Saturday, February 3, 2018

7 Social Media Trends to Watch and Capitalize On in 2018

The trend is your friend.

Why? Because trends often become the norm, and getting in early allows you to harness its power without too much competition or noise. Write something off as “just” a trend, and you may be late to the party of the year.

Remember when Facebook was a “trend”? Or Twitter? Instagram? Now, those are a key component to your digital marketing plan (and if not, they should be).

You’ve got to reach and engage with your audience where they spend time online. And where is that? Say it with me: social media.

  • In its State of Social 2018 Report, Buffer found that businesses are overwhelmingly on the social train. 96% use Facebook, with Twitter (89%), LinkedIn (70%), Instagram (70%), and YouTube (57%) rounding out the top five. The report also revealed that 85% of businesses plan to create more video content on those platforms than they did last year.
  • We spend an average of 2 hours and 15 minutes on social media each day, which accounts for one-third of our online time, and twice as much as any other activity.

  • Customers spend anywhere from 20-40% more on companies that engage with them on social media.
  • The most popular social media platforms in January 2018 include Facebook (2.2 billion users), YouTube (1.5 billion), WhatsApp (1.3 billion), Facebook Messenger (1.3 billion), and WeChat (980 million). Three of the top five are messenger apps.
  • There were 2.46 billion social media users in 2017. That number is expected to hit 2.62 billion in 2018, and 3.02 billion by 2021.
  • Social media is popular with Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z.

The statistics paint a very clear picture: social media must be an integral part of your marketing mix in 2018 and beyond. Ignore it at your peril.

That said, social media is an evolving beast, with new features popping up all the time.

Some are destined for the trash heap of history – remember how much “fun” poking was on Facebook? – while others become cornerstones of the platform that we can’t remember living without.

So what to do, which platforms to use, and what trends to try?

Here’s seven for the new year:

  1. Social Listening
  2. Live Streaming and Video
  3. Influencer Marketing
  4. Facebook Continues to Set the Pace
  5. Increased Engagement on Messaging Platforms
  6. Instagram Stories
  7. Augmented Reality

1. Social Listening

This may not be completely new, but it’ll take on increased importance in 2018 and the years to come. Social media in all its forms is only getting bigger and more popular, and by extension you’ll have to start paying more attention to it.

But that goes beyond just having a few accounts on a few different platforms. You’ll even have to do more than “just” having an active presence on those platforms. You need to listen to what people are saying about you, your competition, your brand, and your products, and respond accordingly. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

People are talking about you more often than just when they’re engaging directly with you. People are making complaints, lavishing praise, and showing off your stuff on many different platforms and networks. Some you belong to, and some you don’t.

But that’s beside the point: if they’re talking to or about you, they expect a response from you.

In fact, 60% of consumers that post a complaint on social media expect a response in less than 60 minutes. You’ve got one hour to notice and respond. And if you don’t, 88% of them are unlikely to buy from you again or recommend you to friends and family.

Enter social listening.

You need systems in place to monitor many different channels for your particular keywords and phrases, and to bring those mentions to your attention so you can examine them for both insight and opportunities.

What are people saying about your brand? How do they feel about your latest product? What problems or complaints do they have? An active social listening strategy can provide those answers and more.

And as we increasingly use social media for everything, there’s a lot of insight you could harvest, to say nothing of the improved customer experience you can provide by responding to issues and complaints in a timely and convenient manner.

The bigger you get, the more important it is to be aware of what others are saying about you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, review sites, and more.

A simple way to get started is Google Alerts. You can quickly set up email notifications for the words and phrases you want to monitor by entering them into the search bar, setting your preferences on frequency, sources, region, and more, and clicking the “Create Alert” button. It’s just that easy.

But to truly get the most out of social listening, you need a service or tool that specializes in it. A few of the best include Brandwatch, Hootsuite Insights, Mention, ReviewTrackers, Talkwalker, and TrackReddit.

Respond quickly to complaints. Collect valuable data on your customers. Manage a crisis. Find influencers. Generate reports. Analyze your competition. Understand your audience and industry better. Measure impact. Gauge brand sentiment. Enhance customer service and engagement.

The list of what social listening can’t do is much shorter than what it can do. If you’re not already using it, I highly recommend you start. Sign up and start listening today.

Being aware of public opinion and sentiment towards your brand are as important as the product or service itself. Social listening gives that to you.

2. Live Streaming and Video

Video – whether recorded or live – is becoming the social media tactic you can’t afford to ignore. That’ll only get more apparent in 2018.

According to a recent post by Hubspot, 43% of social media users want to see more video content from marketers, businesses now publish an average of 18 videos each month, the average video retains a little over one-third of its viewers (37%) to the very end, and 85% of businesses have in-house personnel and resources for video creation.

Do you? Are you using video and its younger-but-equally-popular brother, live streaming, as part of your social media efforts? You should. Consider:

Viewers respond positively to live video streaming because of the immediacy and engagement it creates with their favorite brands and personalities.

Brands and personalities can quickly deliver an enhanced customer experience with live video. The four most popular types are explainers, product demos, how-tos, and testimonials, but you can do so much more: live events, announcements, product reveals, interviews, behind-the-scenes, Q&A sessions, demonstrations, and on and on.

Most social media platforms now have native live streaming capabilities or easy integration, so you can pick and choose where and when to do it. Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Periscope, Twitter, Snapchat, Twitch, and Instagram Live are all great platforms to try depending on where your customers and audience are hanging out.

To set yourself up for success, let your followers and fans know you’ll be live streaming beforehand. Post about it, send a reminder, create a daily or weekly or monthly schedule, be consistent, get the word out to generate as big an audience as possible.

Then click that “Go Live” button. Be authentic, informative, and remember to breath. Connect and build a relationship with your audience, and they’ll become not only loyal, but vocal advocates on your behalf.

3. Influencer Marketing

Some have called this one dead and done, but influencer marketing is not only still alive, it’s growing. That’s not to say it hasn’t evolved, though.

In 2018, it’s less about riding the coattails of whomever is most popular at any given moment, and more about building meaningful relationships and finding the influencers that reflect your brand ethos.

Many companies have found themselves in defense mode after partnering with an influencer based solely on numbers, only to discover later that they’ve shared sexist, racist, grossly inappropriate, or bigoted content on their channels. 73% of marketers list “finding the right influencer” as the biggest challenge.

YouTuber PewDiePie, for example, has over 60 million subscribers and makes millions of dollars each year on the platform. In February of 2017, he had lucrative partnerships with Google and Disney…that is until he was fired from both after he posted objectionable and anti-Semitic material. Not the kind of exposure Google and Disney were trying to get.

Don’t make that mistake. Launching a successful influencer marketing campaign should never be based on the number of followers or fans. You need to look for relevancy to your industry, products, and target audience – Kim Kardashian to promote your new robo-advisor might not be the best fit – their average amount of comments and other engagement metrics, and the overall sentiment towards them (you can find that with social listening).

Choose wisely, as your designated influencer is an reflection of your brand. You want it to be a positive one. Once you’ve identified one, reach out and connect. Build the relationship. Ask for their ideas if their interested, but don’t feel obligated to grant them complete control and freedom. Influencer marketing works best when it’s a true partnership.

But what about the $64,000 question: does it work?

  • Influencer marketing was tied for first with email marketing as the most cost-effective online acquisition channel. Marketers in the same poll listed blogs (37%), Facebook (25%), and YouTube (6%) as the top three platforms for the tactic.
  • Don’t automatically associate “celebrity” with “influencer”. In fact, Markerly found that the rate of engagement decreases as the number of followers rises. Those with 10+ million followers saw likes 1.6% of the time, and comments only 0.04% of the time, compared to 8% and 0.5% respectively for those with less than 1000 followers. They suggest working with a micro-influencer in the 10k-100k range of followers for maximum reach and engagement.

  • Marketers in a Linqia survey listed Facebook (87%), Instagram (87%), blogs (48%), Twitter (44%), and Pinterest (40%) as the platforms most important to their influencer campaigns. Do you need to use all of them. Absolutely not. Find your audience, identify relevant influencers on that platform, and go from there.
  • The same survey identified CPE (cost-per-engagement) and CPC (cost-per-click) as the two most preferred pricing models.

Are you game to give it a go? The payoff for a well planned and strategic influencer marketing campaign can far exceed your wildest expectations. Expect this tactic to continue to grow in 2018.

4. Facebook Continues to Set the Pace

It’s easy to consider Facebook past its prime. It’s been around since 2004 – a lifetime in the digital realm – and the news and trends frequently focus on what’s new and emerging.

That’s a major mistake. Facebook is the platform to rule all platforms. Was, is, and will continue to be. If you only engage on two platforms, it should be Facebook and one other. Three? Facebook and two others. You get the idea.

The social media behemoth had 1.40 billion daily active users and 2.13 billion monthly active users as of December 2017. And that’s not all:

  • Facebook averages more than 8 billion video views each day.
  • 91% of millennials are on the platform.
  • Over 800 million users “like” something on it every day.
  • Males have an average of 145 friends, while females have 166. Your content or post reaches an exponentially bigger audience with each share and like.

Long story short: be active on Facebook. Regardless of your age group or target, they are on that platform.

With numbers like that, Facebook could just sit back and count its ad revenue. But it doesn’t. It continues to evolve and innovate at a breakneck speed.

In 2018, there’s a lot going on at Facebook. These three should be on your radar:

  1. Facebook Messenger – Originally integrated with Facebook itself, it’s now a standalone – and very popular – app. It boasts 1.3 billion users, and 11% of the worldwide population uses it monthly. 60 million businesses are on it, as are half of all teenagers in the United States. It’s a bigger platform than Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat combined, and it hosts 7 billion conversations daily. And with A.I. and chatbot integration, the channel has the potential to be huge.
  2. Facebook Spaces. Let’s ignore the whole virtual vs augmented reality debate for now. Both are gaining in popularity and prevalence. Both are opening up unparalleled opportunities for engagement. Facebook has launched its own virtual reality meeting place called Spaces for use with Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. Users can build and customize their own appearance, connect with others, draw 3D objects, and immerse themselves in a 360-degree virtual environment. You can even host live events as you would with live video streaming. As it grows and improves, businesses will be able to present fully-realized stores, behind-the-scenes features, and more to their audience. It’s not quite there yet…but stay tuned.
  3. Facebook Watch. We live in an on-demand culture these days. We want what we want when we want it. If you can deliver that to your customers, you’re ahead of the curve. The new Watch feature is a video-on-demand service for long-form content and shows. Ball in the Family – the reality show built around three basketball players and their father – is hosted on the platform. Businesses can create videos and shows to engage with their community, connect directly with their users, and more.

Facebook may be old by social media standards, but it’s proof-positive that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

5. Increased Engagement on Messaging Platforms

We already mentioned Facebook Messenger, but that’s not the only circus in town. The popularity of messaging platforms is exploding. WhatsApp (1.3 billion monthly active users), WeChat (963 million MAUs), and Facebook Messenger (1.2 billion MAUs) are leading the charge.

And with easy integration of both artificial intelligence and chatbots, you can automatically increase engagement and the customer experience.

Facebook research shows that 54.5% of US social media users prefer messaging channels over email, phone and online chat, and 67 percent of business owners plan to increase their messaging over the next two years.

Messaging allows you to reach your audience at scale and on their preferred channel. 89% of consumers would like to use it to communicate with businesses, but only 48% of businesses are able to do so. Those numbers don’t add up.

In fact, users would rather give up using the telephone, their morning coffee, and sex before they’d give up messaging. On average, 77% of users keep messaging notifications turned on so they never miss a thing. FOMO is a powerful motivator.

And I know from firsthand experience that you get achieve an 88% open and 56% click-through rate using Facebook Messenger.

Allow me to state the obvious: messaging is big, effective, and only getting bigger. With it, you can deliver messaging sequences, automate conversations with your users, create a sales funnel, and push out announcements, resources, and new content, to name just a few.

A chatbot – yes, the majority of bots are good – can automate your sales, help desk, complaint department, and more. You can communicate with your customers on their turf and whenever they want to, not the other way around.

Not convinced? Check out these ten examples of effective chatbots on Messenger to see how useful and entertaining they can be.

If you’re itching to give it a try, look to popular platforms and services to build and launch your own (many without the need for coding skills):

Bots aren’t evil. And messaging isn’t going away anytime soon. Take full advantage of both.

6. Instagram Stories

Introduced in August 2016 to compete with a similar feature on Snapchat, Instagram Stories quickly grew to over 100 million daily active users (DAU) in just a few months, hit 200 million DAUs in well under a year, and now boasts an impressive 250 million DAUs. It’s growth and popularity far outpaces that of Snapchat, and is still trending upward.

Are you using it?

About half of all businesses on Instagram post at least one Story each month, while 20% of those stories generate at least one direct message. How’s that for engagement?

The Story feature allows users to post both videos and photos that disappear in 24 hours. You can add filters, stickers, text, and drawings. You can even create simple polls to ask questions and collect valuable data on your audience.

Using the Instagram Story feature is not complicated, and even if you’ve never used Instagram before, you’ll quickly discover all it has to over.

Instagram itself has an impressive 800 million monthly active users, which is more than Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest combined. It should most definitely be part of your social media tool belt.

Include the recent Instagram Shopping functionality – a feature that allows you to tag up to five items within an image with a clickable link to more information – and you can increase engagement and sales even more.

7. Augmented Reality

While virtual reality creates an immersive experience, it does have some major drawbacks. For starters, it limits the mobility of the user wearing the VR headgear. And since most of us access the online world via our mobile devices, that’s a big issue.

That’s where augmented reality (AR) has a distinct advantage. Because users don’t have their vision restricted, mobility is not impeded. In fact, AR typically promotes greater mobility as users search for virtual elements within the physical world.

It’s already taking the gaming industry by storm. Remember Pokémon Go? The company behind it – Niantic – will be releasing Harry Potter: Wizards Unite in the near future. It will presumably have the same opportunity that Pokémon Go had for businesses to market themselves in partnership with the game.

Purchase a “lure”, and it not only lured the Pokémon to your business, but it also lured players to your physical location to capture them. Win-win.

Augmented reality is poised to have a similar impact on social media, allowing online personalities and products to be brought directly into homes, photos, and videos. And as it doesn’t require additional hardware other than your smartphone, most of us are already equipped to enjoy it.

Face filters and lenses fall under the AR umbrella, too.

Lens Studio by Snapchat gives everyone the ability to create and share custom lenses and “magical AR experiences”. Let your followers and fans play with your brand and products in the real world.

With augmented reality you can let your hair down and have some fun while still spreading brand awareness and engaging with leads and customers. Get in on it.

Conclusion

I personally think these seven will be the ones to watch in 2018. Pick one, pick a few, and try them out.

I also have marketing strategies for you to try in 2018:

Social media is all about connection, relationships, and engagement.

But to do that, you need to stay current on the latest trends and popular features. Don’t jump on the bandwagon of every one – some will not be a good fit for you, your brand, and your customers – but it’s worth selectively choosing those that make sense to your business and goals.

Trends come. Trends go. But some survive to become tomorrow’s mainstays. Get in before the masses, and you stand to win big.

What other social media trends have you noticed in the past few months? What are you most excited about trying?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.



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Friday, February 2, 2018

Stop Guessing, Start Converting: Here are the Keywords to Use for Awareness, Consideration, and Decision Stage Content

People think SEO is all about traffic.

But I’m here to tell you that’s not the case.

Yes, if you do it correctly, SEO should bring in lots of traffic.

Ultimately, though, SEO is about revenue.

It’s about driving in new customers to buy stuff.

And that’s why most people do keyword research wrong.

Here’s the common mistake I always see.

People do two things when researching new keywords:

  1. They look at estimated monthly search volume
  2. And they compare that to the competition

That’s a good start, of course. But it’s often not enough.

The problem is that it leaves a giant, black hole in your SEO strategy where it matters most: The bottom line.

Only comparing volume and competition leads you to make questionable decisions.

In this scenario, you typically select the highest searched keyword that you can compete for.

It’s like a popularity contest. Keywords are chosen for their ability to drive traffic, not for their ability to convert.

That’s the problem we’re going to fix today in this article.

I’m going to show you how to side-step this common mistake. You’ll see the ‘missing ingredient’ from your keyword research. And you’ll discover how to not just get traffic, but more leads and customers, too.

But first, we need to relate keyword research back to something you’re already familiar with:

The Buyer’s journey.

Why your content and keywords should align with buyer’s journey stages

A recent study found that “55% of consumers visit stores before buying online.”

Wait a second. What?

People visit physical stores and then buy online?

That’s odd.

You’re used to seeing the reverse. People will research stuff online before buying.

The study goes on to confirm that “more than half (56%) of 18-24 year-old shoppers say they buy products sight unseen.”

The theory behind such a high rate of physical inspections comes back to the product.

The more “high-touch” it is, the more common someone wants to see it or feel it in person, first.

That makes sense when you consider it.

You might buy socks on Amazon, without ever looking at them. But if you’re going to throw down a few hundred bucks on a new jacket, you’re going to want to make sure it fits properly.

What this means for companies, though, is that we live in an omnichannel world.

People not only research things online extensively before buying. They now also will research stuff offline, buy online, and vice versa.

Google calls this early research period the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). Their data shows that almost all consumers today will research extensively before buying.

And what’s happening, is that they’re slowing moving through the stages of the buyer’s journey.

Here’s a perfect example of what visitors are experiencing when they get sick:

A healthy person is never going to buy cough medicine.

Why would they? They don’t have a need for it just yet.

Only when their throat starts to hurt, do they realize they have a problem.

Next, they’ll take a look at all the various alternatives they could buy.

And that’s no easy feat, because we’re literally surrounded by medication.

Now, we know what customers are doing before buying (more or less).

Our goal is to construct a conversion funnel that lines up with each step.

Consumers own the shopping experience. They’re going to shop how they want, when they want.

No amount of advertising or campaigns we run will change that.

So don’t fight it. Instead, adjust and respond accordingly.

Bringing this back to SEO, it means you need to create pages on your site for each step.

This is the content mapping process. You take each customer persona, and figure out what they would want to see in the Awareness, Consideration, and Decision steps.

The reason we’re spending so much time here is because most website I see are lopsided.

They either have too much Awareness content, like blog posts. And not enough Decision-stage stuff that will convert they people they’ve brought in.

B2B companies often suffer from the reverse. They have too much Decision-stage content that only talks about their company, their products, or their services.

Why’s that a problem?

Because it means they can’t optimize for Awareness keywords to bring in enough search volume.

See what I mean?

Keyword research and optimization is completely dependent on your site content.

You can’t optimize an About page for a big, popular keyword like “content marketing.”

I mean, you can. But it won’t rank anytime soon.

That’s why one of the first things I do when starting work with any B2B company, for example, is to build out their content assets, first.

They need content targeting each funnel stage:

Before we can optimize each to bring in leads and customers.

I know. It’s kind of a chicken and egg problem.

But search engines are too sophisticated today.

You can’t fool them. At least, not for very long.

When companies come to me, suffering from lots of traffic but low deal flow, I like to use the following trick.

Treat SEO like PPC.

Yes, you heard me. I want you to take a PPC-based approach to keyword research.

How to find keywords by funnel stage

PPC only focuses on keywords that convert.

You don’t care about traffic or clicks or impressions or any other vanity metric.

Literally, the only thing that matters, are the ‘money keywords’ that drive leads or sale.

Tiny variations on a word suddenly matter. One word substitution in a phrase becomes a big deal.

So I want you to organize SEO keywords by match types. Just like you’d do with a PPC campaign:

At the top of the funnel, people are simply looking around at various TVs.

In the middle, they’re looking for pricing information.

And at the bottom, they’re ready to purchase.

But more importantly, do you see the specific words they’re using at each point?

  • “Reviews” at the top.
  • “Best store” in the middle.
  • “Buy” at the bottom.

That’s what we want to focus on here.

People use specific words that indicate which stage of the funnel they’re in. That’s how you identify them.

And that’s how we’ll take them to optimize content in a few seconds.

Here’s a good starting point from the HubSpot’s Inbound Conference:

People in the Awareness stage often use “issue or opportunity” terms. That makes perfect sense when you think about it. People are just beginning to realize their problem.

Think about how you found this very post you’re reading right now.

Why’d you click on this one and not one of the hundreds of others that crossed your stream today?

Because you identified with the problem.

The Consideration stage is when people start looking for solutions. They start looking for “tools,” “suppliers,” or “services” that can remove this pain point from their life.

Here, they’re comparing alternatives.

There might be five different software options that solve their pain point. So they’re gathering data on which one is right for them.

Finally, “reviews,” “benchmarks,” or “tests” can help someone make the ultimate Decision.

Of course, real life is a little more complicated and nuanced.

But try to keep it simple.

These three ‘buckets’ are fine for including in your keyword research.

Now, when you’re going to start researching keywords, you’re not just looking for volume and competition.

Instead, you’re starting with funnel stage.

You’re deliberately looking at keywords under Awareness, for example.

Then, you can drill down into the volume and competition for each. So you’re only ultimately comparing queries in the same funnel stage.

For example, pull up Ubersuggest and type in your search queries.

Mine is “keyword research.” 🙂

Ubersuggest will do exactly what is says: suggest new potential variations based on the original keyword.

So you’ll get a massive list of potential options, all with their estimated volume, CPC, and competition measures.

But first, we need to make this data relevant.

Scroll down to the very bottom of the tool and hit “Export.”

Exporting the data into a CSV file will allow you to start adding more context to each keyword.

For starters, you’d want to start assigning a Funnel Stage from the three options we’ve covered above.

Now, you can add one more column for the important piece:

The landing page.

Keyword research is nothing without pages to optimize.

So let’s look at examples for each step of the funnel to see how you can complete this process.

Step #1. Top of the Funnel

“Las Vegas” gets over a million searches each month.

Crazy, right?

Just getting a tiny slice of that would get you tons of traffic.

But you know what?

Most of that traffic would be completely useless if you were selling products or services.

(Ad revenue might be a different story.)

The reason is because “Las Vegas” is just too general.

You don’t understand the search intent behind that query. Which means you probably can’t figure out how to optimize a page on your site for it.

People looking for this could be looking for the weather, for example.

They’re not exactly ready to buy show tickets or a hotel room just yet.

Not only that, but you’re also most likely competing against the big boys with huge budgets.

I like to look at the top few PPC results to get an idea of how smart advertisers are targeting different keywords.

And “Las Vegas” shows some tough companies:

That’s why most people suggest a long-tail approach to top-of-the-funnel keywords.

You can target a ton of less competition queries that are also experiencing the problem you’re describing.

Take “UX mistakes,” for example.

No, people won’t Google this and convert immediately. But you can easily target keywords like this with blog content:

You’re getting them into your website initially, so that you can send them into other resources or retarget them with ads down the line.

Here’s how I like to generate new top-of-the-funnel keywords.

Write down all of the pain points customers experience. Follow that up with the benefits of your product or service.

Take these potential topics and start building out your categories for your blog.

Now, for each one, see if you can attach the following top-of-the-funnel keyword modifiers:

  • Fix
  • Issue
  • Problem
  • Troubleshoot
  • Upgrade
  • Prevent
  • Optimize

Plug these variations into Ubersuggest. It will spit out dozens of new awareness keywords, perfect for new blog post topics.

Now, see if you can find a few related ‘clusters’ of these keywords.

If you have a really popular one, that can serve as the ‘hub’ for the specific variations underneath.

Hub pages can be really long, in-depth resources, like my guides that span several different topics:

Each of these guides can internally link to relevant blog posts that cover similar topics.

And you’re building out a ‘web’ of relevant terms for Google to index.

Beyond just bringing in traffic, guides can also help you start turning strangers into leads.

Here’s how.

Step #2. Middle of the funnel

People in the consideration stage are now looking for options.

They’re looking for solutions to the pain they just realized.

Now, they’ve skipped over generic terms like “Las Vegas.” And are now looking for something specific, like “Las Vegas hotel rooms.”

Here, your objective changes.

You want to go from pages that will attract eyeballs to ones that will get people to stick like glue.

And that affects everything you do.

For example, someone who’s interested in a blog post around some pain point isn’t going to spend three hours on your site.

The time and energy someone’s willing to invest needs to rise proportionately, first.

Once you do get that ‘buy in,’ you can use in-depth resources like guides to keep them reading or coming back.

Remember what we learned earlier?

Consumers will often research at least ten different resources prior to purchasing.

So do you want those ten steps to be on your site, or someone else’s?

Now, let’s repeat the process we took in the last step.

Isolate those same key product or service benefits. But this time, apply the following variations:

  • Solution
  • Provider
  • Supplier
  • Vendor
  • Comparisons
  • Software
  • Features

People in this stage are comparing alternatives.

You don’t just want to ‘tell’ them about your features. You want to literally show them.

For example, head on over to the Crazy Egg recordings feature page.

Keep in mind that this is just one feature of several.

But we’ve gone through a ton of time (and money) trying to make it tell the best story.

We want to literally show people what the product does for them.

What does this have to do with keyword research?

Everything!

You want to transition someone’s interest in the middle of the funnel.

They’re looking for answers.

The keywords people use to find this page will bring with it a certain expectation.

They’re expecting to find something specific when they type in “ux design features.”

If the content on the page doesn’t line up with their expectation, they hit the back button.

And then you know what happens to your rankings?

They fall like a rock.

See, SEO isn’t just about keywords. It’s about optimizing for someone’s experience.

Ultimately, the best experience doesn’t just influence rankings.

It also dictates whether someone is going to take the next step to make a decision.

Or if they’re going to hit the back button on their browser to look for someone else.

Step #3. Bottom of the funnel

You’ve scoped out a few hotels for your upcoming trip to Vegas.

What do you do next?

You’re going to look for price comparisons for the actual weekend in question.

Now, you’re getting into crunch time.

You want to make a decision. But only after weighing all the options.

This is where you often start seeing branded queries pop up, for example.

You’re going to start punching in dates.

Soon-to-be consumers in the Decision stage will also use queries like the following:

  • Pros vs. cons
  • Benchmarks
  • Reviews
  • Ratings
  • Pricing

If you’re looking for the “best CRMs” in the last step, in this one, you’re pricing each one of them out.

You’re looking at the ‘next steps’ involved.

Kalia Strong includes a few other excellent modifiers to start regularly including in your bottom of the funnel keyword research, too.

At this point, someone is trying to decide if they should move forward. And if so, should they move forward with you?

Again, connect that back to your site content now.

Let’s say I’m interested in HubSpot. But I know from some initial research that it can get pricey.

So what do I search for when I’m trying to weigh my options?

Check out the very first paid result for this example:

(Now do you see why we think more like a PPC-er when doing SEO?)

SharpSpring has helpfully put together a product comparison for me, available for download, of course.

Of course, SharpSpring is a HubSpot alternative.

They’re positioning themselves against HubSpot.

So this page is optimized with “comparing HubSpot SharpSpring.”

SharpSpring’s URL structure gives away their “alternatives” SEO strategy.

They’re building out multiple pages just like this to bring in people who’re ready to make a decision.

Dig around on their site for a few seconds and you’ll see these comparison pages pop up again:

And again:

Obviously, these pages won’t get a ton of organic traffic by themselves.

But that’s the beauty of this strategy.

They don’t need to!

All of the keywords you’ve targeted earlier in the process were designed to bring in people.

They will get people interested.

These pages are built with one thing in mind: convert.

Then, each page can have it’s own relevant search query assigned:

  • Marketing automation vendor comparison
  • HubSpot pricing and reviews
  • Marketo pricing and reviews
  • Act-On pricing and reviews
  • Pardot pricing and reviews
  • Infusionsoft pricing and reviews

That’s the chicken and egg problem illustrated.

On the one hand, you need to change how you’re segmenting keywords by funnel stage.

You want to bring in people at each step. Or transition ones from the step before.

BUT, you often can’t do that until you have the appropriate pages that also target each funnel stage.

Otherwise, you’re trying to optimize pages with irrelevant search queries. Ones with mismatching search intent.

So even if you did get clicks and visits, they won’t line up with visitor expectations.

Which means instead of buying, they’re going to bounce.

And go buy from someone else.

Conclusion

Traditional keyword research often fails.

It fails because people only consider volume and competition.

If they can reasonably compete for a term, they’ll go after the one with the best traffic metrics.

But traffic doesn’t mean much without buyers.

And too often, the most popular keywords only bring in traffic. They bring in people who’re looking for information around their problems.

However, these people are weeks or months away from acting to solve that problem.

That’s where the buyer’s journey becomes relevant.

You need to first consider funnel stages, and how to help people at each one.

Only then should you dig deeper into comparing search volume and competition.

Because then you’re comparing apples to apples. You need to make sure two keywords are directly related, first, before you can reasonably select one over the other.

Then, you can tack on different modifying words to bring up tons of related topics.

And this is where SEO starts.

Because you need to be armed with enough related searches, to then go out and build (or modify) the appropriate pages.

Without content and site pages targeting each step, those keywords aren’t going to do you any good.

Not only do the keywords need to target the appropriate search intent, but so do your pages.

That means if someone is looking for “best CRM,” they’re not looking for you to brag about being the “best CRM.”

They’re looking for a comparison of CRM alternatives so that they can choose who the ‘best’ is.

So it’s two sides of the same coin.

To convert more visitors, you need better search terms. But to dominate those search terms, you need better pages, too.

What are your top converting keywords and what do those pages have in common?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.



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Thursday, February 1, 2018

10 Website Personalization Hacks to Skyrocket Your Conversion Rates

I’ll be honest: I don’t like general marketing statements.

You know the ones. I cringe a little bit when I hear “know, like, and trust.”

The problem is that these are too flimsy. They’re not actionable or instructive. And they very rarely come with cold-hard data behind it.

Turns out, though, that there’s a little truth in this one.

People do like to buy from people they know. Or, maybe more accurately, who know them.

Here’s what I mean.

Accenture recently released data that shows that three-fourths of customers want to purchase from companies that:

  • Knows them by name
  • Remembers their past purchases
  • Recalls their purchasing history

It’s no wonder that by 2020, Gartner is predicting ‘smart personalization engines’ will increase profits 15%.

What, exactly, does that mean?

It means a company will be able to understand what buyers are looking for and give it to them in real-time.

This is why personalization is such a big deal.

Not only do customers prefer it. But it can also get them to buy more, more often.

Go login to Amazon to see this for yourself.

What’s the first thing you see, straight away on their homepage?

  • Deals recommended for you
  • And products inspired by your Wish List

In almost every study you can find, personalization has the power to increase conversions across the board.

At Home in The Country added Amazon-like product recommendations and increased revenue 13%.

Personalizing your marketing is almost guaranteed to increase results.

I say “almost,” because most companies still struggle with actually doing it.

On the one hand, 77% of them will agree that it’s crucial. While on the other, 60% struggle with implementing it.

Fortunately, I’ve learned a few tricks over the years.

And I’m going to share them all with you in this article.

But there’s one thing you need to realize, first.

Personalization starts with collecting data.

You need to know more about current customers before you can ever serve them personalized content or messages.

So let’s begin there, with a few simple places to start.

  1. Track Pageviews
  2. Overlays
  3. Survey Responses
  4. Link Clicks
  5. Ad Campaign Interaction
  6. Tag and Filter Results
  7. Smart Lists
  8. Location Data
  9. Dynamic Content Blocks
  10. Referral Source

1. Track Pageviews

Customer surveys are important.

Getting qualitative data can help you figure out exactly what people are struggling with, in their own words.

It’s one of the best places to uncover customer habits or preferences.

And we will cover survey-based information in a minute.

But you can rarely start with surveys.

The problem is convenience. Surveys might take a few minutes to complete.

However, if someone doesn’t know who you are, they’re never going to agree to a survey.

They’re not going to take time out of their busy schedule because there’s nothing in it for them.

That means you need a different approach initially.

One of my go-to techniques to begin with is to simply tailor messaging based on the page someone is on.

You can also use past pageview history to help personalize messaging, too. I’ll show you how to do this with a few tools later on.

But let’s keep it simple for now.

Someone came to your site and is now looking at your product page. They’re trying to check out the features to see how it can help them.

Check out how Drift did this recently when I visited their features page:

The main headline on the page talked about “Automating your sales funnel with Playbooks.”

They’re trying to promote one of their features that can help companies replace steps in their sales process with bots to automatically book sales meetings for them.

Then, guess what the on-page message said?

It reiterated the same message.

“Drift Helps thousands of businesses book more sales meetings with bots…”

The call to action was perfectly aligned with the page content.

This is like ‘message match’ in advertising, where you match the same value props from an ad someone clicks to the landing page people see next.

See how simple that is?

You should already know what content or messaging is on each page.

So it’s fair to assume that people visiting that page will be interested in it, too.

OK, that was an easy one. Let’s see the same underlying tactic, applied to a new CTA.

2. Overlays

Admittedly, pop-up overlays are annoying.

I don’t love them as a visitor, either.

And yet, I still use them. All the time.

Why?

Because they work.

Check out this quote from Bryan Harris from Videofruit:

“We did in-depth analysis of our revenue last year and found pop-up, welcome mat and slide box opt-in subs accounted for just over $250,000 in revenue.”

When there’s a quarter of a million on the line, of course you’ll use an overlay, too.

The trick is to treat overlays like ads.

Why don’t people like banner ads? Because they’re irrelevant.

They’re advertising products or services that you could care less about.

The trick, again, is message match.

You infer what people want by looking at the pages they’re visiting.

Let’s take a blog as an example. You might have thousands of posts on your site.

There’s no way you can customize unique overlay messages for each one.

Instead, use the blog post category as a guide.

Authority Hacker used OptinMonster to target both category and post tags. They created new offers that perfectly lined up with the content in each of those blog posts.

So the “juicing” category, for example, had a juicing-related ebook offered:

Simple, right?

And what do you know — the conversion rate for this single pop-up was well over 4%.

I’ll show you some advanced personalization techniques in a few moments.

But you can already see that implementing personalization, at least on a small scale, isn’t too challenging.

Chances are, you’re already running campaigns like these.

The trick is to look at how you can make them more relevant to the people already visiting.

The fastest ways to increase results is to start with low-hanging fruit. And that’s the current audience you already have.

3. Survey Responses

Customer surveys only become useful once you have a sizeable audience and database.

Math is the problem.

First, response rates tend to be pretty low.

Some surveys, like Net Promoter Scores (NPS) will be a little higher than most. But you’re still only looking at responses from a fraction of the list.

The second problem is statistical significant and the third is confidence level.

In other words, you run the risk of making bad decisions based on incomplete information.

So you typically need to run your results through a calculation, like this one from Genroe, to make sure your sample size is large enough.

But once you jump through all of these hurdles, customer surveys can be gold.

Not only for general business or marketing campaigns, but for better personalizing results for them, too.

Here, I’ll show you what I mean.

You need to connect whatever survey tool you use back with a CRM or marketing automation platform.

Personally, I like Typeform and Gravity Forms, depending on what you’re using them for.

Both have solid integrations right out of the box. That means you can often connect directly from Gravity Forms to ActiveCampaign, for instance.

New customer responses will flow automatically into your CRM, updating the contact’s record.

Otherwise, you can also use Zapier to connect both tools for you.

The sky’s the limit when you connect apps like Typeform and HubSpot, for example.

Zapier works by setting a trigger and action.

In this case, the trigger would be a new form fill.

The action would by updating that contact’s record.

You can also use an intermediary step to filter out results based on other criteria (like if they’re a lead and not a customer).

OK, so what’s happening here?

Survey responses are added back to each customer’s database record. They’re essentially segmenting themselves, letting you know what kind of business type or size they fall into.

In other words, they’re doing all of the work for you!

Segmenting new leads or customers is tough because you don’t know enough about them.

But it becomes really easy when they literally tell you all the answers.

Now, you’re going to build out automated sequences based on this information.

So all of the people that match “solo” + “developers” will receive completely different messages and offers than the “agency owner” + “designer.”

4. Link Clicks

I can already hear a few objections to the last tip.

“What if you can’t get enough people to answer those surveys?”

No problem! Here’s another trick I like to use.

Again, you’re going to need a marketing automation tool to help you organize everything.

There are so many options here now. HubSpot, Drip, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, InfusionSoft: they’re all good.

Many times, you try to get someone to answer a survey, but they won’t.

To make matters worse, they stop responding to a lot of your emails and other messages.

How can you win them back?

You need to test a few options. You can start by sending out an email with various links, for example.

Each link might have a different value proposition.

So one might be related to a “website,” while another is “SEO.”

Then, you track which ones they click.

If they click “website” and not the other ones, you now know what they’re most interested in next time they visit your site.

Again: We’re not just talking about personalizing emails, here.

That stuff is helpful. But ultimately, the main objective is to personal your website.

The problem is that you can’t do that until you know more about what makes each person tick.

Although, by now, if you follow these first few steps, you should be getting a whole lot closer.

5. Ad Campaign Interaction

Most people won’t buy something the first time they hit your site.

A recent Unbounce study found that somewhere between ~2-6% of people who hit a landing page might purchase.

Unfortunately, that means the vast majority of your site visitors are probably going to leave without giving you anything.

Hopefully, you did get one thing from them before they left.

Remarketing or retargeting campaigns can read that little browser cookie and automate ad campaigns to past visitors.

Once again, though, you don’t want to stop there.

You also want to be able to track how people respond to those ads.

Let’s say you visit Hotjar, but leave without signing up. Now, they’re going to retarget you on Facebook with this case study ad:

Nice, right?

Ultimately, though, they want to see if you click that case study and signup.

They can see which value propositions worked best. Hotjar has like five tools in one.

They want to see which one of those tools piqued your interest the most.

Then, following our theme here, they can use a tool like AdEspresso’s data sync to create a two-way connection between your retargeting campaigns and customer database.

Once the connection is created, your contact records will be tagged, filtered, and updates with the appropriate data.

And here’s where things get fun.

6. Tag and Filter Results

Website personalization techniques need to be triggered.

They need to have some data source telling them how or what to personalize page content with.

So far, we’ve been collecting tons of data points.

Now, it’s time to start using them.

Your marketing automation tool should be recording all of these interactions and updating records accordingly.

That’s typically done through a combination of events, actions, tags, or conditions. Here’s what that looks like inside ConvertKit:

‘Conditions’ are like IF/THEN statements.

They say, “If this happens, then do this.”

First, you start by assigning the criteria that needs to be met. That might include specific page views and a number of site visits, like this Drift example:

The “then” part is what you do with the information. We’re getting really close to that part.

7. Smart Lists

“Smart lists” work with similar conditions.

You can set criteria that dictates if someone can join the list or not.

Think of it like segmentation.

If someone visits your Pricing page, for example, there’s a pretty good chance they’re interested in purchasing your product.

What makes these lists “smart,” though, is that they update constantly in the background.

So these lists will add people or kick them off certain lists based on all of their interactions.

Relate this back to your marketing funnel.

  1. If someone visits your site for the first time, add them to a list to receive retargeting ads
  2. If they click on the ad and download an ebook, remove them from the first list and add them to a new lead list
  3. If they sign up for a free trial of your software, remove them from all other lists and add them to the free trial one

Make sense so far?

Hopefully, because ultimately these lists will be used to power website personalization.

8. Location data

Cara Harshman, former head of content at Optimizely, announced at the Call to Action Conference that they saw over a 117% lift in people signing up for an account based solely on their homepage personalization.

How did they do this?

First, they collected data!

They identified key accounts, like Microsoft or Target, to go after. Then, they used a database to help trigger the appropriate site messaging.

Optimizely has 25 different audiences pre-created, using everything from demographic data and previous behavior.

If they don’t have your personal data already, they’ll use other criteria.

For example, visit their site in the morning and you’ll likely get a warm cup of coffee:

In this case, they’re looking at location to help personalize what’s appearing.

Optimizely will also use location to showcase different products.

If you’re in a warm climate, you’ll see warm stuff. If you’re in a cold one, you’ll see more jackets and boots.

Optimizely goes to such extensive personalization lengths because they’re one of the leading providers of the technology.

But they’re not the only one.

9. Dynamic content blocks

Most websites today run on content management systems (CMS).

HubSpot’s calls their offering a “content optimization system.”

The difference?

They have site personalization baked into the process.

Their toolset already includes a full CRM and marketing automation suite. That makes it easy to create ‘smart content’ that references the data they already have:

The first few, including country or device type, are helpful when you have limited data.

However, the real power comes down below with contact list membership or lifecycle stage.

This brings us back to the smart lists from earlier.

If someone is on a specific contact list, they’ll receive a different experience from everyone else.

And using this combination of ‘smart’ features can literally automate your entire website personalization strategy across everyone who visits.

HubSpot’s toolset also allows you to customize just calls to action if you want.

That way, you don’t have to overhaul your site. You can simply replace content blocks, like you would with a banner ad.

But HubSpot will reference their database to determine what to show someone, and when.

10. Referral source

There’s one final tip if you’re still stuck or without these high-priced tools.

You can use referral source to segment your marketing funnel.

For example, someone visiting your site based on a PPC ad will see something different than another who came from social media.

RightMessage is a new tool that can help you personalize pages based on referral source.

So you can create a single landing page design, for instance, but customize all of the content based on if someone is visiting from a partner website, email message, or it’s their very first time to your site.

The tool comes from Brennan Dunn, who was able to use its content personalization techniques to increase sales on one page by 70%.

Not so fast, though.

Before Brennan was able to see those awesome results, they had to put together 81 different variations!

How?

By going through a lot of the same steps in this article!

He used detailed survey responses to pinpoint what his customers needed.

Studies show that more landing pages tend to equal more conversions. However, that doesn’t just mean more offers. It also means more relevant ones. It means more variations on the same pages you’re already using.

Think about your own user flow for a minute.

How do people go from one step the next?

When you start plotting it all out, you’ll see drastically different end points along each step:

PPC traffic tends to convert well because people are typing in exactly what they’re looking for.

They have intent. That means they should receive a landing page offer, most likely.

But someone who arrives to a blog post from Google?

They’re just starting to get a lay of the land.

Say you Google “content marketing,” for example.

That’s a pretty generic search query. Chances are, you’re just looking for information at this stage.

So instead of a product offer, your next step is probably to learn more information about the website you’re currently on:

Why are we talking about this?

Because it shows that someone’s referral source can often clue you into what they want.

Want more tips? I give some in this video:

Conclusion

Personalization is one of the leading trends in marketing.

Almost everyone agrees that it’s important. And almost every study shows positive results.

Why don’t more website look like Amazon’s then?

Because implementing personalization is much easier than it looks.

The tools are out there. Sure, many can get pricey when you’re on big plans.

But the technology exists and is affordable to most legitimate businesses.

The problem is that most companies don’t collect enough useful data points about each customer.

They gather demographic data, like household income. But not key data, like “what are they looking for on my site?”

Surveys can help. However, you’ll need enough people on your list, first.

Instead, start relying on more behavior data.

People are literally already telling you exactly what they want. Their clicks and actions are out there in the open.

You just need to know where to look to find it.

What’s your favorite example of website personalization in action?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.



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