Posts Tagged ‘marketing success’
A Look Into Some Future Marketing Trends
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links on this website. There is no expense to you.
In recent years, consumer expectations have significantly shifted. With developing marketing trends like voice search, influencer marketing, and augmented reality taking the lead, businesses must quickly adapt. A strong digital marketing strategy isn’t just a part of your overall efforts, but the core of your business growth. Whether you’re an experienced marketing professional or new to the field, understanding and applying these trends is key to your success.
The emphasis on an improved customer experience, integration of AI and personalization in marketing campaigns, and the continued increase of short-form video content on social media platforms are reshaping the marketing world.
Keeping up with these changes isn’t straightforward. You have to plunge deep into industry reports, engage with marketing leaders and industry experts, and carefully monitor consumer behavior and social media trends.
To improve customer service and optimize web traffic, you have to focus on many aspects like SEO, user-generated content, video marketing, and effective use of digital ads.
Since the decline of third-party cookies, content marketing trends, first-party data, and email marketing has risen.
To maintain brand credibility and customer loyalty, there’s a shift toward more responsible use of data and an emphasis on social responsibility.
Let’s take a look at some future marketing trends.
What are some future trends in marketing?
1. Capturing Your Audience’s Attention
With the evolving consumer preference for high-quality content, the struggle for consumer attention has intensified. If you’re producing content that not only entertains and is informative, and adds value to peoples’ lives you emerge on top. Your content can be blogs, videos, podcasts, or social media posts.
2. Nano- and Micro-Influencer Partnerships
As businesses recognize the higher engagement rates these smaller influencers typically offer, there will be a persistent shift toward nano- or micro-influencer marketing. Nano- and micro-influencers boast more niche-dedicated followings which leads to more authentic and impactful endorsements.
This trend indicates a broader move toward personalization and authenticity in marketing, with brands leveraging the close-knit communities these influencers have developed. They regularly enjoy higher levels of trust and engagement which makes their recommendations more effective.
These smaller yet more influential personalities offer authentic engagement over sheer reach.
3. Generative AI
Generative AI is transforming the marketing landscape. Developments in AI technology and the future release of Sora mark a significant milestone. Sora’s promise of changing generative AI text into captivating video content has marketers eagerly waiting to harness this technology.
This is expected to streamline content creation, allowing for the production of high-quality, engaging video content at an exceptional scale and speed.
4. Event Marketing
In-person events are becoming the focus of marketing strategies, reflecting a broader desire for authentic, memorable experiences.
To cut through the digital noise, brands are recognizing the power of live events, offering tangible ways for consumers to engage with their stories and products.
This trend indicates a balanced marketing approach where digital and physical strategies coexist, each amplifying the strengths of the other. Moving forward the integration of innovative technologies and creative content in live events will further increase their impact, making event marketing an essential part of the modern marketing mix.
What are some social media marketing trends?
Trends in social media marketing are key to connecting with audiences, driving conversions, and building brand loyalty.
Here are some trends that will change your thinking about how to execute your future social media strategy.
1. Short-Form Video
Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts will probably maintain their position as the top platforms. So, prepare your best quick, engaging content. Short-form video is the heart of social media and it will continue to be so.
As brands push the boundaries of what’s possible in 60 seconds or less, you’ll see a flood of creative techniques that deliver maximum impact in minimal time. Expect reactive content, humor, and bloopers to be front and center. Those who succeed in this space will be the ones who can consistently create content that doesn’t feel intrusive but more like a welcome break in users’ feeds.
2. Unfiltered Content
With the arrival of AI, social media has been inundated with AI-generated imagery. Although this has made the creative process faster and more efficient, it’s also created distrust. Now the trend is toward unpolished, authentic content that feels real and human. There will be less overproduced AI-polished visuals and more real relatable experiences. Authenticity will be the top requirement for building trust and loyalty with your target audience.
3. UGC Content
Now that audiences are craving raw and authentic content, the human touch of user-generated content (UGC) will prove more valuable than ever. We expect social media marketing trends to favor consumer content, offering a refreshing contrast to all the overly polished or AI-generated videos and photos.
UGC will become the foundation of successful social media strategies. Instead of just being encouraging, brands will build complete campaigns around it, leveraging its power to create authentic connections and drive engagement.
There will be collaborative campaigns, influencer partnerships, and branded hashtags to dominate every social media platform. Also exciting to see are more community-driven product development, customer story showcases, and UGC-powered social proof making their way to brands’ social media channels.
4. Static Content
Because it offers a break from the constant stream of video content dominating social media, static content is making a comeback. Viewers are looking for more diversity in their feeds. Static content like infographics, images, and carousel posts provide visual variety that can capture attention differently than videos.
Smart brands will adapt by balancing both dynamic and static formats. Static content complements video instead of competing with it, by offering an additional format that can reinforce the message, add context, or provide detailed information that video might not cover effectively. By doing this, brands can cater to different audience preferences and maximize engagement across various touchpoints.
5. Privacy and Ethics
As data regulations continue to tighten globally, you’ll need to adhere to increased privacy and data use laws. Transparency and trust will become critical components of any successful social media strategy.
Modern consumers care about the heavy emphasis on brands’ ethics and purpose, especially when it comes to data privacy.
Trends in social media marketing will go beyond simple compliance with data protection laws. Brands must prioritize ethical data practices, emphasizing user consent and value exchanges. For smart marketers, this will be an opportunity to strengthen consumer relationships. For example, brands can offer tangible value (personalized experiences or exclusive content) in exchange for data. This way, they can transform data collection from a potential liability into a mutually beneficial exchange.
This article has given you a look into some future marketing trends, the emphasis being on “some.” Of course, there are many more.
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How Long Should Your Blog Articles Be?
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
You shouldn’t be overly concerned about word count when writing content. The quality is what really matters.
Due to recent algorithm updates, shorter articles are ranking better. But this is also related to changes in the way we consume content. The ideal length also changes significantly across industries.
Tech websites use fairly short articles that are commentaries on a product, technology development, or an event.
Fashion is another industry that uses short posts. These readers don’t care about the history of a trend or how garments are made. What you’re going to see are thousands of articles about which looks are hot and how to recreate them.
Job recruitment topics usually range from 900 – 1,000 words. Job hunters don’t have the time to read thousands of words. They want to find new employment quickly.
Food Bloggers can use around 1,200 words to cover an introduction and an in-depth recipe.
Finance, sales, and healthcare are some industries that still benefit from the comprehensiveness and depth of long-form content. As these industries cover fairly complex topics, it’s almost always necessary to go beyond 2,000 words in order to satisfy readers’ interest.
Retail, manufacturing, marketing, food, and travel use mid-length articles of 1,000 – 2,000 words to cover information. This remains the most common article length.
Keep your target audience in mind at all times, as you choose your blog topics and how much content to write for each. If you know their needs can be met with less than 1,000 words, don’t waste their time with fluff.
While doing research for this article, I came across this quote from Ryan Velez, freelance writer and editor:
Ideal blog length has always evolved over time. As a response to the wave of 750-word content, things expanded to be a lot more comprehensive, 2,500 words-plus. Now, with the wave of AI-generated content flooding the internet, word count doesn’t guarantee quality to the same degree. Combine that with the ‘TikTok Effect,’ and ideal content size is smaller now and quicker to get to the point. Think 1,500 to 2,000 words.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a long-term strategy used with the goal of building relationships with your target audience by methodically delivering high-quality, relevant content that educates and ultimately makes sales.
Long-Form Content vs. Short-Form
Web users are becoming smarter. Searches using long-tailed keywords increase daily. These users want specific answers to specific questions. So, your content strategy needs to match their increasing knowledge.
Creating content with a high word count allows the you to feel a sense of achievement you don’t get when writing 500-word articles. Marketers are feeling like they have to create long-form content to get a toehold in the SERPs.
But the times are changing. Users are falling in love with short-form content. It’s part of the reason U.S. adults spend up to an hour on TikTok.
Over 50 percent of business videos are less than two minutes long.
Combine these statistics with the fact that more and more adults believe attention spans are getting shorter, and it’s easy to see why consumers are placing greater emphasis and trust in concise articles that quickly answer their questions.
So, back to the question, how long should your blog articles be?
Two decades ago, the average article length was between 500-800 words. By the mid-2010s, articles were in excess of 2,000 words.
There are multiple reasons for this which include the way readers scan articles online and the psychology of equating length with quality.
Now, more concise articles are the trend. Although these aren’t quite as short as 800 words, they are short enough to quickly answer readers’ questions.
As you can see, longer is not necessarily better, neither is shorter. There is no one correct answer for blog article length. It’s dependent upon the industry. Your focus should be on quality not quantity or rankings.
Focus on top-quality content and promote it effectively rather than on how much to write.
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Reasons Why Link Building is Important for SEO
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
In the pre-Google days of the internet, search engines like Yahoo and Alta Vista were dominant players and their search results were 100% based on the content on a webpage.
Then came Google.
Google’s now-famous algorithm changed the game. Google looked at how many people linked to that page instead of simply analyzing the content of the page.
Almost 20 years later, links remain the best way to establish the quality of a webpage. Therefore, backlinks remain Google’s go-to ranking indicator.
Because of updates like Google Penguin, Google now focuses on link quality (not just link quantity).
If the page linking to you is a PageRank powerhouse, that link will have a BIG effect on your rankings.
That’s because links from authoritative pages pass more authority (also known as PageRank) to your site.
Now, let’s continue with the reasons why link building is important for SEO.
What is the importance of backlinks?
Link building is the system of building one-way hyperlinks (also called backlinks) to a website with the purpose of improving search engine visibility. Some common link-building strategies include content marketing, email outreach, building useful tools, broken link building, and public relations.
Content marketing played a substantial role in the development of backlink building. Webmasters started creating high-quality content that naturally drew links from other websites, instead of only focusing on acquiring backlinks.
Website owners could increase their chances of earning organic backlinks by producing informative, valuable, and shareable content.
This shift in strategy supported Google’s emphasis on user experience and the importance of providing important content to online audiences.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
1. What is backlink building; Why it’s important for building authority
The process of getting links from other websites to your own is backlink building.
These links act as a vote of confidence, demonstrating to search engines that your website is authoritative and trustworthy.
Backlink building is essential for building authority. It drives organic traffic and helps improve your website’s visibility in search engine results.
2. How has backlink building evolved?
Backlink building is now more focused on quality rather than quantity. As search engines have become smarter at detecting spammy and low-quality links, it’s essential to focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable websites. And, the importance of relevance and context has increased, with search engines giving more weight to backlinks that come from websites in the same industry or niche.
3. What are some effective strategies for backlink building?
Important strategies for backlink building include influencer outreach, guest blogging, and creating valuable content that naturally invites backlinks. Guest blogging involves writing high-quality articles for other websites in exchange for a backlink to your site. Influencer outreach involves building relationships with influential people or brands in your industry and getting them to mention your website or link to it. Creating valuable content that naturally attracts backlinks involves producing engaging, informative, and shareable content that other websites will desire to link to.
4. Are there risks or pitfalls to avoid?
When building backlinks, there are risks and pitfalls to avoid. One common one to avoid is engaging in black hat SEO techniques, like buying or exchanging links. This can lead to penalties from search engines. It’s very important to avoid spammy link building practices, such as bulk directory submissions or comment spamming. You should focus on building natural and high-quality backlinks that add value to both your website and those websites linking to you.
5. How can I assess the quality of a potential backlink?
You can consider several factors to assess the quality of a backlink. You can first check the website’s domain authority and page authority using tools like Moz’s Domain Authority or Ahrefs’ Domain Rating. Look for websites with a higher domain authority as they are more likely to pass on effective link juice. And, consider the relevance of the website to your niche and the setting in which the link will be placed. A backlink from a highly reputable and relevant website will have a greater effect on your authority.
6. Is it better to have a few quality backlinks or lots of low-quality backlinks?
Now, it’s better to have a few high-quality backlinks than many low-quality backlinks. Search engines have become more high-tech in evaluating the quality of backlinks, and they prioritize authority and relevance. A few high-quality backlinks from reputable websites in your industry will have a more significant impact on your authority and search engine rankings than many low-quality backlinks.
7. Does it take long to see the results of backlink building?
The time can vary for seeing the results of backlink building. It depends on factors like the competitiveness of your industry, the quality of the backlinks you acquire, and the frequency of search engine crawls. Generally, it can take several weeks to months before you start seeing the impact of your backlink-building efforts. Patience and consistency are key when it comes to building authority through backlinks.
8. Can I remove or disavow bad backlinks?
You can remove or disavow bad backlinks. If you have acquired low-quality or spammy backlinks that could harm your website’s authority, it’s recommended to try removing them by contacting the website owners and requesting removal. If that fails, you can use the Google Disavow Tool to tell search engines to ignore those backlinks when evaluating your website’s authority. However, it’s important to exercise caution and only disavow links that are actually harmful.
9. Are there alternatives to backlink building for authority?
Although backlink building is a highly effective strategy for building authority, there are other methods you can consider. You can focus on creating high-quality content that attracts organic traffic and engagement. If you consistently produce valuable content and optimize it for search engines, you can build authority over time. Another way is to leverage social media platforms and engage with your audience to establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
10. Should you hire a professional for backlink building?
It can be beneficial to hire a professional for backlink building, especially if you are short on time, expertise, or resources to execute an effective backlink-building strategy. Professionals can help you identify high-quality backlink opportunities, navigate the complexities, and develop outreach strategies. However, you must choose a reputable and experienced professional or agency to ensure ethical and effective practices are followed.
Building backlinks is an ongoing process that requires a well-thought-out strategy, time, and effort.
Some important effective strategies for link building are:
1. Creating High-Quality Content
Creating high-quality content is the foundation of a successful backlink building strategy. You should focus on creating well-researched unique and valuable content that provides value to your target audience. When you do this, other websites are more likely to link to it.
2. Reaching out to influencers and industry experts
Ask influencers and industry experts in your niche to share your content or to collaborate on a project. When they link to your website, it can substantially boost your credibility and authority.
Building relationships and using personalized outreach emails with influencers can go a long way in acquiring valuable backlinks.
3. Guest Posting
Guest posting entails writing articles for other websites in your industry or niche. This lets you showcase your expertise and offer value to a new audience. Then, you can include a link back to your website within the guest post. Focus on high domain authority and relevance to your industry when choosing websites for guest posting.
Always remember that building backlinks takes patience and time. Focus on quality as opposed to quantity and always prioritize creating valuable content that people want to link to. Here, we’ve covered some of the reasons why link building is important for SEO.
7 of the Most Common Types of Content Marketing and Some Future Trends
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
With the surge of AI where everybody can publish generic blog posts, remember the foundation of high-quality content is sharing authentic, first-hand experiences.
In its latest search engine updates, Google says content should be helpful and come from human experience.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is the publishing of written and visual material online to attract more leads to your business. These materials can include e-books, infographics, blog posts, videos, web pages, and more.
It isn’t just publishing a shallow piece of content that offers little value. The focus is on making valuable content that your audience can discover themselves while browsing.
Content marketing is the planning, creating, distribution, sharing, and publishing of content through channels like social media, blogs, websites, podcasts, press releases, apps, print publications, and more. The goal of content marketing is to reach your target audience and increase brand awareness, engagement, sales, and loyalty.
Some of the most common types of content marketing are:
1. Online Content Marketing
Online content marketing is any material you publish online, but specifically, it applies to your web pages.
With a strong online content marketing strategy you’ll be able to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and get in front of the right people at the right time and immediately engage visitors with specific content about your products or services.
2. Social Media Content Marketing
There are billions of social media users worldwide so it’s easy to see why many businesses invest in social media marketing.
There are several platforms to work with including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Snapchat. Each one offers various ways to create and share content, like photos, pre-recorded videos, pre-recorded videos, live videos, and stories.
3. Infographic Content Marketing
Infographics display content, information, and data in an easy-to-understand graphic format that includes a mix of simple wording, short statements, and clear images. These are a great way to effectively communicate your content. They work well if you’re trying to simplify an educational or a complex topic so all audience members can understand it.
4. Blog Content Marketing
A blog is a great source of inbound content that allows you to be creative in your choice of topic and writing. You can use your blog to promote related content using links and social share buttons as well as incorporate product information.
5. Video Content Marketing
According to research, 91% of businesses video as a marketing tool.
You can use video marketing to help build a strong bond with your audience, boost conversions, and improve ROI. You can also choose to share your video content on landing pages, social media platforms, or on a co-marketer’s website.
6. Podcast Content Marketing
Experts predict that in the future over 71 million people will listen to podcasts. That’s 10 million more than the current listeners across the Spotify and Apple Podcast platforms. This is the reason many businesses and media outlets create and share their own podcasts.
Since podcasts can be about any topic, you have plenty of room for a lot of creativity.
You decide the pace of episodes, guests, where you advertise the podcast, and the length of each episode.
7. Paid Ad Content Marketing
You can reach a broad audience with paid ads and position yourself in all the places you want to be seen. Pairing paid ads and inbound marketing is especially beneficial.
Paid ads can be shared on landing pages, social media, banners, and in sponsored content.
What are some content marketing trends?
Google says content should be helpful and come from human experience. This is one of numerous ways to increase your traffic.
Here are some ways content marketing is moving forward and how to use them to your advantage.
1. Use of AI
The role of AI is to scale and improve, not to come up with the original insight that hasn’t been shared before.
AI writing tools base output on information already somewhere on the internet – other blogs.
For your content to work for you, it has to stand out. The best way to make that happen is by sharing expert insights. AI can’t give you unique, experience-based ideas.
Producing content requires much more than just pumping out text. For it to be valuable for readers, it needs a proper strategy, in-depth research, first-hand knowledge of the industry, and a person to put it all together in a way that’s relatable to readers.
It’s best to use AI to generate top-level outlines, like a skeleton to set a flexible foundation that can be modified later. Then using your expertise, you can elaborate on the details and add insights and depth that only a human can present.
2. First-Hand Experience
Prioritize sharing first-hand experience. The public loves other people’s stories. If you don’t have expertise in a particular area, you can interview people who do and base your article on their insights.
3. Source Content
One of the top-ranking factors for content marketing is backlinks, so publish “Be the Source” content to get more traffic, links, and shares from your content marketing.
4. Authority
Participate in establishing authority in your area of expertise.
Google prefers content created by knowledgeable and reputable people. Setting up yourself as an authority in your area of expertise improves the credibility of your content.
This is really important now when there’s a lot of AI-generated content on the internet.
You want your content to have a face and a story. This will boost your content’s relevance and trustworthiness in the eyes of users and in search engines. Search engines like Google must decide between high- and low-quality content.
5. Leverage
Use community contributions to boost the credibility and depth of your content by tapping into the collective expertise and experiences of a diverse group.
You can do this by:
a) Collaborating with industry experts in your field to create content and inviting them to share insights.
b) Organizing Q&A sessions with experts or influential people in your industry through live streams, webinars, or interviews.
c) Develop collaborative projects where several contributors can add their expertise. This could be a blog post, a webinar, a research paper, or an industry-related guide.
d) Leverage UGC (User-Generated Content). Urge your audience to contribute their ideas or experiences. This can be through comments, social media interactions, or guest posts.
Promote their work on your platforms as part of the collaboration.
Be sure to give proper credit when you use other people’s content, whether it’s from experts or UGC.
6. User-Generated Content
A bit more about UGC.
Users or customers create and share content about your brand or product which may include images, reviews, social media posts, or videos, which you can then use in your marketing endeavors.
Instead of using traditional search engines like Google for information, many young people turn to platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Especially when they’re looking for how-to guides or local restaurant recommendations.
There are two main benefits of using UGC:
They prioritize content that comes from other customers, such as unboxing, reviews, and lifestyle videos featuring your product and now that users are creating content for you, you get to:
1. Accelerate the content generation process
2. And you get authentic content that your audience can relate to
7. Repurpose Content
A great way to scale up your content marketing, without starting over each time you want to create a post for a new format, is repurposing your content on different platforms. Content repurposing is now a hot content marketing trend.
But, over the last few years, people’s standards for content have risen a lot. You can no longer just copy and paste a section a section from your blog post and publish it on social media nor can you just read an article into a microphone and call it quits.
But you can match the content to each format.
For example, repurposing a blog post for a YouTube video requires you to add elements at the beginning like a relatable story, use strategies that work well for the video, and rewrite portions to make sense in the new format.
Another example is reusing steps and tips, as you don’t have to repurpose a total piece of content. As an alternative, take the best sections from a current piece of content and reuse them elsewhere. Using this approach allows you to highlight specific, valuable parts of your content on platforms or in different formats.
8. Emerging Topics
Another way for your content to stand out is jumping on developing trends BEFORE they take off.
Use Google Trends to confirm that a keyword is growing or shrinking. And check out the “Related queries” section for your chosen topic.
First, check out a keyword you think might be trending up.
Then, go to the bottom of the page and check out the “Related queries” list.
Although Google-related queries are helpful, a check for exploding topics is better.
9. Improve Content Design
Improve your content design and user experience to suit Google’s algorithms for site speed, navigation ease, and user interaction when ranking websites. When your site loads fast, answers users’ queries, and is easy to navigate, people will stay on your site and interact with it, and they’re more likely to visit other pages of your site.
To improve UX (user experience), you need to:
a) Improving site speed
b) Being thoughtful about pop-up use
c) Design an easy-to-navigate page layout
d) Make call-to-actions and monetization contextually relevant
e) Link only to genuinely helpful content
f) Answer user intent early in your content and not hide important information at the bottom
10. Explainer Visuals
Custom explainer visuals like videos and graphics like screenshots and custom diagrams, are essential in explaining complex concepts.
Focus on creating content that is informative, engaging, and visually appealing.
Design graphics that visually represent data or explain steps needed to do something complex. Establish a YouTube presence. It’s a great place to distribute your content, and Google features YouTube videos on the first page of SERP.
Embedding YouTube videos in your article makes it more engaging and it’s an even greater way to distribute your YouTube videos. If you have a blog and a YouTube channel, embed your videos in your articles to help readers understand the topic even deeper and to increase your video views.
11. Distribute Your Content via Email
Continue distributing content by “personalized” email which involves providing value, encouraging interactions, and building trust. Email is still an important marketing trend.
12. Streamline Content Operations
Streamlined content operations refer to the structured and efficient management of content creation and distribution processes that include:
Setting clear content objectives
Having clear roles and responsibilities
Mapping your content creation process
Organizing tasks and projects
Incorporating effective tools for content planning, writing, and SEO optimization
Continuing to optimize and repurpose your content
Here you have 7 of the most common types of content marketing and future trends. Now you can put a strategy together and work on creating content that will offer real value to your audience and significantly increase your website traffic.
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12 Top Converting Lead Magnet Ideas for Your Business
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
If you need a reminder, a lead magnet is a motivation for people to give you their contact information. This incentive is important because the last thing anybody wants is more emails.
However, they do want solutions to problems.
Therefore, when you offer an impressive lead magnet that solves your target audience’s problem, they’ll be much more inclined to give you their email addresses.
When you have their contact information, you can stay in touch, build a relationship with them, and make more offers that grow your business.
We’ll cover 12 top converting lead magnet ideas for your business.
There’s no reason creating a lead magnet should be complicated.
How do you create a great lead magnet?
There are 4 keys to creating a powerful lead magnet:
1. One Problem
In order not to confuse your target audience, focus only on one problem. When people are confused, they won’t take any action.
2. An Easy Win
Provide an easy win. Your target audience wants to see quick results and the best content to help solve a problem.
Don’t confuse the value of a win with the amount of content you include. A 6-hour video course sounds valuable but it’s too much of a time commitment for a lead magnet. Do something that can be acted on immediately.
3. Specificity
Your lead magnet should solve a specific problem.
Give your reader a step-by-step guide. Concentrate on one problem with a quick win, and enter enough information so the person can understand how to get that win.
Never leave someone hanging with a lead magnet that offers no value or one that leaves them confused.
4. A Great Design
Invest in a great design that pleases your users and demonstrates you’re a professional.
Great designs don’t have to be expensive. For a minimal investment, you can use tools like Canva produced by real designers to create a great-looking lead magnet.
What are some lead magnet ideas?
We’ll be covering 12 top converting lead magnet ideas for your business.
1. Discount
Although some businesses offer a one-time discount of as much as 50% to people who sign up for their email list, a small one of 10-15% will do.
2. Product Sample
Since people like to know what they’re getting before they buy, consider giving away a sample of the product, such as the first chapter of a book they can download.
3. Free Shipping
If you ship physical products, free shipping is an outstanding option as shipping charges may stop many people from making a purchase.
By removing the extra cost of shipping from a customer’s first order they’re more likely to buy. You can also include a discount with this.
4. Free Trial
Free trials help you boost your current and future sales. Free trials provide potential customers the opportunity to try before they buy to see if your product or service will work for them.
If it works, they’ll buy it and you’ve gained a customer. If it doesn’t, you’ll still have their email address so you can stay in touch with them and nurture the relationship to potentially convert them into a paying customer later.
5. Templates
Templates are among the most common lead magnet ideas because they offer an instant win.
Most people need some guidance to start a project, and templates offer that guidance.
Visme is an online platform that helps you design presentation materials and it has templates you can use like infographics or charts to build your business’ visual materials.
They have some free templates and the others are reserved to entice visitors to create a paid account.
6. How-to Guides
You can offer a step-by-step how-to guide to relieve the frustration of those needing to do something unfamiliar and complicated.
7. Cheat Sheet
You can offer your target audience lists of the essential points to remember during a process. For example, things to include when composing an email or some great headlines to use to improve the probability of your email being opened.
8. Audio Recording
If you’re more comfortable with audio content than written, recordings are a great lead magnet idea. Similarly, if your target audience likes to listen while on the go, audio recordings work well as a lead magnet.
9. Video
As video in content marketing is growing in popularity, it makes a great lead magnet idea for three reasons:
a) It’s a great way to access your target audience.
b) It helps them get to know you better.
c) It strengthens their trust in you.
Although you can use a series of videos, one that’s well done will work.
10. E-book
Use a short e-book to give your reader a quick win, as they’re a valuable resource. The operative word is short.
11. Email Course
An email course could be a perfect lead magnet for your business if you love email.
Just as with an e-book, don’t provide so much content that you overwhelm your prospect.
12. Free Consultation
If you’re a service provider working with clients, offer a free consultation to determine the kind of help they need.
Since your time is valuable, do keep time limits in mind. Don’t give away too much of it.
We’ve discussed how to create a great lead magnet and presented 12 top converting lead magnet ideas for your business.
As you look at these lead magnet ideas, remember your audience. Keep in mind the problems they face, and the best content to help them solve one of those problems.
Use one of these 12 top converting lead magnet ideas for your business to help solve a prospect’s problem.
Have you tried this viral mailer that pays?
Current Email Marketing Changes
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
Whether you’re an experienced marketer or just getting started, these email marketing trends will help you create relevant, engaging, content for now and the future.
As we move forward, trends will redefine how we connect with our audience, measure success, and create our email marketing strategies.
We’re now venturing into the realms of heightened engagement, smarter analytics, and more intuitive user interactions.
Do the latest email marketing trends matter?
Yes. Here are some reasons why email marketing trends matter.
1. Consumer habits and preferences continually evolve with the changing digital landscape. What interested them in the past may not resonate this year.
2. The digital space constantly fluctuates with new technologies appearing quickly. Keeping up-to-date on the latest trends means using new tools and techniques (such as AI and interactive design) to substantially enhance the performance of your email campaigns.
3. Differentiation is key in a crowded digital market. If you adopt the latest trends, you can capture your subscribers’ attention and stand out in their inboxes, capture their attention, and stay ahead of competitors who might be slower to incorporate new methods.
4. The fundamental goal of any marketing plan is to effectively engage customers and drive a strong return on investment. The latest trends in email marketing often offer new ways to increase engagement, enhance personalization, and, ultimately, increase the ROI of your campaigns.
5. With directives like GDPR and changing email standards, staying updated with the latest trends also means ensuring compliance and adhering to best practices.
What are the hottest email marketing trends?
Moving forward, the email marketing landscape is in position for some groundbreaking shifts. These changes are about deep, impactful transformations that respond to the evolving digital environment.
There will be trends that will redefine how we craft our email marketing strategies, connect with our audience, and measure success. There’ll be an exploration of innovations that go beyond the traditional, venturing into areas of heightened engagement, smarter analytics, and more intuitive user interactions.
Email authentication is finally advancing from a best practice to a requirement, especially for high-volume senders. Enforcement is beginning now, signaling a significant shift in the industry’s approach to email authentication.
The following are the new requirements:
1. Authentication
1. Senders must set up SPF (Sender Policy Framework), a layer of protection in email infrastructure, and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), which allows the receiver to check that an email that claimed to have come from a specific domain was actually authorized by the owner of that domain. These protocols are essential for authenticating your emails and proving they’re sent from a legitimate source??.
2. Along with SPF and DKIM, a DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance policy is mandatory. It enables email senders to specify how to handle emails authenticated using SPF or DKIM. Then, these senders can opt to send those emails to the junk folder or block them altogether. This policy doesn’t need to be enforced at the beginning. However, achieving DMARC enforcement is still a best practice for safeguarding against domain spoofing and abuse??.
Only the main points are touched on here, due to the complicated nature of these protocols.
3. The domain in the sender’s “From” header must align with either the SPF or DKIM domain, ensuring uniformity and consistency in the sender’s identity??.
4. It’s essential to maintain valid forward and reverse DNS (Domain Name System) which are also known as PTR records. These records contribute to the legitimacy and traceability of the sending domains and IPs. Domain Name System (DNS) translates a domain name into an IP address to find the owner’s site.
5. Enabling a visible and accessible one-click unsubscribe option is essential for subscription-based messages. This practice augments user experience and aligns with Gmail’s requirements for sustaining low spam rates??.
6. Keep spam rates low, below 0.3%. This metric reflects the sender’s reputation and the effectiveness of their email practices??.
The industry is increasingly focused on security and authenticity. Compliance with these guidelines is crucial for ensuring high deliverability and preserving a good sender reputation. Although these new requirements are from major email service providers like Google and Yahoo, you can expect other inbox providers to announce similar regulations.
2. Generative AI
In the current email marketing changes, Expanded Generative AI is a major leap forward in email marketing technology. It allows marketers to create more effective, personalized email campaigns while saving time and resources. This enhanced AI technology goes beyond basic automation and enables the creation of highly personalized, dynamic content at scale.
AI can generate powerful email content personalized to individual preferences based on user data and past interactions.
Generative AI greatly reduces the time and effort needed to create varied and engaging email campaigns.
Although you might think that AI-generated content may not be very engaging, it has the potential to be the most engaging. As a marketer, you are limited in the personalization and segmentation of your marketing campaigns. The same restrictions don’t apply to Generative AI.
3. Interactive email experiences
With the current email marketing changes, you’ll see emails changing from static messages into dynamic, engaging experiences. There’ll be more embedded widgets and features incorporating elements like surveys, polls, and quizzes directly within the email.
Rich media integration using videos, gifs, and other things to make emails more visually appealing and engaging.
There’ll be real-time content updates based on user actions or external factors, like stock levels or weather conditions.
You’ll see game-like elements incorporated like spin-to-win features and scratch cards, plus, interactive CTA (call-to-action buttons) that animate, change color, or expand upon hover or click, providing immediate feedback to the user.
4. Minimalistic designs
Layouts will be cleaner, color schemes will be simplified, and minimal text with easy-to-read fonts will be used for succinctness and clarity. The focus will be on content and faster load times.
5. Mobile focus
With the current email marketing changes, designing emails with a mobile focus is a must, since the majority of emails being opened are on mobile devices. Although we know this, it still seems that mobile design is an afterthought. That might be because we’re often designing and planning email campaigns from a desktop.
6. BIMI adoption
Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an email authentication protocol that allows brands to display their logo next to their email in the inbox, thus, enhancing brand visibility and trust. Although it’s relatively new, you’ve probably seen a few well-known brands using this in the inbox.
7. New metrics focus
Marketers and senders will start looking at metrics beyond open rates, and businesses will use other key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge the value and performance of their email campaigns like:
Engagement over time
Email influence on the customer journey
Subscribe lifetime value
Conversion rate, and
List growth rate
These current email marketing changes emphasize the continuous advancement of email marketing.
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Should You Run a Business from Home?
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
This is a great time for you as an entrepreneur to consider starting your own home business.
Due to the rise of digital technology, there are many more opportunities than ever before to launch a successful business from your home. There are plenty of home businesses to choose from, whether you want to build a full-time career or are just looking for some extra income. Your choice ranges from online tutoring and freelance writing to selling products on Etsy and drop shipping. So, should you run a business from home? In this article, you’ll find answers to some questions you may have and information you need to get started.
CONSIDER THESE FACTORS BEFORE STARTING A HOME BUSINESS
1. Is there enough space?
Before launching your business, you have to know how much space you need to operate and flourish. You absolutely must maintain a separation between your business and your personal living space.
You can make your choice in one of two ways. First, check out your living space and see if there’s a place for boundaries to create a work area that is free of distractions.
Do you have a spare bedroom, study, or a quiet corner off your living room that you can use?
The second choice is to make a list of the materials and equipment you’ll need. If you can imagine putting new printers, monitors, cables, wires, mic stands, and boxes in this workspace, then go for it.
If not, you might want to consider renting a small workspace. That would be an added cost, however, a separation between business and personal living space is of utmost importance.
To avoid frustration, keep a buffer between your work area and where you rest. You don’t want your business activities to disrupt the flow of how you live and relax.
2. Is a special license required?
Before starting a home business, you should check with your attorney who can ask you important questions regarding how you’ll operate and the types of services or products you’ll offer.
If you need inventory or machinery, you might need special licenses or certificates.
Before you purchase any materials, inventory, or equipment, talk with your attorney and local government officials.
Although there will be a fee, it will be much less than the frustration and headaches of fixing mistakes after your business is moving along. It’s best to ask for advice first rather than start your business and have to shut it down later.
3. Is permission required?
You may need to get permission to operate your home business if you live in an apartment building or your home is part of a homeowner association. Read your lease or check with your landlord before altering your apartment to suit your business.
Check with your board president or the association’s attorney.
If you’ll have clients or customers visiting your business, there could be parking challenges, or if your business creates any excess noise or disturbance it will probably upset your neighbors.
4. Is there a need for special equipment?
If you start a home business in the pet care, catering, or retail area you may need special equipment.
You’ll need a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection. If you need machines, bulky items, or containers, be sure they’ll fit in your living space, your furniture is protected, and your family is safe.
Otherwise, consider renting an office or commercial space.
5. Do you have the right business strategy?
Create your business strategy before deciding to buy equipment, build a website, and market your brand.
Consider the following:
In which area will you participate?
What distinctive skills or abilities do you have to compete?
Which customers will need your solutions?
How will you set apart your business from your competition?
It’s vital you craft your strategy FIRST and your plan SECOND.
Your business strategy needs to find and fix 1 BIG problem.
Once you have your strategy, you can then develop a plan to carry it out.
You can begin to work on your website, marketing message, pricing strategy and the tech part.
Decide on your social media strategy and decide which platforms will work best for your ideal customer profile; TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, or Instagram.
What are the benefits of starting a home business?
Starting a home business can be a very rewarding experience. If you have the right planning and dedication, you can have a steady source of income and a lot of flexibility.
The following are some benefits of starting a home business:
1. Low Start-Up Costs
Compared to traditional businesses, the start-up costs are minimal. Therefore, as an entrepreneur, it’s easier to get your business off the ground without having to invest a lot of money upfront.
2. Flexibility
When you work from home, you can set your own hours and work when it’s convenient. This can be especially beneficial if you have family commitments or other responsibilities that make it difficult to commit to a regular 9-5 job.
3. Tax Benefits
Your home business is eligible for certain tax deductions which can help reduce your overall tax burden.
4. Increased Productivity
When you work from home, there are fewer distractions and interruptions which can increase productivity. You can focus on the tasks at hand and get more done in less time.
5. Personal Satisfaction
Starting a business from home can give you a sense of personal satisfaction, a sense of pride, and accomplishment as you’ve created something from nothing.
What are the pros and cons of starting a home business?
Pros:
1. Low Overhead Costs
It’s easier for entrepreneurs to get their businesses started, as most of the equipment and supplies needed can be purchased or rented at low cost which saves you from having to invest large sums of money.
2. Flexible Hours
Working from home allows you to set your own hours and work at your convenience. This is especially beneficial if you have a family or other commitments that prevent you from working a traditional 9-5 job.
3. Tax Benefits
Your home business is eligible for certain tax benefits that can reduce your overall taxes.
Cons:
1. Limited Resources
Unlike larger companies, home businesses often lack marketing budgets, experienced employees, and access to capital.
2. Isolation
In a traditional office setting, there is lots of interaction with colleagues. As an entrepreneur working from home, you may not have this level of interaction.
3. Distractions
There are often more distractions than in a traditional office setting. It can be difficult to focus on tasks and complete projects on time.
How to Balance Work and Family Life While Running a Home Business
1. Set Boundaries
Set clear boundaries between work life and family life. Set specific hours for work and family time. Also, designate certain areas of your home for each activity.
2. Prioritize
Be sure to prioritize your family over the business. You need to take time off to spend with your family and be sure you are present during important events.
3. Schedule Breaks
To be sure you’re not overworking, schedule regular breaks throughout the day. This ensures you stay focused and productive and will also allow you to spend quality time with your family.
4. Utilize Technology
To make your life easier, take advantage of technology. You can use tools like online calendars, video conferencing, and task management software to simplify your workflow and increase efficiency.
5. Outsource
To free up more time for you to focus on your family and other parts of your life, consider outsourcing non-essential business tasks.
So, should you run a business from home?
Running a business from your home can be a great way to become your own boss and attain financial freedom. Nevertheless, it’s most important to carefully weigh the pros and cons before making the decision to start a business from your home.
With the right strategy and a plan in place, you can successfully balance your work and family life and achieve success.
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How to Avoid Grammar Mistakes While Writing
By Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
So, you’re using your great copywriting skills to create sales or marketing material to influence prospects toward making a purchase.
While so doing, be sure that your content is grammatically correct. Sometimes that autocorrect, you’re using while typing, won’t catch grammar mistakes.
For information on avoiding at least ten grammar mistakes, check out this article.
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Generate Brand Awareness With Content Marketing
By Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
You can generate brand awareness, persuade customers to take action, and drive revenue with an engaging content marketing strategy.
There are many types of platforms, channels, and media encompassed in content marketing. This is a review of what you need for content marketing success, moving forward, and some of the best content marketing tools.
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Building Your Brand’s Tone of Voice
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links on this website. There is no expense to you.
What is tone of voice in marketing?
Tone of voice is the personality a business creates to communicate with its target audience. If done well, it should build brand recognition and promote a connection with your audience.
Tone includes the language used, sentence structure, and how your words are delivered. It takes into consideration gender, cultural aspects, and the pace at which the language is delivered.
Think of it as one person communicating with another. When you want someone to do something, how do you ask them?
Your tone of voice depends on the audience, how you want them to perceive you, and what communication will best achieve the outcome.
Building your brand’s tone of voice is all about the words you use to appeal to the right people.
What are the benefits of a great tone of voice?
1. Brand Recognition
A great tone of voice builds a brand’s recognition. Your audience will always know it’s you when you use a specific, distinctive tone of voice that’s consistent throughout all your marketing channels.
2. Trust and Credibility
In business, credibility is everything, and your tone establishes trust and credibility. Customers instantly turn their backs on brands that they perceive as insincere or untrustworthy. Over 80% of consumers need to be able to trust a brand before they will even consider purchasing from it.
A well-defined, consistent brand tone of voice comes across as more genuine, which can help you build trust with customers.
3. Differentiation
Your brand tone of voice can be what, sometimes, differentiates you from competitors who sell the same products and services.
It’s easier for customers to connect with you on an emotional level when your brand has a distinct personality. Thus, building trust and loyalty, upping the odds that they choose you over the competition.
A unique tone of voice also makes your brand more unforgettable. This helps your company stick in people’s minds, which can lead to inquiries, leads, and sales.
4. Customer Relationships
When your brand has a distinct tone, it’s easier to enhance customer relationships. Customers want a personal connection with the brands they buy from. They want to know that you understand their needs, values, and concerns. And, they also want to know that the brand will be around for them if something goes wrong.
You can create stronger customer bonds by speaking to customers on their terms and level, which makes you authentic and relatable.
Customers who feel seen and heard are more likely to stay around for the long term.
5. Brand Values
Your tone of voice reinforces brand values. For example,
Your brand tone of voice should always reflect your values. For example, if you pride yourself on being a compassionate business, your tone of voice should be warm, friendly, and approachable.
So, how do you develop your brand’s tone of voice?
1. Understand Your Audience
You really need to get to know your target audience before creating your brand’s tone of voice. It needs to resonate with people who are most likely to buy your product or service.
You can start by researching your target audience’s preferences. Think about their age, where they live, what they do for a living, and their hobbies and interests.
You can develop a customer persona, if you don’t already have one, by using tools like Google Analytics.
2. Competitors
Analyze and research your competitors for the tone of voice they use. This will help you come up with a tone of voice that’s distinctive and unique.
Who is your competitor and what language, words, and phrases do they use? Who is your competitor’s biggest customer and what are their pain points? How does your content solve their problems? And how can you best speak to them?
3. Analyze Your Communication
Next, look at your current marketing materials to see if you have a brand tone of voice in place. It might be that you already favor a specific tone or your use of brand voice and tone is inconsistent across your content.
Consistency is imperative when establishing your tone of voice. A consistent tone branding can get you more growth overall.
Review everything from existing content, customer personas, brand tone of voice guidelines, and messaging to help you identify what’s working and what you need to change.
4. Clarify Values
To ensure consistency and help your tone of voice resonate with the right people, clarify your brand values.
If you already have a values page or a mission statement on your website, that’s a good start.
If you don’t have brand values in place, think about the characteristics that shape your brand identity, like:
What purpose does your business have?
What problems does your business solve?
What characteristics do the people who work for you share?
What are your long-term goals?
What qualities do your existing customers say define you? Check out previous reviews for valuable insight.
You need to reflect your values in your brand tone of voice.
5. Define Your Tone
Now, use the data you gathered from the previous stages, and choose four or five adjectives that best describe how you want your brand to sound.
Examples:
Authoritative
Optimistic
Informative
Conversational
If you’re stuck, you can use.
6. Create Brand Tone of Voice Guidelines
Brand tone of voice guidelines help with consistency. That way, everyone knows how your brand speaks across different scenarios and platforms. If you work with a third party like a digital marketing agency, guidelines are very useful. This helps anyone who creates content on your behalf use the right tone of voice.
Your guidelines should include specific examples of your brand tone in action, as well as how you don’t want to sound. Here’s an example. Your brand tone of voice guidelines can be a stand-alone document or a part of your company style guide.
7. Test and Repeat
When you’ve decided on your brand tone of voice and revised your content, make sure it drives the right results.
Start with your engagement rates.
Are you getting more likes, shares, and comments than before on social media?
Are you seeing more website traffic or longer viewing times on your pages?
Are there more click-through rates on your email newsletters?
If so it’s a sign that your new content aligns with audience expectations.
Ask your customers what they think of your content—you can do this through a short feedback form. They can advise if your new brand tone of voice clicks with them and offer advice on how to make it even better.
Remember to audit and update your tone of voice annually. If your target audience changes or your local rival updates its brand tone of voice, you need to change to stay relevant.
The most effective result of having a strong tone of voice is that it fosters trust and builds relationships with customers. They interact with your brand in the same way people would with a friend or trusted person.
More and more, people want to interact with brands online rather than call customer service, and they are more inclined to do so if the tone of voice is strong. As already stated in this article, building your brand’s tone of voice is critical to your marketing success.
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