Published April 11, 2018 by

How to find the right influencers

Often discovering the best influencer to advertise your brand can be a difficult task. However, it is important to get this initiative right as it can help your business increase its opportunities for sales. This blog will focus on the tips to find the right influencers as well as looking at the risks and benefits.

Influencer marketing has increasingly become crucial in today’s business world. With so much information available online customers are more sceptical in trusting advertising and instead opt for recommendations online. Influence marketing allows businesses to reach out a wide range of potential customers and attract considerable attention via social interactions through the snowball effect (Li et al., 2011).

The top tips on how to find the right influencer:

 According to (hall, 2010) what makes an influencer truly valuable is the number and relevance of their extended or indirect connections. Relevance: It’s important to identify someone that is a good fit for your business. The influencer content should suit your brand message as well as its followers. It serves no purpose asking an influencer to promote your business when it’s going to be delivered to an audience that is not relevant to your brand image.

For example, Kevin Bacon with EE. EE was focusing on the speed you can stream movies and other media on their network and collaborated with Kevin Bacon a famous actor having him tell their story makes it authentic.

kevin bacon

Number: Fans, followers and subscriber counts are key metrics to consider when looking at influencers. Having someone who has a large following online will help your business reach a wide audience because of their popularity this shows they have a greater influential strength (Kale et al., 2007). By mentioning your brand your brand online, they are expanding your brand communication.

Engagement: When trying to find the right influencer for your business it’s important to look at engagement. It’s not looking how engaged they are online but how the readers respond to their content such as looking applause, conversations and Amplification  (Kaushik cited in Vervely, 2012) ). For example, if the audience interacts with influencers content a great deal it shows that they have a meaningful relationship as readers are more likely to have more loyalty.

Risks

Influencers may be motivated by just the paycheck: Influencers are paid to promote your product don’t expect them to be a fan. Most make a living out getting paid per post depending on reach and audience. It is a great benefit marketing through them you have to be cautious that someone is just in it for the money.

A great example is Oprah Winfrey 2012 tweet (Dillet, 2012):

Microsoft partnered with Oprah in the home to increase their sales and recognition. However, she celebrated her love for the product sent from an iPad.

Expensive: It can be really expensive partnering up with some influencers as they can make you charge a premium. Depending on how much followers they have can command thousands a top influencer can command $300,000 per YouTube video. According to (O’Connor,2017) Rachel Brathen a yoga expert commands upwards of $25,000 for a social media post.

 

Not sharing the same values: The influencer message, beliefs and audience should reflect a lifestyle that your business promotes to your customers. A great example Is the YouTube sensation PewDiePie who was going to be the face of YouTube new red streaming service and had influencer contract with Google and Disney. However, he uploaded a series of videos featuring anti-semitic comments and Disney and Google both sever ties with him (Solon, 2017). In addition, YouTube dropped him from their advertising program.

Summary

Overall when implementing influencer marketing these tips and risks will be useful for promotion. According to Linqia (2018), 86% of marketers used influencer marketing in 2017, 92% of whom found it to be effective. However not partnering up with the right influencer can be detrimental to your brand image and sales, therefore, it’s important to get it right.

References

Booth, N. and Matic, J.A., 2011. Mapping and leveraging influencers in social media to shape corporate brand perceptions. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 16(3), pp.184-191.

Hall, T. (2010), “DigitalNEXT”, 22 March, available at: www.adage.com/digitalnext 29 March, available at: http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id¼142907

Kale, A. Karandikar, P. Kolari, A. Java, A. Joshi, T. Finin, Modeling trust and influence in the blogosphere using link polarity, in: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (Short Paper), Menlo Park, CA, 2007.

Li, Y., Lai, C. and Chen, C. (2011). Discovering influencers for marketing in the blogosphere. Information Sciences, 181(23), pp.5143-5157.

O’connor, C. (2017). Earning Power: Here’s How Much Top Influencers Can Make On Instagram And YouTube. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2017/04/10/earning-power-heres-how-much-top-influencers-can-make-on-instagram-and-youtube/#6cbd12f124db [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].

Rampton, J. (2017). How to Identify the Perfect Influencer for Your Business. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/287413 [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].

Smart Insights. (2017). 4 influencer marketing risks to be wary of | Smart Insights. [online] Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/online-pr/influencer-marketing/4-influencer-marketing-risks-wary/ [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].

Solon, O. (2017). Disney severs ties with YouTube star PewDiePie over antisemitic videos. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/13/pewdiepie-youtube-star-disney-antisemitic-videos [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].

TechCrunch. (2012). Oprah Tweets Her Love For Microsoft Surface Using An iPad. [online] Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2012/11/19/oprah-tweets-her-love-for-microsoft-surface-using-an-ipad/ [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].

Vervely. (2012). Social Media Engagement Metrics – Vervely. [online] Available at: http://vervely.com/social-media-engagement-metrics/2012/ [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].

 

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4 great tips to boost engagement in email marketing
Published March 4, 2018 by

4 great tips to boost engagement in email marketing

 

email marketing

In order for your marketing initiatives to be effective for your business, you need to make sure they complement one another. This blog will focus on using email marketing to target and build relationships with your customer. Moreover, outlining how to use it effectively as well as the risks to watch out for.

Email marketing is one the most powerful channels to communicate with your audience and offers great advertising returns for your business.

1.   Get Permission

Seth Godin (1999) suggests that permission marketing is the most effective to ensure that your customers begin on the right path for a sustainable relationship.  Asking for permission makes sure your sending information to the people who are keen to hear from your business and that you respect their privacy.

Permission is easy to acquire it can be done by offering something of value such as a discount, coupon or a free item.

You can also use a double opt-in system that requires subscribers to open confirmation email and click the link in the email to confirm the subscription giving your business a valid subscriber mailing list and proof the customer gave you permission.

2.   Keep messages personal and relevant:

Mohammadi et al. (2013) emphasize the importance of keeping messages personal and relevant as it can help build strong relationships between businesses and customers. Therefore, whenever it makes sense you should include personalized information when conducting your emails. You can start this process by personalizing the subject line and writing something catchy and enticing.

An example could be personalized subject line with their name included is known to produce higher click-through rates and those that don’t. When sending emails to your customer don’t address them as ”dear customer” as customers find it less personal and don’t send from a sales@gmail.com as they prefer to interact with actual people.

 

By mentioning the product, including images and adding page links it makes the content relevant to the customer and the higher probability they will interact with the email.

3.   Call to Action

So, your customers have opened your email it’s time for a clear call to action. Call to action (CTA) is extremely important as it helps to persuade your subscribers to click on your content and interact with it (Mohammadi et al. 2013).

The key to delivering a strong call to action is to implement an automated system this is because it will get better results, higher conversions and provide information on your customer behaviours (Mohammadi et al. 2013).

Below is an example of go daddy (2018) promotional call to action that offers 30% off.

go daddy

4.   Test your campaigns

Use A/B testing to find out what is working and what is not in your campaign. This can be done by sending two similar emails to your mailing lists and add variations to the subject line, content and display. The aim is to find the option your customer responds to better.

Click here to see how campaign monitor can help your business.

 

Risks

  • White et al. (2008) disagrees with Mohammadi et al. (2013) and suggest that personalization can be harmful to consumers may find it too personal. They build from psychological reactance research in the direction that suggests too much personalization consumers may result in a personalization reactance. The idea the consumer will resist themselves by opening the email. This could to customers concern about data protection including identity theft and fraud.

 

  • You should only be sending emails to individuals who have given you permission to do so. As it is a legal requirement under the EU compliance of general data protection regulation (GDPR). The law gives greater control, protection and rights of their data. If your business has been found to breach you could be fined 4% of global turnover. If you send messages to people who haven’t subscribed they would view it as spam and this can cause monetary damage

 

  • Chaffrey and Chadwick (2016) suggest that different customers will have different preferences for email offers, content and frequency. If communication preferences are not done well it has a negative impact on engagement and response of the recipients. Know your customer find out their response using A/B tests.

 

  • Email response decay is a big issue in email marketing this is because, when subscribers join they are very responsive but overtime the engagement decreases. However, one solution to overcome this problem is to set email triggers to remind your customer about your business with a voucher, new products you have available.

 

Summary:

Overall I hope this blog post gave you new insights into improving email marketing and identify the risks for your business.

 

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Published January 6, 2018 by

How useful is Facebook Marketing to the retail sector?

Social Media has changed the way businesses and consumers alike communicate and share information. With over 2 billion users online Facebook is the most powerful social tool online (Titcomb, 2017). Which is why businesses spending thousands on Facebook advertising.

Advantages

Reach: Facebook advertisement allows you to reach your potential audience through the use of data they have aggregated. When you create your ad, Facebook gives you access to create and refine Ads that reach specific target audiences based on age, education, location, page likes, activity, household and income to garner better results. Facebook also gives you the opportunity to create campaigns that have different goals. Companies in the retail sector may want to increase traffic by promoting a sale they can do this by targeting customers based on their love of shopping. Facebook has several ad formats and pricing options to help with that.

How useful is Facebook Marketing for the retail industry?

The keyword retail shows that 7m-8m are likely to see the ad. This means that for retail business they know which demographic is worth targeting and which isn’t.

Facebook Live: a live video streaming tool that promotes engagement that lets people broadcast videos from their mobile phones straight to their feeds to share. Retail Businesses can use this to communicate in real time and show behind the scene brand stories experience to customers such as the designing process of their t-shirts as well as build authentic relationships with fans and followers. Facebook helps business add a new visual dimension to their marketing strategy.

How useful is Facebook Marketing for the retail industry?

 

Pages: Businesses are able to set a business profile page where they can build an audience of people who are interested in their brand and what It has to offer. Consumers can follow the brand by liking the page to receive updates on new products and events on their news feeds and interact with your content by commenting. The page will also help retail businesses acquire new customers more effectively. In addition, Businesses can have as many followers they want. One way of growing your page is too invite people who are genuinely interested in retail. As these certain people will help with your credibility, reputation and promote your retail business through word of mouth.How useful is Facebook Marketing for the retail industry?

Creating a Facebook page allows businesses in the retail sector to communicate with customers 24/7 and in any location. Therefore, making it easier for customers to get in touch with you and a simple way to provide high-quality customer service. In the retail industry, competition is fierce, with businesses keeping up with customer conversations through replying to comments and posts customers will feel more connected to the business thus be loyal to the brand.

Conversion measurement: Facebook gives retail companies the benefit of tracking customers action after they have seen your Facebook Ads. Companies can create a pixel. Pixel tracks activity on your website providing a foundation for measuring specific events. Events are an action that happens on your website. The pixel code should be fixed to your websites to see where conversion is happening from the Facebook Ads.

How useful is Facebook Marketing for the retail industry?

 

Feedback: Businesses in the retail sector are able to receive quick feedback from their customers about the brand so they can evaluate what they need to improve or change.

Cheap: If you don’t have particularly large capital then this is a perfect option for you. You can advertise for as little as £1 in paid advertising.

Challenges:

Competition: Facebook newsfeed is overcrowded with an abundance of content, therefore, getting your ad noticed can be very difficult.

Time: Creating a Facebook page or an advert consumes a lot of time. Businesses in the retail sector may want to assign individuals who can take on the Facebook duties to manage the pages or Adverts while creating engaging content that will get consumer attention.

Skills: Providing training to staff is essential to ensure they have the right skills to carry out the tasks. As creating and planning content isn’t the only important task they have to do but respond to queries complaints in the right manner.

Budget: Even though its cheap to advertise, to fully utilise Facebook ability retail businesses need to have a good budget to see the big results.

Negative feedback: Facebook has helped customers gain a powerful voice online. Facebook is a very popular social site and unhappy customers can voice their opinion online for the world to see. These complaints can be detrimental to retail businesses as negative comments can be shared at a rapid rate. So, therefore, it’s important to handle and respond to them well.

The marketing process has changed as consumers gain a powerful online voice and have an abundance of choice between brands they could purchase particular products from to get the best return on investment for them. Overall for businesses in the retail sector to be truly successful they need Facebook to engage with their customers so that they become loyal customers and repeat purchase. Facebook provides the necessary tools any business in the retail sector need to reach their target audience. Cheap, effective and powerful.

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Published November 29, 2017 by

SEO Keyword Research

Search engine marketing has become an important tool for business as it helps generate high quality leads to a website. Majority of consumers go online to find information on seeking…

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Published October 11, 2017 by

The value of Social Data at Ikea

The value of Social Media in Ikea

Since the rise of the digital age, many companies have been slow to adapt. Unfortunately, Ikea has fallen into that category. Consumers are gaining more power by posting their opinion on social media sites, influencing how other people view a brand. The idea that if a company has received a bad review consumers will be reluctant to try the brand giving the organisation a bad reputation and a loss of trust. Therefore companies are going to great lengths to rectify this problem.

The digital development team at BrandWatchVizia have come up with the listening Hub a way to help Ikea understand its consumers better. The Listening Hub focuses solely on using data-tracking software to identify regional trends in how customers feel about Ikea’s customer service. Brand watch analysis was used to see customer conversations across social media platforms. Using powerful Boolean Query Operators, the socializer’s were able to filter conversations relating to customer service on social sites. From their findings, they have found that conversations associating with customer service were negative.

The value of Social Data in Ikea

Thanks to Social Intelligence Ikea has now directed and shared this information across the enterprise for action and now finding ways to turn negative post’s into a positive PR activity. The digital world of businesses is continuously changing Ikea will face similar challenges in distributing information, however, it’s fair to say the value of Social Data is key to achieve success at IKEA.

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Published October 11, 2017 by

Hello world!

Welcome to your brand new blog at University of Brighton Blog Network. To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options…

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