Industry Focus for Friday, September 30, 2022
At iFocus Marketing, we’re all about dynamic marketing strategies. Our sole priority when working with our clients is to develop an action-driven plan to grow their businesses.
But how do we know this works? Where do these strategies come from? It’s important to know that, for us, our digital marketing strategies aren’t created in isolation. Without the data to support them, strategies – even seemingly good ones – likely won’t work. At the same time, data tools are nothing more than charts and graphs on a screen when there’s not an effective way to use them.
That’s why at iFocus Marketing, we’re always refining our best practices for marketing strategy and analytics. Why? Because we’re aware that this is a winning combination for success in the digital marketplace. For today’s Industry Focus, let’s look at some up-to-the-moment digital strategies – then, we’ll explore how these actions are supported by the tools our talented iFocus team members use every day.
“Brands are Driving Higher Reach and Engagement by Posting Instagram Reels,” by Jordan Julian in Social Media Today
Anyone who uses Instagram these days knows that we tend to see less of our actual friends and relatives, and more recommended content and ads than ever. That’s why many of us have taken to using Instagram Reels to share what’s going on in our lives. Everyone knows this is where the good content lies, as it’s prefered over a cluttered main feed. This article proposes that businesses should consider the same tool for getting their content out to consumers: Reels. The static image ad is becoming a thing of the past – so when you can now create short video content and position it strategically using this popular Instagram tool, a business is setting themselves up for top-shelf visibility.
-Submitted by Katie Severino, Social Media Analyst
“5 New Updates to Meta Call Ads,” by Nicole Farley in Search Engine Land
Staying on the topic of social, let’s hop over to Meta, where the Call Ads tool is providing businesses with an opportunity to connect with their customers by phone, without the user ever leaving the app. There’s nothing more challenging for consumers than finding a business they want to use, then discovering that they have to go to another page to view the phone number, and even then, it might not be clickable. However, when your digital marketing team sets up Call Ads, you can push out a phone number, key business information, and even allow the user to send a text message to your business with their phone number linked, streamlining the complicated process of contact forms and additional web pages. Along with the use of Reels, this is another prime opportunity for businesses to activate a robust marketing strategy on social, as these popular platforms are making exposure and coveted conversions easier than ever.
-Submitted by Alex Mead, Paid Media Coordinator
“Google Analytics 4: A Breakdown of Demographics and Tech Details Reports,” by Krista Seiden in Search Engine Land
Now that we’ve looked at two marketing strategies, let’s talk about what we’re seeing on the analytics side. As we explained above, iFocus Marketing is confident about the best ways to get your business in front of customers, and we feel that way because we have the data to back up our methods. We use tools to monitor this data on our clients’ businesses in real-time, so we can continue improving our strategies, which leads to improving their bottom line. With the recent adoption of Google Analytics 4, our team can monitor how campaigns are performing in real-time, receiving data from users within five minutes of their activity on a site or app. Our team is especially excited about what this article explains so well: that these reports are highly specific and user-friendly compared to GA4’s predecessor Universal Analytics, so we can home in on audience segments and drive consumers your way. Strategy is what we’re all about, but without the ability to nerd-out on the backend, we couldn’t provide the results we’re known for.
-Submitted by Amie Veach, Digital Marketing Strategist
“What is Semantic Search? A Deep Dive into Entity-Based Reports,” by Olaf Kopp in Search Engine Land
Analytics are also paramount for us because they help our teams develop marketing content that allows your business to rank high with search engines. Not only do you want to position yourself strategically on social platforms, but you want users to be able to find you quickly when they’re searching the web. At iFocus, we have a growing, gifted team that is exclusively dedicated to analyzing SEO data and creating optimized content. Google rewards great content with high rankings, thanks to what this article describes: Google Search’s gradual development into a “semantic” search engine. This means that Google’s AI is not crawling for keywords that some copywriters tend to stuff into blog posts. Google is looking for content that is highly relevant and informative to users, and they don’t want to kick back any old website. How do they figure that out? While you could get into a deep-dive with this article and learn about how Google has made machine-learning advancements in how it ranks web pages, the TL;DR is that Google’s latest technology is going to crawl a page much more thoroughly to understand the page’s intent by mining for many different types of data on the web and combining that with its innovative language-processing AI. That way, Google can figure out exactly what users want and deliver it fast. We’re excited about this at iFocus because our approach is all about creating optimized, competitive content and web design that ensures search engines will like what they see, and put it right in front of your customers’ eyes.
-Submitted by Jonny Uhlenlake, SEO Associate
“How to Prepare for AI Disruption in Content Marketing,” by Ali Faagba in ReadWrite
On a similar note, we’re keeping up on the latest developments on how AI can not only be used to read website content, but create it as well. While some agencies’ first instinct might be to fight back against the machines, we’re future-thinking and savvy enough to take a more measured, thoughtful approach to new technology. After all, as we’ve demonstrated above, the use of social platforms and web analytics have only grown in their usefulness for marketing, even though they weathered plenty of criticism when they were new on the scene. So, we’d be pretty unwise not to consider what AI has to offer. This article presents a fascinating and well-balanced take on AI content generation, arguing that there may be some value to letting machine learning help content creators get started. At the same time, the author reinforces a belief we stand behind at iFocus: that nothing can replace the ingenuity and creativity of our team members, and this is what differentiates us in a crowded field of digital marketers. Therefore, you can bet we’ll be continuing to keep an eye on the value of AI content creation, while honing our best practices for all the tools at our disposal. From GA4 engagement data, to SEO analytics, our job is to ensure that our work does one thing: help our clients’ businesses thrive.
-Submitted by Peter Mishler, Senior Digital Copywriter
Make iFocus the Strategic, Analytic Partner for Your Business’ Marketing Needs
As you can see, we’re just a tiny bit obsessed with the marketing industry. Why? Because we know that up-to-date knowledge is what keeps us at the forefront of digital marketing, and – most importantly – ensures that our clients meet their goals.
Any given day of the week, you’ll find our team discussing new tools, adding new certifications and training to our repertoire, and reading intently about the very latest trends and research in the field. At the same time, you’ll find us engaged with our clients, sharing everything we’ve learned as we roll out key strategies and plans to grow their businesses effectively.
We think this all makes for a smart approach to marketing. Want to get in on the fun? We’d love to hear about your needs and goals for your business’ future, and we’d love to share how we can put our strategies into action for you – with the evidence to back it up.
Schedule a discovery call with us today.
