When promoting your campus or programs to an audience, it seems obvious to target the students directly. They are the ones who will be applying; they are the ones that you will ultimately have to convince. On the other hand, no matter how independent a young adult is, his or her parents will usually have the final say, as the …
The Value of Personalization for Financial Services Companies
For far too many years, financial services companies have relied upon mass-produced technology and approaches to deliver their product. This has resulted in a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach.In today’s market is leaving younger customers cold. Such a standardized approach leaves customers feeling like they are trapped in a stiff, restrictive environment.It may be time for banks and credit unions to consider …
Basics of Online Reputation Management
If you are in business, you already know reputation management is vital to your success. When everything is going your way and the press is positive, life is good. When it is not, well… You may have heard the saying “Nothing is so good that someone somewhere will not like it.” Bad reviews, an angry customer, even a typo can …
Analytics That Drive Business Now
What Kind of Analytics Can Best Help My Company? The internet has permanently transformed marketing. In the pre-Internet days the Herculean task was to convince potential clients and customers that they had to reach you either via phone or in person or even to reach you by mail. It seems almost comical to think that we’d be dependent upon someone …
Four Internet Strategies to Improve Hospital Marketing & Medical Practice Marketing
In the past, hospital marketing and general health-care marketing involved brand management and patient education. Due to the pervasive growth of the Net some hospital marketers and marketing professionals for medical practices are having a hard time adjusting. Being able to stay on the cutting-edge while remaining relevant and accessible has become key for successful hospital and medical marketing. Patients …
Hottest Travel Marketing Trends
Marketing Trends for Travel Destinations Years ago, being exotic was enough to brand your destination, company or organization. These days, “exotic” has become a relative term. Thanks to the internet, people have generally become less curious about seeing the generic aspects of a place like Paris or Aruba. Instead, they want to know about the “hot spots,” the places that …
Measuring the Effectiveness of Website Content
Analyzing the success of your content marketing can be challenging given the large amount of data to consider. It is essential to have an organized, streamlined, and strategic way to weigh and consider your content metrics. And it is vital to go beyond likes and thumbs up to dig deeper into what is working and why. The Moz One Metric …
Identifying Your Online Community
Identifying an online community for your business is an essential step towards expanding your online presence and the reach of your brand. It is an ongoing process and requires a significant time investment, but we’ve come up with some key strategies to organize and simplify the process. Determine who you want in your audience and how you can connect with …
Why Understanding Mobile Advertising Has Become Business Critical
We all know that mobile is here and it’s going to stay. Gone are the days where we needed to have personal computers at home, hardwired to the internet to shop online, surf the web, or send an email. Now we have smooth, sleek, one-hand-friendly smart phones and tablets bringing the Internet literally to the control of our fingertips. How many of us are pull out our smartphone while waiting for a friend to ‘check in’ on Facebook or Tweet about your happenings? You’re not alone, my friend. Adults average over 2 hours a day on their mobile devices.
Top 20 Most Valuable Twitter Statistics
We’re all continually trying to keep our finger on the pulse of social media and which channel makes the most sense for our business. This is not always an easy answer so we’ve put together a list of the Top 20 Twitter Statistics that we feel every marketer needs to know from the top sources including information directly from Twitter’s …
Predictions for the Future Based on 2013 Lessons Learned
There were a number of key 2013 takeaways based on in-depth data analysis of a number of critical online marketing areas. Here are some key points and thoughts on how to react to them for the future:
Content Marketing Trends for 2014
With almost half of the world’s population now able to access the internet, there’s no denying the ever-increasing importance of digital marketing’s role in reaching consumers. Understanding online content trends can help marketers create and refine strategies, making the most of their time and budget.
Creating a Shareable Content Marketing Plan
Strategies to Add Linkability and Value to your Content Marketing Plan It is vital to consistently and continually craft linkable content in order to add value to your website and overall marketing strategy. Creating linkable assets is an integral part of an effective content marketing marketing strategy, but how in the world do you get started? To begin with we …
Responsive Web Design vs. Adaptive Web Design: What’s the Difference?
With ever increasingly pressure to create web sites that work without a glitch on a huge variety of mobile devises and tablets, two design strategies have emerged: responsive and adaptive web design. Both options share the same goal, which is to ensure that users have a positive experience using sites on whatever devise they choose. While a successful end result …
More on Hummingbird
As discussed in a previous blog post, Google has officially launched its new search algorithm, Hummingbird, a semantic search designed to focus on the meaning of an entire query, as opposed to only separate words, in order to create more accurate, well-matched search results. Hummingbird has been running for about a month, and it is interesting to start evaluating it …
Google Search Data: How to Uncover the Best Information
About two years ago, Google began to place limits on the referrer data available via Google analytics. While instances of getting “Not Provided” in answer to research in Google Analytics search data had been increasing we’ve now reached the point of no return. Google Analytics, as of today, is no longer going to be providing us with this valuable information …
Hummingbird: Google’s New Search Algorithm
Google recently announced an ambitious change to its search engine. It has developed an algorithm re-write, which will allow Google Search to handle more complex queries with much more authentic and accurate search results. The new algorithm, Hummingbird, is the most comprehensive change to the Google algorithm since 2000. The basis of the change is an effort to focus upon …
2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors – Data and Conclusions
The 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors report has been released by Moz. In a field as data-driven as SEO/SEM, it is always worth evaluating large scale data such as this. In the past, Google has said that it uses over 200 signals in its search algorithm. (Note: It is unclear how much this has changed since the recent introduction of …
Pinterest and Instagram for Business
Content Tips Tailored to Pinterest and Instagram Pinterest and Instagram are two of the most popular social networks right now, making it important to explore content optimization opportunities on these sites. Though both rely on mostly visual content, there is data available to help make the most of your marketing efforts within these vehicles. What works? Taller images get re-pinned …