Social Media Marketing: The Effectiveness and How to Generate More Leads

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Social Media Marketing|Social Media Marketing: The Effectiveness and How to Generate More LeadsBusinesses have been using social media marketing for a while now with mixed results. Some businesses find it to be very effective in generating leads, while others find that it doesn’t really do much for them. So, what’s the deal? Is social media marketing worth your time and effort? This blog post will explore the effectiveness of social media marketing and how you can generate more leads from it.

There’s no doubt that social media marketing can be effective if done correctly. In fact, a recent study by HubSpot found that social media is one of the top three most effective lead generation tactics. That being said, simply having a presence on social media isn’t enough. You need to actively engage with your audience and create content that they will find valuable. If you can do this, then you will start to see more leads come in from your social media marketing efforts.

So, how can you generate more leads from social media marketing?

1) Use targeted ads:

Running ads on social media is a great way to reach more people with your message. However, simply running ads is not enough. It would help if you ensured that your ads targeted the right audience. For example, if you sell products for businesses, you would want to target your ads to people working in businesses. You can use the targeting options on each social media platform to ensure that your ads are shown to the right people.

2) Engage with your audience:

As mentioned above, having a social media presence is not enough. You need to actively engage with your audience if you want to generate more leads. This means responding to comments and questions, sharing interesting content, and overall just being active on social media. The more engaged you are, the more likely people will notice your business and eventually become leads.

3) Use social media to drive traffic to your website:

Your website should be the central hub of your online presence. From your website, you can collect leads and sell products or services. Make sure that you’re driving traffic to your website from your social media accounts. You can include links to your website in your posts and bio, run ads that link to your website, and use call-to-actions on your social media posts.

4) Get in touch with a professional:

If you’re serious about generating leads from social media marketing, then you may want to get in touch with a marketing consultant like Chris Boggs. Professionals like Boggs can help you create a social media marketing strategy that is tailored to your business and audience. Then, with a professional’s help, you can maximize the effectiveness of your social media marketing and start seeing more leads come in.

5) Try a lead generation tool:

Several lead generation tools are available that can help you generate leads from social media. These tools allow you to capture leads from your social media followers and turn them into customers. Some popular lead generation tools include LeadPages, OptinMonster, and HubSpot’s Lead Flow tool.

Social media marketing can be an effective way to generate leads for your business. If you can do this, then you will start to see more leads come in from your social media marketing efforts. Try using some of the tips above to get more out of your social media marketing and generate more leads for your business.

How Does a Smart TV Get Ads to the Right People

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Smart TV ads|How Does a Smart TV Get Ads to the Right PeopleNew technology, including devices such as smart TVs, has opened a world of possibilities. Do you want to embrace new opportunities for the betterment of your business? Then you’ll have to keep up with the latest ways to advertise—including automatic content recognition, or ACR for short. So, what does automatic content recognition mean? And how can it be an advantage for your business advertising? Read on to learn more.

Why Use Smart TVs?

Most homeowners these days have upgraded their TVs, especially in the age of content streaming. In the year from 2018 to 2019 alone, ownership of smart TVs went up about 10 percent. With more and more smart TVs in homes, this makes automatic content recognition great for reaching many consumers.

What Is Automatic Content Recognition?

If you’ve never heard the term automatic content recognition before, you’re not alone. While it’s been around for some time, widespread awareness is just beginning.

Automatic content recognition is built into many smart TVs. While it’s not in all of them, more and more ACR-enabled smart TVs are being put out on the market. Most smart TVs, including from popular brands such as Samsung and Vizio, are likely to be ACR enabled.

Two types of automatic content recognition are used to track and provide the data advertisers want. They are broken into audio-based and visual-based ACR. These two categories are also known as acoustic and video fingerprinting.

Audio-based ACR and visual-based ACR essentially provide a way to see and hear what an individual is playing on their smart TV.

The audio signal can come from a tune, song, or frequency, while a video signal can be short clips or stills.

How Does ACR Work?

The process starts when an audio and/or visual signal is captured by the smart TV. This signal is just a snippet instead of a whole program. Once the signal is captured, it’s time to find its match. This is achieved through a wide reference library, which includes existing content snippets from all sorts of television programs, movies, and ads. Once a match is made, the content is identified and recognized.

This isn’t limited to live TV viewing either. ACR also works with on-demand viewing, video games, and devices plugged into an ACR-enabled smart TV, such as a Blu-ray player.

What Data Is Gathered Through ACR?

ACR shows a lot of helpful information to advertisers.

To start, it can determine on what platform an ad was played, such as live TV, video on demand, or a connected device.

Another type of information gained through ACR is the demographic of the viewer, including their IP addresses, email addresses, and/or street addresses.

This data can show the viewing habits of the smart TV’s owner, such as the times they watch their devices, how much or how little they channel surf, the type of content they watch, if they view ads and/or content in their entirety or skip or don’t finish viewing, or how long they typically watch a smart TV for.

As you can see, ACR data gives a good picture of individual smart TV viewers. So how can you use that to your business’s advantage?

How Can Businesses Use ACR Data to Find the Right People?

Automatic content recognition is another evolution of the targeted-based approach to advertising that has become very popular in recent years. The data gathered is very helpful for targeting specific groups.

The improved targeting of ACR takes into consideration things like viewing timeframes and the media watched. This is one of the ways it helps you target very specific groups.

ACR allows for frequency optimization, which ensures ads are shown at the best times and rates. Your business’s ads will reach as many viewers as possible.

Another way ACR allows your business’s ads to be viewed by more specific—and ideally targeted—groups is through reach control. Do you want to reach different people this time? The control allows you to skip households you’ve already targeted. Or are you interested in getting your ads across to loyal customers? Reach control helps with that too.

ACR data also helps measure viewership and ad performance. This includes measuring the overlap between who saw the ad while watching live TV versus streaming. It can also target ads to viewers when they’re on other devices, such as a laptop or smartphone, instead of their smart TV.

ACR data can even make sure an individual only sees the ads a certain number of times a week. That way, they’re aware of your business but not so oversaturated with ads that they refuse to consider you because they’re annoyed.
You can also work the data you’ve received from ACR into your actual ad campaigns—yet another targeting method.

Put simply, by taking advantage of this technology, ads for your business will be seen by the type of people who would buy what you’re selling.

Why Should a Business Owner Trust ACR’s Effectiveness?

The proof of ACR’s success in advertising doesn’t lie. Businesses have found that, in addition to driving up online traffic, ACR also brings new customers in-store or on location.

Technology is ever-evolving at a faster and faster rate. Sometimes, advertisers can tell when certain developments are no more than a passing trend. However, many advertising and marketing agencies have reshaped their approaches based on the success of ACR.
By using the helpful data received by ACR, marketers for your business can make better, more informed decisions about TV advertisements. It’s proved to be precise and accurate. So why not try it and see how well your business’ ads can reach the right people? Turn to us at Digital Marketing Group. We’ll devise the perfect strategy so you can start reaping the benefits of ACR.

We make it our mission to keep up with the latest developments in technology and digital media. This includes automatic content recognition, the metaverse, and so much more. When you work with us to market your business, you can trust you’re getting a head start. We’ll help you reach an audience you may not have known was possible. Find more information about Digital Marketing Group on our website.

Google Ads: 5 Mistakes Beginners Often Make

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Google Ads|Google Ads: 5 Mistakes Beginners Often MakeUsing Google ads for the first time can be a bit of a baptism of fire. Mistakes can be very costly and leave a large hole in your marketing budget for very little return.

The rewards are there if you know how to get them. Using a Google ads specialist, for instance, will ensure that you don’t make any rookie errors and get the best return on your investment in terms of driving traffic to your site and winning new customers.

Here is a look at some of the classic mistakes that are often made when you are unfamiliar with how to get the best out of Google ads.

Understand how to set your budget correctly

The way that Google works seems straightforward when it comes to setting a daily and monthly budget spend but it can be all too easy to overspend.

The confusion comes from the fact that you enter a daily limit for your marketing budget but could end up almost doubling that figure. The reason for this is down to the fact that Google averages out your spending over 30 days.

A good way of budgeting accurately would be to use an account spending limit. That way you know that you will have a better chance of avoiding an overspend scenario.

Learn about pinning

A lot of Google ads newbies tend to pin every headline and description response. The problem with that is it does not give Google the flexibility it needs to combine your assets in a variety of different ways.

Aim to only pin the most important descriptions and headlines that you want to be included in your ad copy.

Make sure you exclude display network

When you are setting up your search campaign it is essential that you omit the Display Network option and opt for a separate Display Campaign instead.

The reason for doing this is that it gives you much better attribution. This allows you to get more informative insights into the effectiveness of each campaign.

Don’t be tempted by auto-applied recommendations

Google Ads has started selling its ad performance recommendations. These operate without human intervention and do not give you the results and performance you might be expecting.

The best approach is to opt out of this and navigate your way around the recommendation tab within Google Ads to choose the recommendations manually. Once you know which ones are best for you it is then possible to manipulate the auto-recommendations to your preferences.

Check your conversion settings

It is vital that you set up your conversions accurately. If you don’t, you will suffer the consequences of inaccurate or broken conversion tracking. Your decisions could also be based on incorrect assumptions and data.

A good housekeeping strategy would be to review the conversion setting on a regular basis. That gives you the opportunity to pause any conversions that are no longer required. This will make tracking easier and more effective.

It is perfectly possible to create a Google Ad campaign that really hits the spot and delivers great results. You just need to have the know-how to be able to use the system and settings to your best advantage.

Proven Strategies To Boost Your Video Marketing Plan

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Video marketing|Proven Strategies To Boost Your Video Marketing PlanVideo marketing is one of the indispensable elements of a digital marketing plan. You cannot overlook video channels because visuals are more impactful than text on any day. They have the power to capture attention and hold it for the long haul, so you can imagine how they can fuel your brand. Although videos make the most potent content form, the competition on these marketing channels is daunting. Even the best content pieces may get only a handful of views. You may need to go the extra mile to make a mark. Let us share some proven strategies to boost your video marketing plan.

Pick a relevant focus area

Making videos is easier than ever as you can pick online tools and editors to create professional-looking pieces in just a few minutes. But you must not create randomly just because you have a tool to help. Pick a focus area to match the intent of your target audience to attract and maintain them. Ideally, your content should provide them with the information they want or need.

Create quality content

The internet has endless pieces of video content, and you need to offer compelling ones to compete. The last thing you should do is to create videos only to keep your YouTube channel busy. Invest time and effort in generating creative ideas and producing videos. You may even seek professional production services to create aesthetically-superior ones. But remember to serve value in some way, whether by answering questions, solving a problem, or introducing your brand.

Win with video SEO

Just creating great videos does not ensure marketing success. A lot depends on making them visible and enticing the audience to click them over the others. Video SEO covers these fronts, so you must master the strategy. The good thing is that it is quite similar to conventional SEO as you need to include relevant keywords in video titles and descriptions. Customizing the thumbnail, adding strong CTAs, and using interactive features like end screens can do the rest. You can leverage your SEO skills to make your videos rank better in search engines.

Prioritize education over selling

Another strategy that can help you ace the YouTube game is to prioritize education over selling. For example, a video that explains how to use a product or how it can help you solve a problem is more likely to hook a customer than a simple ad that only compels them to buy. Steer clear from over-promoting your brand and offerings, and share valuable content that sells subtly through education.

Maintain a consistent schedule

A consistent posting schedule is another proven way to win the video marketing game. But do not overwhelm the audience by posting too often. The best way to retain attention on these channels is to publish less frequently but ensure you have something that keeps the viewers waiting for more. Pros recommend posting within two to three days as it gives viewers enough time to absorb the content and get excited about the next piece.
There is no shortcut to ace video marketing, and a one-size-fits-all approach also does not work. But you can rely on these tactics to achieve the best outcomes.

The Metaverse and the Future of Video Production Content

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Metaverse|The Metaverse and the Future of Video Production ContentThe world has been waiting for the metaverse, an imagined virtual space where people can ?do whatever they want. The next generation of networking technology may finally give us this dream with its ability to merge our digital lives seamlessly into one cohesive reality – but at what cost?

The impact of the metaverse on the film industry is already being felt, with production companies scrambling to adapt their business models to a world where traditional distribution channels are no longer relevant. As Julian Anderson, Immersive Experience Creator and Co-Founder of Hot Dark Matter said to video production London company Ideal Insight:

“Within the Metaverse, consumers will ?enjoy films on screen or in Virtual or Augmented Reality, and may even ?interact as part of the narrative. Therefore, for films to be ‘Metaverse ready’, they will need to be produced differently.”

But this is just the beginning. Not only are the metaverse and technology advancements transforming the film industry, it is also affecting the process of video production capabilities for businesses and their marketing processes.

Let’s ?look at how this is happening.

Provision of Fully Immersive Environments for Video Content Production

As the demand for high-quality video content continues to grow, so does the need for more immersive and realistic environments in which to produce it. Traditional green screen studios have their limitations, whereas the metaverse is a fully immersive virtual world that can be used for video production.

This provides a huge advantage for the marketing department of organisations who want to push the boundaries of what is possible by promoting their products or services, and this opens up new possibilities for collaboration and creativity.

Viewers will ?step into virtual worlds and explore them at their own pace, discovering new things along the way. This could ?create interactive marketing campaigns or educational videos that allow viewers to learn in a fun and engaging way. It could also ?create immersive experiences for product launches or brand activations.

Businesses can place ads in virtual worlds and target them at specific demographics. They will also be able to use the metaverse to host paid events or charge for access to premium content.

Perhaps one day we’ll all have implants in our brains that allow us to communicate telepathically or travel through time. But for now, the metaverse is a promising new platform that has already captured some major attention-grabbing investors, including Facebook and Microsoft.

AI-Powered Content Creation

The Metaverse will also enable the development of new AI-powered content creation tools. These will help businesses to automate the production of high-quality video content, making it easier and faster to create engaging and informative videos.

As the technology matures, it is likely that these tools will become increasingly sophisticated and widely used by businesses of all sizes, leading to an enhancement in brand reputation and loyalty.

By producing high-quality video content in virtual worlds, businesses will ?create a strong emotional connection with their audience. In a world where businesses are constantly competing for attention, the metaverse provides a powerful new tool for differentiating themselves from the competition.

Conclusion

As businesses move away from physical locations and into virtual spaces, they will need videos to help explain what their products or services are and how they can be used. As we enter the metaverse era, don’t be surprised if video production becomes an essential part of many organisations’ marketing strategies.

The film industry is already embracing video production technology enhancements. Will other businesses embrace that and the metaverse? Time will tell.