, it becomes incredibly easy for customers to drop out of your sales or conversion funnels. This makes having a personalized email experience that offers relevant content more important than ever before. If your content seems irrelevant to your users’ lives, they can now opt out with a literal click of a button.

3. App Store Update
Though not a platform update per se (but closely related), the iOS app store will soon begin showing pay-promoted apps on search, meaning app store search results will feature one sponsored app at the top. Since the app store is still the best way for users to discover your apps, this is a huge opportunity to enhance app findability. If your app can land that coveted position as the top result — even if achieved through purchasing paid advertising — it could provide a sizeable advantage for your brand. This app store update is one that’s simply critical for marketers to be aware of.

4. Watch OS3 and Apple Watch Series 2
The new Watch OS3 and Apple Watch (Series 2) supports GPS within the app as well as in-app payments via Apple Pay. It also lets you unlock your Mac, call 911, and control HomeKit-enabled devices. These features are making the watch more applicable for consumers by providing them with useful experiences.

While all of this is great for consumers, what does it really mean for marketers? Ultimately, it means that Apple is providing a speedy, feature-laden, and increasingly independent wearable platform. In the past, marketers have struggled somewhat to make the Apple Watch part of their core marketing plans. These new features should give marketers more room to deliver relevant services to their customers. As this wearable platform matures, marketers will be very glad they got in on the ground floor!

5. Revenue Split With App Subscriptions
Apple also announced changes regarding how it splits revenues on apps that deliver services via subscriptions. Apple has traditionally taken 30 percent of these recurring charges. However, they will start taking only 15 percent of ongoing subscriptions after the first year. They will also begin allowing all app categories to sell subscriptions, possibly making it more compelling for marketers to deliver apps with fresh content and services. Generally speaking, the additional margin could also increase the possibilities for subscription-app models to become profitable revenue streams for brands.

6. Expedited App Reviews
Apps can now be pushed into the marketplace in a shorter timeframe — sometimes, in as little as two days. Therefore, when creating a marketing plan for a new campaign, product, or brand, you can more easily — and much more quickly — consider apps as well as updates to existing apps. This updated timeframe means your mobile app-marketing strategy can be much more agile.

7. Siri Kit
Siri has been opened up to allow integrations with third parties. Just like with the new Apple Watch, this announcement may not be applicable to all. However, it’s important to understand what you have here, as consumers begin to increasingly prefer voice-driven interfaces. With the Siri Kit, Siri can now be integrated into existing apps (see Apple’s demo on Uber or other examples here). This integration seeks to save users time and effort, potentially increasing brand loyalty over time.

iOS10 for Marketers — The Bottom Line
There are certainly potential benefits — but also risks from misuse, saturation, and misalignment with a broader brand strategy. The bottom line is that marketers should continually improve their mobile apps and stay informed of key platform changes and opportunities. When they do so, they can make the most of every feature available to them, and ultimately, provide the best customer experiences imaginable.

The post Apple Just Released iOS10: Here’s What Marketers Need to Know! appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/mobile/apple-just-released-ios10-heres-marketers-need-know/

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How Mobile Is Redefining the Path to Purchase

This blog post and infographic are courtesy of Adobe partner, Invoca. Portions of the data for the infographic were pulled from Adobe’s Digital Index and Invoca’s 2016 Call Intelligence Index.

If you’re anything like me, you use your laptop for work and your mobile phone for just about everything else — sometimes, you even use both simultaneously. I mean, how often have you been interrupted at work by your smartphone buzzing with a new text message or push notification? And, it’s not just you. According to a recent Adobe study, 79 percent of people switch devices during a single online activity.

The multichannel, multi-device world we live in is due, in large part, to the rise of mobile. With your smartphone, just about everything and everyone you need is a quick tap away — no matter where you are. The way we shop, research, connect with friends, move around, and ultimately, obtain whatever we need has been forever changed. Many people either haven’t yet considered, or are completely unaware of, the implications this has for marketers.

The Common Customer Path to Purchase
Let’s say, for example, you’re on the bus one afternoon, scrolling through Facebook, and you see an ad for blue suede shoes. You begin to Google said shoes and read reviews on Zappos, but your bus stop is approaching, and you have to get off. A couple of days later, at work on your laptop, you are retargeted with a promo code for the shoes. You decide it’s time to buy them.

This is a very common customer journey for retail. We’ve all been there, done that. But, as a marketer, it’s important to note that this particular journey isn’t plug and play. It won’t work for industries in which purchases are often expensive and complex — for instance, in the financial services, insurance, and telco industries.

Mobile’s Impact Across the Board
Fortunately, for businesses with considerable purchases such as these, the rise of mobile has also significantly increased the number of phone calls to businesses. Mobile search ads with click-to-call buttons, for example, make it simple to have a conversation when you’re on the go and in a moment of need. Google actually found that 70 percent of people searching from their smartphones call businesses directly from the search results. And, Invoca’s own research discovered that 65 percent of people prefer to contact businesses by phone, and that these calls last 4 minutes 52 seconds, on average, indicating a quality conversation.

The Bottom Line
Mobile has changed the game in more ways than we realize. While apps may be where we spend much of our time on mobile, they’re not necessarily where we spend our money. Phone calls are an increasingly important part of the customer journey, and with technologies like call intelligence, businesses can create more personalized customer experiences during and after their phone calls.

For more data about the evolving customer journey and the role of the phone call, check out the infographic here: 2016-invoca-call-intelligence-report-infographic.

The post How Mobile Is Redefining the Path to Purchase appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/mobile/mobile-redefining-path-purchase/

The Four Essential Pieces of Digital-Marketing Maturity

Today, digital marketing is marketing — influencing all kinds of people and delivering all kinds of customer and brand experiences. According to a 2014 Adweek report, more than one-third of CMOs say that digital marketing will account for 75 percent or more of their spending within the next five years.

Digital maturity — an organization’s capacity to deliver seamless, digital brand experiences — is a holistic process that spans all channels and evolves continuously. According to the annual seven-year Digital Marketing Survey conducted by Adobe, momentum for digital maturity is slowly growing. And, if your organization is located in North America, there’s a 50 percent chance that you’re on the path to digital maturity.

The Survey revealed a lot this year, including the four essential pieces for really ramping up your digital strategy, and therefore, your digital maturity — so keep reading!

Piece One: Data-Driven Marketing
This year’s study showed that digitally mature organizations are quite a bit further ahead in their data usage. Thus, one can infer that analytics is essential for companies seeking digital maturity. Why? Because analytics allow companies to examine data more thoroughly and more frequently. For instance, customer engagement can be continually measured to ensure that specific content is relevant and engaging, and thus, improves the customer journey. Thus, analytics provide companies that extra edge with regard to data usage.

According to the survey, both advanced and focused organizations are investing in measurement and optimization. In North America, almost half say they have companywide, holistic approaches to testing, while globally, the number is closer to one-third. Business-to-business high tech organizations top the list, with 44 percent reporting that multiple departments have input in the testing process, followed by retail and commerce with 35 percent.

We also discovered that in-depth analytics and multivariate testing — not just A/B testing — enable them to improve automation and personalization as the customer journey becomes increasingly complex. It’s not only important to have the correct information, but also the correct assessment of that information, so you can effectively engage with your customer. A solid foundation in data-driven marketing allows you to do just that.

Piece Two: Optimal Customer Experience
Advanced organizations realized some time ago that customer experience is the very core of marketing. The goal is to WOW your customer with a personalized experience — meaning, to give each customer the very best experience at the perfect moment and on the right device.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the priorities of marketing departments do about-faces. The top digital marketers are now working to deliver experiences related to what customers’ needs are at any given point — instead of promoting what’s top of mind for the business. They are putting their resources toward developing more customer-focused content and finding ways to reach their customers with relevant materials. Seventy percent of all organizations surveyed report that automating the delivery of personalized content for web has improved key performance indicators (KPIs), and 71 percent say it has improved KPIs for mobile sites and apps. Advanced marketers report the biggest benefits: Ninety-one percent say automation of personalized content has improved KPIs for their websites, and 74 percent say it has improved KPIs for mobile. Automated personalization requires organizations to invest in multiple capabilities across the digital-maturity spectrum, including testing and analytics — to understand customers from multiple perspectives — which enable them to adapt content as they learn more about customers’ wants and needs. The ultimate goal is to deliver truly meaningful, in-the-moment experiences. And, it’s not just an important goal — survival depends on it!

Piece Three: Mobile Marketing
In the past, companies designed their websites with very little attention given to how they would look on newfangled mobile handsets. Today, with smartphones being the primary device for 92 percent of users, any organization worth its salt will lose precious viewers — or worse yet, potential customers — if it doesn’t adapt to this new reality.

If more people are engaging with digitally mature companies via mobile apps, sites, or devices, it means that these companies are doing something right. Whether that something is having better mobile sites, more relevant content, better mobile apps, or simply more mobile touchpoints, everyone will need to do more to compete.

Updating your e-infrastructure with mobile-friendly content could easily become the leading issue for your business strategy in the coming years. In fact, mobile was the top area most likely to see budget increases in the next 12 months. As more companies adapt to mobile, it’s better to either be among the percentage that have already created sufficiently mobile-savvy digital presences or those working to create mobile-friendly infrastructures (over 51 percent), than to be left out in the cold.

Piece Four: Cross-Channel Marketing
The recent focus on cross-channel marketing should come as no surprise given how important it is to engage customers across all types of media: television, radio, web, mobile, email, phone, and apps. People don’t just go to one channel and stay there. They surf, which creates multiple opportunities to reach them — but, just as many chances to lose them. Almost 90 percent of survey respondents rank creating a connected experience and campaign orchestration as a top priority; and 78 percent say they are focusing on having the right tools to help them meet customers where they are at any given moment.

Creating connected experiences requires understanding the entire customer journey. Analyzing single touchpoints with customers just doesn’t cut it anymore. Companies need to understand the complete path each customer takes to get from first engagement to final purchase. They need to know how customers interact with their content across multiple devices and channels and whether the content is moving them forward in their journeys.

Put It All Together
Digital maturity is constantly changing, and developing a consistent improvement plan is nearly impossible. So, what is possible? According to the survey, it’s all about the core of your strategy.

Companies that intentionally devote their attentions to advancing holistic strategies tend to have the highest digital maturities. Companies with strong data-driven foundations, connected and relevant customer experiences, and fluid mobile experiences were most successful. So, ask yourself, “Do I have a strategy for digital maturity? If so, is it holistic? If not, what do I need to do?” Start today!

The post The Four Essential Pieces of Digital-Marketing Maturity appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/the-four-essential-pieces-of-digital-marketing-maturity/

W3 Total Cache high-risk XSS vulnerability

Just today, WP Media pointed us to a high-risk XSS vulnerability in W3 Total Cache (W3TC). This was a very popular WordPress plugin that has over 1 million active installs. Although it’s a very popular plugin, it hasn’t been updated in over six months. We stopped recommending it a while back for WP Rocket, a W3 Total Cache alternative that skyrocketed in use over the past few months.

We agree with Julio’s statement that when you need to explain to other people you haven’t abandoned your plugin, due to questions about that, the clock has already struck midnight.

XSS vulnerability

Let’s first explain what’s going on here:

XSS (short for Cross-Site Scripting) is a widespread vulnerability that affects many web applications. The danger behind XSS is that it allows an attacker to inject content into a website and modify how it is displayed, forcing a victim’s browser to execute the code provided by the attacker while loading the page.
Source: Sucuri

That’s definitely not what you want your website to do, right? In this case, we are talking about W3TC being vulnerable to a XSS flaw, high risk rated. This one should be fixed asap. With nobody maintaining the plugin, that is a huge issue for the millions of sites that use the plugin.

Instead of waiting for a fix, we recommend disabling the plugin and using a W3 Total Cache alternative like the ones listed below.

W3 Total Cache alternatives

Luckily, there are more plugins you can use to optimize your site speed. And most work pretty well out-of-the-box. We have listed three speed optimization plugins for you as alternatives for W3 Total Cache.

1. WP Rocket
   Our most-recommended speed optimization plugin. WP Rocket simply delivers speed improvement. It has a lot of options under the hood and works by simply clicking some checkboxes in their dashboard.
2. WP Super Cache
   Made by Automattic, so it works flawlessly with WordPress. It’s a simple speed optimization plugin that helps a lot of WordPress sites. We have to add a note: it hasn’t been updated in five months as well. But all in all, it’s a nice, free WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache alternative.
3. Comet Cache
   Formerly known as Zen Cache, formerly known as Quick Cache. If you change your name so often, you’re probably actively working on your plugin as well, right? Registration is needed.

Over to you

If you want your website to be safe RIGHT NOW and you are using W3 Total Cache, we recommend investing a few bucks in WP Rocket. It’ll be worth your while. If you don’t feel like investing that money in your website, feel free to switch to one of the other W3 Total Cache alternatives instead!

We’re using Sucuri’s Website Firewall at yoast.com, which eliminates the need for a separate speed plugin. But we have installed WP Rocket on some other sites with great results, so we’re happy to recommend them! Plus, we’re on the awesome and fast WP Engine hosting platform. Just in case you were wondering ;)

from Yoast • The Art & Science of Website Optimization https://yoast.com/w3-total-cache/

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Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly

This week’s articles examine the importance of speed in mobile commerce, how we may be very close to smart devices making purchases for us, include a checklist for the retail holiday season, and more!

• 2016 Holiday Marketing Checklist for Online Retailers [Practical Ecommerce]: A few items to consider when planning holiday marketing.
• Why Successful M-Commerce Needs To Work At The Speed Of Light [Forbes]: As consumers’ expectations for instantaneous access to information increase, retailers try to balance features with the speed of their sites.
• UK shoppers say they’re ready to let machines make buying decisions for them [Internet Retailer]: More than half of consumers in the UK are comfortable with smart devices making purchase decisions on their behalves.
• Why Gmail’s responsive email update matters to e-retailers [Internet Retailer]: Gmail is moving to support responsive design to give retailers better options for making their emails display properly.
• Holiday Retail Sales Set for Dramatic Climb [eMarketer]: According to a new forecast, ecommerce retail sales will increase significantly this holiday season.
• Data-Driven Marketing Is Driving More Revenues [eMarketer]: Marketers are spending more money on data-driven marketing efforts and are seeing revenue gains.
• 3 Charts Showing Google Search’s Impact on Travel Brands in 2016 [Skift]: Google stands above all other traffic sources in its impact in bringing traffic to travel sites.
• Travel marketing is more frustrating than ever [Tnooz]: Many travel companies struggle with acquisition costs, the length of the customer journey, and low purchase frequency — but, there are ways to combat these challenges.
• The 8 Biggest Reasons the Search Landscape is Shifting for Hotels [Hospitality Net]: Google, ad blockers, and social-media travel research are impacting the way hoteliers are leveraging search.

The post Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/point-sale-retail-travel-weekly-22/

The Digital Marketing Phenomenon: The Future is Here. Are you ready?

The post The Digital Marketing Phenomenon: The Future is Here. Are you ready? appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/digital-marketing-phenomenon-future-ready/

eCommerce SEO checklist: 27 tips for a better online shop

Join Adobe Think Tank: The Future of Digital Experiences

What is the future of digital experiences created by marketers? How do businesses design in-the-moment experiences that are rich, relevant, and help customers feel less like personas and more like people? These topics will be tackled in Think Tank by Adobe on Wednesday, September 28th at 4pm ET.

Join our moderator Julie Hopkins, managing vice president at Gartner, and a group of thought leaders for the livestreamed Think Tank where we will discuss the technologies that will most impact and improve digital experiences; the role marketers play in designing the experiences; and how people consuming these experiences will find their needs met in a personalized way.

Every interaction with a customer or prospect offers the opportunity to make a sincere connection. And real connection starts with empathy and understanding. It’s about making every interaction count. Because meaningful experiences can make your brand feel like their brand. While superficial interactions can break connections, personalized ones build relationships. This is the kind of genuine connection that is sincere, not shallow. It takes patience and persistence because it’s about getting up close and personal and knowing your customers inside out.

We want you to be a part of the conversation. Follow @AdobeMktgCloud and #AdobeTT on Twitter and share your thoughts on the future of digital experiences. As you join our broadcast, share your thoughts and comments. We might even share your comments or questions during the livestream.

As the dynamic of digital experiences continues to change, marketers need to be prepared and stay ahead of the game. So, click here to book on your calendar today. This is one discussion you don’t want to miss!

 

The post Join Adobe Think Tank: The Future of Digital Experiences appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/join-adobe-think-tank-future-digital-experiences/

5 SEO copywriting mistakes you should avoid

Down the rabbit hole: the anatomy of an experience-led business

Digital transformation is a phrase that pops up in corporate mission statements and makes for interesting debates around the office coffee dispenser.

Yes, technology has helped us to do things faster and en masse. But today, technology must make our businesses friendlier and more personable than those of our competitors, because this is what customers are demanding.

To accomplish this requires a new set of core competencies across our organizations, things most of us are not good at today.

It reminds me of Alice’s encounter with the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

We do “much care where” we are going. Yet, aside from head nods and enthusiastic proclamations that we will make customers happy, do we really know what that will take? How will a company that optimizes customer experience day in and day out look different?

After studying hundreds of companies from near and far, I would like to share what I think are the three core competencies of this new type of company — one that gets ahead by competing on experience.

But, before I get to those, I want to frame the context of the shift. It will be critical for appreciating the massive change ahead.

Foundations in the Industrial Revolution

To set the stage for this, I want to draw parallels to the radical shifts that took place during the Industrial Revolution regarding how work is organized.

Warehouse with metallurgical material. Steel metal pipes in the package. Black and white image with tilt-shift effect.

First, the move from decentralized production to centralized production. For example, textiles once made in individual homes became concentrated in large factories with machines that automated production.

Next, the inconsistent quality of home-created products was remedied by brand-enforced, predictable quality attained through the optimization of the manufacturing process.

Finally, the low production obtained using simple tools was replaced with mass production utilizing leading technologies of the day.

These changes brought on new transportation systems, to move both raw materials and finished goods, as well as new ways of capitalizing large businesses with investments in new equipment.

Technology was the catalyst for a complete transformation of how society produced goods and how wealth was created.

Progressing into the experience economy

Much of the way companies are structured today is a result of the mindset formed during the Industrial Revolution.

We have stretched, optimized, and streamlined. Ultimately, the end game has been in cranking out a widget – be it an item of clothing, a car, or a semiconductor part.

Mobile, cloud, and Big Data are the three catalysts enabling the experience economy — an economy in which production is decentralized, quality is a shared burden carried by the community, and mass uniformity is replaced with personalization.

We have technologies that are leading to decentralized design and shared production: for example, 3D printing and robotics. Robotics have become so intelligent that, to guide production, you don’t even have to be in the same location with them — you can control them with cloud-connected mobile devices and guidance through Big Data insights.

Through social media and sites such as Kickstarter, consumers are also voting on the types of products they want.

Customers now enforce quality through ratings and contribute to the quality of the brand experience.

For example, Uber doesn’t need supervisors in every car; drivers with poor ratings simply won’t get repeat business.

The popularity of live-sharing photos and videos during concerts and major events, as well as reaction videos of games and music videos, showcases the trend of communities co-creating experiences with brands.

As the machines become smarter, you’re able to shift from mass production to mass personalization. A good example of this is the Coca-Cola freestyle machine. It’s a soda machine that mixes the drinks on demand. Have you always dreamed of a concoction made up of 10% Cherry Coke and 90% Sprite? Done! Now, the drinks are produced on the spot and to each customer’s specifications.

The common pattern here is that the customer is involved in each step in the experience economy. To be customer-driven — instead of product-driven — companies will need a new set of core competencies, and I do think it will ultimately result in a shift in how companies are organized.

Putting it all together: mapping the destination

What are the three core competencies a business must possess to not only compete on customer experiences, but also in a world engulfed in digital?

1) Foundation for digital experiences

The first competency is the ability to deliver digital experiences across all functions that touch the customer.

Today, many of these systems are in silos across organizational boundaries of sales, marketing, and support — a result of how budgets and decisions are distributed. In the future, technology and employees will need to align to unify experiences across the customer journey.

Think about it: many bad experiences were results of disconnects between departments such as marketing and sales or sales and support.

For example, Chelsea, a leading football club, engages its fans digitally both at and away from the stadium. The digital platform they use blurs the lines between marketing, service, and sales — as it should.

2) Content velocity

The second competency is the ability to craft at scale and speed the key ingredient for great digital experiences — content. I call this content velocity.

The research that International Data Corporation (IDC) recently conducted concluded that 85 percent of companies are under pressure to create assets faster; and 76% attribute personalization to driving the need for more assets.

An example of an extra case is Tastemade, which engages with its fans on Snapchat. The content on Snapchat disappears in 24 hours. Companies like Tastemade go through a complete cycle of content generation and distribution each day.

The speed at which companies are able to source engaging digital experiences will require new technologies and processes.

3) Connected experiences

The third competency is the ability to connect the customer journey across digital interactions on websites, apps, and other connected devices.

Research is showing that Gen Z will have, on average, five devices. Companies that are able to persist and move forward with conversations and relationships across these points will garner loyalty.

This type of ability built on data insights, combined with the ability to link devices, will result in customer convenience — as well as deepen intimacy, as customers will feel as if the brand really knows them.

Although achieving these competencies will take more than technology — similar to the Industrial Revolution — technology will be a catalyst. Appreciating the scale of change that is before us, and investing in these core capabilities within your organization, will move you ahead in the experience economy.

For much more detail on the retail customer journey, download our brand new ClickZ Intelligence Report, The Future of Customer Journey.

This post originally appeared on ClickZ.com. 

 

The post Down the rabbit hole: the anatomy of an experience-led business appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/web-experience/rabbit-hole-anatomy-experience-led-business/

WordPress: How to noindex a post!

What Can Marketers Learn From the Presidential Campaign?

Political campaigns have their work cut out for them, with the vast array of devices and platforms on which to reach voters. Sound familiar? Take a page from their strategies.

There’s no doubt that political campaigning in the 2016 U.S. presidential race is radically different from previous races. Today’s average citizen uses more than two digital devices and platforms, making the voter journey far more complex than ever before.

So how are candidates reaching potential voters? Despite newer emerging channels like Snapchat and Instagram, email marketing remains at the heart of political campaigns. In fact, email continues to yield the highest ROI for marketers, returning $39 for every dollar spent. Politicians emailing potential voters are no different from brands emailing customers —the same rules apply. Here are four tips for email-marketing success, whether your ultimate goal is votes or leads.

1. Move away from batch-and-blast. Email-marketing success is no longer defined by how many opens a message earns, but rather, how effective it is at driving individual behavior. Personalized, customer-centric messaging outperforms batch-and-blast techniques every time. At best, blasts are ineffective — but worse, they can land you in trouble. Last month, the Republican nominee learned this lesson the hard way as Donald Trump’s first email campaign landed in the spam folders of lawmakers abroad.

Practice good email-list management and send with context in mind. Target your message to appropriate segments of your mailing list to avoid poor ROI and negative impact on your brand equity. Email that is flagged as spam or receives a high rate of complaints isn’t engaging users, and consumers today are protective of their mailboxes. Most people don’t want to receive email blasts from politicians—or from marketers. Curate your list carefully before sending and ensure content is relevant, timely, and targeted at the right recipients.

2. There’s no campaigning without cross-channel. Gone are the days of isolated TV, direct mail, and email marketing; today it’s essential to take a cross-channel approach. Analyzing both online and offline behaviors of your target audience allows politicians to discern the unique characteristics of each demographic, or even down to individuals. The value of data lies in its ability to help politicians serve up content based on individuals’ preferred channel of communication.

The job of a campaign manager or political marketing executive is to know their pool of voters.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are targeting influential Millennial voters through their cross-channel campaigns. According to one survey, one in seven voters reported seeing Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat ads in favor of both candidates, within the same time period. Campaign management needs to be as much about web analytics and content management as it does about email and social media execution.

3. Test subject lines for success. In 2012, the Obama campaign tailored its email campaign with one simple subject line: “Hey.” The casual, straightforward nature of this one word grabbed the attention of millions of Americans because it felt like opening an email from any old friend. The lessons from this email campaign are noteworthy, leading to increased open rates and click-through rates and improved engagement. Simplicity was on point for the Obama campaign, but how do you learn what works and what doesn’t? Testing. Politicians are unlikely to be skilled in email marketing optimization techniques, but running simple A/B tests of email subject lines is an easy, practical way to identify what your recipients are more likely to respond to.

4. Up your design game. As attention spans shrink (the average today is less than that of a goldfish), great design and optimization are paramount. In a recent Adobe survey, consumers ranked display (65 percent) as the most important aspect when it comes to content experiences in their personal lives, and 54 percent listed overall good design — such as appealing layout and photography — as important. Consumers are multiscreening more than ever before, and improving content and design to address these preferences is critical. Up your design game and you’ll keep your audience and constituents interested.

Whether you’re a campaign strategist looking to capture votes or a brand marketer shooting for conversions, email marketing is the key to success. Design customer-centric messaging that’s relevant and timely, maximize cross-channel techniques, and make certain your design is great. Email-marketing campaigns — political or otherwise — that satisfy these criteria will be nothing short of huge.

This post first appeared on destinationcrm.com. 

The post What Can Marketers Learn From the Presidential Campaign? appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/email/can-marketers-learn-presidential-campaign/

Ask Yoast: why connect GSC with Yoast SEO?

Virtual Reality and Social Media: Are We Ready for Dynamic Social?

Research conducted by Goldman Sachs forecasts that, by 2025, virtual and augmented realities will become an $80-billion market. That’s just eight years from now! Is it time for your company to invest? Brands across a wide range of industries — from entertainment to education to online shopping — are using virtual technologies to create deeper, more meaningful interactions with customers and enhancing their experiences. What do virtual and augmented realities bring to the table, and what should brands be thinking about when considering these new technologies?

What Is the Difference Between Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)?
Both virtual reality and augmented reality create immersive experiences, but the main difference is how immersive. With VR, the experience is total, meaning the goggles or the viewer that you’re using completely shuts out the real world, and everything within the viewing parameter is entirely virtual. With AR, on the other hand, the experience is not wholly immersive. Instead, images, videos, and other visual stimuli are layered over reality, allowing the user to supplement the real world with virtual content.

How Are Brands and Industries Benefitting From VR and AR Technologies?
There’s tremendous opportunity for businesses who choose to utilize VR or AR technologies as mediums for improved customer experiences. From support and service to basic entertainment, virtual realities enable brands to provide experiences that were previously impossible.

The Super Bowl is a perfect example of the potential here. The NFL has a limited number of stadium seats available for fans who want to watch the game — everyone else (without tickets) must tune in to watch it on television. In a virtual world, stadium seating is infinite, and unlimited numbers of fans enter into an immersive football experience on game day — one that is both visual and auditory. Similarly, VR and AR could also be used in the movie and entertainment industries, as movie-production companies are not only investing in virtual and augmented realities, but also have major players in these technologies supporting them.

Gaming is yet another industry that may be changed forever by AR and VR with the recent release of Pokémon Go. The popular mobile app overlays a map of your unique physical world — your house, office, and everyplace you eat, for instance — with the world of Pokémon. Everywhere the user goes, images of an augmented world appear through a camera viewfinder.

More traditional retail marketers, as well as online retailers, also have unique opportunities to capitalize on virtual technologies by creating more immersive shopping experiences. Whether it’s trying on a pair of hiking boots in your living room or having the same experience in the middle of the rainforest, savvy marketers are taking advantage of VR and AR technologies, offering consumers chances to experience products and services in novel, exciting ways.

Where Does Social Media Meet Virtual Technology?
To date, social engagement exists primarily in a two-dimensional, screen-based world where text is heavy, and imagery and video are occasional. While engagement occurs in real time, true interaction is limited because it’s so often based on text. Now, imagine not only experiencing products as you never have before, but also journeying into corporations to meet the humans behind your favorite products.

AR and VR will change how consumers communicate with brands, creating truly social interactions with companies and their employees. As a result, traditional social-media departments will likely transform from groups of writers who string together interesting tweets and posts — hoping for text-based interactions — to groups that facilitate virtual interactions with customers for more dynamic experiences.

As we approach the second wave of hype surrounding VR and AR, there are high expectations for these emerging technologies. Facebook created a social VR team, Google has invested over $500 million in AR, and many technology vendors have released AR and VR headsets. Yet, many brands remain hesitant because these virtual technologies both require tremendous resources and costs. Deciding whether to invest is challenging. Be realistic, take a step back, and ask whether these technologies will, ultimately, help you achieve your business objectives.

The post Virtual Reality and Social Media: Are We Ready for Dynamic Social? appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/social-media/virtual-reality-social-media-ready-dynamic-social/

Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly

This week’s articles examine retailers’ continued struggles with marketing’s digital transformation, how users researching on mobile devices are likely to make same-day purchases, and the importance of digital operational excellence coupled with digital customer experience.

• Organizations Struggle with Marketing’s Digital Transformation [eMarketer]: Assigning responsibility to digital marketing-transformation initiatives and changing company cultures are challenges preventing companies from taking advantage of digital technology.
• 92pc of mobile researchers make relevant purchases within one day: Google [Mobile Commerce Daily]: Consumers doing research on their mobile devices are very likely to perform same-day purchases.
• How To Solve The Digital Dilemma [Forbes]: Digital operational excellence and digital customer experience are both important to success.
• How Coach and Marriott nabbed early-adopter status with iMessage apps [Mobile Marketer]: As two of the first brands to take advantage of the new updates in Apple’s iOS 10 release, Coach and Marriott are looking to engage even deeper with users on mobile.
• The Link Between Travel Booking and Personalized Messaging [Skift]: Three quarters of the respondents in a recent survey reported making online travel purchases based on highly relevant and personalized promotions.
• Delta captures millennial travelers’ interest via Snapchat-based scavenger hunt [Mobile Marketer]: Residents of Los Angeles can follow clues on Delta’s social media channel to hunt for themed geofilters throughout the city.
• Why travel needs to design mobile-first customer journeys [Tnooz]: Mobile devices are making it easier for companies to provide relevant information throughout each phase of the customer journey: dreaming, planning, booking, and experiencing.
• Fall 2016 Leisure Travel Expected to Soften [Hospitality Net]: Most notable are the younger generations that are planning to travel less this fall when compared with last year.

The post Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/news-and-resources/point-sale-retail-travel-weekly-21/

Interview with Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (TNW)

Improving the Email Sign Up Process – Quick Tips For Success

The email sign-up process is the first of many steps along the customer journey—an opportunity for would-be customers to connect with your brand.

As with any new relationship, whether it’s a first date, a job interview or a new neighbor, first impressions matter, and it’s essential to start things off right. As the starting point for conversation with your customers, your email sign-up process has to be solid. Here’s a quick refresher on how to optimize the process, ensuring both you and your brand are protected.

SHOW THE VALUE IN SIGNING UP.
Despite what many brands would like to believe, email subscribers opt-in for only one reason—they want something. Show subscribers the value of signing up by telling them exactly what they can expect to receive when they join your email program. Tell them the types of offers they’ll receive from your company and be transparent from the beginning. If you create an attractive proposition, they’re more likely to join.

KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Keep your email sign-up process uncomplicated, or potential customers may walk away before finishing. Don’t ask for too much—or too little—information. Instead, strike the right balance with just enough required fields to provide targeted, relevant offers. Ask for only the information you need to provide meaningful offers. If the sign-up process is simple, they’re likely to subscribe—if it’s challenging, they could abandon the process altogether.

AVOID PRE-CHECKED BOXES.
You’d be surprised at how often consumers make online purchases, only to find out after the fact that they’ve inadvertently ‘opted in’ to receive email offers. Pre-checked boxes are viewed unfavorably by most and, more often than not, result in spam complaints, causing future emails to be redirected from the inbox to the spam folder. At best, your reputation suffers. At worse, pre-checked boxes may trigger compliance issues as consent is implied, not express.

Balancing Customer Experience with Security
While it’s important to provide a great first impression and easy onboarding for new customers, it’s also critical to make sure the infrastructure delivering the experience is secure. Email marketers are responsible not only for their subscribers’ experiences, but also for the processes and systems that provide those experiences. With spam, malware and now, “list-bombing,” malicious actors can negatively impact your brand by inundating recipients’ inboxes, which can even result in blacklistings.

When it comes to Internet security, the rule of thumb is that if something can be abused, it will be abused. Sign-up forms that are too easy are likely targets, and marketers need to find the right balance between offering convenience for subscribers and protecting the brand. Forms that are abused may result in your company becoming blacklisted, which means your emails won’t get delivered to all of your intended recipients. Here are a few options to add to your sign-up form that can strengthen the process.

CAPTCHA
CAPTCHA doesn’t have to be a difficult requirement for your subscribers. Far too often, brands require typing in a combination of letters and numbers that are often hard to read. A better option for the customer experience is as simple as checking a box that says, “I’m not a robot.”

HONEYPOT FIELDS.
Honeypot fields can be challenging to implement without technical know-how, but have proved to be incredibly reliable. A honeypot field isn’t visible to the human eye when looking at the sign-up form, but is included in the code. It’s the perfect trap for malicious ‘bots’—if you see data in a honeypot field, you know not to add that subscriber to your list.

COI (CONFIRMED OPT IN).
COI asks customers to confirm their choice to opt-in to your email program by clicking on a confirmation email. While there can be a significant drop-off between initial sign-up and confirmation email, COI makes it possible to validate email addresses prior to adding them to your marketing stream. The point? You add only those people who provide affirmative consent and truly want to receive emails from you.

A starting point for conversation with your brand, the email sign-up process is a critical step in the customer journey. It’s essential you get it right. Keep the process simple, straightforward, and attractive to entice subscribers. Finally, don’t forget to be aware of the mechanics behind the process. By striking the right balance between customer experience and security, you’re sure to attract real subscribers, rather than bots who are eager to learn more about your brand.

This article originally appeared in Website Magazine.

The post Improving the Email Sign Up Process – Quick Tips For Success appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/email/improving-email-sign-process-quick-tips-success/

Make Smarter Business Decisions with Predictive Analytics

The post Make Smarter Business Decisions with Predictive Analytics appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/analytics/make-smarter-business-decisions-predictive-analytics/

Not Personalizing? Now, There’s NO Excuse!

You simply must personalize — and, at this stage in the game, I cannot imagine anyone out there who would argue with me about this. However, it’s even more critical nowadays than it was even just a few months ago. Why? Because we’re in full-on crisis mode — a large-scale, consumer-led, digital crisis — and your brand has already been flung into the mix!

So, what am I talking about here? Consumers’ sheer intolerance for distracting experiences and irrelevant content. Due to not-so-user-friendly designs and user experiences (UXs), two in five site visitors don’t complete even the most basic tasks. Mobile web experiences aren’t great; endless steps and meaningless pages all contribute to slowing down what should be a simple, streamlined, and relevant experience. Average consumers have one-minute tolerances for all of these digital happenings — after that, they call it quits.

Enter personalization — and, simultaneously, the next roadblock: marketers just don’t leverage personalization as they should. Maybe it’s from fear of change or feeling as if their manual efforts are good enough. Perhaps they assume personalization integration will be too difficult, or maybe marketers even (incorrectly) think they need data scientists. For whatever reason, everyone appears to be discussing personalization; however, only a small portion of the population actually seems to be rolling up their sleeves to get the job done.

Adobe Target: Better-Than-Best Personalization
I’m thrilled to share with all of you here the latest personalization innovations in Adobe Target. Our goal? To squash some of the physical and mental barriers that are preventing marketers from maximizing relevance and revenue. To make this as simple as possible, we’re putting personalization right in the middle of something most marketers are already familiar with: testing. Marketers test to determine things like the best experiences. In fact, we believe personalization must be deeply rooted in experimentation — that, to truly personalize experiences and do better than your best, your testing must always be “turned on.” We’re making this possible by building machine learning into our testing workflow, enabling rapid experience-personalization at scale.

One-Click Personalization
Many of our Adobe Target Premium customers leverage something called Automated Personalization to power content personalization in key locations across their sites and apps. Starting next month, a few of our select customers will be able to leverage the same powerful machine-learning system within Adobe Target’s Visual Experience Composer and Form Composer to personalize experiences in the same simple way they’d set up A/B tests. By simply clicking ‘Auto-Target’ on step two of our three-step guided workflow, marketers can enable a powerful personalization engine to determine the right experience to serve each individual.

Put multiple experience variations into the mix — Adobe Target will handle the rest by evaluating all behavioral and contextual variables from every audience source in Adobe Marketing Cloud to determine the right experience for each of your website visitors and app users. You could have, for instance, 10 or 20 different page experiences — ranging from minor creative or copy adjustments all the way to entirely different layout experiences. That’s right — no need for targeting rules, no waiting for test completion, and no more going to information technology (IT) to push a winning experience to production. You’ll be able to tap into real-time analyses surrounding the most predictive elements of each site visitor, which in turn, will enable you to deliver instant targeting tied to the best-performing experiences and maximize conversions throughout the test. Auto-Target will deliver more lift while also creating more relevance than you could ever accomplish with even the most well-crafted A/B test. That is what I call better than best!

The Algorithm Dilemma
The nuances between different algorithmic approaches — residual variance models, reach/frequency, random forest, and lifetime value — can honestly be lost on some marketers. And, can you blame them? They’re marketers, not data scientists! What the heck is a Markov Chain anyway? So, how do you go about asking marketers to choose? It’s such a tough decision to make that, in many cases, it can lead to choice-paralysis. Not fully understanding the scope and scale of what’s available to them leads some marketers and brands to make a different choice — the choice not to choose at all.

Now, with Adobe Target, there’s no heavy algorithmic choice to be made. Similar to our previously released Auto-Allocate feature that uses a ‘multi-armed bandit’, Auto-Target evaluates all machine-learning algorithms available to Adobe Target and continually picks one that delivers the best performance to the specific campaign in question and, thereby, eliminates the marketer’s choice-paralysis — problem solved. Relevance delivered.

The End Goal: Streamlining Personalization for Marketers
We strive to deliver more personalization — and more interesting uses for personalization — throughout our entire community. If yesterday was the era of copy-and-create — with simple outputs like offers and banners — today, it’s all about dreaming big and executing bigger. Nowadays, if you can cook it up, we can connect the dots and drive spot-on relevance, deeper engagement, and more meaningful, measurable lifts as a result.

We’re confident that Adobe Target’s guided visual workflow, built-in organizational features, and alerts will both boost scale and support the democratization of optimization and personalization even more broadly than before. The new release places powerful personalization directly in marketers’ paths. It’s simple, straightforward — you just can’t miss it. Because, now, if you can run a simple A/B test, you can leverage personalization in your marketing and branding efforts — adoption barrier removed. The training wheels are coming off. Personalization is now in the creative mind’s domain. If you can imagine it, you can personalize it. So — very simply put — why wouldn’t you?

The post Not Personalizing? Now, There’s NO Excuse! appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/personalization/not-personalizing-now-theres-no-excuse/

Holiday season SEO: start preparing NOW!

It’s 86°F outside, and here we are telling you to think about the snowy days of Christmas. Already. If you have an online shop, please start thinking about the Christmas holiday season already!

Ranking in Google isn’t something you can do overnight, and that is why it’s never too early to start. Remember, it’s already September. Don’t forget we also have Black Friday (25th of November) and Cyber Monday (28th of November) coming up as well. You can set up a lot of content for all occasions. In this article, we’ll go over some things you can do to get prepared!

45 days rule

Bigcommerce.com published an article about what they called the 45 days rule. Regardless of the fact that you’ll be able to prepare earlier, their concept is interesting. It tells you to get your content in gear at least 45 days ahead, and they divide that period into three steps:

1. 45 Days in Advance: Post your promotion to your website calendar and post a save-the-date post on social media (including your email newsletter).
2. 7 Days in Advance: Post an upcoming events post to social media and via email and encourage other small businesses to share it with their followers.
3. 1 Day in Advance: Post a reminder event post via social media.

Source: Bigcommerce.com

Besides the promotion mentioned above, I think you can do a lot more in terms of setting up new pages and renewing old ones. Let’s dig into that a little bit more.

Setting up holiday season gift pages

First, we need to think about what kind of category or special landing pages make sense for the upcoming holidays. You can always set up pages like ‘Best gifts for fathers/girls/teens’, ‘Newest deals for your 6/10/12-year-old’, ‘Best mom/friend/grandparents discounts’ or even think along the lines of ‘Top 10 gifts for outdoor/skiing/parasailing enthusiasts’ and ‘Top 3 deals for stay-at-home moms/dads/etcetera’. Just to name a few.

Make your landing or category page, the page title and the meta description fit the upcoming holiday season. Obviously, these pages can be re-used for Valentine’s day and your summer sale. Find old content that fits the holidays, rewrite titles and meta descriptions to match the upcoming season and chances are you won’t have to update the post itself at all.

You can link the all-year holiday season pages mentioned above to, for instance, specific Christmas landing pages (‘Top 7/10/25 gifts for under the Christmas tree’) to boost these when the time has come. That could be around the 45-day mark mentioned by Bigcommerce, but I wouldn’t mind stretching that to 60 days. There has to be enough time for Google and Bing and all the other search engines to follow your links and find your specific holiday season landing pages in time.

Social media

Social media like Twitter and Pinterest can play a huge role in the success of your (online) holiday sale. Take Pinterest for instance. Raise your hand if you or your wife/husband has a Pinterest wish list? Most of us have that, right? If you manage to get the right products on people’s wish lists, that can have an impact on your sales. Personally, I like to draw inspiration from other people’s wish lists as well. To bring attention to your products, Facebook posts, and Facebook advertising are great. It’s all about creating demand.

In the previous section, I’ve also mentioned top 10 lists. We all know these work pretty well on social media. Similar to this, I’d recommend setting up holiday gift guides and sharing these. A good example is the Huffington Post Holiday Gift Guide. This is pretty clever. Huffington Post simply created a taxonomy for Holiday Gift Guide and added all posts that fit into this category. It creates a nice overview for all kinds of gifts for a plethora of people. ELLE has a page like that as well, and so do more companies.

New products

Following shopping guides, I’d also like to emphasize that this is an excellent time to pitch new products. If you know of potential best-sellers for the upcoming holiday season, be sure to start writing about these now. Think about how tech sites write about concept iPhones, features that might be added and things like that. The more you write about these products upfront, the more likely the sales pages for these products will rank when it matters. Obviously, you should link all pages that you made in advance to that one main page you’ll set up when the product is released and can be bought. Treat that page like cornerstone content.

Re-using content

Old wine in new bottles. If you have a Christmas guide for 2016, feel free to re-use that in 2017. Update the year, and update details like popular brands and popular products for that year. If the slug of your URL is /christmas-2016/, change that to /christmas-2017/ around August next year and redirect the old URL to the new one. No need to create a totally new page. It would be a waste of nice inbound links to not re-use that old URL. Of course, this is even easier if you simply don’t include the year in the URL.

In the months before the holiday season, you could even simply repost popular posts from last year (a bit adjusted if needed) on social media. Valentine’s Day might even become Secret Santa. Cyber Monday might match daddy’s favorites for Christmas. These are probably small adjustments; perhaps just adding ‘this Christmas’ to a meta description or title will do.

Optimize for speed and mobile

Last but not least, we recommend you check and optimize your website for speed and mobile. These are recommendations you’ll get from any SEO blog or consultant, everyday all day. Mobile, mobile speed and speed in general, are becoming more important every year (or day, for that matter). When preparing your website for the holiday season, this is a good a time as any to re-check your mobile website and site speed and update or improve these, if possible.

That wraps it up. You can never start too early when your online business depends on the holiday season. Be prepared; start now.

 

from Yoast • The Art & Science of Website Optimization https://yoast.com/holiday-season-seo/

Tagging posts properly for users and SEO

5 Examples of Influencer Marketing Done Right

Influencer marketing is big business. In fact, according to a recent study in Adweek, 75 percent of brands engage influencers as part of their core advertising strategies. Brands recognize that today’s consumers are savvy — and not easily swayed by traditional ad-speak. And, consumers look to their peers to help them make purchase decisions. The solution? Using influencer marketing to leverage the power of trusted and respected experts in your field is a smart, effective way to increase brand awareness, build an audience, and improve your bottom line.

Five Shining Stars of Influencer Marketing
While it seems everyone is jumping on the influencer bandwagon, there are certainly some shining stars. Following are five examples of influencer-marketing campaigns done well and what we can learn from the companies that are doing it right.

1. Sephora — Creating Authenticity Through Unbiased Reviews
The health and beauty industry may have an advantage when it comes to influencer marketing, simply because it’s cost-effective to send sample products to influential people to have them try them. However, too often, brands reach out to influencers with an agenda: “Try our product and write a glowing review.” With transparency and authenticity in mind, Sephora has taken a different approach. They built Beauty Talk: a community of insiders who leave honest product reviews, help other consumers make decisions based on their needs, and share their findings. Anecdotally, Sephora sends free samples to beauty vloggers/bloggers and other influencers, but the reviews they receive in return are always authentic and genuine. The community is successful because Sephora gives influencers the freedom they need to be unbiased, which in turn, fosters a genuineness that consumers appreciate. Sure, parameters still exist — but asking for honest, unbiased opinions has been extremely effective.

2. Nikon — Choosing the Right Fit
The Nikon brand launched a social-sharing campaign to showcase its connected camera offerings during the Warner Sound Festival. The company quickly created buzz — using #NikonWarnerSound — which trended on Twitter all three nights of the event. Partnering with Warner Music Group, Nikon presented roaming photographers with Nikon cameras to use throughout the event to take and share pictures with their personal Facebook communities. By giving established photographers access to these cameras, Nikon turned their product over to their best advocates — the photographers themselves — and created instant credibility.

3. Birchbox — Cultivating a Mutually Beneficial and Highly Lucrative Partnership
Birchbox — an online subscription service for beauty supplies — partnered with lifestyle blogger, Emily Schuman of Cupcakes & Cashmere, to customize one of their beauty-supply boxes. With carte blanche to choose products she knew would resonate with her fans, Emily showcased Birchbox to 300,000 followers on Instagram. It was the perfect partnership: Emily aligned with Birchbox — a very reputable brand — to share something of value with her audience. In return, Birchbox was exposed to an enormous, relevant audience. The benefit was both mutual and highly lucrative.

4. Boxed Water — Remaining True to Brand Values
Boxed Water may sell water, but the company also touts conservation and renewable resources, which is why its influencer campaign, Retree Project, was such a success. With help from the National Forest Foundation, Boxed Water was able to spread the word about their philanthropic campaign. For every Instagram photo that was posted using #Retree, Boxed Water agreed to plant two trees. The brand reached out to known Instagram influencers — those who had already attracted hundreds of thousands of followers each — asking them not only to post in support of the campaign, but also to encourage their community members to repost. Leveraging the power of Instagram influencers to raise brand awareness — while remaining true to brand values — was brilliant.

5. Buick Automobile — Gaining Fresh Perspectives
Buick’s influencer campaign called on nine of the most prominent Pinterest influencers — often referred to as Pinfluencers — in the fields of style and design to help create a brand image surrounding its new Encore luxury model. Rather than partner with influencers who are respected in the automobile industry, they chose outsiders so they could align the brand with experts from a different sphere. Pinfluencers shared their visions of how the exterior and interior of this new luxury model would look, encouraging consumers to revisit the brand with fresh perspectives.

Conclusion
What does an audience look for in an influencer? What attributes create a sense of trust? Most people see through advertisements, realizing that companies are likely saying whatever they think you want to hear. Add a familiar, trusted voice, and suddenly, marketing has credibility. When a respected voice of authority makes a suggestion, it feels authentic and believable.

Of course, creating a successful influencer campaign takes much more than just finding an expert who will post a blog touting your product or service. It’s critical to pick the right influencer — preferably someone with an established audience in the area of expertise into which you are looking to expand or with an entirely new segment you’re trying to reach. The best campaigns are genuine and contain messaging that stays true to your values as a brand. The right “fit” is everything — without it, even the best spokesperson will leave your audience feeling disconnected.

The post 5 Examples of Influencer Marketing Done Right appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/social-media/5-examples-influencer-marketing-done-right/

7 keyword research mistakes you should avoid

Enhancing the Customer Journey With Email Marketing

Email-marketing campaigns are the backbone of your interactions with customers. Done right, email is a great way to gain new customers, reach out to existing ones, and build loyalty and trust in your business.

However, today’s email-marketing campaigns must be responsive to the demands of new, digitally sophisticated users who will no longer tolerate batch emails addressed to them by name as the only form of personalization. Today’s email readers want truly personalized, contextually relevant interactions with the businesses they embrace.

Meaningful personalization that will engage your customers can only be developed if you have a complete understanding of how customers and potential customers interact with your brand at every touchpoint and on every channel.

There has been plenty of talk about the customer journey lately; however, much has changed, and customers have become very demanding in their desires for amazing experiences. But, just how do you go about mapping out those journeys? Read on to receive eight great tips for mapping your customers’ journeys!

Mapping the Customer Journey is CRUCIAL!
1. Create a Map of all Possible Touchpoints.
Start, literally, with drawing a map of your customer’s journey with your brand or through your digital-marketing program. Map out every possible touchpoint customers may utilize to interact with your brand. There are many ways organizations have drawn their customer-journey maps. Find the one that works best for you.

Today’s users interact with brands through three to five different screens (smartphones, tablets, fitness trackers, desktops, smartwatches, etc.) and can begin their journeys with brands through any of them. To develop the best, most highly personalized, and responsive email campaigns, you have to truly understand where to direct your reader when and wherever the email is opened.

2. Try to Involve Your Entire Organization.
Every department should be thinking about satisfying the conscious and subconscious needs of your target audience and delivering the right message at the right time in the right channel to the right customer. This effort will, undoubtedly, involve departments that may not normally work together. The finance department, for example, often designs processes based on what is operationally efficient for the department rather than a user’s needs. However, payment-system touchpoints can completely shape a customer’s perceptions about the company. Customers have little tolerance for entering the same information repeatedly when a site database should be doing it.

3. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel; Use the Data You Have.
Most likely, you already have tons of data about your customers. Look for online reviews, call-center logs, returns, purchasing histories, website analytics, and anything else you can find.

4. You Have One Chance to Make a First Impression.
In mapping out your customer journey, imagine each touchpoint being experienced by totally new customers — and, that each point may very well be their first interactions with your brand. Write down what impressions you think they would have and what you think the customers’ emotional states are at each stage in their journeys. You could even have a colleague go through the sign-up, welcome, and marketing series processes and provide feedback.

5. Create Personas.
A persona is a model that represents the different types of customers you have. Create a number of different personas that tell the stories of the different people who are interested in your brand. Include names, ages, jobs, families, hobbies and interests, and how they feel about the value and quality of the things they buy.

6. Identify “Moments of Truth.”
In the creation of your map, you will most likely identify points where the desired customer experience doesn’t match what they receive. This is where you must work to improve the process.

7. Create Recommendations.
What recommendations do you have based on what you have learned? What steps should be taken to improve the customer journey? What does your brand promise your customers?

8. Plan Your Email-Marketing Makeover.
With a more complete understanding of your customer journey, you can plan how this knowledge will affect your email-marketing campaigns. Here are a few elements you may need:

• Create better welcome emails;
• Trigger-based transactional emails (like receipts and order confirmations) — with open rates of 50 percent or more — create big opportunities for cross-selling;
• Shopping-cart recovery emails can help recapture abandoned carts, so be sure to track abandoned shopping carts and send emails to those customers;
• Customer-appreciation emails — for instance, tracking birthdays and anniversaries — are important forms of personalization; and
• Reengagement emails can be used to bring back subscribers who have lost interest — and your customer-journey map will provide you with plenty of ideas for enticing them back into the fold.

Once you have mapped your customer journey, you will find great satisfaction in knowing you have gone a long way toward aligning your company goals with your customer needs. It can be a dramatic shift that will breathe fresh air into your organization.

The post Enhancing the Customer Journey With Email Marketing appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/campaign-management/enhancing-customer-journey-email-marketing/