Category: Digital Marketing

The importance of colors in design and communication

By Charlotte Desseaux | | Digital Marketing User Experience (UX)

To better understand the meaning of this article, we must first of all define what color is. Color is the…

To better understand the meaning of this article, we must first of all define what color is.

Color is the property attributed to light or visual perception that allows us to differentiate
objects. Color is one of the most powerful components in the graphic design language. It
influences us by conveying energy and giving diversity to what we perceive.
Color also serves to focus attention, group elements and reinforce meaning, identity and
harmony.


Color increases interest in any visual element and helps to understand and prioritize
information. It arouses emotions in people and can participate in the psychological reaction
to a message. For example, light colors tend to bring a feeling of joy, while darker colors lead
to appeasement.


Colors carry subjective messages. For this reason, they must be used intelligently and
carefully in graphic design. Here are some of their meanings:

  • Red: fire, blood, anger, love, danger, prohibition
  • Blue: ice, sea, sky, social, wisdom, melancholy
  • Green: nature, medical, concentration, stability
  • Yellow : joy, warmth, knowledge, lies

Colors have three basic visual properties:


Hue: color in its pure form is identified by the hue (red, yellow, blue…). It is a characteristic
guided by the way we see the light when it is reflected by an object.
Value: also called brightness, the value designates its intensity. For example, adding white to
a color produces a lighter value. Conversely with black. The value contributes to the
dynamics of the visual and the emotion conveyed by the message (lighter or darker).
Saturation: this is the brightness of a color. The degree of saturation measures the purity of a
color. For example, we can say that a saturated color is vivid and intense, while a
desaturated color seems blander. The colors called saturated tend to attract the attention of
the observer. Desaturated colors can be used when function and efficiency take precedence
over everything else. Caution should also be exercised when using an accumulation of
saturated colors, as they can make the message unreadable and tire the viewer. It’s all about
balance.


Some definitions :


Primary colors: yellow, red and blue. They are said to be pure and cannot be obtained by a
mixture.


Secondary colors: they are created by combining two primary colors. For example yellow +
red = orange / red + blue = purple / young + blue = green


Tertiary colors: they are created by combining a primary color with a secondary color.


Complementary colors: colors are said to be complementary if they are located on opposite
sides of a color wheel. When they are mixed, they neutralize each other. This is for example
the case of red and green, blue and red or yellow and purple. These colors, when
juxtaposed give an impression of intensity.


Monochromatic colors: they are created from different values of the same color. They are
obtained by adding black or white. Visuals based on these colors are perceived by the
observer as homogeneous.


Adjacent colors: they are identified as similar or neighboring colors on the color wheel. They
allow to create homogeneous and more varied visuals than with monochromatic colors.


Triadic colors: it is a set of colors formed with three equidistant colors on the color wheel.


Quadratic colors: it is a set of colors formed with four equidistant colors on the color wheel.

How to Get Started With Voice Search Optimization

By Constance Bianchi | | Digital Marketing

With voice search on the rise, voice search optimization is becoming more and more important. In this article, we’ll give you some tips on how you can get started with optimizing your content for voice search and make sure that your content reaches your target audience.

With voice search on the rise, voice search optimization is becoming more and more important. In this article, we’ll give you some tips on how you can get started with optimizing your content for voice search and make sure that your content reaches your target audience.

When Apple introduced Siri in 2011, talking to your phone may have seemed like little more than an entertaining gimmick. Fast forward to today and voice assistants – whether on mobile phones or smart speaker devices – have firmly found their place in everyday life. In 2020, there were 1 billion voice search queries per month alone. The growth of voice search is a compelling argument for businesses to adopt voice search optimization as part of their search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

In this article, we’ll look at how you can get started with voice search optimization. But before we dive in, let’s first get a global understanding of the concept of voice search.

Voice Search: What Is It and Why You Should Care

Voice search refers to the process which allows people to search the internet by speaking a voice command to a device rather than by typing their query. Voice search lets people browse the internet quickly and conveniently, be it to get the day’s weather report, find the nearest coffeeshop, or look up the definition of a word.

Thanks to increasingly sophisticated algorithms and constant improvements of speech recognition technology, the capacities and uses of voice search have been steadily increasing for the past two decades. Today, 72% of people who own voice-activated devices use them as part of their daily routine. More than 40% of people use mobile voice search on a regular basis, and 47% of queries directed to smart speakers are for online search purposes.

In the face of these numbers, it is important for businesses to optimize their content so that it appears in voice searches.

Voice Search Optimization and Position Zero

In voice search, users cannot scroll through the different search results. The search engine selects one answer to read to the user. 

The crucial question is: how does it choose this answer?

According to a voice search study by Semrush, 80% of the voice search answers were pulled from the first three organic search results; 70% were from a search engine results page (SERP) feature, 60% of which were from a featured snippet.

You may have noticed that Google sometimes shows you web content framed in a box at the very top of the search results page. This is a featured snippet. It highlights the content Google thinks provides the most relevant answer to a question. This content is placed at the very top of the page, in what is called “position zero”. Position zero refers to the fact that it appears even above any paid and organic search results.

So, optimizing for voice search essentially means maximizing your chances of claiming position zero. Here are four tips on how you can achieve this.

How to Optimize for Voice Search

Target Long-Tail Keywords

Users’ search queries differ depending on whether they are speaking or typing. Researchers have found out that on average, typed queries contain 1 to 3 words, whereas spoken queries contain more than 7 words. Whereas a typed query is more likely to search for “weather Austin”, a voice search query is more likely to be a conversational phrase or question, for example: “What’s the weather like today in Austin?”.  

It is important to take this into account when optimizing your content for voice search. You can achieve this by optimizing your website using long-tail keywords and making your content more conversational. Adopting a conversational tone which includes long-tail keywords suits voice search patterns better and your content has a better chance of ranking higher in voice search results.

Answer Frequently Asked Questions

We’ve seen that voice search queries are often formulated as questions: how, what, where, why. In addition to long-tail keywords, it’s therefore a good idea to create content that targets question keywords. To do this, you might consider reformulating your long-tail keywords into questions.

To find out what questions people are asking, try adding a question word to your keyword and looking at Google’s autocomplete suggestions.

A great way of integrating answers to frequently searched questions is by adding an FAQ section to your website. FAQs are not only an easy way to integrate question keywords, but also provide Google with a convenient format for showcasing your content in featured snippets.

Think Mobile First

Seeing as over one quarter of the world’s internet users use voice search on their smartphones, ensuring that your website is mobile-responsive is essential. A mobile-friendly website is hence not only part of every successful SEO strategy, but also a must voice search optimization. Google’s mobile-first indexing means that the search engine evaluates the mobile version of a website when it comes to ranking it.

Some of the ways to ensure that your site is mobile friendly are making sure that the site is responsive, the content easy to read, and the pages fast to load. Also consider testing if your website is mobile-friendly.

Be Local

Did you know that more than 55% of people look for local businesses on their smartphones using voice search? Leveraging your local presence is therefore vital for improving your rank in voice search results. Be sure to claim your Google My Business Listing as part of your voice search optimization strategy. Your address, contact details, and opening hours should all be up-to-date and accurate. Also think about adding a blurb describing your business – ideally using relevant keywords. This information allows Google to understand your business, its locations, and services, and makes it more likely that Google shows your business in relevant voice search queries.

Voice Search Optimization: An Integral Part of Your SEO Strategy

Technology is changing continuously and rapidly. Consumer behaviors change with it. People are taking advantage of the conveniences that new and improved technologies present. The challenge for marketers is keeping up with these constantly changing technologies and consumer behaviors.

The emergence of voice search has allowed for hands-free, quick, and convenient online searches. With voice search on the rise, it is up to marketers to integrate voice search optimization into their existing SEO strategies to remain competitive.  

If you would like to keep up to date with the newest developments surrounding SEO, digital marketing, and web technologies, be sure to check out the TCLoc blog.

What Is Interactive Content and Why Is It Important?

By Janna Mack | | Digital Marketing

With the continuous rise of content marketing, it has become increasingly important to set yourself apart from your competitors. This article explores interactive content and its potential benefits through concrete examples.

With the continuous rise of content marketing, it has become increasingly important to set yourself apart from your competitors. This article explores interactive content and its potential benefits through concrete examples.

One of the leading tenets of content marketing is that the success of your website depends on the quality of its content. To attract your target audience, your content must be user-friendly, entertaining, informative, relevant and optimized for search engines.

Content marketing is definitely on the rise, so it is important to differentiate yourself from your competitors to make the most of your content. A quick illustration: according to Hubspot, in 2020, 70% of marketers were actively investing in content marketing, and most marketers were measuring the success of this content in sales. Smart content design will make you stand out from the crowd. 

One way of achieving this is through interactive content.

What Is Interactive Content?

One of the easiest ways of understanding interactive content is by comparing it with static content. Static content is like a monologue: you present content — let’s say, a text, a picture — to your audience, who can only passively consume what you show. Interactive content is a dialogue: to fully experience the content, the audience needs to actively engage with it, either by clicking on specific buttons or by answering questions. By providing interactive content, you invite your audience to step out of the role of the passive consumer and become an active participant. Interactive content hence transforms the creation and consumption of web content into a uniquely collaborative experience.  

Examples of Interactive Content

You have likely already come across interactive content. Let’s look at some concrete examples.

Quizzes

Interactive quizzes invite your audience to test their knowledge or give their opinion about a subject. Particularly well-known are personality quizzes, which allow users to find out more about their own character traits. One such quiz is used by clothing brand Hush, a “style personality quiz” which determines users’ individual clothing style. Users can then share their results and receive tailored recommendations from the Hush online shop.

Polls and Surveys

Like quizzes, polls and surveys identify users’ preferences, opinions, and interests. They are also an excellent way of gathering customer feedback. For example, online retailer Grey’s Teas regularly runs polls to find out more about their customers’ tea buying and drinking habits.

Calculators

Interactive calculators are online tools which calculate results based on the data users input. Halifax offers one such online savings calculator, which computes how much money users need to save each month to achieve their savings goal by their desired deadline.

Infographics

Interactive infographics present navigable interfaces which allow users to modify certain parameters to trigger dynamic data visualizations. Online collaboration app Podio provides an interactive infographic of daily habits of creative people, for instance, where users can click on different variables to discover the daily habits of famous creatives. 

Picture of people holding phones on the train.

The Benefits of Interactive Content

Now that you know what interactive content is, and having explored some concrete examples, you might be asking yourself: what are the benefits of implementing interactive content?

Easier Data Collection

Interactive content allows you to collect valuable data about your audience by effectively incentivizing users to provide information while they consume your content. Asking the right questions in quizzes, polls, and surveys can reveal a lot about your audience’s demographics, product preferences, buying trends, and pain points.  

For example, polls allowed Grey’s Teas to find out that their customers prefer to drink black tea in tea bags — this is valuable information that can be used to inform the company’s future marketing and sales strategies.

Increased Engagement

In content marketing, engagement refers to the actions users perform which signal that they found the content to be relevant to them, such as liking, sharing, or commenting. Well-crafted interactive content has the capacity to boost engagement.

Let’s look at the style quiz again. The retailer creates a narrative around the user’s answers which not only include customized clothing recommendations, but also tailored playlists and book recommendations. The quiz capitalizes on its potential to create rewarding experiences tailored to users’ preferences and needs. This creates appealing content which motivates users to share their results or the quiz on social media.

Lead Generation and Conversion

Lead generation is the process of turning a website visitor into a potential customer; conversion is the process of turning that potential customer into an actual customer. Strategic positioning of interactive content can help you in these processes. 

A bank which offers an interactive savings calculator, for instance, not only provides a relevant and useful service, but also positions the institution as an expert in their field. Results are tailored to the user’s unique situation, generating a sense of satisfaction and interest which encourages lead generation. In the Halifax example, to further incentivize the target audience, well-placed CTAs prompt the user to sign up for a savings account, stimulating conversion. 

Conclusion

Interactive content can thus be a compelling component of your marketing strategy. Collaborative experiences create engaging and customized content to attract visitors to your website, engage with your brand, and convince them to become customers, while at the same time facilitating data collection.

Do you want to know about content marketing? You can find more articles about digital marketing on the TCLoc Master Degree’s blog.

Machine Translation for Game Localization: A New Challenger?

By PAREDES MALDONADO Francisco | | Machine Learning Machine learning & Artificial Intelligence Translation & Localization

Machine Translation is getting more and more advanced but will it be able to replace human beings in the future? Let’s find out in the article below.

Machine Translation is getting more and more advanced but will it be able to replace human beings in the future? Let’s find out in the article below.

In the wake of Keywords Studios’ acquisition of machine translation provider KantanMT, Neural Machine Translation (NMT) has become a hot topic among language professionals and service providers specializing in game translation. Are we getting closer to the point where machines  will be able to translate games with little or no human intervention? I believe that day is still a long way away, but NMT is here to stay — and it is already proving useful in some applications.

Context is everything

Gone are the days when the often nonsensical output of Google Translate was an endless source of hilarity for professional linguists. NMT is a huge step up over earlier machine translation efforts, but it still has considerable limitations, including the fact that it is not context-aware — and context is everything in game localization.

In software, even more so than in general translation, words may completely change meaning depending on where they appear. An innocuous term like “save” may refer to saving the game in a system menu, to saving money in a promotional message, or to saving a character in a mission prompt. Each of these meanings would be rendered differently in most non-English languages. Dialogue is even more challenging: when they translate games, localizers need to know who is talking to whom and how the characters relate to each other in order to achieve the right tone and make the dialogue flow naturally.

Human translators can gather this contextual information from notes and loc kits provided by the development team; when this information is not available, they can make educated guesses based on their familiarity with the game and clues found in string IDs, file structure, etc. In contrast, NMT systems lack the ability to make such inferences, and more importantly, since they are unaware of the limits of their knowledge, they will not think to ask the developer before making incorrect assumptions.

Game localization poses unique challenges

Creativity is key in game localization: games are meant to be immersive experiences, and their spell is easily broken by an incorrect or unimaginative translation. Particularly in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, games often feature made-up names for characters, locations, and concepts, all of which need to be adapted to suit the genre conventions and players’ expectations. This demands a native speaker’s knowledge of the target culture and a kind of creativity that is beyond the ability of current machine translation systems. In fact, there is little scientific consensus on whether general artificial intelligence that is capable of proper creative thought will arrive in our lifetimes.

The ability to think creatively also comes into play when dealing with variables or “tokens”. These are often used by developers to create messages that change dynamically depending on the in-game situation. However, every language is structured differently, and messages using variables often need to be adjusted to ensure that the translation respects the target language grammar and syntax. This requires sound linguistic judgment and the ability to think outside the box, skills that remain solely in the purview of human translators.

Neural machine translation also struggles with terminology: generic NMT engines use generic terminology and cannot be forced to adhere to a specific glossary. You can influence an engine’s term choices by training it with carefully selected text, but you will rarely have a large enough corpus to train a franchise-specific engine. Besides, platform owners often require compliance with their own system-specific terminology; otherwise, they may refuse to clear the game for release, so this can be a major hindrance to the use of NMT.

Fitness for purpose

Is NMT entirely useless for translating games, then? Far from it. In fact, in a recent article for MultiLingual magazine, Cristina Anselmi and Inés Rubio, from Electronic Arts, identify several good use cases for neural machine translation in games.

For example, a properly trained, platform-specific NMT engine can make short work of repetitive system text, although post-editing remains necessary to ensure compliance with platform requirements. Post-edited NMT can also provide good quality documentation at a low cost. Even “raw” (unedited) machine translation is proving useful in first-line customer support for companies lacking the resources to operate a multilingual support center.

In the long run, NMT offers exciting opportunities for game design — from translating procedurally-generated content in real time to making customer-created content available to an international audience — situations in which players may be willing to trade some quality for an endless supply of fresh content.

Machine translation is a tool

At the end of the day, NMT is just one more tool in the localization arsenal, hugely powerful if used properly, but with equally important limitations. For the foreseeable future, professional human translators must remain at the center of the localization process, but there is no reason why NMT cannot be used to translate ancillary content or to boost localizers’ productivity in the less creative aspects of game translation.Intrigued about the possibilities of NMT and its applications in localization? You may want to check out other blog articles on machine translation in the TCLoc blog, or you may even want to consider signing up for the TCLoc Master’s degree, which covers this and many related topics.

How to attract customers — The essential content of a landing page

By Cornelia Lang | | Digital Marketing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Technical Communication

Do you want to sell a product or service or collect more subscribers? A landing page will definitely help you to reach this goal. But how can you make users land on your landing page? It is actually pretty simple: when users click on a search engine optimized search result or on a link you provide them in an advertising e-mail or in a social media marketing campaign, they will be redirected to your landing page.

Do you want to sell a product or service or collect more subscribers? A landing page will definitely help you to reach this goal. But how can you make users land on your landing page? It is actually pretty simple: when users click on a search engine optimized search result or on a link you provide them in an advertising e-mail or in a social media marketing campaign, they will be redirected to your landing page.

Improve your online marketing: Create a landing page

A landing page is a powerful online marketing tool. Use landing pages for announcing special offers, introducing products to your visitors (no more than one product per landing page) or advertising an event, such as a webinar. Why? Instead of making your potential customers land on any existing page of your website where they might get distracted by irrelevant items, such as a navigation menu, you will create this special page for them.

Essential landing page content

A great landing page only contains the essential. Aside from risking to slow down your page’s loading speed, too many elements distract visitors from the actual product you are advertising. Here are the 4 essential content elements of a landing page.

  1. The Header
    What do you want your visitors to know? Put your main message in a header that stands out visually and that is written in simple and unambiguous language. Including your main keywords in the header is crucial, not only for search engine optimization purposes but also because visitors will look at the header first — and at the pictures. We will get to that.
  2. The Call-To-Action
    The Call-To-Action (CTA) is the most important part of your landing page: tell your visitors what you want them to do. Keep in mind that your CTA should be short and aiming at a single goal, not more. Your CTA could be a button like “Try for free”, “Sign Up”, “Download Demo”, or “Shop Now”. You can use CTA-buttons several times throughout the page, but make sure they focus on your one objective. If you will be using any forms or fields, such as an e-mail address field for newsletter subscription, you should also keep the text as short as possible.
  3. The Pictures
    Pictures usually get most of the attention – and sometimes all the attention there is. So, you will want to emphasize your CTA by using emotional pictures that accurately represent the subject matter you want to promote: If the pictures explain your product/service, it’s perfect!
emphasize your CTA with emotional pictures
  1. The Explanation
    Provide your visitors with some more details on your product/service in an explanatory section to fully convince them: describe it, emphasizing its benefits and any special offers.
    Of all the texts on your landing page, this section will be the longest. Still, try to keep it short: you do not want to overstrain your potential customers’ attention span. Quality content is key to evoke their desire to buy your product. Make the explanation easy to read by structuring it in small sections. You are almost done! Now top it off with a picture that shows a solution to the visitor’s problem and repeat your CTA with a clickable element. That’s it!

After reading the explanation, it should be clear to anyone what you are promoting. If you did everything right, your landing page visitors have become potential customers!

Now you know everything you need to create great landing page content! But what SEO tricks can you use to make more users land on your landing page in the first place? And how can you localize your page in order to go international and attract users in other countries? The SEO and Localization courses of the University of Strasburg’s TCLoc Master’s program are a great opportunity to learn how to technically optimize and localize web pages!

Sounds interesting? Learn more or apply for the TCLoc Master’s program.

How do quarantine and coronavirus affect SEO and e-marketing? SEO quarantine strategy

By Maria Dinte | | Digital Marketing Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Due to coronavirus (COVID-19) and general isolation, many owners of online businesses have asked themselves what to do? Here are some explanations of what changes COVID-19 brought and how it affects SEO strategy for your business.

Due to coronavirus (COVID-19) and general isolation, many owners of online businesses have asked themselves what to do? Here are some explanations of what changes COVID-19 brought and how it affects SEO strategy for your business.

This pandemic has already shaken the world’s economy significantly for over a year. Let’s look at the shares of well-known companies: Apple — one of the leaders of the global information market and Netflix — the largest online streaming service. We see a 22.21% increase for Netflix and a 12.63% decline for Apple. Why? During the period of self-isolation, people did not have much to do, so they spent time watching TV series and various TV shows on popular streaming.

Apple and Netflix shares during spring quarantine in 2020
Apple and Netflix shares during quarantine in April 2020

Or let’s take Disney — the largest global conglomerate with a large offline component, and Nintendo — Japan’s iconic console and game corporation. Last year, in the same period, Nintendo experienced a 15.79% growth compared to a 26.57% drop for Disney. Why was Nintendo growing so fast? The answer is simple: everyone’s favorite game — Animal Crossing New Horizons — was released on 20th March 2020. Because of that, many people started buying up consoles to play the game and have fun during isolation. A month after the game’s release, it was still difficult to buy a Nintendo Switch. They were just out of stock, and if they were available, the shops were selling them for double the price.

Overview of Welt Disney and Nintendo shares during spring quarantine in 2020
Walt Disney and Nintendo shares during spring quarantine in 2020

What about now?

The pandemic still being on the row, people have had to get used to it and live with it. After one year, the situation changed quite a lot: Netflix shares saw a 12.72%% decrease and Apple a 6.13% decrease. The same happened to Disney and Nintendo, which at April 26th had a 3.46% decrease and an 8.61% decrease, respectively. 

Overview of Apple, Netflix, Walt Disney and Nintendo shares in April 2021
Apple, Netflix, Walt Disney and Nintendo shares in April 2021

Businesses are sensitive to changes in the economy, so they must be flexible, ready for changes. Efficiency, clarity, and risk management are the main tasks of a business.

What changes has COVID-19 brought around and how does it affect your SEO business strategy?

  1. People tend to leave their homes less often. Most of them have switched to remote work.
  2. People have more free time.
  3. The fields of online streaming, delivery, and training have increased in demand.
  4. Offline businesses suffer the most: shops (not grocery stores), restaurants, movies, gyms … Most buildings with high concentrations of people are closed.

In the case of SEO, this may only affect businesses that have a large offline income. Such businesses will of course reduce all advertising activity in general (and that is where they are wrong). Unlike PPC marketing, SEO is a continuous process. It starts showing results after some time. You should not forget that new players will enter the arena during quarantine and crisis, to take the places of those who have fallen behind. Therefore, SEO should run at full speed!

What should businesses do during a pandemic situation in terms of SEO and e-marketing?

First, you should not think of COVID-19 as a threat. On the contrary, this pandemic opens up new business opportunities. You must act quickly.

  1. Audit your products
    Analyze your products to identify which product groups are more popular during this period among your target audience. Determine which ones you can provide through home delivery. And yes, inform, by all means, inform! Let your regular customers know you are around, invite them to stick with your brand. Keep an eye on demand and adapt.
  2. Analyze the target audience
    What are they looking for during quarantine and how? “Help” users go to your site to find what they are looking for.
  3. Answer your customers even faster
    During quarantine, there are likely to be problems with delivery times and the functioning of the call center services. Hence the likely appearance of negative comments on the site. Answer them as quickly as possible, trying to level out any discontent. Choose employees who will monitor daily feedback about the company on social networks and on your website.
  4. Leverage local SEO
    Since there are restrictions on travel and unnecessary movement, you can leverage local SEO. Consumers need to use services and products in their vicinity. For example, people working from home are likely to order food from local restaurants that can deliver it to their homes or that allow for a drive-thru. During quarantine, people are looking for different things and in different ways. So, there are specific words that are added to requests, like: “with delivery”, “cheap”, “available”, etc.
  5. Create engaging content
    Don’t stop. For the next few months, more and more people will be spending time at home. To support your audience, make your content more encouraging and inspiring. Now is the time to help your clients escape through virtual reality.

Evaluate your financial possibilities wisely. Think, considering possible pessimistic scenarios, will you have enough resources? If not, it is better to wait and keep SEO to the minimum necessary for business survival.

A crisis is always a growth opportunity for those who are strong, let’s join them!

If you found this article interesting or useful, be sure to read more of our students fascinating insights into the World Wide Web.

Why Machine Learning Became an Integral Part of Successful Digital Marketing Strategy

By Adelina Garifullina | | Digital Marketing Machine Learning

The modern day use of artificial intelligence tools and machine learning is considered one of the most principal innovations in digital marketing, as the modern era of our digitalized society is highly driven by data. Due to the huge amounts of available data, more and more companies are finding it advantageous to utilize digital marketing and machine learning in order to exploit these datasets and in turn increase their revenues. The key question raised is how to use machine learning for digital marketing strategies.

The modern day use of artificial intelligence tools and machine learning is considered one of the most principal innovations in digital marketing, as the modern era of our digitalized society is highly driven by data. Due to the huge amounts of available data, more and more companies are finding it advantageous to utilize digital marketing and machine learning in order to exploit these datasets and in turn increase their revenues. The key question raised is how to use machine learning for digital marketing strategies.

The Power of Machine Learning and Personalization

Machine learning is a subdivision of artificial intelligence, which employs algorithms with the ability to automatically learn from past experiences and data. Given the recent advances in computational power, these algorithms are capable of analyzing large amounts of data from users. Based on past preferences and purchases the algorithms make precise future predictions, which marketing teams can subsequently exploit. This allows for a direct interaction with consumers and, therefore, a better understanding of consumer behavior.

Through the use of machine learning algorithms, companies are able to supply their consumers with a personalized unique experience based on their data. For example, Netflix or Spotify won’t suggest undesirable content as they know the consumers’ preferences based on everything they have previously watched, listened to, ignored, or rated. In a similar manner, products will be suggested to users based on their past purchases. This personalization makes customers feel relevant, with the experience carefully crafted to cater to the specific needs and interests of each customer.

Personalization is key in developing a digital marketing strategy as people expect companies to care about them. As a result, more and more brands have launched chatbot services which learn from interactions with visitors, collecting data and interpreting it to provide more accurate answers over time. 

The Next Level of Automated Digital Marketing

Digital marketing strategy has become essential due to the automatized nature of machine learning, in which algorithms can compute numbers, learn from patterns and past outcomes, and give a clear image of customer segmentation, content targeting, and prescriptive suggestions. All of these considerably simplify decision making.

Over the past few years, social media marketing has become the new epicenter for all digital marketing. Unsupervised machine learning algorithms help categorize the massive variety of social media messages into clusters. These algorithms are made to work with unstructured data and can use it to deliver colossal insights into user behavior, interests, demographics, and sentiment analysis by means of advanced data segmentation. 

Several central marketing functions are now performed on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and machine learning helps marketers use the power of big data in order to optimize their social media resources.

Machine learning can analyze terabytes of data to understand how audiences engage with specific content themes and types. 

We live in a digital age of innovation which is developing at a furious pace. Without following trends and taking new technological opportunities, there is less chance of success. Therefore, marketers are using machine learning in their digital marketing strategy as their most powerful tool to keep ahead.

Say More with Less: How Simplified Writing Techniques Can Improve Marketing Content

By Jennifer Linn | | Digital Marketing Simplified Technical English (STE)

Why are simplified writing techniques important? Well, a good argument always starts with strong sentences, right? And all strong sentences start with simplicity. If we don’t begin with clear content, our message -no matter how clever, compelling, or creative it is- can get lost in translation to our audience. So, let’s see how we can use simplified writing techniques to improve on our marketing content!

Why are simplified writing techniques important? Well, a good argument always starts with strong sentences, right? And all strong sentences start with simplicity. If we don’t begin with clear content, our message -no matter how clever, compelling, or creative it is- can get lost in translation to our audience. So, let’s see how we can use simplified writing techniques to improve on our marketing content!

Less is more in the world of writing content

When we stroll through the digital landscape, we see messages everywhere. Be they emails, news feeds, or anything in between, wherever there is marketing content, some stories naturally stand out. They might have clever titles, cover the most compelling issues, or offer an unconventional approach. 

But when we follow captivating marketing content, we aren’t just reading the subject matter. Winning blog posts, news articles, and even social media posts rely on more than just stories themselves. They will only be effective when supported by a strong structure.

Simplified writing is the foundation for strong stories. In fact, an entire industry has even been developed with the goal of using simplified English in business, technical, and legal writing. Clear language, logical sentences, and concise word choices make marketing content easier to understand, easier to stand out, and easier to spread globally.

Start with simplicity

As technology becomes more sophisticated and more integrated into every corner of our lives, we need clear language to break down complex concepts. We don’t want to produce such dense text that even industry experts would struggle to read through it. While there are different ways to measure content readability, we can always rely on straightforward and simple words to ease our readers’ understanding of what we write.

To clear the way for coherent marketing content, we should replace heavy jargon with easy, everyday language and break down long phrases into simple, solid statements:

  • Instead of confusing your audience, why not illuminate them?
  • Instead of bamboozling your readers with sophisticated expressions, why not keep it easy and type the way you talk?
  • If the majority of writers produce less complicated material, won’t the message be clearer?

When content is clear and readers can more easily understand the information, our writing will have more impact.

Stand-out sentences

Marketing messages exist in all shapes and sizes. As personal computers become more portable, tablets take on new technology, and cellphones shrink to pocket-size, people now consume content faster than ever. We have a small window of opportunity to keep consumers engaged and we need writing content that is easy to digest quickly.

In addition to simplifying our vocabulary choice, we can also simplify our sentences:

  • Structure your sentences in an active voice: It has been shown that a passive voice is harder to read. Moreover, studies show that an active voice will put you at ease.
  • Keep listed content in consistent formats: When information is not consistently organized and balanced, the reader will stumble and take longer to process the message. We write clearly so that readers can more easily understand, connect with, and share our stories.
  • Flip negative phrases into their shorter, more positive counterparts: While this is not of huge significance, it might be more important than you think.

As we are often one swipe away from losing our audience, we need clear and simple sentences to stand out in this information overload. 

Spread the “words“

How to simplify our writing techniques to improve our Content Marketing ?

As our products go global, so do our messages. And as our readers become more international, so must our writing. While there are several tried and true techniques for localizing content, simplifying our writing is one easy shortcut to success. 

We’ve already learned how to adopt easier language and sentence structures. To broaden our reach, we can also eliminate some words altogether.

We can simplify our writing by taking out words that don’t add value:

  • Eliminate unnecessary adverbs. Do we really, truly, essentially need them?
  • Reduce the noise. Let’s ask the question “Is it possible to explain the same thing in a simpler and shorter way?”
  • Don’t state the obvious. Do you think, believe, and feel that you must state what you imagine, suppose, and feel to be true?

A smaller wordcount is more accessible to non-English natives: fewer words translate into fewer translations. You see, as we adapt our marketing content to audiences around the world, we can go further and say more with less.

Was this article helpful? Do you think you will use simplified writing techniques more when writing your marketing content? Let us know in the comments below!

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5G and Its Impact on Digital Marketing

By Yanjie Ding | | Digital Marketing

Digital marketing as a relatively new advertising method is gradually being recognized and accepted by people. However, in the coming years, 5G technology will be a fast game-changer in almost every aspect of the Internet of Things (IoT), including digital marketing. So, if you want to be a successful e-commerce merchant, you’ll have to seize new opportunities in the upcoming 5G era in order to stay on top. This article will help you predict and understand the possible impact of 5G on digital marketing and find out how online stores might develop in the future as a result.

Digital marketing as a relatively new advertising method is gradually being recognized and accepted by people. However, in the coming years, 5G technology will be a fast game-changer in almost every aspect of the Internet of Things (IoT), including digital marketing. So, if you want to be a successful e-commerce merchant, you’ll have to seize new opportunities in the upcoming 5G era in order to stay on top. This article will help you predict and understand the possible impact of 5G on digital marketing and find out how online stores might develop in the future as a result.

What is 5G?

5G is the fifth-generation mobile communication technology after the 4G wireless connectivity. Its qualities are defined as ultra-high speed and capacity, ultra-low latency, low power consumption, and highly reliable transmission. We’ll let the engineers handle the technicalities of it; for digital marketers, 5G is not just a mobile communication technology in the traditional sense but a whole new business opportunity.

Current Limitations of E-Commerce

Lack of Interaction

Even for e-commerce giants such as Amazon, online shopping is often limited to communication via only text and pictures, unlike brick-and-mortar stores where customers can touch and try the product before deciding to buy it. There are currently many cases in which the actual shipped product doesn’t match its digital representation, and consumers end up buying products that are different from their expectations. It is only natural that they might worry about the quality of online goods and hesitate before making a purchase.

There are some cases where this communication can be pushed beyond the limit of text and pictures. In China, on e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, merchants can show their products to potential customers through short videos, which are an important part of a digital marketing strategy. Nonetheless, it remains a one-way communication method, and there is still a lack of effective interaction. 

In addition to allowing customers to interact with the product, traditional physical stores always have sales people who advise customers and help them make the right purchase. The face-to-face communication also makes it easier to establish trusting relationships. To compete on this level, online stores need to find creative ways to interactively display their products and to gain customer loyalty.

Transaction Security Issues

Security problems are an important consideration in digital marketing and a major obstacle to the development of e-commerce. Online shopping requires doing transactions online and many people are unwilling to because they are worried about the safety of their personal and financial information.

According to reports, millions of customers’ personal data are exposed each year, resulting in harassment, scams and identity theft. No e-commerce platform is willing to lose a large number of customers because of privacy issues and a lack of payment security. However, putting such protective measures in place can be costly and still requires the customers’ trust.

The Key Technologies Enhanced by 5G in Digital Marketing

Improved User Experience (UX)

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can create an experience similar to shopping in a physical store. Thanks to 5G’s higher speed and lower latency, your customers could use VR and AR technologies to “walk” around in your online store and observe the products from different angles.

They might even be able to live test new clothes and feel their texture, or visually observe the size, color and placement of a furniture item in their own home. Furthermore, you could create a virtual persona that would be able to interact with customers like a salesperson in a physical store. This would, to a certain extent, resolve the problem of e-customers who cannot fully picture and understand the actual product as well as those who are unsure which product is best for them. 

Also, 5G technology enables AI to access customers’ information faster and more reliably. With 5G data transfer speeds, AI technology can assist you in better conducting e-commerce activities. For example, if you run a restaurant, you can upload its basic information to a navigation platform through AI. When the customer browses a list of restaurants on an e-commerce platform, the AI assistant can recommend the best one based on the customer’s location and personal preferences, then make a convenient travel map to guide them. The ability to tailor results to a customer’s data can help significantly improve customer satisfaction.

Improvements on Security

Although 5G is not automatically free from the weaknesses of its predecessors, its design is being developed with these vulnerabilities in mind and, therefore, according to stricter standards. Additionally, measures are already being taken to protect and secure the information sent via 5G networks. Just a few examples include using AI to anticipate and defend against cyber attacks, mandating the encryption of information and properly coding the IoT. Furthermore, thanks to 5G, e-commerce platforms will be able to create virtual identities for your customers and store them on the blockchain, which will protect the privacy of your customers. Therefore, in the 5G era, e-commerce platforms will have new network security guarantees and your customers will be able to make transactions on a relatively safe, stable and reliable network.

How should you prepare for 5G?

Although it may take three to five years before the full 5G era arrives, this does not prevent you from planning ahead of time. With 5G, e-commerce platforms could evolve into personalization platforms. As access to new production and distribution devices and processes becomes more common, companies’ equipment and technology in a given industry will tend to be more equal. They will therefore rely on other ways to make their products stand out — such as by providing a personalized virtual shopping experience.

These changes will eventually shape our idea of a digital marketing strategy. So, if you’re an e-commerce company, here are some ways to get ready:

  • Collect customer data and build a customer data platform. 
  • Considering the faster speed and lower latency of the 5G network, brainstorm some new, creative advertising ideas for your audience, such as a product display using AR and 3D technology or a high-definition slow-motion video demonstration, etc. 
  • Speaking of AR and 3D technology, plan to set aside a portion of your budget to buy VR and AI camera equipment in the future as it will definitely be expensive.

With these tips in mind, you now have a better idea of how to prepare for the coming of 5G and what it will entail for digital marketing. As new technologies and opportunities arise, innovation is becoming more and more necessary to not be left behind. So make sure to take full advantage of 5G in the future!

What are you looking forward to with the upcoming 5G? Do you have other creative approaches in order to adapt for it? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!

Know Your Audience: The Different Social Media Profiles for Digital Marketing

By Guillermo Biosca | | Digital Marketing

If you are managing an e-commerce brand, you already know the importance of visibility in a digital marketing strategy. The more your product gains visibility, the more it will be purchased. This is, and has always been, the main principle behind advertising: if people don’t know your product, they will not buy it.

If you are managing an e-commerce brand, you already know the importance of visibility in a digital marketing strategy. The more your product gains visibility, the more it will be purchased. This is, and has always been, the main principle behind advertising: if people don’t know your product, they will not buy it.

Advertising can be expensive, however. So, to minimize costs, it’s important to know where to place your ad for it to be seen by your target audience. This is a common practice in traditional TV advertisements — during a football match, you will mainly see ads about razor blades and other products targeting men. During a commercial break of a soap opera episode, ads will often target women. Although reducing people to their gender stereotypes may seem superficial, it is actually very effective.

Advertising on social networks works the same way. Instead of spending time, effort, and money on advertising on all social networks, you should first analyze your buyer personas and advertise on the social platforms that your target audience uses. So, let’s analyze four of today’s most popular social media platforms and find out who their users are.

Facebook: A Powerful Digital Marketing Tool 

Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform with 2.6 billion active users per month. It’s widespread popularity combined with its advertising and analytics capabilities make it a powerful tool to engage with your target audience.

While the majority of Facebook users are under the age of 35, its popularity among younger generations is decreasing. However, it is becoming more and more popular among users over 50. This data is key when creating an advertising campaign. For example, if you are selling financial or stock advice, Facebook could be a good option for your marketing strategy as people over 50 generally have more money than teens and young adults. However, if you are promoting a new app or a video game, you might want to place an ad in another social media platform. It’s also worth noting that Facebook is more popular among women than men in the United States, but it’s the opposite globally.

Furthermore, you should consider the functions of the platform. For example, Facebook lets you create a page for your business, which is useful for connecting with your customers and creating a community of people who use and like your product. Moreover, it also lets you customize the targeting capabilities of your ads, allowing you to more effectively reach your target audience.

Youtube: Mid-Length Videos to Reach Your Target Audience

Although YouTube may not always be seen as a social media platform, it is indeed one of the most used alongside Facebook, reaching 2 billion active users every month. In addition to it’s subscribed users, YouTube also has a lot of unknown visitors. Regarding its known user demographics, YouTube is one of the most popular platforms for young adults between 19 and 24 years old. It’s also more popular among men than women and not so popular among 50+ years old adults.

The main drawback of YouTube ads is that the ad must be in a mid-length to long video format. Although it’s true that all kinds of visual content can be engaging, teens and young adults between 18 and 24 years old tend to prefer image-led content in shorter formats. 

Finally, unlike Facebook, YouTube doesn’t allow customizing the target audience for your ad. Instead, YouTube videos can be optimized following basic SEO rules. Adding your keywords in the title and description is necessary to reach your target audience.

Instagram: The Favorite Social Media Amongst Young People and Influencers 

While Instagram has around 1 billion users (less than half of Facebook or YouTube users), it’s one of the fastest-growing social networks and one of the more used by teens and young adults.

Nowadays, Instagram is the preferred social network of many teens and young adults between 18 and 24 years old. Even though it’s becoming more popular among adults, it’s far from being as popular as YouTube or Facebook. Also, Instagram users are more likely to be women than men — very much so in the United States but only slightly more globally.

Since Instagram uses hashtags to index content and ads, using a trending hashtag relevant to your product can help you reach your target audience. Furthermore, Instagram is not only the favorite social network among teens and young adults, it’s also the favorite platform among influencers. With their global audience and large number of followers, they can help your product gain considerable visibility.

Twitter: A Great Way to Interact With Your Customers 

Even though Twitter has been slowly losing users for a while, it still has roughly 330 million active monthly users. It is most common among adults between their late 20’s to 40 years old, demonstrating an appeal to an audience that is more mature and has more income than Instagram’s audience, but isn’t as old as Facebook’s. The majority of Twitter users are male — almost 2/3 globally with only a 3% difference in the US..

Twitter places its ads in the same way that Instagram does by using hashtags. Again, a trending, relevant hashtag can be an effective way to your brand or product more visible. Twitter can also be really interesting for providing post-sales service and customer service. If used wisely, you can help your customers in a friendly way and show potential customers that you are there for them if something goes wrong.

The key for an effective marketing strategy

Social media provides numerous opportunities for digital marketing. However, a marketing campaign which did well on Facebook will certainly not have the same effect  on Instagram or Twitter. Creating an effective and tailored marketing strategy for each social media platform can help you maximize your ROI. Create personas, know your audience, and design a specific marketing strategy for each social media platform to improve your sales!

If you find this post interesting, don’t forget to share it on social media and feel free to have a look at the other articles on the TCLoc master’s blog.