In 2013 there were more than 50 billion app downloads from Google’s Android market. In 2014, Apple hit 75 billion app downloads. It’s predicted that in 2017, there will be more than 268 billion downloads, resulting in $77 billion revenue for their developers.
I think it’s safe to say that mobile apps are seriously big business. But what does this mean for marketers?
First of all, it means that if your company doesn’t already have an app, you should probably consider designing one – especially if your competitors are.
It also means that if you do have an app, while downloads and use (in the market generally) will grow, so will your competition. Consequently, if you want to make your mark in the mobile app market, you’re going to have to up your game when it comes to driving traffic to your app and boosting downloads.
Consumers trust recommendations from people they know above all else. This usually means friends, family, and colleagues.
However the growth of platforms like YouTube and Instagram has led to a massive wave of new influencers in all manner of niche industries, many of whom boast huge followings. Their recommendations are dictating what lots of us wear, buy, and do. They influence where we travel and how we get there. The music we listen to. Even the food we do, and don’t, eat. Their influence over the behavior of consumers is immeasurable, but immense.
Take, for example, “yogi enthusiast” Adriene Mishler whose YouTube channel “Yoga with Adriene” boasts just short of a million followers, and whose videos regularly top a million views.
Or AsapSCIENCE whose fun, lively, and unique approach to science has seen them amass more than four million YouTube subscribers in just over four years.
The fact is that while most of us do still value the opinion of those closest to us (in a list of “most trustworthy sources of information” a UK survey placed bloggers third, after family and friends, respectively), influencer marketing is a very, very powerful tool.
However, getting started with influencer marketing – and, more importantly, getting it right – is easier than said than done. You might think that picking a handful of influencers and sending your products will get the job done, but I’m sorry to tell you: it’s not that easy.
As with all forms of marketing, getting the most out of influencer marketing means planning, strategizing, monitoring, and measuring. Stick with me while I take you through 10 strategies for getting influencer marketing right. Continue reading →Influencer Marketing: 10 Strategies for Getting It Right
I usually speak at 10 conferences a year on Growth, SEO, Content Marketing & SaaS Marketing. If you’d like me to speak at your next event, conference, worksop or webinar please email me.
Nov 30th & Dec 1st: SaaS North – Ottawa, Canada on TBD
Dec 7th & 8th: Growth Marketing Conference – San Francisco, California on TBD
Overview:
My presentations combine real life examples (with data/analytics), storytelling and actionable steps leaving the attendees with the inspiration & motivation to take action on everything they’ve learned.
a pleasure to listen to @sujanpatel at #howtoweb. inspiring talk, plus an awesome presentation to take home & get to work
The stickiness of your website is the differentiating factor between a visitor and a customer, between visits and an audience, and between true ROI and traffic that just won’t convert.
Over the years, I’ve seen first hand as hundreds of startups have come and gone, and do you know what every single one of them had in common? A distinct lack of stickiness on their website traffic, software, or product.
Don’t let me see you make that same mistake!
There’s a direct correlation between the amount of time people spend on a website and the chance they’ll convert. Simply put, if you want to run a website that makes money, you need to have a website that makes visitors want to stick around. You need to be sticky.
Join me for a webinar co-hosted with Sprout Social this Thursday at 10am PT/1pm ET. I’ll go over how to conduct a social media audit and how it helped me increase my social media traffic by 300% Click here to sign up.
The 2015 B2C content marketing survey from the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs found that 77% of B2C companies are currently using content marketing.
Yet just 8% of those stated that their content marketing efforts were “very effective” while 5% said they were “not at all effective”.
Overall, just 37% of B2C content marketers said their efforts were “effective” (i.e. rated them a 4 or a 5). These numbers may sound small, but historical data suggests that marketers are seeing better results than ever: three years ago, just 32% of B2C content marketers rated their efforts as effective, while 34% said the same last year.
When it comes to starting an Ecommerce store you know how to make your own website. That’s the easy part. There are so many drag and drop store builders that make this a piece of cake. The complex part is marketing. You need to choose the right methods and then build a strategy around them. You should decide whether to implement more expensive tactics such as ads and get instant results or focus on long term methods such as using ecommerce SEO tools and wait for results or use a mix of all
In addition, 69% of B2C content marketers are creating more content today than they were a year ago. That’s great to hear, but what we really want is for more businesses (and their marketers) to be stating that the content they’re creating is either “effective” or (ideally) “very effective”.
So what is it that those 8% of content marketers are doing differently to the rest of us? Do they have better ideas? Better execution? A better plan? A bigger budget?
When you create content, how long do you spend (on average) creating it, and how much time do you spend promoting it? 60% creation and 40% promotion? 40% creation and 60% promotion? An even 50/50 split?
How about 20% creation, and 80% promotion? Sound farfetched?
“The secret to building a blog with a raving fan base that’s ready to buy what you sell has nothing to do with how much content you create. It, instead, has to do with how good you are getting you are at getting your content into the hands of more people.”
The logic behind Derek’s rule is that it can be really difficult for bloggers and businesses, particularly those that are new to the game, to find an audience for their content. This means that they need to work extra hard; not necessarily at creating that content, but at getting people to consume and share it.
Sounds about right to me. Some people seem to believe that if they create content, the readers will come flocking to their site, share their content, probably buy something, and hey, presto – that content’s been a success.
Unfortunately, you probably already know that that just doesn’t work in the real world. Content without the marketing is not content marketing – it’s just content. And unless you already have a very large, dedicated, and active audience, creating content without marketing is very, very unlikely to get you the results you want. Continue reading →Applying the 80/20 Rule to Your Content Creation and Promotion Strategies
I’m going to start this one by stating the freaking obvious: customers like to try before they buy. Would you make a down payment on a brand new car without going for a test drive? Of course you wouldn’t. So why should your customers be expected to sign up for your product or service without taking it for a test run?
Of course, making a free trial available is only half the battle. The next step is getting your visitors to actually take advantage of it. Stick with me – we’re going to look at 15 growth hacking techniques that’ll help you to boost the number of visitors that opt to take up your free trial: Continue reading →15 Techniques to Increase Free Trial Signups
Look at the influence Pantone has on which colors go in and out of fashion. Or Oprah Winfrey and her book club (in 2011 it was estimated that 55 million book sales could be attributed to the club). How about the influence bloggers (and more recently vloggers) have on buying habits? Research Now found that “84% of consumers make purchases after reading about a product or service on a blog”.
If you’re able to propel yourself to “authority” status, you too can reap the benefits of being able to influence consumer behavior.
So what makes someone an “authority”? Is it being the smartest mind in their field? The biggest innovator in their industry? While those credentials certainly help, the short answer is… no.
The people that succeed at becoming authorities are those that excel at marketing themselves and their abilities. One way to do that, as you might have guessed already, is through content.
On his Quicksprout blog, Neil Patel once compared content marketing and SEO to “peanut butter and jelly,” saying, “you can eat them on their own, and they are delicious… but what happens when you combine them? They complement each other, right?”
Even if, for some unfathomable reason you don’t actually like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (if you have a peanut allergy, I’ll let it slide), you’ll probably still understand the analogy: on their own, peanut butter and jelly are both pretty awesome, but put them together and you have… culinary perfection.
The same can be said of content marketing and SEO (except, perhaps, the culinary part). They can each exist in isolation, but the best and most effective online marketing strategies contain both.
Many of the more technical aspects of SEO (I’m thinking on-page here) are as important today as they ever were (if not, even more so). Best practices in this area haven’t really changed that much, either.
Off-page SEO, however (namely, link-building), has evolved exponentially. Back in the day, you could rely on automated directory listings and article marketing links to see you climb up the rankings.
Today, though, content marketing is a fundamental link-building tactic for most SEOs, and while link-building might not be the only reason marketers would choose to invest in content, it is a pretty big one.
What does it take to retain your customers month after month? Is it as simple as offering a cutting-edge, market-leading product?
Some people still seem to believe that “if you build it, they will come” (or, in this case, stay). But that’s not enough. Often, the market-leading products aren’t the “best” products – they’re just the products that have more money, greater distribution, and, almost always, better marketing behind them.
Remember Betamax? It’s widely believed that the eventual market leader, VHS, was inferior to Sony’s videotape format. However, a lack of support from hardware companies, limited distribution, high costs, and limitations with the technology itself (primarily, the initial 60-minute recording limit) meant that Sony quickly lost that round – despite producing the superior product.
These lessons are even more pertinent today – especially for the majority of SaaS companies, where competition tends to be especially fierce.
Stick with me, and we’ll take a look at 25 growth hacking strategies that’ll help you to stop churn in its tracks and keep your customers right where you want them – with you. Continue reading →25 Ways to Stop Churn in Its Tracks
