6 Ways Artificial Intelligence Helps Digital Marketing

6 Ways Artificial Intelligence Helps Digital Marketing

Can a machine think? Can they do digital marketing? These are the common questions marketers are facing. Modern technology makes it possible for artificial intelligence to automate everything. Artificial intelligence (AI) is imitating human intelligence over machines. Machines are programmed to mimic their actions to aid in the execution of tasks and problem-solving. There are two kinds of AI – weak and strong. A weak AI is very simple and only performs a single task. A strong AI performs complex and many tasks. They are very human-like. A subset of AI is machine learning. It means the capacity of computer programs to absorb a huge amount of information. From these data, they can adapt and learn without human intervention.

A social media agency Hong Kong says that artificial intelligence boosts the fourth industrial revolution, which seems true. Today, effective social media rely on audience insights and machine algorithms. Search results in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo were ranked by machine learning. Even 24/7 customer service on eCommerce websites and messaging apps are powered by chatbots. Indeed, artificial intelligence greatly helps digital marketing. Here are 6 ways on how it does so.

Boost Awareness and Conversion 

Modern people commonly search for products and services online. For products to be discovered, marketers should use the proper search engine optimization (SEO). They can do this by using relevant keywords commonly typed by an online searcher on the search box. The keywords should be about the brand or product, plus its features and benefits. 

Through artificial intelligence, search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo determine organic search results when a user types a query. Search engines’ AI rank them through the keywords, quality of the content, quality of a site, and location of the searcher. For example, a Chicago searcher typing “top restaurants” will see the most popular restaurant within the city and in Illinois. A searcher in Los Angeles typing the same keyword will see the most popular restaurant within the city and in California.

A digital marketing speaker Hong Kong reports that 70% of high-performing marketing teams have a fully designed AI strategy. They use machine learning as a competitive advantage. These teams have a growth mindset and invest in training to enhance their knowledge about AI. As such, they have greater knowledge of marketing analytics. 

Drive Better Customer Service Experience

The behavior of modern consumers has greatly evolved. They shop online anytime, anywhere. They demand immediate results. When they have a question, they want answers fast. When they are prepared to buy a product, they will do it even in the middle of the night. AI has made it possible for brands to connect with their customers 24/7. Through chatbots, they can seamlessly handle all customer concerns anytime, anywhere.

A chatbot is a software application that simulates a human conversation. As an AI, it is one of the most advanced and promising ways to mimic human interaction. Chatbots are integrated on messaging platforms, mobile apps, social media accounts, and websites. They are used to handle customer queries, sales, and other service concerns. They can also be used to conduct a survey or trigger a sale via promotions in messaging and mobile apps. Today, 80% of businesses are using chatbots. There are also around 300,000 chatbots in Facebook Messenger. 

Enhance Content Customization

A video marketing agency Hong Kong noted that artificial intelligence has greatly improved video marketing. This is by helping them customize their video strategies through the insights they have collected from video viewers. AI collects data on videos that a viewer commonly and previously watched. These include the duration and engagement of a specific video which can be a beneficial guide. Each viewer has unique preferences. But with AI, marketers can see what videos stand out most and what elements they have in common. 

The same scenario goes for social media marketing. Most social media platforms house a library of collected user insights. These insights can guide marketers in finding the ideal persona of their target customers. Based on AI demographics, they can easily segment their target group. Based on AI analytics, they can very well create custom content that appeals to these groups. Let’s take Starbucks as an example. Such a global coffee chain has created a real-time personalization engine that integrates customer data and preferences using their mobile apps. From these pieces of information, they have conceptualized the reusable cups promotion in the UK in 2018.  The promotion resulted in a 150% increase in customer engagement and a 3x increase in incremental revenues. 

Help Better Predict the Buying Pattern

Marketers harness the power of AI to study the online behaviors of consumers. As AI collected data such as browsing patterns, searches, and website views, marketers better understand their interests, needs, and preferences. These help them segment their audience better and easier. AI also makes it easier for brands to predict the buying pattern among consumers. These greatly improved the accuracy of demand forecasting and demand sensing. As proof, AI saved the retail industry a $50 billion obsolete inventory for the year 2018. 

Improve Social Media Marketing Performance

As mentioned, social media platforms house a library of algorithms, analytics, and insights from machine learning. These libraries of information provide actionable tips on how to achieve specific social media goals. The goals may include brand awareness, conversion, customer retention, discovery, engagement, or uplifting a brand reputation. Around 77% of marketers have intelligently automated their goal setting and marketing tasks among social media networks. Likewise, 41% say that AI and machine learning have improved their social media marketing performances. 

Optimize Media Mix Strategies

A media mix strategy is a process of determining how much budget can be allocated in different marketing channels and platforms. This is to get the highest return of investment (ROI) for every ad spend. The big data collected by AI on the Internet provides insights on which ads performed best and which channel have they earned the most revenue. Using AI, marketers can make better decisions on media mix strategies. AI has always been on track to solving marketing and sales problems ever since they emerge. As an example, Disney has been using AI to fine-tune their media mix strategy. Via the Tableau software, the company aggregated data from partner organizations to create new media mix models for budget optimization. From such aggregated data, Disney came up with the idea of marathon weekends. This campaign doesn’t only result in a higher ROI but at the same time revived Disney’s reputation as the happiest place on earth.

Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2021/02/21/10-ways-ai-and-machine-learning-are-improving-marketing-in-2021/?sh=56f085ff14c8

How to Engage Customers Through Mobile Marketing

How to Engage Customers Through Mobile Marketing?

We are in the era of mobile devices. Around 5.22 billion people use smartphones globally. They are overwhelmingly popular for messaging and social media activities. This makes a social media agency Hong Kong very important in mobile marketing. People also use mobile devices to find gossips, news, and trends. Significantly for businesses, it is also where they commonly engage in online shopping. The conversion rates of smartphone shoppers have dramatically increased during the COVID-19 outbreak. With an average time spent of 3 hours and 15 minutes daily, such a conversion rate increased by 22%. Today, a digital marketing speaker Hong Kong always recommends mobile-friendly strategies. Thus, marketers need to know the fundamentals of mobile marketing. All the more, they should also learn how to engage customers through mobile marketing.

WHAT IS MOBILE MARKETING?

Mobile marketing is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on reaching target audiences using smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices through different channels. These channels include apps, eCommerce, emails, SMS, social media, and websites. Mobile marketing is the key to reach more people as they are spending more time on mobile devices. 

The concept of mobile marketing should revolve around:

  • Analytics to examine and track how much traffic it generates
  • Automation to shift your messages from one channel to another
  • Conveniences of choosing the right audience where to send a brand’s message
  • Cost-effectiveness to significantly reduce advertising cost in exchange for a higher ROI
  • Location-based and multilingual to encourage conversion among local customers
  • Responsiveness for content to display well in any mobile device
  • Simplicity to make it fairly easy to use among the audiences
  • Speed to provide a better mobile experience among users

MOBILE MARKETING STRATEGIES

There are so many strategies you can use for mobile marketing today. Yet, the key is to optimize and use each strategy wisely. Brands must also be practical to know which channels their target audiences spend most of their time. Among the common types of mobile marketing strategies are:

  • App-based marketing
  • In-game mobile marketing
  • Location-based marketing
  • Mobile ads
  • Mobile coupons
  • Mobile payment
  • Mobile search
  • Mobile website
  • QR codes
  • Text promotion (SMS, push notification)
  • Virtual and augmented reality

HOW TO ENGAGE CUSTOMERS THROUGH MOBILE MARKETING

The basic principles of a successful mobile marketing strategy are:

  • The creation of mobile-friendly content
  • Effective engagement strategies for customers using mobile devices
  • Using mobile apps and platforms

To further engage a brand’s customers through mobile marketing, here are some essential steps every marketer needs to do

Audience Segmentation and Personalized Targeting

There are thousands of mobile ads that people see daily. So, brands need to segment their target audiences and create personalized mobile ads to increase efficiency by up to 30%. It is important to find time to collect customer feedback through customer support chatbots, ratings, reviews, and surveys. A better way to test the effectiveness of personalized targeting is to do A/B testing experiments. The smartest way is to do these based on what device the target audience is using smartphones, tablets, etc. Audience segmentation and personalized targeting can engage customers through a deeper kind of connection.

Mobile-Optimized Websites

Mobile marketing means considering the mobile users first. So, a mobile-optimized website is important for a brand to offer the best experience to engage customers. The most common strategy to optimize a website for mobile devices is increasing the website loading speed. This can be done by enhancing search functions and removing unnecessary widgets. Another common strategy to increase customer engagement through mobile marketing is the right choice of keywords for each content. Users of mobile devices prefer searching short-form keywords. As such, brands should be familiar with these short keywords commonly used among smartphones, tablets, etc. They should then incorporate this on any advert, email, or message that they create for mobile marketing.

Multi-channel Campaigns

Consumers no longer stay in the same place today. Mobile marketing allows brands to target audiences in different channels, locations, and platforms. Brands should be aware of the differences in time zones among them and their target markets. They should also enhance location-based strategies as it is one unique highlight of mobile marketing. Needless to say, content should be made according to the browsers used by mobile devices. The largest browser categories today are Android and iOS. Plus, each mobile marketing ad should be posted on top social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to increase visibility. 

Video Content on Mobile Marketing

A video marketing agency Hong Kong noted the importance of using video content in mobile marketing. It is expected to cover around 76% of all mobile traffic by 2025. Even 92% of marketers focus on video as an important part of their marketing strategies. Mobile marketers should aim to create video content designed to target viewers based on demographics. They can likely boost conversion on campaigns streamlined according to age, location, and sex. 

The Bottom Line

With more than 50% of people in the world using mobile devices, mobile marketing is one effective way to reach customers. To further engage them, the personalization of campaigns in mobile marketing is very important. Multi-channel marketing and mobile-friendly experiences can also significantly boost brand conversion and engagement.

References: https://www.evinex.com/mobile-marketing/

How to Use Google Eat to Increase Your Online Revenue

How to Use Google EAT to Increase Your Online Revenue

Today, brick-and-mortar stores have transformed into digital shops. The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 accelerated the shift to online shopping. With such a shift among businesses comes the importance of ranking among Google searches. The more visible one’s business is on a Google search, the more chances it can generate sales. For a brand or business to rank in Google searches, it needs to adopt the Google EAT guidelines

What is Google EAT?

Google EAT is a search quality guideline published in 2014. EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. It is not an algorithm or a scoring factor on Google ranking. It is, however, an important factor in making a content land on the first page of a Google search result. Google EAT is the number one criteria for YMYL pages. YMYL means “Your Life, Your Money.” For Google, these are searches that affect people’s lives and finances. These are content that impacts a searcher’s decision on health, happiness, livelihood, and safety. Google has thousands of humans that manually review the quality of web pages based on YMYL. These quality analyses help improve Google’s algorithm. 

How Does Google EAT Work?

Google search is a big piece of software that takes the words users type on Google to look for information on the world wide web. To determine the legitimacy and ranking power of a site, Google search measures the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of its online content.

  • Expertise focuses on competency and in-depth knowledge of the content. When people search on Google, they either look for an answer to a question or a solution to their problem. So, content or website should address these queries by providing more accurate and useful information on target keywords.  The data should be based on one experience and knowledge. Be like a doctor prescribing the right cure or medication for a patient’s sickness.
  • Authoritativeness has to do with the content or website’s credentials. Such ranking comes from external signals like quality links from relevant forums, social channels, and websites. Referencing your content from leaders or experts of a certain field or topic can mean providing information that has authority and credibility.
  • Trustworthiness focuses on the reliability and transparency of content. To rank well, content should earn the trust of Google and its users. To do so, content must be updated, relevant, and truthful. The website should not contain broken links, coding errors, incorrect information, or poor grammar. Make the website safe and secure website. An SSL certification puts a searcher’s mind at ease.

Google Eat is a continuous process. It means building the strongest content possible across the pages of a website. It doesn’t stop with mere linking to reputable websites and using target keywords. It means continuously educating the audience in making their lives as easy and meaningful as possible.

How to Use Google EAT to Increase Online Revenue

By following Google EAT guidelines, content or website has a higher chance of ranking in Google’s search results. Here are the most basic highlights of such guidelines:

Expertise

  • The content must be free from factual errors. Most business websites contain different types of content. These include about pages, academic writings, advertising copies, emails, homepages, marketing copies, etc. It is important to proofread everything before publishing. A fine piece of content must be free from grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. The word choice should match the theme of a site. Factual errors on a piece of content can be a reflection of poor expertise and knowledge. Factual errors don’t only cover a piece of content. They also include broken links and slow-loading pages that affect the users’ experience.  A digital marketing agency Hong Kong improves a business website earnings by fixing technical errors and improving the content of its website.
  • The content must be original and relevant. An original and relevant content delights, engages, and supports the target audience. It is best to create unique content answering the audience’s queries. These should contain complete information for the audience not to seek information elsewhere.  Today, video marketing Hong Kong is now one of the most important strategies to rank in Google. Video content delights and engages the audience with media-rich information. They get 80% more conversions than images and text. Try using Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn Stories, or Twitter Fleets to share a brand’s message, and add product tags to support the audience with a better buying experience.
  • The content must be written by someone who knows or researches the topic well. Expertise is gained through formal and informal education. Formal expertise means gaining knowledge through certifications, training, or years of studies. While informal expertise can be obtained through hands-on experience. The easiest way to create an expert’s content is to have an industry leader, influencer, or subject matter expert write the content. While a challenging option is to write about topics where you excel. To build an expert’s reputation, you must do research and relay information objectively on your content. After providing expert tips, it will now be easy o pitch how a product or service can solve the needs of the consumers.

Authoritativeness

  • The content must still give substantial information even if pulled from other sources. Backlinking is an important process in gaining authority from Google. Backlinks are links that connect one website to another. The most common way to have backlinks is to use them as a reference for content. Yet, it doesn’t mean purely copy-pasting what is written. The key is to digest the information on a site and write it in simpler statements that can be understood by the target audience. Another 
  • The content should be optimized for mobile devices. Around 60% of people search for information using mobile devices. This makes it important to produce mobile-friendly content or content that readers can digest on the go. Short titles containing 5 words have higher click-through rates on mobile. Chunk your content into smaller sections by using bullets, images, lists, short paragraphs, subheads, or white spaces. Stick to simple layouts to stand out on small screens.

Trustworthiness

  • The content should be well-presented and well-organized. A well-presented and well-organized content makes it easier for readers to absorb information. They are more likely to continue reading the content if they find the information relevant. It is best to narrate a story in chronological order. To avoid confusion among readers, start by explaining simple ideas before going onto the complex ones. Or the problem should come first before giving a solution. The end result of trustworthy content is sales conversion. As Andrew Davis quoted: “Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” 
  • The content should provide more substantial value than the other search results. A trustworthy content uses data, facts, and statistics to support the veracity of information it presents. To rank in Google search results, content must stay ahead by providing the latest information and trends. A key to adding a substantial value in content is listing accurate contact information about the brand, marketing speaker Hong Kong, website, or writer. It is the biggest proof of existence that can build the reader’s trust. By providing contact details, Google knows that the site can give comfort to customers to easily get support in their buying experience.

Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2021/01/25/navigating-google-e-a-t-for-seo-success-in-2021/?sh=38cb6cb53df3