5 Must-Have Tools for Every Startup

Let face it – you are struggling to get your startup on track but failing to manage everything on your own.  Well, you surely don’t have enough budget and investors to assemble a top-tier marketing team, nor do you have enough time to learn the basics of everything and become jack-of-all-trades.

In fact, the age of “if you build it, they will come” strategy is long gone and is never going to provide you the same exposure that it did in the past. However, making use of some tools will get you started in the right track and give you enough space to kick-start your profitable business in no time.

Check out these 5 must-have tools for every startups.

1. Content Marketing Tools

It has been reported that fifty-eight percent of B2B marketers increased their budget for content marketing in 2015. Content marketing tools are considered as the back-bone of most online businesses today as they help in creating, distributing, and measuring effectiveness of their contents. Here are a few content marketing tools that can be useful:

• Google Analytics – Google’s analytics tool makes it easy to customize reports, measure the impact of social media and mobile on website traffic.
• Alexa – Though this tool is currently neglected by many, it provides data and global rankings for commercial websites and their effectiveness on the web.
• SEMRush – This tool helps to track keywords and rankings, both paid and organic.
• Moz – This platform can be used to monitor social media, manage SEO campaigns, and measure different online metrics.

2. Social Media Marketing Tools

Social media is considered the future of online marketing and if you are to make you start up a word-of-mouth, you need to start promoting you or your brand on social media starting on day 1. While there are several social media platforms available, using them one at a time might be time-consuming and boring. There’s no need to worry as social media marketing tools are there to back you up. From creating, curating, managing, scheduling and analyzing, these tools will empower your brand to capitalize the market. Here are a few that might be helpful for you:

• Buffer– From creating a posting schedule to different social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and G+ pages, Buffer is a all-in-one social media marketing tool.
• IFTTT– Another all-in-one tool that has recipes for your social media needs, IFTTT lets you post, read and do all sort of things with almost all social media platforms available.
• Social Rank– This tool helps you to identify, organize and manage your followers and potential customers on different social media platforms.

3. Email Marketing Tools

Email marketing is probably the oldest and still one of the best ways that is proven, effective and important for any kind of businesses and startups. No matter what comes in and goes in the world of digital marketing, email marketing is what will exist forever and will always remain crucial to grab success. Here are a few email marketing tools you need to use:

• MailChimp– An ESP tool that has both free and paid plans, you get some pretty useful and powerful features with MailChimp.
• The Hemingway App–  Want to make you copywriting clear and conversational? This is what the tool will help you with; optimize emails.

4. Project & Employee Management Tools

Most startups and small businesses do not care much about using project and employee management tools as they handle a small number of projects and work in small groups. But, if they are to grow big eventually, they need to have the know-how of handling bigger projects and large employee and clients’ base.

Pingboard‘s CEO Bill Boebel says: “We found that most of our customers were still managing their org chart in PowerPoint or Visio — even with several hundred employees. These documents are time-consuming to maintain, difficult to share and often become out-of-date shortly after they are created. And quite frankly, org charts made this way are ugly.”

Here are a few easy-to-use and useful tools:

• Org chart software– This tool helps to create and structure the members, their relationships and relative ranks according to their positions and jobs
• Basecamp– From managing projects, groups and client works, Basecamp is an all-in-one tool to manage everything at one place.
• Trello– Another project management tool to give you perspective over all of your projects, Trello makes collaboration with employees and clients easy.

5. SEO Tools

If you or your company needs to gain quick attention and visibility online, search engines need to be on your top priority. From gaining leads, making sales and making an impact through online visibility, SEO is what every startup need to focus on first. Here are a few SEO tools to track and maintain the online presence:

• Ahrefs– From link profile data to content referral information, Ahrefs does everything you need to track you and your competitors.
• Schema Creator– Addition of schema or micro data can increase search engine visibility and Schema Creator is what does it in minutes to your website or blogs.
• MozBar-It lets you perform a range of SEO tasks from your browser, including keyword ranking data analysis, schema validation, and SEO metric reporting.

  Source: http://bit.ly/1WxKaID

6 key strategies to ramp up your B2B marketing success

In the super competitive world of B2B marketing, it’s a battle between your success –or that of your competitors. The right marketing strategies can keep you way ahead of the curve, but if you aren’t keeping up with the times, your competition will be hard on your heels.

The modern B2B cycle has evolved. It is no longer a funnel, but rather a fluid cycle with overlapping touchpoints, multiple stakeholders, and prospects engaging in more independent research. B2B products and services are also typically more complex, and require solutions geared towards rational decision making versus spur-of-the moment purchases.

Take a look at 6 key strategies to keep your marketing going strong and your revenues running higher:

1. Content Marketing

You may have heard this repeatedly, but content marketing continues to rule strong for B2B marketers. In the past, a sales representative, dealer, or channel partner was the key point of contact for gathering information. From warranty information, pricing, product features, and more, a sales rep was the gateway to any information related to the product or service.

Of course, we know this is no longer the case. B2B buyers have numerous channels on which to research. In fact, an estimated 57% of the purchase decision is made before a prospect even engages a sales rep.

(link is external)

According to a recent study by Regalix, 80% of senior marketers said creating marketing collateral is a top priority. In another study by TopRank, the most effective content marketing tactics according to B2B marketers are:

• In-person events (70%)
• Case studies (65%)
• Videos (63%)
• Webinars (63%)
• Blogs (62%)
• Newsletters (60%)
• White papers and research reports (59%)

As prospects are doing research, be sure to create different types of content based on where they are in the buying cycle. Develop a mixture of content to help a buyer move seamlessly from awareness to price and product comparison, without any involvement from a sales rep until the prospect is ready to engage.

2. Digital Marketing Channels

B2B market leaders are investing big in digital marketing channels. According to a survey by StrongView, spend is on the rise for email, social media, mobile marketing, and search (SEO, PPC).

As prospects head to digital sources to do their research, B2B marketers must make sure they are being relevant in the channels a prospect is most likely to be searching. Now that you have an arsenal full of great content, the next important step is to make sure your content can be found!

3. Social Media Channels = #B2B Revenue

Social media is a great way to share content, build brand loyalty, and engage with potential prospects. Real Business Rescue shares some great insights on the value of social media for B2B marketers:

• 9 in 10 B2B businesses say that increased exposure is the number one benefit of social media
• Increased traffic (80%) the development of loyal fans (72%) and marketplace insights (71%) were also cited as major benefits

While social media has been thought of as primarily a B2C strategy in the past, nothing can be further from the truth. As customer purchase decisions are increasingly affected by word of mouth and content marketing, social media is an ideal avenue to engage with prospects seeking education and peer recommendations.

4. The Power of Third-Party Data

Did you know that on average, every 30 minutes 120 business addresses change, 75 phone numbers change, 20 CEOs leave their jobs, and 30 new businesses are formed?(Source: D&B The Sales and Marketing Institute)

Keeping your customer and prospect information accurate and up-to-date can mean the difference between a sale for you, or a sale for your competitor. A wrong email address or phone number can quickly derail the best laid out communication strategy. Not knowing about key management changes or about the formation of a new company can leave opportunities on the table.

A third-party vendor can quickly get your data into shape by correcting wrong information and adding missing information such as phone numbers and email addresses. Additional information such as online IDs can also be appended to boost digital targeting across channels.

According to a survey by Spear Marketing Group, 40.7% of B2B marketers currently use a third-party data solution while almost half (46%) don’t use any type of third-party lead enrichment.

5. Personalize the Experience

(link is external)

Personalization is an active topic of discussion among both B2B and B2C marketers. Your prospects and customer have come to expect companies to know who they are and to deliver personalized experiences based on this knowledge. 

According to Accenture, 50% of B2B buyers want personalization and identified it as being a key feature among suppliers they would want to work with.

Consider offering the following types of personalization:

• Social Media: Engage in personal conversations with your customers. Just as importantly, be sure to continually monitor social sites. Social users expect a quick response to their questions and inquiries.
• Email: Send targeted emails to segments based on purchase history, firmographic information, stage in the process cycle, and so forth.
• Websites: Offer different navigation options, a good site search engine, and landing pages for promotions.
• Phone: Be sure you have an interface to quickly pull up customer details so you can offer personalized recommendations and offers at the moment.

6. Don’t Forget about the Millennials

As millennials become of age, there has been an increasing shift over the past 2 years in the profile of today’s B2B buyer. According to Google research, nearly half of B2B buyers are between the ages of 18-34, an increase of 70%!As millennial buyers have more influence over purchase decisions, implementing ways to connect with this generation are increasing in importance. Millennials are more likely to trust information found in social communities because they believe they provide more accurate, authentic information. Research by Elite Daily revealed that 62% of millennials say that if a brand engages with them on social networks, they are more likely to become a loyal customer.

Millennials also expect to engage with sales reps through the channel of their choosing and at any time. 87% of millennials use between 2 and 3 devices on a daily basis, so having information easily accessible and mobile friendly is crucial to capture the attention of this audience.

As B2B buyers are becoming more sophisticated, so must your marketing strategies. The way buyers research and buy products has changed and your marketing must be able to do more of the heavy lifting before a buyer is finally ready to engage with your sales reps.

Source : bit.ly/1lG3xCz

(link is external)

5 groups on social media that you shouldn’t ignore

Brand managers stand to gain a lot when they work with the right people online. Here are a few audiences not to overlook.

There’s too much data, too little time.

It’s an excuse we hear far too often, but it will no longer pass in today’s marketing world.

Salesforce’s 2015 State of Marketing report shows that 89 percent of marketers find social media listening effective, but only 37 percent are actively practicing it. Plus, recent technologies have made it easier than ever to sort through data, pinpoint information that matters and develop targeted strategies to help your organization thrive.

So, why haven’t more marketers opted in?

Don’t think of social listening as an obstacle. Instead, use it as an opportunity to push past competitors, connect with your audience, improve your brand’s reputation and generate leads.

To get started, here are five audiences brand managers shouldn’t ignore:

1. Prospective consumers and clients. Social media makes it easy to identify potential clients. That’s no secret. Simply track mentions of your company’s name and see what people are saying, but don’t stop there.

Keep an eye out for people who use social media to find solutions to their problems—especially the ones that you can solve. Track keywords and topics related to specific issues that are catered to by your products or services.

2. Customers. When customers have a poor experience with your organization, very few of them take the time to write or send a complaint your way. They often take to social media to share their complaints with their followers, and though you may be tempted to ignore those and focus solely on the positive, those complaints offer a big opportunity for your brand.

Take note of what your customers are complaining about. It may be an area where you can improve.

3. Competitors. If you want to make a name for yourself, you must understand your industry—starting with your competitors.

Find out everything you can about what they’re doing well and where there’s room for improvement. Don’t just copy what the competition is doing though; instead, find ways to innovate and set yourself apart, creating a niche all to yourself.

4. “Influencers.” Especially if you’re a brand manager for a new organization, or one entering a new market, gaining your audience’s trust can be a challenge. That’s where influential bloggers and social media heavyweights can help.

They give you the chance to connect to your audience in a direct way, and can extend your reach more than you could ever do on your own. Find out whom your audience already trusts and align your brand with theirs. Also find influential social media users who are already fans of your organization, and reward them for their loyalty. They will be even more vocal about your brand.

5. Employees. With social media, every employee is a potential spokesperson. This presents a valuable opportunity for brand managers who choose to capitalize on it.

Employees give your organization a face and allow customers to connect with your brand on a human level. When those employees do something good, their connection to your brand will help to build and strengthen your brand’s reputation, too.

Marketing pros who seize the opportunity to better understand their prospects, customers, competitors, “influencers” and employees will flourish. Those who ignore it will eventually fold. 

Source : http://bit.ly/1P92Wpk

Boom ! Fresh Ideas Social Media and marketing News.

10 ways to combine SEO and content marketing

Gone are the days when search engine optimization was enough to land your website onto Google's good graces.Now you must to add content marketing to your arsenal of digital marketing tool if you want to gain search engines’ approval and ultimately win the heart of online users.

Given the important role content marketing now plays in the success of online business, it's time that SEO ties the knot with content marketing.

The two digital marketing tools that were once viewed as separate entities are now an inseparable couple, promising to inch businesses closer to the proverbial “overnight success. ”The amazing duo can greatly help your online business reach the pinnacle of success and outwit your competitors.

Here are 10 ways you can ensure that the two digital marketing tools work in harmony:

1. Set common goals.

Setting common goals is the first step to make SEO and content marketing work together to bring additional revenues.

Ask yourself what activities overlap between the two digital marketing techniques. Is it increased online traffic, rankings or links? How can you align the activities to achieve common goals?

The answers to these and other similar questions will give you a starting point in creating an integrated SEO and content marketing strategy with clear and focused goals and strong communication.

2. Establish key performance indicators.

Another way to optimize synergy between SEO and Content Marketing is to establish key KPIs that will track performance, and ensure that it is on track for achieving common goals.

These KPIs include content sharing, links to content, online user engagement, call-to-action conversion rates and several others.

3. Understand your target audience.

Understanding your audience is the key part of an SEO and content marketing strategy. Create personas of the target audience and develop a unique digital marketing strategy for each group. The personas can be based on age, location, gender, hobbies or interests.

Don’t undertake any digital marketing activity without considering what your audience wants, and also what you want them to do in return of fulfilling their demand.

4. Create SEO-optimized content.

Google places great emphasis on quality content. You can make the content more relevant for the search engine by incorporating high-impression keywords. Optimizing the content in this way will allow your Web pages to become visible to online users by appearing on the search results.

Avoid overstuffing keywords into website content. In order to play it safe, limit the keyword density to 1 percent or less. This will ensure that your site doesn't get penalized by the search engine, decreasing online traffic.

5. Research high-impression and relevant keywords.

Include high impression and relevant keywords in the website. Each keyword that you select should be researched properly using online tools such as Google Planner, Google Trend, Word Stream and other similar tools.

Optimizing your content in this way will ensure that your online content is able to attract maximum number of online users.

6. Attract online consumers through link building.

Another way you can make SEO and content marketing work together is through link building. Link building is a pure SEO strategy that results in distribution of online content to a large number of targeted, qualified audiences. You can greatly increase your content’s effectiveness through these efforts.

The links pointing to the published online content is placed on various high authority and high page ranked sites. These sites attract thousands of online visitors that can be diverted to your site by placing targeted links on the site they first visited.

Enlist SEO professionals to enhance your link building strategy. Here are some reputed SEO companies, based on user reviews:

TIS India

SE Media Online

Anpee Media

7. Focus on internal link building.

Internal link building works wonders in increasing your website’s ranking along with your published content. Moreover, creating internal links will also result in improved user experience due to easy navigation around the site.

Internal link building is simple to implement, and should be part of your digital marketing arsenal. This will help to improve your ranking and guide users with the content that is relevant to them.

8. Optimize your website content’s title and headings.

Your website content’s title and headings should also be optimized using relevant keywords and phrases.

The title is displayed on top bar of the browser, and headings are included inside the content. Your title should be descriptive, persuading users to click. Headings should be catchy enough to make the content readable.

Both must also be SEO-optimized to make your content more visible in the search results page.

9. Measure your results.

Make use of various online tools to measure the outcome of your combined SEO and content marketing efforts. Google Analytics can track changes in search volume over time. You will also know which pages and content attracts the most visitors, and the keywords they type to enter the website. The information gathered can help you fine-tune your content.

10.Keep your efforts going.

Combining SEO and content marketing must be an on going effort that should not stop at any time.

Make the most of the opportunity and watch the extraordinary combination of SEO and content marketing work wonders for your organization or client. It will position you perfectly on the fast track to success.

Source : http://bit.ly/1N6CI3x

5 Lessons Young Entrepreneurs Mostly Learn the Hard Way

Starting a business is hard, and the difficulties often are compounded when you’re a young person beginning the entrepreneurial journey. There are many moving parts and resources you need but may not have access to.

Here is some advice I wish I would have known as a young entrepreneur.

1. You don’t know everything.

Young people, in general, struggle with a know-it-all complex. We may hear advice but too quickly dismiss it because we think we know what we should be doing. This can be a huge mistake.

Not all advice is beneficial, but wisdom from those that have gone before us is invaluable. No one can go back in time but learning from other entrepreneur’s mistakes is one way for us to avoid potential roadblocks. Be willing to at least listen and see if the advice can be beneficial for your business.

2. Don’t waste money on material possessions.

It feels good to own nice things. There’s nothing wrong with a nice place to live or a cool car, but material possessions will come and go. You can’t take them with you when you die. Eventually, they will bore you.

Entrepreneurship offers you benefits that extend far beyond the material. The chance to live a life of freedom and make an impact in people’s lives is priceless. The chance to live a life free of financial stress and to see the world is worth more than what you drive. Save your money and spend it on the things that you’ll look back on later in life and smile about. Choose experience over stuff.

3. Filter who you let in your life.

Who you allow in your life will either help or hurt what you’re trying to create. Negative people will feed into your doubt, fear, and self-limiting beliefs. Starting a business is hard enough without someone looking over your shoulder and pointing out what they think is “realistic.” Surround yourself with people who will lift you up and be the support you need to push through failure.

4. Stay humble.

Success can be something that encourages you to keep going, or it can go to your head. Having people share what you do and send you emails saying how great you are can easily make you think you’re bigger than you actually are. People connect with an entrepreneur they know, like, and trust. When you go around bragging about how great you are or how much money you’ve made, you will repel people.

5. Embrace what makes you unique.

Many young entrepreneurs waste time trying to be like someone they look up to. They conclude the key to their success is copying another successful entrepreneur. It’s not. When someone wants to do business, they will hire or buy from the original, not the clone.

People want to connect with you. They want to hear what you have to say and see how you can make a difference in their life. Embrace what makes you an entrepreneur. Dig deep and be honest. Just because a strategy or tactic worked for someone else rarely assures it will work for you.

Being an entrepreneur is hard, but it’s worth the struggle. You get the opportunity to live life on your terms and spend your time doing what is important to you. To get to that place of freedom, absorb these lessons from someone who’s been there.

 Your future is bright and full of opportunities that didn’t exist before social media and the Internet. Take full advantage by spending time each day learning what you don’t know.

Source : http://entm.ag/1LuQTeR

3 Content Marketing Mistakes You’re Making

Let’s take a look at 3 mistakes and the steps for corrective action:

 3 Ways To Do It Right

Content that pitches, rather than empowers.

According to Sirius Decisions, the primary reason content goes unused is that it lacks relevance. Research conducted by The EIU found that 75% of executive buyers want content that speaks to a business idea; only 16% were interested in content that supports a purchase decision. But what marketers know best are their company’s products. So that’s what gets written about. With the percentage of content created that goes unused escalating as high as 70% or more, depending on the research you read, can marketers really afford to create content that delivers absolutely no value to the company? Just say NO.

Corrective Action:

To pivot away from product-centric content toward buyer-centric content, create activepersonas that inform your content marketing strategy by helping your content to become highly relevant and engaging to your target markets. Research from ITSMAfound that 85% of marketers rank their top priority for 2016 as understanding buyers. Why are we waiting?

However, when you do decide to create personas, it’s very important to do external research, including interviewing customers, buyers and those who chose a competitor. In The Power and Potential of Personas [PDF], a survey conducted by B2P partners found that 72% of personas rated ineffective by marketers were merely based on existing data and assumptions. What you need are new insights that help you speak your buyer’s language as related to problems that need solving or opportunities they can pursue to reach successful outcomes with your help.

One-off campaigns that stop momentum in its tracks.

B2B marketers have long relied on a campaign structure for their marketing programs. However, campaigns that stop and start don’t answer your buyers’ needs across the entirety of the buying process. A campaign designed with several touches followed by a sales offer is not effective now that buyers can research and learn about how to solve their problems with a wealth of self-serve content at their fingertips.

Every time one campaign stops, there is “dead air” time that leaves the buyers you’ve managed to engage in the lurch. When a new campaign and theme is launched, it’s the equivalent of saying, “Well, we’re tired of that subject, so here’s a new one we’d like to talk about.”(Notice where the focus is.) When this happens, you give your buyers the opportunity to decide you’re no longer relevant to them, prompting them to go look for someone who is. And that’s not a wise choice.

Corrective Action:

To create the engagement and momentum needed to move buyers from interest to prioritizing change and making a purchase decision, marketers need to develop content marketing strategies that serialize the problem-to-solution story across the entirety of the buying process—end to end.  By addressing the needs and context of the buyer at each stage, your expertise and educational content will help them take next steps and view your company as the “mentor” that can help them reach the outcome they value.

Not helping salespeople to use your content effectively.

In the new book, The Challenger Customer, research conducted by CEB finds that buyers are 57% of the way through their buying process before they reach out to vendors. Other research comes in even higher. This has put the onus on marketers to take responsibility for even more of the buying process than ever before. But the sticky point is that the CEB also found that buying committees reach the height of conflict at 37% of the way through the buying process—meaning they may never make it to the point of vendor outreach.

Research conducted by Richardson several years ago found that salespeople actually do read the content marketing produces, but that they have no idea how to transfer value to the customer. In other words, they don’t understand how to use it, or how to find what they need quickly for a specific buyer’s situation. Let’s face it, as more content is developed, marketers need to think beyond what content to create and how to distribute it externally to how to get it into a salesperson’s hand at the right time and in the right circumstances. Sound familiar? It’s the goal we have for engaging our buyers, so why not apply it to empowering our salespeople?

Corrective Action:

Create a process that helps salespeople find and use the content you create effectively in prospecting and conversations with buyers. This includes tagging content for persona, industry, buying stage, topic, problem, and more. But it is also aided with what I call CliffsNotes for sales. In Digital Relevance, I explain the concept as, “a one-sheet that helps sales quickly understand [the content’s] purpose and how they can use it conversationally, as well as which related content may serve as a relevant follow-up offer to extend the conversation and elevate the prospect’s intent.”

By helping your salespeople to use marketing content more effectively, you’ll also be helping them get into buyers’ conversations earlier, helping to mitigate that conflict that could keep them moving forward to solve the problem with your help.

Correcting these three mistakes with your content marketing will help you achieve the effectiveness and performance goals that have been elusive in the past.

Source : http://bit.ly/1Nr39nm

The Business Impact of the Mobile Web’s Phenomenal Growth

At the end of 2014, it became official: comScore reported that 60% of all online activities are now done using mobile devices by people across the planet.

The stats are staggering. Analysts at Gartner expect 2.9 billion smartphones to be sold through across the globe by 2017. Modest expectations suggest that mobile browsing share will rise to 65% overall, but some experts say it could go as high as 70%. A 2012 study underscores the American mobile Web love affair—3 of 4 smartphone owners in the US have admitted to using their devices while they were on the toilet.

Image Source: Mobile Marketing Illustration via Shutterstock

If you’re still skeptical about the big changes that mobile is bringing – and will continue to bring – to the Web, wake up and smell the coffee. A revolution is happening all around us, and the ones who can adapt the fastest will be the early winners of an exciting new online marketing landscape.

Marketers and business owners alike will benefit from the following titbits that reflect how mobile is changing how we do multichannel marketing:

• 4 out of 5 consumers have tried smartphones for shopping
• 70% of mobile search led to online action within 60 minutes
• Mobile phone users vastly prefer apps over mobile-friendly sites (88% to 12%, according to the NY Daily News).
• 87% of American adults use the Internet (Pew Research Center). More than half of these people are expected to have a mobile device or two in the remainder of 2015.

Having said that, the “Add to Cart” and buy rates for mobile devices are still lower than those of their desktop counterparts. However, comScore reports that the typical consumer is increasingly showing more “multiscreen” behaviour when making their buying decisions.

That means conversions may not ultimately happen on mobile devices, but they play a crucial part in the research and comparison stages of each buying cycle.

The next question in your mind might now be: how can you leverage the mobile Internet trend to grow your business? Truth be told, there is no magic bullet for this challenge.

Marketers operating on the cutting edge are experimenting on a daily basis to figure out what models and techniques can be used to facilitate more fluid consumer behaviour on their phones. This can be compared to the years 2007 to 2010 when social media marketingwas still at its Wild West stages. Pioneers need to set up their roots and dig in to learn how to live off the land.

Here are some insights that could give you a headstart in your specific industry:

Apps are the Key

At the moment, apps are the best and fastest way to influence a target audience via mobile devices. Apps occupy permanent real estate on a smartphone’s home screen, giving them a top-of-mind advantage over mobile websites.

Even if your site is mobile friendly, it still requires a browser to be opened and usually depends on a search query to lead a user to it. With apps, you get primary consideration whenever a mobile user looks for something that you’re offering.

Image Source: Online Shopping & Mobile Marketing via Shutterstock

Of course, not all apps are built equally. Some have a much higher install base than others due to the value that they provide users. You can’t develop an app for the sake of marketing. The app should be built with unique value in mind that the user can’t get with a mobile website. Functionality is key, especially if it takes advantage of a smartphone’s hardware.

Location tracking, biometrics, cameras and gyroscopes are just some of the features that you should consider taking advantage of. If you’re an ecommerce site, think about alerting users about sales and coupons whenever they come within walking distance of your store. Biometrics-based personalized shopping experiences via mobile apps are also viewed as part of the mobile future.

Less will be More

Given the small screens on smartphones and tablets plus the fact that users only have limited scroll down attention spans, long form sales copy could become obsolete in the near future. Instead of making users read blocks and blocks of text, marketers may up their copywriting games and write shorter, more profound copy.

Conversely, they may opt to give users more engaging content such as demos, videos or presentations within apps to avoid losing audience interest midway through the pitching process.

Digital Identity Will Continue to Rise

As social media and mobile Internet continue to grow side by side, online anonymity is expected to take a hit. Apps will be able to get information about you based on the social network personas that you are logged in as with your mobile devices. This allows for more targeted advertising that’s better able to read your interests, tendencies and needs.

Image Source: Online Shopping & Mobile Marketing via Shutterstock

Facebook and Amazon have already demonstrated this kind of synergy. Notice how ads on Facebook reflect the kind of items you’ve recently browsed on Amazon. It may be a little unnerving to the average user, but to marketers, this is a potential gold mine.

Less Movement, More Focus

If apps end up dominating the mobile Web, we could be looking at an Internet that’s very different from the browser-based experience that we’re used to. Desktop browsers allow people to surf the Internet through links that lead from page to page,

With apps, there won’t be much surfing taking place as developers will try to keep users within the app for a more focused experiences that lead to goal completions. Getting your audience out to the open web is usually counter-intuitive and unlikely to be encouraged by app creators.

App Store SEO

Search engine optimization has been a very important facet of digital marketing for about 20 years now. As the Web changes and goes more mobile, emphasis on websites diminishes and interest in apps grows.

Just as it was important to get your site ranking in the first page of Yahoo, Bing and Google in years past, it will become increasingly important to show up for target keywords when searches for apps are entered by users trying to decide which ones to get.

Reviews and ratings will be more crucial than ever. Having a dedicated following that spreads word of mouth about your app will also have tremendous value. Sharing on social media becomes ever more precious, and developing apps that have inherently good content will be the keys to the mobile marketing game.

Conclusion

Mobile isn’t the future of the Web – it’s the present. Instead of fearing the changes happening all around us, the better attitude to take is to embrace it and think creatively about how we can use it to take our businesses to greater heights.

Source : http://bit.ly/1Qdpxyw