We recently had chance to blog on behalf of Infusion Soft, a great provider of inbound marketing management software.
We discussed a PPC campaign we have been working on and how we took a data driven approach to the campaign and were able to reduce their overall cost per acquisition and optimize their campaigns.
Check it out here:
Is Instagram two times better than Twitter? Two and a half times better to be precise. Instagram announced yesterday that they will be entering direct competition with Twitter by releasing their new Video function attached to their popular app. This means users can now record and share 15 second videos with a variety of filters and edit. This is in comparison to Twitter’s six second videos. (15/6=2.5 see what we did there?)
Keep reading and we’ll discuss how this is going to help businesses connect with their followers and build engagement.
The big question of course is how us creatives and businesses are going to use this.
Think about it this way. TV commercials work, they have always worked, and that’s why people keep paying for them. But, they are expensive, and only on one “device”, the TV.
Instagram, and also Vine have opened us up to do free, opt in TV advertising on people’s social channels.
Think about it this way:
Say you are a restaurant and you got a group of people to like you for a free appetizer. Those people are opted in now. They are going to see your posts (most of them). You have been talking about special deals, event nights etcetera. But, they are not biting and you can not figure out why all this social media talk isn’t giving you what you expected.
With this new avenue you can put teaser videos out, fun videos, behind the scenes videos, and straight up advertising videos. This is the kind of content that gets people talking and sharing and frankly, caring about your brand. The numbers are great, they are actually 100% more engaged according to the Adobe Digital Video Benchmark.
Expect to see engagement rates and subsequent conversions soar for brands who take advantage of video advertising and content on Instagram and Vine.
TV is expensive, but we just got our hands on free, opt in video advertising where people are spending their time (Social Media). Let’s not waste this opportunity.
Need a professional video done? Get in touch, we would love to help. Now is a perfect time before this new channel is saturated.
MOSCreative.com
JT
Web Design is always changing, and what may have been a trendy and engaging site five years ago could be old news. We see this all the time with clients who may have done something very trendy, but now their traffic is down and their bounce rates are up.
Fair or not, a lot of visitors will judge you based on your site’s design, great content or not.
Here are a couple of moderately future proof design ideas that we love, and that your visitors will be impressed enough to stick around for or even share.
Progressive Loading:
This style of website’s goal is simplicity and focus. As a visitor scrolls through the website everything loads up on the same page in a dynamic progression of content. In a marketplace where everyone has short attention spans, it’s not always wise to expect someone to click through 4 pages of your site to read your whole story before doing a sign up form. This method keeps people focused and tells the story your way and naturally flows into your call to action.
Click here for some great single page designs.
Textured Background:
Textured backgrounds are great as a way to add some reality to website, you can make your site seem like something tangible, something more than pixels on a screen. One thing to be aware of is overdoing it though, as too much can be distracting and reduce the focus on your site.
Typography:
For a while there was a trend with sites using safe fonts. You were never quite sure if it would cause issues on your site to use a more interesting font. These days however, it’s gotten much easier and safer to spice things up on your site because there are a lot of new apps and protections to make sure that the site will operate as intended. This has led to a resurgence in interesting, branded fonts on sites.
Sorry! No link this time!
High Res Web:
These days everyone is using high res devices, but, those high res devices can be any number of sizes or dimensions. Users are sensitive to resolution and “crispness” of images like never before. This means for designers that making use of all the modern tools is a must to display crisp graphics in a responsive way.
Click for a great blog on the subject.
Using Pastels:
This follows the current trend of simplifying websites and going for minimalism. The pastel color pallet makes sites seem more simple and friendly. Another benefit is it adds more contrast to the site and gives your visitors happy feelings.
Click for 50 great sites that use Pastel.
Infographics and Social Media:
The most important thing to note about this ongoing trend is its shareability. People love sharing information but with the oversaturation of information people are much less likely to read a couple of pages on a subject. Because of this, we need to give them bite sized and friendly doses of information if we want people to engage.
Thank you for reading! We hope that this helped spark some ideas for your new website or your next website update.
You can leave a comment or question below and we will make sure to get back to you!
Check us out at MOSCreative.com.
Best,
JT
Google Adwords has a couple of functions we are highlighting called Local Extensions as well as the new Adwords for Google Maps which are going to be great for local businesses looking to cut through.
As the Google ad says, “Who is looking for a mechanic in your town? Someone Googling for a mechanic in your town.” (Or something to that effect.).
This sets the premise for how Adwords can help a local business. With somewhere between 80% and 90% of searches for products starting online, it’s important for small businesses to be where their customers are looking.
The days of direct mailers, Val-Pak and Yellow Pages advertising are fast fading and local businesses are moving online where their customers are looking for them.
The basics of Adwords are pretty simple, if you are in Columbia, Maryland and someone searches “Columbia Pest Control” in Google an ad of yours will show up with people’s results. One nice thing, unlike most other forms of advertising is that you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad It’s a very measurable form of advertising which only hits people who are looking for you.
With that basic understanding, there are a couple of important functions which can really push traffic and conversions (Sales!) which are worth taking a closer look at.
Local Extensions::
If you take a look at a search in your field you will probably notice a lot of national companies and people you may not have heard of. Your customers will see that too. Now what you can do to set yourself apart is set up something called a local extension. It looks like this:
Local Extensions show searchers where you are.
Basically what it does is for someone who is near you and searching, it will display you businesses contact info to show them that you are local and nearby, therefore letting you cut through some of the noise and get them to call in or come to your location with minimal clicking around and effort.
Google Maps:
An exciting new feature coming to Google maps is that Adwords will soon be able to be displayed on Google Maps.
To clarify, one of the ways people search is that they go to Google Maps and type in “Sushi Restaurant” and see what locations pop up on the map around them.
It would look something like this:
Current Google maps, a bit cluttered, no ads.
Now, the news here is that Google just announced some changes that will take the results from that, to this:
Much cleaner, with prominent Adwords.
As you can see, the new interface is much cleaner with a lot less information. What is visible, most importantly to this post is that Adword ad for Sakura Sushi.
So now when your customers are looking for a Sushi place through their maps, you can once again cut through the noise and get your message in front of them so that you are the place they call to make a reservation, or to come in for a meal.
There are many ways to take advantage of the power of Adwords, these are just a few of our favorites for local business.
If you are a local business trying to get a leg up in your area, give us a call, we’d love to help out. Leave a comment below with any questions or comments and we’ll respond as quickly as possible.
You can check out our website at www.MOSCreative.com.
Joel
