Unit-3

Acquiring & Engaging Users through Digital

Channels: Understanding the relationship between
content and branding and its impact on sales, search
engine marketing, mobile marketing, video marketing,
and social-media marketing. Marketing gamification,
Online campaign management; using marketing
analytic tools to segment, target and position;
overview of search engine optimization (SEO).
 Understanding the relationship between content and branding
and its impact on sales

Content marketing-
"Content marketing’s purpose is to attract and
retain customers by consistently creating and
curating relevant and valuable content with
the intention of changing or enhancing
consumer behavior. It is an ongoing process
that is best integrated into your overall
marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning
media, not renting it."
 Inbound Marketing vs Content Marketing

Content marketing refers to the act of sharing knowledge, advice, or

entertainment in a consumable format that may include:
• Blog articles
• Videos
• Podcasts (a digital audio file made available on the Internet for
downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available
as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers
automatically)
• Social media marketing
• Emails
• Webinars
• Info graphics(a visual representation of information or data, e.g. as a chart
or diagram)
• Cartoons
• Quizzes
• Generators/Calculators
• Assessments
• Apps
 INBOUND MARKETING
It is more focused on using tactics like content marketing to
generate and nurture leads towards a sale. Inbound
includes all aspects of digital marketing and sales.
Another distinction between content marketing and
inbound marketing is how they target their marketing.
Content marketing focuses on a broad "target audience"
and inbound focuses on specific "buyer personas”.
Examples of inbound marketing include content
marketing, blogging, SEO, and opt-in email marketing. In
addition, paid search advertising is considered inbound
marketing, because your ads only appear when people
are searching for products or services that you offer.
 Outbound marketing
It refers to any kind of marketing where a
company initiates the conversation and sends
its message out to an audience. its examples
include more traditional forms of marketing
and advertising such as TV commercials, radio
ads, print advertisements (newspaper ads,
magazine ads, flyers, brochures, catalogs,
etc.), tradeshows, outbound sales calls (AKA
"cold calls"), and email spam.
 Advantages of content marketing
1. More on-site content. It may seem like a simple
observation, but more time spent on content
marketing means you'll have more content on
your site.
2. Higher visibility in search engines. Every new
post you add to your blog is another page that
Google's going to index. More pages doesn't
always correlate with more search traffic, but
having more quality pages indexed can grant you
more opportunities to rank for more search
queries.
3. Higher domain authority. Writing more,
higher quality content will increase the
perceived expertise, authority, relevance, and
trust of your site. If that content earns more
inbound links from external sources, your
website's domain authority will increase even
further.
4. More referral traffic. This one depends on
your commitment to the guest publishing
portion of your content strategy. When you
contribute to external publications as a guest,
you'll have the opportunity to link back to
your site.
5. More social traffic (and followers!). Syndicate
your content on your social media platforms for
increased exposure. If you do this, more users will
see and read your material--plus, users will have
the opportunity to share your content with their
friends and followers, greatly increasing your
circle of followers.
6. Increased conversion potential. Your primary
objectives with content are to engage, inform,
help, and bring value for your readers. Once
that's taken care of, you can use any remaining
space you have to pitch one of your products or
services. If done tactfully, you can easily increase
the number of conversions you get.
7. Improved brand reputation. When people read
your material, they'll be building an impression of
your brand. If they find what they read helpful,
informative, or enlightening, they'll think more
highly of your brand.
8. Tighter customer/reader relationships. A greater
brand reputation can help with the size and
recognition of your audience, but great content
can also increase the loyalty and closeness of
your customer relationships. If you use personal
brands of individuals to write and share content,
your customers could develop a more personal
relationship with your company. If they start to
rely on you as a primary source of information,
their loyalty will be all but guaranteed for as long
as they buy your products.
9. Decreased marketing costs and compounding
value. Content marketing only costs time. It's
incredibly cost-effective, and even better--it
offers compounding returns. Your first few
months of a content marketing strategy might
not yield much in the way of results, but your
next few months will start to see growth. The
few months after that will see more growth.
By the time you're a few years in, your return
could easily quadruple your investment (or
more), consistently.
 CONTENT AND BRANDING
AND IT`S IMPACT ON SALES
• Content and Branding is at the heart of most
successful digital marketing campaigns.
Behind every great brand is a wealth of
valuable and relevant content that help in
formation of brand which really connects with
the company’s audience.
1. Improve brand reputation by building trust through
content marketing.
One of the greatest benefits that really shows the
importance of content marketing is the reputation
building qualities of great content. In today’s busy
digital marketplace, it’s vital that businesses work to
build trust with their leads and customers. Building
trust can help your business establish a positive brand
reputation.
Great content can help you build trust with your leads
and customers. When consumers read your content,
they start to develop an opinion of your brand. If the
content that they find is engaging, educational, and
valuable, then they will start to think the same things
about your business. The more value you can provide
with your content, the easier it will be to build trust
with your target audience.
2. Great content helps influence conversions.
Here are just a few of the stats that really speak to the importance of
content marketing when it comes to improving website
conversions:
• Content marketing provides conversion rates about 6 times
higher than other digital marketing methods. (ABG
Essentials)
• After reading recommendations on a blog, 61% of online
consumers in the U.S. then decided to make a purchase.
(Content Marketing Institute) According to 74% of
companies surveyed, content marketing has increased their
marketing leads, both in quantity and quality. (Curata)
• Video content can help provide a great ROI and significantly
increase conversions, according to 72% of businesses
surveyed. (CrazyEgg)
• Inbound marketers are able to double the average site
conversion rate (from 6 to 12%), in part due to their
content marketing efforts. (HubSpot)
3. Optimized content helps improve your SEO efforts.
SEO plays an important part in improving visibility for
your business online. However, if you want to improve
SEO, you need to create optimized content.
According to Tech Client, content creation is the most
effective SEO technique. In fact, business sites that post
consistent blog content have on average of 434% more
pages indexed by search engines than those that don’t
publish at all. The more content you have on your site,
the more pages the search engine has to index and
show to users in their search engine results.
Though more pages does not necessarily result in higher
traffic, it does give your brand the opportunity to rank
for more keywords. For instance, creating blogs on
different topics that are relevant to your target
audience gives you more chances to rank for the
keywords that these target users are searching for on
the search engines.
4. Creating great content is a cost-effective way to
bring in new leads.
For those wondering why is content marketing
important, take a look at all of the ways that
content can help your business bring in new
leads. Lead generation is important for small
businesses that rely on consistent traffic to grow
their brand and boost sales. Content marketing is
not only great for lead generation, but it’s also
affordable.
Though content marketing costs about 62%
less than traditional marketing tactics, it
generates about 3 times as many leads, according
to DemandMetric. The affordability of content
marketing makes it a necessary tactic for small
businesses that want to maximize their budget.
5. Content enables your brand to showcase your subject
matter expertise.
Consumers want to know that they are dealing with
experts who know the ins and outs of the industry. This
is another answer to why is content marketing
important. Content marketing allows your brand to
demonstrate its expertise in the field while providing
valuable knowledge that can help readers make a more
educated purchasing decision.
Every time that you publish a new blog post, white paper,
or other piece of content, you’re showing leads and
customers how much you know about the industry and
the challenges that they face. When it comes time to
make a purchase, consumers will remember the brand
that provided them with the information they needed
to better understand their problems, solutions, and
other options.
6. Want to build relationships with customers? Publish great
content.
Repeat customers are the bread and butter of many small
businesses. In fact, according to BIA Kelsey, 61% of SMBs
say that half of their revenue is coming from repeat
customers. Furthermore, Marketing Tech Blog reports that
a loyal customer is worth, on average, up to 10x as much as
their first purchase.
It’s clear that loyal customers are nothing but an advantage to
your business. If repeat sales make up a significant portion
of your company’s revenue, then you’ll need to find ways to
strengthen your relationships with current customers.
This is where content marketing comes in. Providing great
content doesn’t stop after a lead becomes a customer.
Content that provides value for your customer base will
help increase brand loyalty by strengthening the
relationships you have with customers. This can encourage
repeat sales and help you establish powerful brand
advocates.
7. Your leads and customers want
great content!
8. Content marketing helps you set yourself apart from
competitors.
it’s vital that your small business differentiates itself from
competitors. This is the importance of content
marketing. Content marketing is an effective way that
small businesses can work to set themselves apart
from others in the industry and show what makes their
company special.
The topics that you create content around and the value
of the content you provide can mean the difference
between a consumer choosing your brand over a
competitor’s. For instance, if a buyer is doing research
about their challenges and certain products that can
help solve those challenges, they will be more inclined
to work with the business that’s provided them with
helpful information.
 SEM
• Search Engine-a program that searches for and
identifies items in a database that correspond to
keywords or characters specified by the user, used
especially for finding particular sites on the World
Wide Web.
• Search engine marketing (SEM) is a digital
marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of
a website in search engine results pages (SERPs).
• While the industry term once referred to both
organic search activities such as search engine
optimization (SEO) and paid, it now refers almost
exclusively to paid search advertising.
• Search engine marketing is also alternately
referred to as paid search or pay per click (PPC).
 SEM vs. SEO
• “Search Engine Marketing" refers to paid search
marketing, a system where businesses pay Google
to show their ads in the search results.
• Search engine optimization, or SEO, is different
because businesses don't pay Google for traffic and
clicks; rather, they earn a free spot in in the search
results by having the most relevant content for a
given keyword search.
• Both SEO and SEM should be fundamental parts of
your online marketing strategy. SEO is a powerful
way to drive evergreen traffic at the top of the
funnel, while search engine advertisements are a
highly cost-effective way to drive conversions at
the bottom of the funnel.
 Keywords: The Foundation of Search
Engine Marketing
• As users enter keywords (as part of search queries) into
search engines to find what they’re looking for, it
should come as little surprise that keywords form the
basis of search engine marketing as an advertising
strategy.
• First, you need to identify keywords that are relevant
to your business and that prospective customers are
likely to use when searching for your products and
services. One way to accomplish this is by using
WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool.
• Simply enter a keyword that’s relevant to your business
or service, and see related keyword suggestion ideas
that can form the basis of various search engine
marketing campaigns.
SEO Process to rank website in Google
Step 1: Keyword Research
Keyword research is a process of identifying the
most important keywords for our website.
Keyword research requires keyword research
tools which can help us find the most relevant
keywords for our website.
You can use keyword research tools like SemRush,
keywordtool.io and kwfinder to do keyword
research for SEO
Step 2: Competition Analysis
Identify who are your competition by doing
competition analysis. You can do competition
analysis using various SEO software and
competition analysis tools.
1. SpyFu
2. QuickSprout
3. SEMrush
4. SimilarWeb
Step 3: SEO Audit
Audit current website and ranking of current
website for selected keywords, this will give you
basic idea about what can be improved on your
website. SEO Audit is very important part of SEO
Process.
Step 4: On-Page SEO Optimization
Identifying On-page optimization requirements and
site structure
Step 5 : Off-Page Optimization
Build links, promote your website in social media
Step 6: Measure results : Traffic and Rankings
• SEO is not one-time activity. You need to keep
updating your content, keep creating new
content on regular basis. If you don’t monitor
ranking and update your content you may not be
able to maintain your ranking.
• There are many tools available which will help
you to monitor ranking of your website. Tools like
seoprofiler, SEMRush, webceo can be used for
monitoring ranking.
SEO is complex and requires continuous

practice. You need to keep your knowledge

updated to maintain ranking of your website

or your client’s website.

 SEM PROCESS
1
Consider hiring a SEO firm or marketing professional.
 2
Do keyword research
• Finding out which keywords are the most profitable and
popular for your site will be useful for SEO and paid search
advertising. Conduct searches using what you consider to
be your most popular keywords. Judge the relevance based
on your competition.
• If that search pulls up competitors and products that offer
what you offer, then you may try to get a larger share of
that market. If the search terms don't bring up similar
products, change your terms to try to find more specific
words that will be more profitable.
• Do some paid advertising for research. Set up Pay-Per-Click
campaigns using your top keywords on Google AdWords
and/or Microsoft adCenter. Determine the number of sales
you achieve for your ad to get a percentage.
Analyze the profitability of your keywords by establishing the profit you get
from the clicks you receive. Determine how many dollars you reap per 100
visitors. For example, if you receive 1000 clicks from a PPC campaign and you
make a profit of $4000, then each click is worth $4.
 3
Structure your website with a clear hierarchy. Each site should have at least 1
static text link. In order for a link to be popular and achieve high search
engine ranking, it should be easy to find, remember and access.
 4
Avoid hiding your keywords inside rich media. While Ajax, Adobe
Flash Player or JavaScript might improve the look of your website,
the information in your site will be encrypted(convert into code) so
that search engine crawlers cannot see it. Choose straight forward
web design whenever possible.
 5
Use simple URLs that contain keywords. Each
page of important content should contain at
least 1 of your profitable keywords. Simplify
your URLs before you post content to your
site.
 6
Hire writers to create SEO content.
Articles, videos, tutorials and other content should contain your profitable
keywords in the URL, headline, first sentence and first paragraphs. This
concentration will create a higher ranking on search engines.
 7
Use landing pages. Creating an attractive page for your content that
addresses your customer's needs will increase your conversion rate. Landing
pages can be set up to track important search engine data, so that you can
evaluate them next to your general website homepage.
 8
Create high-quality content. Most search
engines recommend that you invest in high-
quality, customer oriented content. The more
you encourage people to return to your
website, the more popular the link is and the
ranking will be higher on search engines.
 9
Change title and ALT(alternate) attributes on
content so that they are descriptive. These
are the attributes that are often hidden from
view, but they describe your website content
to the search engines. Each piece of media
should contain your lucrative keywords and be
both descriptive and simple.
 MOBILE MARKETING

Mobile marketing is promotional activity designed

for delivery to cell phones, smart phones and

other handheld devices, usually as a component

of a multi-channel campaign. Search

engine marketing is the second-most common

channel, followed by display-based campaigns.

• Availability of quick services anytime
People want good, easy and quick services. They
are looking for a service provider which can fulfill
their requirements anytime, anywhere, and can
be easily reached. A company can contact a user
via mobile marketing techniques. A customer can
also send feedback easily.
• Mobile has become an undetachable part of life
Mobile is a necessary part of daily life. It can
easily carried to anywhere and that’s why
becomes a favorite device for e-shopping in
leisure time.
• Importance of Mobile advertisement
Advertising on mobile sites or directly to mobile
seems more effective in marketing.
• Mobile is not only used for e-shopping but also used
in physical store
A physical store also uses mobile services for providing
services and advertising. Many store will save your
number to notify you about special products and
discounts offers.
• SMS Marketing
SMS and MMS marketing bring a tremendous change
in marketing. Now users are getting offers and
discounts or get notified for sale via sms or mms.
• Mobile search index becomes primary contents for
ranking
Google is going to make search index based on mobile
search ranking rather than desktop search ranking. So
your website search ranking will be based on mobile
searching rather than desktop searching.
 VEDIO MARKETING
• In this ,video are used to promote or market
your brand, product or service. A strong
marketing campaign incorporates video into
the mix.
• For ex- Customer testimonials, videos from
live events, how-to videos, explainer videos,
corporate training videos, viral
(entertainment) videos.
 The Benefits of Video Marketing
Video is a Gold Mine for SEO-It can increase your
search engine ranking, click-through rates, open
rates and conversions. But you have to reach your
target audience. YouTube is the second largest
search engine.

Video Boosts Conversion Rates-A recent study

found that 57 percent of online consumers were
more likely to buy a product they were
considering purchasing after watching a video
demonstration of that product.
Video is Easily Accessible - There are endless platforms for video
marketing. YouTube, broadcast television, video boards and
street marketing, you name it. The possibilities are endless. With
a smartphone, consumers can access online video anytime,
anywhere. The same is not true with traditional, paper
marketing. With video, you can reach your audience wherever
they are in a cost-effective way.

Video is Effective- Studies show that retention rates for

information that is both seen and heard is as high as 80 percent.
Those numbers drop to 20 percent for information that is seen
and just 10 percent for information that is heard. Combining
visual and audio is powerful.

Video is Emotional - Video allows you to make a direct appeal to

the emotional center of a person’s brain through music. With
video, you are also able to attach a face to a concept. The
human connection through video is more influential than
reading facts in text. See an example of an emotionally
appealing video below.
 How to Develop a Video Marketing
Campaign?
• Developing a video marketing campaign is most
often accomplished by conducting market
research, competitive analysis and gathering
target market insights. Once you have this
information and can shape your strategy, you
can determine the message.
• What do you want your audience to hear, see
and feel? What message are you trying to
convey? What is the call to action?
 MARKETING GAMIFICATION
• Gamification is a process where you take the
essence of what makes games so “fascinating
and irresistible” and integrate them into non-
game experiences. When doing this, you add
elements to your site or app like: rewards,
challenges and much more.
• This will trigger a sense of achievement and
make use of the competitive nature in people,
encouraging them to use the app/website
even more, because they’ll enjoy it.
 PROS AND CONS OF GAMIFICATION
Pros-
It increases the engagement of customers, prospects &
partners. Rewarding them (it doesn’t’ have to be
something materialistic, it can also be recognition or
even valuable content) can increase their loyalty and
positive feeling towards your business.
It speaks to the sense of achievement & competition of
the people. People want to be noticed and get
rewarded. Performing better than their peers will leave
them with a sense of achievement.
It will help your prospects identify each other. Having
gamification tools, can help you segment your
prospects, so you can make them a more personalized
offer.
• Cons-
Gamification can sometimes be applied in a generic
way. Some enterprises think that by adding
leader boards and badges to some processes,
they’re creating a fun experience. It’s more than
that, it’s important to have a balance between
collaboration and competition.
Playing along shouldn’t be mandatory. If enterprises
force their employees to play along, the fun in it
would be gone.
Games at work can get tedious. Ex- Candy Crush or
Farmville. It’s a challenge for developers to keep
games innovating, fun and motivating.
 Gamification in your marketing strategy
• Get a good overview of what you believe could use a little
help of the gamification magic. Think about your goals,
more traffic, more engagement… when you do this.

• Pay attention to what your audience wants, it’s important

to keep your audience in mind when you think of a game.
What’s going to work for them and what will appeal to
them the most? A game will not be the same for an older
audience than for a younger audience.

• Don’t go big when you are just thinking about

implementing gamification, don’t go overboard, instead
start with little steps. Start with a simple game to see how
it goes. Let your customers have little challenges and
quizzes to reward them. Like this company did with mobile
quizzes during an event.
 ONLINE CAMPAIN MANAGEMENT
• Marketing campaign management is the
planning, executing, tracking and analysis of
direct marketing campaigns. These tasks span
the entire lifecycle of a marketing campaign,
from inception to launch to evaluation of
result.
• To be successful, every marketing campaign
should address following aims:
Audience segmentation-
The first step in marketing campaign
management is to define and categorize
audience segments (also known as customer
segmentation).
Marketers often use demographic information
such as age, gender, residence or location as
attributes to define categories, along with
numerous other predefined attributes.
Audience segmentation enables marketers to
target campaign messages and content to the
appropriate recipients.
Successful use of audience segmentation begins
with building customer profiles to understand
customers’ behaviors and preferences.
For instance, a travel company might send a
quiz to gauge customer interests and
personalize travel options. With a high level of
participation, the quiz can provide a wealth of
personal data the company can use to target
offers to customers.
Content development-
Marketers focus on creating informative content
that educates an audience not just about a
specific product or service, but often about
the larger market or context in which that
service sits.
Much of this content creation has come to be
known as inbound marketing, which is the
method of targeting audience members with
informative content and drawing them back to
company websites, social media platforms or
other online destinations that marketers use
to engage customers.
Email automation.
Email automation enables marketers to segment audience lists
automatically and schedule message drops in advance. Instead of
having to create lists and schedule delivery manually, marketing
automation enables segmentation and delivery to happen
automatically. There are several types of tactical automated emails
to use, including the following:
• Auto responders: Follow-up email messages sent after someone
has filled out a form. The purpose is to reinforce the brand and
deliver the requested content to the correct email address.
• Sales Nurturing Emails: Marketers can help sales teams by creating
nurturing programs to scale follow-up efforts, and let sales know
when to reach out to current or potential customers.
• Snack able Content Emails: Most commonly used in nurturing
programs, snack able content is short and meant to be shared.
Their purpose is to drive brand engagement.
• Invitational Emails: Used to invite people to webinars, events, and
other special campaigns, with the goal of having the person register
and confirm interest.
• Identifier Emails: Used to determine a customer’s stage in the
buyers’ journey. The goal is to have the customer self-select into a
stage of the buyers’ journey by taking direct action via a link click.
Message personalization-

Message personalization and ad retargeting are

marketing techniques designed to show
prospects and customers that “you know them.”
With message personalization, a company may
send an email that features a certain category of
products that a customer has previously browsed
online. Ad retargeting will display a company’s
banner ads in a search browser, even after the
user has stopped searching on that site.
In 2013, it increased email revenue by 8% when it
switched from sending dreaded email “blasts” to
personalizing send time based on time zones and
past opening behaviors of their customers.
MARKETING ANALYTICS TOOL TO
STP
The STP Model consists of three steps that help you
analyze your offering and the way you communicate its
benefits and value to specific groups.
STP stands for:
Step 1: Segment your market.
Step 2: Target your best customers.
Step 3: Position your offering.
This model is useful because it helps you identify your
most valuable types of customer, and then develop
products and marketing messages that ideally suit
them. This allows you to engage with each group
better, personalize your messages, and sell much more
of your product.
Step 1: Segment Your Market
Your organization, product or brand can't be all things to all
people. This is why you need to use market segmentation to
divide your customers into groups of people with common
characteristics and needs. This allows you to tailor your
approach to meet each group's needs cost-effectively, and
this gives you a huge advantage over competitors who use a
"one size fits all" approach.
There are many different ways to segment your target markets.
For example, you can use the following approaches:
• Demographic – By personal attributes such as age, marital
status, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, education, or occupation.
• Geographic – By country, region, state, city, or neighborhood.
• Psychographic – By personality, risk aversion, values, or
lifestyle.
• Behavioral – By how people use the product, how loyal they
are, or the benefits that they are looking for.
Example
The Adventure Travel Company is an online travel
agency that organizes worldwide adventure
vacations. It has split its customers into three
segments, because it's too costly to create
different packages for more groups than this.
Segment A is made up of young married couples,
who are primarily interested in affordable, eco-
friendly vacations in exotic locations.
Segment B consists of middle-class families, who
want safe, family-friendly vacation packages that
make it easy and fun to travel with children.
Segment C comprises upscale retirees, who are
looking for stylish and luxurious vacations in well-
known locations such as Paris and Rome.
Step 2: Target Your Best Customers
Next, you decide which segments to target by finding the most
attractive ones. There are several factors to consider here.
First, look at the profitability of each segment. Which customer groups
contribute most to your bottom line?
Next, analyze the size and potential growth of each customer group.
Is it large enough to be worth addressing? Is steady growth
possible? And how does it compare with the other segments?
(Make sure that you won't be reducing revenue by shifting your
focus to a niche market that's too small.)
Last, think carefully about how well your organization can service this
market. For example, are there any legal, technological or social
barriers that could have an impact? Conduct a PEST Analysis to
understand the opportunities and threats that might affect each
segment.
Example
The Adventure Travel Company analyzes the
profits, revenue and market size of each of its
segments. Segment A has profits of
$8,220,000, Segment B has profits of
$4,360,000, and Segment C has profits of
$3,430,000. So, it decides to focus on Segment
A, after confirming that the segment size is big
enough (it's estimated to be worth
$220,000,000/year.)
Step 3: Position Your Offering
• In this last step, your goal is to identify how you want to
position your product to target the most valuable customer
segments. Then, you can select the marketing mix that will
be most effective for each of them.
• First, consider why customers should purchase your product
rather than those of your competitors. Do this by identifying
your unique selling proposition , and draw a positioning
map to understand how each segment perceives your
product, brand or service. This will help you determine how
best to position your offering.
• Next, look at the wants and needs of each segment, or the
problem that your product solves for these people. Create
a value proposition that clearly explains how your offering
will meet this requirement better than any of your
competitors' products, and then develop a marketing
campaign that presents this value proposition in a way that
your audience will appreciate.
Example
The Adventure Travel Company markets itself as the "best
eco-vacation service for young married couples"
(Segment A).
It hosts a competition on Instagram® and Pinterest® to
reach its desired market, because these are the
channels that these people favor. It asks customers to
send in interesting pictures of past eco-vacations, and
the best one wins an all-inclusive trip.
The campaign goes viral and thousands of people send in
their photos, which helps build the Adventure Travel
Company mailing list. The company then creates a
monthly e-newsletter full of eco-vacation destination
profiles.