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In the present era, videos in the workplace aren’t just limited to only marketing and training. It’s also a sales tool that drives conversions and purchases.

Humans love binge watching as our brains process videos 60,000 times faster than text.

Videos are entertaining, visual, and massively underused to convert leads. Despite this, having a video on the landing page can boost conversion rates by 80%.

There is no denying the fact that videos have come a long way since the early days of the internet inception. In fact, 95% of people have watched an explainer video to know further about a product in detail. This makes it a fascinating medium and tool to integrate into your firm’s sales program. So, it is necessary to create a high-quality video, and you can easily do so using a free video editor which contains all features to edit videos for your sales funnel.

Video Marketing

With the correct pack of tools, your marketing department can efficiently and reliably fill the top of your sales funnel having an ideal prospect, which can considerably facilitate in moving them along the on-boarding process faster.

Facts & Figures

• 52% of marketing experts name video as content with the highest ROI.
• 76% of marketers plan to use videos in a bid to boost their brand awareness campaigns.
• Consumer internet video traffic will move from 64% in 2014 to over 80% by the end of 2019.
• 96% of B2B firms are hoping and planning to use videos in their content marketing over the period of next 12 months.

How Videos Can Increase Engagement & Conversion?

The power of using marketing videos, is enhancing rapidly by the day, and companies that are failing to capitalize are missing a big opportunity to engage with their intended audience.

Online videos will account for more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic by 2020.

Videos put you in the now and boost your organic reach. Brand videos are proving to be an instrumental medium in forming solid relationship, and engage consumers in every step of the funnel.

Videos that last up to 2 minutes get the most engagement. Facebook has been rated as the most impactful social media channel for video, as an average Facebook video receives 135% more organic search than a Facebook photo.

According to a recent survey by Content Marketing Institute, 62% of content marketers termed videos extremely effective and beneficial for the sake of higher audience engagement, and lead generation.

(Source: www.semrush.com)

How Video Marketing Works At Different Stage Of The Funnel

Normally, the marketing funnel can be broadly categorized into the following categories.

(Source: www.wistia.com)

Here’s how videos comes into the equation with each stage of the funnel.

I. Awareness:

In this stage, your potential customer is having a problem, and you have a solution, it’s just that you haven’t found each other yet. What better medium of connecting with each other, than videos.

Successful marketers take this opportunity to come up with a kind of video that tell people about your brand via videos that appear in targeted search and social media ads.

II. Consideration

In this phase of consideration, people are aware of the problem, and are looking for solution. You want to help them with their decision process.

Videos are not only a useful medium for transmitting tons of information in a short period of time that can be beneficial for the intended market, but they are also quickly becoming a preferred medium for content consumption online.

III. Decision – Conversion

The decision stage is the conversion time for your potential customers. They have already done the research at their end, taken the feedback of your offerings, and are almost ready to sign up.

Video is an efficient conversion tool as it gives viewers a revealing inside look at the brand, and the different offerings it has. Since emotion is quite a strong factor in the process of decision making, videos at this stage of the funnel benefit a great deal from a human touch to pack an emotional punch.

How Brand Are Using Videos

Brands are looking to come up with those brand value that can serve the purpose of creating their UVP, Unique Value Proposition. It can only be possible and effective once they have complete understanding of their marketing goals, and the demographics of their targeted audience.

This is just marketing short-speak for the purpose of creating an outline about your content, and the reason of being it special.

* Reebok’s “25,915” Days Campaign

Grab Attention in the first 10 seconds:

Your potential award-winning 3 minute video is worth absolutely nothing, if you don’t hook up with the audience within first 5-10 seconds, then only you can have dividends for your efforts. Internet users typically have a quite short attention span. Best brand videos are the ones that can capitalize in the initial few seconds.

In Reebok’s “25,915 Days” campaign, they grab attention within first 10 seconds of the video by broadcasting the woman from the opening sequence, when she is younger to go with some creative placement of numbers that matches the theme of their brand video.

* GoPro

Compelling Story

The content of your video should be interesting and compelling. There is no point in taking the same old content that has already been published in hundreds of other places.

Videos, especially brand videos, allow you the liberty to be more expressive about the offerings of your brand in a bid to depict your values to your precious customers.

The video from GoPro has done exactly that. Out of all the user-generated content GoPro could have enticed to forward their typical adrenaline-junkie targeted marketing, they rather chose to put money into post production of the video.

The reason this video scored big was because the people at GoPro saw a good opportunity to showcase a different side of their values that don’t always get seen in their traditional and standard marketing.

The video caught the eye-balls across the globe, as it was quite inspiring, and compelling. It shows the importance of humanity. These sorts of gestures televise wonderful feelings to have people associate with your brand.

Video is an effective and persuasive medium; it’s highly engaging and leads can use it to make their way through the entire funnel at a rampant pace. You only need to set up content journey. If you want your video to be successful, then map your content to the funnel, set up your ideal content mix, and connect your video marketing to ROI.

Without even a shadow of doubt, Instagram is one of the most important and most powerful marketing mediums of the present era. It is such a wonderful blend of content marketing, and communication service. It has all the potential and capacity to drive fabulous engagement, and above average return on investment for a brand.

The growth of Instagram users has been absolutely phenomenal, which the following chart illustrates. The number of monthly active Instagram users has been on an amazing inclined.

There are more than 4 billion likes per day on Instagram, and each image shared on this medium gets an average of 23% more engagement than its Facebook counterpart.

According to eMarketer, Instagram has brought in $6 billion in global mobile ad revenue in 2018.

Top Instagram Marketing Hacks

Here are some of the most effective marketing hacks you can use on Instagram

Post between 9pm and 8am

The most effective time to post on Instagram is between 9pm to 8am. The prime reason for this is that fact that most users prefer to wait until they are done with their office. It is quite amazing how much difference it can make in the eventual outcome. This also plays a pivotal role in increasing brand visibility.

Use Emojis to Profile

Emojis can lead to 47.7% more interactions on Instagram, as per Quintly. An authentic research indicated that when we see a smiling face online, the same parts of the brain are stimulated as when we look at a human face, hence they actually show a real effect on human beings.

More than 60% of Instagram accounts use emojis. It is a good idea to limit it to one to two emojis per post. In fact, you can even put some in your Instagram bio.

Lifestyle Photography

The best ads on Instagram are the ones that don’t particularly look like ads at all. You would never want to give an impression to people that you are trying to sell or trap them into buying something.

It is strongly recommended to avoid using stock photography at all costs. Instead it is the preferred option to create engaging lifestyle photography that broadcasts the functions and features of your offering in real situations. It has proven to be an influential tool in driving sales, as pictures help communicating the brand’s message better than dull and boring text.

Share Instagram Pictures on Other Forums

Instagram photos are probably some of the most amazing and flattering images you can have. The best thing about Instagram is, when you upload your photos; you can share them on other mediums like Facebook or Twitter.

This cross channel sharing of visual content is a good innovative way of making quality inroads into your segment. Consequently, this sharing has done wonders in improving engagement levels, which in return has boosted the sales volume.

Utilization of Instagram Carousels

The Carousel enables you to upload up to 10 photos in one post. If you have a long list of pictures to post without adding them into separate posts, then this is the feature you want to use.

A carousel ad allows you to place multiple photos or videos within the same ads. These photos or videos can then easily be swiped through by users who encounter your ad in their feeds.

Constant Monitoring of Comment Section

Reviews are a quite a precious piece of words in the current online digital hacks. Improper remarks can substantially hamper the image of your brand. Customers like to be responded, they perceive it as a matter of respect.

If you have left a comment, and later felt pang of regret, it’s never too late. You simply need to go to the offending comment, and click comment to access the comment screen again. Swipe the comment you made to the left, and then you will see the garbage appear, and then tap on the can, and select delete.

Use of Videos for Storytelling

One efficient way of reaching out to your aimed audience on Instagram is by creating and launching scintillating and captivating ads that run within the Instagram stories section of the platform.

According to Instagram, over 400 million accounts are now using this feature quite actively. These stories represent a massive opportunity for business owners who are quite willing to invest time, energy, and money in a bid to create unique, entertaining stories that users can easily see and interact while viewing different stories from the people they follow.

Instagram remains one of the most relevant social channels for your business. This channel of social media is surprising people with its potential. Building an audience on a platform like Instagram demands strategic effort in depth. If you want to make 2019 the year Instagram pave the way the growth of your business, then the above mentioned marketing hacks can considerably help you.

Designing an ecommerce website is not an easy task as it requires extensive planning, especially if you want the website to attract new customers’ day in and day out. Ideally, the best ecommerce website design makes the entire process of online buying stress-free, easy and quick.

According to Diceus website, no matter how good your advertising strategies are, they are of little use if you are losing customers due to a poorly optimized website design. To ensure you get more traffic with maximum conversions, here are 11 tips for cool website designs that will keep your customers coming back for more each time.

1. Keep it Simple

While designing your ecommerce website, keep things as simple as possible. Avoid integrating unnecessary elements that will hinder your target audience’s experience. Pop-ups and banner ads will not do you any good, as they only serve as a distraction and nothing more. The cleaner the design, the more sales you will get.

2. Branding should get Top Priority

When it comes to shopping online, people rather stick to established brands. If your website is faceless, it will look like a scam. To drive sales, you will need to build trust, which is only possible if you spend time on branding. The best ecommerce website design incorporates the business’ brand identity and somehow reflects their culture.

3. Think like a Customer

To connect with your audience, you will need to think like them. Ultimately, there are just a few things your customers will want from their experience this includes a well-designed, easy to navigate site that makes shopping online hassle free and straightforward. If you want your site to succeed, you better give your customers exactly what they want.

4. Use Colors Extensively

Choosing the right colors for your website is not about selecting your favorite color and making do with it. Believe it or not, color is a powerful tool. If you understand the psychology behind it, you can drive some serious sales to your website.

Remember, different colors inspire different feelings. For instance, if you want people to go ahead with a purchase, use a powerful color like red. However, if you want to increase your credibility then you will need to use blue in your ecommerce website design. Each color palate has its own effect on the viewer, so carefully choose the aesthetic facet of your website.

5. Use High Quality Images

it is a known fact that high quality images increase conversions. People will not buy from you if they do not know what the product looks like. For this reason, you will need to show them by providing high quality images. Take professional images from different angles, it will go a long way for your website and brand.

6. Ensure your Content is Readable

Crafting long descriptions will do you no favors, as people will not read it. Break up your content, whether it is a blog post, product description or an about us page. The idea here is to provide content that is easy to scan and read. Keep paragraphs and sentences short, and for key information use bolding. Bulleted lists can be used to break down blocks of texts as well.

7. Your Website should look Professional

People will not hand over their personal information to make purchases on your website if it does not look professional. You will need to invest considerably to make sure your website looks top notch.’ to ‘You will need to invest considerably and implement website redesign on time to make sure it looks top notch

There should be no misspellings or typos. The color palette, font and footer design needs to be consistent on every page. Each and every button and link needs to work. The point being, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to show your customers that you take them seriously too.

8. Don’t Ignore Social Media Platforms

Another great way to build trust is by integrating social media platforms into your website design. There are plenty of ways you can show potential customers what others have to say about you. This can include ratings and testimonials section. The more people see others have had a great experience with you, the more likely they will purchase from your site.

9. Product Categories should be easy to Navigate

Avoid clunky product pages, as they will kill sales faster. Instead of having ten different menus for everything, make sure you have easy to navigate product pages and categories. The easier you make pages and categories to navigate, the easier it will be for your customers to find exactly what they are looking for.

10. The Checkout Process should be Simple

Your checkout process should be as simple as possible. If it is overly complicated, your customers will head to your competitors instead. The checkout page must be simple, easy to navigate and clean. Give your customers the choice to purchase as a member or a guest. The process needs to be crystal clear and once the purchase has been completed, redirect your customers to a confirmation page so they know everything went smoothly.

11. The Website Must be Responsive

To capture more customers, you will need to cater to mobile devices. Your website design has to be optimized for phones and tablets. If it isn’t responsive, you will not able to convince mobile users to purchase from your website.

There is no denying the fact that designing an ecommerce website is not an easy task – but the aforementioned ecommerce design tips will give you everything you need to make sure your website looks great and help converts at the same time.

The digital world requires businesses and companies to create a brand identity to reach their true potential. If you own a lackluster brand, you will need to up your game to ensure you stay ahead of the curve. With a powerful brand identity, you will make it possible for your target audience to relate and understand what your brand really has to offer. If you want a powerful brand identity design, then you are in luck, as you will find everything you need right here.

Identity your Purpose

Every brand typically serves a purpose, what is yours? With a brand purpose you will be able to position yourself more effectively. If done correctly, it will make your service or product more desirable. In this day and age, consumers focus on brands that have a purpose beyond keeping shareholders or investors happy or doing business.

It is the duty of the CEO, founder and brand owners to establish a purpose and also make sure it reflects through the organization. This will not only motivate employees, but it will motivate potential customers as well. When people are motivated, they will surely help you in building a powerful brand identity.

If you are having a hard time with the communication of your brand purpose, try to identify how your product or service is making lives easier, changing lives, being a resource or solving challenges. In the end, this is why people will choose to do business with you, not only because you offer an outstanding product or service.Understanding this will bring you closer to creating a powerful brand identity.

Differentiate Yourself

If it was not obvious enough, you will need to differentiate yourself from the rest of the crowd. This will help your business in the long run. When creating a powerful brand identity, you will need to consider your business’ uniqueness.

When communicating with your target audience, you need to explain how you are different from your competitors. To do so, here are three factors that will do wonders for you:

• Reverence:

This refers to the respect or honor shown towards your brand. This should be your first goal while creating a powerful brand identity.

• Recall:

Recall is the extent to which a product, service or brand name is recalled. With a powerful brand identity, you can make the process easier than ever before.

• Revenue:

Once you have acquired recall and reverence, it will automatically lead to an increase in revenue.

Focus on Brand Visual Identity

What people see should reflect across the board for your brand. Popular brands like Nike and Apple manage to nail their visual identity with their brand message each and every time. You too can stand out by understanding a few things that contribute to your overall brand visual identity.

To build a visual identity that clearly reflects your brand message, you will need to consider the following questions:

• How do you want people to act, respond or feel about your brand?
• What will followers see on their feeds?
• What story do you plan on telling with photos?
• How can you reinforce your brand’s visual message through branded merchandise?
• Choose your brand identity color palette

Be Careful about what you Say

When it comes to creating a powerful brand identity, it may look simple on paper. To gain power, you will need to be respected. Respect can only be established by what you are saying and how you are saying it. Believe it or not, what you write or speak becomes a part of your brand communication.

The content on your website, a conversational email or a headline that attracts social media attention – they all contribute towards a powerful brand identity. To effectively communicate your brand message, take the following questions into your consideration:

• What stands out about the way you speak?
• Is your content perfect all around?
• Are your headlines click-worthy?

Deliver Real Value

The way your services, products or offerings benefit your target audience is vital for your digital brand. What value are you actually delivering? To identity, communicate and enhance your brand value for maximum impact, consider these questions:

• What are your strengths?– Knowing what you do well is necessary to define the necessary elements of your brand value.
• How are you sharing your uniqueness?– Find out about what the world looks forward to from you.
• What are you doing to increase value?– Even though you may be an industry leader, you can never stop learning.

Conclusion

Creating a powerful brand identity does not have to be difficult or complicated. Pay close attention to your product or service to evaluate how it solves problems, makes lives easier or is a valuable resource. Then, consider your brand’s uniqueness to position it properly. Earn respect by being careful about what you say and the way you say it. Deliver real value so that your brand benefits a powerful brand identity.

If you already curate blog for commercial purposes, it is likely that you already understand and appreciate the importance of business blogging. However, do you know you can optimize your blog posts in order to make them more search engine friendly? You can actually use blogs to personalize your brand identity and streamline your SEO strategies.

Research shows that organic search tends to drive an estimated 51% of traffic to B2C and B2B websites. As a result, the importance of SEO as well as enhancing your website’s organic presence is widely accepted. Keep in mind that blogging is one of the most effective tools in most digital marketers’ toolbox. This is exactly why marketers consider blogging and SEO to be synonymous to each other.

Does Blogging Help with SEO

Blogging is great for SEO as it helps considerably with a number of aspects which are crucial ranking factors. If you have a blog that is updated frequently with posts that are relevant and high quality, it could make a considerable difference to how your site performs in various search engines.

Here’s how blogging helps with SEO.

1.Keeps your Site Updated

Publishing blog posts regularly is a very natural and logical way to update your site frequently; it signals to various search engines that it is being taken care of and is a great place to send users. This is why a new blog post at least every couple of weeks would show those ‘bots that your website is active.

2.Keeps Users on your site for Longer

Note that Google’s priority is offering people who perform searches with relevant information, so they will come back to use Google again.

A person who comes to your site from a blog post which shows up in search result will have more persuasive reason to stick around longer and read the entire thing compared to someone who happens to land on a webpage with less text or information. A good SEO blog will entice your users to stay on your site for longer and improve your traffic ratios.

3.Internal Linking

A lot of SEO is mainly about links and internal links are usually the easiest ones to get as you could create them on your own. Not including internal links on your site that conveniently point visitors from one webpage on the website to another is perhaps one of the simplest SEO mistakes one can make.

Although you may find some reasonable internal linking possibilities on your site’s main page, as soon as you begin publishing relevant blog posts, the opportunities would really blossom.

SEO Blog Tips

1.Maintain Keyword Density

It goes without saying that keyword density is a vital aspect for better ranking. Stuffing your keywords will lead to over optimization while too less may lead to lower ranking. It is often better to maintain a ratio of 2 percent per post.

Do not stuff keywords in order to manipulate search engines. However, after you finish writing, you could analyze your entire post to determine suitable locations where you can insert these keywords without distracting readers.

2.Do your Research

For on page optimization keyword research is essential. It is likely that you’re naturally inserting keywords without simply realizing it by offering valuable and relevant content on a specific topic. That being said, there are a number of great tools and techniques to find related keywords that are relevant to your blog post which you might not have even considered.

The Google AdWords Keyword Tool as well as semrush.com are both incredible tools that enable you to find relevant keywords and even spy on your competitors to determine what phrases and words they’re targeting in order to draw traffic to their websites.

3.Optimize your Images

When you upload an image or photo to your blog, make sure you incorporate keywords into your file name while filling out the alternate text field using brief and keyword rich description of your photo. This will help optimize your blog for search engine purposes.

4.Capitalize on Social Media Shares

There is no denying that there are plenty of great benefits of sharing your blog posts on various social media platforms:

1.It helps keep your social media websites relevant and current.

2.It keeps your audience fully engaged.

3.As social signals are usually included in ranking algorithms, it helps improve SEO results.

4.Social links also help raise referral traffic.

We would recommend that you always share your blog post on different social channels as this will help enhance your social media branding by a huge margin. It is advisable to share a few sentences that describe a brief summary of your post or an excerpt from your post. Also, remember to include all keywords you’re targeting within your social media posting since these social signals could help with rankings.

5.Give Readers the Chance to Subscribe to the Blog

You should include prominently place RSS and Feed Subscription Buttons while offering viewers the opportunity to subscribe to the posts through email when possible. This will allow all your blog followers to get instant notifications of your latest blog posts without periodically checking your website for new content.

6.Reference others

Whenever you mention another blogger or an article in your post, make sure you include the link to the specific information that you’re referencing. Not only it is good blogging etiquette, but you are also likely to get lucky and get a link back. Remember that quality links are an extremely valuable commodity for any website that is looking to rank higher in various SERPs.

The aforementioned SEO tips have been designed to help every business improve their marketing strategies and effectively use blogging as a digital outreach channel. People love blogs, so why would you not capitalize on the vast benefits of commercial blogging.

As the New Year has just started, marketers all over the globe are thinking about all the new design trends this past year have brought us. The year 2019 will be a challenging and fascinating one for brands all around the world. We are constantly tuned in and aware of the trends that dictate the trajectory of the market. Reflection of these trends is critical and preparing for the future is paramount in today’s digital era.

Many designers are taking their own roles in the events of 2018 and are using their own creativity to curate unique designs. The perceptions about the new design trends vary from individual to individual. However, one thing is for sure the new Ecommerce design will be quite creative, interactive and captivating.

Top Design Trends for launching the New Year

Here are the top five trends that you should keep on radar for the year 2019:

1. The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Humans are hypothetically on a cusp of the single largest revolution in technology, you can also call this the next industrial revolution. It has been forecasted that designing as a practice is going to evolve quite swiftly. Artificial Intelligence designs will be the new face and role in the AI industry, just like movie directors have a vital role in making movies, without the director there will be no movie. These AI designers will head multi-disciplinary teams in the formation and design of webpages using AI.

It is worth noting that we are rapidly advancing in perfecting deep learning algorithms and machine learning properties. We are reaching a level of perfection in a number of different aspects which AI can marvelously do for us and at the same time, we are compiling a pile of extremely narrowly focused functions, all of them disjointed as a whole.

It is more or less like building an artificial person but we are starting from all parts of the brain at once. Artificial Intelligence designs stand out to become the most exciting practice in the history of commercial entities. The emerging face of this segment has taken the world by storm.

2. The Use of Vivid Colors

Use of bright colors for everything from backgrounds to images to user interface elements has been one of the most prevalent graphic design trends of 2018 and these strategies are expected to be an integral component in the new web design trends of 2019.

(Source: www.venngage.com)

If you have noticed that the world of design feels a little more colorful lately. You would be spot on. Splashes of electric yellows, bright corals and vivid blues are replacing the reserved colors of the previous years. It has been observed that more brands and designers are adding vivid colors to their palettes for 2019 in order to immediately entice potential or current clients.

Last year was a catalyst in terms of branding, advertising and packaging as businesses prioritized simplification in each of their strategies. Hence, it should not come as a surprise that businesses have adopted this approach for designs and illustrations as well. Due to the incredible popularity of simplification and reduction, this trend will continue to prevail in the following year.

3. Effective Focal Points

Another trend to look out for in 2019 is the mega use of bold fonts and type-faces. Many companies have personified the use of these focal points. Take Adidas as a prime example of how effective this new webpage design trend really is and how they have used it across all of their marketing channels.

As you can see from the above image, the bold font makes it quite easy to read the text on social media feeds and on mobile devices. It facilitates in instantly projecting strength, innovation and individuality. It is important to understand that these bold fonts are often the supporting partners to other design elements which will contribute to your conversion rates. The synchronization among the different processes involved is of paramount importance. Consider using these bold fonts with other trends to get the most out of your marketing efforts.

4. Handmade and Organic

While colorful, geometric, 2D vector still dominate the web design landscape. There has been somewhat of a counter-trend, in the form of illustration which is organic and handmade, even if these creations are digital.

(Source: www.creativebloq.com)

One look at the image above will leave you curious and quite intrigued, which proves how effective this new web page design really is. These new design trends have a huge potential of being an effective tool in the coming year as numerous brands are working on handmade and organic design which can serve the purpose for the broadcasting of the brand and its message.

5. The Existence of Gradients

Gradients are one of the most effective elements in any Ecommerce design. These gradients give the designing dynamics more depth and intensity. Plus, like some of the other rising graphic design trends, they look amazing on mobile devices. These gradients will not only attract your user’s attention to important information but it will also help continuity throughout landing pages.

(Source: www.venngage.com)

With the presence of vivid colors and futuristic patterns, these elements feel right at home with some of the other graphic design trends in 2019.

The Bottom Line

The current e-commerce website design standard is quite effective in guiding visitors through the purchase cycle. The competition globally has become quite fierce and the margin of error is constantly shrinking. One simple mistake could thwart every marketing effort your business implements.

Web designers are working hard to come up with fascinating designs which can effectively convey a brands message. All of these new design trends have completely changed how businesses engage with their clients and how they entice new users to invest in the business. So if you are currently contemplating a new web page design, consider the aforementioned trends to get the most out of your website.

Keeping up with the most innovative and latest digital marketing trends usually feels like a chore for many brands and marketers. It is even more stressful during the holiday season with everything else you have to do. Whether you are a small business owner or a big company, it is always good to know all the latest digital trends that will shape important marketing strategies not only this holiday season, but also in the future.
The constantly evolving search, social, and digital shopping landscape continues to offer more opportunities in connecting with customers, most advertisers often find themselves stretching final budgets across several different marketing channels. These digital media trends are defining the holiday season as business can now engage with clients on a whole different level. Here is a list of the new trends in digital marketing in order to provide you with detailed insight, to give you that much needed edge over competitors.

1.More Shoppers in 2018 will do their Holiday Shopping on Mobile compared to Desktop

Many holiday shoppers, especially luxury shoppers, are increasingly using their smartphone as the preferred shopping gateway. It is worth mentioning that when shopping online, most consumers tend to seek convenience, cost-effective delivery as well as a quick and a hassle free purchase process.

Consumers also expect a personalized, superior and frictionless Omni channel experience which will simultaneously encourage online sales and facilitate boutique visits. This is why mobile commerce is continuing to grow rapidly and for the first time in 2018 holiday season, smartphones and other mobile devices are anticipated to make up the majority of shopping traffic as well as orders. Here are 10 creative marketing ideas for the holiday season.

A recently published report by Salesforce has predicted that more orders will be placed through mobile phones than desktop (46 percent vs. 44 percent). In addition, 68% of the total traffic for the 2018 holiday season is expected to come from smartphones, up to 19% points from 2017.

2.Personalized experiences

Although most marketers do not usually agree on a lot of industry issues, there is certainly one aspect they are almost unanimous about: personalization really matters. This is why the more you can customize content offerings to every person’s specific preferences and tastes, the more likely can increase revenue and forge long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with your buyers. Hence, if you have not already done so, investigate various ways to make AI or artificial intelligence, shoulder most of the load for you in this regard.

You should try to maximize consumer enjoyment while reducing the time they require to spend looking for items. If you know your customers or customer groups well enough, you will be able to give them suitable personalized product recommendations and that will give your seasonal sales a huge boost.

3.YouTube and Instagram are the Social Channels to Watch

It is not surprising to note that most brands are raising their holiday marketing budgets in 2018, many are opting to spend more on YouTube and Instagram than in previous years. A research study indicated that 65% planned to boost Instagram expenditure. With that being said, it was YouTube, not surprisingly, that saw the greatest jump in advertiser participation, as nearly 33% of brands are planning to run adverts on the platform in 2018 compared to about 26% in 2017. As per experts, ads that concentrate on visual elements increasingly tend to have more impact and influence.

4.Facebook Offers

There is no denying that deals and discounts are a major plank of many retailers’ sales drive, especially during the holiday season, but the main challenge is to generate awareness. One great way to get noticed by buyers is by leveraging Facebook Offers.

Followers who will save your offer would receive auto reminders that they can use the deal before it expires. Also, customers could redeem their offers online, or in your physical store. You should use eye-catching and top-quality images of your featured products to help your offer stand out from various other posts. Also, remember to run the promotion long enough for buyers to notice it and react to it, which might take a couple of days or more.

5.Amazon Ads are very Important

For a brand looking to run holiday-targeted campaigns, Amazon is slowly becoming a very important player. More than 80% of brands that plan to market and advertise on Amazon in 2018 holiday season would run Christmas-specific product campaigns, compared to about 74% of overall brands. Running holiday-specific adverts on Amazon, according to experts, where customers are more likely to shop for gifts, is a great way for most advertisers to better showcase their products.

6.Putting up Reviews on your Site

Although there are many factors that are involved in ranking, note that the number of reviews that you have is often an important factor. It is worth mentioning that organic traffic from SEO is still one of the most effective sources of web traffic for a lot of businesses, as search engines like Google, will consider your Google reviews, Facebook reviews, Yelp reviews and more. Keep in mind that your reviews are essential for better search engine rankings; also, they can make or break a sale. This is why you must create an excellent plan to get reviews for your business. However, be careful and do not try to incentivize or bribe people (since this isn’t allowed), but rather have a system to ask for reviews.

Final Thoughts

Make time in order to check out these digital media trends. These strategies will surely help your business enjoy a productive holiday season. Although digital marketing is vital year-round, focusing on marketing trends for 2018 during the holiday season is one of the surefire ways to take your revenue to the next level.

The online marketing space is brimming with energy and competition, which at every point provokes web designers and online retailers to employ creative ideas and social media strategies to bring the traffic on board.

This constant need for flexing the creative muscle is no different in holiday season which is the high time for driving sales. A family reunion, in conjunction with the harsh weather outdoors, makes for the ideal opportunity for individuals to shop online and for retailers to capitalize on that.

Below we share some useful creative ideas that will always keep you one step ahead of your competitors when it comes to the race of attracting newcomers and retaining the existing users during the holiday season 2018 and beyond.

Respect the festival

In light of the special occasion of Christmas or general winter holiday season, people need to see how true your website design remains in respecting the cultural traditions. For this it’s favourable to redesign certain Call-to-Actions (CTAs), the homepage of your web and the colour or styles of certain sections of the platform to reflect that of the Christmas theme and colours.

A good example is the promotional banner above on Joules US’s website.

We’re thinking white-and-red mostly; perhaps snowflakes for the borders and Christmas tree lights in the background. Shopify has a great list of brands who’ve attempted such fun promotional ideas.

Utilize the social media channels

No one can deny the imposing presence of social networking giants like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and what they mean to the marketing game.

As of 2018, 3.2 billion users have registered to such sites. Shaking up the formula a little bit, your website can use it not only to hype up incoming new arrivals or discounted deals, but to put up a live stream that gives your fans something to talk about.

Podcasts have seen a lot of success for promotion of products, especially if it’s hosted by a popular personality or on a well-known platform. Midroll reported that 60% of all podcast listeners purchased the advertised product. Reserving up a spot or time-frame during any point of the podcast seems to be a viable strategy to bring in some users during holiday season.

Prioritize discounts, vouchers and trials

We know the main reason for consumers resorting to digital stores for their shopping is due to discounted limited time deals, so that’s what your marketing strategy should focus on: a lot of voucher codes and special deals.
Create urgency by including countdown timers or displaying the amount of stocks left. Maybe even go up a notch by introducing free trials or subscriptions like that which HBO attempted. Free gifts or additional items awarded for a certain value of purchase made is sure to make consumers feel special and keep returning for more purchase in the future.
Another example is of HnM. Their banner creates a sense of urgency by encouraging customers to order before a certain date, otherwise their orders may get late:

Market via emails

Marketing by email channels and newsletters mark a 3800 % in ROI, which is a lot. With regards to holiday season, your brand can send out exclusive vouchers to your email-list members since personalize vouchers feel more special.

Do make sure to include CTAs like ‘Buy now’ or ‘Join now’ to redirect users to the web before they start having second thoughts. Include original, interesting and visually striking images to catch the viewer’s attention. Some brands have brought this idea on board and our friends at Mailer Lite have compiled some interesting examples.

Put heart into your ads

Weeping and laughing together only makes us come even closer, especially in a season where we ARE together. Therefore video or illustrative ads which can portray such feelings work all the time. Have music, have charisma, have clever puns and touch at least one aspect of the human heart in whichever way you choose to tell people about your brand.

A celebrity endorsement will also help when it comes to resonating with the audience better. Independent recently compiled a list of the best Christmas advertisements of 2018, check it out to get a sense and feel of the impact of ads.

Give back to the community

For kids, Santa Claus is the popular fictional character, but for the young-adults and working class, it’s their favourite brands granting their wishes. To increase user-engagement and value the customer’s loyalty to the brand, have giveaways, lucky draws and festive competitions.

Revolving around the Christmas season, maybe even have a trivia about the festival and associate prizes with it accordingly. Again, social media channels here will be your go-to- platform so make use of that. This will prove valuable to many metrics including web traffic and social media conversations about the brand.

Create a relevant hashtag

Yes, yet another utility of the social media channels. As per a survey, inclusion of a single hashtag on an average Instagram post led to a 12.6% increase in engagement rate. Your holiday season marketing campaign needs a relevant hashtag which basically includes your brand’s name followed by the ‘Christmas2018’.

Of course you can make it crispier along the lines of ‘Xmas18’ or include various hashtags as well, but make sure they’re getting the message across without becoming too distracting. ReturnOnNow has some good practices your marketing team can follow.

Blogging for awareness

If you don’t have a blog section on your website, now is as good of time as any to create one. Blog posts keep your users updated about the latest trends and innovations related to the products your brand specializes in and thus promotes a more engaged audience.

According to HubSpot, 53% of marketers claimed that blogging was at the forefront of their marketing plans. Blogs also indirectly favour your SEO score by letting people stay longer on your website and getting redirected to your platform thanks to the keywords you incorporate in the articles.

Push notifications

Mobile channels seem to be one of the rising channels for marketing with 83% of marketers claiming it the channel to be viable for their content marketing.

Since mobile users make up about 5.1 billion in population globally, push notifications are a good way of alerting them of new additions to your catalogue especially if you’re an e-retailer. Being holiday season, most individuals will browse through their handheld devices in their leisure time.

It’s best to keep these notifications short, informative and catchy which calls for urgent action. A personalized touch like the use of ‘you’ and ‘us’ also helps with the click-through rates.

Deliver products with love

Going the extra mile, why not wrap the purchased items with decorative, Christmas-themed wrapping paper and then deliver it to your dear customer? You can also include something witty, like ‘See you next time’ or ‘Happy to serve you’ since it is these little details and touches that add to the strength of the business-customer relationship to ensure long-term customer loyalty.

Conclusion

Christmas season is always a busy one for retailers and business owners that operate primarily from the digital landscape.

To get users to eagerly participate in their holiday season marketing campaign and sales, you’ll occasionally need to get out of your comfort zone, walk the plank and venture into unfamiliar territory to remain alive in the overcrowded and competitive marketing world of today.

The digital scope of the world is changing with time and the industries world-wide are moving their business to the digital landscape. Moving the marketing campaigns online implies that you should have great landing pages to provide value to your consumers.

A landing page is an essential part of the conversion funnel and helps drive the traffic towards the next steps of the conversion funnel. A purpose-built landing page is necessary to entice the visitors who are visiting your website. In this article, we will talk about 5 tips for designing a landing page that converts. By convert, we mean a landing page that helps you achieve your objectives, whether it is sales or getting a visitor sign up on your email.

Provide Valuable & Discreet Content

The content on your landing page should be curated in a way that it provides value to the visitors as well as portrays your unique value proposition in the best possible way. The content that you curate on your landing page depends on the type of product or service that you are promoting.

An average user spends about 8 seconds on a page so bear in mind that you have just 8 seconds to make a lasting impression on your visitor so the content has to be curated in a highly effective way.

The heading of your content is the first thing that the customers see on your landing page. The heading should include what the visitors expect to get out of the landing page. This should be followed up by a sub-heading that further explains the value offered in the heading. The sub-heading should always compliment the heading in a way that it adds to the value offered by the heading on your landing page.

The sub-heading should be followed up by an effective call to action! One of our favorite landing pages is by Netflix which follows the tips that we have provided above. The call to action is unique and offers incentive to the visitor to sign up.

Use Visual Content

Visual content, including pictures, and videos, is an essential element of any landing page. Our brain is designed to process images 60,000 times faster than text. It is a no-brainer to include visuals in your landing page design as the visitors will be influenced by the visual content that you have displayed on your landing page.

When you’re placing visual content on your landing page, make sure that the quality of the content should be exceptional. It should be relevant to your product or service. If you are selling a physical product, make sure that you include pictures/videos of the product itself. If you’re selling a service, putting up an explainer video about the service is a great way to grab your audience’s attention.

A great implementation of the above mentioned tips is executed by Home Chef. The landing page design is sleek and it includes the right content to grab the visitor attention. It also includes a video that explains what the business is about. This is an amazing way to gain your audience’s attention and retain them on your website. Many people would form the image of your brand through your landing page and it seems only right to create the landing page in the best way possible by following the tips that we are providing.

We’re not done yet! Keep scrolling, there are more tips to come.

Create A Sleek & Appealing Design

A good landing page has to be designed in an appealing way. Remember when we said that you have just 8 seconds to grab your customer’s attention? The first thing they would notice about your landing page is the design.

The landing pages are going to create an impression of your brand or business and you’d want it to represent your business in the best possible way. Avoid distracting your visitors by adding redundant visual elements. Include plenty of white space that keeps your visitor’s attention focused on your product/service and the call to action.

Creating a good design is essential but you have to keep a track of whether or not the design increases your site load time.

Another thing that you should consider while designing your landing page is the eye movement of the user. The visitor’s eye should move in such a manner that is leads to achieving your desired results from the landing page.
Blue Apron does it perfectly. There is plenty of white space, the design is clutter free and the content including the CTA is clear and attractive.

Remove The Navigations

Although this is not practiced very commonly and is a little unorthodox but your landing page should have minimum options for the visitor to navigate away from it. Placing a top menu or a navigation bar makes sense but it gives the opportunity to the visitors to move away from the your landing page.

The presence of the usual navigation also creates a visual distraction for the visitor and this is certainly not what you want for them. The Farmer’s Dog does it the best and provides a great conversion centric landing page design.

Notice how the removal of the usual boring navigation makes the landing page much more attractive.

Use Contrasting Colours

When you’re creating a landing page, the foremost thing on your mind is that your call to action button should really pop out! Whether you’re encouraging the visitors to sign up to your email list or trying to get them to visit your shop, the call to action button should be designed and placed in a way that the visitors can easily access it and take action on it. This is the primary reason why the call to action buttons should be in contrasting colors.

Take a look at the following landing page as an example. The page is designed in grey and white hues but the call to action button is in a bright pink. This immediately brings your attention to the call to action button and increases the chances of the user taking the desired action. The time is short when we talk about grabbing the user’s attention and this is one of the best ways to do it.

Wrapping It Up

We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading our tips for designing a landing page that converts and these tips would surely help you out in creating the landing pages for your business.

Do let us know your thoughts in the comments.