Imagine a world where Sherlock Holmes has the sharpest mind but no intriguing mysteries to solve. Or Iron Man without his tech-suit. They are simply incomplete without one another. 

In the same way, lead generation is the lifeline of businesses. Without a consistent inflow of customers, even the best business idea will fail to flourish. And you don’t want that, do you? 

This is where we come into the picture. Today, we bring you the top 10 lead-generation strategies that work like a charm in 2024. Each one, when done right, can help you achieve your goal without any difficulty.

So, let’s jump right into it!

1. Content Marketing

7.5 million blogs are published each day. There is a reason why more and more businesses are jumping on the content bandwagon.

This is because the content is just not the king but the entire kingdom! And if you look at it, truly look at it, you will know how true the statement is.

Content is everywhere. From the billboards to radio ads and pop-ups and more, there is no escaping it. But when you have enticing content by your side, that’s a whole other story.

Content marketing goes beyond promoting products. When done right, it helps provide information that solves problems or addresses the needs of your audience. Inclusive content plays a pivotal role here, as it ensures that diverse voices and perspectives are represented, resonating with a broader audience and fostering a sense of belonging.

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When you consistently deliver quality content, you can position yourself as an industry authority. This is super crucial because it helps you stand out and build trust and loyalty among your audience. This trust is a key factor in lead generation.

Why? 

At the end of the day, potential customers are more likely to consider and choose a brand they perceive as knowledgeable and reliable. It is seen that companies that post 15 blog posts a month generate almost 1200 new leads per month on average.

When it comes to content marketing, the sky is the limit. From blog posts to infographics, content marketing serves as a powerful tool.

2. AI and Personalization

Have you ever noticed Amazon telling you when your favorite product is back in stock? Or Maybe you receive an email from your favorite store with a whopping discount just because they miss you.

So, how does this make you feel? It feels incredible, doesn’t it? This is the beauty of personalization. And they leverage AI to run the personalization process.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of an ecommerce store owner who deals with hundreds of consumers every day. Personalization becomes a bit difficult, understandably. But what if AI could help you out?

Unlike putting in manual efforts, AI uses advanced algorithms and data analysis, which intelligently predicts user behavior and customizes your approach to offer your audience a unique and engaging experience.

This personalized approach not only captures attention but also establishes a deeper connection with potential leads. In fact,  89% of marketers say that personalization fetches them positive ROI.

By understanding and responding to each customer’s needs, AI personalization makes conversion an easy possibility.

Whether it’s recommending relevant products, delivering targeted messages, or predicting user intent, AI makes every interaction meaningful.

And 2024 is a tech-savvy era. With so many OpenAI development companies assisting businesses create their own generative AI model, there is no shortage of tools that can be used for personalizing communication throughout the customer journey. So instead of shying away from technology, it’s high time that you embrace it.

3. Social Media Marketing

From the time of its inception, social media has changed the way we humans communicate and consume content. Today, 66% of marketers generate leads from social media by spending only six hours per week on social media marketing.

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn hold so much potential. The key is to come up with a well-structured marketing campaign plan and have engaging content that fully resonates with your audience.

When you come up with a consistent and interactive approach, it builds brand awareness and trust where you easily convert social media users into potential leads.

With social media lead generation tactics, you can check how your content plan is fairing with in-depth insights through analytics. It lets you tweak your approach as you go.

4. Free Demo

Picture this. You are looking to explore a new tool. Everything sounds good on paper but something is holding you back. At the same time, the competitor with similar features offers you a free demo. Which is more enticing? The free demo one right?

Offering product or service demos is a potent lead-generation strategy. It offers firsthand experience, which lets potential customers interact with your offering.

You no longer have to go on and on about how great it can be. Instead, your consumers can go through its functionality to see if it aligns with their requirements.

Remember, with free demos, you are engaging prospects in a practical, immersive way. Demos cut through all the noise and make a lasting impression.

5. Email Marketing

Don’t shun email marketing just because it has been around for quite some time now. It is still powerful and going strong in 2024. It generates $42 for every $1 spent.

Email marketing makes use of targeted campaigns to nurture potential customers. However, plain old boring emails won’t cut. This is the era is all about being different. Don’t hesitate to experiment if you must. The end result must be alluring and personalized messages that solve the specific needs and pain points of your audience.

Strategic segmentation is a must to make sure that each email resonates with its intended audience.

Most importantly, don’t forget to implement calls-to-action and exclusive offers to push your audience to take the desired steps to move them through the sales funnel. Consider incorporating engaging email newsletters to regularly deliver valuable content and updates, nurturing your relationship with subscribers. Again, don’t create emails for the sake of it. Analyze metrics and fine-tune your approach as you go.

6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Your website and SEO go hand in hand. When you amplify your website content, meta tags, and backlinks, you are taking care of SEO. These efforts are rewarded by elevating your online visibility. This is the first step to conversion.

This visibility captivates organic traffic and can convert casual browsers into potential sales leads. Keyword optimization is still a strong SEO tactic in 2024 that aligns content with user intent. This is super crucial to strike a connection between your brand and your target audience.

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As your SEO efforts start making a mark, your website ranking starts climbing upward and soon reaches the first page. However, it is important to be patient with SEO as it can take at least six months.

7. Paid Ads

As aforementioned, social media is a powerful lead-generation strategy. However, if you are looking for quick results, paid ads are incredible.

50% of people arriving at a retailer’s site from paid ads are more likely to buy than those who came from an organic link.

Paid ads are like a shortcut that lets you reach specific audiences with precision and in no time. Platforms like Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Instagram Ads, and Facebook Ads offer robust targeting options.

Additionally, tapping into ad networks such as the Google Display Network or Twitter Audience Platform expands your campaign’s reach across a wide array of websites and apps. What does this mean? It’s simple. Your message reaches users interested in your products or services.

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But paid ads are no magic. It is all about the strategy and efforts you put into it. With careful keyword selection and demographic targeting, paid ads maximize visibility.

The beauty of paid campaigns is that they generate likes in its immediacy. It offers quick results, which drives potential leads to your website or landing page. 

The best part is that you can keep an eye on the metrics and adjust campaigns in real time. You can leverage an AI Ads generator to create compelling ads that will get you better results.

8. Chatbots

Chatbots can be your secret weapon when it comes to lead generation. Why? Because they provide instant and personalized interactions on websites.

As mentioned earlier, we live in a tech-savvy world. So, an AI-driven virtual assistant can engage visitors, answering queries, and guiding them through the initial stages of the sales funnel.

Your AI assistant can also collect user data and preferences. The immediate response and 24/7 availability can improve user experience. After all, if someone is there for you whenever you need them, it just makes you feel good!

9. Influencer Marketing

The influencer marketing industry is now at $21.1 billion, and it has only seen upward growth since it became popular in the recent decade. So, in this era when everyone relies on social media, influencers can help you reach your goals quite effortlessly.

Here, you partner with influencers whose ideologies resonate with your brand value. You use the trust and credibility these influencers have built within their niche and tap into their established audiences.

For instance, let’s say you are a skincare product. You can collaborate with a well-known influencer for an authentic endorsement. This type of social proof can do wonders.

By strategically partnering with relevant influencers, you can generate high-quality leads who are already interested in your products or services, making influencer marketing a powerful tool for B2C lead generation.

10. Webinars

When it comes to lead generation, webinars may be the last thing on your mind. But it’s time to give this idea some merit. 89% of marketers say that webinars perform better than other channels when it comes to producing qualified leads.

One of the reasons why it strikes the right cord is because it combines education and engagement. Hosting webinars positions your brand as an industry authority. When the quality of your webinar is high, it helps attract a targeted audience looking for valuable insights.

During your webinar, make sure you address queries in real-time. This instantly creates a direct and personal connection.

Also, attendees willingly provide contact information to access the event. It helps you with a set of engaged prospects for post-webinar follow-ups.

Bonus: Use Q & A Platforms Like “Quora”

Quora has over 300 million monthly visitors. You might have logged in too in search of a solution. We all do. However, the platform is still underestimated in marketing circles.

If you are wondering how Quora can help you, well, it helps businesses understand the audience’s problems by providing a space for users to pose questions and seek answers.

Let’s say, you are an agency. You come across a question about content marketing. Now, avoid fluff and advertisement-like content at all costs. Instead, be genuine and write authentic answers. In the end, direct users to your website. Do it strategically to convert a Quora user into a qualified lead.

Final Words

As a business owner, you already know how crucial lead generation is for you. But the key lies in choosing the right set of strategies that align with your business needs.

Remember, what works for business X may not work the same way for business Y. Lead gen is never a one-size-fits-all solution. That said, when you implement the top tips we have discussed in the above article, you are bound to make a mark.

The post Mastering Lead Generation in 2024: 10 Strategies to Propel Your Business Forward appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

In this day and age making sales is harder than ever, with a cost of living crisis in the U.K and several places feeling the pinch post-lockdown.  But how do you effectively create a customer relationship without rushing in?

What is CRM?

Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to a strategy you have in place to manage the relationships with potential and current customers.  Usually it is understood to mean the software, but it can also refer to the strategies your team puts in place for handling customers.  The tool CRM is used to store customer information and helps you analyse it to decide how to approach customers.

Why is CRM important?

CRM is important for the ways it improves the customer experience and the ways it reduces manual labour on the business end.   You can automate tasks to allow your team to spend more time interacting with customers and building those relationships.   It also allows you to keep messaging consistent across departments as you share the system and allows for personalisation in the customer experience.

Build a Rapport with Customers

When it comes to actually working with customers it’s important to remember the old adage ‘only fools rush in’ and take your time to build a rapport.  “It is tempting to rush in but you may end up giving the customer a poor experience, loose the sale or end up with a poorly implemented product at the end of the day that reduces the likelihood of a continued relationship,” warns Jennifer Marquez, a business writer at Essayroo and Big Assignments.  Take a gradual approach, giving your company time to deliver a good product and leaving the customer satisfied and more likely to maintain the relationship.

Don’t Promise What You Can’t Deliver

Be honest and realistic with customers.  If there is something they want the company to provide check to see it’s actually possible before you make any promises.  Too often customers are promised a certain timeline, a certain scope or even special features without anyone talking to those who will actually deliver the product.  Your honesty will help you out in the end as you are not likely to over promise.  This is where that rapport you have built comes in handy as you are able to speak plainly with the customer without trying to force a product on them.

Profile Prospects

Before you pick up the phone or go to your emails in order to contact customers you should take some time to do some research on your customer to see what will engage your customer.  This avoids awkward situations where customers feel hounded into buying a product and is likely to end up with a much happier customer and a bigger success story.  Use customer insights to create a profile of your prospect and to collate your research, this will allow you to build a long-term relationship and personalise your approach.

Choose a System that Works for Your Team

Choosing a system that works for your team is really a two-fold choice.  First you want to adopt a CRM strategy that best fits your team’s needs.  However, the main choice you’ll need to make is what software you wish to invest in and the category of CRM software that best fits you.  “Choosing the right CRM for your company can help you build effective profiles, manage your relationships and keep messaging consistent.  It’s important to take some time to research this,” cautions project manager Kathy Cline, Assignment writer and Boom Essays.  In broad strokes, there are three main CRM functional categories:

• Operational CRM Systems – day to day activity management with tools like customer record collation.  Suited for companies who have short sales cycles.
• Analytical CRM Systems – organisation and management of large amounts of data used to gain insight into the customer experience.  Ideal for companies with intense competition and numerous customer data points.
• Collaborative CRM Systems – connecting communication and data across the company’s departments creating a seamless customer experience.  Excellent for companies that need to manage a large data pool across a number of departments.

Take time to discuss with the relevant teams the options available and don’t be afraid to shop around on the market.  If you want a slightly more custom solution, look for a company that is able to tailor its product to your needs.  Remember to keep budget and the goals you want to achieve in mind.

In summary, take the time to actually build a rapport with customers.  Speak with departments to find out what CRM tool would best suit their needs and train them in using it.  Keep everyone in the loop when it comes to customers, CRM tools help with this if you are a larger company.  Profile potential customers and do your research before diving in.  Most of all don’t promise the earth and deliver nothing, be honest with customers it will help build that relationship of trust.

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Ad fraud is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, the latest data indicates that it will cost businesses a colossal €120 billion by 2023. But even more worrying is that fraudsters’ tactics are becoming so sophisticated that even big-name companies such as Uber, Procter & Gamble, and Verizon have been victims of ad fraud in recent years. 

So what does this mean for the rest of the industry? The answer is simple: every ad company, no matter their size or budget is just as at risk as the big guns – if not more. 

In this article, I summarize some of the biggest and most shocking cases of ad fraud we’ve witnessed over recent years and notably, what vital lessons marketers and advertisers can learn from them to avoid wasting their own budgets. 

The biggest ad fraud cases in recent years 

From fake clicks and click flooding to bad bots and fake ad impressions, fraudsters have and will go to any lengths to siphon critical dollars from your ad budgets.

Let’s take a look at some of the most high-profile and harmful ad fraud cases of recent years that have impacted some of the most well-known brands around the world. 

Methbot: $5 million a day lost through fake video views 

In 2016, Aleksandr Zhukov, the self-proclaimed “King of Fraud”, and his group of fraudsters were discovered to have been making between $3 and $5 million a day by executing fake clicks on video advertisements. 

Oft-cited as the biggest digital ad fraud operation ever uncovered, “Methbot” was a sophisticated botnet scheme that involved defrauding brands by enabling countless bots to watch 300 million video ads per day on over 6000 spoofed websites. 

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Due to the relatively high cost-per-mille (CPM) for video ads, Aleksandr and his group were able to steal millions of dollars a day by targeting high-value marketplaces. Some of the victims of the Methbot fraud ring include The New York Times, The New York Post, Comcast, and Nestle.

In late 2021, Aleksandr Zhukov was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay over $3.8 million in restitution. 

Uber: $100 million wasted in ad spend 

In another high-profile case, transportation giant Uber filed a lawsuit against five ad networks in 2019 – Fetch, BidMotion, Taptica, YouAppi, and AdAction Interactive – and won. 

Uber claimed that its ads were not converting, and ultimately discovered that roughly two-thirds of its ad budget ($100 million) wasn’t needed. This was on account of ad retargeting companies that were abusing the system by creating fraudulent traffic. 

The extent of the ad fraud was discovered when the company cut $100 million in ad spend and saw no change in the number of rider app installs. 

In 2020, Uber also won another lawsuit against Phunware Inc. when they discovered that the majority of Uber app installations that the company claimed to have delivered were produced by the act of click flooding. 

Criteo: Claims sues competitor for allegedly running a damaging counterfeit click fraud scheme 

In 2016, Criteo, a retargeting and display advertising network, claimed that competitor Steelhouse (now known as MNTM) ran a click fraud scheme against Criteo in a bid to damage the company’s reputation and to fraudulently take credit for user visits to retailers’ web pages. 

Criteo filed a lawsuit claiming that due to Steelhouse’s alleged actions — the use of bots and other automated methods to generate fake clicks on shoe retailer TOMS’ ads — Criteo ultimately lost TOMS as a client. Criteo has accused Steelhouse of carrying out this type of ad fraud in a bid to prove that Steelhouse provided a more effective service than its own. 

Twitter: Elon Musk claims that the platform hosts a high number of inauthentic accounts 

In one of the biggest and most tangled tech deals in recent history, the Elon Musk and Twitter saga doesn’t end with Twitter taking Musk to court for backing out of an agreement to buy the social media giant for $44 billion.

In yet another twist, Musk has also claimed that Twitter hid the real number of bots and fake accounts on its platform. He has also accused the company of fraud by alleging that these accounts make up around 10% of Twitter’s daily active users who see ads, essentially meaning that 65 million of Twitter’s 229 million daily active users are not seeing them at all. 

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6 Lessons marketers can learn from these high-profile ad fraud cases 

All of these cases demonstrate that ad fraud is a pervasive and ubiquitous practice that has incredibly damaging and long-lasting effects on even the most well-known brands around the world. 

The bottom line is this: Marketers and advertisers can no longer afford to ignore ad fraud if they’re serious about reaching their goals and objectives. Here are some of the most important lessons and takeaways from these high-profile cases. 

1. No one is safe from ad fraud 

Everyone — from small businesses to large corporations like Uber — is affected by ad fraud. Plus, fraudsters have no qualms over location: no matter where in the world you operate, you are susceptible to the consequences of ad fraud. 

2. Ad fraud is incredibly hard to detect using manual methods

Fraudsters use a huge variety of sneaky techniques and channels to scam and defraud advertisers, which means ad fraud is incredibly difficult to detect manually. This is especially true if organizations don’t have the right suggestions and individuals dedicated to tracking and monitoring the presence of ad fraud. 

Even worse, when organizations do have teams in place monitoring ad fraud, they are rarely experts, and cannot properly pore through the sheer amount of data that each campaign produces to accurately pinpoint it.

3. Ad fraud wastes your budget, distorts your data, and prevents you from reaching your goals

Ad fraud drains your budget significantly, which is a huge burden for any company. However, there are also other ways it impacts your ability to deliver results. 

For example, fake clicks and click bots lead to skewed analytics, which means that when you assess advertising channels and campaigns based on the traffic and engagement they receive, you’re actually relying on flawed data to make future strategic decisions. 

Finally – and as a result of stolen budgets and a reliance on flawed data – your ability to reach your goals is highly compromised. 

4. You’re likely being affected by ad fraud already, even if you don’t know it yet

As seen in many of these cases, massive amounts of damage were caused because the brands weren’t aware that they were being targeted by fraudsters. Plus, due to the lack of awareness surrounding ad fraud in general, it’s highly likely that you’re being affected by ad fraud already. 

5. You have options to fight the effects of ad fraud  

Luckily, as demonstrated by these cases, there are some options available to counteract the impact and losses caused by ad fraud, such as requesting a refund or even making a case to sue. In such cases, ad fraud detection solutions are extremely useful to uncover ad fraud and gather evidence. 

6. But the best option is to prevent ad fraud from the get-go

The best ad fraud protection is ad fraud prevention. The only surefire way to stop fraudsters from employing sophisticated fraud schemes and attacking your campaigns is by implementing equally sophisticated solutions. Anti-ad fraud software solutions that use machine learning and artificial intelligence help you keep fraud at bay, enabling you to focus on what matters: optimizing your campaigns and hitting your goals. 

The post The Biggest Ad Fraud Cases and What We Can Learn From Them appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Introduction

We live in the most diverse and multicultural times in the history of the world. Technology has helped people migrate from different countries with much more ease than ever before. In the United States alone, it is estimated that by 2044 the sum population of all minorities will surpass the population of white Americans.

Any savvy businessman or marketer knows that this means their brand needs to adapt fast or be prepared to get left behind.

We hope, with this article, to help your business transition its online advertising into a more diversified one.

Diversity in Ad Campaigns is a No-brainer

Diversity in Population is Growing Fast

According to Maryville University, current data shows that growth among racial and ethnic minority groups is outpacing that of Caucasians, indicating that America is becoming more diverse.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020, nearly four out of every ten Americans identify as belonging to a racial or ethnic group other than white, implying that the white population will have decreased for the first time in the country’s history during the 2010-2020 decade. Furthermore, another U.S. Census Bureau mentions that more than half of Americans will belong to minority groups by 2044.

Minority Consumers Relate With Brands That Understand Them

In a recent survey held among American Muslim consumers, 400 out of 400 respondents reacted to the statement “(a) I am a Muslim and (b) my choice of a brand or product is influenced by how Muslim-friendly it is”, with a “yes” for both “(a)” and “(b)”. Furthermore, in another survey, “Up to 83% of people pointed to better representing modern society as the reason marketing campaigns were impactful in a positive way”. Also, 70% of Gen Z consumers trust brands that show diversity in their advertisements.

Businesses have no choice but to update their promotional assets from a marketing standpoint. Since advertisements are at the forefront of brand efforts, diversity must be represented correctly in ad material. The only way for brands to remain relatable is to provide diverse content for diverse audiences in a way that accurately represents modern society.

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Diversity in Marketing Creates Significant New Revenue Streams

Entering new markets makes it easier to generate new revenue. More diversity and inclusion contribute to a more cohesive society and allow businesses to target new markets and increase response rates with relatable content, benefiting their bottom lines.

According to Heat, a Deloitte-owned research firm, brands with the most representative advertisements saw an average stock gain of 44% during the seven-quarter period that ended in 2018. Consumers preferred brands with the highest diversity ratings by an 83% margin.

Meanwhile, Microsoft Advertising has shown that more inclusive ads have seen 23% more “purchase intent” from Gen Z consumers. Alongside this, 64% of consumers, in a Think With Google poll, said they took action after seeing an advertisement they thought was inclusive or diverse.

How to Add Diversity and Inclusion to Your Marketing

In a very detailed article by Muslim Ad Network, you can read the step-by-step process of creating diversity and inclusion in your marketing campaign. We mention that it all starts with your internal environment: your team, your business culture, and your mentality. Before we go specifically into diversity in your ads, let’s look at some highlights from this article.

Adapting Your Message to the Market

For effective diversity marketing, you must adapt the message to the market rather than adapt the market to the message. So, if you want to communicate with minority consumers, make sure your message does not contradict their values.

Your inclusion marketing campaign must begin with a consideration of the multicultural context. You will need to research not only purchasing habits, but also values, ideals, perceptions, and communication methods.

The Right Knowledge and Combination of People in Your Team

Although your marketing team may not require members from every minority group, you should actively recruit talent from diverse backgrounds or work with external consultants and agencies.

If your marketing team is made up of like-minded individuals who decide that an ad campaign looks good to them without consulting members of the minority group you are targeting, your company is making a big mistake.

Even having members of a minority group on your marketing team may not be sufficient. Aside from soccer rivalries, Latin America, for example, is full of complex relationships. Consider Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. They compete over who makes the best plantain. Imagine making a campaign for Hispanics in general and then mentioning how Dominican plantains are the best in the world.

Connecting to minority consumer groups in real life will also help you gain more knowledge of their preferences. Even more importantly, your brand will gain a reputation and establish connections between your business and community leaders.

Diversity and Inclusion Marketing Audit

For the best results, you must audit your entire marketing infrastructure to see if there are sufficient elements of diversity and inclusion pertaining to:

1. Marketing teams
2. Marketing reach
3. Website images and language
4. Representation in collateral
5. Decision-making processes
6. Content approval
7. Audience research
8. Learnings from previous research
9. Processes of challenging stereotypes
10. The relatability of stories
11. Working with communities
12. Working with influencers

How to Create Diversity-Friendly Ads

Once you’ve optimized as much of your marketing infrastructure as possible for diversity and inclusion, you can begin creating ads that reflect this. Let us now look at how to create ads that promote diversity:

What Your Ads Must Avoid at All Costs

UNICEF Report

The information below is based on UNICEF’s Promoting diversity and inclusion in advertising: a
UNICEF playbook.

Racial Stereotypes: Black people excel at sports and dance, while Asians excel in STEM subjects.

Ethnic Stereotypes: Jewish people are extremely knowledgeable about finance and Indigenous people dislike wearing clothes.

Cultural Stereotypes: Muslim girls are always oppressed and accents from Europe are appealing, while accents from other parts of the world are amusing.

Cultural Appropriation: In the above-mentioned publication UNICEF describes cultural appropriations as:

“Adoption of icons, rituals, aesthetic standards and behavior from one culture by another. Culture is often appropriated by a dominant group from a minority or subordinate group in terms of social, political, and/or economic status. In this process, significant artifacts and beliefs are
used/exploited without understanding or respecting their original meaning”.

ASA Report

In February 2022, the ASA summary report on tackling harmful racial and ethnic stereotyping in advertising came out. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) UK’s independent advertising regulator explains:

“We have published the findings of a major project which looked at the extent to which portrayal of race or ethnicity in UK ads might give rise to harm or serious offense, including by reinforcing adverse stereotypes”.

The following came to light:

Reinforcement of Existing Stereotypes: The repetition of certain portrayals has the potential to reinforce society’s perceptions of people from minority groups.

Creating new stereotypes: Portrayals of people from BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) groups have emerged that can paint a one-dimensional picture of them, particularly in the depiction of family life, relationships, and appearance.

Perpetuating or reinforcing racist attitudes and behaviors: Past trauma related to race or ethnicity could be evoked by advertisements depicting racist behavior or other elements, even when the advertiser was contesting negative stereotypes.

How to Get Your Ads Right

Your ads must reflect what we talked about earlier in the article in the chapter “How to Add Diversity and Inclusion to Your Marketing”. Without the proper internal audit, proper knowledge, hiring the right mix of diverse individuals, and working with external agencies it is going to be very difficult to create ads that speak to minorities. However, once this is established you can use the below checklist to create diversity-friendly ads:

1. List the minority groups that may relate to your products and those that don’t. It makes no sense to create an ad about your online gambling services and feature Native American characters when they 1) own independent casinos within their reservations and 2) have a higher rate of gambling addiction than the average rate in the general population.
2. For the minority groups that relate to your products, study their subgroups thoroughly and understand what appeals to the majority of them as you cannot please everybody. For example, if you are a vegan or meat alternative business, find out what speaks to most of the Muslims within the different subgroups.
3. Just the fact that your product is permissible (halal) for them to consume, may not be enough.
   Staying on the meat alternative example, you would create an ad that depicts family gatherings and cooking together for the Hispanic or Asian community, showing that a great extended family feast is also possible with meat alternatives. Don’t always just do a typical white family (mom, dad, and a kid) type of ad if you want to speak to the minority masses.
4. Get real native actors and have them speak in their native language too. Whatever you do, don’t use actors from Pakistan, for example, to depict a family from India, even if there is no dialogue in the ad. It is incredible how people from minority groups instinctively know when they are being taken for a ride when it comes to misrepresentation.
5. If you can afford it make sure you use authentic imagery. The risk of using stock images is that you will be inheriting stereotypes, misrepresentations, and other flaws from them. Original images make for better branding anyway.
6. Set up an approval process that includes advertisement sensitivity readers. As part of the final process of approval, sensitivity readers – always people with lived experience of prejudice in a minority group – will help you tweak your ad so that it is ready to be published. In extreme cases, they will help you avoid backlashes from the very minority group you want to support and represent in your ads.
7. If the concept of having a review committee is unrealistic for your company, at the very least have a panel every quarter to give their opinion on the type of ads you will be running for that quarter. Needless to say, it must be made up of enough people from minority groups.

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Conclusion

It’s crunch time for brands. We are in a historical moment of make or break. It’s quite simple, brands that embrace diversity and inclusion in their marketing and advertising will stay relevant and prosper, with all things equal. Brands that do not embrace diversity and inclusion in their marketing and advertising will have a hard time doing well, the stats don’t lie.

However, you can’t just start spitting out diversity and inclusion in your marketing and advertising. You need the right people, knowledge, frameworks, and infrastructure to do it right. Starting with diversity and inclusion in your marketing and advertising in the wrong way can be worse than not starting at all.

We hope that after reading this article you will be able to make the right choices when it comes to diversity and inclusion for your marketing and advertising campaigns.

BIO

Alwi Suleiman has been in marketing since 2006 and has helped several businesses build their marketing strategies. He is the Lead Marketer at Muslim Ad Network, co-author of the Muslim Consumer Guide, and the owner of Content Market King. He is passionate about helping small businesses thrive through online marketing strategies.

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Unless you’re in an extremely niche market, then business is becoming increasingly competitive. Potential customers are looking for brands and products that really stand out from the rest of the pack. That means that your marketing teams need to be coming up with new ideas or using older ones to their optimum level to improve your brand’s social currency.

People have a tendency to trust the words of an employee of a brand less than those of their peers. After all, the employee is getting paid to say those positive things. In fact, 88% of consumers will trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation from friends or family. That means that good online testimonials can be a major business driver.

So, you can see the value of using testimonial advertising as a major part of your marketing tactics. Just what is testimonial advertising and what benefits does it offer your organization. How do you use it efficiently to improve your reach, awareness, and sales rates? Read on to find how testimonials can help you with anything from promoting your coaching services to writing a solar panel sales pitch.

What is testimonial advertising?

Simply put, testimonial advertising is using the words of your existing customers as part of your marketing efforts. As has been mentioned already, potential customers tend to trust reviews and recommendations from previous or existing customers so this is something you should focus on and use to your organization’s advantage. There are a number of Customer feedback tools available to help you generate these reviews.

For example, say you are marketing a VoIP service. While a potential customer may read your blurb, they are more likely to pay attention to your marketing if it contains reviews or quotes from real customers. Testimonial advertising has a more authentic feel to it than anything your professional marketers could write, making it a great way to connect with new customers.

Testimonial ads can take many different forms. How your marketing teams use customer feedback and recommendations can depend on the type of product you are marketing and what form the campaign takes. Some of those testimonial types you could consider using includes:

• Quotes from clients in any case studies produced by you or others.

• Images of reviews taken from your own site or 3rd party sites such as Amazon or Google.

• UGC (user-generated content) from any platform such as Instagram.

• Videos posted by customers on social media platforms such as Facebook.

• Positive discussions on forums or sites such as Quora.

Why are testimonial ads effective?

It all comes down to one word; trust. You want to build relationships with customers and the foundation of those relationships is that all-important trust. But it can be difficult to establish that trust and to then maintain it. With 88% of shoppers ready to trust what your previous customers say, testimonial advertising can suddenly become very important. It’s important to format your questions so as to get quality answers for feedback and testimonials.

When your marketing team extols the virtues of a cloud hosted PBX system, they may be being 100% honest but the perspective of customers is that your staff are paid to say those positive things. When the potential customers read what previous customers have thought, they will trust those words more and you can start building that relationship.

Video versus static testimonial advertising

There are two primary types of testimonial advertising. Which you choose, and where you use it, will depend on a number of factors such as the product you are promoting and the platforms you choose to promote that product on.

• Static ads: with this type of testimonial advertising, you are only using text and an image (or images). The image may be chosen by you or it may be part of the original testimonial from the customer. For example, a customer may have talked about their preferred client portal solutions. They may not have included an image of their choice so you could add one later.
• Video ads: These can be a great option as they add an extra layer of realism and are very hard to fake. The video may be of them using the product and showing what they love about it or it may be simply them talking about the product, the benefits they gained from it or the problems the product solved for them.

1. Static testimonial ads

These tend to be the most popular because they are quick and easy to produce while still being effective. All you need to produce one is a quote from the (happy) customer – though it is advisable to keep it fairly short; perhaps between 30 and 50 words. Add their name to the post and, as mentioned, a photo either from them or from yourself.

Static ads can be posted on any platform you use or you can use your most popular platform as a base and cross-post from there. The downside of using static testimonial ads is that their credibility can sometimes be questioned. After all, most people will just see something that Bob from Newark says, so how do they know that Bob is a real person?

2. Video testimonial ads

Video testimonials offer you a far higher level of credibility as they are more difficult to ‘fake’. There is an authenticity to video testimonial advertising that is lacking in static ads. When someone is talking directly to the camera, consumers can not only listen to what they say; they can also observe facial expressions and body language during the video too.

The other big advantage with video testimonials is that they can offer more information, even in a short video, than any static ad could ever achieve. For example, in a one-minute speech, the speaker could say anywhere from 120 to 200 words. Given we recommended a maximum of 50 words in a static ad, you can immediately see that videos offer far more scope.

Challenges of video testimonial advertising

Of course, video testimonials offer more challenges than a static ad. With the latter, all you need is a suitable quote from a satisfied customer (which may be as simple as a screenshot from a review site and an accompanying photo).

There are perhaps two major challenges when it comes to businesses adopting more video testimonial advertising. The first is cost (if produced in house) and the second is the logistics and time. If you are a small business, then you can consider purely user-generated content (with perhaps a few post-production tweaks) but larger organizations may want to go a more professional looking route.

However, when you see the many videos produced by ‘ordinary’ people online, you realize that many of them look great thanks to the budget or free filmmaking software available today. You only need to spend some time on TikTok to see the wide range of both marketing and fun videos being produced.

Even with the best looking customer-made video, you will likely want to add some finishing touches to it. After all, while the customer message is what is important, there are other considerations to take into account. And if you are asking customers to make video testimonials for you, you could provide a template much as you might use a digital agency proposal template within your business operations.

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Some of the things you may want to add in a post-production phase includes:

• Adding branding elements including logo and colors to the finished video so it is immediately identified with your business.
• The customer’s name (and title and company if you operate in the B2B market),

• Transcribing the speech in the video (which can help your SEO efforts) or using subtitles to add extra information.
• Background music (this should be thought out carefully and should complement the video so Norwegian Black Metal is probably not a good idea).
• Adding in extra information using slides, infographics, or similar.

So, as you can see, while more complicated, video testimonials can be far more effective than their static counterparts. And while many organizations may be worried about the costs of video testimonials, one study showed that 72% of marketerssaw ROIs of anywhere from 50-500% when using video testimonials as a marketing tool, and that also included improvements to their conversion rates.

The takeaway

There is no argument that customer reviews are credible and can help drive better lead generation and conversion rates. While your marketing team may write great copy and flawless product descriptions, having someone who has actually bought and used (and is satisfied with) your products say how happy they are can be a real gamechanger.

You have a lot of choice when it comes to sourcing testimonials; from casual discussions on Facebook to reviews left on independent third party sites. It’s how you use them that is the important factor. From a simple static testimonial used as a banner ad to a well-produced video that imparts information that a potential customer finds useful.

With increasing competition in the marketplace, marketers have to be increasingly more creative and often have to think about the box. Customer testimonials offer a rich source of material that praises your product or brand and that your marketing teams can use in various ways to get your message to your target demographics. We hope that this guide will help you to get more customer testimonials for your product or business.

The post What is Testimonial Advertising: Promote Your Business Through Customer’s Feedback appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Essentially an empathy map is a process where you’re going to actually work, talk about, or discuss and document someone else’s point of view.

It’s their perspective, it’s their belief system, it’s their emotions, it’s their worldview.

We are trying to dial all of these components to build a foundation for everything we’re going to be doing on the advertising side.

Advertising Costs Money, Right?

Since advertising costs money (lots of money in some cases), you want to be able to try and do your utmost to hit the mark as quickly as you can out of the gate. This is where a lot of the greatest click-through rates will come when you understand what the process is.

It allows you to go beyond superficial stuff, and really try and get an understanding of what your client’s environment is like at the moment.

For example, I was talking to a client in the divorce space, a highly emotional area, but in this case, it was from the woman’s perspective.

What is actually going on within this particular circumstance that a woman could be in? It was particularly insightful to understand what their daily worldview looked like so we could get inside what’s really going on.

What Does “Getting Inside” a Worldview Mean?

It focuses on six main questions:

• What does she see here?
• What does she think?
• What does she say?
• What does she do?
• What is her pain?
• What is the gain she’s looking for?

Again, it’s all about going through this in an interactive process, which we’re going to do today to understand what it is.

For example, what does she see? What does it look like? What does this problem look like? What is it? What surrounds her from day to day? What kind of office is she seeing? What kind of research? What kind of things is she looking at on YouTube? What problems does she actually encounter with what she sees? Where’s the conflict going on inside her mind? What does she hear? This is what her family says. This is what her friends say. Who is really influencing her, in her day to day? Is it the internal chatterbox? If so, what is that internal chatterbox telling her?

We’re all trying to figure out as much as possible because you can’t possibly interview a 100 or 400 people unless you have an epic market research budget. But you don’t need to!

You can find a lot of these answers just by doing some online research.

Where to Conduct Market Research

For example, YouTube. YouTube is a fantastic resource. Other resources where you can find this kind of information are Facebook Groups. If you just plug yourself into the right Facebook groups, you’ll find out information about what’s really going on.

You would be shocked at how many people have their own Facebook Groups for their business and don’t actually read the conversations that are going on them, even though they could tell you exactly what the pain points are of the people in their business.

If you don’t have a Facebook Group going, no problem.

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All you have to do is put any keyword into the search bar in Facebook, no matter what industry you’re in, and add yourself to the group and just go look for an hour at the things that people say and the questions that they ask. It will write your copy for you.

Again, you’re doing your utmost to try and figure out what’s really going on in your ideal customer’s mind, right? What’s, what’s really going on? What’s important to her? Try to imagine her motions, this is the important one. What moves her? What moves him forward?

What is happening at the emotional, core, gut, and amygdala types of emotion? What does she think? What is she looking for? What’s really driving? What’s in their dreams and aspirations?

Pay particular attention to any conflict that might be going on. Again, conflict is giving a sign that there’s a sort of yin and yang situation, where the perfect avatar is being pulled in one direction or the other.

Often, for example, in an agency, one of the things you would say is they are frightened of looking like an idiot in terms of making a mistake in the decision. If that’s what they’re feeling, that could be the environment that they’re working in, particularly in a larger company.

Again, the big obvious ones in there are:

• What is their pain?
• What are their biggest frustrations?
• What are the things that are stopping them from moving forward?

That’s going to give you examples of tripwires that you can use in your marketing, particularly on your funnel side.

What Risks is Your Target Customer Facing?

What are the risks your client is facing? What’s the number one risk that they might fear taking on?

That may be just one hook or one angle that you can use within an ad that will make the difference between a 0.5% click-through rate and a 2% click-through rate.

When we have people who come in and focus on weight loss, for example, the average weight loss ad that we see is something along the lines of:

“Hey, do you wanna lose five to 10 pounds in the next 90 days with having to change your diet?”

That’s a standard sort of lead-in on a weight loss ad.

When we actually go through an exercise like this and we say, “Are you sick and tired of walking into your closet and having that little black dress that you haven’t put on in 2 and 1/2 years, staring you in the face saying, “I miss you. When are we gonna get back together? When are you gonna be able to wear me again?”

I want to be the person that I was three years ago. I wanna look and feel like the best of my abilities, but gosh, that little black dress just stays on that closet shelf year after year after year, reminding me of what I used to be.

All of a sudden, you have a completely different conversation. That’s a completely different conversation in their mind around the frustration of that little black dress mocking them every single day they walked in their closet. One of those is facts and figures.

One of them is a punch right in the solar plexus, and when you can write with a punch right to the solar plexus and get inside the conversation that’s happening in their mind, that’s the difference.

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