manninod-blog - Tumblr blog

[manninod-blog]

[manninod-blog]

     I decided to create an infographic that can be shared on the internet and on social media like Twitter, Facebook, and on instagram (if I crop it into sections). My infographic spreads the message to save the bees, since bees are endangered world wide. My infographic also supports an awesome organization called Detroit Hives.

    The image is very visual and is designed to lead the viewers eye through to the end. Although the order of information may seem odd, I chose to do it this way to catch the readers interest immediately, and keep them asking questions, yearning for more information. I wanted to avoid having someone look at the post and think something like  'oh, it's just another campaign'. Overall, I feel that my infographic could go viral because it supports and raises awareness for a topic that affects everyone. Not to mention, the Detroit Free Press just released an article on June 21st that my infographic relates to.

Sources:

Detroit Hives. (2018). Work Hard, Stay Bumble! Retrieved from https://detroithives.com

GreenPeace. (2018). Save the Bees. Retrieved from https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/

Paige, D. (21 June 2018). Why 100,000 Italian bees are headed to Detroit. Detroit Free Press. Retrieved from https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/06/21/bees-detroit-italian-honeybees/718725002/

Soil Association. (2018). Why Are Bees in Danger? Retrieved from https://www.soilassociation.org/organic-living/bee-organic/why-are-bees-in-danger/

[manninod-blog]

Email Marketing Tips

Larry Kim reveals the latest ways to be effective with email marketing today. I was so surprised to learn that email marketing is actually the most popular lead generations channel. However, it is dropping slowly over time because of the heavy traffic on social media sites and the internet. To stay on top in the digital bustle, Larry Kim says to use the targeted audiences feature on social media like Twitter and Facebook. Emails can be uploaded and sent to the people targeted on the sites by collecting user data.

As we have previously learned, there are many different ways to collect emails. ‘This can be done on Facebook and twitter by having users simply hit a subscribe button. Adwords, Gmail, Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook are all areas where targeted marketing and data collection can be done’ (Kim, 2016).

Larry Kim also presented how he was able to promote his blog to a tailored list of influencers on Twitter. The publication went viral within two hours of putting up the post. In four days, the post was seen on over 500 sites. The promotion cost $50, but earned him over 100 thousand site visitors (Kim, 2016). Overall Larry Kim suggests to use paid advertising targeted by emails. I think that he makes a logical point to use the new features and abilities given by these sites. Work smarter, not harder- right?

References:

Kim, L. (27 January 2016). Larry Kim Stukent Expert Session: Email Marketing the New Way. [Video] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=950&v=g28xLMUuu3s

[manninod-blog]

Article Analysis2

Summary:

“The makeup of your Internet audience is constantly changing and shifting” (Mathews, 2018). This article pinpoints the struggle to keep up on social media these days. Summer presents many opportunities to market and drive sales. Mathews (2018) gives some good methods to market effectively this summer. Look for holidays and events to participate at or support through social media. Use pictures, emojis, and gifs. ‘Schools out and summers in which means more users will be using apps and browsing online’. “On Twitter, a post with an image is about 150% more likely to be retweeted” (Mathews, 2018). Users like to see companies interact with emojis and gifs. Most importantly be creative, outgoing, and lighthearted with your businesses posts.

Analyze & Reflect:

Second 5 of the textbook discusses the importance of distributing and promoting content on social media. This allows a company to expand its reach. “By creating good content “A company can induce its followers to re-share its content, thus expanding the companies reach” (Larson & Draper, 2015). The suggestion that Mathews makes in the article are great ways to promote a brand. This same concept is effective during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas when kids are also on breaks. Summer vacation lasts about three months of the year, so there is a big window of opportunity to advertise. A study reports that “over 80 percent of consumers were willing to pay more for goods and services because they were standing in a comfortably warm room while they were asked” (as;dfj). People are more willing to spend money during summer. People are also more willing to spend money on vacation, which is more common due from time off of school. In Michigan, people can travel more because of less snow!  Overall, marketing should be innovative, while participating in current social media trends to gain popularity.

Have a great summer!

References:

Larson, J. & Draper, S. (2015). Digital Marketing Essentials. Retrieved from https://library.stukent.com/book/table-of-contents

Mathews, K. (3 May 2018). 6 Social Media Trends that Will Dominate Summer 2018 Marketing. DMN News. Retrieved from http://www.dmnews.com/social-media/6-social-media-trends-that-will-dominate-summer-2018-marketing/article/763203/

PYMNTS. (30 May 2016). The Strange World of Summer Retail. Retrieved from https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2016/summer-shopping-trends/

[manninod-blog]

Austin, when I first read 'Amazon' the first thought to come to mind was the news about Amazon looking to open a factory in Detroit. I have not heard about the company's relationship with Google, but this made me even more interested in reading your blog! I am not surprised that Amazon has taken this route in advertisement. I see this type of advertisement all over Facebook, which I know collects user data to suggest many different posts and ads. I feel that Amazons decision for this strategy is reasonable. The company is popular enough to where it doesn't necessarily need Google's help in advertising. What I really like to see from Amazon is a price comparison on products. I believe I have seen this before, perhaps not from Amazon specifically, but from other companies. Do you think this would be useful? Or do you think we can assume that items from Amazon are mostly always sold at equal or cheaper value?

Furthermore, you also mention bidding on Google for Ads. One advantage about Google's program is that the company has the option to turn on automatic bidding to increase the chances of winning the Ad space. The owner can also set a max limit on the desired amount to be placed for a bid- this way, a company does not end up over budget.

Great post!

Article Analysis Blog #1

The article, which I decided to analyze, is titled “Amazon is testing a targeting ad strategy” by Gregory Magana. The article was published on the online news website, Business Insider, on May 16, 2018.

I do not know about you, but lately, I have been hearing rumors that the B2B relationship between Amazon and Google is not well at the moment. As a result, my curiousness drove me to take a deeper look into the situation. According to Magana (2018), Amazon is currently developing and testing a new type of online advertisement “that will recommend products based on consumers’ purchase and search histories.” These advertisements will be displayed on numerous different sites that are visited by potential consumers. Magana (2018) claims that Amazon is implementing this strategy to grow the advertising aspect of the business, and as part of this strategy, the highly-successful e-commerce company has put an end to bidding/ purchasing Google ads. This makes Amazon more of a direct competitor to Google, for Amazon will be acquiring revenue from product search instead of having to pay Google for a high-quality paid search placement. The e-commerce company desires to be the start and end point of a customers online shopping process. For example, potential consumers would begin their search for a product and end their shopping experience all on Amazon’s official website. These new advertisements can also benefit the company by effectively following customers on the Internet and potentially converting them by maintaining the ad on the visitor’s screen before he or she makes any final purchasing decisions.

Within chapter 6 of this week’s textbook readings, Larson and Draper (2017) discuss the digital marketing concept of purchasing ad space (section 4). Businesses can purchase keyword ad space by bidding on a keyword through the search engine’s automated auction platform. The individual or business with the highest bid receives “the best ad location for searches on that keyword” (Larson & Draper, 2017, section 4). Larson and Draper (2017) explain two types of these bidding programs, CPC bidding and Cost-per-Acquisition bidding (section 4). Google (2018) defines CPC bidding as bidding the highest amount an advertiser is willing to pay for a click on their ad. For instance, an advertiser bidding $5.00 in this type of program may only have to pay an actual amount of $4.01. That is if the next highest bidder bids $4.00. One’s bid amount is generally higher than the amount that is actually being paid in the end. Cost-of-Acquisition bidding is quite simple. This allows advertisers to only pay per conversion rather than per click (Larson & Draper, 2017, section 4). In this case, if a customer visits a site but returns back to the SERP within a short period of time, the advertiser would not have to pay for the click on their ad. The advertiser would of had to pay if the customer was converted in some way. In order to participate in Cost-of-Acquisition bidding programs, bidders “must have sufficient conversion history…and conversion tracking” activated (Larson & Draper, 2017, section 4).

References:

Google. (2018). Adwords help. Retrieved May 24, 2018, from https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6326?hl=en

Larson, J. & Draper, S. (2017). Digital marketing essentials. Stukent. Retrieved May 23, 2018, from https://library.stukent.com/book/92

Magana, G. (2018, May 16). Amazon is testing a targeting ad strategy. Business Insider. Retrieved May 23, 2018, from  http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-testing-search-related-product-recommendations-2018-5

[manninod-blog]

Article Review

Summary:

The article I choose is titled Why Ecommerce Owners Must Create Google Shopping Campaigns from Entrepreneur, published on February 7, 2018. More specifically, the article consists of an excerpt from the book Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords by Perry Marshall, Mike Rhodes and Bryan Todd. Potential and current business owners make up the main target audience who are taken through the process of creating a Google Adwords account and uploading product information. The article is written with the sense that the reader understands basic marketing/business lingo.

So, why are Google shopping campaigns so important? According to the authors, this ad platform is a simple solution to earning more clicks and a higher return on investment for the business. Business owners are able to upload product data onto Google Merchant, and, upon approval, link the account to Adwords. When creating a campaign, products will be grouped in one category and must be organized by characteristics such as the brand, item type, and condition. Organization can be as detailed as seven levels deep to make the customers shopping search as precise as possible.

Most importantly, each subgroup is able to have its own bid price. Bid amounts can be based on how profitable each item is. Business owners can set the conversion value to show the total sale amount instead of total inventory sold at that time. Return on ad investment is calculated by dividing the conversion value by cost. It is important to monitor which products are selling to continue to tailor bid prices for a better chance of the Ad being seen and clicked on. Overall, the authors report that this tool has helped companies earn their highest returns to date.

Analysis/Reflection:

Search engine advertising is the most effective marketing method for online businesses. Ads purchased on Adwords alone contribute to nearly 90% Google's revenue. With the right marketing, a win-win situation is completely possible for Google and the company. ‘Every time there is an open space for ads, an auction is held, and the highest bid wins the space at that moment in time’ (Adwords help, 2018). ‘The textbook notes that Adwords even gives a bid range estimate based on what competitors are paying per click. It is okay to have a lower bid budget than competitors’ (Larson & Draper, 2015, Section 6).  Furthermore, Google displays four to eight ads after a search has been conducted. If advertising is not done strategically, money could be wasted by paying for clicks on ads from uninterested customers.

The article from Entrepreneur helped to highlight why It is so beneficial to know the targeted audience, what the customer is demanding, and the businesses overall goals for the campaign. “Most advertisers focus on clicks, impressions, conversions, or views (for video ads)” (Adwords help, 2018).  A company like an online retail store would most likely focus on conversions. There are many other features that can be utilized on the program such as the option to display extensions when possible. Overall, Adwords is a superior marketing tool because business owners have a large amount of control over the ads presentation criteria; essentially allowing a company to reach its customers much easier.

References

Larson, J. & Draper, S. (2015). Digital Marketing Essentials. Retrieved from https://library.stukent.com/book/table-of-contents

Marshall, P. (7 February 2018). Why Ecommerce Owners Must Create Google Shopping Campaigns. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307077

Adwords Help. (2018). Understanding Bidding Basics. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2459326?hl=en

[manninod-blog]

SEO & Marketing

There is an online battle for popularity among websites and webpages. Those who are victorious see an increase in profits. In an Stukent expert session video, @ScottCowley provides a visual of a heat map after performing a Google search to show peoples typical activity when browsing through the results. Barely any activity occurred towards the bottom of the page. I personally cannot think of the last time I went onto the second page after searching in Google. One solution to raise a pages rank is to tie keywords to the page during a search. This is similar to how I will use hashtags related to the topic of my post to try and raise the chances of it being seen.

‘Two man contributors that determine how a page is ranked is the relevance of the content and the popularity of the site considering the amount of links’ (Cowley, 2014). People have started to be more specific with the wording of their searches to get refined results. Companies must keep up with new online activity trends to stay competitive. Something that I found really interesting and useful from the video was Cowley’s suggestion to use OpenSiteExplorer.org to see how good a websites  links are in relation to where they rank among competitors. It is important to watch out for bad links tied to the web page.

Cowley moves on to talk about social media. This part of the video was especially interesting to me. It made me think of some Shark Tank episodes that I have seen where the investors were very impressed of the sales made by businesses through social media. One was a company called Bermies that sells mens swim shorts.

Today I see so many different companies online who look for people with a lot of followers and have them model or post about the product. Like Cowley discussed, incentives like contests and giveaways can also be used as a marketing method. Around this time last year, I remember a giveaway on instagram from a swimsuit company that would send you a free, red, one-piece swimsuit after re-posting a picture of the suit and tagging the company. The giveaway got so much attention it started trending on twitter and facebook too. An article from New York Magazine explains how SunnyCo. Clothing later made another post stating that they had the right to put a limit on the promotion if necessary and added a promotion code to the requirements (Kircher, 2017). I believe the company was also facing other problems from the situation at the time, but their method worked in the sense that they gained awareness from customers.

Overall, it is important to know who your visitors are and what their typical search activity is like to make a site inviting, attractive, and relevant. Fill the pages with information that adds to the quality of the site. Data and tools are available online to help research and monitor online traffic/activity. This allows a site to tailor its functions to users on the internet. Most importantly, creating a virtual world for your company truly supports the business online by being able to connect with those you serve quickly and conveniently. As technology advances with time, new sources for online marketing will emerge; leading companies to even more profitable opportunities. 

References:

Cowley, S. (19 July 2014). SEO. Social Media 8 Content Marketing for Profit. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1916&v=hcKx3CmKDKs

Kircher, M. M. (4 May 2017). Why Your Entire Instagram Feed was Flooded with Red Swimsuits This Week. New York Magazine. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/05/the-red-swimsuit-instagram-plague-was-sunny-clothings-fault.html

[manninod-blog]

An unsinkable business opportunity

[manninod-blog]

Numer of years it took each product to reach 50 million users

[manninod-blog]

Candidman