Retargeting

Gone Wrong

Retargeting is the panacea to all problems of the online marketing world, it’s the ultimate answer to cart abandonment and the absolute formula for getting customers back to buy what they strayed away from.

But unfortunately, there’s another side of the coin. And the dark side is, retargeting doesn’t work all the time, in fact, sometimes it does the exact opposite. Here are a few examples of how retargeting can go grossly wrong, some pitfalls you might want to avoid with your retargeting.

Retargeting can actually annoy your customers

More than what marketers feel about retargeting, the question is, how do customers feel about retargeting. According to a survey conducted by InSkin Media, the more consumers are exposed to advertisements of a particular product, the more strongly they despise the brand. And by over exposing customers to the ads, negative impact becomes far greater than the positive impact.

Retargeting is intrusion of privacy

Case in point, Gina a college student, who became pregnant and was looking for pregnancy related information on the internet, was shocked when her parents discovered about her pregnancy because of retargeting ads. Similarly, Tim’s family discovered his not-so-popular sexual orientation due to retargeting ads.

Retargeting can sometimes be based on partial truth

Case in point, Sara, a who works as a researcher, was surfing the Internet for cancer hospitals and treatments available in US. Since Sara was concentrating on pediatric cancer, her research involved around the subject. Sara was taken aback by cancer hospital ads that were crafted around emotionally creating a connect with a parent who’s child has cancer. Most ads were worded around the lines, “…your child has cancer…”, with pictures of cancer struck bald children. The whole experience was very upsetting for Sara.

TLDR

Should companies stop retargeting? No. Not, at all. All said, retargeting still remains a great tool for keen online marketers who have reaped the benefits of retargeting. But companies that opt for retargeting, need to have either a very sophisticated algorithm to pick up genuine interested-prospects from general surfers, or it needs to have some kind of a permission clause that allows companies to see the line between personalization and cyber-stalking.

Marketing

It the Social Way

Not only has marketing changed, the platform of marketing is also going through tremendous changes. Online marketing is evolving to incorporate social media marketing, and social media is acquiring a whole new dimension in itself.

Facebook has acquired social media giants like Instagram, WhatsApp and lately Snapchat. Not only this, the new social video app by YouTube has also opened up new avenues for keen marketers. Find out what’s new in the social space and how you can make most of it.

Facebook Messenger Day

Messenger Day is like Snapchat. The images or videos that are posted on Facebook Messenger Day, will be live for 24 hours only and then will disappear. These messages can be viewed by the audience you choose to show the message to.

The best part about Messenger Day is Facebook is not positioning it as a board where you could post what you’ve done or what you’re doing; Facebook is positioning Messenger Day as a planner for one day in advance, where you can post what you are going to do. This gives marketers the window to help people make plans for the next day. Marketers can send special offers, discounts or even event information to their customer base.

Facebook Stories is again pretty much the same thing, just that Stories lets you share

Facebook Videos

According to a research by Quintly, native videos on Facebook are shared above one thousand percent as compared to any other formats. This is followed by YouTube followed by Vimeo and then others.

Marketers need to understand the power of Facebook videos and create videos that have fun, imaginative or genuinely informative content, for such videos have a better chance of going live.

Instagram’s ‘Suggestions’

Instagram has introduced the feature ‘Suggestions For You’ which provides link suggestions based on your social network, ‘liked’ posts etc. The feature is great news for marketers that are active on the platform, because this will add to the exposure to friends of friends and so on.

WhatsApp’s Broadcast List

Unlike a WhatsApp group, the WhatsApp broadcast list allows businesses to create a list and with a single tap, send one-on-one messages to the entire list. Most people quit WhatsApp groups instantly if it is a marketing related group but with the broadcast list the message goes as a personal message. This comes in handy for sending subtle promotional messages to your friends and people in your personal circle.

YouTube’s Uptime

YouTube’s social media app allows users to watch YouTube videos in group messages with friends. Users can comment or interact real-time while watching videos, pretty much like Facebook Live. This feature is not yet out for everyone and on all devices, but nonetheless, it’s being tested.

Marketers can get full advantage of interactive videos for their broadcasting events, interviews, behind-the-scene videos, new product teasers etc.

Technology in Retail:

Essential Guidelines for Local Businesses

Technology has penetrated deeply in all aspects of our lives. Knowingly or unknowingly a major part of lives has become so tech dependent that technology is no more an option, it is the only resource.

Local business owners, especially retailers, find it difficult to keep up with the ever-evolving technology trends. And on the other hand, there is this fierce competition from big retail chains that are leaving no stones unturned to woo customers through mobile and digital channels. For most retailers, catching up with technology and the huge costs involved in embracing it, is in itself a major turn-off.

If you are a local business owner and are keen on exploring technology for your business, here’s a quick brief on the kind of technology that is used in retail and how you can adopt it.

Mobile Technology

Your customers are increasingly getting dependent on their mobile devices, especially smart phones. There are a number of ways retail businesses can actually go mobile. First and foremost, a responsive website is a must. Responsive website is the kind of website that can open on different screens including computer, tablet, smart phone etc.

Then there is the mobile app. Mobile app provides better customer engagement. However, some small businesses prefer the brick and mortar way of businesses. However, one cannot overlook the importance of mobile apps. Advertising in a popular app makes a whole lot of business sense. You can advertise on social media apps like Facebook, Pinterest etc. or you can advertise on apps like InstaTeam that promote local businesses on their app http://www.instateam.net/#home. You can also get your business listed on the local yellow-pages apps and business directory apps.

Internet of Things

Though the technology seems new and pretty intimidating for technologically challenged, but this sophisticated technology is making life easier and economical for businesses, especially small businesses. Internet of Things (IoT) is nothing but the integration of Internet in everyday objects (things) to enable ordinary things perform extraordinary tasks.

Case in point, Bigbelly. This company manufactures solar powered garbage cans that can sensor how full the can is and can send notifications to officials. Officials in turn can route the trash collecting trucks accordingly saving them unnecessary trips and helping them save costs.

In another instance, RainMachine, a SME revolutionized the irrigation controlling system. The conventional home irrigation systems have been complex and expensive. RainMachine worked out a sophisticated system using sensors, smart phones and real-time local weather updates and came up with automatic irrigation through sprinklers that are triggered by sensors that are linked to weather update. Not only is the system is inexpensive, but it also helped people save costs by reducing their water bills and by helping prevent over or under watering in the garden.

Video

Video is not fancy anymore. It is a basic requirement. Create videos to talk about your brand story, showcase your collection, broadcast your local reach, reach out, foster customer engagement and do so much more. creating videos, sharing them on social media and getting people to comment on it, is perhaps the best PR in the digital age.

Beacons or Geo-tech

Beacons are small, self-contained sensors that broadcast signal to Bluetooth devices in the vicinity. In itself the technology doesn’t really mean a lot, but when combined with the right mobile app, it can do wonders to your business. Imagine a customer walking outside the bakery gets the message that fresh bread has just arrived. Or a retail customer who just arrived near the store, gets the message that since they are in the vicinity of the store, they get a special offer that can be availed within an hour. This type of real-time marketing can actually work very well for the business.

How Mobile is Changing the

Face of Beauty Industry

Beauty and personal care industry is close to 84 million dollars in US alone. The industry is not just huge but also very versatile. From pharmaceutical medicinal products to cosmetic products to natural products, there’s a market for everything. Like every other industry, the beauty & personal-care industry is also going through the digital & mobile evolution, and has some key takeaways for other industries as well.

Going Mobile Savvy

Beauty and personal care customers are as ‘mobile’ as any other industry. In fact according to research, customers aged 18-44 use mobile devices the most for information, reviews and opinion sharing about beauty products. Around 79 percent of customers use their smart phones to check reviews in-store.

Brands that understand the gravity of this huge number, make it a point to make mobile presence. Customer engagement on social media works best. Make it a point to be present on all major social media platforms. Also, be vigilant of both good and bad reviews being posted on the internet. Always acknowledge a customer comment made on social media. Make it a point to especially reply to bad reviews. That does the best patch-up work for a bad review. If you can humbly accept the problem and provide a solution, in many cases it works as good as a positive review, if not better.

Artificial Intelligence & Augmented Reality

Chatbots, virtual make over, simulated makeup, hybrid mobile shopping experience, virtual makeup workshops, interactive tutorials and so much more. The head of Glossier, Emily Weiss was quoted on a popular website Buzzfeed, “Luxury today is getting what you want, how you want it, when you want it, getting a very personalized experience.”

Customer Engagement

As a savvy marketer, you not only send personalized marketing communication to the customer but also foster your customers to interact with the brand. Create contests, social media campaigns, photoshoots, makeovers, training sessions and so much more to get customers engaged with the brand. 

Awesome Customer-Engagement Examples to

Draw Inspiration From

With mobiles, online platforms and digital marketing in place, mere presence across channels does not suffice for marketing. It’s a global market and the competition is so fierce that getting noticed also is a big challenge, let alone getting a piece of the market pie.

Brands need to come up with creative ways to interact and engage with their customers. Channels are just the medium. Here are some great examples of companies and campaigns that successfully created a connect with their customers reinforcing brand loyalty.

• GE launched a smart LED bulb that can be controlled remotely with the app. It’s not just the bulb, a host of devices that connect on Bluetooth and other wireless systems can be linked. Value for the customer – well not really, but can get a great connect with customers who are fond of the toys for big boys!
• Kellogg’s “From great start comes great things” campaign was a big hit with the customers. They glued a mobile call-to-actions on the cereal boxes. When customers called a pre-recorded message by a former Olympian played. For each call that was made, Kellogg donated for food for needy children. There was a great joy-of-giving feeling that worked well with the customers.
• Coffee with newspaper is an awesome example of how you can keep it simple and still get the mobile advantage. Starbucks collaborated with New York Times to bring 12 weeks of free access to NYT through Starbucks’ mobile app. NYT otherwise has its own app that has a subscription fee.
• A simple way of deriving customer engagement through mobile is by offering convenience and replacing paper or PCs with mobiles. Although its is one of the most basic form and is very common, nonetheless it works every time. Pepsi printed codes as SMS call-to-action on the soda cups sold in movie halls. This code made the customers enter sweepstakes that gave them a chance to go to the 86^th Academy Awards Show.

Here’s How You Can Get

Your App Discovered

With over a million apps in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, having your app discovered is a challenge. For every possible requirement there are so many options available, that chances of a newly launched app getting discovered become very grim.

Here are some quick fix ways to get your app noticed.

• Sponsored presence

This is the quickest way to getting noticed. How much you need to pay will depend on the kind of category and the amount of competition. When you do a detailed analysis of ROI on paid presence, you must also note that with every install your rating and presence on the store also gets a boost. As the number of installs increase, the chances of your showing on top also increase.

• In app advertising

In-app advertising is also a great way to get noticed by users. Advertising with popular apps or social media apps gives results faster. For instance, Facebook advertising gives a lot of options to focus on your target group along with a promising window.

• Online advertising

Apart from in-app advertising, placing ads on webpages also provides great exposure to the brand. Through retargeting, you can select the kind of audience you want to focus your ad on.

• Blog

Blogs are a great way to get directly in touch with your target audience. Blogging creates a direct connection with the end users, and if your audience relate to your story, the sale is taken care of.

• Engage customers

Create fun contests, conduct surveys, incentivize social media sharing, likes etc. Social media marketing works on exponential numbers. If the campaign becomes a hit, it can go viral bringing overnight success to your app.