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3 End-Of-Summer Marketing Tips

Modern Marketing Tips That Are Easy For You To Embrace!

Here are 3 Marketing Tips to help keep you going through the fall. Surely this won’t be the only marketing tips posted on the web, however, these are tips written from experience — not to mention that they are good reminders for all.

If you are interested in hearing more of these tips, enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Marketing Tip #1 —Slow and Steady Wins The RaceMarketing Tips - Slow and Steady

The concept of continuous innovation isn’t just a scientific marketing method, it’s a time-tested business philosophy. This methodology has built some of the world’s great companies, like Toyota and Google.  They are proving to be a critical component of what differentiates winners from losers in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Marketing Tip #2  — Mind Your P’sMarketing Tips - The 4 P's of Marketing

It’s about the importance of ALL P’s, particularly “Product” – it is one of the most important lessons that many marketers have ignored for the past 10-15 years. Unfortunately, many marketers have often thought of themselves as being in the ‘Advertising business’.

Now more than ever, successful and sustainable businesses are built by clearly presenting the Product, Price, Place, and Promotion of their brands.

#3 — Seek And Ye Shall Find FindMarketing Tips - getting The Results

This is a good reminder that it’s all about the results. This has been the underpinning of the scientific marketing method for 150+ years. It is what the modern marketing world has come to really appreciate in the past 5-years.

Learn more about the marketing in today’ business world…

I recommend also searching for  Entrepreneur Magazine Online and Forbs Magazine Online articles.

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Marketing Trends of 2017 and 2018… Are You Up To Speed?

Here Are The Top-5 Marketing Trends That Are Hot in 2017 & 2018

Regarding marketing trends, it is surely a unique time in business marketing. What is hot in marketing is the people and technology that help cut through the din of message noise that we are all plagued with.

1 – Marketing Trends — Increased focus on customer experience.

Whatever you decide to call it — UX or CX — this aspect will be a ‘make-or-break’ component of your vision’s success. You can’t make promises your business cannot keep and this factor will become increasingly important as the global market continues to grow.

The average user will be focused on themselves more than ever before — which is saying something — and video will be the big influencer in the visual side.

Marketing Trends - The Facts

Learn from the experts about the current marketing trends

“Not convinced video marketing is the way of the future? Here are a few statistics to help you understand exactly how popular video marketing has become in recent years, according to news shared by HubSpot: 

 – Video is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019.

 – Adding a video to marketing emails can boost click-through rates by 200-300%.

 – Embedding videos in landing pages can increase conversion rates by 80%.

 – 90% of customers report that product videos help them make purchasing decisions.

 – According to YouTube, mobile video consumption grows by 100% every year.

 – 64% of customers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video about it.

 – 87% of online marketers are currently using video content in their digital marketing strategies.

 – A third of all the time people spend online is dedicated to watching videos.

 – Video ads now account for more than 35% of all ad spending online.

 – 59% of company decision makers would rather watch a video than read an article or blog post.

 – Digital marketing expert James McQuivey estimates that a single minute of video content is the equivalent of 1.8 million words.” ~ Forbes Online

2 – Marketing Trends – Engaged and effective measuring of data

If you are in almost any marketing position you will recognize the value of data collection. It drives many decisions in the business world and how it markets to its audience.

Today, both the sources and volume of data collected have exploded. We define “big data” as a capability that allows companies to extract value — and make sense — from large amounts of purposefully collected data design to deliver a more personal experience. But does it really do that?

Marketing Trends - The Success Cycle

3 – Marketing Trends – Lean on the new marketing lieutenants: marketing technologists and data scientists.

So how does all this affect my world, you ask?  Well, for the most part, you will never know it is happening until you venture onto a site that displays advertisements. You will then be faced with ads that serve your interests… coincidence? No, not in the least!

In today’s marketing world, the power and knowledge often lie with the person with the best data access and deepest understanding of that information. As such, all marketing departments should have a data scientist. Data scientists are the equivalent of the traditional ‘senior’ department head.

Marketing Trends - Data Scientist

 4 – Marketing Trends – Personalized everything is no longer ‘coming’, it is here!

Have you ever clicked on a link and then 5 minutes later you are getting ads that represent your clicking and URL behaviour? I would not be surprised by that as almost every behaviour online is now tracked. Not by some nefarious as originally projected, but by entities that resell the value proposition of understanding your customer.

But really, can you understand it all? I say “not easily” and the experts agree.

SOURCE: Kissmetricsthe big data problem

The issue with big data: too much, too slow, too complicated

5 – Marketing Trends – Better video content…and more of it.

As mentioned above, a video is currently being used by 87% of marketers today. But that does not speak to the quality of relevant feed of that video.

I speak of this often regarding the right timing on your messaging — and while video can be used earlier and earlier in the marketing funnel/sales cycle — relevance is going to be key in capturing interest.

I encourage you to download this PDF that shows the relevant timing of your messages.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Customer Experience

Artificial Intelligence — It is no surprise that technology is amazing, but when technology out-thinks, out-creates, and out-plays us humans, are we ready?

Artificial Intelligence

What’s Next? Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Customer Experience… oh yeah, that is already here.

As a professor of human nature — I am not really a professor — Artificial Intelligence (or AI) fascinates me.
The level of “computations per second” needed has been exponentially increasing over the past 30 years and most recently we have begun to have the understanding of the quantum world and entangled particles, which is what led Dr. Feynman to have a vision.

“In quantum physics, entangled particles remain connected so that actions performed on one affect the other, even when separated by great distances. The phenomenon so riled Albert Einstein he called it “spooky action at a distance.” The rules of quantum physics state that an unobserved photon exists in all possible states simultaneously but, when observed or measured, exhibits only one state.” ~ LiveScience.com

The research being done on this is still in its infancy, however, quantum computers tap directly into an unimaginably vast fabric of reality—the strange and counterintuitive world of quantum mechanics.

Artificial Intelligence - Quantum ComputingThe story behind the theory of ‘quantum computing’ is about 35-years-old when Nobel Prize-Winning physicist Richard Feynman fostered the idea of a ‘quantum computer’. 

Physicists — like Feynman — have a unique way of looking at things and while the thought of increasing a computers speed had — in 1982 — been around for about Forty-years, the theory of quantum computing blew the best minds of the day, and in many ways shaped the path we have been on ever since.

Artificial Intelligence in MarketingThe Next Big Step For Artificial Intelligence

It seems that there’s no question that AI will play a large role in humanity’s future. In fact, it is already here. Cortana, Siri, Alexa, Google’s voice all are early AI. But what is it missing? There are many schools of thought, however, there are two main agreed-upon hurdles — computation speed and Interface.

The fastest computers can do 33,860 trillion calculations per second — or in computing terms 33.8 petaflops.

Artificial IntellegenceArtificial Intelligence — Where Are We Today?

In 2010, the Tianhe-2 knocked the US Energy Department’s Titan machine off the No 1 spot. The Titan achieved a paltry 17.59 petaflops per second by comparison. By comparison, even further, the Quantum D-Wave 2 Is 3,600 Times Faster than Tianhe-2.

“Quantum computing differs from classical computing at its most fundamental level. While traditional computers rely on the alternate bit states of 1 and 0 to store data, quantum computers exploit the fuzzy effects of quantum mechanics, allowing its “qubits” to exist as a 1, 0, or both simultaneously, a.k.a “superposition.” So while a traditional computer will sequentially explore the potential solutions to a mathematical optimization problem, the quantum system looks at every potential solution simultaneously, known as quantum annealing, and returns answers—not just the single “best” but nearly 10,000 close alternatives as well—in roughly a second.” ~ Read more about the D-Wave

Artificial Intelligence needs Quantum Computing not because of speed, but because of the interface.

 

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WordPress — Why Are You Using Anything Else?

WordPress — Simply A Great Content Management System (or CMS)

WordPress works for your Portfolios, Blogs, Online Brochures, and of course, Interactive websites. And with WordPress Plugins, you can easily build-in functionality that serves associations, corporations, and e-commerce websites.

WordPress Framework

That all said, the WP framework is designed for sites of all depth and sizes. Small businesses love it because of its powerful extensibility and its ease-of-use; and large corporations like it for its user manageability and customization ability.

In fact, its ability to be extensible is all based on the [open-source] framework… which is one of the least talked about aspects of WordPress — to understand more about open-source software, check out GNU’s Philosophy, but first, let’s back up and see how we got to WordPress’ staggering popularity!

WordPress 28 PercentWordPress Web Sites Are Now 28% Of The Web In 2017

FUN FACT: A “website” has a unique hostname (a name which can be resolved, using a name server, into an IP Address). It must be noted that around 75% of URL’s are not active, but parked domains or similar — so only about 25% of all registered domain names are websites. The numbers below are about actual websites, not URL’s.

“We have come a long way since the first baby steps of the World Wide Web. Back in January of 1996, we had 100,000 websites, and if we go back to mid-1993 there were only a total of 130 websites.” ~ Pingdom AB 

Now in 2017, we have 1.25 Billion active websites, and with 28% of the web being WP sites, the number of active websites that are on the WordPress framework is about 354.2 Million as of September 2017.

WordPress SEO Best PracticesThis Is Why Content And Good SEO Practices Are So Important!

It is easy — under the WP framework — to optimize your content.  My favourite content SEO helper is “Yoast SEO”. Yoast SEO is

Yoast SEO is “the most complete WordPress SEO plugin”. It handles the technical optimization of your site & assists with optimizing your blog content.

What About WordPress’ Equates To Ease Of Use?

If you have the capacity to understand Microsoft Word, you will understand WordPress, yet some do not like the interface. Personally, I do not mind the interface, pretty quickly — like with anything — you get used to it.

7 Things to LOVE About WordPress

1. AT ITS CORE, IT’S FREE
2. SEARCH ENGINE MAGNETISM
3. PLUGINS THAT MAKE IT EXTREMELY EXTENSIBLE
4. IT IS UPDATED REGULARLY
5. SUPER INVOLVED WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY
6. NON-TECHIE EASE
7. FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE

If customization is your thing, WordPress has its advantages. WordPress is fully compatible with outside frameworks and programming languages, making it possible to weave in any integration.

Want to learn more? Call me at 1-888-503-3523 or contact me here

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Your Website Is Your Window The World …

… are you ready to start marketing yet?

Your Website Marketing Banner

Your website is your hub for all your online business dealings

As a website and marketing developer, I have found that it is crucial for businesses to understand that having a website or that having an online-presence — no matter whether it is eBay, Etsy, Shopify, et.al. — is only one leg of the process and does not equate to online sales. It sets you up for online sales, but it is not the right tool for the next phase of this process.

Think of it like this. A carpenter has a toolbox full of tools, however, even with all those tools, a building will not get built without the carpenter putting his skills to the task.

Regarding your website “Understanding the all the components (the ones that drive conversions) is separate from the build — although still integrated with your overall strategy.” ~ Trevor Greenfield from Redwood SEO

Your WebsiteAlong with your website — other things to think about!

Getting noticed — via SEO, Social Media, et.al. — is only part of the plan. In today’s modern marketing, it is crucial to know the different awareness levels of your varying targets so your outbound messaging has the right timing to the intended target. This often overlooked ‘timing’ component is a crucial step.

More information about marketing your website…

Your Website — if designed correctly — will allow you to deliver the right message at the right time; a crucial component of inbound marketing, I suggest you contact me directly and we can chat about you and your business.

If you are looking for more information about marketing your website, I have written about this in two blogs that may interest you.

  1. VISIT: dickinsonent.com/cortex/the-right-message/ — where I talk about delivering the right message at the right time.
  2. VISIT: dickinsonent.com/cortex/marketing-messages/ — this is about the marketing messages that you will put out
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