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You could just go off of a formula and call it a day, but in order to have a solid budget in place you need to take the time to prepare.
Read more at PPCHero.com Advancements in technology are constantly changing our world. This is no secret. As a marketer, you need to have a better understanding of this technology that goes far beyond the latest smartphone release. If you recall, artificial intelligence made my list of the top marketing trends to look for in 2018. While artificial intelligence and machine learning are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Basically, artificial intelligence has a broader meaning. It's the idea that machines and computers can complete tasks normally requiring human intelligence. Machine learning is a branch of AI, and it automates model building for data analysis. The concept behind machine learning is that a computer can learn from the data it analyzes by identifying patterns. Ultimately, this technology can make decisions without humans. What does this mean for marketers? I know some of you might be thinking you're not currently using this technology, so the information isn't relevant to you. That couldn't be farther from the truth. The reality is, marketers are already using this technology to help improve their marketing campaigns and increase revenue by optimizing the customer experience. If you don't have your finger on the pulse, you could fall behind your competitors. Even if you're not ready to implement machine learning today, you should be prepared to do so in the future. I'll explain the top 10 ways machine learning is reshaping marketing. 1. Improved lead scoring accuracyLead scoring helps rank prospective customers on a scale representing their value to your company. Improving your lead scoring accuracy will help you prioritize your lead generation strategies. Right now, marketing professionals don't have the highest confidence levels in their lead scoring methods: But as they embrace machine learning, I believe their confidence levels will increase. That's because many factors go into these calculations, and machine learning can help you make them. Marketers use machine learning to monitor customer behavior. They write algorithms to track:
A consumer's social score is a factor as well. It monitors and analyzes how a user behaves on social networks, e.g.:
Using machine learning to qualify prospects is helping businesses create more accurate customer profiles, improving their marketing. 2. Easier to predict customer churnCustomer churn is also known as customer turnover. It measures the number of customers who ended their relationship with a business. For a SaaS business, it occurs when a customer cancels its service or unsubscribes from its membership. Churn rates are calculated by the percentage of customers or subscribers who leave a business within a specified period of time. For a company to grow, the number of new customers must be higher than the churn rate. You need to know what your churn rate is to know how satisfied your customers are with your product or service. And you also need to be able to predict your churn rate so you can minimize it. How can you predict the churn? You need to monitor customer behavior. Here's a machine learning discovery model that can make predictions based on certain behaviors: Examples of behaviors that get monitored include how customers engage with a product or mobile app. When was the last time they signed into their profile? When was their last purchase? For example, let's say one customer visits your website twice per month. On the first visit, they research products, and on the second visit, they buy something. This pattern goes on for a year. But after a year, the customer visits your site only once per month and doesn't buy anything. You could predict they'll stop using your business altogether soon. Machine learning helps analyze this data on a much larger scale. The technology gives marketers information to predict the churn so that it can be prevented. Now these brands can do something to make sure they don't lose the customer before it's too late. 3. Profitable dynamic pricing modelsA dynamic pricing strategy allows businesses to offer flexible prices for the products and services they offer. It's a common model in hospitality, travel, and entertainment industries. With machine learning and AI, the dynamic pricing strategy is penetrating the retail industry as well. Basically, this strategy helps you segment prices based on customer choices. Dynamic pricing is also related to real-time pricing, which is when the value of goods is based on certain market conditions. Purchasing an airline ticket is a great example of this. The price of the ticket depends on how far in advance you purchase it, the number of tickets already purchased, and the location of the seat. This isn't a new pricing strategy. But machine learning makes it easier for companies to implement and improve their dynamic pricing models. Setting the right prices is critical to the success of your business. You can generate more profits by focusing on your pricing strategy. Machine learning helps you use regression techniques to make market predictions. It's also used for sales forecasting to optimize the pricing structure based on market spending habits. 4. Sentiment analysisWhen you're having a conversation with someone face-to-face, it's easy to understand how they're feeling. You can make judgments based on their facial expression, tone, and body language. This helps you determine if their satisfied, excited, or unhappy. But this can sometimes be lost with digital communication-the current trend. We're not having as many face-to-face interactions with consumers because they're reaching us online. When a customer sends you an email or direct message, you need to know how they're feeling in order to properly respond. Machine learning can do this for you. AI technology can analyze text to determine whether the sentiment there is positive or negative. Sentiment analysis is being used by marketers to better understand their online reputation. Computers read through social media comments and alert the marketers to negative content. The company can then address the problem raised. AI can also identify people happy with your products to help you find social influencers and brand ambassadors. You can use machine learning to help you read the emotions of consumers online. 5. Improve website experimentsAre you currently running tests on your website? A/B testing is a great way to improve the features of your site, mobile app, and email marketing content. I'm a big advocate of using this strategy. While A/B tests ultimately give you results to optimize your website, there is some downside to this method. Yes, the end results of your testing will help you maximize conversions in the future. However, to get there, you miss some opportunities. Let me illustrate. Let's say you're testing the CTA button on a landing page. By design, you'll send 50% of your site traffic to a page generating fewer conversions than the other. That's how you test your hypothesis. But what about the missed opportunity to convert those directed to the underperforming page? Machine learning will help you solve this problem by improving your bandit testing. With bandit testing, the solution with the highest value gets prioritized. The algorithms of such tests will minimize missed opportunities and make your experiments more profitable. 6. Prioritize ad targeting and customer personalizationAI and machine learning are helping marketers target their ads more effectively. Right now, your ads might be great, but they can't be effective if they aren't being seen by the right audiences. With the help of AI, you can make sure your target audience is reached. In addition to improving the way your ads get targeted, machine learning can help personalize the customer experience on your platforms. Algorithms can predict which type of content would be the most popular with each unique visitor. You and I could both visit the same website and see different content: Let me give you an example. Delta Faucet used AI and machine learning to improve its website. A case study was conducted on this technology and the new strategy. After implementing machine learning, Delta Faucet saw a 49% increase in page views per visitor. Further, 45% of the traffic that came from paid ads resulted in visitors spending at least 40 seconds reading the content. The clicks on the CTA buttons quadrupled. And 37% of the visitors viewed multiple pages in a single session. Machine learning made it possible to run personalized and targeted ads that led to higher visitor engagement. 7. Computer vision for product recognitionYou might not be familiar with this technology. However, it's increasing in popularity, and marketers are using it to their advantage. Machine learning for computer vision helps brands recognize their products in images and videos online. Software such as GumGum can accomplish this. Miller Lite used machine learning technology to scan through user-generated content on social media. The algorithm looked for images without any relevant text to find posts related to the brand. It also tracked information about competing brands and influencers. The software collected data about users who posted on social media about Miller Lite. These were the results: As you can see, machine learning helped this company find over 1 million posts associated with the brand. It would be nearly impossible for a human to complete this task. 8. Relevant recommendation systemsRecommendations can go a long way. If a friend or family member tells you about a restaurant you'd like or a book you'd enjoy reading, chances are, you'd actually like it. That's because these people know you. They won't recommend a sushi restaurant to you if they know you have a seafood allergy. They won't recommend a historical non-fiction book to you if you're a fan of science fiction novels. Machine learning can identify your preferences as well and probably even better than the people who know you best. Here's an example to show you what I mean. If you have multiple profiles on your Netflix account, you know that each time you launch the platform, it asks you “who is watching?” Then it has “recommendations for you,” based on shows, movies, and documentaries you have already watched. These recommendations improve the customer experience. The same concept can be applied to your marketing efforts. Machine learning helps marketers discover which types of products consumers want based on their browsing histories and shopping behaviors. Relevant product suggestions increase conversions. 9. ChatbotsLive chat has a 92% customer satisfaction rating. Studies show 63% of customers are more likely to return to a website if it offers a live chat feature. You can learn how to provide better customer service by implementing live chat. These are the top reasons why consumers prefer live chat: Chatbots can help you improve your live chat features. That's because they use some of the machine learning elements I've previously talked about. Machine learning improves how chatbots operate by using sentiment analysis to judge the mood of a message from a customer. When paired with social media, machine learning can gather more information about customers when it receives a new message. As a result, this will improve your targeting and product recommendations. Basically, machine learning helps chatbots further personalize the customer experience. Chatbots keep your customers on pages for longer and also decrease the wait times for customers waiting to connect with customer service representatives. 10. Improved audience insightsI see business owners make the mistake of grouping their customers into one category all the time. Just because all these people buy from your brand doesn't mean they are the same. You need to segment your customers into groups. This can help improve engagement when you target them. Software that uses machine learning, like Affinio, can help you with this. With machine learning, you can learn valuable information about your customers. This information will give you more accurate data to use when you're building a customer persona to help you improve personalization and target people accordingly. Affinio helps you discover various aspects of your customers' behaviors, e.g., how many of your customers are foodies, how many watch a certain TV show, and which customers have traveled to similar places. Now you can segment these customers into different clusters to improve their experience and increase the likelihood of them converting. ConclusionArtificial intelligence is here, and it's not going anywhere. Marketers are already using machine learning technology to change the way they operate. Even if your company isn't ready to implement this methodology today, you need to keep up to date with the latest trends. Otherwise, you could fall behind your competitors. If you know how to use it to your advantage, machine learning can be a valuable tool for your business. When you're ready to move forward with this technology, refer to this list to help you determine the best ways to improve your marketing strategy. How is your company planning to use AI and machine learning to optimize your marketing efforts?
I'm sure by now you recognize the importance of staying active on social media to promote your business. Your Instagram marketing campaigns need to be a priority. If you're not using Instagram to reach your customers, there is a good chance your competitors are doing so. In fact, more than 70% of businesses in the United States are using Instagram. Furthermore, 70% of hashtags on this platform are branded. That's why it's so important for you to leverage your Instagram profile to connect with your current customers and target prospective consumers as well. Believe it or not, consumers want to interact with brands on social media. We know that 80% of Instagram accounts follow at least one business profile. If you're getting lots of followers, that's great. However, you need to learn how to convert your social media followers into customers, or your efforts won't pay off. But what about the consumers who don't follow your business on Instagram? They might be interested in your products, services, and content, but they won't see any of your promotions if they're not following your profile. That's where Instagram ads come into play. Buying ads on Instagram will help give you a huge advantage over your competitors who aren't willing to spend the money. That said, any time you're spending valuable marketing dollars, it's important to make sure those efforts yield a high ROI. You don't want to blindly buy ads without making sure they're profitable. If you're new to Instagram ads or if your current ones need improvement, you'll benefit tremendously from this guide. I'll explain how to drive sales with your Instagram marketing strategy, get more followers, and expand your reach. Here's what you need to know. Determine your marketing objectiveInstagram is owned by Facebook. You'll be using the same platform you used to generate leads with Facebook ads. The first thing you'll need to do is select your marketing objective: The goals are broken down into three main categories:
Truthfully, there is no right or wrong answer here when it comes to making this selection. Any choice can lead to profits. For example, if your goal is to generate website traffic, that traffic can eventually lead to conversions. If you are trying to increase your brand awareness, extend your reach or generate leads, those campaigns can end up creating sales in the future. But if you're trying to get instant sales, you'll want to select conversions, catalog sales, or store visits as your marketing objective. These types of ads will have actionable CTAs to drive sales. But we'll discuss that in greater detail shortly. Again, your ads will be effective no matter what you choose. Everyone's brand is different. Don't expect your goals to mirror those of other companies. If you have the budget, you can even run multiple campaigns with different goals to see which ones are the most beneficial for your business. Then, you can continue running the most successful ones. Identify your target audienceNext, you'll need to determine the audience you want to target. There are different approaches to this step, depending on the overall marketing goals of your company and each campaign. You're able to select your audience based on factors such as:
Again, this will change based on each campaign. For example, let's say your brand sells sports equipment to consumers in the United States. That doesn't mean all your ads will be relevant to every location. An ad that promotes a sale on surfboards won't appeal to someone who lives in Colorado. Ads for women's golf clubs should be seen only by, you guessed it, women. I know this sounds basic, but you'd be surprised how often I see businesses make such simple mistakes. They try to target as many people as possible, which isn't a profitable strategy. Another cool feature you should keep in mind when you're selecting your target market is the ability to create a custom audience. This allows you to set your ads to reach users who have interacted with you before. For example, a person who doesn't follow you can still see one of your posts on the Instagram “explore” page, also known as the “popular page.” That's a custom audience you could target. You can also set a custom lookalike audience. These ads will target users similar to your current followers. Set a budgetI don't recommend spending every dollar in your marketing budget on Instagram ads, especially if this is your first time using this strategy. Get your feet wet before you dive in head first. Everyone's budget is different. But let's keep things simple for now and say that your company has allocated $5,000 to spend on Instagram ads. That's great. However, it doesn't mean you should dump all $5,000 into one campaign. Mix it up. As I said before, you'll want to experiment to see which types of ads benefit your brand the most based on your goals. Try running five campaigns at $1,000 each. Don't run them all simultaneously. Not everyone who sees your advertisements will convert. But if they see three ads over the course of a couple of months, it might get the job done. While it's important for you to spend within your means, it's worth noting that even small business owners are planning to increase their Instagram marketing budgets. As you can see, Instagram is second only to Facebook in the list of all social media networks small businesses plan to spend more money on in the coming years. If you don't have the funds to spend much money on Instagram ads right now, you should budget accordingly for the future. The last thing you want is to let your competitors beat you to new leads. Or even worse, lose your current customers to the competition because they ran ads and you didn't. Choose which types of ads you want to runThere are a bunch of different types of ads you can run on Instagram. That's because the platform is versatile. These are all the options for you to consider:
One of the best parts about Instagram ads is that your content appears naturally within the rest of the content seen by users. Such posts are clearly labeled as sponsored ads, but they still look like any other content from any other account an Instagram user might follow. For example, let's say a user is browsing through the stories of the accounts they follow. If you run a story ad, your story will be presented between two stories posted by profiles they follow. Sure, a user may recognize they're seeing an ad. But that won't necessarily stop them from consuming your content. In fact, 60% of users say they use Instagram to discover new products. And 75% of that group follow through with an action after that discovery. The action may not be a purchase-it could be a click to find out more. But that should give you a chance to get these users to convert. Use an actionable CTAYour CTA will have a big impact on how users react to the sponsored content they're presented with. Let's assume you accurately selected your target market and your ad is being displayed to those interested in your product and willing to buy. How can you get them to convert? Invite them to buy with action verbs. Get right to the point. Check out this CTA example from a MeUndies advertisement on Instagram: Shop now. There is nothing ambiguous about this CTA. It's much more actionable than something like “find out more information here.” That type of CTA won't drive sales. But with a call-to-action such as “shop now,” users who see this advertisement will know exactly what to expect when they click on the button. As expected, this CTA brings you directly to the brand's ecommerce shop. Take a look at this landing page to see how MeUndies is able to drive sales with its advertisement. It's very simple. Since people are viewing these ads on their mobile devices, don't try to cram too many products onto the screen at the same time. Here, when users scroll, they see only two products at a time. Now, take a minute to scroll back up to the original post. It featured a model wearing sweatpants. Naturally, the first two products displayed on the landing page are sweatpants. It makes sense and should promote conversions. Let's say your Instagram advertisement is promoting a new backpack, but your CTA brings them to a page selling water bottles. Sure, the users might be interested in that product as well. However, they clicked on your CTA because they wanted to see the product in your original ad. Make sure the two match. We'll discuss your landing page in greater detail shortly. Showcase your top benefitsYou need to realize how people use Instagram. They're scrolling through posts at a fairly rapid rate. Don't expect people to stop to analyze your ad if it's overly complicated. If your benefits can't be identified right away, the user has no reason to click your CTA button. You've got to come up with ads that are easy to recognize at a quick glance. Here's a great example of how State and Liberty is able to accomplish this with its advertisement: It's very clear what the carousel ad is trying to convey. Same model, two different shirts. The shirt on the left looks messy, coming untucked. Many guys can relate to that. But the shirt on the right looks great. It fits the model perfectly, which makes him look sharp. Combining two images in one picture is much more effective than showing one shirt without anything to compare it to. Once a user sees this, they may be interested enough to keep swiping through the rest of the carousel ad. The next image of the ad uses the same strategy. One shirt is neat, fits properly, and doesn't cause the model to sweat. While the other shirt is messy, loose, coming untucked, and covered in sweat. Even if the differences are embellished, that's okay. It's still an extremely effective way to promote the brand. In just two pictures, this company is able to showcase how it differs from the competition by highlighting the top benefits of its product. This campaign paired with an actionable CTA is a great way to drive sales. Create a landing page that drives conversionsYour advertisement might be great. You were able to pick the right marketing objective and target the perfect audience, and the content of your ad is getting people to click on your CTA. However, all of this is useless if your landing page isn't set up to drive conversions. When a user clicks a CTA that says something like “shop now,” they shouldn't land on your blog or homepage. You want to bring them directly to your ecommerce shop. Make it easy for them to complete the checkout process with just a few clicks. However, depending on your marketing goal, you can set up other types of landing pages to drive conversions, even if those conversions aren't sales. Check out this example of a landing page from Olivers Apparel: The company encourages users to recommend its brand to other people. By sending $25 to a friend, they'll get $25 in return. It's a very enticing offer for a user exposed to a new brand for the first time. You might be hesitant to spend money on a product you've never used before. But $25 off your order may be a good enough reason for you to buy. This strategy is a great example of a customer referral program that drives sales. Let's look at another landing page strategy from Buffy. You might want to consider using it in your marketing: Instead of turning its prospective customers away with expensive prices, the brand's landing page gives them an offer they can't refuse. You can try this product for 30 days at no cost. They'll ship it to you free, and if you're not happy with it after a month, you can send it back-free too. Instead of a CTA that says “buy,” the company used “try.” Further, 30 days is plenty of time for prospective customers to decide whether they like the product or not. Since Buffy offers such an enticing deal, I'm assuming the team is confident in the quality of its product, expecting the customers to be satisfied. Sending Instagram users directly to your ecommerce shop is a great way to drive sales. But as you can see from these last two examples, you can use other types of landing pages that convert. Highlight what makes your brand uniqueThis concept is similar to the idea of showing off your top benefits. However, you and other brands may have similar benefits. If you can explain what makes your brand unique, you can have a competitive advantage. For example, let's say you sell athletic footwear. Some of its top benefits may be related to comfort, durability, style, and performance. But does that really separate you from the crowd? Something that makes your brand unique may be that a portion of your sales goes to a particular charity. That's unique. Here's a more specific example from a Felix Gray Instagram ad: The company sells different types of glasses. But does that make them unique? Not really. However, this advertisement says that its frames are crafted by hand. That's worth mentioning as part of a differentiation strategy. ConclusionYour company needs to have an Instagram marketing strategy. While you can use Instagram free, running ads can give you the competitive advantage you've been looking for. This will help you target new customers outside of your existing followers. Start by identifying your marketing objectives. Then, decide what audience you want to target with each campaign. Choose which type of ad you want to run. Budget your ads accordingly. Make sure your CTA is actionable. Create an ad that showcases the top benefits of your products. Explain what makes your brand unique. Design a landing page that drives conversions. If you're able to accomplish everything I've explained in this guide, your Instagram ads will be effective and profitable. What types of ads is your brand using to drive sales on Instagram? Testing button color, or the color of any element on your page can be extremely rewarding - if it is done correctly. See how you can turn a simple test into drastic results.
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