Archives for 2022

Design Trends for 2023

Looking for ways to make your visuals stand out in 2023?

This could help – the team from Venngage have put together a new overview of key visual trends in infographics, and how you could look to present your data in the new year.

The trend notes incorporate several key design updates that you’ve likely noticed of late, including Spotify’s festival flyer format for its year-in-review listings.

There could be some valuable notes for your brand – check out Venngage’s full overview below.

How to Boost Your Digital Marketing ROI

tacks of coins sprouting leaves at their tops.

Another brilliant post from contributor Mary Aspen Richardson

A good Return On Investment (ROI) is what we all hope for, in marketing or otherwise, but it doesn’t come easy. Whether you’re a new or seasoned marketer, challenges abound. As digital marketing becomes more competitive, expansive, and experimental, there are no entirely safe investments with guaranteed positive outcomes. Still, there are many ways to boost your digital marketing ROI – as we’ll see today.

What’s an excellent digital marketing ROI?

First, if you’re looking to boost your ROI, you likely already know the basics. The term refers to your final returns and is more easily calculated by dividing returns by the investment cost. You can use this number as-is, multiply it by 100 to get a percentage value, or divide returns by costs to obtain an x:y ratio. So, for example, a return of 100 on a cost of 25 would be a 4:1 ratio.

What you may not know is what constitutes a good ROI, however. Marketing ROI statistics find that a 5:1 ratio is decent, and anything beyond that is good. That also refers to total ROI, the sum of all your channels’ ROI values.

Indeed, different channels have notably different typical ROIs. For some examples:

  • Email marketing boasts a staggering ROI of 36:1
  • Pay Per Click (PPC) has a modest ROI of 2:1
  • Paid social media have a riskier ROI of 19:20

That does not mean some channels are best ignored, however. Where a standalone channel’s ROI may be unimpressive, omnichannel marketing requires that you combine channels. In doing so, one can enhance the other and produce a much more effective customer journey.

A black calculator next to a sheet on investment costs and returns.

How to Boost Your Digital Marketing ROI

If this sounds complex, it doesn’t need to be. In some order, consider the following steps to consolidate your channels, optimize your campaigns, and ultimately see better ROI across the board.

#1 Leverage marketing automation

First, omnichannel marketing can indeed be quite hectic. To keep your efforts seamless, you can begin by employing marketing automation. Whether your size or market position, satisfying your current customers and growing your customer base with marketing automation are feasible goals.

For one, marketing automation is a great way to secure clients; such tools as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions can allow you to drill down into customer analytics. In contrast, marketing automation solutions can free up your time for more creatively demanding tasks. Depending on your automation solutions, you may also be able to collect customer feedback more consistently, automate outreach, and more. Finally, if applicable to your business, automation can expand your operations beyond working hours, increasing your final revenue.

#2 Hybridize and expand your channels

As you do, remember not to fall into the reverse trap of avoiding new channels because expanding sounds daunting. While your business may benefit more from focusing on just a few channels that best resonate with your audiences, diversification is generally an asset worth the effort.

Toward this end, you may dig into historical data, audience and customer insights, and other relevant data points to create a hybrid strategy. For such strategies, you may combine the following:

  • Organic and paid channels
  • Digital and physical channels
  • Inbound and outbound marketing tactics

Depending on your analytics and audiences, this may be just what you need to boost your digital marketing ROI by offering a holistic, satisfying customer journey. Consider what channels may best augment the journey and proceed accordingly.

A visualization of a customer journey on a sheet of paper on a table.

#3 Keep your metrics in mind

As you do, however, you must keep an eye on relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). That is a highly subjective matter that strongly depends on your business needs and goals. Pinpointing valuable KPIs and avoiding vanity ones is an excellent starting point.

Covering the basics, KPI.org defines good KPIs as ones that:

  • Provide objective evidence of progress toward achieving the desired result
  • Measure what is intended to be measured to help inform better decision making
  • Offer a comparison that gauges the degree of performance change over time
  • Can track efficiency, effectiveness, quality, timeliness, governance, compliance, behaviors, economics, project performance, personnel performance, or resource utilization
  • Are balanced between leading and lagging indicators

Marketing-wise, this would mean pinpointing campaign-relevant and goal-relevant KPIs. Total impressions only say so much about a conversion-minded campaign, for instance, while they’d be a key KPI for brand awareness campaigns.

#4 Identify areas for improvement

As you dig into your analytics and re-align your campaigns with your goals, you will soon have the opportunity to examine your overall marketing strategies. With a customer journey map, you may explore different touchpoints and strategies to identify shortcomings.

Granted, doing so may take effort and requires you to correctly decipher your KPIs. Still, it’s one of the best ways to boost your digital marketing ROI as you optimize the entirety of the journey.

A pen on a notebook next to a white tablet on a table.

Potential areas for improvement depend on your existing strategies but may include:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies; on-page, off-page, and technical optimizations
  • PPC campaigns; copy, Calls to Action (CTAs), targeting, duration, and more
  • Email marketing; audience segmentation and targeting, behavioral email triggers, outreach timing, and so on

While exact optimization routes are highly subjective, the previous steps should help approach this one strategically. Go beyond how an individual channel or strategy looks or performs and focus more on how it improves or inhibits the overall customer journey.

#5 A/B test diligently and keep monitoring your efforts

Finally, as outlined manifold, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing. What works for one business or one customer segment may not work for the next, and what works today may not work tomorrow. As such, you A/B must test your optimizations and keep a consistent close eye on your campaigns.

The need for the latter should be self-evident; not monitoring your campaigns to address sudden performance changes can spell disaster. The former may not need much elaboration, as A/B testing is the safer route. Indeed, statistics find that A/B testing is relatively prominent and embraced:

  • Some 77% of companies are running A/B testing on their website. About 60% of companies perform A/B tests on their landing pages, and approximately 59% perform email A/B tests.
  • Only 7% of companies believe it’s challenging to perform A/B tests.
  • One out of eight A/B tests drives significant change.

Therefore, following these established practices should offer an excellent safeguard against performance fluctuations and commitment to hasty, ineffective changes.

A focus photograph of a graph on a laptop screen.

Work smarter, not harder, to boost your digital marketing ROI

In summary, to boost your digital marketing ROI, you require a strategic approach. They must begin with a firm grasp of your historical performance data and audience insights to best inform change. They require careful consideration of existing channels and strategies, embracing diversification and expansions with some relevant marketing automation. Finally, they need an attentive eye on relevant KPIs and the performance of ongoing campaigns while ideally having thorough A/B testing to inform data-driven decisions.

While brief, we hope this article helped you get started. ROI improvements are not easy and come with no guarantees, but they’re very much worth the effort.

Meta: If you’re looking for ways to boost your digital marketing ROI but don’t know where to get started, we’re here to help.

Keyword: boost your digital marketing ROI

Image sources:

https://pixabay.com/photos/money-profit-finance-business-2696219/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-calculator-near-ballpoint-pen-on-white-printed-paper-53621/
https://pixabay.com/photos/customer-journey-design-thinking-1836825/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-pen-on-top-of-notebook-3183170/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/graph-on-laptop-screen-3861957/

The Importance Versus Annoyance of Two-Factor Authentication

Do you use two-factor authentication, or some other form of advanced password protection for your social media accounts?

Have you ever been locked out of your account due to advanced protection measures?

Two- or multi-factor authentication adds an additional level of friction to the log-in process, which can be frustrating day-to-day, as you need to use a secondary device to access your account. But at the same time, it’s one of the best ways to protect your account from hacking – as is reflected in this new survey by Beyond Identity.

The Psychology of Color in Marketing [Infographic]

Your brand, and how it’s utilized in your marketing, must be done in a careful and thoughtful manner, and the colors that you use to represent your brand and products are very much a part of this consideration. Different colors trigger different psychological responses, and smart use of color can have a big impact on perception, and can even drive action from your audience.

To glean more insight into the impact of different colors in your marketing efforts, the team from LuxurySoCalRealty have put together this infographic, which looks at the various ways in which color can and should be used in marketing.

The Psychology of Color In Marketing and Branding

 The 45-Minutes Instagram Engagement Plan

Are you struggling to dedicate the time required to maximize your Instagram engagement? Want to learn how to achieve social media success in just 45 minutes per day?

The team from The Social Momma share their Instagram engagement strategy in this infographic.

Hobby Ideas for Music Lovers and How to Get Started

Photo via Pexels

Are you looking for a new hobby? If you have a particular fondness for music, consider building your new hobby around a music-related activity. You could learn an instrument, start a music blog, or teach yourself how to record and produce music. You never know, your hobby might even turn into a job one day! Pursuing your passion for music is a great way to spend your leisure time. Here are some tips shared by EmmanuelFonte.com to help you get started with your new music hobby!

Choosing a Musical Hobby

When people think about music as a hobby, they imagine playing an instrument or learning how to sing. But there are many other ways to enjoy music in your free time. In fact, simply listening to music is a hobby in itself! Here are some other music-related activities that can make for rewarding hobbies:

  • Collect vinyl records.
  • Start a music blog.
  • Interview local musicians for a podcast.
  • Write song lyrics.
  • Compose and produce electronic music with your computer.
  • Learn to DJ.
  • Collect band merchandise.
  • Teach music.
  • Read artist biographies and memoirs.

Turn Your Hobby Into a Business

If you’re an entrepreneur at heart, you’re always looking for ways to monetize your hobbies. Thankfully, music hobbies are great candidates for monetization. Consider building a business around your new hobby! Making the leap from hobbyist to business owner just requires a few legal steps. For example, you’ll need to register your business with your state and choose a business structure. Creating an LLC could be a good idea if you’re looking to limit your personal liability and gain special tax advantages. As long as you understand your state’s specific regulations, consider getting an LLC on your own with the help of online formation services.

Learn New Skills

Don’t limit yourself to hobbies that you know how to do already. One of the best parts about picking up a new hobby is the chance to learn! Challenge yourself by picking a hobby that lies outside your existing skills and experience. There are countless resources available online that can teach you whatever you want to learn about your new musical hobby. For example, SkillScouter suggests several online DJ courses that will teach you how to hone your mixing skills.

In the beginning, learning a new musical skill will feel very exciting. But you should be prepared to face some kind of motivation dip as your learning progresses. This is where many people call it quits and start looking for a new hobby to try. Make a commitment to push through lulls in your motivation so you can keep learning and improving!

Connect With Other Creatives

Collaborating with other creatives is a great way to advance your music skills and uncover exciting opportunities in the music industry. And if you’re looking to take your hobby professional, collaboration is essential! Music Industry How To suggests a number of ways to collaborate with other creatives in the music industry. You could co-write music, remix each other’s songs, put on a live show together, or create a collaborative Spotify playlist.

Even if you’re not interested in making money with your music hobby, collaboration is great for learning new skills and maintaining your motivation. Look for online music communities where you can connect with other artists. Online platforms offer all kinds of collaboration opportunities, whether you’re looking to find a producer or simply chat about music with like-minded hobbyists.

If you have a passion for music, start experimenting with some musical hobbies! Music-related hobbies are great for exercising your creativity, working your brain, and winding down after a long day at work. Pick up an instrument or head to your local vinyl shop. Whatever hobby you choose, it’s bound to be rewarding!

Are you looking for a new home that suits your new-found music hobby? Let Emmanuel Fonte help you find the perfect property for you, your family, and your love of music. When you’re ready to get started, get in touch by calling (206) 713-3244.

Twitter Shares Insights into Music Engagement Trends

Music is a key cultural driver, and as such, it can also be a prominent vehicle for trends, memes, communities, and other engagement.

This means that it should also be on the radar of marketers looking for new opportunities to expand their reach on social platforms – and Twitter is a key medium for tapping into trending music discussion.

A Guide for Creating Instagram Reels

Here are the video specs, tools and Reels core features that any creator can use as a reference or learning guide for creating Instagram Reels.

The Internet Every Minute (2022 Version)

It’s amazing to consider the amount of connected activity these days, as we become increasingly reliant on the internet for social connection, entertainment, work, shopping, etc.

That’s become even more evident in recent years, with the pandemic sparking a new shift to working from home, which means that, increasingly, more and more people are reliant on the web for virtually everything they do.