It’s almost Halloween, a time of year when our thoughts turn to things that keep us up at night.
We’re not talking about hauntings or vampires, but the types of things that are frightening mostly to people in the marketing business.
Here are 13 statistics, courtesy of Hubspot, designed to scare your boss into adopting better marketing habits.
The lesson here: Traditional forms of advertising aren’t working the way they once did.
5. Email click through rates improve by 14 percent when the e-mails are personalized. Conversation rates for personalized messages go up 10 percent.
6. Among adults under 34, 62 percent say they are willing to share their location in return for more relevant content.
7. On the flip side of that: a lack of relevant content can drive costumers away from websites. 73 percent of online consumers say they get frustrated when content – ads, promotions, offers – appears that’s not connected to their interests.
9. More than 13 percent of web traffic comes from mobile devices, and more than a third of all media consumption time happens on a mobile device.
10. 52.4 percent of smartphone users in the U.S. use their phone for shopping while inside a brick-and-mortar store.
11. E-commerce now accounts for 1 out of 10 retail dollars, and thanks to mobile, it’s growing at a rate 4 times than traditional retail.
12. Twenty-eight percent of all U.S. smartphone users also own a tablet.
13. And finally, the most mind-blowing statistic of all: More people on earth own a cell phone (5.1 billion) than own a toothbrush (4.2 billion).
The lesson here: A smart marketing strategy involves giving people the right content at the right time on the right device.
These might be daunting statistics if you’re tied to the world of outbound marketing, but there’s no need to panic. We’re happy to share a few marketing techniques you can use:
Create Great Content
Content marketing is a great way to gain an online audience. By content marketing, we mean creating original content, the types of things that can inform and entertain leads and turn them into customers, and also help existing customers. Content marketing can take on various forms: blog posts, articles on your company website, videos, email blasts, e-books and white papers.
Create A Community On Social Media
You probably have a Facebook or Twitter account for your company, but consider branching out. Some businesses have done well on platforms like Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram. LinkedIn should be key if you’re a B2B company, as should YouTube. Use it to talk about your products/services, and to show your employees at work.
The important thing is to also use social media to converse with your audience. Answer questions, thank them for their compliments, and see what they’re saying to each other. Those conversations might help drive future marketing efforts.
Every Picture Tells A Story
Social media marketing is becoming more and more image oriented. (Just look at sites like Buzzfeed.) Posts that include images tend to get a better response. On a similar note, you should try to have your blog posts populated with a lot of images – or infographics – to better explain your product or services to your customers.
Go Mobile
By 2017, 87 percent of all internet-connected devices on the market will be either tablets or smartphones. And the past year, Google has set up a new rule: if your site’s not mobile friendly, it won’t rank as high in search results.
Those are two good reasons to make sure your site is set up to work on mobile devices.
If you want advice on content marketing, social media or making your site more responsive to mobile devices, contact IQnection. We can help you banish the ghosts of old marketing from your site.
