Category: Interviews

In an increasingly evolving market, brands are spreading themselves thin in every sector. All they want is a fierce and competitive global presence. Very few brands which treat marketing as a sidebar and a solid foundation as a primary aspect are sitting on the exponentials in the long run.

Esha from KnowledgeHut sheds light on how to build this strong foundation with the right mix of microtargeting and content marketing. But before the deeper talk, here are a few trivia about Esha and KnowledgeHut.

About Esha

Esha is presently working as a Content Marketing Manager at KnowledgeHut Solutions. She is responsible for the end-to-end development, delivery, and marketing of brand-centered content.

Holding a significant position in the digital marketing team at KnowledgeHut, Esha primarily mentors a team of technical content developers and actively coordinates between Paid Marketing (Social Media and PPC Adwords) and SEO teams to deliver content that caters to the niche sectors in the education industry.

A passionate marketing enthusiast, Esha started her career as an Engineer. After graduating from one of the reputed universities in the USA, Esha decided to make a massive career shift and pursue her true calling.

Today, she is a writer-turned-marketer. In her leisure hours, when she isn’t either writing or marketing, Esha indulges in painting, watching movies or listening to music.

About KnowledgeHut

KnowledgeHut is one of the leading education service providers in India. We offer certification training programs to the software professionals in a bid to take their career curves a few notches above their peers.

Our vibrant team of industry experts, marketing professionals, sales personnel, engineers, and designers offer integrated solutions to the customers. One of the pioneer providers of e-learning and classroom training programs in popular IT domains like Project Management, Agile and Scrum, IT Service Management and a few more, KnowledgeHut has become a prominent name among IT professionals.

How important is content in your marketing strategy?

Speaking of small to large scale marketing and branding strides, content is everything. Content, in fact, is more than just the “king”! It is the building block of marketing, and being a content architect and marketer at the same time, I constantly strive to make the perfect blend happen.

Contrary to the common perception, I strongly believe that a one-size-fits-all content approach is the biggest blunder committed by a sizeable cohort of marketers. Rather, a targeted content fed to the right sub-set of customers can have an outsize impact on your brand’s future.

What exactly is microtargeting?

Simply defined, microtargeting is a way to create customer segments based on definite demographic and psychographic patterns. This makes it easier for content marketers to target individual consumer segments and sell useful products to the relevant buyers.

Though widely treated as a content marketing jargon, microtargeting is a simple concept. You need to have a focused customer behaviour analysis (strategy) in place to identify and categorize their buying patterns. As opposed to the common perceptions of mass outreach, microtargeting helps to reach out to your potential prospects and ensure a better conversion.

How do you use microtargeting in your content marketing strategy?

Here’s the caveat and also a big catch! There is no single microtargeting marketing strategy in existence that went exactly as per the plan. It has either overachieved or failed miserably, or perhaps, fetched mediocre leads. This is exactly where a targeted approach comes into the picture.

The first big step to micro target your audience is to segment them into discrete chunks based on unique demographics and psychographics (the latter is widely overlooked by small and mid-scale brands). Next, compare and contrast these consumer subsets and identify the unique features of each. At every stage, ask the following questions-

1. Who are my present and prospective customers?
2. Do they exhibit certain common buying traits?
3. Which are the potential customer areas I can expand based on the generic and specific traits?

An effective heatmapping clearly highlights the product segments your customers are interested in. This applies everywhere. Be it your landing page, blogs, sponsored social media content or e-mail content, individuals who have demonstrated a certain degree of interest in your product(s) should be your primary targets. Dig the goldmine!

What are some of the best tools for microtargeting?

There are no fixed set of tools for a granular targeting. Without a deeper delve into core technicalities, there are certain popular predictive analytics tools widely used by online marketers, such as Google Analytics and Google Adwords.

Let us also not forget the power of social media channels, retargeting Ads and campaigns, where content plays a key role. It is equally safe to say that this is not your garden-variety content. Rather, it is a more focused, personalized and individualized content platter that creates the much-needed appeal.

Any recent campaign in your organization that employed microtargeting and worked really well?

Yes, and it did not just work, it was a massive success. On the occasion of its 7th year anniversary, KnowledgeHut initiated a “7 grand offers” campaign that turned out to be an overnight success. Combined with other microtargeting marketing efforts like relevant internal linking and external linking for blog posts, this was a remarkable attempt to engage the right section of the audience.

You may take a quick glimpse at the campaign here.

Coupled with the above, we also came up with an integrated infographic (first of its kind in the e-learning industry) presenting the perfect learning roadmap for the IT professionals. It not only combines industry-endorsed courses from the top accreditation bodies, but also helps both the entry-level and experienced professionals gain clarity of the career path ahead.

The following graph will help understand the traffic surge we have seen in the preceding months by employing simple yet powerful microtargeting techniques in our regular blog posts. These envelope but are not limited to-

1. Educative illustrations
2. Internal and external links
3. Relevant blog snippets shared on social media

Post implementation, we saw a nearly 14% increase in traffic to the blogs, which was approximately 2.3X the traffic observed in the previous months.

We were also elated to see a 6X increase in overall reach by virtue of the recent gmail campaigns and social media Ads.

Are there any other brands that you think are doing well with microtargeting?

In the present market, Amazon is the power player in terms of strategic microtargeting. It has successfully made itself the second home for its buyers. What more can you ask for when there is a brand that remembers your preferences and helps you make quick decisions on your future purchases!

Find a brilliant example of microtargeting below-

There are absolutely no textbook approaches to microtargeting or marketing in general. However, a few essentials tips can help you stand out in the ever-competitive, dynamic market.

What are the top tips on microtargeting that you would like to share with fellow marketers?

Tip 1: Rightly leverage the “FOMO” mindset

More popular as the acronym FOMO, Fear of Missing Out is a commonly observed buyer trait. While some of the brands have diluted the FOMO practice through overused phrases like “Hurry up before the offer ends” or “Only x items in stock”, marketing giants like Amazon and Flipkart have rightly struck the chord. The best route according to me is to treat FOMO as a buyer mindset through strategic microtargeting.

You may-

• Make your content (offer) exclusive
• Evoke the competitive spirit
• Present social (read social media) proofs

Have the courage to let your content (say limited offers) expire and emphasize the “missed opportunities” in the future e-mails or offer alerts you send to your customers. This enhances your credibility as a brand.

Tip 2: Busting the myth- Microtargeting limits your opportunities

In reality, it does the polar opposite. While massive branding initiatives (macrotargeting) boosts your customer outreach manyfold, microtargeted content brings you closer to your niche and relevant prospects. What would you prefer as a marketer- a 10/1000 or a 30/50 conversion rate?

This could be the ideal way to eliminate the consumer segment that is mostly cold to your offers and updates.

Tip 3: Do not “over” microtarget

Simply put, do not overdo it. Marketing to niche customer clusters often entails handling sensitive (though usually harmless) user details like their age, interests, job titles, general activities and pursuits. But choose to tone it down in your retargeting campaign contents.

An example would be better. It would really scare the world out of me if one fine morning I receive an over-personalized inbox content that says-

“Hey there, 28-year old from Bangalore! We know you love trekking and you miss the XYZ brand sneakers you wore to your road trip to Niagra in 2015! Want to check out the newest shoes we have in store?”

Of course, I have volunteered this information on my social media profiles. But this degree of details is enough to make me feel vulnerable. The same content, scaled down to a more subtle tone may actually nudge me to go ahead and make a purchase.

Read More: 10+ Best Grammar and Plagiarism Checker Tools (Free & Paid)

Conclusion

Esha has given us some really valuable insights on microtargeting and we would like to heartily thank her for the same. We now understand that making Microtargeting a part of one’s content marketing strategy is a smart move. It helps in reaching out to like-minded individuals and can easily influence their actions and thoughts.

To stand out as a brand, you need to have winning app marketing strategies that can guarantee success. It is imperative to define your audience segments before you venture into app marketing.

If you try reaching out to everyone through mobile app marketing, then you will not be able to sustain growth through

To know more about what mobile app marketing is, and the strategies that follow, read the interview by Jyoti Mali from WedMeGood who gives deeper insights on the topic. But before that, here’s a little read about Jyotiand WedMeGood

About Jyoti

Jyoti currently heads Digital Marketing at WedMeGood. She oversees overall online marketing campaigns across SEO, SEM, Social Media Advertising, Lead Management, CRO, Content Marketing, App Promotion & Analytics, etc. Previously as a digital marketer, she worked with a Digital Agency and led a team of 8-10 Account Managers across Fashion, E-commerce, Finance, IT, Travel, and more.

About WedMeGood

WedMeGood is a tech startup changing the way weddings are planned in India. The online wedding planning site and app has been started with an aim of helping users plan their wedding on their own. With more than 1.5 lac downloads, the WedMeGood App is currently India’s #1 Wedding Planning App.

Who Is Your Target Audience?

As the App helps with wedding planning, our primary focus is newly engaged people from metro cities and of the age group of 24-35 years.

What Is App Marketing?

Mobile Apps are now an essential part of the digital outreach. With increasing usage and better user engagement, Apps have become responsible to generate a major part of the revenue for customer-centric businesses. And hence, there is a huge competition in the app market leading to bigger challenges for businesses to get their apps on the top of the App search.

Therefore, there is a need for Mobile App Marketing. App Marketing is a set of techniques that are used to improve App’s visibility by ranking them to the top of App search and by reaching the potential audience through Ads, banners, popups, social media and more. Not only increasing downloads, App Marketing also aims at retaining the app users and making them perform actions on the app that lead to the business goals.

How Can You Use Content to Leverage App Marketing?

Content plays an important role in every type of Marketing. Through blog posts, app reviews & earned media, we can tell our potential audience how our app can help in solving their problems, what features it has and why they should download it.

Article

We all run app install ads and we have only a few words to say about our app. With an interesting article, you can connect with your audience, pass on some great tips that add value to them, tell them more about your app and its features, and let them understand how it can help them make their life easier.

There are many articles over the web on choosing the right wedding planning app like this – mentioning WedMeGood among one of the best apps every bride-to-be must have.

Video

A short 3-5 seconds video can do wonders in capturing a user’s attention and pass on what you want to say in the short span of time. Video ads are proven to do better on social media and are more engaging.

Landing page for web users

You should not underestimate the importance of a web page to promote your mobile app. If you have a good presence on web, you should create a landing page for your App mentioning its features, download link etc.

What Is the Best Way to Get Your App Found?

ASO

Your App’s content on the app/play store like its title, sub title, description, screenshots & keywords have a huge impact on its visibility for related terms searched on app stores. Thus, optimizing your app’s content is remarkably important.

Reaching Your Target Audience

Know your target users and target them through various channels like social media, SEM, etc. Use the right messaging and use videos, content, images, etc. to define what your app really does.

Social Media

Social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter are the most popular app acquisition channels for acquiring new users. If you already have a good following on social, leverage that to convert your followers to your app users. If not, advertise on these platforms to reach the right kind of audience for your mobile app.

App Referrals

Once your app has traction, asking your existing users for referring your app is a very effective medium to acquire more users. Word of mouth leads to better conversions and hence, takes minimal effort to improve downloads without costing much.

Describe the Various Methods for Marketing Your App

Different app marketing techniques for different stages of marketing:

Acquiring New Users

New users can be acquired through:

• Search Ads
• Social media Ads
• Display Ads
• Video Ads
• App Store Optimization
• Email Marketing
• Web Popups

Retaining Existing Users

Activating and retaining existing users is equally important. Keep your users engaged with the app, inform them about app updates, offers, promotions, etc and entice them to convert. To bring users back to the app, you can use:

• Push notifications
• Mobile in app banners
• Email Marketing
• App Engagement Ads

Leveraging Past Loyal Users

Run an App referral program to bring in more users through your existing users.

What Sort of Content Do You Use at WedMeGood for App Marketing?

At WedMeGood, being a wedding planning platform, we have users retained only till they get married. So, concerning this short lifespan of the users, we have used all possible app marketing channels to target a specific audience and engage them during their wedding journey. We have always valued the user’s experience the most.

Hence, we update the app frequently to provide the best user interface, faster loading, minimized app size and uptime app support. This brings us loyal users, good rating, positive reviews and high retention time for our users compared to the industry standards. We have used multi-channel marketing to ensure that the users have a seamless experience when they are on the web and then go to the app and then browse through web again.

What Are the KPI’s That You Focus on During App Marketing?

Organic Downloads Cost per app install Downloads from each marketing campaign Retention rate Daily/monthly active users Avg session duration Screen flow Lifetime value

How Do You Measure Them?

We have used various tools for App analytics like Firebase, Mixpanel and Google Analytics

Tell Us About Other Brands That You Think Are Doing Well With App Marketing

Ajio.com, an online fashion retail brand is one such example of great app marketing. The team at Ajio has leveraged their web traffic to drive app downloads. And they show the following banner with an irresistible offer as soon as you visit their website.

Another great thing is, that they have also focused greatly on ASO and user reviews: They have nearly 9.7K reviews for their IOS app and 105K for the Android App.

They also send Push notifications and Emailers almost daily with different offers and updates to bring users back to the app.

Any Tips for Marketers on Mobile App Marketing

Multiple studies reveal that users abandon 1 in 4 apps after a single use. It takes a considerable cost in acquiring new users. Therefore, retaining App users should be the main focus of App Marketing. Leverage your existing users, give them the best experience, engage them with your app, solve their problems, make them your loyal users and they will also contribute to promoting your app.

Conclusion

We thank Jyoti for giving us such useful tips on app marketing. We now understand that while marketing for an app, it is important to always keep your users and their needs as the priority. The stage where we are able to fulfil their requirements is the stage where we can deem our mobile app marketing strategy a success.

If you’re looking to expand your app marketing strategy and are in need for content, reach out to us at WittyPen!

Website backlinks play an important role in determining the rank of a webpage. A webpage that has a good number of relevant backlinks tends to rank higher on all major search engines including Google.
Sameer Panjwani, CEO of Mondovo talks about what website backlinks are and how a brand can build them to enhance its domain authority. But first let’s get to know all about Sameer and Mondovo.

About Mondovo

Mondovo is a software platform that helps you track the success of your SEO activities online and shows you opportunities for growth. The software also allows you to keep tabs on the SEO activities of your competition, thus giving you ideas on what you could be doing better for your site.

About Sameer

From 2005 till date, I have been in the field of digital marketing. I have built and successfully marketed products and services mostly around SEO. These products have served over 25,000 clients till date.
To me, marketing is like a puzzle that needs solving, and I am fascinated by the different approaches by which we can solve this puzzle. My mission is to build products and offer services that get clients an extremely high ROI on their marketing spends, irrespective of the marketing channel.

How important is SEO for any brand?

I am completely biased towards SEO since that has been the bread and butter of my business for years. I will admit though, the dependency on search engines, as a channel of customer acquisition, has reduced in the past few years with the emergence of social media as a viable alternative.

However, there is, and will always be, a very large segment of the population that still relies on Google to find information, products and services. So, search engine optimization will continue to play a very important part.

SEO is only going to get tougher with every passing day but for those who dominate the rankings for their primary business terms, they will see at least 5x the returns as compared to anyone just relying on paid advertising as a medium of customer acquisition.

What are website backlinks in SEO and how can you establish trust and domain authority through it?

The word “World Wide Web” originates from the concept that the Internet consists of a bunch of useful websites that are interconnected via hyperlinks.
These hyperlinks, more commonly known as links, are the means to discovering other pages on the web. So it’s based on this principle that search engines like Google are able to crawl the web; and it’s based on the number and quality of such links you have pointing to your site, that Google would assess your popularity.
When Google ranks sites on the web, their first criteria is the quality and relevancy of information that the sites have to offer.

However, since the web is a crowded marketplace and there are likely to be a number of similar sites offering quality solutions, a factor that helps Google distinguish one site from another is how popular the site is in terms of its’ backlinks. These backlinks, aka votes, are what help pip one site over another in the search engine results page.

If website backlinks are that important, what can one do to get more of them?

To get website backlinks is the equivalent of getting other people to include a link to your site when they publish some content on theirs.Now that’s hard.
It’s especially hard if your site consists only of pages talking about you, your company, and the services it offers. Think about it, why would someone link to a commercial site like that? So before we even get into what we can do get more website backlinks, we need to answer this question to ourselves, “Who would likely link to me and why?”.

If we think on those lines, there are a multitude of ideas that we will get. If you think deeper, you’ll figure that if you’re going to have any chance of getting website backlinks on a sustainable basis, you’re going to need quality content that others would like to reference/share from within their sites.
Having content is key to building website backlinks on a sustainable basis. It’s going to be hard otherwise.

That’s not to say that you can’t get website backlinks without content. There are many companies that do. However, those are cases of the companies either having great branding & PR or having great products; in both these cases, there is usually a constant flurry of press mentions and blogger activity around what these companies do and so there is a natural flow of website backlinks. That’s why bigger brands usually do well on search. If you fit into this category, you might get away with not needing to build any content. If not, you’ll need some content that others will have reason to link to from within their site.

There are many ways to build quality backlinks to your site, right from the simple and most obvious method of guest posting on other sites, to more advanced link building methods mentioned out here.

If most links point to content, how would one create backlinks for their brand?

As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to get links pointing directly to your branded homepage or your product/service pages.
Some methods that come to mind are:

• Digital PR
• Getting listed in the relevant Industry & Trade Associations / Directories
• Getting your partners/vendors/suppliers to link to you
• Getting bloggers and influencers to review you/your product/your service
• Get interviewed by other publications
• Participate in podcast interviews
• Check the resources/list pages that your competitors are listed in and try to emulate those links
• Guest blogging with links to your brand either in the Author Bio or as a relevant mention within the context of the article

All these are tougher tactics to execute but they can be done and are important.

Are there any tools that you use to evaluate the quality of website backlinks?

There are primarily 3 companies in the industry that provide the best sources of backlink data: Ahrefs.com, Moz.com and Majestic.com
Each of these providers(backlink checkers) have their own proprietary scoring algorithms that they use to rate backlinks. Ahrefs has the “DR” (Domain Rating) metric, Moz has “DA” (Domain Authority) and “PA” (Page Authority), Majestic has “TF” (Trust Flow) and “CF” (Citation Flow).
Which of these is the best metric? I would use a combination of these along with manually reviewing the backlinks. These metrics can help quickly filter out any links that have poor scores.

Any parting thoughts about link building?

Link building is critical to the success of your site in competitive industries. However, it is not something that should be considered in a silo. Great content is the foundation required for link building to work. This is an area where most people go wrong, they don’t give enough importance to quality content. Then another mistake is for those who do spend time in building content, they don’t do anything to try building links to those content assets. That’s another big mistake. So those are two things that must be kept in mind with link building: build content regularly + do what it takes to get the word out to other bloggers => guest blog on others’ platforms and link back to these content assets of yours from there.

Conclusion

We would like to heartily thank Sameer for giving us valuable insights on building website backlinks. These tips are helpful in finding quality backlinks for establishing brand authority and ranking higher on search engines.

Effective content writing plays a key role in marketing success and lead generation for any company. Good Writing leads to better communication and drives search engine results, increase in traffic and also leads to establishing brand authority.
Matt from IBM sheds light on the importance of effective content writing for your business. Before proceeding ahead to the insights by Matt, here’s a little read about Matt and IBM.

About Matt

Matt Alexander has been working in the capacity of a marketing professional over 7 years handling different roles, and he is currently working as a Content Marketer for IBM Hybrid Cloud for the North America market.

About IBM

IBM is a wonderful company to work for – strong in values and people oriented. IBMers strive to change how the world works by building smarter businesses.

How important is content marketing to your brand?

Content marketing is vital to help influence conversions. Customized content helps in building good relationships with your customers and improves brand reputation.

What role does effective writing play in content marketing?

Written communication is an integral part of communication. Ability to tell a story in fewer words is the norm of the day. Quality over quantity matters. The language must be simple and enticing flowing in the form of a story. Hence all brands must ensure that their teams have good writing skills.

What are the important factors for effective writing?

Writing should always be done with the ability to consume the audience’s interest. It should be short and crisp. The words should be simple and the tone should be refreshing. I feel the Headline is the most important part of the article given individual’s short attention span. If the headlines capture the attention of your audience, they will be more likely to read the article. The content needs to have a clear Call To Action.

You can check out WittyPen’s blog on how to craft catchy headlines here.

In what ways can you use effective writing to convey your brand’s message?

3 values of the IBM Brand are :

• Dedication to every client’s success
• Trust and personal responsibility in every relationship
• Innovation that matters for the company the world

Overall, we need to make sure our marketing efforts resonate these values in whatever product we market. I am responsible for marketing IBM Hybrid Cloud solutions for our clients. We should firstly understand that our messaging should be uniform across all platforms. We have positioned IBM Cloud as The Cloud for the enterprise, built for all applications, Artificial Intelligence ready and Secure to the core. Everyone who markets IBM Cloud, should convey this overall message.

Content can be made in the form of blogs, whitepapers, case studies, client references, videos, video blogs, webinars, infographics emailers, etc depending on each buyer’s stage in the buyer journey. Discover, Learn, Try, Buy, Adopt and Advocate are the 6 stages in the buyer journey.

Each of these content needs to educate the audience about the product in a simple manner and entice them to take action.

Is it important to just write effectively or are there other factors also involved that lead to brand awareness?

Writing effectively is only half the mission accomplished. Promotion and distribution is a very important factor too. We need to first understand our target audience, their industry, pain points and their stage in the buyer journey before we pitch our content to them. While pitching content, we need to be aware of the social media platforms they are most active in. A one size fits all approach doesn’t work. A tailored approach is most effective in making sure people consume our content.

Please share some campaigns by IBM that demonstrate the success of effective writing.

1. Watson on Jeopardy
2. Smarter Planet
3. The Cognitive Era ( A new era in technology, a new era in business)

Any tips for effective content writing to the marketers?

Yes, there are a few content writing tips that I personally also follow.
Research says that 88% of people who read a headline will most likely be read the entire article. So start by writing an effective Headline that captures the audience’s attention. Keep it short and crisp. Include numbers or ask it in the form of a question which will rouse the audience’s interest. Example – How to save 10 Lakhs each year on storage solutions?

Make sure the content in the body is told in the form of a story. Avoid unnecessary jargons. Use simple language. Lastly, include a compelling Call to Action which entices the audience to take action.

Effective writing also helps you with search engine optimization. So if you are looking at ranking high on search engine pages, you must ensure that you provide the best marketing content that’s relevant to your audience.

Conclusion

We heartily thank Matt for taking out the time to talk to us about the importance of effective content writing. We now understand that effective content writing can help in boosting one’s content strategy and enhancing the brand’s engagement with the users

One dilemma that most of the marketers face is to choose between the very powerful strategies for their brands – SEO and SEM. SEO is about optimizing your website to get better rankings in search results while SEM leads to your brand getting more visitors through PPC or advertising.

Gur Baltej who previously worked as the Digital Marketing Manager at Times Internet sheds light on why combining SEO and SEM strategies is actually good for your business. But before moving on to that, here’s a little read about Gur and Times Internet

About Gur

Gur is an Anthropology graduate with 11 years of experience in Digital Marketing in running campaigns for multiple companies across verticals. He started his career with Google India managing campaigns for US & UK advertisers. Post that, He joined HealthKart- India’s largest online health & fitness store- & managed their entire paid online marketing function. His last job was with Times Internet Limited digital products company where he managed digital marketing campaigns for some of their top products.

About Times Internet

Times Internet Ltd has 39+ digital businesses & its websites are among the fastest growing Web/Mobile based networks worldwide. It is the digital venture of Times of India Group and reaches over 270 million monthly unique visitors who collectively spend over 10 billion minutes across all its products and services.

What is SEM?

SEM or Search Engine Marketing refers to running paid campaigns on search engines. It is used to bring traffic to your site & achieve the business’ goal of bringing traffic to the site or take the desired action on the site like generating a lead or transaction.

What is the role of SEM in your brand’s overall marketing strategy?

SEM plays an important role in marketing strategy to achieve desired business’ results. It provides a quicker way to show your site on SERP & get quicker results. It is an important source to increase & bring additional traffic on your site. Businesses are increasingly allotting more budgets to SEM.

Google AdWords spending increased by 19 percent in 2016, and rose by 21 percent in 2017. In addition, click volume grew by 20 percent (The Marketing Scope)

For example, sites like Times Of India whose goal is to increase traffic on the site & stay ahead of the competition in terms of traffic, used Search engine marketing as an integral part of their strategy. Also, NewsPoint app, winner of Best News App Award by CMO Asia for 2017 & 2018, relies heavily on SEM strategy to get app installs.

What do you think is more important – SEM or SEO?

Both are important as they serve the purpose of driving your business. However, SEM being a paid part, depends on the type of business & the budget you have.

1. Free organic traffic from SEO is desired by all but may not fulfil your traffic goals.
2. SEM steps in here as an additional source to increase traffic on the site.
3. SEO takes time to show results & this gap can be filled by SEM.
4. You may not be able to do SEO for all the relevant products but you can use SEM to drive traffic to them.

Explain to us a marketing strategy that integrates both SEO and SEM.

While there is a difference between SEO and SEM, there are some similarities as well.

Two things common to SEO & SEM are keywords & content for the page & ad text. Below are the processes in short.

For SEO, you’ll need to zero in on the products/services whose pages you’d want to appear in the top search results. Based on those, you need to find out keywords create content for their pages. You can use the basic Google Ads Keyword Planner to find the keywords based on the volume of traffic.

To know the traffic as well as organic competition for keywords, you can use tools like KW Finder. Take out the top 100 KWs & use them in your Content’s title, body & rest of the content on the page. Try not to just stuff keywords in content for the sake of it. Content should be original & relevant to the user. Similarly, use the keywords in your on-page SEO like page title, meta title, meta description & others.

For SEM, take out keywords from Keyword Planner for the product or service whose ads you’d want to show on SERP. (For e-comm, Shopping campaigns & ads using Product feed & not keywords are more used these days but do have some keyword search campaigns ready). If you are using the previous Keyword Planner, it will provide related keyword ideas as well as ad group ideas.

You can take ideas from there to create ad groups with a different set of keywords. Make sure that you use the keywords in your ad text as well as the ad is relevant to the landing page of your ad.

Please share with us some campaigns that have done really well

One of the most successful TIL campaigns were in tapping the regional markets with regional language campaigns for driving traffic for some of its brands. Google made a case study out of it. If you see, Google India Year in Search 2017 Report, it says that searches in local languages have increased by 10X & 2 in 3 searches are coming outside of Top 6 Metros.

Search Engine Results For Times (SEO)

SEM Mobile Ad For Times

Talking about e-commerce, HealthKart campaigns for Protein Supplements did great in driving sales volume. The key was to create campaigns with generic keywords based on sub-categories as well as brand & product-specific campaigns.

Any tips to marketers today

1. Use a healthy mix of SEO marketing & SEM per your business needs & budget.
2. Be patient with SEO marketing. Use both on-page & off-page techniques to get the maximum out of Search engine optimization.
3. Set specific KPIs to measure the performance of SEO & Search engine marketing campaigns. Keep a regular check, make changes & optimize whenever required.
4. Keep yourself updated with latest changes & releases in SEO algorithm & SEM campaign features & functionalities.
5. Finally, your user is paramount. Ensure that your content & campaigns are highly relevant to user needs. If you are able to give the users what they require & give them a delightful experience, your job is done

Conclusion

We heartily thank Gur for providing us with valuable insights on both SEO and SEM strategies. Now, we know that a brand can deliver best results if it effectively combines its search engine marketing strategy with search engine optimization.