Category: Marketing

  • Micro Influencers – Should You Include Them In Your Marketing Strategy?

    Micro Influencers – Should You Include Them In Your Marketing Strategy?

    The more digital marketing becomes popular, the more it is getting tougher to reach the potential customers. What explains this irony is the increasing number of choices before the consumers that bring down their loyalty to a brand.

    This unique situation is presenting marketers both opportunities and threats, and driving them to adopt new methods to protect and expand their customer base.

    Trust and loyalty make the foundation of brand building. Again, unless it’s a brand, you can’t expect loyalty or trust. Big companies resort to large-scale advertising for a solution to this catch-22 situation. But how can small companies cope with them with limited marketing budgets?

    Digital marketing provides the solution, rendering the perfect level playing field for small businesses with its flurry of techniques and promoting entrepreneurship.

    And, trust & loyalty continue, as ever, to be the well-defined goal of marketing, with huge amounts being spent every year through the traditional marketing processes just for that. But the problem is that trust & loyalty are very private feelings that can’t be won over through spending only, you need stronger influence than that, like somebody’s advice whom you adore and trust.

    Social media influencers fit the bill to a big extent for this purpose at social media platforms and have been roped in by the marketers to start a new branch of marketing called influencer marketing.

    There are four categories of social media influencers –

    • Mega
    • Macro
    • Micro
    • Nano.

    The combined experience in influencer marketing reveals that micro-influencers are the most effective group that gives the highest ROI.

    Who are Micro-Influencers?

    Micro-influencers are those individuals who have a follower count of 10,000 to 100,000 people. These people are well-known in their field and have exceptionally high levels of interaction with their audiences. The reason for their high engagement level is their relatively smaller follower base only. Because studies reveal that the fewer followers a person has, the stronger is their involvement.

    Why micro-influencers are better equipped to help marketing?

    Micro-influencers aren’t your standard public personalities, specialists, or celebrities who have millions of followers. They specialize in a single vertical and exclusively share content related to that area. Because their audiences are hyper-engaged, partnering with a highly relevant micro-influencer can drastically increase reach and user engagement.

    There lies the advantage of the micro-influencers – their high level of authority in a field and ability to provide quality guidance earn them high respect, trust, and loyalty from the followers. Their recommendations can break the wall of resistance that the advertisements cannot. This is where word-of-mouth marketing takes the center stage by these content creators.

    • Customers trust a micro-influencer 92 percent more than a standard ad or celebrity endorsement.
    • Over 82 percent of consumers are likely to purchase something recommended by a micro-influencer.
    • Better control over the followers – since the number of followers is moderate, it is easier for the influencers to monitor and engage fairly easily and promptly. In fact, nano influencers are granted sources for high engagement.
    • Easier to identify the right audience group – it is easier to scan the profiles and make a group of the right demographics, and then engage with them.
    • More creative content ideas – marketers can exchange their piece of content ideas with the influencers; Micro and nano influencers can be your partner in your marketing plan to meet the marketing goals.
    • Less costly – charges for the micro and nano influencers are comparatively on the lower side as compared to other marketing campaigns.

    How to find micro-influencers?

    Obviously, finding the right micro-influencers is not an easy task, and removes half of the headache of the marketers when they find them. Marketers hunt for relevant influencers where their target audience hangs out(online & offline).

    Instagram: If your target audience is on Instagram, one should start their search with relevant hashtags to find the highly engaging content creators.

    YouTube: When trying to find micro-influencers on YouTube, one can start their search with a search on YouTube. Go into the micro-influencers channel’s about us page to find their email address there. There are few third party applications like FameBit, VidRocket, InfluiCity etc that can help you find micro-influencers on YouTube.

    Facebook: Finding Facebook micro-influencers is not that difficult. They can be easily found using the search functionality of Facebook, or by checking active members in the niche target Facebook groups. Implementing social listening tools also helps to narrow down the search for Facebook micro-influencers

    Ascertain that a micro-influencer has a high level of engagement with their audience. Check analytics like comments, shares, likes, and queries, among others. It will have a significant impact on the success of your influencer campaign. Set a target engagement rate (10% is a decent starting point) and see if a micro-influencer can meet it.

    Micro-influencer marketing platforms

    With the burgeoning growth of micro-influencer marketing there has developed the need for platforms that can help the agencies or brands to manage working with the micro-influencers in a more informed manner.

    Influencer Marketing Platforms are basically software solutions that consist of discovery tools, massive databases, and clever algorithms to assist the brands and agencies in their quest for the right micro-influencers in their product group.

    Here are the top influencer marketing platforms in India.

    • Plixo
    • OPA
    • Influencer.in
    • PulpKey
    • Winkl
    • BrandMentions
    • Eleve Media
    • StarNgage
    • Qoruz
    • Blogmint

    How is micro-influencer marketing doing in India?

    India being the third largest social media market in the world is a hotbed of influencer marketing, quite expectedly, with an increasing number of micro-influencers promoting an increasing number of brands. Here are some brands in India that are working with micro-influencers:

    • Mamasearth
    • Vivo
    • OnePlus
    • Ustraa
    • GoPro India

    And Coca Cola too!

    Coca-Cola benefits from long-term influencer partnerships with micro-influencers like Miette Dierckx, who has over 35000 followers and is a travel and cuisine micro-influencer. For many years, she has been developing material for their heritage soda brand. She frequently posts images of herself holding a joint. Long-term influencer connections are an excellent approach to gradually increase reach, engagement, and positive review.

    Micro-influencers on Instagram

    Instagram with its outstanding visual effects, considered to be the biggest playground for the influencers. Here is some tips on how to work with micro-influencers on instagram –

    • Choose an Influencer
    • Establish A Relationship
    • Help Grow Their Following
    • Nurture a Long-Time Connection

    Not all micro-influencers will be a good match for your brand. Even if you find the right influencers they may not be interested to work with you. So keep doing research on instagram to find the good influencers.

    Wrap up

    micro-influencer marketing works best for products like clothing, food, drinks, and the like. Working with lesser-known influencers is a smart, low-cost, and low-risk approach to test your brand and product in front of a limited and targeted audience. You can rapidly determine whether this is a scalable strategy for you by experimenting with a few different influencers who fit your brand

    Source- Fluidscapes
    We are one of the best digital marketing companies in India that provides online reputation management services to all types of organizations. We assist businesses to stay on top of the game by leveraging the latest technologies and breakthroughs in marketing strategies and business processes. Want to grow your business, even more, get in touch with us and we’ll tell you how.

  • Meme Marketing: Top Indian Brands That Are Leveraging Memes In Their Marketing Strategy

    Meme Marketing: Top Indian Brands That Are Leveraging Memes In Their Marketing Strategy

    Why do some things we remember but forget most others? It’s the emotion that makes things special to us and brings up the memories associated with them even after a long time.

    Humour and laughter generate positive emotions on social platforms. You made a mischievous joke and people burst into laughter – this picture will be imprinted in their memory and bring a smile to their faces ever after.

    Social media platforms are particularly known for expressive posts on trending topics that manifest all types of emotions. But unless the topic is sensitive, mostly it is the humorous, satiric, and engaged posts that become viral.

    Social media is flooded with various formats or types of humorous posts – text, infographics, short videos, etc. The latest addition to this list is Internet Memes which have become so popular that some companies are creating NFTs of Internet memes to launch their brands with a bang and also ensure future traction. Today, our topic is this only, memes for marketing. Let’s start with the very basic.

    What is a Meme?

    A meme is an encrypted message wrapped in fun. Formally known as Internet memes, these are usually made of images or videos punched with short texts that triggers fun or laughter to bring home an idea or a message. These cute little crackers spread via social media platforms, e-mails, forums, instant messaging apps, and even news websites.

    The best aspects of Internet memes are its two central attributes – creative reproduction of materials and intertextuality.

    Creative reproduction refers to remixes, parodies, or mashups that explain how memes cause ideas to move between people and cultures in the current events.

    Intertextuality is when one text in a work is linked to other texts in the social and textual matrix in some way.

    What is Meme Marketing?

    Real time marketing has always done experiments with humour in the ad campaigns to make a favourable impression in the minds of the consumers. So why not memes? It’s so powerful yet so inexpensive!

    Actually, the Meme marketing trend caught on in a big way because memes are the fastest growing digital assets spreading across all platforms and channels. Sharp wit, emotions, bizzare images and texts (sometimes non-grammatical) pieces of content help memes go viral in no time.

    Smart marketers are using memes cleverly in their marketing campaign which will help them viraling their brand messages embedded in humour. Memes don’t say anything directly, one has to be witty to enjoy them in their daily lives. The mix of creativity and refined humour is the usp of meme marketing, which helps a brand get practically promoted by the people when its meme becomes viral.

    How is Meme Marketing doing in India?

    Companies who have established a good marketing plan by speaking the language of millennials have been the first to recognise the potential of memes on social media.

    The prevalence of lively pop culture in India is fueling the growing appeal of meme marketing. Many popular memes are based on popular films and television shows. Characters from popular culture have become well-known among India’s many demographics. Several media firms, such as Amazon Prime, Hotstar, ALT Balaji are effectively exploiting the popularity and cross-cultural appeal of such fictitious characters.

    Following are a few leading brands across various fields that adopted meme form of marketing to run some of the spectacular digital marketing campaigns in recent times.

    Zomato

    Zomato definitely deserves the first place on the list due to the great amount of interest and engagement it has created with its “Harmonium Chacha” meme.

    Zomato’s target audience loves spending time on social media and the concept of meme marketing gave the company a great opportunity to connect with them through this funny meme.

    The campaign became an instant hit; it not only received huge likes and shares but also prompted people’s response with humorous comments and return memes.

    The original meme

    One response

    Another meme-

    Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance

    Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance launched a meme called “Thoda Aur Khayaal,” to promote their term product Edelweiss Tokio Life Zindagi Plus and our social media channels were flooded with posts and memes about it.

    Essentially, the goal was to persuade young customers to feel the urgency for life insurance for their family. The combination of humour and emotional element added that X factor that helped the meme go viral instantly.

    Kellogs

    Kellogg’s created a series of memes and postings with the hashtag #PhotoBombWithFills as part of their digital marketing for Valentine’s Day this year. The challenge went viral, and it drew a huge response online.

    Mahindra Blazo X

    Mahindra also devised a unique social media marketing plan that would generate more shares and likes. They came up with a contest using the hashtag #XtraGuaranteed to entice customers.

    Nestle

    Nestle’s Nescafe cold coffee launched hilarious memes featuring their brand ambassador Disha Patani that immediately garnered thousands of comments and shares.

    Even the OTT platforms are leveraging meme marketing to promote their brands and shows while also creating a point of engagement where consumers share memes on their profiles and among their friends.

    Netflix

    Netflix is one of the most effective meme users. Through memes, the brand has been incredibly involved with its social media followers. It has a separate sub-account called ‘Netflix is a joke,’ which is used solely for meme marketing. It not only creates memes, but also encourages users to develop and share their own. As a result, there is a common cultural experience that people may share and discuss and Netflix gains an increased reach and viewership.

    Another meme-

    ALT Balaji

    To entice viewers, ALT Balaji, a streaming channel, chose to promote its upcoming episodes and programmes by distributing hilarious GIFs, memes, and teaser clips. And it was successful!

    So, if you are a regular on social media the above examples definitely made you recall them instantly as each of them created a big buzz. This shows the increasing popularity of memes as a very effective marketing tool to make the best use of the country’s vibrant online user communities.

    Another meme-

    Source- Fluidscapes
    We are one of the best digital marketing companies in India that provides online reputation management services to all types of organizations. We assist businesses to stay on top of the game by leveraging the latest technologies and breakthroughs in marketing strategies and business processes. Want to grow your business, even more, get in touch with us and we’ll tell you how.

  • How Marketing Would Evolve In Next 10 Years?

    How Marketing Would Evolve In Next 10 Years?

    The economy thrives on business and business thrives on marketing. New challenges always come up in businesses, making it interesting to see how marketers embrace emerging technologies to tackle these challenges and ensure growth in the next 10 years.

    But it’s not just the technology that will make all the difference, the bigger challenge will be to understand the consumers. What will constitute the majority of the consumer behavior? Now we are standing in 2021. What will be the nuance and personality quarks of the consumers in the decade that has already started?

    So, it boils down to two distinct areas – demographics and technology – that will drive the evolution going forward in the marketing department. We will address them one by one.

    Demographics

    To make our prediction logical we can take a cue from the current scenario. Going by today’s data most of the purchasing is being done by the Millenials and Gen Z. They may all look young, but their responses to marketing campaigns are not the same.

    Marketers need to maintain a fine balance between the two as they will remain the dominant players for most of this decade before a third group called Gen Alpha attains adulthood towards the end. Let’s take a glance at the three groups and their unique traits –

    Millennials – Born between 1981 – 1994. In 2021 they are people between 27 -40 years of age.

    Gen Z – Born between 1995 – 2009. This means they belong to the age group between 12 – 26 in 2021.

    Gen Alpha – Younger siblings of Gen Z, born between 2010 – 2024, attaining adulthood in 2028.

    While Millennials can pay extra for a better customer experience, Gen Z stresses more on innovations to select a brand.

    Surveys reveal that 76% of the Millenials (against 71% of Gen Z) decide in favor of a company that has rendered a greater customer experience. Gen Z’ ers are more swayed towards newer versions of products and services and the use of digital channels by a company.

    Gen Z is less likely to trust a company than a Millennial

    According to a study in 2020, only 42% of Gen Z revealed to have trust in the companies against 50% of the Millennials. Both numbers have decreased significantly from the data collected in 2018 when 59% of Gen Z and 57% of Millennials said they felt their data wouldn’t be breached.

    Gen Z is less trusting by their nature than the Millenials, and there is not much the companies can do about it.

    Gen Z’ers spend more than the Millennials

    A high percentage of Gen Z is the only child of their parents and raised without any financial struggle, which developed a high spending habit in them. The Millenials in general were raised with siblings and had had no scope for extravagant spending.Gen Z values cutting edge solution whereas Millennials value authenticity more

    At all times, brands should try to be genuine. Those who do so will receive the rewards. Brands that promote transparency and reveal their principles are preferred by Millennials. Gen Z, on the other hand, is even more interested in selecting companies that reflect their values.

    Gen Z responds more to brand marketing than the Millennials

    Gen Z may be willing to pay extra for their favorite brands as a large percentage of them declare their liking for the brands. By contrast, the Millennials mostly show no affinity with any brand. They prefer to celebrate their independence. So the best marketing approach for the Millennials would be not to push for a specific brand.

    Gen Alpha

    Born into technology and affluence this group is the most materially endowed and technologically savvy generation ever. Though it’s impossible to correctly predict the purchasing behaviors of the Alphas, scientists have made the following hypotheses:

    • Trust and authenticity are more likely to influence their buying decisions.
    • Positive-impact or ethical brands are more likely to be purchased by them.
    • Tech-savvy, will respond well to social marketing and trust peer recommendations and is at ease with artificial intelligence.
    • More accepting of others than ever before – and intolerant of those who aren’t.
    • Will anticipate the highest levels of service and fulfillment as a child.

    Technology

    Digital marketing started with SEO marketing over 20 years ago and extended to social media marketing roughly around 2010. Both methods are very much prevalent today and adding new techniques to increase effectiveness. But another very powerful method has appeared by the name of “App Marketing”, which is setting a new direction for marketing on digital platforms.

    So, we can safely bet on these three cardinal approaches to build our marketing strategies going forward in the next 10 years. Let’s see what new trends are making ripples now as precursors to big waves in the future.

    Apps for branding

    Advent of apps has given marketers a unique opportunity to identify the niche segments, decision process, learn their needs, and develop solutions. A business can use this mobile marketing strategy in two ways – 1) by developing an app for itself and 2) through brand partnerships on 3rd party mobile apps

    Although app or mobile marketing is considered to be the future of marketing, the recent surge in competition is making lives difficult for marketers. On top of that, a few recent incidents exposed the data privacy risks in some leading apps. Nevertheless, with the level of buzz it has generated for internet users, one can conclude that app marketing will continue to dominate in the years to come.

    Voice Search

    The Google Voice Search or Voice SEO movement is rapidly gaining traction among online users since it allows for quicker, faster, and more conversational searching than standard query input. The technology is already matured as a few voice assistants are doing great in the home appliance segment.

    Voice search recognizes a voice inquiry and provides the appropriate response. The user is saved from typing the query, which comes as a great help in some compelling situations. We will see a percent increase in future as nearly 27% of web users worldwide are already utilizing mobile voice search.

    Featured Snippets

    The Featured Snippet, often known as no-click search, is the next big thing on the horizon. Featured Snippets are text samples, frequently with photos, from the articles that Google considers to be the most credible answer to a question and hence placed at the top of its search results in a box. Featured Snippets defy keyword-based SEO marketing principles to promote quality content and define a changing trend in content marketing.

    Visual Search

    Another excellent new technology example is Visual Search, which is an alternative to inputting a search term/keyword into Google Search, and is projected to be available in 2021. Users will be able to use Google to search for information on anything by submitting a photograph of the object.

    Visual search is an AI-based solution that, in addition to changing online searching, is poised to give eCommerce marketing a boost. The two most popular tools for integrating visual search technology into our daily lives are Google Lens and Pinterest Lens.

    Video Marketing

    In the digital realm, video marketing has a high engagement quotient. People are consuming video material in a variety of ways, from news feeds to social media and periodicals. During the Covid -19 shutdown, the popularity of videos increased, and it’s likely to continue to do so in 2021.

    Chatbots

    Because of their human-like intelligence, 24/7 availability, ability to recall your whole purchase history, rapid response capacity, and extreme patience, AI-powered Chatbots have become extremely popular in the digital marketing field (friendly and cordial at any stage). However, tailored chats are another feature of Chatbots that has helped them become a trendsetter in marketing.

    Influencer Marketing

    Influencing has massive power that forms the backbone of social media marketing. Influencers are the product of social media only, due to their unique nature of human networking. Through the right influencers, you can achieve your marketing objectives in an easier and cost-effective manner compared to other methods.

    Highly effective and meant for both B2C and B2B, influencer marketing is going to be an automatic choice for a marketing strategy for as long as social media continues to thrive. It’s cost-effective, organic in nature and a function of trust and word of mouth recommendation.

    Augmented reality (AR) based marketing

    AR is already making a revolution in the digital marketing realm and is expected to sweep the marketing strategies in the years to come. AR enables brands to provide customers with one-of-a-kind experiences through the use of their mobile devices. With augmented shopping experiences becoming increasingly popular, brands can employ AR to let consumers taste things before they buy them.

    The list is incomplete as we cannot accommodate all current and future trends in marketing in the limited space here, but the point we wish to drive home is that thorough insights into the consumer demographics and technological trends hold the future of marketing.

    Source- Fluidscapes
    We are one of the best digital marketing companies in India that provides online reputation management services to all types of organizations. We assist businesses to stay on top of the game by leveraging the latest technologies and breakthroughs in marketing strategies and business processes. Want to grow your business, even more, get in touch with us and we’ll tell you how.

  • How To Increase Conversions With A/B Testing? A/B Testing In The Context Of Modern Marketing.

    How To Increase Conversions With A/B Testing? A/B Testing In The Context Of Modern Marketing.

    Your website and mobile app have many variables (landing page, CTA, banners, etc.) that are responsible for organic traffic influx and sales conversion rate. The website or the app, being at the heart of your digital marketing activities, must have these variables optimized, based on various metrics acquired from the incoming traffic.

    Similarly, email, content pieces and other marketing assets should also be optimized in the testing process based on the reactions of the target audience, to improve their effectiveness.

    One of the methods of acquiring correct data on users’ behavior and reactions is to A/B test your website or other marketing services through a testing program. A/B testing may not be a familiar term to many. This article is an attempt to explain A/B testing and its impacts in digital marketing for business growth.

    What is A/B testing?

    A/B testing, also known as split testing or bucket testing, is a very effective process of evaluating the variables. It does that by showing two or more versions of the variables to different segments of website visitors at the same time and checking which version leaves the maximum impact and drives the highest metrics in that testing period.

    A/B testing involves showing two or more versions of the same page randomly to the users to collect data for statistical analysis to conclude which variation performs better for a given conversion goal.

    How is A/B testing performed?

    You need to identify a variable on the original version (also called the control or version A) and create a modified version of the same page with the changed variable (called the variation or version B) – the changes may be as small as replacing a single headline or shifting a CTA button, or it may be a total redesign of a page. Then, make half of your traffic see the original version or the control and show the second version to the rest.

    How does A/B testing help modern marketing?

    Marketing success is always dependent on the validity of data, which makes A/B testing a very valuable tool at the hands of marketers. A/B testing allows them to create the best possible marketing copies out of a given set of variables.

    What impacts the customers’ behaviour most is a million-dollar question. Even the most experienced marketers may get the pulse of the market wrong. A/B testing provides marketers with ready and authentic data about what element of the marketing mix is leading to more user engagement in the ongoing process. These data may be valid for a temporary period or for an extended period of time.

    There can be one or multiple issues after multi page testing with an apparently nice, smart marketing copy that may hold it from getting the desired results. Conducting A/B testing from time to time definitely helps rectify the faults and meet the goal of the campaign.

    The goal of your campaign may be sales conversion or lead generation with the right approach. For example, if you are a B2B company, you’ll most likely want to increase the volume of quality leads through your campaign. A/B testing can help you with the correct identification of the visitors’ pain points and suggest changes in the landing page optimization variables such as headline, call to action, visual imagery, form fields, or the overall layout of the page.

    One of the important parts of A/B testing is to identify the element to be changed. It may lead to a waste of time and effort if you choose to go about it randomly. The best way would be to start small. Test a small change such as change the color of a CTA (Call To Action) button or remove an unnecessary form field,piece of content etc, before expanding the scope of your A/B testing.

    Creating a hypothesis

    Identifying a problem and creating a hypothesis to circumvent that problem are the steps to creating the A/B test experience. What’s the problem? Is it low conversations, changed traffic patterns, a shift in your demographic ratio? Use Google Analytics behavior reports to get to the bottom of it. Once the problem is identified, discuss it in the team meeting to form your hypothesis., such as the one below –

    “Changing the ‘Homepage’ color from dark blue to sky blue might increase revenue by 10 percent.”

    After your problem is identified and a hypothesis has been concluded, only then it’s proper to A/B test your hypothesis.

    A/B testing marketing tools to keep in mind

    If you have decided to incorporate A/B testing into your digital marketing plan, here are some tools that’ll help you. Note that these are not in any particular order, these are some of the tools that we love. We have narrowed it down to a couple of must have features in the tool, so even if these few tools do not suit your needs, you can always research more marketing tools on your own.

    Must have features-

    • A/B/C testing
    • Built in platform to create and edit different versions
    • AI powered where it’ll send traffic to best performing version

    Good to have features-

    • Supported with multi armed bandit algorithm
    • Multivariable testing
    • A/B testing idea suggestions

    Now that’s out of the way, here are some A/B testing tools that you should be aware of

    • 1. Google Optimize
    • 2. Optimizely
    • 3. VWO(Virtual Website Optimizer)
    • 4. Hubspot
    • 5. Zoho Pagesense

    You need to choose a tool according to your company requirements & size. Hopefully we have covered your doubts about A/B testing in this blog. Feel free to check out our other business blogs.

    Source- Fluidscapes
    We are one of the best digital marketing companies in India that provides online reputation management services to all types of organizations. We assist businesses to stay on top of the game by leveraging the latest technologies and breakthroughs in marketing strategies and business processes. Want to grow your business even more, get in touch with us and we’ll tell you how.

  • 10 Hot Digital Marketing Trends To Boost Your Business

    10 Hot Digital Marketing Trends To Boost Your Business

    With COVID being the mother of all disruptions to turn the world upside down, 2020 will be remembered as a year when everything came to a grinding halt, except for digital marketing. When there was no purchase even then also digital marketing was active with brand promotion.

    As millions of people thronged the Internet and online media for extended hours during the lockdown period, posing steeper targets to the brands, it made a perfect breeding ground for new innovations in digital marketing to make it more penetrating, to think beyond.

    Searching for the right demographic groups, grabbing their attention, and engaging with them through meaningful communication – brands are always in a race to outperform one another in all three departments of digital marketing. Let’s find out what cool new digital marketing trends are awaiting them going forward to make their campaigns razor-sharp.

    #1 We’ll start our list with Voice Search

    In its simplest definition Voice Search is a technological advancement that understands a voice query and serves it with the right answer. The user is saved from typing the query – genuinely required in some situations or conditions besides adding to comfort and ease of using the Internet. Worldwide nearly 27% of online users are already using mobile voice search.

    We have already seen the technology making inroads into the home appliances segment by the name of “voice assistant” available in various brands that include Siri, Alexa user, Google Assistant, and Cortana, among the leaders. While these are independent products with links to their parent databases through the Internet, the same technology is being incorporated in Google search to make it more flexible and inclusive.

    Google Voice Search or Voice SEO trend is gaining rapid popularity among online users, as it provides easier, faster, and more conversational searching compared to the traditional method of typing queries. Here are some insights into the Google voice search.

    • Unlike the web searching process, a voice search doesn’t require a screen to help users scroll, select and type. It is conversational – expects a clear question and provides a straight answer.
    • Voice search expects longer sentences in order to understand the query clearly. In web searching, we use short and basic lines of keywords and depend upon the search engine to provide all related results.
    • Voice searches offer only one answer and not a list of probable combinations to choose from, like the way web searches do.
    • A voice search uses the featured snippet for the closest answer, instead of keywords matching as is the case in web searching.

    #2 At second place is Featured Snippets

    The next big thing on the cards is Featured Snippet or no-click search. Featured Snippets are excerpts from the text content, often come with images, that Google reckons as the most credible answer to a query and thus puts it in a box, at the top of its search results.

    The benefit is that the searcher gets the best answer available with Google directly without having to click and read through the different sites. The Featured Snippets box is also called ‘position 0’ by the SEO experts because relevant content appears even above the # ‘1’ spot on the search results.

    Common types of Featured Snippets include definitions, steps, tables, and lists that are pulled automatically by the Google search algorithm from the web pages in its index. Google voice SEO strategy, which is slated to be a top trend in 2021, uses Featured Snippets(voice) based search only.

    Featured snippets are prize recognitions from Google and therefore precious in digital marketing which will help you gain more attention than the competitor’s even if your own organic ranking is lower than theirs.

    Some experts might call it foul play but the fact is that Featured Snippet presents a great opportunity to a website to generate high traffic organically just by focusing on quality content and not much on search engine optimization.

    #3 3rd on the list is Visual Search

    Another fantastic up-gradation Google Search Engine is expected to feature in 2021 is Visual Search, which is another alternative to typing a search term/keyword in google search. Internet users will be able to search for information about anything through Google by uploading an image of the item.

    For example, if you upload a photo of a plant Google will respond with information about the species. A landmark image will be returned with historical data. If the image of a product is uploaded, Google will not only return information about that product but also about similar products with sources to buy from for the potential customers.

    Google uses deep neural networks to decipher the image of the product, considering the shape, color, and size of the image, and then serve the information relating to the most matching object or place or whatever may be the nature of the search item.

    Visual search is an AI-based technology that is poised to provide a big fillip to eCommerce marketing besides transforming online searching. Google lens and Pinterest lens are the two popular tools that offer some mind-blowing features to integrate visual search technology into our everyday lives.

    For example, if you’re looking for information about a restaurant you would like to try out in a new city, just scan a picture of it through Google lens and you’ll be served with all relevant information about the restaurant in a moment.

    #4 is Video Marketing

    Video Marketing is making an amazing engagement quotient in the digital space. From news feeds to social media and magazines, people are, kind of, gorging on video content. The popularity of videos has been skyrocketed during the COVID -19 lockdown, and in all likelihood, will continue to soar further in 2021.

    Brands are increasingly using the power of video marketing to drive audience engagement and conversions. The six most exciting video marketing trends in 2021 will be

    • Animated Explainer Videos
    • Live Video Streaming
    • 360-degree Videos
    • Shoppable Videos
    • Storytelling Videos
    • Vlogging

    #5 Personalized conversations through Chatbots

    AI-powered Chatbots have become immensely popular in the digital marketing world because of their human-like intelligence, 24/7 activeness, ability to recall your entire buying history, prompt answering capacity, and super patience (friendly and cordial at any stage).

    However, one more quality of Chatbots that is particularly responsible for making it a trendsetter is personalized conversations.

    The huge popularity of Chatbots has brought the secret of success in modern marketing to the fore, and that is a personalized conversation. People want personalized conversations to have immediate, caring, and result-oriented responses, and brands are just reacting to that by investing in more advanced Chatbots.

    Surveys predicted that 80% of the businesses were expected to have an AI-powered Chatbot in their websites by 2020. If that target wasn’t met due to COVID, 2021 will definitely surpass that. These A.I virtual assistants will ensure a huge improvement in customer satisfaction through learning and meeting their requirements.

    #6 Social media stories

    The trend of Social Media stories was first started by Snapchat, riding on short videos, pictures, and AR-based interactions. It became an immediate hit with Gen Y and soon was replicated on other platforms as well. Instagram and Facebook were among the early birds to adopt the idea before it became all-pervasive.

    Today, the audience’s interest is no longer limited to news feeds. They are increasingly interacting with stories and projecting it as a popular way to communicate and share their content.

    People love stories. The trend of Social Media Stories is creating great engagements from social media users. Businesses will definitely make good use of it in their marketing strategies in 2021.

    #7 Google Verified Listing

    How wonderful! Free listing of local businesses on Google is surely going to be a big hit in 2021, given the massive daily search traffic on Google. Local businesses like electric & plumbing companies, shops of various kinds, chartered accountants, gyms, restaurants, etc. can now have Google Verified Listing.

    Also known as Business Profile, this will have all relevant information along with geographical locations of the businesses on Google My Business pages and help prospective customers to find, learn about, and contact them without hassle. Information such as an address, open hours, reviews, star ratings, etc. will be there on the business profile for a better user experience.

    Source: https://g.page/Fluidscapes?gm

    But for that, the businesses need to optimize their profiles to update their best and latest features, offers, etc. by verifying with Google. Google verification will

    • put the stamp of trust on the reputation of the businesses,
    • ensure that no one can fraudulently claim the ownership of a business
    • enable the business owners to manage their business information through search, map, and other Google tools.

    #8 Automated And Smart Bidding For Online Ads

    Also known as Programmatic Advertising it’s revolutionizing the digital ad buying process and is expected to take over the manual bidding completely by the end of 2021.

    We need to look at the exercises involved in manual bidding to understand the benefits of Programmatic Advertising.

    To get the best possible results in most search-driven manual advertising campaigns (even those aided by professional tools), the bulk of the time is spent on analyzing the data in minute details, tweaking and adjusting keywords, ad phrasing, choosing the best time of day, locations, etc. Then come labor-intensive processes like requests for proposals, tenders, quotes, and human negotiation – enough to overwhelm a business owner looking to run an ad campaign.

    Programmatic or smart bidding automates the online ad buying process using artificial intelligence. The real-time bidding on Google Ads campaign, an example of Programmatic Advertising, makes use of machine learning to automate all the key functions to produce the best possible results. Smart Bidding is not a very new concept but for some reason, its use has been rather slow with most business owners until recently to meet their business goals.

    #9 Browser Push Notifications

    Browser or Web push notifications are the notifications that are sent to your website visitors via desktop web browser and mobile web browser. The purpose of this is to keep the active users, occasional or even one-time visitors updated about your product or services even if they don’t install your app, of course, not without the consent of the visitors.

    This is a very effective remarketing exercise that requires the visitors to opt-in for the notifications. These notifications, which are like alert messages, are delivered to the visitors’ desktop or mobile screen making them an effective tool to include in your marketing strategy.

    #10 Messaging Apps For Business

    Since the time WhatsApp opened itself to businesses a new trend has emerged, about using messaging apps for businesses. What WhatsApp offers to the companies is an instant messaging network of their own which is safe and secure from hacking.

    This will especially help businesses with remote employees and mobile employees to communicate instantly within and outside the organization (to customers, suppliers, etc.). Each user will have a branded business profile that will help consumers to immediately know who they are chatting with or who has sent that information. The users also receive delivery information and information about what messages have been delivered and read.

    Another growing trend of using business messaging is in the form of conversational commerce. For example, the sales and support personnel in many companies are answering product and service-related questions with specific and instant messages.

    With more and more inclusion of marketing automation tools and solutions, digital marketing is setting new standards at frequent intervals, keeping marketers like us on our toes. If anyone asks what is the future of Digital Marketing, the most appropriate answer would perhaps be that digital marketing is the only future.

    Source- Fluidscapes
    We are one of the best digital marketing companies in India that provides reputation management services to all types of organizations. We assist businesses to stay on top of the game by leveraging the latest technologies and breakthroughs in marketing strategies and business processes. Want to grow your business even more, get in touch with us and we’ll tell you how.

  • 10 Video Marketing Trends That’ll Dominate Online Marketing In 2021

    10 Video Marketing Trends That’ll Dominate Online Marketing In 2021

    Video is the new king of content and video marketing is creating a new paradigm in marketing. With the surge in new social media platforms coming out with great video formats, 2021 is all set to see a phenomenal rise in video marketing.

    So, are you geared up to align your video marketing strategy with this new order? If you are still in a state of dilemma and looking for some hard data, here is a powerful infographic shared by Oberlo that explains why video content marketing should be your best bet to increase your share of organic traffic and conversations.

    But first some spotlight on the trends showcased there:

    1. Video Usage in 2021

    Video, Video, and Video, everything on earth seems to have a video made on it and garnering a huge number of views and attention. Marketers are quick to cash in on this darling medium. In 2020, usage of video for marketing grew to 92% from 78% in the previous year and is expected to touch 98% in 2021. As per a recent research, the top video trends include explainer videos, which nearly three in four (72 percent) of marketers create, presentation videos (49 percent), testimonial videos (48 percent), and sales videos and video ads (42 percent each).

    2. The Livestream Boom on Mobiles

    The boom in the number of video streaming apps is a clear indication of this being one of the most popular video marketing trends in 2021. The majority of the audience prefers watching videos and images from a brand than watching their text-based content, and 67% of these people end up purchasing the product.

    3. Short-Form Videos

    Short videos (length up to 2 min.30 sec.) are lightweight and consume very little data. People shared short videos in 2020 at twice the rate than any other form of content – a study by Wyzowl revealed. It also reported that 84% of people decided to buy products or services after seeing short videos.

    4. Top Video Trends

    User-Generated Video Content – Use of user-generated videos for marketing yields great results. People love user generated reviews of a product or service as it provides social proof with an impartial voice, without any bias. No wonder that good, logical user-generated video content can set the cash box ringing.

    5. More Online Training and Educational Video

    The combination of high bandwidth and easy access to mobile and laptop devices have revolutionised online learning. Online training and educational videos have seen a steep growth during the Covid -19 lockdown. This will continue to supplement the normal school-based education system. The trend of making ‘How To’ videos for training purposes is also very strong and will continue as a great marketing tool in 2021.

    6. Video Advertising Growth

    Video advertising is getting stronger every day, with the advent of new platforms and formats. While TV advertisement budgets are on the decline, video advertising spends are increasing. Studies reveal that between 2016 and 2020 the number of companies that used video content for marketing increased from 61% to 85%. This also implies that ad space is going to get even more competitive. Your video marketing strategy has to be on top and you’ll need to jump on the latest marketing trends in order to stay ahead of the competition.

    7. Video Marketing Trends

    Keep Investing in Video Marketing – People love well made long form videos as well. It is a wonderful medium for entertainment, education, and information sharing. Fueling this affinity are lightweight formats, cheap bandwidth, and bespoke viewing on both mobile and desktop.

    8. Interactive AR Content in 2021

    Interactive videos have become immensely popular as they allow users to interact in order to get the right information. The use of interactive videos powered with AR/VR has surged especially during the Covid lockdown and will continue to go further up.

    9. The Rise of Shoppable Videos

    Shoppable videos are taking the shopping experience to a new level. Viewers can directly make a purchase of the product without leaving the video, by clicking on a link embedded in the video. This makes purchase fast as the need to visit the website doesn’t arise. A social media visitor can learn about a product through a shoppable video and purchase it instantly.

    10. Virtual Events Are Here To Stay

    2020 has seen a massive growth of virtual events for commercial and non-commercial purposes. The technology that was not getting the nod from the business leaders is now a standard practice for all large engagements. It’s all about a changed mindset that is discovering undisrupted business processes at no cost.

    Source- This original infographic was posted by Oberlo

  • Influencer Marketing, Is Your Brand Leveraging It Right?

    Influencer Marketing, Is Your Brand Leveraging It Right?

    Influence is the biggest external force that controls human lives from childhood. There are direct and indirect influences both positive and negative in nature. The advent of social media has particularly benefited marketing campaigns by developing a unique concept called Influencer Marketing, which has been an instant hit due to its high efficiency, low cost, and target audience reach.

    Any marketing strategy is built around four objectives – increasing brand exposure, building brand authority, and acquiring new target audiences. A well-planned Influencer marketing strategy has proven to be a very efficient process of achieving the underlying objectives. It causes a large number of visits to your site, a high percentage of them is by new customers.

    What is Influencer Marketing?

    Influencer marketing is very much different from the conventional shout-out type of marketing that tries to create a strong impact through audio-visual advertising. Here the method is more organic in nature, that is to say, a function of trust and word of mouth recommendation.

    While the cost implication for Influencer marketing is significantly low in comparison, its success depends on how well-planned is the influencer marketing strategy and its execution. It may be confusing and complicated if you don’t know the type and capacity of the influencer and their domain strength. Let’s delve into the subject for better clarity.

    How to go about your Influencer marketing campaign?

    As mentioned earlier, Influencer marketing is a strategy that requires a good deal of planning and research. Your brand management in an influencer marketing strategy starts with identifying content creators in the same industry (celebrities, micro-influencers, social media influencers), in the sense that they create, curate, and publish content related to products or services same as yours or related to your industry and have large to very large follower count.

    It’s crucial to learn the correct demographics of your potential customers and the channels/platforms they are likely to visit mostly. This will help you spot relevant influencers as they must be active with a large and engaged follower base on those platforms.

    In an influencer marketing strategy, both the brand and the influencer should sit together to draw out the roadmap, content types such as post, story, blog post tweet, social network & marketing goals, etc. for setup, launch, and management of the influencer campaign. It’s like a partnership between the brand and the influencer in which the latter agrees to subtly promote the brand by spreading its messages and content by making comments, all in the garb of personal experiences, to their followers or target audience. This allows the brand to get a positive, natural and meaningful exposure to a fairly large base of targeted audience.

    For budding businesses, it’s similar to brand leveraging because unknown or less known businesses can leverage established influencers to make a good foothold in the market.

    What Influencer marketing benefits should you target in your campaign?

    A successful Influencer marketing strategy can help you reach your marketing objectives such as:

    • Brand Awareness – Prompt recognition and liking by a large number of people.
    • Brand Identity – Establishing your brand image. Getting people to admire your brand personality and values.
    • Popularity building – Getting a large base of followers and loyal customers through word of mouth
    • More engagement – More following means more comments, likes, and shares.
    • Lead Generation and sales – Generating a great number of organic traffic to your website with quality leads for the sales team and also more people opting for your sales offer. 
    • Link Building – Generating more links directed back to your site.

    Influencer Marketing in Indian perspective

    Although it’s a global phenomenon, Influencer marketing has been particularly successful with the Indian audience. There are some remarkable influencer marketing examples in India such as Kaya Skin Clinics, Picchika, Allen Solly, Hotel Trident, Lunch Box, AxisThoughtFactory to name a few.

    Wrap up

    The secret of success of Influencer marketing campaigns is that it creates an honest and authentic voice to generate trust, attachment and loyalty in their target group. A recent study about influencer marketing says that influencer marketing yields an impressive return on investment, something to the tune of $6.5 on every dollar spent. From here it can go only upwards.

    Source- Fluidscapes

    We are one of the best digital marketing companies in India that provides business consultations to all types of organizations. We assist businesses to stay on top of the game by leveraging the latest technologies and breakthroughs in marketing strategies and business processes. Want to grow your business even more, get in touch with us and we’ll tell you how.

  • AI Powered Marketing Tips To Maximise Your Business Success

    AI Powered Marketing Tips To Maximise Your Business Success

    Make yourself visible to the algorithm.

    If we look at the evolution of marketing strategy then this appears to be the first and only mantra for marketing for a long long time till the advent of digital technology that added another dimension to marketing that says –

    Listen to your customers

    The amazing invention called Social Media rendered a terrific opportunity to the brands to make themselves visible to millions and listen to their conversations to mould their offerings. It was great but the bigger surprise was waiting for us –

    Find your customers, wherever they are

    The flow of predictive analytics continued to make marketing even more penetrating by arming it with Artificial Intelligence – you are now able to search out your most probable customers, help them in their buying decisions and maintain rewarding relationships with machine learning algorithms.

    And the best part about this is, AI can search through not just social media but all online platforms. Can you envisage the big picture? Numerous interactions among numerous people on different online platforms are sifted through AI to identify potential customers, their choices, concerns, and other factors that produce valuable insights for creating the right marketing strategy.

    What is AI in simple terms?

    While human intelligence can be defined as the ability to think, to learn from experience, to solve problems, and to adapt to new situations, Artificial Intelligence is a close cousin that scores very well in all categories except that it can’t think – machines can’t think.

    AI is a set of very advanced computer programs that probe through a bulk amount of data to recognise patterns and make predictions with a high level of accuracy. This is the basis of the power of AI that is manifested in various forms such as learning from different insights, understanding complex concepts, applying logic and reasons in solving mathematical problems, and making inferences and decisions.

    In a nutshell, AI can be defined as a combination of machine learning (ability to automatically access data and process them to learn and improve from experience) and predictive analytics.

    How does AI benefit marketing?

    Marketing is an exercise of recognising competitions, identifying customers, understanding their needs, pitching the right offerings to them and improving the customer experience. The more precisely these can be done, the better will be the result.

    Artificial Intelligence powered marketing or simply marketing AI is doing wonders for marketers by providing amazing solutions for these error-prone tasks.

    Now a natural question comes to your mind as to why businesses are going crazy about it?

    It’s because Artificial Intelligence eliminates much of the guesswork involved in marketing campaigns.

    We can see that due to its intrinsic power of machine learning and natural language processing, it is proving to be an ideal tool to achieve a high degree of efficiency in the marketing landscape. The marketers are now able to create highly personalized customer journeys & experiences at significantly less cost.

    The technique involved is to let the AI application enable machine learning to analyse historical data of communications/interactions from various channels and touchpoints. This learning then can be used in your campaigns to maximise your chance of success.

    Here are some of the areas of applications of Artificial Intelligence in marketing, which are gaining fast popularity due to their high success rate.

    For improved sales forecasting

    Using AI powered marketing tools in addition to traditional methods to analyse both inbound and outbound sales conversations, marketers are now able to make much-improved sales forecasting. With the power of marketing AI the customer engagement dilemma between whether a prospect is keen for a discussion or not is almost becoming non-existent.

    For a better understanding of customers

    By applying machine learning algorithms, digital marketers can now know exactly how their brands are positioned in the market and what the customers are thinking, saying, and feeling about them in real-time. Alert marketers can utilize this high quality data in realtime for modifying their marketing processes for maximum effectiveness.

    For the higher performance of Digital Advertising campaigns

    The efficiency of the PPC advertising campaign is always a matter of concern for marketers due to the possibility of wrong or incomplete information about the target audience and their presence.

    AI for advertising helps marketers to develop deeper insight about the market and target- customers to optimize digital advertising and account-based marketing with a high level of personalization. Marketing AI allows machine learning to analyse the huge amounts of consumer data available through keyword searches, sentiment analysis, customer preferences social media, and other online platforms for perfect and most effective digital ads. Human-level accuracy is possible without manual labour.

    For creating succinct customer profiles

    Putting the right message to the right people at the right time is essential for success in marketing. AI in marketing provides a large base of detailed information about consumers and prospective clients, which helps in making exhaustive consumer profiles that increase the efficiency of a marketing campaign.

    AI algorithm makes it possible to track every single consumer interaction, previous customer experience and helps to refine these data that enables marketers to create highly personalized content.

    For engaging customers in real-time conversations

    Another advantage of applying Artificial Intelligence in marketing lies in its ability to identify trends by real time analytics and capturing large blocks of open data. This makes it possible for brands to engage with individuals in real-time conversations through online events. Speaking to the consumers at the crucial decision-making moment greatly influences them in their decision making. Following various open forums and events to identify and track relevant conversations gives marketers a huge advantage both in terms of learning the trends and directly talking with prospective customers.

    Marketing is also a race for grabbing opportunities. With the AI-powered marketing creating waves of opportunities there is no reason why you shouldn’t jump into the fray to take your business to another level.

    Source: Fluidscapes

    Fluidscapes is the top Marketing Consultants in Mumbai who are providing various professional services to businesses. So when any user searches for that particular brand’s they are easily searchable by any medium.

  • 360 Degree Marketing Post Covid

    360 Degree Marketing Post Covid

    Evolving consumer behaviour poses the greatest challenge to marketers and advertisers. Consumer behaviour adapts to the changes in the environment and marketing adapts to the changes in consumer behaviour.

    In the past one year of the Covid lockdown, there have been major changes in consumer sentiment and behaviours across the world. Online presence of people has risen significantly due to lockdown restrictions and increased dependence on digital technology.

    If experts are to be believed, this increased online presence will continue to be the mainstay of business and commerce even after the lockdown is lifted, which imply that people will continue to remain online for a longer time and digital marketing will become the principal mode for branding, sales and marketing through an enhanced 360-degree customer view.

    360-degree customer view! What’s that?

    In a nutshell, the idea is to collect exhaustive data about choice, capacity, influence, etc. of the potential customers by tracking their interactions, comments, ratings, reviews, past purchases and other touch points across channels and devices. The channels may be chatbots, social media, search engines, e-mails and the like.

    Social media and other channels are like mirrors that reflect the dynamics of customers’ perception and behaviour towards a brand. A brand becomes brand equity with the right mix of product, support, satisfaction and loyalty.

    How important is your brand in the eyes of customers, can be measured and improved by scanning the channels. The demographic details of your customers, whether they talk about you, what is their level of satisfaction, if they recommend your brand to others, do they engage with your posts, etc. are the various metrics used by marketers.

    What platform or channel your customers are currently on? Are you there? Are they engaging with you? What do they think or say about your brand? Do they have any concern regarding your product or service? What’s their level of loyalty? Are they emotionally connected with your brand?

    Because the customers will be online for long hours in the post covid era, the 360-degree view will be a very useful tool for making a reliable purchase profile and for brand promotion.

    360-degree marketing – you leave no gap in your coverage of customers

    360-degree marketing is named so because it involves the 360-degree customer view as its basis. It’s an integrated marketing approach that uses focused messaging across multiple customer touchpoints.

    Customers may transit from channel to channel. The success of 360-degree marketing depends on the thoughtful placement of your branding messages to touch the target audience on all channels they are likely to travel.

    While it’s not about being present everywhere instantly, 360-degree marketing creates a perception in the minds of prospective customers that your brand is everywhere. So you need to have upfront data using the 360-degree customer view to select the channels that you would want to include in your campaign.

    To put it simply, you should look for the following data to develop a strong 360-degree marketing strategy:

    • What digital platforms are frequently visited by your target audience?
    • How do they reach your website?
    • How is their impression about your response at various touchpoints?
    • How do you track leads?
    • How promptly do you get feedback from sales?

    Putting up the right brand message and selecting the most relevant channels and media will help you spend wisely and receive higher ROI.

    360-degree marketing, in concept, is a combination of many digital marketing methods joined seamlessly. The individual components are:

    • A dynamic website – Your website is at the heart of your digital marketing activities. It must be smart, prompt, user friendly, and informative. Quality of user experience, call to action, access by mobile users, and speed of action make big differences in the end result.
    • An effective SEO strategy – It’s a low cost but effective method for generating organic traffic to your website. PPC advertising – The PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is an Internet marketing method to buy quality traffic to your website.
    • E-mail marketing – This is an effective digital marketing method to communicate with serious customers by providing information regarding new products, discounts, and other services.
    • Social Media Marketing  Excellent method for generating new customers, reaching out to existing customers, and creating high-quality traffic to your website.
    • Content Marketing – A method of digital marketing that uses contents such as blogs, videos, social media posts to generate interests in the product or services of a brand and create inbound traffic.
    • Action to inbound lead – It’s about nurturing and handling of leads with relevant, consistent, and quality content to turn them into quality prospects for the sales team.

    Choosing the right follow-through actions

    The success of a 360-degree marketing campaign depends on the balance between message and channels. Before you launch your campaign you should be ready with the next moves to effectively wrap up.

    This may be refining your messages once your brand becomes established, or changing your campaign theme, or perhaps spreading to more or new channels.

    Surely, you don’t want your great moment to die down a month later. So as you plan out your 360-degree marketing campaign keep the phase 2 and phase 3 steps ready for your success to reverberate.

    Source : Online Reputation Management

  • What Is The Podcast And Why It Has Become So Popular?

    What Is The Podcast And Why It Has Become So Popular?

    Sometimes at the beginning of 2019, I found a new app on my phone. I had no idea how it came but ran it anyway, only to be met with something that became a close companion of mine since that day. It’s a bouquet of podcasts on music and conversations, delightful by their content, audio quality, and the fascinating manner of hosting.

    One may wonder how podcasting became a smashing hit almost overnight and led to the resurgence of audio to grab much of our attention from the clasp of YouTube. But to me, it’s easy and hassle-free audio streaming of enchanting content, the basics to make talk shows popular. It’s refreshing to see more people are absorbed in listening.

    What is the podcast and why it has become so popular?

    The best way to understand the concept is to go to the origin of its name i.e. iPod + Broadcast. Like iPod, Podcast is audio on-demand and on-the-go, but instead of storing audio files it sources them from the Internet, some similarity to broadcasting. The users can either receive live content or they may listen to the content updated and stored at the source site, any time later.

    Although podcast connotes beautiful flow of audio content – some people call it Internet Radio but that is a misnomer- actually, it can transport video files as well. There are four reasons why this medium has become so popular.

    • Handsfree uninterrupted listening – without having to look at the screen and control. You may be driving or involved in other works at the same time while listening to a podcast.
    • Superior audio quality – Data streaming technology has come of age to deliver distortionless audio (audio files are smaller and easier to handle than the video files).
    • Hasslefree access – The RSS technology which is at the heart of podcast is a particularly strong method for subscription and distribution of syndicated audio over the Internet. You subscribe once and receive feeds automatically.
    • Mastery of the podcasters – They present the content like audio blogs, mixing an intimate and personal style, flow, knowledge, and appealing voice.

    Podcasting for marketing

    Audio storytelling is becoming the new craze. Compelling content, whether through reading or listening, captivate one’s heart. With the listener base swelling day by day, podcasting presents a new avenue to the marketers.

    Scientists found relations between audio learning, brain stimulation, and addictive effects, and of opinion that the influence of audio can be deep because while listening you are constantly building images of the story in your brain to create your own production.

    Niche audience

    More and more podcast channels are coming up, with engaging talks on a number of subjects. Whichever maybe your area of interest such as politics, fitness, cooking, travel, comedy, there is a podcast channel on that.

    This provides marketers with the benefit of getting a niche audience if they can choose the right podcast to advertise on.

    Studies reveal a growing percentage of the listeners admit the influences of podcast ads on their buying decisions. The growth forecast for podcast advertising in the USA is nearly 110% by the end of 2020.

    Higher chance to connect

    Besides providing excellent audio experience, podcasting offers another great advantage i.e. one can listen to podcasts anytime, anywhere – whether they are at their work, driving, cooking, working out, or walking. This makes for a very high rate of reach. With appropriately made podcast ads brands can instil better connections with consumers.

    Podcast hosts create intimate voice-driven appeal on the minds of the listeners. Like micro-influencers on social networks, they establish themselves as passionate and trusted experts to their niche audiences. Bespoke podcast ads read by the hosts pose higher efficacy chances than other podcast ads.

    Podcast conversations bring wonderful opportunities to brands and advertisers. No doubt that this provides a much higher yield in terms of value for money.