The 5 Steps To Digital Awareness

Digital marketing isn’t usually regarded as necessary for many businesses until the COVID-19 outbreak.

It’s mostly considered as an optional way of how you ought to be more successfully run the business. Thus it might seem like digital marketing isn’t really a necessity - rather just a choice.

The reason is the lack of digital awareness.

I think there is some common confusion about digital marketing’s omnipotence. These thoughts are pervasive, looming again and again. Even in the year 2020, their dominance still hinders progress.

In today’s post, we talk about how to build digital awareness in steps so all the entrepreneurs who still hesitate can go for digital marketing services with confidence.

The 5 steps to digital awareness

A checklist for starting your journey to opt for digital marketing service without any doubt.

1. Habits

Nearly all forms of self-awareness first require that you change your habit.

Habits, then, start forming your behavior.

For example, to get fit you need to have a habit of eating well and exercising. To get rich you need a habit of saving and investing. To expand your business you need to find new ways of communication with your potential customers; you need to penetrate deep into where they are.

I am not against any other form of marketing, but if your customers prefer online mediums, build marketing habits central to that theory, to serve them better. You wonder when you will see how the timely and contextually right digital marketing campaigns have impacts on business ROI.

2. Goal-setting

How can you trust a method if you don’t measure the outcome from it? Goal-setting not only help you decide what to do but also planning how to do it. It’s a common misconception, digital marketing is more about qualitative and less quantitative.

A good heuristic for goal-setting is that they should be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) which is absolutely feasible in digital marketing.

3. Systems

Systems implements structure in behavior. Any process is one type of system - in this case, aimed at helping you get work done by organizing the things that generate ROI.

The opposite of systems is a haphazard approach. Systems often encourage you to create and follow explicit rules or guidelines.

Digital marketing is also a system and is often built on applied productivity plans.

Digital marketing is spontaneous, intuitive, and creative with a touch of the emotional approach to generate ROI. Nonetheless, understanding systems, even if you choose to apply them selectively, is a core concept of digital awareness.

4. Learning

Learning here means studying new opportunities and gaining knowledge from experience, and get better at anything.

Learning is a core concept of digital awareness.

Learning is an important tool simply because it pours knowledge into your system that means you can understand which is a better way to reach the goals, even if others don’t.

5. Thoughts & Beliefs

Thoughts and beliefs are much mental than verbal, but our digital awareness is dependent heavily on both and act as an instrument for achieving things.

Regardless of the origin of thoughts and beliefs, they influence the degree of digital awareness for multiple reasons.

Since your thoughts and beliefs have a heavy impact on your behavior, and thus on your results, you may stay within a self-imposed mental boundary.

Thoughts and beliefs try to control our emotions by overpowering the rational mental state inside us as well.

The transformation of thoughts and beliefs is depending on how soon you want to get yourself out from comfort zone. Regardless of where you sit in this spectrum, the content of our thoughts and beliefs is central to true digital awareness.

To successfully employ any system, you have to keep faith in it by centering your thoughts and beliefs on it. Similarly, if your thoughts and beliefs powered by learning tell you to go for digital marketing, restricting yourself with lame excuses will hurt your business’s growth only. Or in fact, you haven’t learned. Else, you should have approach digital marketing differently.

Which step did I miss?

There certainly are other concepts in blossoming digital awareness inside you. I’ve skipped some here. Because though are important but didn’t seem as universal so I excluded them. If you have your own thought on digital awareness, please share them in the comments!

Solutions To 10 Google Ads Challenges For SMBs

Google Ads platform offers an enormous opportunity to all, but it also throws a lot of challenges especially to small businesses if not managed properly. In today’s post, I walk through 10 common Google Ads challenges for SMBs and their solutions.

Ten common Google Ads challenges for SMBs (and how to overcome them)

Optimum use of Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is easier said than done, especially if you’re new to online advertising.

If you are a small business owner, the situation is more overwhelming for you. But the good news is - these initial challenges are common and are possible to overcome even you are new to Google Ads. Nurturing effective ad campaigns requires study, optimization, and a whole lot of patience. But with proper guidance and courage, you’ll eventually generate ROI for your business consistently through running Google Ads campaigns successfully.

Getting started with Google Ads is easy, but getting results (i.e. real leads and sales) is typically hard.

This is true - I know from my decade of experience.

But I also know how to overcome these common challenges -

Challenge #1: Find the right audience for campaigns

A beginner-level slip-up when starting in Google Ads is to build out campaigns without knowing who your target audience is. Sure, you as a business owner have a fair idea but adding the right keywords to represent that same idea independently - is a challenge. In the worse case, you may end up with less than expected traffic or with lots of junk traffic!

Make sure that doesn’t happen by brainstorming with the free Keyword Planner tool found in Google Ads. You’ll find the suggestions for various relevant keyword terms along with supporting data for what you’ll pay per click.

Challenge #2: Overspending on clicks

Your competitors love making money from Google Ads just as much as you do. For new campaigns, I typically starting with high bids because I want to put my ads in a position to get more clicks, which leads to high CTR and ultimately, cheaper clicks. Bidding too high, sometimes though, exhaust your advertising budget which causes a negative return on your investment.

It’s a balancing act, but you can make it out with some simple calculation. Evaluate your maximum bid capacity with this formula:

Max CPC = (average profit per customer) x (conversion rate of your online customers) x (1 – desired advertising profit margin)

You’ll need to assess your business situation, market condition, and Google’s suggestions to estimate these numbers when you’re just starting out, but you can connect actual outcomes with the campaign’s data as you go. Consider leveraging the Google Keyword Planner tool and focus on keywords with projected costs below your planned Max CPC.

Challenge #3: Keeping pace with competitors

As you know, one of the secrets in business is to stay one step ahead of your competitors whenever is possible if not always. The same is true in Google Ads.

To keep an eye on what your competitors are doing, I recommend using tools like SpyFu and Ahrefs. Sure, there are many other powerful tools available for use like SEMrush and Moz. I have used all these along with many others. SpyFu is one of the best I have ever experienced. Using this tool, you’ll be able to “spying” on your competitors’ work like ad copy variations, keyword combinations, and many more insights on their ad campaigns. This is valuable information you can use to improve your own campaign’s performance and get a competitive advantage.

Challenge #4: Defining business USPs

Why should consumers click on your ad over all the others?

To answer this question is to outline what makes your offers special. That may not be challenging; but this is, when I say, you must summarize that uniqueness in a very limited space in your ads. Focus your ad on whatever it is your business does better than everyone else, and construct ads around those USPs.

By doing this, you will influence your ads’ quality score which is another essential ingredient like CTR to be successful on Google Ads. The more relevant your ads are with selected keywords and landing pages, the better chances to receive high QS which eventually leads to high CTR and ultimately conversions.

A few months back, in a Google Office Hours hangout, Google’s John Mueller answered a question about why a site lost rank. Yes, it’s about SEO. John’s answer centered on the power of being different and how this quality can help a site ranking better. I believe, this is relatable to PPC too. In fact, for any form of digital marketing and advertising.

Challenge #5: Limited characters space for ads

Your ads must be compelling enough to grab Google users’ attention, encourage them to clicks, and drive conversions. However, with standard text ads (one of the most used and most powerful ad formats), you only get 30 characters for your three headlines and 90 characters for your two description lines.

That’s not much space to work with, but not little too, especially when you are focused on:

• Convey unique selling points (USPs)
• Offer custom deals and discounts
• Add a call to action (CTA)

Like all writing, the main step is to start. Once you have a few drafts, then you can compare, edit, and refine them to find the best 2-3 variations you want to try out first. Remember, no one knows for sure which ad copy will perform best so always run multiple variations and let the data guide you. Also, I am encouraging you to test ad copies until you reach an optimum level in terms of their performance. But refrain from unnecessary experiments with Google Ads.

Challenge #6: Right landing page selection for ads

It’s comparatively easy for us to do adjustments in our ad copy but this is not the right approach especially when you only focus on your ad copy rather than reviewing your ads and landing pages together.

Your Google Ads quality score can tumble over poor landing page experiences, resulting in fewer conversions and more expensive clicks. Google can even stop showing your ads over what it deems to be inappropriate landing page content a.k.a. false advertising. On top of that, you’re likely to end up with a bad user experience (UX) that might have otherwise converted.

Before altering your ad copy, first make sure that your plan, is well aligned with your landing page. If your revised ad offers pay on delivery, then people who click that ad should found that offer too after landed on your web page. Those irresistible offers play a massive part in bringing people to your site and journey to goal conversion, but if you don’t follow through on your landing page, neither will your prospects.

It is okay to edit your ads here-n-there based on data (or sometimes your gut feeling) without touching the associated landing page. But when changes are critical (in most situations), good to maintain the alliance between your ads, landing page, and keyword.

Challenge #7: Targeting users on mobile

Most web developers today building websites that are equally functional on both mobile and desktop platforms. However, many small business websites are not mobile-friendly since were built before mobile took off.

Three things will happen if you advertise to mobile devices without a mobile-optimized website:

• Potential consumers will bounce because the page will not look or function properly on their mobile (a.k.a. you’ll lose sales)
• Your quality scores will suffer, which leads to higher costs and lower ad position
• Even if you are running campaigns and exclude handheld devices to display ads, you are missing out on a large portion of your probable customers which again adversely affect your ROI because your competitors are ON mobile

So choose to not advertise to mobile devices is not really a smart option anymore, especially if we know that an estimated 100 billion Google searches per month originate from smartphones and this number is growing!

Unfortunately, the world is now working from home due to the COVID-19 outbreak worldwide. So mobile searches are expected to grow rapidly in the future. Accordingly, businesses should tweak the Google Ads plan.

Challenge #8: Goal conversion tracking

Enabling goal conversion tracking is an absolute necessity. Without it, you won’t ever know which keyword, ad, the campaign is driving the most leads and sales.

Get your conversion tracking code from Google Ads and embed it within the landing page of your website that indicates a completed goal. If your goal is to drive sales, then embed the code on your delivery confirmation page.

If you want to drive leads, then embed the code on the page that shows after your contact form is submitted a.k.a. thank you page. This code allows Google Ads to track when prospects complete your forms so you can see exactly which ads and keywords result in more conversions.

Additionally, if phone calls are important for your business, then don’t forget to set up call conversion tracking so you can see which ads and keywords are driving leads/sales over phone calls.

Challenge #9: Using ad extensions

Extensions are additional components in your ads that can make your ads much more enticing to users - especially those who are searching for local merchandise and services. Ad extensions include call extensions, site link extensions, callout extensions, price extensions, and more.

Google does show some extensions automatically, but you’ll miss out on the most useful extensions if you don’t set them up by hand.

Start with this feature under the “Ad extensions” tab in Google Ads and follow the directions to set up each extension.

Challenge #10: Optimizing campaigns

Optimizing the campaigns is an ongoing struggle. From the day you launch the ads, you should always be split-testing ad copy, adjusting your bids, trying new keywords, stopping poor-performing keywords, analyze different targeting options, and split-testing landing pages - do all kinds of calculative experiemnts.

Successful campaigns eventually require less elevation and, like everything else with Google Ads, it gets much easier over time, and one of the prime reasons for that is from the learner, you also turn into an expert in due course.

When you attend my online/offline training, I’ll show you exactly how to profitably manage your Google Ads campaigns, so you minimize your ad costs, generate more leads and sales, and maximize your profits!

If you manage your own Google Ads campaigns, or if you manage Google Ads campaigns for clients or on behalf of others, you should definitely attend this program.

A Basic SEO Audit Checklist

A site’s health is a key factor that influences the ranking of your website. In today's post, we look at the basic search engine optimization (SEO) audit checklist, and more.

Keeping up with all the latest trends can be crushing for someone who has just started out SEO. Besides, making sure that the existing SEO operations are in place as per the latest Google algorithm changes can be an overwhelming task for some.

To make sure that you and your site are up-to-date and are not missing out on anything obvious from an SEO point of view, you should perform an SEO audit of your website regularly. With an easy-to-follow ready checklist, you do a standard SEO audit task that ensures none of the critical factors are missed.

In today’s post, I will brief you with a comprehensive checklist that will help you execute the SEO audit of your website effectively and efficiently.

The benefits of having an SEO audit checklist are:

• Helps you identify the site’s configuration issues and work on them
• Helps you with your site’s on and off-site SEO
• Helps you improve your site’s speed and performance optimization
• No need to depend on others for website auditing
• Helps you increase the organic traffic
• The checklist helps you find any SEO exclusions or unlawful activity
• Help you improve the website’s ranking on SERP

I have tried my best to create a comprehensive checklist so that you don’t miss out on the key parts of SEO.

Now, let’s explore the checklist for your next SEO audit.

Define the scope of SEO audit

Before you dive in, determine the purpose of your work to know why you need an SEO audit. These objectives will eventually define the scope of your checklist and help you navigate smartly.

For example, if your website is not achieving the desired load speed results, you might want to conduct an SEO audit accordingly to figure out what’s causing the trouble. Or, if there is a sudden downfall in the traffic metrics, your line of action will be different to fix things through an SEO audit. Well, there may have many separate or inter-connected goals behind performing an SEO audit; so by carefully assessing them, you will be able to perform an SEO audit more effectively.

That’s the reason, there will be certain areas that I have purposefully skipped from this basic checklist.

1. Keyword analysis

Analyzing keywords is a good idea to begin your audit with the analysis of the keywords your site is targeting and if you’re using the right ones.

In general, the right keyword will be relevant, measurable, and obviously will help you do business better. A few tools that you can use are -

• UberSuggest
• SEMrush
• Google keyword planner
• Ahrefs
• Google trends

Beware of keyword cannibalization, is another damaging factor for your website. It occurs when more than one page of your website competes with each other for the same keyword. Make sure that you implement resolutions to take care of it.

2. Content analysis

Content that’s on your site must be unique and free of plagiarism, which is a basic requirement of doing SEO properly. Well, there are several other facets of content analysis checks that must be safeguarded.

Begin by checking the presence of duplicate content on your site with help from tools such as Siteliner.com. You can also take the help of the Copyscape tool to see if any of your content has been plagiarized or not.

Typically content that helps your website rank better is customer-engaging and search engine-friendly. Make sure that you are using the targeted keywords throughout a page on your website. Some recommended places are -

• Keyword in the title of the post/page
• Keyword in the first paragraph
• Keyword appearances in the H1 Tag
• Use of keyword in the meta description of the post
• Keyword appearances in the URL structure
• Keyword in the alt text of the image used
• Keyword appearances towards the end of the post’s content

To make sure that your content is engaging, always answer the user-generated queries through the content of your landing pages. Keep updating old content with regularly publishing new content for the audience so that you can get a fair share of traffic on both.

Making sure that your content is containing the right information is just as important as using the right language. Create the right content strategy which is well balanced with both text and multimedia content including a regular content publishing plan is sure boosts your SEO.

3. UX and UI analysis

The UI furnished by a website is a huge determinant of the site’s UX and the conversions from landing pages.

Google Analytics and Search Console can help you fix the UX issues on your website to a great extent. Alternatively, you can figure out a smooth UI for your site’s audience so that they can seamlessly surf through the pages of your website and take the action you want them to do.

Another critical site UX ranking factor is the presence of any broken links or pages within the site. Link checker Tools can help you remove such links and ensure that your site doesn’t have them.

4. Image optimization check

Make sure that you are optimizing the images present on your website. There are various tools available online which can help you optimize images. And don’t forget to implement the following -

• Use high-resolution images
• Resize them to match with your site’s UI
• Use a relevant image that matches with text surrounded by
• Name your image file appropriately (keyword focused)
• Use image alt attribute (keyword focused)
• Check for CDN settings for delivering image content appropriately

Additionally, check for copyright if you use ready-made images.

5. Social media account analysis

If your website is employing social media platforms to share its updates and news, make sure that they are well integrated and are working as planned.

6. Web hosting check

The right web hosting service boosts your site’s SEO efforts by adding its server reputation, website uptime, and the loading speed it offers. In an SEO audit, you must review the performance of your existing web host and if there is a need, search, and select a better service provider.

Resources like PCMag can be very helpful for comparing the performance of the hosting service providers.

7. Website loading speed check

Use a tool like Pingdom and/or PageSpeed Insights to fix the issues (if any) with the speed of your website. If it is taking more than a set standard to load, make sure that you take the necessary steps at the earliest.

Don’t forget the website loading time to optimize for both desktop and mobile devices.

8. Site uptime

During the site’s SEO audit, you must check the site’s uptime records too. Site uptime means your website is up and running - accessible to its users. On the other hand, a website with frequent downtime will adversely affect your site’s ranking. To take care of your site’s maintenance and maintain uptime, you can leverage tools like Uptime Robot, Site 24*7, and Pingometer.

9. Back-link analysis

Make sure that the links from other sites to your website are relevant and working. Moz, Ahrefs, and Majestic are great link checker tools if you want to find out the quality of the backlinks to your website. These tools will help you classify the backlinks detected by their sophisticated web robots for given domains, subdomains, or URLs.

Besides, you scrutiny all the outbound and internal links present on your website and get rid of all the junk links.

10. URL check

The right URL structure is critical for SEO as it tells quite a lot about the page on your site. All the URLs on your website must be SE optimized (and user-friendly too) rightly.

11. Google penalty check

Any Google Penalty can cause a lot of damage to your site’s online brand value which costs your site’s SEO work. If you are not aware of such a penalty being imposed on your website, all your efforts to improve your SEO score can go in vain.

Hence, during an SEO audit, Google Penalty check to see if your website has been penalized or not is an absolute must. There are several tools available such as Panguin and Fruition’s. You can through Google Analytics and Search Console tools though identify if anything bad happened with your site. A sudden drop in traffic will be an easy indication in many cases.

12. Sitemaps

XML sitemap files help search engines better understand the structure of your website by sharing information about your site. All you have to keep the files free of any errors.

A Google Search Console feature will help you figure out how many URLs were indexed successfully after submitting the sitemap files through the tool. It will also notify you of any errors in files. Bing Webmaster Tools have a similar feature. Use tools like CodeBeautify and XMLValidation to check your sitemaps for errors before submitting them to Google and Bing for crawling.

13. Site security check

A site’s security is another crucial factor that determines the ranking of your website. If you are doing SEO on an e-commerce website, security is even more important. Since having an SSL certificate is now obvious for a website, make sure that your website has it and while performing your next SEO audit, check the certificate hasn’t been expired.

In conclusion

Once you are making progress, periodical SEO audits will help you keep your SEO strategy alive. With the checklist provided above, you will be able to perform a more efficient SEO audit and run more effective SEO campaigns for your site.

6 Digital Marketing Strategies For SMBs During COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus, is having a tremendous impact on businesses and the economy worldwide. During this time, it’s key to stay calm and safe to explore all options for your business.

I’m going to discuss the six different digital marketing strategies that you can focus on during this COVID-19 outbreak for your business -

• Google My Business
• Online Reputation Management
• FAQ Schema
• Budget Optimization
• Google Ads Campaigns
• Social Media

But before that -

Stay safe.

Keep yourself, your family, and all who you care about safe.

And -

Stay informed.

There is a lot of misinformation floating around at present, so it’s crucial - more than ever - that we all stay informed by consuming information from trusted sources. Don’t panic.

Now back to business -

6 digital marketing strategies for businesses negatively affected by coronavirus:

These are hazardous times; everyone is anxious, but the worst thing you can do is react to everything out of sheer panic, including your digital marketing strategy. Hold patience on your search engine marketing effort can help you continue generating revenue, which is especially essential during potential economic downtime.

Here are some digital marketing strategies to help your business -

1. Update your Google My Business

Whether your business has closed during this period or remains open, it’s vital that you update your Google My Business profile. Google has announced that Maps will display if a business is temporarily closed.

Currently, the only way to mark your business as temporarily closed is to contact Google My Business Support. However, Google’s CEO, Mr. Sundar Pichai said, “In the coming days, we’ll make it possible for businesses to easily mark themselves as ‘temporarily closed’ using Google My Business.”

Google is proactively advising businesses to update their Google My Business listing, especially if they’ve been affected by COVID-19. Google has released information on how to update business information in a bid to help users with the most accurate information.

It’s important for local businesses to update their Google My Business page, especially now when “nearby” or “near me” searches are on the rise.

2. Focus on online reputation management

Businesses keep continuing to exploit blogs or other mediums to publish content relevant to their industry trends and growth as a means to update their customers. This will transmit reassurance to your customers and let them know what you’re doing to help them. Which in turn helps you maintain the online reputation of your business even in a crisis situation.

3. Use FAQ schema

People are using search engines like Google more than ever for finding answers to their questions. Ensure that your website content answers the questions that searchers are searching for. Think about implementing FAQ schema to your website pages correctly so you have an opportunity to appear higher on the search engine results page (SERP), which in turn, can increase your traffic and click-through rate (CTR).

4. Budget optimization

Buyer behavior has certainly changed a lot over the last few weeks and months, so you must be ready to shuffle your marketing budget to react to these changes smartly. This is especially important for businesses that run PPC ads. Now is the time to scrutinize the amount spend on online marketing to find out the most profitable channel.

Spend your total budget wisely, especially if you have multiple lead generation processes for your business. And, if you can afford it, invest in profitable plans only and utilize selected ways for the marketing effort.

5. Run Google Ads campaigns

This is one of the best ways even now, to reach customers who intend to buy. You can also use the ads to reach your target audience on social media.

As we can expect fluctuation in demand for certain products and services, now is the time to use online advertising more intelligently to turn the tide towards your business. Of course, depending on your product/service and/or industry, you’ll need to be mindful of running campaigns.

6. Use social media

Similar to Google My Business, use your business’s social media accounts to keep your consumers informed about every initiative that you take to make their lives easier during the crisis. You can create content related to your business operations.

In conclusion

Obviously, this is a creepy time, but you need to think about the effects that could have on your business if you stop all of your digital marketing efforts.

I cheer you to stay active online, answer your customer’s queries, and let them know that you’re still there - at their service.

We will get through this together. Stay safe.

COVID-19 & E-commerce Digital Marketing

COVID-19 has definitely made an impact on e-commerce businesses over the past couple of months now that isolation and social distancing measures have been put in place.

Employees in many infected countries have been asked to work from home, have been placed under quarantine and offices have been shut down.

Naturally, many brick and mortar stores have since forced to shut down, pushing traditional consumers to adopt e-commerce as an alternate.

Reconsider your e-commerce digital marketing strategy

Many businesses are reviewing their options in light of COVID-19, the budget of digital marketing and advertising will be a target for businesses looking to make cuts.

There is indeed a need to work smarter under the current situation, but it’s a crucial time for marketers to adopt strategies for long-term profitability.

1. Manage PPC budget smartly

Strategies like switching off PPC campaigns entirely could clearly be hugely damaging.

Instead, look to manage smartly across accounts where possible.

• Recheck where search-n-demand is waning, accordingly adjust the whole campaign
• Allot budgets for keywords with a higher chance of generating conversions

CPCs at the moment will likely be lower as many advertisers trim down theirs too, so think about capitalizing on this where possible.

Also, if other businesses stop advertising, you can make CTR gains which will improve your QS and lower your CPCs.

The reverse is also true as other people are also looking for opportunities and studying the market’s movement. So you should not just switch off campaigns unless absolutely necessary!

2. Maintain organic visibility

When it comes to organic traffic, SEO is clearly a longer-term strategy and must retain its effectiveness.

It is expected, Google will be regulating its algorithms now more than ever to ensure that the community gets the most relevant results, so to ignore the SEO basics would risk decreasing organic visibility.

The organic channel is one of the most sustainable traffic sources in any situation.

People will always be searching, perhaps more now than ever before as many are now at home with an internet connection.

Businesses with online exposure are in a better position than any to continue to do business in what is a tough time for many.

3. Continue with digital PR

Yes, digital PR activity shouldn’t break during coronavirus.

Now is a great opportunity to get connected with the audience with your news stories that are aligned with COVID-19 logically. Because many are searching for news as usual.

People still want to read worthy news stories and want updates about how the pandemic presently affecting the industries.

If the news is good, it can get noticed by many on news sites.

If your business is willing to help other businesses and people during this tough time, entice them strategically through your digital PR campaigns!

4. Stay social on social media

There will be a lot more people spending time on social platforms as almost all start to adapt to the working from home routine.

This is a great time to re-ignite your social media strategy.

Below are some common tips for brands looking to renovate their social media plan based on current trends -

• Be accurate: Give customers trustworthy information about the things they care about. Be unbiased and clear
  
  
• Be organized: Try to connect both locally and globally with prospects
  
  
• Be convenient: Consumer’s habits are evolving and it’s important to let shoppers know that solutions are available anyplace, anytime
  
  
• Be innovative: Find out-of-box ways to provide solutions as the customers are isolated and combating with both boredom and anxiety

So even though we all feel quarantined, this ongoing crisis actually gives our businesses an opportunity to be even more social and more community-led.

It also lets your brand become even more popular during this gloomy period.

Resume the business

The things discussed in this post are a general guide to adapting to COVID-19.

Clearly, there’s no one approach to digital strategy for all kinds of e-commerce businesses.

But one thing is sure, it’s that we as a marketer must ensure our brands must perform optimally online all the time so customers never feel reluctant to do business with us.

This will enable us to avoid a long-term impact on market share and keep us ready to do the business whenever the situation demands.

COVID-19 Insecurity? Get Back To Digital Marketing Basics

COVID-19 has triggered digital ad spend cuts, campaign pivots, and rapid changes in online consumer behaviors that data analysts are still working to digest. It’s only natural to feel a bit unsettled.

In today’s post, I thought it is useful to remind digital marketers that the basics of good digital marketing remain the same, no matter the context. Being stick to marketing best practices is key to developing an effective and rational digital strategy.

7 essential digital marketing values and COVID-19

We, the digital marketers are fully competent in navigating this unprecedented circumstance, we just have to get back to fundamentals -

1. Redefine the goals and KPIs

This will be different by industry. The goal may now be to stay afloat because demand is thwarting, so you want to reset the target number of conversions. Or maybe it’s time to shift to a brand-first approach to reassure shoppers cause trust is what matters most now.

2. Reset the budget

Do some research to find out how much and where your competitors are spending. The insight you gain now will give you an instant boost and advantage too when things stabilize. Profitability is no doubt the backbone of businesses, but you can probably now focus on building brand awareness organically which takes time and cutting ad spend for the time being for generating direct revenue, which usually means investing in more future revenue.

3. Redefine the audience

It’s worth analyzing, who the audience for brands. Whether they have disappeared or not? Maybe they’ve simply changed their habits and you’ll need advocates to help find them.

4. Redevelop your USP(s)

Many businesses are now offering free trials instead of pushing for purchase. For industries that have had to shift to digital offerings, promotion (both marketing and advertising) will help to adequately communicate new value to prospects.

5. Recheck your communication mediums

We know that customers are spending more and more time online because of social distancing guidelines. Usage is up across all social media platforms, streaming services, and news media consumption. No one is better placed than digital marketers to figure out how to reach them!

6. Recheck work process

Productivity is more important than ever. The more you can automate the repetitive work related to launching and optimizing campaigns, the more time your team has to spend on customer retention, campaign analysis, innovative work, and other ad hoc needs.

7. Reanalyze results

As your CEO scramble to understand how consumer behaviors have changed and where the opportunities lie, the information that can be garnered from digital advertising is more cherished than ever. Now is the chance for marketers like you to lead the way with data-backed insights.

Need a bit more inspiration? We invite you to browse this blog for some of the most popular articles that provide fresh digital marketing tips!

4 Truths About Client-Agency Relationship

Understandably, most clients want to shield their money from the money-sucking nature of agencies.

But if you never accept these truths, you’ll probably never be successful in an agency.

If you want to keep your clients really happy, you must know how the business world really works.

I’ve learned lots of these realities the hard way. I’ve lost friendships, gotten fired, went broke, and succumbed to addiction, destructive behaviors because I didn’t understand these facts. It wasn’t sweet.

But learning these lessons has made me more strong, confident, and positive than I’ve ever been -

1. It’s always about the client

Client care about the business.

They care if I could solve their problems by charging as little as possible.

That’s all that really mattered to them.

From this, I learned this lesson, if I want money from my client, had to provide real value to my client’s business.

Once I realized this truth - once I started working professionally for clients and solving their problems - my bank account exploded. I got more money and income than ever before.

2. More discipline brings more power

When I was young, my ultimate goal was to earn more money.

To me, a “successful life” meant one where I could buy anything. And I tried very hard to get that.

Now that I’m older, I’ve understood the real truth: more discipline actually gives you more freedom.

When you live an undisciplined life - then it actually increases your anxiety and stress.

Similarly, before creating a budget, running an ad campaign is a perfect recipe for huge anxiety for your client.

But, after I created a budget, and submitted it to my client for review and approval, I felt way more disciplined and the client felt relaxed with the money.

Anything works best in a system.

So make rules. Make a system. Enjoy a structured environment focused on helps your client grow.

The outcome again will be the same - your bank account exploded again.

3. What you want is what you become

The biggest turning point in my career - I started treating myself like a professional.

Before I called myself a “professional” but I didn’t act like one. So I spent years in mediocrity.

Then, after years of disappointment, I decided to start taking myself seriously.

I started considering myself as a real professional.

So what do professionals do? Believe in their own ability without arrogance. Clients always crave professionals. If you can’t take care of yourself, how you can take care of your client’s business? Realistically, no way.

4. Success and ethics can go hand-in-hand

Success isn’t about money or fame - this is one of another late realization of mine.

Success is about being the person you were actually meant to be.

It’s tough to honestly express yourself in today’s corporate world. It’s risky too. It takes a lot of courage.

This fear and unwillingness to do the work the way it should be executed are what keeps your client’s business at a mediocre level. It’s always easier to stay in an honest zone, even if it means giving up on a client account.

You can either do business with your client honestly or not. It’s easy to go with the flow but without ethics, you cannot bring long-lasting success to the client’s business.

In the end, your success will be determined by whether you did the work you needed to do to level up your client’s business. And sadly, most people simply doing it at expense of their ethics.

In conclusion

Not surprisingly, many people were aware of these lessons but they manipulate these truths purposefully. And declare them successful.

But if you want to be successful, you need to see your client not as an ATM, but with confidence and professionalism.

Help the client first, not yourself. More discipline makes you a better professional. Place yourself in a position to learn and grow ethically. Do the work.

Content Marketing During COVID-19

Hi,

Are you a content marketer and now looking at your content calendar with a baffled mind?

Yes, you are not alone. This is the situation of thousands of content marketers looking at their editorial calendars and thinking, "what I planned to write seems unrelated in today's COVID-19 world."

Agreed?

It's not that your followers won't care about the content you had planned to publish. But your readers have other things on their minds.

As do you. Think about, what type of content intensifying you nowadays? Are you reading common posts? Or consuming content that's serving you with what you need to know right now?

During this weird time all over the world, I would like to raise your spirits so you too must not deter from your content editorial calendars. Think about publishing even just once or twice a month - but please do.

Surely, not all of your content needs to be on and around COVID. But timely, suitable content always holds the key. Especially now.

After all, your readers have explicit questions about what they should do during these weird times. Why not be their reliable source and help them?

How do you engage readers?

This is easy.

Post on social media platforms where your readers are already surfing. Ask for comments in your newsletter. Check with your customer service folks and sales reps to learn what questions you're being asked right now.

And then, create and post relevant content that addresses real-world issues - and yes, optimize it, too!

Your readers will react positively to your effort!

Why am I bring this up?

Because as I look at my own content publishing plan, I realize that others may need something different too than what you planned 30 days ago.

So, I'd love to know what you're dealing with, and what's keeping you going.

If you work in-house like me, feel free to share your challenges and successes. If you freelance, let us know how it's going.

Let’s make sure as a content marketer, we’re providing the content our audience needs, when they need it, in which form they want it.

Do you have any ideas for me? On this blog?

Please do not hesitate to send your feedback. I promise to consider all your suggestions and take action accordingly.

Thank you in advance for helping me out.

Let’s fight coronavirus fear with a fact-based content marketing strategy, and together we shall overcome.

What do you think? Is your content marketing plan got shattered, or are you still trying to stick to it? Are you tired of analyzing content marketing trends that are not so helpful right now? Let us know!

Closing thoughts

Content marketing during COVID-19 is challenging. If you wonder if you should put your marketing effort on hold, please don’t. It's doesn’t make any sense. For me, the show must go on - it doesn't matter how hard the time is, you get on and do it. No matter how hard the past was, you can always begin again and change the future.

I'm seeing slow signs of improvement like marketing qualified lead’s (MQL) target is on track. The sales cycle may be a little longer, but the clients are out there and the sales-ready leads’ bucket is full.

Lastly, the journey through COVID-19 affected time with my loved ones was fun, challenging, AND educational!

Here's hoping you're safe, well, and happy.

Have a wonderful time and thanks for reading. Do content marketing as sensibly during and post COVID-19 times as ever.

Partha

Getting Started With CRO

I tend to think that people in marketing and sales jobs were cursed.

However, at college, I was in awe of my friends who took pre-festive season part-time marketing and sales jobs to earn pocket money for them with ease.

Likewise, when it came to public speaking or writing, I could only dream of having some of my friends’ ability to smartness and recall the essential stuff quickly and comprehensively - all without scratching heads in desperation.

Looking back, I have to admit that I was resentful to those friends. While I needed cash but hesitated to take any marketing or sales jobs, they found them easy. While I had to hide my shyness to pass my opportunities, they just surpassed me.

However, 10 years later, I am witnessing something strange. I become a marketer!

You may have experienced the same. I now no longer feel jealous of those smart friends, who had easily exceeded me at college and wishing them the best in their careers.

I was struggling with -

• Maintaining a positive attitude towards me and get easily influenced by others
• Stop challenging obstacles and achieve new things
• Nurturing illusion about own satisfaction and happiness

How did I overcome it?

Well, it took me a few years of exploration to find the solution. However, when I did, I found a simple route to success. That is the continual doing of conversion rate optimization (CRO).

Let me explain.

Individuals who claim certified in their field (namely digital marketing, SEO, etc.) are mostly driven by superfluous egos rather than their serving attitude.

To give you an example, picture yourself studying digital marketing at an institute (if you actually did this, then it will be easy to imagine).

Due to the ability of your faculties to teach things super quickly, you have no problems passing your coursework. In fact, you get a distinction in your batch.

Encouraged by this achievement, it only takes you a few weeks after collecting a certificate to find an entry-level SEO position at a prestigious company.

Things are going well.

Your success at the institute (in terms of being certified) led you to believe that digital marketing would be just as easy for you to surpass the final exam. However, being certified (or a short-term course) was not enough.

You soon (even if you have cleared the interviews somehow) found yourself in deep water. You not only struggle to manage tasks or add values to your organization but also lack the necessary people management skills to be an effective leader or team player.

While you hung onto your job, your dreams of climbing the career ladder were broken into pieces. In addition, you saw many of your juniors from the team progress their careers strongly - despite them not certified like you.

So, what went wrong for you?

You stopped optimizing conversion rate - means, learning new things, while others continued due to their thirst for knowledge.

It is true.

They may not have certificates with great scores from reputed institutes, but their nonstop desire to learn new things (continuous work on conversion rate optimization) eventually paid off. Hence, after several years, they found themselves overtaking you.

Looking at this from a different perspective, you could say that:

When experts stop learning, they start to fall behind.

And as I’ve talked about above, this is because other people will keep learning and improving. And, eventually, these people will get ahead.

Clearly, then, an essential component of success is to always be learning new skills and knowledge. Do this, and you’ll keep yourself enthused and your mind sharp!

Of course, they're a lot more to say on this topic. So please click through to read my recent posts, which explain why learning should never come to an end.

As a marketer, we know our work is important. But I want more than that. I want a seat and a voice at the big table. One way to do that is to understand and be able to articulate how you and your team are tying marketing initiatives to ROI. Sure, it’s fun to report a huge increase in web traffic to your company’s site. But what if all your visitors get to your site and do nothing? Conversion rate optimization (CRO) allows you to tie a dollar sign to each visitor.

You can use the concept of CRO in many ways. I use it in my marriage all the time - more on that later.

Let’s start by quickly defining the components of CRO.

Conversion

A conversion is when your website visitor accomplishes the goal you’ve set for them. Website goals can be anything that you deem important to your business. For example, it could be for your visitors to fill out a form, subscribe to your blog, complete a purchase, or engage with content on your site.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of your website visitors that successfully complete the goal you set for them. Generally, this is measured in a specific amount of time. The conversion rate is calculated by the number of visitors who completed the goal divided by the total number of visitors to that page.

For example, you have a landing page with a form that encourages visitors to download your latest e-book. One hundred people visited your landing page and 10 of them filled out the form. Your conversion rate for that page is 10%.

Optimization

Optimization is the process of improving your resources to have the desired result in the most efficient way possible.

So, conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the rate at which your website visitors accomplish the goal you have set for them in a specific amount of time.

CRO is NOT - I do want to quickly note what CRO is not.

The process and outcome of CRO are not to be confused with that of search engine optimization (SEO). While SEO is focused on increasing the likelihood of pushing organic traffic to your site, CRO is focused on increasing that traffic to act. In a perfect world of marketing, you’ll have a real plan for both!

In simple terms, the process of CRO includes the following:

• Determine the goal
• Set hypothesis
• Conduct testing
• Analyze the result
• And action!

Here’s an example,

I usually have a goal of getting my way without my wife knowing. So, I use the CRO method to help me determine how to best reach that goal.

1. Determine my goal

After moving to a new city - far away from our hometown, every Saturday, my wife and I with our little baby boy get out to explore the new city. My goal is for my wife and kid to get over loneliness and move on with our lives as quickly as possible.

2. Set my hypothesis

If I change my reaction to my family’s unfavorable behavior after the move, they will get over it faster.

3. Conduct A/B testing

Scenario A: City sightseeing with outdoor dining.
Scenario B: Weekend trips outside the city.

4. Analyze the data

Surely “Scenario B” has a higher acceptance rate (read conversion rate) to us moving on from being upset and towards our happiness.

Now, this is not an exact demonstration of CRO, but you get the idea.

Tired of increasing your marketing and advertising budget on a website only to find it doesn't deliver? Keep on reading -

How do I get a start on CRO?

There are several small things you can do before dig deep into CRO. Here’s a list of quick and easy things that you can try out on your website:

• Add explainer text to your forms: Set the expectation for the visitor as to what they will get if they fill out the form correctly
  
  
• Test your call to action buttons (CTAs): Try different size, contrast, and colors; tweak the text on the CTA (submit vs download now!); try links versus buttons
  
  
• Reduce form fields: Only include necessary fields for your potential customer to fill out to submit
  
  
• Change the position of your form: Test if your form performs better above or below the fold, right or left aligned, as a part of the hero image, as a sticky form, etc.
  
  
• Images: Try different images - stock versus real, people versus buildings/scenery, size versus shape, representational versus abstract
  
  
• Copy: Test headline copy as well as supporting description copy versions. A single word in a headline or the slightest change in the description could make all the difference!

It is essential to keep in mind that you only want to accomplish one thing at a time. This makes sure that you can track what exactly is influencing your conversion rates and how.

CRO is a never-ending process. People that are visiting your site are always varying, and your site should be, too! Getting started with CRO can be a fun learning experience, so give it a try and you’ll be controlling your data and regulate your campaigns’ budget before you realize it!

NB: Please don’t forward this blog post to my wife. My A/B tests will no longer be valid if she knows about them.

Enjoy!

Finding Motivation When WFH

Hi!

How is your day so far? Hopefully, you’re not feeling stressed.

However, if you are - don’t worry. In this post, I’m going to be shared with you my remote working experience from last month that will definitely help you get your energy and drive back into gear.

To be honest, it’s all too easy to become strained while doing WFH.

Here are a few examples of things that can push your motivation and energy:

• Your boss adds more and more work on your shoulder
• Your clients want things NOW
• Your life partner asks you to spend more time with her, leaving you feeling embarrassed
• Your little kid asks you to spend more time with him, leaving you feeling uncomfortable
• Your burnt-out mind keeps you awake at night

It’s not hard to imagine how a combination of just a few of the above would rapidly lead you to suffer exhaustion. And, picture if all 5 reasons were present in your life - you’d be in trouble quickly!

Surely, stress can be clearly overcome.

Warning signs of stress

The first step is to identify the early signs of stress. We often dismiss or excuse them away. We are just dedicated to our jobs, honoring our commitments, or being a good parent, child, or friend. Those are merely our excuses so that we can go on doing what we’ve been doing. We need to pay attention to the signs.

There are three categories of it.

1. Mental signs:

• Self-doubt
• Feeling helpless
• Loss of motivation and interest
• Impatient attitude
• Lack of a sense of satisfaction
• Feeling detachment from the rest of the world
• Frequent distraction and an inability to focus
• Short term memory loss

2. Physical signs:

• Lack of energy
• Loss of hunger
• Loss of interest in intimacy
• Insomnia
• Frequent headaches
• Back and neck pain
• Muscle and joint aches

3. Behavioral signs:

• Irregular daily routine
• Increase in conflicts both in the personal life and profession
• Change in personal hygiene
• Self-imposed isolation
• Procrastination
• Lack of willingness to take responsibility
• Addicted to alcohol, smoke, drugs

What can you do?

• When you see the warning signs; pay attention
• Allow more time for rest and relaxation
• Explore your creative side, and engage in activities you enjoy
• Regularly disconnect from technology; smartphone, computers, etc.
• Make it a priority to get more sleep
• Eat a healthier diet
• Engage in regular exercise
• Start meditation

Learning how to manage stress is critical when you’re on the path to breakdown. It is much easier to avoid exhaustion than to recover from it.

Tips to stay healthy while working from home

Do you dream of living a healthy lifestyle or want to manage your stress?

What you also may know is that it isn’t as hard as you think to live a healthy lifestyle if you follow the basics.

You will find below tips in this post that will help you to live the healthy lifestyle you want and beat the stress!

• Drink more water
• Wash your hands properly
• Set a healthy sleep routine for yourself
• Get your diet back on track
• Make exercise fun
• Inactively sit less
• Prepare your own meals and families too
• Get more vitamin D in from the sunlight
• Stay as close to nature as possible (develop an indoor garden)
• Consume sugar and sodium optimally
• Take actions against unhealthy habits
• Build/re-build healthy relationships
• Don’t skip breakfast
• Increase fiber, protein, vegetables and decrease carbohydrates intake
• Explore new hobbies

And some customized solutions in addition to the above points.

How I stay motivated when I’m working remotely?

These are my strategies for finding motivation even when I am feeling worried:

• Focus on improving yourself instead of others
• Embrace your limitations and defeat the fear of failure
• Find out the reason behind your stress:
• Be it - career
• Family
• Friends
• Money
• Personal growth
• Health
• Romance
• Fun - kill it!

Remember, you alone are enough. But, agree to take help from your friends.

Conclusion

Remember, suffer exhaustion from time to time is normal and we just can’t get motivated at times.

Sometimes, solutions are easy to find, as in my case, just need to see around. But sometimes, it can be hard to find, fixed with building a new habit or a drastic change in lifestyle and giving yourself some downtime.

For some of the friends, burnout was severe and it took overhauling their entire life to dig their way out. But in the end, they feel so much more motivated, re-energized, and happier for it. And now their life stories become an inspiration to others like me.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with all of the responsibilities on your shoulder and with all of the things you’re thinking you need to change, remember to focus on the ONE thing that’s going to make the biggest impact. You can do it too.

My thing was producing ROI for my employer and managing my team whilst working from home weeks after weeks. Which, after months of stressing about it, was accomplished through meditation. And as soon as I did it I instantly felt more motivated and relieved.

Save your precious energy for only doing the things that truly matter right now in your personal life and your motivation will start coming back sooner than later to influence your profession.

Now you know the signs of stress and how to overcome it. All that’s missing action!

Please let us know how some of the advice from the above post may have helped you. I’d love to hear your experiences, thoughts, and stories.

Cheers!

Partha

Application of SETs | Introduction to SETs, Part V

Continuation from previous posts

1. Introduction to SETs, Part1 
2. Introduction to SETs, Part II
3. Introduction to SETs, Part III
4. Laws of sets

Now we learn some application of sets that helpful in solving many practical problems. We have already familiar with Venn diagrams that are helpful in establishing many important relations between different sets.

1. n(A ∪ B) = n(A) + n(B) – n(A ∩ B)
2. n(A ∪ B) = n(A - B) + n(A ∩ B) + n(B - A)
3. n(A - B) = n(A) - n(A ∩ B)
4. n(B - A) = n(B) - n(A ∩ B)
5. n(A ∪ B ∪ C) = n(A) + n(B) + n(C) - n(A ∩ B) - n(A ∩ C) - n(B ∩ C) + n(A ∩ B ∩ C)

Based on the above formula let us consider an example.

Example_1: From a Spanish football club’s 30 players, 24 can speak Spanish and 9 can speak English. Then how many can speak
(i) both Spanish and English
(ii) Spanish only
(iii) English only

Solution_1: Let A and B denotes the set of players who can speak Spanish and English, respectively. Then in usual notations, we are given

n(A ∪ B) = 30, n(A) = 24, n(B) = 9

(i) We know that
n(A ∪ B) = n(A) + n(B) – n(A ∩ B)
=> 24 + 9 – n(A ∩ B)
=> 33 – 30
=> 3

\ Number of players who can speak both Spanish and English = 3

(ii) We know that
n(A - B) = n(A) - n(A ∩ B)
=> 24 – 3
=> 21

\ Number of players who can speak Spanish only = 21

(iii) We know that
n(B - A) = n(B) - n(A ∩ B)
=> 9 – 3
=> 6

\ Number of players who can speak English only = 6

Example_2: Out of 50 employees in a company, 24 play cricket, 15 play hockey, 18 play football, 6 play cricket and hockey, 8 play cricket and football, 5 play hockey and football and 10 employees do not play any of the three games. Then how may play
(i) All the three games,
(ii) Hockey (H) but not football (F),
(iii) Cricket (C) and football but not hockey

Solution_2: Let C, H, F denotes the set of employees who play cricket, hockey and football respectively. Then in usual notations, we are given

n(C) = 24, n(H) = 15, n(F) = 18, n(C ∩ H) = 6, n(C ∩ F) = 8, n(H ∩ F) = 5, n(C’ ∩ H’ ∩ F’) = 10

(i) First we have to find out the number of employees who play at least one of the three games which is given as

n(C ∪ H ∪ F) = 50 - n(C’ ∩ H’ ∩ F’) = 50 – 10 = 40

Now from application of sets we know that,
n(C ∪ H ∪ F) = n(C) + n(H) + n(F) - n(C ∩ H) - n(C ∩ F) - n(H ∩ F) + n(C ∩ H ∩ F)
=> n(C ∪ H ∪ F) = 24 + 15 + 18 – 6 – 8 – 5 + n(C ∩ H ∩ F)
=> 40 = 38 + n(C ∩ H ∩ F)
=> n(C ∩ H ∩ F) = 40 – 38 = 2

\ Number of employees who play all the three games = 2

(ii) As from application of sets we know that,
n(H - F) = n(H) – n(H ∩ F)
=> 15 – 5
=> 10

\ Number of employees who play hockey but not football = 10

(iii) To find out those employees who play cricket and football but not hockey are,
n((C ∩ F) - H)
= n(C ∩ F) – n((C ∩ F) ∩ H)
= 8 – 2
= 6

\ Number of employees who play cricket and football but not hockey = 6

In my SETs theory articles series I have covered definition of set with examples, methods of writing sets, empty set, singleton set, finite set, infinite set, equivalent set, equal set, subsets, proper subset, super set, universal set, power set, Venn diagrams, various operations on sets, idempotent, identity, commutative, associative, distributive and De-Morgan's laws.