Online-Marketing

11. March 2019 by Claudia Rothenhorst

What You Need to Know About WordPress Plugins

When you want to create a website for your business, WordPress might be the best option. Tons of businesses today use WordPress to create and maintain their website. While WordPress does provide a ton of features already, there is a lot more businesses can do with their website if they install WordPress plugins. They add more functionality to the website, can help turn the website into an e-commerce store, and can help you monitor your website’s performance.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

All websites are made up of pieces of code that work together to make the website look good and function well. Even website builders that allow you to drag and drop different components onto the website are made up of code, it’s just not necessary to know how to code to create these websites.

WordPress plugins are pieces of code that can be installed in WordPress to add to your website. They can make minor or major changes or can simply work behind the scenes to give you more information that can be used to improve your website or how your visitors experience your website.

With WordPress Plugins, you don't need programming skills to customize your site. — With WordPress Plugins, you don’t need programming skills to customize your site.

These plugins are intended to make it easier for you to customize your website and add any functions you need. It allows you to do a lot more with your website without needing to learn how to code to completely create your website from the ground up and enables you to add to your website easily. You won’t have to spend hours adding a small feature to your website when you can spend just a few minutes to install and set up a plugin that does what you want.

How Do Plugins Work and What Do They Do?

Most plugins are simple to use. You’ll choose the plugin you want to try, install the plugin, then configure the plugin to ensure it does exactly what you want it to do. Most plugins will have directions to help with the installation and so you can learn how to use it. These plugins can be used to improve the website or add functionality to the website. Plugins are available to help add social networking features to your website, create a forum your customers can use, or allow you to sell products through your website. They can also be used to make your website load faster, to track the performance of your website, or to help optimize your website so it ranks higher in the search engine results.

Potential Issues to be Aware Of

A good WordPress PlugIn will fit right into your site.

There’s a lot you can do with WordPress plugins, but it is important to be careful with which ones you’ll use. While you really can’t have too many plugins, start slow so you can learn what each one does and make sure it works properly for your website before adding more. Potential issues you could face include errors on your site because the plugin is not compatible with features of your website, security risks that could make it easier for hackers to access your website or issues with the speed of your website. Whenever you’re looking for a plugin to try, make sure it’s a widely used plugin and check to make sure it was updated recently. This may help you avoid trying a plugin that’s going to damage your website or cause security risks.

Most Popular Plugins Available Today

The right plugin for your website is one that allows you to add the functionality you need. Three of the most popular WordPress plugins today are WooCommerce, WordFence Security, and WP Super Cache. WooCommerce is used to turn a website into an e-commerce website so you can sell products online. WordFence Security adds a number of security features to protect your website. This plugin gives you protection against a number of different potential attacks. WP Super Cache gives you access to a number of options that can help you boost the speed of your website. Since website speed is crucial today, this one is a plugin you might want to try right away to make sure your website loads as fast as possible.

Your website can do a lot more with the right WordPress plugins. They’re easy to use, so you can try out a variety of different plugins and find out which ones are going to work best for you. Learn more about WordPress plugins and try one today to see how much it can improve your website.

7. January 2019 by Katharina Berger

Online Marketing Buzzwords: Customer Journey

The customer journey is the path a site visitor takes before they make a purchase decision. Most people don’t decide to buy something immediately after they discover it; typically, they look at brands and products several times before acting. Known as touchpoints, these steps can best be visualized via journey mapping. Read on to learn more about the customer journey, its phases, and why it’s important.

Why Online Advertising Makes it Easier to Map the Customer Journey

In print advertising, it’s almost impossible to map the customer journey because it’s hard to tell how people found out about a product. People get recommendations from various sources, such as newspaper ads, flyers, and family members. While qualitative surveys may provide some insight as to why customers have come to your store, they’re costly to conduct. New, more budget-friendly approaches such as WiFi tracking make it easier for brick-and-mortar retailers to recreate the customer journey. With online ads, however, every potential customer’s contact points can be monitored and tracked across numerous channels.

An Example of the Customer Journey

Here, we’ll use smartphones as an example. A potential buyer reads about the latest device in an online forum, and they do some online research on the device’s technical specifications and features. They become more interested, and they want to see what others are saying. Others’ glowing reviews make the visitor want to buy the device. Then, they visit the phone manufacturer’s website to find out where it’s being sold before visiting the online store and making a purchase. In this hypothetical example, there are multiple touchpoints, such as:

• The online forum
• The site that provided the phone’s tech specifications
• The review site
• The device manufacturer’s website
• The phone dealer’s online store

Almost any sort of marketing message can be regarded as a touchpoint, from TV and radio ads to billboards, newspaper ads, and other print media. While these ads are useful, it’s almost impossible to track them. Online touchpoints are more effective, as they can be more easily tracked and monitored.

The Journey’s Different Phases

The customer journey is divided into phases in different ways, depending on who you ask. However, all approaches have one thing in common: they assume that the buyer’s decision isn’t made right away. For that to happen, you’ll need to make your target market aware of the product, pique their interest, and wait for them to act. That action isn’t always an order or purchase; you may want your visitors to sign up for a newsletter or request information. Here are the most commonly cited stages:

Awareness. Here, potential customers familiarize themselves with your brand via word-of-mouth, advertising, and other channels.
Consideration. At this point, the visitor realizes they have an unmet need, and they’re actively considering making a purchase.
Purchase. This one’s self-explanatory; the visitor becomes a buyer.
Retention. After the customer buys your product, they may seek guidance from you or other users. This is a great opportunity to reach out to them and turn them into a repeat buyer.
Advocacy. Your customers will undoubtedly tell others about your product, whether they’ve formed a positive or negative opinion.

It seems simple, doesn’t it? Offering a quality experience at every stage in the user journey should be easy, but things aren’t always as they seem. Today’s customers are increasingly demanding, and as such, they’re taking on the buyer journey in new and complicated ways.

Why Mapping the Customer Journey is Important

With 67% of the buyer’s journey happening online, it’s important to understand where your customers are coming from and to regularly provide them with high-quality, relevant, and accessible content. With an effective map, you’ll be better equipped to turn leads into customers. Here’s how to get started.

Use the sales funnel. Your brand should already have a sales funnel that routes leads through your content toward a purchase. This step will tell you how many touchpoints buyers have with your brand, and how these interactions are connected.
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. It’s hard to think like a buyer, even with the wide availability of customer data. Everyone is unique, and it’s your job to understand how your customers are moving through your sales funnel. Although it’s impossible to predict their movements with perfect accuracy, by moving through your own process, you can align customers’ goals with each part of the funnel.
Develop touchpoints. Here, you’ll create places where customers can get information about your product or engage with your brand.
Implement the map and do your research. Enlist the help of a graphic designer to compile your touchpoints and findings into a logical and compelling sequence. Tools such as Google Analytics are useful if you’re trying to determine where customers are leaving the journey. With the information gathered here, you can analyze your touchpoints and make improvements.

What’s the Purpose of the Customer’s Journey, and How Can I Analyze It?

For marketers, there’s only one reason to consider the customer journey: to find out more about buyers’ behavior. Because the touchpoints we’ve listed above are highly visible, it’s easy to tailor them in ways that elicit the desired reaction from your buyers. Tools like cross-device or cross-domain trackers can help you find out how your customers are accessing the site, and with the information you gather, you can alter your marketing strategies accordingly.

Problems In the Customer Journey

Each stage in the journey contributes to customers’ purchase decisions to some extent, but everyone is different. If the buyer hadn’t learned about your product in the beginning, they may never have discovered it at all. Without reading all those positive online reviews, their interest may not have turned into action. Because of new strategies and rules on data protection, analysis may be problematic as well. You won’t be able to reconstruct the journey if your users are using anti-tracking tools or deleting their cookies, and the gathering of certain data may not be allowed in every circumstance. Depending on the nature of the data you find, it may be hard to tell which touchpoint turned a visitor into a customer.

In Closing

Offering potential customers an enjoyable, simplified online experience will increase engagement and sales. When you understand customers’ preferences, it’s easy to increase productivity by focusing your marketing efforts on the touchpoints that are most in need of improvement. With the tips and information in this guide, you can create a consistent customer experience across all platforms.

10. December 2018 by Claudia Rothenhorst

How You can use Micro-Moments for your Marketing Strategy

Today’s world is one of instant gratification. When buyers want something, they want it right now, and they’re making decisions almost immediately. These behavioral changes are created and facilitated by the pervasive nature of mobile devices. When smartphone users need information about a product, they have high expectations for speed and they’re in a hurry to get things done. These “I want” moments are what marketers call micro-moments, and in this guide, you’ll learn what they are, why you should care about them, and how you can use them to maximize the effect of your next marketing campaign.

What is a Micro-Moment?

These micro-moments happen as users turn to their mobile devices when they need to do, watch, learn, or buy something. They’re rich with intent; it’s when preferences are shaped and decisions are made. In a micro-moment, a consumer’s expectations are at their highest. We expect brands to give us information right away, which makes micro-moments a real game-changer for marketers.

Why Are They So Important?

Most brands have their marketing strategies mapped out in a sales funnel with separate content for the decision, consideration, and awareness stages, but things aren’t always so linear. As people become more dependent on their smartphones, the buyer journey has been segmented into hundreds of micro-moments, and each one presents a crucial opportunity to shape buyers’ preferences and decisions. If your brand does a great job of addressing buyers’ needs in the moment, you’ll gain an edge over your competitors.

How Micro-Moments Can Boost Your Marketing Efforts

Most of today’s consumers aren’t brand-focused. It’s been estimated that 90% of mobile device users aren’t sure of which brand they want to purchase when they begin their online research. That means you get a chance to ‘steal’ your competitors’ customers; 33% of users have bought from a brand or company other than the one they planned to because of information given exactly when they needed it.

Your online presence can help you achieve your goals for brand awareness. Over half of mobile users have found out about new products and companies when doing online searches. In the end, having a strong mobile presence puts you in a position not just to be seen, but to be chosen. By being there when customers are looking for information, your brand gets the chance to fulfill their need and move them further in the customer journey.

Micro-Moments: They’re the Wave of the Future

Most of us don’t have long sit-downs at our desktops when we’re shopping online. Instead, we use our phones to do the research and make decisions while we’re around the water cooler with colleagues, or when we’re picking up that morning cup of coffee. Although mobile is a force for change, the implications go much further, affecting the customer journey across channels, screens, and devices.

For instance, retail store foot traffic has decreased, but customers spend more when they finally walk in — because they’ve finished their research and made a decision already. The same applies to those visiting websites on their desktops and laptops. They’re spending less time on each visit, but conversion rates are rising. Micro-moments are the signposts that lead buyers to your website or brick-and-mortar store.

How to Win Micro-Moments

Although the concept seems relatively new, it goes back to basic marketing: understanding customers and fulfilling their needs. Below, you’ll find a few ways to do it.

Point out your customers’ “I want” moments. Talk to them or take part in industry focus groups to learn how, where, and when your buyers are doing their research and making decisions.
Be there when customers need you. Once you’ve figured out when and where your customers are looking for information, build a cross-channel strategy.
Deliver the right content. Just being there isn’t enough. You’ll have to look at the way people are searching—what they’re asking and which search terms they’re using—and offer them helpful, relevant content.
Simplify the purchase process. The research and purchasing processes should be as seamless as possible. Give your customers multiple purchasing methods with complete instructions and minimal steps.
Measure important moments. Plan every interaction with your customers and analyze how channels work together in support of the buyer journey.

Act Fast, Act Now

Thankfully, although the micro-moment concept was first introduced in 2015, many brands are still using the linear sales funnel strategy. That means there are still tons of opportunities for brands like yours to leverage the power of micro-moments. When you do, your brand will show up whenever (and wherever) your customers are looking.

25. November 2018 by Claudia Rothenhorst

Online Marketing Buzzwords: Content Amplification

Anyone scoping with topics in the field of online marketing knows the value of good and unique content, which is persistently created (three million blog posts are published every day!). Companies who are successful at content marketing try to get the most out of the content they create. With Content Amplification, you have a method for increasing the reach of your marketing campaigns considerably.

The reason for Content Amplification

advance your company with unique content — drive more and persistent traffic to your websites

There is no discussion that content will drive traffic to your website and that organic, persistent traffic is the prerequisite of a good content marketing strategy. When there are difficulties with reaching consistency with your organic traffic, a setup of a plan-B is necessary. At this point, content amplification comes in: a plan to amplify content beyond the range of organic traffic can make the difference in reaching success with your business.

Definition

Content amplification describes the process of taking your content to the next level: thus, it is able to reach a considerably broader audience and to amplify the range of your content. It describes the use of not only one type of content but diverse media (paid, owned and earned ones) in efforts to increase your brands scope and to guiden potential customers through the sales funnel.

Goal

In order to exert the reach-out of your content, all your promotion and marketing actions are tried to be aligned towards one central goal. The smart usage of paid and owned media channels will support your aim of additionally gaining earned media attention (like real-life engagement, reportings or references to your brand). In this way, your good, organic traffic is amplified in its range and is brought to the attention of customers.

Content Amplification Strategy

Goals: First of all, think about the goal of all your content amplification effort. It goes hand in hand with your content strategy and has to be thought about thoroughly. You have to know your custom goals. So, you can determine and measure if your marketing actions are working.
Use of various topics and channels during customer journey:
- Ensure that you have the right content topics to support marketing efforts. Your follower or potential customer must be delivered different types of content. Optimally, this is offered in various formats and from different sources – so every customer liking can be served. Some content amplification steps taken at various channels may cause actions among your users. Some useful content delivery channels in the beginnig of the customer journey might be: remarketing, influencer marketing, digital press release and (paid) social media.
- Later in the customer’s journey, the goal of content is to offer helpful information specific to your products. Some content types can be blog-posts, how-to’s or eBooks. The cannels at this stage might be: paid search, email marketing and social lead nurture.
- Soon your customer is ready to make a – hopefully – purchase decision. At this stage your content should offer a unique promotion. Besides, a confirmation that the choice they’re making is the right one, is useful. Paid search, paid social actions, lead nurture, influencer marketing and email offerings can be applicated here.
- After the decision for a purchase is made, don’t stop giving content to them. Try to get back to them, offer your help, ask for their opinion and provide useful information via email marketing and organic social media.
stay on track with good, unique content

Content, Content, Content: There should be a clear connection between your amplification and content creation strategy. Adapt the content topics in order to fill-out holes on the way of your customer journey. Maybe tools like a content calendar can be really useful in order to keep an eye on the content topics and continue publishing awesome content.
Amplification Stage: Use the channels you currently operate, if you find that they effectively help you reach your potential customers. Therefore, consider all the channels and if they can be optimized with one another. Your own channels as well as paid channels can be controlled best, so theay are the best way to start with. But paid, owned and earned media should always work as one single integrity.

Most important tools

Here are some tools, you can use for the amplification of content:

BuzzSumo is a tool, used for content marketing and SEO campaigns. It is able to quickly identify what content is working well in a certrain industry and who the major influencers are.
Facebook Ads is a very interesting opportunity for businesses to target ads aimed to the specific audience.
Buffer is an intuitive social media management platform trusted by brands, businesses, agencies, and individuals to help drive social media results.
Buzz Stream is a web-based software that helps the world’s best marketers promote their products, services and content to build links, buzz, and brands.

with a diverse approach on multiple channels, you can cover the interests of your customers

Resume

For establishing an Amplification Strategy, processes for the marketing steps have to be setup. Besides, social media and skilled marketing experts are needed to overtake the tasks, connected with the strategy. In the end, when all steps are taken, they can bring more leads for your business.

22. October 2018 by Janina Winkler

Online Marketing BuzzWords: Omni-Channel

Imagine having a concise brand that reaches out to your customers no matter where they are and encourages them to learn more about you or to make a purchase. Imagine having the ability to reach out online and through a storefront, the ability to get customers interested in your brand, and the ability to encourage repeat purchases. Omni-Channel retailing enables all of this and can help your brand grow.

What is Omni-Channel?

Omni-channel means using multiple channels to reach out to potential customers and to encourage repeated purchases. It’s an integrated approach to marketing that reaches everywhere to interact with customers. Branding must be consistent across all channels to present a unified approach and to allow the business to be everywhere their customers might be.

Omni-channel retailing combines social media, e-commerce, storefronts, and anything else the customers might expect to see your business in. It allows you to inspire customers to reach out to you, to purchase products no matter where they are or what they’re doing and enables brand recognition by keeping the branding the same everywhere customers might see you.

Example of an Omni-Channel Approach

Omni-channel retailing is not something that’s done all at once. Instead, it’s done in stages to reach out to the customer consistently and get more interaction with the company. An example of how this might work includes the following steps:

The customer makes a purchase online through a major reseller like Amazon. They receive their product with a letter thanking them for their purchase and encouraging them to visit the company’s website.
The customer visits the company’s website where they’re able to see all of the products sold by the company, sign up for the company loyalty program for special savings, and be connected to the company’s social media websites.
The customer adds the company on social media, receiving special discounts and an invitation to check out direct to store shipping. This makes it easier for them to try out the store shipping on the company’s website.
The customer purchases a product and has it shipped to the store, where they’ll pick it up. While there, they receive a coupon for a future purchase and have the chance to see more products in person.
The customer uses the coupon and receives a follow-up email. This encourages them to shop online, visit the store in person, or to check out a special event.

The process continues, with the customer receiving more information about the company, more reasons to connect with the company and to continue to purchase products from the company. They’re receiving information both in person and online across multiple channels, boosting brand recognition and supporting loyalty.

How Can This be Used in an Online Strategy?

Using omni-channel retailing enables you to reach out to customers online and in person. Though your storefront will be a part of your marketing strategy, a lot of the work will be done online. You’ll need to make sure your branding is consistent throughout all channels. You’ll also want to make sure all channels are connected as well so it’s easier for your customers to move between them and find all of the information they’re looking for.

To work properly, there should be the potential to purchase products through multiple channels, not just connect with your company. For instance, they might be able to purchase your products in your store, on Amazon, and via your website. They may be able to have products shipped to their home or schedule a time to pick up the product in your store if that’s more convenient for them. Connecting everything to encourage them to be loyal to your brand is what makes omni-channel retailing so successful.

Potential Drawbacks

Omni-channel retailing does need to be done carefully to work well. If the branding isn’t consistent, it could be confusing for potential customers and could make brand awareness more difficult. Additionally, if customers have trouble getting from one channel to another or aren’t contacted with more information about how to connect with the company, it could discourage them from future purchases. Consistency is the key with omni-channel retailing and helps ensure it works properly to promote your brand.

Brand recognition and encouraging loyalty are crucial today. Omni-channel retailing is the chance to connect all channels your company uses, online and offline, to promote your brand, bring in new customers, and encourage customers to continue shopping with your company for what they need. Learn more about this type of marketing today to find out if it’s the best option for your company.

9. October 2018 by Claudia Rothenhorst

Online Marketing BuzzWords: Freemium

Freemium is a business model in which the base product is offered for free, while the full product and extensions are chargeable. In the case of computer games, it is known as “Free To Play“.

Definition of Freemium

Freemium is an artificial mix of the two words “free” and “premium” and describes a kind of online services where the basic features are available for free. Any additional content or features, which go beyond that basic functionality, are charged. Freemium is a business model that aims to attract customers by first attracting them to a platform through free services and then offering them premium services that contain more functionality and have to be paid for.

Origin of freemium models

Since the commercialization of the Internet in the mid-1990s, the Freemium business model has been a common way of gaining revenue from essentially freely available online services. Early examples are Netscape Communications or in Germany WEB.de. For software products, an analog model is even older and is now very prominent: Adobe Systems Inc. with the free Acrobat Reader to read PDF files. A creation of PDF files is not possible with the software. For this purpose the company offers the paid program Adobe Acrobat.

A large number of services like apps are offered with a Freemium model

Nowadays many services like Pandora, Evernote, Mailchimp, Xing, Spotify, Flickr or Skype use this model. For the most part, the additional paid content addresses fixed root users who are already intensively using the basic offer. The proportion of users willing to pay is usually very low.

Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson described the Freemium model on March 23, 2006 as follows: “Offer your service for free, possibly with commercials or maybe not, effectively win many customers through word of mouth, affiliate, search engine placement, and so on, and then offer additional services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base for an additional charge. ”

The difference between free and Freemium Software

In general, there hast to be a differentiation between free and fully functioning software on the one hand and free but limitedly usable software on the other. While users of free software receive the complete product, including the rights to view and change the source code, with the Freemium version they only receive an excerpt from the range of services offered by the software and services and never have any rights whatsoever, for example to change the source code or just to see it. The differences between free basic version and paid premium version vary by product.

Area of application

Email-Provider

Some E-mail account providers are building their business model based on the freemium principle on the Internet. They offer free registration of e-mail addresses. The free offer, however, includes only limited storage space. If the user wants to increase his storage volume, he has to pay for it.

Games

The Freemium model is increasingly being used in games where you can buy comfort features, benefits or additional content.

Software

Features: Basic and Premium versions differ in functionality. An example of this is Skype. In the free version, among other group video calls are not available.
Capacity: The full functionality is initially available in the basic version. During use, the usage (eg duration, bandwidth, file size) is measured. After reaching the volume limit, the product can only be used to a limited extent. An example of this is the SQL Server Express. In the Freemium version, the size of databases is limited to 10 GB.
Customer group: The full product is offered free of charge to certain customer groups. An example of this is the Dreamspark model from Microsoft. Selected student groups are offered the software for free.

Hardware

To sell Hardware, the Freemium business model is also used. The provider publishes plans, parts lists and tutorials free of charge, often as free hardware, with the aim of creating an online community that in turn contributes to improving the product (crowdsourcing). Once the necessary attention and needs have been created, the supplier offers kits or finished products based on them. The target group are customers who do not have the time or skill to assemble the product themselves, but want to own it and are prepared to pay for it. Chris Anderson follows this business model with his company DIY Drones and describes it in his book “Free”.

Books

Books are also offered as freemium products. The basic product is the electronic version (audiobook, e-book, website); the bound book represents the premium product. The already mentioned book “Free” by Chris Anderson was marketed in this way. Daniel Shiffman published 2012 “The Nature of Code” as a hardcover book. The e-book can be downloaded for a selectable price between 0 and 50 $ (Pay-What-You-Want). The electronic version in HTML including all sample programs are available online for free. Shiffman funded the initial investment in 2011 through the crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter.com.

Journals & Newspapers

In December 2013, the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) announced that meanwhile 70 newspaper titles in Germany had set up paid content models on their websites. 71 percent of the newspapers rely on the freemium version. Here, the editors decide which content is free and which are made available for a fee. Alternative payment models are the metered model, where a certain number of posts per month can be read for free. All further calls for contributions are subject to a charge.

The Freemium model and Advertising

There are services provided- especially in the are of online games – in which the basic product already offers the complete functionality and is financed by advertising. Users can turn off the impressions for a fee. Even with mobile services for smartphones and tablets, app providers build their business model through in-app purchases on the Freemium model.

Conclusion

The sometimes painful restrictions of the cost free, but not freely usable software has led to terms such as “Expireware”. In contrast to software products, where this model has a negative connotation due to the often unusable software, Internet services on the Freemium model are useful in private or small business environment.

Online-Marketing

What You Need to Know About WordPress Plugins

Online Marketing Buzzwords: Customer Journey