Category: Digital Marketing

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Digital Marketing

Macro-Influencer Mistakes: Failing to Engage Your Audience

Reaching macro-influencer status in itself is difficult and time consuming. You have to produce quality content that attracts followers, build your following, interact with your followers, and adapt to a variety of algorithm changes. For those of us who are following those influencers, it can feel like everyone’s doing the same thing – and that’s why many macro-influencers struggle to grab hold of their audience and keep it.

Because influencers get their name from the fact that they influence their audience to do something – whether it’s support a cause or buy a product – it makes sense to work with them when you want to spread brand awareness and grow your own audience.

I’d like to share a story of an Instagram macro-influencer with more than two million followers – Arii. You’d think that with a following that large, she’d be able to market herself as a successful influencer. But sadly, all she can say is that she has over 2 million followers. When she tried to use her “influencer” status to sell t-shirts and launch her online clothing – she found that she couldn’t even sell 36 shirts.

Arii is an 18-year-old influencer with 2.6 million followers. Though the post has since been deleted, she wrote that the clothing company she was working with had rules regarding her first sales, which included selling at least 36 pieces from her line.

The post read: “Hi, it breaks my heart to have to write this post. As ya’ll know, I released my brand. I’ve poured my heart into this drop. For my photoshoot, I flew out a photographer & makeup artist…. & and I planned weeks ahead & was lucky enough to gather some friends who modeled for me…. I rented out a huge photo studio for the day so I could [get] as many shots & video promo shots as I could….Unfortunately the company that I’m working with goes based on your first drop sales. In order for them to order and make my products (even to keep working with them) I have to sell at least 36 pieces (knowing I’ve become super irrelevant, I already knew it was gonna be hard) but I was getting such good feedback that people loved it and were gonna buy it. No one has kept their word so now the company won’t be able to send out the orders to people who actually bought shit and it breaks my heart.

While the situation is sad for her, she made mistakes… and rookie ones at that.

Followers Do Not Equal Customers

The number one rule of business is to make sure you know who your customer is, and then create content that’s helpful and appealing to those customers. Just because someone follows you on social media doesn’t mean that they will ever become customers.

And if you make the mistake of buying followers (I don’t know that she did or didn’t – or how long it took her to amass that many followers) to inflate your numbers and make yourself look good, you’ll definitely lack the targeted fans and followers you’ll need to convert them into paying customers later down the funnel.

By creating content the type of people you want to buy your product or service want, the idea is that you will attract targeted potential customers, who over time, will develop a relationship with you. They will trust your authority and suggestions, thus being more open to the idea of buying products and services you suggest, or products and services you sell.

She fails here because people liking a bunch of selfies doesn’t mean they’ll ever buy anything – especially if you don’t even tell them where to buy the elements of the outfits you’re wearing.

Engagement on Photos Doesn’t Mean You Have a Brand

Looking at Arii’s feed, many of the photos are just her doing whatever. There’s not a cohesive theme. She’s not sharing any of her products. While she does get plenty of engagement in terms of likes and comments – it’s many people asking where her outfits are from, where she bought something, how old she is, or since the deletion of her brand failure post, even giving her advice about how to build a brand online.

She mistook the likes and engagement she got from her followers as liking her aesthetic as the brand. There’s nothing there but photos of herself – nothing that tells you who she is. Nothing of any inspiration, nothing that tells people why they should consider following her and what value she’d bring to their feed.

And though people are taking the time to like and comment, there’s little to no evidence that Arii actually responds to people when they reach out to her. If you don’t interact with your followers, you’ll never build the two-way relationship that’s necessary if you want sales.

There’s not even a bio to explain who she is – just an email address that’s associated with an influencer marketing platform or talent agency, Fullscreen.

Twitter Had a Heyday

Twitter users were quick to point out her mistakes – and though it may seem a bit cruel, they actually had valid points as to why she failed.

Jack Appleby provided this side-by-side look at the photos she shared on her feed, compared to the clothes in her brand.

As you can see, the aesthetics between the two are wildly different. If you can’t see her wearing any of the clothes from her line, why would her followers?

Others, such as now inactive user biculturalfamilia, pointed out that she didn’t do enough to promote it.

Jack Appleby gave us another comparison of her feed, suggesting that while he may have missed her IG stories or promoted posts, it appears that she announced it with a single video, put up an additional video and then claimed she failed 13 days later. The feed shows no photos of her products. Watching the video tells us nothing about the brand, what it is, or even what it looks like.

 

Ultimately, no matter how many followers you have – cultivating a relationship with them and learning who they are is the only way to build a successful online business. I admire Arri’s efforts to build the following, but she’s got a long way to go before she can leverage it as a brand or business.

 

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Digital Marketing

Aligning Your Marketing Strategy with the Customer Journey

For a successful digital marketing campaign, you must align your marketing strategy with the customer journey so that you can reach your audience and then guide them from discovery to conversion. If you’re not working to support the customer journey, you’ll struggle to get conversions – and without conversions, you’ll have a terrible return on your paid media channel investments.

Know Your Audience

Before you start doing anything, you must know your audience. Who are they? What do they want? How much money do they make? Where are they located? What is their gender? Are they a parent? What’s their budget? What hobbies and interests do they have? How does your product or service solve their major pain points? What objections do they have to investing in your product or service?

But more than knowing your audience, it’s crucial to know your audience segmentation. Do some research and planning to determine which product and service is the best fit based on the problems you’re trying to solve. In addition to figuring out the best fit, try to figure out the users that would be the worst fit for your business.

Separate the Buyer’s Journey from the Sales Journey

The buyer’s journey and the sales journey are two different things – despite the fact that many consider them to be the same. The sales team looks at their job performance and taking the best course of action to get users to convert and becoming paying customers. The buyer, on the other hand, is becoming aware of a problem in their lives, researching what to buy, and where to buy it from to solve the problem.

As marketers, we have to figure out who the audience is. However, because customer journey paths can be completely different, it’s important to research audiences in ways that make sense for each user.

Use Audiences Strategically

As people take various turns along their buyer journey, we can use audiences to better tailor our strategies and market to those users. Most of the major advertising platforms offer audience insights tools. These tools let you know how your audience or personas translate to the targeting options available on the platforms.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics offers in-market and affinity data in a broad scope compared to other tools, but it’s possible to add additional layers of demographics for more insights.

Google Ads Audience Insights

Your audiences must have at least 1,000 users in them before the insights data generates. Once you hit that threshold, you can look to see which affinity and in-market audiences your base audience belongs to. Look at your customer lists, the ones who have converted, the high-volume purchasers, and more to get a better understanding about who is part of these audiences.

Facebook Audience Insights

This tool is a good option for creating personas to target. You can identify the top converting demographics and focus on those first. Then segment further by layering other demographics and interests. You can find new interests to target and then monitor performance to finish creating personas, and validate them.

Examine your audience data between platforms and look for patterns. This will help you determine what to test first depending on the persona and where the persona may be in the buyer’s journey. Map the path to purchase so you know what information the users need, the device they typically use, the action you want them to take, and how you’ll measure the success of that action. As you create different actions from each persona, build audiences of the actions to create remarketing audiences so you can continue to guide the user to purchase.

Optimize Your Calls to Actions

Always consider what you are asking users to do. It’s not about what we want the user to do, it’s about what’s best for the user to do in that moment. You’ve already mapped out the path to purchase, but what is action is preventing the users from moving forward. Figure out this out to make sure you have the right content and call to action to keep them moving forward.

Create a chart to find where you have gaps. On the chart, make a list of the funnel stages – awareness, interest, consideration, and action. Then, for each stage identify the call to action, the cost to the user, and the value it offers you. You should have a call to action for each stage of the funnel. Video views are an excellent thing to have at the top of your funnel because you’re not asking for a firm commitment, since that person may have no clue about your brand. This is more effective than asking for a demo on the first interaction, because it gives the user a chance to learn more about your company and brand. However, as the user moves through the funnel, it’s okay to be more aggressive with the calls to action because the user has shown more interest as time moves on.

Use Messaging in Multiple Channels

One of the most important things to remember is that people use multiple channels throughout their buyer’s journey. Users don’t only use Google or Facebook. You can’t force people to use a channel. You must go where your users go. Many channels can be used throughout the funnel, and as you expand marketing messaging through the channels, it’s important to make sure the calls to action match across the channels to ensure you’re sending the same message to users depending on their persona.

Top of the Funnel

At this stage, use interest-based targeting, lookalike audiences, affinity, and in-market audiences, along with other custom audiences to fill the funnel. Exclude the lower funnel targets to make sure your top of the funnel messaging isn’t repeated as customers move through the journey.

Middle of the Funnel

At this phase, you’ll want to go after visitor traffic, repeat customers, loyalists, and anyone who has engaged with social media posts or other mid-funnel content.

Bottom of the Funnel

At this phase, target the people who are abandoning carts, abandoning forms, people who visit high-intent pages such as pricing, and low funnel customer match audiences.

You must allow your users to choose the channel they want to convert on. Create identical audiences for each stage of the funnel on applicable channels. Make sure you’re creating identical exclusions so you’re not showing ads to users in areas outside of where they are in the funnel. The more you keep the ad message and audience targeting to the person across each channel, the better chance you have to get the user to progress through the funnel.

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Digital Marketing

Using Google Analytics Events to Track Even More Data

Google Analytics is a highly valuable free tool that helps you learn about the people who are visiting your website and what they are doing while they are there. Over on my agency blog, I’ve written a post about using Google Analytics to track social media campaigns, but this one’s a bit different because rather than focusing on goals, we’re focusing on events – which are used to provide more details about what your users are doing while they’re on your site.

It’s kind of an extension of my post about how to use Google Analytics to improve your SEO. How? Goals are usually tied to actions that affect website revenue, while events track behavior that doesn’t have to do with reaching a certain page on your website. Goals are found in the Conversions report, while events are located in the Behavior report.

By default with GA, you can see how much time people are spending on each page, where they’re coming to your website from, and in some instances, you can also see the keywords they used to find you in organic search. Using event tracking, you can expand it to include even more valuable information to guide your marketing strategy.

Event tracking is a feature that allows you to track and record interactions with various elements on your website that aren’t part of the standard tracking in GA. You can track them manually, or create the tracking code with the help of the Google Tag Manager.

Before You Get Started

You must have the GA tracking code installed on your website before you can set up event tracking and start creating events.

To make things easier when it comes time to create the events in the system, make a list of the various elements you want to track. You can track things like file downloads, clicks on outbound links, number of phone calls, video plays, form submissions, and more.

Your event tracking code contains four elements to describe the interaction with your website. These are used in your reports, so you want to be sure you think about your naming convention before you get started. This way, you’ll be better able to analyze the data once it’s collected.

The elements you’ll name are:

  • Category: A required field to name the group of objects you want to track.
  • Action: A required field to name the type of interaction, such as downloading a report or other freebie offering.
  • Label: An optional field that’s helpful for summarizing what the event is about, such as clicks on a navigation menu option.
  • Value: An optional field that can be used if you want to assign a numeric value to your file download, so you can track which files are more popular than others. Just be sure you track which files are associated with which values.

You should also decide whether you want to set up automatic event tracking or manually tag the links on your site. If you have a lot of documents and page elements you want to track, it is helpful to handle it all automatically.

Automatic tagging is handled in Google Tag Manager and works when the following occurs:

  • Users click on links
  • Users submit forms
  • Users hit a certain visit duration or at timed intervals
  • Users click on any type of page element

It’s worth noting there used to be two different ways to set up event tracking on a website for standard Asynchronous Google Analytics (ga.js) and Universal Google Analytics. The Asynchronous Google Analytics (ga.js) method is now depreciated, so any advice referencing this form of tracking should be ignored.

Creating Events in Google Analytics

Manually

With the manual event tracking, you’ll create the code and attach it to the link code on the item you want to track.

The event tracking code for an event tracked link in Universal Analytics looks like this:

onclick=”ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘Category’, ‘Action’, ‘Label’, ‘Value’);”

The code is placed after the href link as shown in this example:

<a href=”www.examplewebsite.com/file.pdf” onclick=”ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘Category’, ‘Action’, ‘Label’, ‘Value’);”>

Where the category, action, label, and value variables are named according to your choices based on your naming convention.

Using Google Tag Manager

If you want to set up automatic tracking, or want to create your own tracking without manually creating the code, the Google Tag Manager makes it easy.

  1. Log into Google Tag Manager
  2. Select “Tags” from the left-hand side
  3. Create a new tag and select Universal Analytics as the Tag Type
  4. Set your Google Analytics Tracking ID
  5. Choose “Event” for the track type
  6. Set your Event Category, Action, Label and Values. You can use Google Tag Manager variable names such as {{click url}}
  7. Set your triggers as required

Make sure you’ve selected the right variables for your event. Create a new tag in the tag manager, changing the track type to event. Configure the tag by filling in your values, and choose the event the tag fires on.

Why Create Events in Google Analytics

Creating events will give you greater insights into your audience and their behavior on your website. With the resulting data, you’ll be better equipped to make adjustments to your strategy and ultimately boost conversions.

Set up custom events to track any call to action clicks, file downloads, and more. This way, you’ll be able to see how people are responding to your calls to action, how many people are taking advantage of your freebies, or which of your digital products are the most popular. You’ll even be able to see when users scroll down the page, when they click on video controls to play, pause, or stop a video, abandon form fields, move their mouse, share content, and more.

The more information you have about what your web visitors are doing on your website – and whether or not they are doing what you want them to be doing, the better you will be able to create a digital marketing and SEO strategy to accommodate their needs. Your website should never be about your business – it should be about your audience and how you can help them. Always seek to provide value and keep the spotlight on your customers.

If you’d like help with learning how to maximize Google Analytics for your marketing campaigns, feel free to get in touch.

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Digital Marketing

What Does Your “About Us” Page Really Say About Your Brand?

Visit any website and you’re bound to find an “About” or “About Us” page. I don’t know about you, but I love reading this particular piece of content. It gives me a great sense of where a company came from, how it was conceived or inspired, and what the overall mission is.

…Except, of course, when it doesn’t.

Some “About” pages are hastily put together; you can tell the business owner or web developer thought it was the least important element of the site.

That’s definitely not the case – and I want to help you understand why.

Why The “About Us” Page is Important

Generally speaking, you have quite a bit of control over the first impression your visitors get when they land on your website. Unless they landed on your page from a Google search, they’ll likely end up on a landing page or even on a shop page. Beyond that, you have no control over where you visitors go next. Your job is to make sure every page is filled with compelling content.

That said, visitors who go to your “About Us” page are looking for something more. These people are looking for details. They aren’t willing to give their money to just anyone. This is the type of shopper who wants to know the story behind the company, or who wants to better understand a brand’s values, before they spend their dollars. What are they going to see when they land on the page they’re looking for?

The core elements of the “About Us” page need to answer these six common questions (hint: you learned about them in school):

  • Who – Who are the main faces behind the brand? What’s your experience?
  • What – What are you doing?
  • When – When did the brand launch? What’s your history?
  • Where – Where are you located? Where can people buy your offerings?
  • Why – Why should a customer choose you? What sets you apart?
  • How – How do you do what you do? How will you deliver the end product?

Throw in some great visuals, like a short video and some colorful photos, and you’ll be cooking with fire. Anyone who visits your “About Us” page is genuinely interested in your brand. Consider this page an important part of your relationship building efforts.

How to Improve Your “About Us” Page

Now that you know how important your “About Us” page really is, it’s time to take a closer look at what you currently have on your website. This page needs to be informative, establish credibility, and let people know you’re trustworthy.

So how can you make yours better?

Introduce Yourself

If someone were to introduce you at a party, what would they call you? Introduce the people behind the brand — first and last name. Pseudonyms are fine here; plenty of people use them and some businesses models demand more privacy than others. Just don’t leave people wondering who the mystery people are behind the brand.

Establish Your Voice

This isn’t exactly the page where you want to place a piece of tight-knit, SEO-friendly copy. Let your personal voice shine through in the writing.

Don’t get all corporate on your reader! Use humor, if appropriate. Let people get to know you a little bit.

Publish a Photo

This is optional (sort of). Choosing to post a photo of yourself (or you and your co-founders) is great, but I do understand that some people get more than their fair share of personal critique when they share stuff like that on the internet. Use discretion and make the decision that feels best, but don’t be too hard on yourself over it.

People love being able to match a face with a name. If a personal photo doesn’t work, use a real photo of your office building, workspace, or products. No matter what, do your best to avoid stock images on this particular page.

Talk About Your Why

You hear this often – especially online. People want to know what motivates you, whether it’s your family, a charitable cause, or something else. Your why appeals to people’s emotions and adds to the human element of your company.

Incorporate Social Proof

Yes, you can (and should) showcase your awards, positive reviews, and even media mentions. Allowing the public to see these things isn’t bragging. Social proof shows people you have a great reputation and helps build trust. You can certainly have a separate page for awards, but at least some should appear on the “About Us” page. Link from here to the full page if you’d like to showcase more.

Don’t Forget Your Customer

They’re what this is all about, right?

Let your potential customers know what you can do for them. Make sure your “About Us” page gives them a bird’s-eye view of your capabilities. What can you do for them? How will you make their lives easier? Do you have statistics that can backup your claims? Offer specific, measurable, statistics that prove what you can accomplish on behalf of your customers.

Don’t Be Too Modest

In other words, get over your hesitation to talk about yourself. Be proud of your accomplishments and what you’ve done with your business. The more fun you have talking about yourself, the more relatable your description of your business will be. Your personality will shine through.

They key to an amazing “About Us” page is to remember your inquisitive visitor. They aren’t on this particular page because you forced them there (or at least I hope you’re not). They’re on this page because they have chosen to learn more about you, your history, and your amazing story. Leave the fluff out, but don’t get too self-absorbed. Don’t throw up a simple paragraph or worry about making this page sound super professional and “corporate.” Give your potential customers a glimpse into the soul of your business. They’ll appreciate your honesty and transparency, and you’re almost guaranteed a new fan!

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Digital Marketing

Is Your Website ADA Compliant?

I’d like to preface this post by reminding you all that I’m not a lawyer. If you have any doubt as to whether or not your website’s online presence is in compliance with ADA law, please consult your lawyer.

That said, most of us want to make visiting our business a great experience for people from all walks of life – and all ability levels. This means making not only our storefronts accessible, but our online spaces, too.

While we should strive to make our sites easier for everyone to use, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) actually stipulates that certain businesses must have compliant websites. Here’s what you need to know.

How the ADA Applies to the Internet

The Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, first came into law in 1990. At the time, the internet as we know it today did not exist at all. There was no thought given to evolving technology and no one could have predicted the future web landscape.

While the ADA gave people with disabilities the right to sue brick-and-mortar businesses not fully accessible to them, it didn’t originally cover web content. Now, it does – and we’re seeing lawsuits from web users who feel their needs aren’t being considered.

What issues are we seeing?

Let’s say, for example, someone who is vision impaired visits your website. There are screen reading tools that can transcribe your written text to audio, but they won’t automatically acknowledge or describe any of the other visuals on your website, like images.

A hearing impaired person can read the text on your website. They can’t enjoy your video commentary unless it is transcribed to include subtitles.

In short, businesses who are regulated by ADA guidelines must comply completely. This means they must be accessible in their stores, online, by mail, or via the phone. Anyone who wants to make a purchase from a business is protected, no matter which means of purchase they choose to take advantage of.

There are several examples (including the National Association of the Deaf v. Netflix) in which a business selling products have had their websites deemed “places of public accommodation.”

Which Businesses Need an ADA-Compliant Site?

Any business considered a place of public accommodation has to be ADA compliant, online and off. This is where they grey area comes into play. People running a blog or informational website, without sales considerations, likely don’t have to be.

Should they be? They’d certainly win more friends and influence more people, not to mention helping to make our world more accessibility-friendly.

According to the Bureau of Internet Accessibility, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) often struggles with how the ADA applies to websites. The department acknowledges that the wording of the legislation isn’t specific, but at the same time notes it’s broad enough to include websites in the legal definition of a business.

The ADA contains two titles pertaining to businesses and the question of websites. The DOJ claims that businesses falling under either must be accessible online:

  • Title II – This section talks about discrimination based on disabilities in both local and state government offices.
  • Title III – This section talks about discrimination based on disabilities in “places of public accommodations.” Examples include doctor’s offices, theaters, restaurants, and museums.

How to Make Your Website ADA Accessible

So you’ve decided your website needs to be accessible. What next? You need to take different user types and variables into consideration as you work to create accessible content.

The DOJ has referenced the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 when discussing how to make the appropriate modifications. This framework ensures all content is perceivable (accessible to a person’s senses), operable (within a person’s abilities), understandable, and robust enough to be used with or without assistive devices.

Not sure how to get started? The first thing you should do is find an auditing tool; most install as simple browser extensions and/or work by scanning a URL link for issues (like a lack of captions). These tools will make it easier for you to determine what areas are compliant and which need work.

The harsh reality is that bringing a website into ADA compliance can be time-consuming and costly. A lot of companies choose to work with agencies, for both auditing and actually implementing changes. This simplifies the process and ensures you have expert eyes watching at all times.

Self-adjustment is rarely easy for entry-level site owners. Costs may range into the thousands or higher depending on the type of content you work with. Unfortunately, this sometimes leaves business owners stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If You Can’t Afford It All…

If you can’t afford full accessibility right now, you shouldn’t give up on accessibility altogether. Instead, focus on the minimums and add accessibility in the future.

At a minimum, your website needs to:

  • Have text captions and/or alternative images that describe what is being shown. This allows screen readers to help users who can’t see images understand what is on the screen.
  • Have labels on web form slots so assistive devices can explain what they represent or want the user to input.
  • Feature color schemes that contain enough contrast so that buttons and other features are identifiable.
  • Have written transcripts for all content that is otherwise made up of audio or visual elements.
  • Have a clear, consistent layout from page to page so that menus and other features are easy to find and use.
  • Feature images that are not animated. Flashing images should not flash more than three times in a second, as this can be a seizure risk.
  • Be keyboard-friendly for those who can’t use mobile devices, touchscreens, or a mouse.

The ADA offers an online checklist to help you verify which points you’re meeting or missing along the way. They recommend looking at it like this: if you answer “no” to even one question, your site is probably (at least partially) non-compliant.

Remember – if you’re ever in doubt, consult a lawyer. It’s far better to be safe, rather than sorry, especially where lawsuits are concerned. While private lawsuits usually only force businesses to comply, you may still have to pay the suing party’s legal fees. If you ignore compliance requests, the DOJ can then seek additional punishment in the form of fines and other penalties. It’s simply not worth the risk.

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Digital Marketing

Web Images and Copyright: What You Need to Know to Protect Your Site

I’m going to preface today’s article with a quick disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on television. Please be sure to contact your lawyer or a legal service if you have questions about copyright, trademark, and using images you find on the web for your business website, social media pages, or other online properties.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk turkey. There seems to be a misconception about images found on the web that just won’t die and stay buried. People frequently believe that you are free to use any image you find on the internet, be it from an image search, social media, or some other platform, for just about anything at all. The reality is much different: common law copyright protections apply at the very moment of creation, and limit how and when you can use images – especially without permission.

Before you dig up the first “free photo” website and start cobbling together images for your new company presence, have a look at this article. If you’re already aware of the laws, this should still be a much-needed refresher.

Images and Copyright

The photographer or owner of an image retains all copyrights to that image. The owner can publish it on the web, in a book, or in any form they’d like, with or without attributing it by name. They also maintain the right to create derivatives, sell their work product, rent it out, or display it. Basically, the owner can do whatever the heck they want with it.

The only exception here is true fair use, the definition of which also seems to be fuzzy to a lot of people. Fair use only allows you to use a photo for “criticism, commenting, teaching, scholarships, research, or news reporting.” Most people who claim “fair use” of photos on the internet are misinterpreting the permissions granted, and are actually using the images far beyond the scope of the definition.

Reviews are a great example of permissible “fair use.” Let’s say you purchased an ebook and want to review it on your blog. You might go to the writer’s website, find a picture of the book cover, save it, and use it in your review. The photo doesn’t preview the actual text of the book, so it won’t have an impact on the creator’s rights. This is a legitimate form of fair use, especially since you’re delivering criticism (good or bad) of the book.

But fair use can be much more restrictive. As noted, the photographer has the right to sell full or limited-use rights to their work. That’s why photo studios will sell you a disc with a limited release; even though they took the snaps of you, they still technically own the photos. They just give you permission to print them and use them within their license.

This is also the case in the commercial world. A freelance web designer may come to your business, take photos of your product, and include the rights to those photos in your contract. You’ll need to read and understand the terms to ensure you’re protected.

What action or license a photographer or image owner takes if and when you steal their images really depends on their preferences. Some will simply ask you to remove the image; others will ask you to pay a small fee toward their sales pages. Some will report you to your hosting provider and have your domain and hosting account suspended, while others will jump directly to a lawyer, demand money for damages, or even start a high-stakes lawsuit.

Intent and Copyright

Most bloggers and website owners don’t intentionally use images illegally. Many are genuinely misinformed or misinterpret their rights to use what they find. That said, a lack of intent isn’t a legal defense; you can still be charged or sued for using images that don’t belong to you.

Take, for example, the story that Chrystie of Living for Naptime shared on her blog. She took what she believed to be a simple image of a green pepper from a Google image search and placed it within a blog post. Eight months later she received an email from a lawyer with a huge legal attachment. She thought she needed to simply remove the image from her blog – but the photographer wanted “damages.” He was selling the image for $750 on his website. After just eight months of illegal use, he calculated those damages at an insane rate of $7,500!

This story is a bit more complicated. Chrystie’s research showed that the photographer was distributing his images and building links so they’d show higher in search engine image results. She believes he was monitoring the web for his images, and that the photographer was intentionally trapping people to sue them. And the frightening thing here is that this is not only a highly common tactic, but also perfectly legal (albeit totally unethical).

When Chrystie did speak to a lawyer, he told her to settle. If not, her court costs may have skyrocketed from just $7,500 to as much as $50,000 to $100,000. That’s one expensive mistake you don’t want to make. Ouch!

What About Memes?

You’re not going to like the answer to this question. Technically, a meme is derivative work, and copyright law says that only the original owner can create a derivative. That said, a lot of people who create memes do so with the intent of making them fair use, but there really isn’t a clear way to find that out.

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but memes definitely fall into a very grey area. Were they created as satire? If so, they may be protected. Will you make money sharing them? If not, you might be OK. Can sharing the meme cause damage to the copyright holder or to the brand features within it? Maybe, maybe not. The safest thing you can do is not share memes (and/or create your own).

If you’re insistent on using memes anyway, use them in a limited fashion. Using an extremely common meme once on a Facebook page is probably less risky than littering your website with memes the moment they come up. Try to include a credit with a link whenever you can.

Where to Find Legal Images

You have two options for finding legal images for your website or blog: stock image sites or royalty-free image sites. Here are a few sites with totally free images:

These sites are relatively reliable, but you should be aware that there have been instances where stolen images made it onto the platform. Consider them mid-risk.

If you’re not keen on taking any risks at all, buying royalty-free images from a stock image marketplace is much, much easier. Sure, you will pay a small fee to use the images, but because you have a license, you will also have a defense. Options include:

There are dozens of other choices in both categories, but these will get you started. No matter where you explore, it’s good to be aware that some sites are better for deep niches than others. For example, Pixabay has a large library, but the photos are relatively generic. Unsplash is great for very natural looking models and gorgeous background landscapes. Most paid sites have extensive libraries, but the one you end up using will most likely depend on your budget.

This bears repeating: when in doubt, always consult a lawyer. A short call or email to your retained legal counsel or service will ultimately cost you a whole lot less than damages if you are sued. Just don’t take the risk!

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Digital Marketing

How to Create a Usable, Workable Customer Persona

We talk a lot in marketing about knowing who your target audience is, but in many cases we don’t dig much deeper than age ranges, geographic locations, and interests.  All of this is great, but it still produces a picture that often requires significant customization and adjustments after the fact. Trial and error, if you will.

What if you drilled down further and developed a customer persona, or an avatar of sorts. A sort of laser-targeted picture of the people you really want to sell to or work with? That’s not just an interesting idea – it’s quickly becoming a must.

Here’s what you need to know:

What is a Customer Persona?

Customer personas are fictional. We all know that, but they can be based on some of the data you’ve collected in your marketing research. They represent a creative way of taking your ideas about your target demographic and envisioning a more detailed representation of what those people really mean to you and your organization. This deeper level of understanding will help you to better target your marketing by developing more creative campaigns that are truly appealing to each segment of your market.

You should, for the purposes of this exercise, always create both a positive and a negative persona. The negative persona will help your marketing team clarify exactly what type of customer you don’t want to attract. This is just as important as the positive buyer persona, as it will ensure your marketing dollars end up in exactly the right place.

Sit Down and Create the Customer Persona

In an ideal world, you’ll have more than one buyer persona; even three or more. Create as many as you need to in order to properly represent the people in your target market. Inject a little imagination into the process. Your personas should have names, ages, jobs, behavioral patterns, background stories, and hobbies. They might even have some not-so-appealing personality attributes, fears, and challenges.

The first thing you need to do is take a look at your current customer base and divide them into groups. Evaluate your current marketing strategy and determine what your main targets have been in terms of demographics, age, ability, or even need for your product. Choose your three biggest performing groups; those will be the ones you develop personas for first.

Gathering Data for a Customer Persona

What information have you already gathered about the people in your chosen groups? Are they subscribed to your customer newsletter? Have they been answering survey questions on your website? Does your marketing team have information they’ve been gathering, either digitally or via telephone calls? This is the starter data you need.

If you don’t yet have much information, there are a variety of ways to get it. Start by adding a question to your newsletter sign-up form (or another embedded form on your site), and then tailor the question asked to be non-invasive, yet categorizing. For example, if you sell pet supplies, you might ask if they have dogs, cats, or both.

If you’re marketing to business owners, the type of relevant question will obviously change. Instead, you might query how many employees they have, how much they make each year, or how much they spend on certain services.

Once you have your categories, conduct surveys or interviews with the customers and referrals in each of them. Remember that people are much more likely to answer your questions if you are upfront about the fact that you aren’t trying to sell them anything (at least, not right now). Be polite, thank them for their past purchases, appreciate their interest, and just get straight to the point.

Some will say no, others will be gracious. C’est la vie in the marketing world. If you want to improve your chances, think about adding an incentive that’s good enough to inspire participation without netting you fake answers for free stuff. Small gift cards, discounts, and swag work well.

How many interviews do you need to do? Usually, just a handful for each category. Stop calling people if things become too predictable – for example, if they’re all giving the exact same answer to the same question. Getting the same info multiple times so often that you can predict a pattern is a sign you’re ready to move forward.

How to Dig Deeper and Get Creative

Now, it’s time to get creative. Sit down and ask yourself a series of questions about the person who would best represent each of these groups. Try these on for size:

  • What is my buyer’s age and gender; what generation is he/she part of?
  • Is my buyer single or married; with kids or without?
  • Does my buyer have a happy home life?
  • What type of education does my buyer have?
  • What type of job does my buyer have?
  • What is my buyer’s average income?
  • Does my buyer like their job?
  • Does he/she have any work-related challenges?
  • Does my buyer have future career goals?
  • Does my buyer own or rent their home?
  • Does my buyer like and use technology?
  • Does my buyer like communicating via email, social media, or some other method (e.g., telephone)?
  • What daily challenges does my buyer face?
  • What other roles does my buyer play in his/her life?
  • Is my buyer an employee, a student, a caregiver, or a parent?

 

You may ask some of these questions in your interviews already. Or, you can fill in the gaps with other forms of research. People are generally pretty happy to participate in research, but you should always give the option to opt out of questions about gender, age, or race. Why? Because they can be misperceived as discriminatory, even if that’s the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.

What to Do with Your Personas

What are you going to do with your brand new buyer personas? First, you’re going to pass them on to your marketing team so that they can create dedicated ad campaigns targeting your persona groups. The more you can tailor your ad to the persona in mind, the more they’ll identify with it and respond when they see it.

The other thing you’re going to do is use your personas to train your sales and customer service teams. The more they are familiar with the people they’re speaking to, the better they will understand their actual needs. They’ll also be better prepared to deal with their objections without sounding like they’re reading canned responses from a script.

Give each of your personas a name – literally, a first and last name. Consider them characters that represent your audience, not just a demographic. Embrace them as part of your team because there’s so much they can teach you.

Remember; your personas may evolve and change over the time just as your audience evolves and changes. This is okay! The more complete your persona relationship, the more useful it will become when it comes time to design your campaigns.

At the end of the day, it’s all about having fun, being creative, and getting results from just being the kind of business who really wants to know their target market. And when customers feel like you really know them, they’re more likely to be loyal, passing on great leads.

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Digital Marketing

How to Get Useful High-Quality Leads from Your Customers

Looking for new leads isn’t every business owner’s favorite task. It’s time-consuming, and some people are just uncomfortable cold-calling, following up with strangers, and networking in general. All of those are issues you should try to overcome, but we’ll talk about strategies to help you meet that particular goal another day.

In the meantime, let’s get back to the point: leads. You have one thing in common with every other business owner you meet – you all have current and past customers, and both can be an incredible source of referrals if you use them right.

The Pitfalls of Asking for Leads

Unfortunately, that’s also where most businesses get it wrong. It’s really common for marketers to either ask for leads in the wrong way or avoid asking all together, assuming if someone wants to provide a referral they’ll take action on their own.

That’s a problem. Sure, your customers will likely refer people to you out of a sheer desire to help (you or them) once in a while, but most just don’t ever think of it. The second their exchange with you ends, they forget you exist.

So here’s where the quandary exists. You want to remind your customers to make referrals, but you also don’t want to make them feel forced or pushed, nor do you want to appear desperate. Here’s a few strategies for getting it right.

Expectations and Referral Programs

Start by creating a formal referral program for your business. Build it into your processes, giving it the most visibility at times when customers are the most pleased, rather than just asking every customer for a review. Hell hath no fury like a customer asked to refer their friends right after you manage to frustrate them into leaving.

Instead of focusing on the referrals, focus on your service. Customers who have a great experience are more likely to share your value with others. But it’s about so much more than just being “good;” you need to exceed their expectations every single time. Optimize, tweak, and improve until you get it right.

Once you’re sure your service is on point, it’s time to focus on creating loyalty and inspiring growth within your referral program. Clients who receive good customer service will remain loyal to you over time. Loyalty translates out into a willingness to refer their peers.

Define Your Ideal Customer

Spend some time determining who your ideal client really is. Do they work in a certain niche or have a certain revenue value? Do they have a unique need you can fulfill? If you can answer these and other demographic-specific questions, you’ll be able to find the unique motivators that drive people to refer in the first place. This makes it easier for you to target the people you ask for leads and referrals.

Review Your Existing Client Base

Who are your best customers? Make a list of the clients or customers you find easy to work with, even when times are tough. Depending on the nature of your business, this list could be as short as a few people or hundreds of thousands of individuals long. It’s all valuable!

Remember: like minds tend to stick together. Friends of your best customers usually have similar shopping styles, interaction styles, and personalities. If you ask an ideal client for a referral, you will probably receive a lead that meets your ideal customer criteria.

Ask for Social Media Reviews

Social sharing is great for exposure, but soliciting reviews is quickly becoming a grey-area tactic. While it used to be recommended that you offer a client a discount or reward for leaving reviews on certain platforms, this practice could now do more harm than good based on changing review platform rules. For example, Amazon is now actively banning companies who pay people, either through cash or products, to create “glowing reviews.”

However, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are a different story. There’s nothing wrong with encouraging people to share positive thoughts. Ask your clients to be social in their sharing. Have them post  photo on Facebook or Instagram with a short blurb about their experiences. Make sure you ask them to make the post public and to tag you and/or your business in the description.

Take Advantage of Positive Opportunities

Keep your eyes open for opportunities to ask for referrals. The best time to ask for a lead is directly after you really please someone, land a new account, or generally experience significant success. People with recent positive experiences or outcomes are more likely to feel happy and motivated – more motivated than someone who is feeling neutral or upset over a loss.

You can create your own opportunities for positive feedback. Try using SurveyMonkey to send the occasional customer feedback survey to your clients. Ask them for their feedback and really pay attention to what they have to say. If a customer chooses to leave a name and gives you glowing remarks, take the time to thank them and ask if they know anyone else you could help. You might even ask a direct survey question about whether or not the client is likely to offer a referral.

Utilize Your Content Marketing Strategies

Your content marketing strategies are critical. They play an enormous role in helping you to land  clients, especially within the online sphere. You continue to create great content to distribute via your email list, but are you encouraging your readers to share your content with others? Adding a simple prompt encouraging your customers to share with a friend will grow your email list so you can nurture them as new leads.

Don’t Forget to Make Referrals

Giving referrals to others shows you are invested in their success. Take a look at your own clients and determine whether or not you know anyone who could use their services. Showing you value and trust their business enough to offer a lead will make a memorable impact. When they come across someone who needs the service you have to offer, they’ll probably return the favor.

Offer Incentives

No matter what type of business you run, offering incentives for referrals shows gratitude and tells your audience you aren’t just asking for something for nothing. The key is to make sure you are offering something your client really wants. It might be as simple as a $5 gift card to a coffee shop or as complex as a free year of service after so many referrals. Whichever approach you use, just ensure it has value in their eyes.

Here’s a tip: give the incentive for the referral alone, regardless of whether or not you close the sale. The sale of your product or service is your responsibility; it isn’t fair to try and put it on customers in exchange for a lead. In fact, that’s exactly why some multi-level marketing companies get such a bad rep. Make sure your clients know you appreciate the efforts they’ve made on your behalf – full-stop, without asking for more.

It takes a lot of time and effort to run a business. Leveraging your existing relationships to create new leads is one of the smartest time-saving, streamlining strategies in prospecting. What your customers say about you speaks volumes about how they feel about you and how well you’re doing. Capitalize on the opportunities presented and use them to grow your business.

Growing your business isn’t easy, but I believe SEO is still one of the best ways to succeed in today’s complicated online world. From technical SEO to content, I’m always available if you need a hand. Reach out and connect here.

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Digital Marketing

Leveraging Video Marketing: Why You Shouldn’t Ignore YouTube

There’s no doubt about it – video marketing is huge. No matter what social site or website you land on, you’re bound to see at least a few videos, ranging from vlogs to LIVE sessions to carefully constructed advertisements. Video gives marketers the opportunity to grab the attention of their audiences with short, creative bursts of information, and there’s no end to the litany of unique things you can do to stand out.

As video marketing grows, some people are shying away from YouTube, instead looking towards platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and others. I’m here to tell you that if you’re going to spend time on video marketing, you need to leverage all available platforms.

And YouTube, despite what you may have heard, is far from dead.

Why You Need Video Marketing

According to Forbes, “By 2019, online content will consist of 80 percent video marketing, and mobile consumption of video content continually rises by 100 percent annually.” Those numbers are astounding. Consumers who respond to visuals are retaining more of the details they get from video ads and up to 90 percent admit that video has an impact on their purchasing decisions.

Properly utilized, video marketing can have a huge impact on your business’s organic SEO rankings. A properly optimized video can increase your odds of a front page Google listing 53x. It’s also a lot easier to measure the reach of video content versus plain text. Sure, you can see how many times a blog post was visited, but with video you can track how many times a visitor watched the video, exactly where they stopped watching, and much more. The amount of feedback you can get will help you to better tailor your future campaigns.

Video, in general, drives engagement. Audiences, regardless of niche, love to interact with videos. They will share, like, comment, and otherwise interact with videos they love (and sometimes hate) more than any other type of content, including photos.

Facebook Versus YouTube

While Forbes indicates that 49 percent of consumers consume video on Facebook, another 32% still turn to YouTube. Considering YouTube is still considered the second largest search engine next to Google itself, there’s no reason at all to ignore the platform when creating your online video marketing campaigns.

Youtube and Facebook have both seen huge successes and there is no question as to whether or not video marketing is a passing trend (hint: it’s not). As a matter of fact, YouTube has surpassed live television in terms of overall popularity. Approximately 61% of the American population uses YouTube regularly. The site sees a billion unique visitors each month, globally consuming over 6 billion hours of video. The site is available in 75 countries and 61 languages. That type of reach has huge potential.

Even if you get a ton of engagement from LIVE videos on Facebook, you can leverage the content you’ve created by downloading it, making some simple edits, and uploading it to your YouTube channel as a replay. Anything you create for one channel can be duplicated for cross-promotion on another.

How to Rank Higher on YouTube

Of course, the methods you’ll use to rank and gain engagement are different from channel to channel. As you do create a larger content library on YouTube you’ll want to make sure your videos are properly optimized so that they’ll continue ranking, earning you new views and subscribers (and the future potential for monetization within the platform if you haven’t earned it already).

So what should you do?

Keep your Videos Short

Anything from a minute to three is considered golden. You can go longer from time to time, but the most engaged with videos are usually three minutes or less.

Contribute Something Educational

Don’t make videos that are full of fluff. Be creative about sharing an incredibly useful tip or piece of information your users will eat up. Video marketing isn’t about being salesy. It’s about adding value and educating the public. The sales will follow naturally when your audience realizes your product or service can solve a problem in their lives.

Aim for Quality

Quality beats quantity when it comes to video. Smaller businesses with a cozy personalized strategy can get away with live videos in well-lit rooms with good sound and a stable base for the camera. Larger businesses will need to be more competitive, with good video equipment or a strong video marketing team. The sharper you look, the better your response.

Improve Your Headlines

Your title matters as much on video as it does on a blog or other written work. Keep it short and sweet and try to naturally include a relevant keyword. This is important to the SEO and overall visibility of your video. Never leave a video with a standard numerical file name or title; it will decimate your ability to rank.

Write Clear Descriptions and Add Tags

YouTube’s description box is there for a reason. Use it. Your description should be written for the reader, but should also include some carefully placed keywords. Gloss over what’s included in your video, but try to keep it to a maximum of 3 lines. Less is more.  Use the tag section for all of your short and long-tail keywords.

Customize Your Video Thumbnail

Make sure your video contains a clear thumbnail image that will look good on any size mobile device. The thumbnail needs to clearly depict the content of your video and should be high-resolution. You can include the thumbnail within the video or, if your account allows, upload a custom thumbnail after the fact.

The CTA Matters, Too

Just as with any other type of content, make sure your YouTube video has a clear call-to-action. Ask them to subscribe to your channel, like the video, click the link in the description to sign up for your newsletter. No one in your audience is a mind reader. You need to tell them what you want them to do – and they’ll do it!

Video marketing is growing and YouTube isn’t going anywhere at all. Utilize as many video marketing platforms as you find appropriate for your business, but don’t ignore this one. It’s guaranteed to make a measurable difference.

As always, if you’re stuck or struggling to find your next best digital marketing move, I’m available for consultations. Follow this link to reach out. Let’s connect!

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Digital Marketing

Is Mobile Gaming the Next Digital Marketing Frontier?

Most of us have a smartphone. Some of us, particularly those of us under the age of 40, have multiple smartphones, tablets, computers, laptops, Kindles and other electronic devices. Our devices are integral to everyday life at this point. They help us do business, they let us relax, and they encourage is to connect with the world.

The result of all this focus on mobile devices has been a dramatic increase in brands utilizing mobile apps for outreach. Whether it’s to market produces and services or simply to raise brand awareness, there’s tremendous opportunity for brands to get and stay noticed when they branch out to mobile.

Here’s where things get weird: it isn’t necessarily mobile advertising making the most impact – it’s mobile gaming. As Digital Marketing Magazine reports, it’s rapidly becoming the number one brand advertising and awareness platform for marketers, even surpassing functional apps. What’s causing this spike?

By the Numbers

Before we get into exactly why this trend is happening, let’s take a look at the numbers driving change. According to IPSOS’s report, “SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE: Why the growth of mobile apps is good news for brands”, around 90 percent of mobile device users now use apps. Given that 95 percent of all Americans now own smartphones or similar devices, we can assume that means the mobile market contains just over 300 million people.

Next, consider that the global games market itself is expanding. Studies like this one suggest that mobile gaming now holds up to 42 percent of the gaming market, which is now worth around $100 billion every single year. There’s potential for money-making, brand awareness, and outreach all in the same niche.

Kind of shocking, isn’t it? Get into mobile gaming and you just might have the potential to reach 300 million people (in the U.S. alone) and make money at the same time. That’s the heart of what’s driving more advertisers to mobile gaming, but it’s just the beginning of the story.

Evolution and Growth

Gaming isn’t new – in fact, the first gaming console was the Magnavox Odyssey Video Game Unit in 1972. But it wasn’t until the Internet as we know it today came to be that online gaming really became a possibility – at least enough of a possibility for advertisers to take notice. Even then, advertisers didn’t really jump in feet first; that change came just a few short years ago.

Eventually, smartphones and computer technology reached a point where it was possible for advertisers to place notifications and ads within their game. Suddenly, it was possible to reach an entire growing sector of people in a way that was entirely new and broke free of tired, old spam tactics through browsers.

Around five years ago, mobile technology took a significant leap. We began to see incredible advances, including the integration of augmented reality, which came with augmented reality ads. We’re currently seeing the same advances in VR.

Creating and rolling out apps for mobile platforms also became more accessible, and more developers got involved with making gaming apps. More marketers saw the potential for everything from brand awareness to straight-out money making through games and gamified branded apps or in-game content.

Which takes us to where we are now: more people than ever use mobile devices, and the vast majority download and use apps. Moving into mobile gaming is a must for businesses because there’s a significant corner of the market in this sphere; it makes no more sense to ignore it than, say, social media marketing.

Why Mobile Gaming?

Hard statistics and history aside, what is it about mobile gaming specifically that makes it such a compelling resource for digital marketers? And how are digital marketers using it, especially when they themselves aren’t necessarily in the entertainment industry?

First, understand that games are inherently more engaging than traditional forms of advertising, especially for people under the age of 30. Unlike text, banner, image, or flash ads, (or really even some forms of email marketing), they hook and hold attention much more readily. If the game in question is highly targeted to a specific audience, it’s possible to ramp that engagement factor up even higher.

The reason many people find games so engaging is that most are built on the human concept of risk vs. reward and skillbuilding. We all know the feeling of tackling a new skill, activity, or sport, and really succeeding for the first time – it feels good to learn, grow, and adapt, especially if you’re rewarded when you succeed. And, as you might expect, most games function through progressive skill-building that consistently rewards players for improving.

Lastly, there’s one other major driving force behind the gaming and advertising romance. Games provide something of value to the end user – an elimination of boredom, an exciting storyline, fast-paced competitive action, or even socialization (in the case of multiplayer games). That makes the transaction more of an exchange, rather than one-way marketing to a lead. They get something, you get something, and the whole marketing process feels slightly more human.

The Digital Marketing Connection

When someone plays a mobile game designed specifically for the purposes of marketing, they’re much more likely to be receptive to an advertisement or suggestion to buy, especially if it ties directly into the product or service. If the game is well-made, it will place these calls to action in the right place at the right time without being overly intrusive.

Digital marketers can capitalize on this in a few different ways. One, they can bank on providing something of value to end users by creating minigames or gamifying their processes. Wish’s “Deal Dash,” where the user spins a wheel to unlock a certain amount of discounted products, is a great example.

Another great example is “Farmville.” If it feels like it’s been around forever, that’s because it has: Zynga first launched the Facebook version in 2009. Over that time, they’ve used in-game items with branded names to raise awareness for many different brands, including Green Giant and Dr. Pepper.

At one point, you could also “like” Bing search to gain in-game cash or credits, too, subtly driving attention to Bing when it was seriously struggling against Google. Other games, including Sim City, Pokemon Go, have also allowed brands to snap up advertising space and grab attention in-game while players are already enjoying themselves. Consuming advertising in this manner feels more like being rewarded than being sold a product.

It isn’t just small-time gaming studios capitalizing, either. Even the U.S. Army, Nike, and M&M’s have all used gaming to further their campaigns.

Gamification Counts, Too

And then you have gamification – the process of adding game-like motivators and elements to a pre-existing business process. These mobile apps are everywhere, and include most reward programs, most loyalty programs, and a whole swarth of recruiting and social loyalty platforms. Leads build brand awareness, loyalty, and foster positive feelings toward the brand when they “play; they’re rewarded for their attention in the form of points, inspirational messages, prizes, or in some cases, by competing against other users to be in the “top spot.”

Gamification doesn’t always come in the form of a concrete and separate game. Instead, it’s often integrated with the business’s generalized app as a small section of the app or an adjunct program. Don’t assume this means it isn’t as powerful; used correctly, it certainly can be every bit as powerful as a full-on game. And it’s a great way to improve your chances with the incredible 1.2 billion mobile gamers who actively use and rely on mobile gaming apps for everything from fun to education.

The Wrap: It’s the Future

The takeaway is this: games are engaging, and even simple gamification can make the most boring sales funnel or process interesting, especially for millennials and Generation Y or Z. These demographics feel more engaged when they feel like they’re receiving something of value in the exchange, like being being rewarded for their patronage.

You don’t need to rush out and develop your own multi-platform gaming studio and go for the big bucks. You don’t even need to develop an entirely separate gaming app for your campaigns. But you should consider how you can use games and/or gamification to improve campaigns, CTR, conversions, and success rates. It’s out there, and it’s only growing – even just being aware of it is a step in the right direction.

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