The Digital Transformation Lab

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency Any business knows you must effectively market your brand and what you do in order to be successful. As more and more business is conducted online, and more potential customers search for products on the web, you need to have a solid digital marketing presence and strategy in place, especially if you are launching a new business. Unfortunately, the workload can sometimes be more than your in-house team can handle, especially when it comes to the web. Even if you already outsource your marketing, there are times when you may require an additional partnership if you feel your online efforts are lacking. Advertising in the digital space is complex and involves a specific set of knowledge and tools to be conducted effectively. Luckily, there are professionals out there to get your company’s digital marketing efforts on the right track. THE QUESTION THEN BECOMES: HOW DO YOU CHOOSE THE RIGHT DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY? Assess Yo...

How to get traffic on your blog in just 2 steps Today, I’m going to share two strategies I’ve used to get traffic to my websites from extremely high-traffic blogs like Lifehacker and sites like the  Wall Street Journal . These strategies are the same ones I used to 10x my blog traffic  in just one year. How to get traffic to your blog in 2 steps On a recent forum where both new and experienced bloggers share tips for getting traffic, SEO, etc., most of the discussions were  debating minutiae  about meaningless changes they could make to their blog to get more readers. “What SEO plug-in should I use?” one asked. “Does anyone think I should change my blog’s name???” another wondered. After 20 minutes of reading, I had to close the window because I was getting so frustrated. Look, here’s a simple chart of what matters for getting traffic for your site: Basically, there are only two ways that really matter to get traffic to your website wit...

10 Tips On Getting Your First 1000 Subscribers There is nothing more satisfying than hitting a milestone with your videos.  One important one is your first 1,000 subscribers. This is important because YouTube offers live streaming once you have achieved this milestone and you have an account in good standing (Since the publishing of this post there has been a change: YouTube now offers live streaming for free for verified non-profit entities.  Instead of needing 1,000 subscribers you now need 100 subscribers.) Getting more subscribers can seem like a difficult task, but I’ll share 10 tips to help you get your first 1,000 subscribers. 1. Post Useful Content Consistently This is one of the most difficult things to do as a content creator.  If you take a look around YouTube you might think that every video under the sun has been created and that is most likely true, but you can put your own spin on a popular topic.  For example, there are many “...

Digital Marketing is going to change soon. What used to work is slowly starting to not work. If you want to do well in 2019 watch this.

4 Reasons Why Remarketing is Extremely Important What is Remarketing? Remarketing gives you a chance to reach out to customers who’ve previously visited your website with banner ads. When a customer visits your site they are tagged with a special cookie allowing you to advertise to them online. This means you get another chance to convert them into a sale!  How Does it Work? For example, visitors who are looking for new pet accessories may go to yourpet.com to browse the different products however, some visitors leave without completing a purchase. Knowing that the visitors are a potential customers yourpet.com can tag them as “site visitor”. This will allow yourpet.com to deliver an advertisement to the “site visitor”. Furthermore, you can even segment visitor groups based on the pages they visited to show them more relevant ads and increase repeat visits to your site. 1. Stay engaged with your target  96% of visitors leave without converting,...

What Does a Digital Media Planner Do? You’ve hired an agency or you’re looking for a job, and want to know what a digital media planner does. I’m going to outline what a digital media planner is like and list their core functions within an ad agency. Personality. Digital media planners are usually more extroverted (as they work with a lot of media reps), detail-oriented and data geeks (if one is reading this article right now they’ve already skimmed the article for hard numbers). They are always learning and excited about technology. Digital media planners probably check these websites for fun after work. Plan Media . Their primary role is to plan media on behalf of the agency’s clients. They collaborate heavily with the account team and other media planners to create a digital media plan. The media that is typically considered digital includes: digital video, banner ads, search, social media promotion, mobile banners/video, digital audio, etc. Think Hulu, CNN.com and...

Why SnapChat is important for your Business Just like Twitter or Facebook were when they first came out, Snapchat still seems foreign and new to most businesses. However, even though its focus is on sending photo and video messages one at a time (which also expire after a time period you set), it can be difficult to see the potential benefits of this popular social networking app, which remains one of the most popular downloads in both the Apple and Android app stores. However, there are several benefits to using Snapchat to announce new products, humanize your company, and stand out from your competition. How Businesses Can Use Snapchat Showcase New Products This is one way Taco Bell uses Snapchat, and they do it so well. Usually, they have employees showcase new products through several snaps, creating a Snapchat story of the product and why customers should go check it out as soon as possible. In a recent Adweek article about Taco Bell’s dominance ...

A Complete Guide to App Store Optimization (ASO) App store optimization (ASO) has been somewhat overlooked of late with the growth of machine learning and AI, Google’s mobile-first index progression, and other noticeable industry changes commanding every marketer’s attention. Whether you are new to app store optimization, or keen to refine your approach to ASO, this post will shed some practical insights which are proven to maximize app store success. What is App Store Optimization? App Store Optimization (ASO) is known by a few names, including App Store Marketing and Mobile App SEO. The focus of ASO is expert resource application related to improving the ranking of mobile applications (apps) directly within app stores (like iTunes, Google Play, and Windows Store). The main mobile phones that apps are created for iPhone/iPad, Android and Windows Phone. The goal of ASO is nearly always app downloads, but supplemental goals can include: Increased br...

Why Cost per Acquisition Is the Only Metric That Really Matters There’s no denying it. You cannot consider yourself a great ad person unless you know your numbers. At SME Digital (the agency arm of Social Media Explorer), we’re all about garnering results that are measurable. After all, you aren’t an effective marketer if you aren’t tracking the numbers.  Even more, you aren’t a top-notch marketer if you’re not tracking the one metric that matters above all others: Cost per Acquisition (CPA). Now don’t get me wrong, all those other metrics are important too. Metrics like: Click-Thru-Rate Cost per Click Cost per Conversion Just to name a few. But, while these metrics are important to any well run campaign. They don’t hold a candle to the Holy Grail of marketing metrics: Cost per Acquisition. In other words, how much do I have to spend in marketing dollars to get a paying customer? So why is Cost per Acquisition so important? Simple, it’s the qu...