How to Maximize Your Reach With Video SEO

If you produce a marketing video but no one watches it, does it have any impact? Videos must be optimized for search to have the reach and ROI you want. Here are three tips to improve your video SEO rankings. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

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How To Attend Conferences: Ultimate Marketing Guide To Generating Business

Inside scoop on using conferences, trade shows and events to improve your marketing even if you don't attend. Explains how conferences work and how to tap into conference attendance to grow business. Bonus: Conference attendance survival checklist.

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Modern Commerce and the 8-Second Rule

This post is based on the webinar Experience-driven modern commerce powered by Adobe and Elastic Path.

You have eight seconds to grab your target’s attention, says a Microsoft study. People are shifting between four to five devices in a day and flipping through their feeds on the subway. There is no time. And, your customers don’t really care…yet.

The challenge is to make them care, or more accurately, make them feel that your brand cares about them. “Those eight seconds are your brand’s moment of truth,” says Ryan Green, Adobe’s Senior Manager for Commerce Strategy and Alliances. The time and money you invested in your product, website, and other channels won’t mean a thing to a customer who’s already left. “We need to listen, predict, assemble and deliver, all within milliseconds.”

How will brands meet this eight-second rule?

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes

“Steve Jobs said it’s important to start with customer experience and move backward into technology,” says Green. It’s easy to get caught up in the technology and trends, and forget to ask what the customer really needs. Get into their experience. Put yourself in their shoes.”

Quantitative research isn’t enough. Talk to a real person. McKinsey recommends shop-alongs (where researchers watch customers in stores), co-developing promos and features with a focus group, and customer diaries that capture their reactions as they interact with your brand.

Knowing what customers need, feel and encounter — from huge challenges to everyday nuisances — can help you craft a very compelling customer experience.

Personalize and contextualize your messages

For retail companies in particular, personalization becomes imperative. Seventy-four percent of customers get irritated by websites that serve up content, offers or promotions that have nothing to do with their interests (Kissmetrics). You can’t be successful in e-commerce without personalization – nobody will sift through 500 products they don’t care about.

Monitor their shopping behaviors and preferences; segment offerings and retarget previous site searches and tell them when a product they’ve looked at goes on sale. Also look at context: your customer’s needs can change according to location and date. Is he traveling? Is his birthday coming up? “Having that contextual information is going to be important to you to deliver a great experience,” says Green.

Find the micro-moments and delight the customer

“It really goes end-to-end all the way from awareness, interest, consideration, conversation, loyalty and advocacy,” says Green. “Some of the great brands that I’ve seen lately have customer journey maps. They’re looking at these small, micro-moments and figuring out ways to delight the customer.”

He says that means commerce companies need to be consistent across every channel and every device, and the experience should feel easy and intuitive. Customers shouldn’t have to hunt for information or zoom several times to find a button then repeat that for the next page because the experience does not work on a new device.

Invest in speed and flexibility

Companies often run into several business challenges that limit their ability to deliver a good customer experience. Green says the most common issue is speed to market. “The big monolithic stacks are struggling. When you have thousands of lines of code, it’s very difficult and time-consuming to push an update.”

Another problem is the sheer tech complexity involved. Omnichannel is not a new concept, but the reality is that retailers are still wrestling with a complex ecosystem of specialized applications and services to support customer interactions. “Think of all the mechanisms and toolsets that will be touching a single asset such as a product photo,” says Greene.

Ideally, you have one marketing ‘Mission Control’ or centralized toolset, where you can build and manage omnichannel experiences without being dependent on IT. You can easily make changes on pages, tie it to the business process and commerce engine, add profiles. You have full control over creating the user experience.”

Headless content and commerce

The combination of Adobe Experience Cloud and Elastic Path Commerce provides that desired speed and flexibility. Adobe builds systems of engagement. You can push out changes to your website, mobile app, social wall, POS system – all at the same time. You can split customers into segments and personalize based on data. This is all headless content, managed from a centralized toolset.

Elastic Path Commerce is headless commerce. It takes care of pricing, catalogues, product search, promotions embedding rules from back-end systems and embedding transactional capabilities into all touchpoints.

With headless content and commerce, companies can monetize rich experiences with little reliance on IT and that means business agility. You can win that 8-second battle.

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Take 58 seconds to read how your business can make every moment shoppable with Adobe and Elastic Path.

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The Ultimate Guide To Overcome Blank Screen Syndrome

Ever lost your creative mojo? Stare at the blinking cursor praying for inspiration. This is Blank Screen Syndrome (BSS) or Blank Blog Post Syndrome.  5 steps with tactics to give yourself permission to write and overcome BSS.

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Keyword Selection: The Key to Earning High Search Ranking [Infographic]

If you want to drive high-value prospects to your site, you've got to use the right keywords. Here are some valuable tips and tools to help you improve your website's rankings. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

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https://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2018/33615/keyword-selection-the-key-to-earning-high-search-ranking-infographic

Death of a Marketer – Book Interview

Heidi Cohen Interviews Andre Fryrear on her new book, Death of a Marketer.

Marketing is in critical condition. Hurled into the twenty-first century amidst a storm of digital disruption, it has since focused solely on surviving in a hostile climate. But audiences demand excellence. And marketing excellence requires agility. Using a detailed historical lens, Death of a Marketer charts a course toward marketing's Agile future.

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The Ultimate Guide To Celebrate Your Customers

Want to improve marketing ROI? Then celebrate customers using these 100+ tactics to thank, reward and delight your audience.  Use unexpected customer service, gifts and other options to win customer loyalty and deepen relationships. Includes data charts and examples.

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Work It – Book Interview

Heidi Cohen Interviews Carrie Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Media. In her new book, Work It, Carrie  shares lessons from her career and an "advisory board" of powerful women in a wide range of industries.

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The 3 C’s of Commerce that Build Customer Delight and Loyalty

Commerce has evolved beyond the cart into an entire ecosystem. It’s not enough to have a beautiful website, a drop-down catalog, and bug-free checkout. All your competitors are doing exactly the same thing. The leading brands don’t sell a product, they sell an experience.

Experience-driven commerce is generated by engaging customers across different touchpoints in different ways and integrating your product into their daily routines. However, it’s not just about being ubiquitous, but being useful. You are there when they need you, you meet their needs in a personal and timely way, and they don’t even need to think when they click “Buy.”

The 3 C’s of commerce (and the technology and platforms that enable it) create that moment of delight. Anybody can sell a product, but only your brand can deliver it this way – and that is something people are willing to pay for.

Commerce in content

Traditionally, content was the “sales talk” that supported commerce. Digital catalogs and videos wooed and educated customers, then pushed customers to a link on a website. Apps provided an additional service or way to collect emails, and blogs gave SEO, and a reason to visit a site. However, brand communication and commerce were still parallel entities: aligned, but created in separate silos often leading to a fragmented customer experience.

Today, “Buy Now” buttons turn content into shoppable microchannels. Customers read it, like it, buy it – with no confusion and less time to change their mind. Since content can be tweaked to very specific markets and situations, the commerce-enabled messages should be useful and specific. Content no longer sounds like a “sales talk” but a helpful solution with built-in options to buy.

Commerce in context

At the time of brick-and-mortar stores, the so-called secret to success was “location, location, location.” In the age of ecommerce personalization, the secret also includes “timing, timing, timing.” The best brands anticipate what customers want and when they want it.

Commerce in context emphasizes curating choices for individuals using technology like machine learning, artificial intelligence, sensors, GPS, and analytics. These work together to learn customer preferences and predict customer intent. Ads and promos based on improved customer knowledge feel less like intrusions than they feel like a personal shopper.  They know what you are looking for, have scoped out the options and then tell you where to find gold: “We’ve found a new vacation for you and the family to visit the Caribbean. It offers sailing, snorkeling, and diving and you get a free car rental.”

Commerce in context doesn’t just narrow down choices; it liberates the busy, info-overloaded customer. “Smart websites” that “know” customer preferences and “smart devices” in the Internet of Things that can make automated purchases give them the one thing their money can’t buy: time.

Commerce in connection

Location, location, location is still at work. But it’s a bit different now.

The first websites took goods out of stores. Omnichannel experiences shatter the concept of “store” completely.  Brands can now connect with customers through in-store tablets, smart devices, social networks, chatbot, SMS, within a digital book or software – everything but the kitchen sink (unless it’s connected to the Internet of Things, in which case that can work as a platform too).  Today, physical stores are places where people can go to experiment with and try out products, or to interact with the brand in new ways. This allows stores to limit inventory, storing just enough for people to touch or try their products as they make their purchase decisions.

All these touchpoints help customers get products and services anytime and anywhere. They also provide opportunities for brands to find the ways that customers prefer to interact with them and to find new ways of delighting them at every turn. In a sense, companies now have to meet customers “where they are.”

Loyalty is built on consistent, positive experiences. When omnichannel is done well every interaction gives customers another reason to love your brand. Why would they buy anywhere else?

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The new rules of ecommerce are changing the way businesses communicate with customers and the kind of tools and commerce platforms they use to create that experience. Download the complimentary ebook The Future of Commerce to find out what industry innovators have achieved.

The post The 3 C’s of Commerce that Build Customer Delight and Loyalty appeared first on Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog.

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Cinderella Makeover Content Marketing: How To Transform Neglected Content

Cinderella makeover content marketing is long playing content you transform into  stellar, results driving beauties. After defining Cinderella content, it outlines why and what content needs it including a case study.

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Five Common SEO Mistakes That Content Marketers Make

SEO and content marketing, particularly blogging, are a powerful combination that can build your website's authority and drive valuable search engine traffic to your site. But content marketers tend to make these five SEO mistakes. Here's how you can avoid them. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

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https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2018/33589/five-common-seo-mistakes-that-content-marketers-make

The Top Google Search Algorithm Updates of Last Year [Infographic]

Google can be secretive about its search algorithm updates. Check out this list of the top 11 updates of 2017 to learn about key changes and to make sure your site isn't being penalized. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

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https://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2018/33499/the-top-google-search-algorithm-updates-of-last-year-infographic

Owned Media Platform Guide: 40+ Options You May Be Missing

Are you taking full advantage of your owned media platform? With 40+ options, the chances are you're probably missing some key items. Use this owned media platform guide to ensure you're maximizing your reach.

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Bold Brand 2.0 – Book Interview

Heidi Cohen Interviews Josh Miles about his new book: Bold Brand 2.0, a framework  approach to help professional services firms build a compelling brand.

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Building a Digital Experience Platform for Modern Commerce: 5 Must-Have Pillars

The forces of modern commerce have changed all the rules. Lessons learned back in the days of single-screen ecommerce did not adequately prepare us for selling in the age of mobile, augmented reality, conversational commerce, or “thing” commerce. These channels are creating opportunities to monetize products and services along the path to becoming a modern commerce business.

Let’s look at this from the customer’s perspective.

A customer’s interaction with brands takes on many shapes. The brand should recognize the customer, their purchase history, and interests regardless of the channel. In experience-driven commerce, the conversation between a company and a customer is fluid, moving from one touchpoint to another seamlessly. This is what defines modern commerce: a consistent brand experience that recognizes and addresses individuals on a personal basis with 1:1 pricing, product, and promotions.

Here are the five must-have pillars a digital experience platform should include to make modern commerce possible.

1. Content management

Content management systems allow companies to manage content across touchpoints in a unified application. One system fuels customer experiences for web, mobile and tablet applications. The most modern content management systems can even fuel Internet of Things, marquis, and social media-based customer experiences.

When you shop online, you are likely receiving information from a content management system. It organizes and stores all the content that touchpoints “show” you. Because a single content management system fuels all the different media you use to interact with a company, your experience is consistent.

Without a content management system, each touchpoint requires its own system which interacts with legacy frontend and backend systems. Bringing a new digital touchpoint online is costly and takes a long time because the integrations required are complicated.

From a business perspective, without modern content management, speed to market with each new touchpoint and the ability to test new marketing strategies are severely limited.

2. Headless commerce

With the underlying content management system fuelling many different touchpoints, the question becomes: “How can a company build transactional capabilities into all these customer-facing experiences?”

That’s the role of the commerce system. Traditionally, commerce systems were tightly coupled to a particular experience. There was one system for mobile, another for web and yet another for in-store purchases. Today, “headless” commerce systems decouple commerce capabilities from the presentation layer.

Instead of creating a full stack system to sell products and services for the mobile experience, and another siloed system to sell via the website, a single headless commerce system can connect seamlessly to any content management system, custom frontend applications, and any other touchpoint or technology in the presentation layer. Separating the presentation layer from commerce logic gives marketers agility and freedom to create new transactional capabilities through any touchpoint. And customers are delighted with consistent and in-context experiences.

3. Analytics

To present prospects and customers with the right information at the right time (and price) along their buying journey, companies are mining their databases along with other sources.

Analyzing data presents a more accurate way to segment customers for targeted content including product and services recommendations, promotions and other marketing efforts.

For digital experience platforms, analytics solutions can look at aggregate purchase behavior to identify patterns and anomalies that marketing may want to exploit.

The analysis might, for example, determine that customers who purchased ski boots also purchased tennis rackets. Marketing can then create offers based on the segment “people who bought ski boots” instead of the less precise “people interested in sports gear.”

The bigger the data sets, the higher the probability that recommendations will be appreciated by a greater percentage of customers in that segment.

Another example of how a company might use data is to identify people who are sales “influencers.” By looking at sales transaction data, a company might find that a certain individual makes many purchases and that she belongs to many different segments. This buyer may have a significant influence on others. Then marketers can tailor campaigns to augment the natural influence that buyer has within her network of friends to encourage those to buy alongside her.

4. Personalization engine

Personalization engines use machine learning to go a step beyond segment-based recommendations offers and pricing. Personalization engines combine individual behavior with macro information to hone recommendations and offers at the individual level in real-time.

Behavior tracking across all customer touchpoints allows personalization engines to suggest products and services based on past and current customer interests. The personalization engine will combine known customer information with intent information based on analysis of current and past conversations and behavioral tracking— incorporating clicks, mouse movement, scrolling, inactivity and time spent per page to indicate preferences and interest levels.

The personalization engine employs a cascade of basic and more sophisticated algorithms to generate custom recommendations and configure a chain of “next best offers” to seal a sale. Each offer and each recommendation “learns” from the last. The more an individual “shops” with a brand, the better personalization becomes, creating a self-fulfilling circle of value for both the company and the customer.

5. Campaign management

To run campaigns that capture customers at the right moment in the right context, marketing needs a way to identify, create and present offers and campaigns to customers as close to a one to one basis as possible. The campaign manager maps customer journeys by segment—all the way to segments of one, if it can access the right data for personalization.

The campaign manager must also be capable of cross-channel delivery to enable conversational and contextual commerce. Campaign testing and measurement are fundamental and if combined with machine learning can be very powerful in creating personalized offers sent through a customer’s medium of choice.

The perfect foundation

When a brand builds a digital experience platform blending these technologies to create the perfect foundation, customers can’t resist. What these five pillars have in common is their contribution to business agility in a fast-moving digital world. They comprise a digital experience platform that supports modern commerce—personalizing price, product, and place in a way never possible before.

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Along the way to becoming a modern commerce business, there are many routes. Not all of them lead to success. If your company is looking to adapt to modern commerce, start by reading this eBook The Future of Commerce.

The post Building a Digital Experience Platform for Modern Commerce: 5 Must-Have Pillars appeared first on Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog.

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