August 2019

How will it look for us to have Artificial Intelligence in the future of digital marketing? Artificial Intelligence is an exciting, futuristic term but in reality, it encapsulates a variety of technologies and algorithms that already exist in today’s world.

The mind, influenced by Hollywood, may first jump to evil AI robots destroying mankind or digital assistants like in the movie “Her” (with Scarlett Johansson voicing a personable AI). But the fact is artificial intelligence will, and already has, taken on many different forms.

What exactly is artificial intelligence? 

Stanford University defines it as:

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a science and a set of computational technologies that are inspired by—but typically operate quite differently from—the ways people use their nervous systems and bodies to sense, learn, reason, and take action.”

To put it in more technical terms: AI often refers to voice/speech/image recognition as well as machine learning.

Are you thinking of Cortana, Alexa, and Siri? These are all chatbots powered by AI. They can already act as personal assistants in a way. They tell you the weather, send texts for you, and remind you of appointments. These bot personalities can respond and converse with you.

But AI can take many forms besides digital assistants:

• Self driving cars are AI. Yes, autonomous cars means the car is in control and doesn’t need any human to direct it. This says a lot about the algorithms developed for the skills to drive–such as vision and quick responsiveness to sudden obstacles or dangers on the road.
• Your unique recommendations on Netflix are configured with AI software. Now, the company is also using AI to compress video streams – resulting in faster, higher quality viewing for subscribers.
• Same with Pandora’s complex music system. Instead of associating songs with other artists in the genre, their tech analyzes the actual musical structure of a song and plays other similar sounding songs. There are literally hundreds of different elements by which a song can be analyzed.
• The Nest Thermostat, bought out by Google a few years ago, is a smart home device which learns your heating and cooling preferences then provides them without any programming needed. It is smart enough to adapt itself to both your life and the weather.

What will the future look like with artificial intelligence?

What will artificial intelligence in digital marketing look from an everyday user standpoint? Well, you’ve probably already heard the inevitability of self driving cars in the near future.

On a smaller scale, perhaps we won’t need so many apps on our phones in the future. Instead, we will allow AI assistants to navigate and report back the information for us.

How will artificial intelligence impact content marketing?

AI doesn’t mean the end of content marketing work done by humans. Rather, it will become another highly valued tool in the arsenal. Using AI-generated content marketing only wouldn’t be enough by itself to get the best possible results.

To do so, you need a real person with an innate understanding of other humans and the intelligence to properly analyze the marketing data.

AI auto-pilot isn’t the ultimate answer. Rather it’s about utilizing AI strategically in your marketing.

How exactly can Artificial Intelligence in digital marketing make a difference to marketers?

AI isn’t going to replace human marketers but assist them to overtake the time consuming or mechanical tasks involved with marketing and subsequent research.

Marketing is going in the direction of working with the algorithms and utilizing AI for the technical aspects:

• AI can transform data into discernible information at a much faster rate than humans can. For example, AI can scour data to find when your ideal customers are most active, their shopping behaviors and patterns, and what platforms they use online. By processing large amounts of data, AI can save marketers valuable time. Time that can then go to analyzing the data reports for insights. Marketers can interpret all this information to make better decisions of who to market to at the right time and place.
• AI can help with predictive analytics and to predict the buying habits of customers and how likely they are to purchase from you once or even multiple times. 
• Lead scoring done by AI can help so companies can devote time to the hottest leads and be more efficient in sales and saving time.
• AI technology can help to target ads better through machine learning algorithms, allowing the best possible placement of your ad.
• AI generated content could work well with data specific content such as financial reports or sporting events. But content “written” by AI can’t mimic the human voice in terms of talent, coherency, or relatability. You would want a human to write the relatable social media posts or “advice and tips” type blogs that bear a certain tone of voice.
• AI can help with email acquisition and more effective email marketing campaigns.
• AI chatbots can speed up customer service questions and make inquiring more convenient for customers. 

Step up your digital marketing by taking advantage of the Intrix Free Website Audit, and learn how your website’s digital presence can improve.

People of all ages are on social media and have made it part of their everyday routine. Since your customers are online, your business should be too. Using social media in your content marketing strategy is a smart way to connect with customers. Since its a budget friendly-tool, it’s a great method to amp up your marketing efforts. Through social media, you can connect with your customers and start a conversation with them.

Social media and content marketing: the two terms aren’t interchangeable-although social media is driven by content. Think of social media as an integral component of content marketing but it is only one part. Other aspects of your content marketing strategy could include search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, pay-per-click (PPC), or videos.

Why is Social Media Important?

Unlike most forms of traditional marketing, social media allows brands to directly build relationships with customers and reach an online community.

When you’re active online, your brand has a convenient avenue for communicating with customers. You can reach out to potential customers and target them with social media ads. Customers who are already loyal to your brand can now engage with you online and become brand advocates, sharing your brand’s content with their friends and recommending you.

Make yourself accessible for interaction with people who want to follow and talk to your brand online. They want your vital business info like your hours; address, and website link available to find on their favorite platform.

The first place many customers go to ask a question of a brand or complain about a brand is Twitter. Big corporations have someone hired just to handle customer service inquiries on social media. But small businesses should answer inquiries and be available online too.

Return On Investment

Businesses might be wondering how much of an ROI they can get from social media marketing. A research study into how social media communication influenced how consumers perceive brands showed that it had a positive influence on brand attitude and brand equity. Both of these were also proven to have a positive influence on purchase intent.

Social media can be an affordable part of your content marketing strategy. By managing your social media accounts strategically with clear goals in mind, you can get an impressive ROI.

You can measure your success by different metrics such as how many clickthroughs you get to your website or blog through a social media post. You can also measure success by the level of engagement. Did your post reach a hundred likes? How about a thousand? How many people commented? 

When done right, social media can increase brand awareness as well as drive website traffic and sales. Using social media in your content marketing strategy can really boost traffic as well as give you customer insights.

An amazing benefit of having a business account on social media is that you can gather detailed data and insights into your customer base. This might include what they care about and their concerns. Perhaps you have a larger female audience than you realized before looking at the data and you’ve only been targeting your content for males.

Getting Started

Plan ahead and allot time or resources to maintaining your social media accounts. Pages which haven’t had any activity for months look abandoned and can make your business look lazy. An outdated social media page can look worse to existing and potential customers (those seeking you out) than being absent on the platform completely. 

It’s recommended to only start up your social media if you can maintain a presence by regularly posting. Managing the page is another important aspect which involves responding to people who leave comments, messages, and reviews. It can involve outreach efforts too. 

Focus your efforts on the social media platforms that your main audience uses. Don’t worry about being on all the different ones, do your research and be present on the ones that fit your brand best.

Decide your target market before you start posting. These are the group of people most likely to buy from and be interested in your brand. This group will be who your social media content appeals and is relevant to. You will craft your content to attempt to engage this demographic.

How often you post may depend on your business and audience size, the goals you’d like to achieve from your social media, and the time you can designate for this effort. Some brands post every single day, others post every week. Either way; consistent content and management is important to growing your following and meeting your social media goals.

10 Tips for Using Social Media in your Content Marketing

• Choose a tone for brand’s social media and stick with it. This is how your brand will speak to the world. Will the voice be more professional or casual? Friendly? Informative? Do you speak as the brand “we” as a collective entity or as the real individuals behind the brand?

• Does your business have a blog? Get more organic views by sharing new blogs on your different social media accounts.

• Share company news. Social media posts are a fast way to let your audience know about new products, seasonal sales, general business news, and changes in your business like closures or different hours.

Photos

• Imagery makes a big difference on social media. Facebook posts without a picture aren’t eye catching on a constantly updating feed. The same is true for Twitter. An image with a tweet stands out more than a text-only tweet.

• It’s fantastic to share quick snapshots of company outings, events, or holidays. But you should develop a content plan so your posts have a cohesive look, feel, and are purposely crafted to meet your business goals. 

Analysis

• Many platforms have built-in analytics to help you better understand the success and audience of both social ad campaigns and organic social posts. Facebook has a great option for businesses to “boost” a normal post for whatever amount they want (as low as a dollar or two) and target it to a certain audience. 

• Share company news. Social media posts are a fast way to let your audience know about new products, seasonal sales, general business news, and changes in your business like closures or different hours.

Promotions

• Social media platforms like Instagram are a fantastic medium for holding contests and giveaways. You can grow your audience and increase brand awareness with these type of promotions.

• Special sales for your followers can drive up online sales or get more people in the door.

Stick with It

• Monitoring the accounts is important. When people tweet at brands, they expect a quick response. A prompt reply is more expected the bigger the brand is. But small businesses should still be available and respond as well even if their volume of inquiries is drastically lower.

• Don’t be afraid to share content across platforms and more than once. For example, retweeting your blog link later in the day for your followers with a different schedule or time zone who missed the original tweet.

To get a leg up on smart digital marketing, take advantage of the Intrix free website audit and find out how your website is really working for you!

There are a lot of digital marketing methodologies to stay on top of, but native is an important one to understand. Learn all about it with our Guide to Native Advertising.

Native advertising falls within the giant realm of content marketing.
This kind of advertising must be: paid for, native to the publisher’s platform (blends in), and labeled as an advertisement. It’s legally required to disclose that it’s an ad.

What is Native Advertising?

Native advertising, whether long-form articles, short tweets, or a stylized Instagram featuring a product, is always paid. This is why it is defined in the category of paid media. Businesses and content marketers use it as common practice.

Native advertising is another avenue for brands to publish content and inform or engage with their audience. While it falls under content marketing, it’s not a catch-all term for branded content online. Native ads are different than display or social ads.

This type of native content needs to be contextually relevant and and make sense. It fits within a normal feed and doesn’t jar or disrupt the audience’s experience.

Guide to Native Advertising

Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter make money off allowing businesses to put in their native advertising within a user’s feed. In fact, native ads will make up more than half of all display spending in 2017.
Besides the “in-feed” ads that you’ll find on social media, there are also promoted listings within searches that are also considered native ads.

Native advertising includes (but isn’t limited to) sponsored content, paid content, and advertorials.

What does a Native Ad look like?

Since native advertising fits within a variety of online platforms, the look and feel of it can differ greatly.

Some common examples of native ads could look like:

• Educational content 
• Imagery or video only content
• How-to content
• Quizzes 

Think entertaining or helpful. It has a purpose to the audience and value to them.

While it’s still a form of advertising, it doesn’t evoke the pushy approach. Unlike traditional tv or print ads, native advertising isn’t screaming sales-y. A native ad is usually not going to resemble a traditional ad that’s all about touting the benefits of a product or service and persuading the audience to buy. The purpose isn’t to mislead customers. It’s to engage with them in a way that is comfortable and familiar to them.

A native ad is not as much about the brand itself necessarily but about positioning the brand as an expert or leader within its industry.

Native ads are usually highly targeted at what the brand understands their ideal audience to be. Who would be most interested in the brand? What has been the overwhelming demographic in past customers? The brand figures this out by analyzing data and doing their research – or they hire a marketing team to help out with all of this.

Examples of native ads include those aesthetically pleasing promoted Instagram posts from brands or clever promoted tweets which pop up seamlessly in a user’s timeline.

What is Sponsored Content?

Sponsored content is a specific type of native advertising where businesses pay publishers or influencers to post about their brand. This could be a celebrity promoting a vitamin, clothing line, or app. It could be a list on BuzzFeed that focuses on a certain brand.

Taking a look at sponsored Instagram posts:

• Influencers charge $271, on average, to share a sponsored post on Instagram.
• The average follower count of an influencer is almost 63,000 people.
• The most popular category for paid content is lifestyle.

An Instagram influencer doesn’t necessarily have millions of followers. Moreover, the above statistics differ greatly based upon what industry the business sponsoring is in.

Why use a native ad over other forms of digital ads?

People are much more likely to share a brand’s native advertising on their personal social pages when it fits within the type of content to which they already enjoy subscribing and sharing.

Native advertising also results in more time spent from consumers with the content than a typical ad.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have all integrated native advertising into their sites. This type of content marketing has been wildly successful for both the social media corporations and the businesses advertising on them.

How do you determine the success of a native ad?

Some metrics used to measure the success of native ads include:

• Clickthroughs
• Social shares
• Downloads
• Views 

With ad blockers and constantly updating feeds, it’s hard to get consumers to pay attention to brands in such a busy online world. Native advertising engages an audience on their terms and can inspire not only brand awareness but brand loyalty.

We hope you’ve learned from our Guide to Native Advertising! Now take the next step by getting our Free Website Audit!

How Does Content Go Viral?

Content going viral can seem like a miracle or too far-fetched. But if you take a closer look, there are patterns and insights into what goes viral.

While viral video is a common term, it can be any piece of content that goes viral. An article. An image. It can even be a person or event. Remember when Ken Bone went viral during the 2016 presidential debates? How about the 2017 Fyre Festival disaster which went viral both as an actual news story and as a topic that incited many jokes and memes.

When content goes viral, it can make cultural and geographic boundaries disappear. Of course, the term viral relates to the medical term virus. It’s roughly the same idea, except instead of a disease, the contagious thing is content which travels fast and far.

Viral content reaches more and more people as the content is shared and discussed. The various social media platforms make it easy for users to share amongst their online communities.

Viral content catches a spark and quickly spreads online. However, there is no strict definition of how many views, retweets, or shares you need to go viral. It doesn’t necessarily have to include the whole internet. It can mean the content was popular in a specialized corner of the internet where your audience and business industry live. Going viral can mean on a local or global scale.

Your audience is the deciding factor in if your content goes viral. It’s up to them to start the ripple effect. 

Common characteristics of viral content:

Compelling

Funny

Cute 

Feel-good, uplifting, or positive

Interesting

Useful

Shocking (though brands should most likely steer away from being controversial)

Essentially, viral content evokes an emotional response. Often, it resonates with people. Think heartwarming humanity pieces or adorable animal videos.

When a piece of content gets a response, usually a strong one, the viewer doesn’t want to remain passive. That is what gets them to click or tap and share it and comment and share their opinion of it with their own audience. That’s the whole point. You want people to pass your content along.

The psychology behind viral content

Content that causes an emotional response, whether positive or negative, has a higher likelihood of being shared. Emotions are contagious.

What compels someone to tap share? Well, one aspect is that people share content which they identify with and that fits within the social media image they want to project to their followers and friends. People share what they want to reflect their image online to others. They tend to think of the original content they post and the content they curate and share as reflective of their personality and their identity online.

There is no secret formula to going viral but there are things which you can do to improve your chances and stack the odds in your favor.

Tips to better your chances at going viral:

• Giveaways and contests can generate quick attention in your brand. But that tactic still needs to be well thought out, planned out, and purposeful.

• Optimize your content to be found. Include a clear, explanatory title (if relevant). Same goes for tags (hashtags and otherwise), keywords, etc.

• Share your content across all your business’ social media accounts. Put your content in more than one place. For example, you can upload a video to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and your blog.

• When it comes to blogs and articles, longer content actually has a better chance to get shared more times.

• Be sure you have social sharing icons in the appropriate places so it’s an easy, streamlined experience for people to share your web content on the social platform of their preference. 

• Pay attention to timing. Posting on the right days and at the right hours can make a huge difference in how many eyes see your content. Track and keep tabs on when your followers are most active.

• Keyword research can help you discover what your audience cares about and is interested in. Keyword research can also help you to keep track of trending topics so you can take advantage of what is already buzzworthy and getting attention online.

• Accept that your most beloved or timely content may not go viral. Don’t get your hopes up or count on one piece of expensive content to catch on. There is an inevitable element of luck when it comes to content going viral. But high quality content posted consistently will garner your brand more attention than erratically posting then going radio-silent for months.

• Track your content and the results. Analyze what gets the most engagement and/or shares. Learn from this to optimize content for the potential to go viral.

To get a leg up on smart digital marketing, take advantage of the Intrix free website audit and find out how your website is really working for you!

Is rebranding a good business decision? Everything needs to evolve – including brands. Changing with the times is a necessity which brands shouldn’t ignore out of fear.

Evolving a brand means rebranding. This is when elements of an existing, established brand are altered or totally changed. This term doesn’t apply to businesses starting up and creating their brand for the first time.

Your brand represents the identity of your company and every brand has a distinct story to tell. Brands that connect with people will earn their trust and loyalty. A brand has to have some humanity and human characteristics.

Possible reasons to rebrand?

• Don’t be out of touch. Design trends go through phases and what looked good twenty years ago will probably look outdated today. 

• Naturally, a rebrand can benefit a brand that has had bad press. A new look and message can help customers to forget a bad reputation and give a second chance.

• Often when two companies merge or an acquisition occurs, a new logo is created to represent the change.

• A rebranding can show that your business is capable of adapting to the changing market and audience. If customers are changing (in age, interests, etc.), it benefits businesses to change with them.
  
  
• Has your product selection/services changed or expanded? A rebrand can create a professional and clarified image for your company.

• A rebrand may stimulate business growth if your business is in an economic rut or if your look isn’t dynamic. People pay more for strong brands they can trust and identify with. Think Nike, Apple, Coca Cola, or Louis Vuitton. 

Potential benefits of a rebrand?

• A rebrand can help to differentiate in a competitive market or against direct competitors.
  
  
• It can be that a visual change often comes with a change in reputation and messaging. A new look for a brand can revitalize interest.

• It can help to make your brand relevant again and appeal to a broader audience. It can give you the chance to attract a wider audience outside of your typical demographic. A well-done brand design can appeal to those even outside of your niche, unique customer base.

• A thoughtful rebrand won’t alienate your existing audience. In fact, it will likely garner more engagement from your loyal customer base.

What does a rebrand include?

Rebranding can involve a superficial logo tweak or an elaborate redo of multiple elements of the brand such as product design/packaging, tagline, messaging, voice, brand values, and website.

Rebranding can involve rolling out new products/services and changing other aspects of the original brand look or slogan.

It can also involve introducing a new website. Whether a complete redo or just particular elements like website copy, design, layout, or pages and sections added. Companies with outdated websites would benefit from a new site that is mobile responsive with a modern design. Being mobile responsive is an absolute necessity for businesses in 2017 as the majority of people are searching locally on mobile. 

Examples of successful rebrands:

• CVS changed its name to CVS Health and discontinued selling all tobacco products, pulling them from stores for good. They also launched a tobacco cessation program at the same time. These moves strategically positioned the company as more health care focused. The rebrand was announced at the New York Stock Exchange with a large banner.

• Old Spice kicked off a new campaign in 2008 with the creative savvy of Wieden + Kennedy. The company was in a rut and wanted to compete with the brand Axe to sell products to young men. This Swagger campaign helped Old Spice reinvent itself in the eyes of old and new customers. The momentum of that rebrand has helped the brand remain successful and current nearly ten years later.

• In 2014 Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) was purchased by Eugene Kashper, a businessman who had already made millions rebranding European breweries. While PBR was an established brand, it was stuck in a bit of a rut. Their share of the beer market had been hovering in the low single digits. Although it did have previous success with a clever repackaging that positioned “Blue Ribbon 1844” as an expensive luxury beer in China, a foreign market. For the American market, Kashper has been in the midst of revitalization efforts since purchasing the company. Most notably, he released an alcoholic soda which increased PBR sales by 20% for the whole of 2015. He has also opened a tasting room and microbrewery for the brand. In the future, he plans to sell more of the 77 beer recipes the company owns to take advantage of the current craft beer craze.

Examples of rebrands gone wrong:

Sometimes rebrands go wrong. Let’s learn from some big brands who made a mistake.

• There was major backlash when GAP changed their logo. They underestimated how attached their audience was to the classic look. In under a week, they went back to the original logo.

• The London 2012 Olympics also faced fierce public opposition when they tried altering the classic logo of the games. 

• Tropicana customers were unhappy with a new package design introduced in 2009. Customers clamored to let the company know that they much preferred the previous packaging. The criticism was heard loud and clear as the original look returned within a few short months.

Tips for a successful rebrand:

• Don’t compromise your quality or reliability with customers.

• It’s not a decision to take lightly as rebranding can have a big impact on business. Be sure to do your research before deciding on a rebrand and the details of it. Think about the reasons behind why your business is considering a rebrand and anticipate how your customer base and fans might react to it. Consider insights into your industry, the current market, your customer base, your core values as a business, and so on. Let these insights guide you into the right decision for your brand.

• Think about how different elements of your brand align or the possibilities for them to align.

• Of course there are market changes but don’t forget that your brand should keep up with cultural changes as well. For example, people of all ages are on social media on a daily basis now. So your brand should be online too. Even big brands that are a hundred years old make an effort to be modern and keep up with the new trends and technology.

• Color can have a much bigger impact than you might guess. Different hues evoke different emotions so think about the feelings you want people to associate with your brand when picking a color scheme.

• You want a smooth transition by unveiling or releasing all aspects of your rebrand at once.

• Create buzz and announce when you launch your new branding.

Make rebranding a good business decision with a great encompassing digital marketing plan. How is your site’s SEO? Take advantage of the Intrix Free Website Audit now!