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The Chatbot Revolution

2018 was a year where more businesses than ever began investing in on-site chatbots. Facebook even saw a growing need and made Facebook messenger installable on many website development platforms to instantly connect potential customers with brand pages. However. According to Relay, in a 1000 B2B website analysis only .5% of websites from Crunchbase use a chatbot. This means implementing a way for customers to directly interact with you online can set you apart from the herd in a big way.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing continues to develop and grow on social media platforms. But maybe not in ways you would think. Yes, brands partnering with larger social media presences to grow their brand is a growing trend. However, some companies have also turned inward and are promoting employees more and more as company influencers.

Encouraging your employees to talk about your brand will help brand awareness even more. Encourage this amplification by organizing internally to distribute shareable content with a consistent message. Get ahead of this trend by examining your own internal communications and amplification procedures. What can you do better to allow for a more seamless employee sharing experience on social media?

New Social Networks on the Rise

2018 saw the rise and fall of several social networks like Vero and even a Vine replacement called TikTok. Keeping on top of these platforms, claiming presences for your brand before they are gone, and determining where your time is best spent should be a priority every year.

Change: The Only Constant

It’s always fun to take a guess at what the next year will bring for social media. 2019 will only bring more new, interesting platforms and challenges that we hope will drive the social conversation forward. What is your business doing to keep on top of their social media strategy? Are you teamed up with an advertising agency always at the forefront of modern technology?

Small businesses are common offenders when it comes to violating copyright laws.  Just this week I received an email from a local business featuring images that still held the copyright watermark from the stock photography site (clearly they had not paid for the images).

Finding photos to use on websites and social media can be challenging and the temptation to use any old photo that comes up in Google image search is strong, but it’s important to resist the temptation!  Here are some tips for staying on the right side of copyright law when marketing your business:

1)   Use original photography that you paid a professional to do, or did yourself whenever possible.

Your website and social media will look all the better for having original photography!

2)   Be aware that images of people (even if you took the picture) may require a release from that person to be used.

If in doubt, have them sign a model release.  That is especially important if the picture(s) are of children.  Managing model releases and keeping those documents on file is something that your agency (if you have one) will likely do for you, as long as they were directing the photography.

3)   Always ask permission before using a customer or client’s photos.

If they email you an image of themselves wearing your business t-shirt at a cool location and say, “This might be fun for your Facebook.”  Great, use it.  Do not take that same picture off of their personal Facebook and use it on your business page without asking first.

4)   Learn about public domain, creative commons, and stock photography.

There’s a time and place for each one of them!  For example did you know that photos taken by military photographers are automatically in the public domain and free to use?  There are great images of American Flags and historical sites that are perfect for 4^th of July and Memorial Day messages.  But what’s in the public domain varies depending on the country of origin, so it’s important to do your research even if the image seems “old enough.”  Here is a great resource for understanding public domain.

Creative Commons is a topic unto itself, and we’ll likely devote a blog post or two to it in the future.  Creative Commons allows people to choose to allow their work to be used as long as credit is given.  However there are different types of restrictions that remain on CC licensed works, so again, always double check.  It’s also important to note that you MUST attribute works under a CC license.

Stock photography can be a great and affordable solution for situations where you need images and the cost of hiring a photographer and model exceeds your budget.

5)   If in doubt, don’t use it.

The old saying “it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission” does not apply to copyright law.  It’s always better to be cautious.

Disclaimer:  This Blog/Web Site is made for educational purposes only as well as to give you general information and not to provide specific legal advice.

When Adwords launched in 2000, there were only text ads above and to the side of Google’s search results. While those text ads are still available, there are now many different types of ads available for businesses of all types and sizes.  Here’s a brief introduction to the various options Google has to offer.

Search

Search ads are the most familiar to people. They are the ads that appear at the top or along the sides of the Google search results page based on your search query.  These text ads can also appear in Google Shopping, or Google Maps when someone searches on your keywords.

Search ads can also appear on other search sites that are part of the Search Network. Other search sites have partnered with Google to show AdWords ads, such as AOL. So your ads might appear alongside or above search results on other relevant search pages.

There are many ways to target these ads based on keywords (what people are looking for), such as time of day, location, device, and so on.  There are also a variety of ad extensions that can include locations, sitelinks, phone calls, reviews, and more.

Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are an ad format that includes an image, title, price, your business name, etc. There needs to be a data feed in place to a Google Merchant Center account, which is then connected to Adwords.  PLAs are usually used for e-commerce sites, but there are options for “available near me” which combines a local store’s inventory and the location of the person looking for that product.

Display

Everyone is familiar with banner ads on news sites, forums, and blogs, but did you know that many of the banner ads you see are part of Google Adwords? And not just banner ads, but text ads and rich media ads too.  Ads on the Google Display Network reach people across all types of content on over 2 million sites—from small niche blogs to sites with millions of daily views.

1. Text Ads on the Google Display Network give you access to the largest pool of text inventory available. These are the ads you see in gmail, on blogs, and many other sites.
2. Image Ads are the large graphic ads across the top, side, or bottom of a webpage. These are ever present on news sites, forums, and all around the web. Many people refer to them as “banner ads.”
3. Rich Media Ads allow people to interact with an image or video.  Interactions in these ads can range from hovering the mouse pointer over an ad to expand the unit, to playing a video, or tapping for content.

One amazing feature the Display Network offers is remarketing. Remarketing shows ads to people who have visited your website before. When people leave your website without buying anything, remarketing helps you reconnect with them by showing relevant ads as they browse the web, as they use mobile apps, or as they search on Google. Remarketing campaigns can be extraordinarily successful at driving sales activity, increasing registrations, or promoting brand awareness.

YouTube

YouTube advertising is technically considered part of the display network, but there are many types of advertising within YouTube, so we’re giving it its own section. As with all AdWords advertising, these ads can be targeted to specific geographic areas.  They can also be targeted to certain video topics.

1. Display ads appear to the right of the feature video and above the video suggestions list. For larger players, this ad may appear below the player. These ads only show on desktop computers or laptops.
2. Overlay ads (previously called in-video ads) are semi-transparent overlay ads that appear on the lower 20% portion of your video. These ads only show on desktop computers or laptops as well.
3. Skippable video ads (previously called TrueView in-stream ads, or sometimes called pre-roll) allow viewers to skip ads after 5 seconds, if they choose. They are inserted before, during, or after the main video. These ads show on mobile, desktop, SmartTVs, and game consoles.
4. Non-skippable video ads and long, non-skippable video ads (formerly called non-skippable in-stream ads) must be watched before your video can be viewed. Long non-skippable video ads may be up to 30 seconds long. These ads can appear before, during, or after the main video and appear on mobile and desktop.

While each type of ad has ideal applications, our favorite format is the “skippable video ad” because they display on all platforms.

The Primm Company is a Google Partner Agency

Not sure which Adwords options are right for your business? We can help.  As a Google Partner Agency we’re experts in using Adwords to drive customers to our client’s businesses.  Call or email us anytime. We’d love to help!

*Please note that the terminology used is current as of February 2015.

Marketers love to declare things dead. We see “SEO IS DEAD” proclaimed weekly.  Even Forbes recently got on the bandwagon declaring traditional live TV dead. While we here at Primm are big fans of web and digital marketing in all its forms, we believe in investing in the right platform for the client. And often times,  good, old-fashioned TV is the right platform.

A recent study by Ipsos, a well-respected global market research company, found that TV is alive and well globally.  Worldwide, 86% of TV watchers usually watch programming live.

As for the US alone, a study by Broadstream Solutions found that 84% of US adults watch TV programming live.  The study further found that live television viewing is only down 1% over the last 10 years.

What does this mean for advertisers?

Businesses need to be savvy about their target market(s) and invest their advertising budgets wisely.  Staying engaged in traditional television advertising is vital to maintaining brand visibility and reaching the widest possible audience.  Depending on the demographics of their market and their budget, a brand may want to invest in digital platforms like YouTube advertising as well.  We frequently execute marketing strategies that blend old and new media using, consistent branding and messaging across all platforms.

If you’re interested in television advertising for your business, or if you are interested in how to effectively blend the use of traditional advertising and digital marketing for your company, give us a call!

Every day your business relies on sales transactions to keep the “open” sign on the door and the company mission afloat. When you sell your products from a brick and mortar location, these transactions are person-to-person. You control the logistics of the sale in terms of pricing, discounts and product delivery, and make sure the customer walks away happy. But what if some or all of your sales happen online?

A great e-commerce site can be your company’s best friend. With nearly unlimited space for inventory, instantaneous access to worldwide markets, fewer sales costs and easy order tracking, an internet storefront helps small businesses compete with much bigger companies.

E-commerce transactions, despite their great advantages, also present unique challenges to business owners. What is second nature in-store falls to the mercy of a computer online. So when complex circumstances like stackable discounts and international shipping arise, you need to make sure you don’t overlook important logistics, lest you lose money or your customers’ trust.

Here are five tips on doing e-commerce well:

1. Make It Easy. Just like in-store shoppers, online shoppers respond favorably (buy) when they can “get in and get out” with little hassle. Your chosen e-commerce platform should provide a seamless and direct buying experience. A good measure of the ease of an interface is the number of clicks it takes to get to the desired action (the fulfillment of the order). Click to add to cart, Click to go to cart, Click to choose desired options (if applicable), Click to enter billing and shipping info, Click to complete the order. That’s 5 clicks, and you shouldn’t need more than that, with some exceptions. 
2. Provide Options. If it’s in your power, be sure to offer as wide a range of product variations and options on your online store as possible. One of the reasons many people shop online is to locate those hard-to-find items that weren’t in the brick and mortar store. If they find them in your online store, customers will be more likely to return when they face a similar situation in the future.
3. Get Social. Another great way to ‘make it easy’ for your online customers is to integrate e-commerce capability into your social advertising. For one of our e-commerce clients, Primm built a secure online store placed as a tab on their Facebook page so that customers don’t even have to leave Facebook to complete an order.
4. Consider The Complexities. We mentioned before the issue of stackable discounts. These refer to how a business chooses to handle the application of multiple discounts to a single order. For instance, say you choose to run a “buy one get one” promotion for a certain product while simultaneously offering a promo code for “one free [insert name of same product].  Without taking the time to program your e-commerce platform to reject the ‘stacking’ of these discounts, you could lose untold money and inventory. That’s just one of the logistical complexities you need to take into consideration in order to get the most out of your e-commerce site.
5. Place An Emphasis On Customer Service. Though you may never meet your online customers face to face, it doesn’t mean that you can’t give them the stellar customer service you would afford to in-store shoppers. Along with fast, complete and trackable shipping, make sure you have a clear and convenient process for returns.

 

As you can see, there is a lot to think about when running an e-commerce site. If you’d like, the web team at Primm can save you time, energy and money by handling your e-commerce operation. Call or contact us today.

image courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net