Tag - digital marketing

2015: The Year of Mobile Marketing

We’ve all heard it before: the money is in mobile.  You’ve probably heard dozens of reason why it is so important for your business to have a strong mobile presence, whether it be a mobile website or by utilizing mobile advertising. We hate to say we told you so, but Google’s most recent mobile business report suggested that mobile devices...

“How To…” Take Advantage of a New Digital Marketing Trend

Do you know how to survive a shipwreck?  What about tie a tie, change a tire, apply makeup, dance the Whip/Nae Nae, or cook the perfect poached egg?  You can  learn these skills and more through step-by-step instructional videos on YouTube.  And consumer's love these handy tutorials.  Google says that YouTube how-to video searches have increased 70% this year...

How To Reach Millennials With Your Digital Advertising

With over 171.5 million people owning a smartphone worldwide, it’s almost irregular not to have one. Of those 171 million, 85% of these owners are millennials. To go even further into millennial smartphone usage: 85% of Millennials aged 18-24 own smartphone devices and 86% aged 25-34 own them. However, while there is a divide amongst ages, there isn’t a divide between genders....

Digital Advertising for Mobile: Game On

Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Trivia Crack, Bookworm, Gym Streak.  At any given time, there are millions of smartphone users with their noses glued to their screen using gaming apps or lifestyle apps like these. Smartphone users are so attached to these apps that the US mobile gaming user base has grown to more than half the US population for the...

Fat fingers? Never fear! Accidental clicks just got a lot harder to make.

How many times have you been scrolling along on your mobile phone and accidentally clicked on an advertisement? Well, you’re not alone. To address it, Google has implemented several changes to reduce accidental clicks on mobile display ads. First, Google has identified the border of an image as those areas are particularly prone to accidental clicks. If you tap the...

Credit Union and Banks Turn to Digital to Reel in New Customers

Banks and credit unions are businesses that have served their customers' financial services and needs for centuries.  As many traditional industries are still learning to adapt to new technology, financial services are leading the change in the digital evolution as they attempt to keep up with our new fast-paced lifestyles. There is no disputing that technology has had an incredible...

The Future of Digital Advertising 2015 vs 2019

Digital marketing is expected to have a bright future. As consumer behavior migrates online, so will advertiser spending. In fact, online advertising is expected to overtake TV advertising in size by 2019. Below is an infographic that details the amount of spending and where that spending will be allocated: TV advertising spending is projected to grow from 71.1 billion this year...

Tips for Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Who doesn’t want the best, especially when it comes to your digital campaigns? Well, good news because there are simple things you can do to optimize your campaign right now. These strategies are simple and easy to implement and will help your campaigns so you can see results. The first thing you’re going to want to do is focus on...

100 Posts Later…Check Out Vici’s Most Read Blog Posts!

  Today is an exciting day for us at Vici Media, we are celebrating our 100th blog post!  We take pride in providing you with digital marketing education, campaign strategies, and trends in the ever-changing online marketing world. To commemorate 100 blog posts about effective digital marketing strategies, check out our five most popular posts ever.    These posts and many other...

Panic Over Click-Through Rates? Google Can Help!

Some of the most frequently asked questions in digital advertising revolve around click-through rates (CTR).  So what is a good CTR and what is a bad CTR?  The national average click-through rate for display ads as a whole is 0.07% (Criteo).  Keep in mind, that's across all industries and all ad sizes.  So it's important to know how your...

How the Millennial Smartphone Addiction Can Benefit You

Do millennials ever put their phones down? No.  In fact, 24% of millennials attached themselves to their smartphones less than 5 minutes after waking up.  An even more astounding 52% of millennials start using their smart phones just after being awake for 5 minutes.  Throughout the rest of the day, these digital obsessed millennials are likely to check their smartphones...

Shop ‘Til You Drop: Digital Influence on Retail Sales Hits $2.2 Trillion

Could this be the end of coupon mailers and Sunday ads? The year 2015 has shown an immense positive correlation between digital advertising and in-store retail sales.  Digital advertising is expected to influence 64 cents of every dollar spent in retail stores, or $2.2 trillion, by the end of this year. This figure has grown considerably since 2012, where digital advertising...

Digital Ad Spending Approaches 60 Billion This Year!

Digital Ad Spending is expected to reach about $60 Billion this year, and retailers will comprise 22% of that, or $12.9 billion. Retailers, by far, outpace all other industries. According to Victoria Petrock at eMarketer, “mobile, digital video, and programmatic buying are the brightest stars in the digital advertising lineup." Retailers will spend nearly twice as much as any other industry...

Does My Business HAVE to Blog? Yes.

As a business owner, you may have asked yourself- What is the point of blogging?  What do I blog about?  Do I HAVE to blog? Yes. Not only do you have to, but you want to. As of May 2015, there were more than 47 billion Web pages indexed on Google.  Instead of letting the 47,000,000,000 other pages intimidate you, educate...

Internet Advertising Is #1 In Total Ad Spending In 2014

It’s no secret that ad spending in digital is growing.  In fact, in 2014 the highest advertising revenue was directed towards the Internet.  According to the chart below, 49.5 billion dollars was spent in online advertising alone in 2014, making it the highest advertising media by revenue. These numbers are steadily growing.  According to a study done by Duke University, mobile...

So You Have a Bad Online Review, What Now?

Online reputation management consists of monitoring, improving and maintain the publicly available online information about your business. As the internet becomes more mobile, on-the-go and fast-paced, it becomes much easier for your customers to research the good and the bad about your company.  Not only is it easier for customers to find reviews about your company, it is also extremely...

Household IP Targeting: The Digital Replacement of Direct Mail

Let’s be honest, how often to you get advertisements through direct mail and how often does that marketing piece end up in the recycling bin?  Here's how direct mail stacks up: Just how much do consumers dislike direct mail?  51% of people have a negative/very negative reaction to receiving an advertising card or flier through direct mail. This is greater...

Who Is Your Social Media Audience?

As a business, you may have asked yourself many times, how do I connect with my audience? Social media is an effective way to help businesses connect on a personal level with their customers. Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter allow contact directly from business to customer and essentially puts a face to the business and encourages upfront communication...

Three Free Tools to Better Understand Your Website’s SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a incredibly powerful digital marketing strategy.  The more organic traffic to your website, the more leads, and better site navigation means more leads turning into business.  No website is the same, so it can take many different combinations of statistics and information to gain the most insight on how to run the best SEO...

How Will Building a (M.) Mobile Website Affect My SEO?

Mobile Websites.  You’ve heard the hype, you’ve seen the Google announcements, you know that mobile sites are not only recommended but soon-to-be mandatory on April 21st if your business wishes to maintain a successful Google search ranking. Now that you know your site has to be mobile responsive or optimized within the next month, you may be on your way...

My Bounce Rate is Too High. What Should I Do?

It’s a little troublesome having a high bounce rate. This essentially means that a user was on your page and then left (bounced) rather than continuing to view other pages. A high bounce rate is a conversion killer. Because bounce rate measures people who bounced off a single page, it shows that they didn’t explore other pages of your website....

Reputation Management and SEO, Two Peas in a Pod

“If you lose money for the firm, I will be understanding.  If you lose reputation, I will be ruthless,” said Warren Buffet. Reputation management  has become a necessary component to many successful businesses in the internet age where any customer can say anything about their experience with a company's product or services.  A company’s reputation can be permanently tarnished with...

Mobile Optimization- option or necessity?

I can’t even imagine a time when information wasn’t at our fingertips. When I am out with my friends and one of us has a question no one can answer, I can immediately pull out my phone (I am more attached to it than I’d like to admit), and answer their question within a minute. In turn, it makes...

Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly by April 21 or Lose Traffic

You've heard it here: mobile devices are the hottest platforms for effective digital marketing strategies.  Not sold on the mobile marketing trend yet?  This may change your mind,  because for the first time ever, not having a responsive or optimized mobile site can negatively impact your businesses' success. Starting April 21, Google will be penalizing websites that are not optimized or responsive to...

Desktop Reigns Supreme in Ecommerce Traffic and Revenue

You have probably heard a lot about new digital marketing trends for digital devices.  It seems like every week a new research study proves which digital device customers prefer for shopping and browsing. With all the trends, statistics and competition among devices, it is easy to get overwhelmed trying to keep up with the dozens of ways to attract a customer...

How to optimize your SEO strategy.

Let’s face it, these days SEO (search engine optimization) is essential. What SEO does is create an exceptional user experience and communicates your strategies to search engines so they will recommend your website for relevant searches. Here are three simple ways to optimize your SEO, and reach more consumers around the web. Be relevant. AKA organize your website to comply...

Lifecycles to Lifestyles: Why You Should Get to Know Your Customer

When was the last time you walked, drove, sat or went anywhere without seeing handfuls of people with their faces glued to their smartphone screens?  Between distractions like internet browsing, social media, emails, texting, and phone calls, how can you capture your customer's attention? Get to know them individually.  Understand their consumer habits.  Become an integrated part of their lifestyle. Marketing...

How should I measure my KPIs?

It is important for digital marketers to understand key performance indicators. Key Performance Indicators or KPIs give you a way to measure how your campaign is performing against your business objectives. When you start a campaign, make sure to outline your goals, and once you have them, be sure to translate them into quantifiable objectives. These measurable goals will...

Mobile Tops eCommerce in Traffic, Trails in Sales

You might be in the East Coast stuck in your house with snow up to your roof, or you might be in the West Coast lounging in the sun avoiding going indoors.  Either way, is your mobile phone in your hand?  If not, is it more than three feet from your hand?  Most likely not.    The population's addiction to...

So retargeting will cause my ad to follow people? CREEPY!

There is a fine, fine line between being creepy and being, let’s say, involved. Marketers love the idea of retargeting. It’s personalized advertising! You are following someone around online who recently visited your website and showed an interest in your product. What could go wrong? Well, to those who don’t have an understanding of retargeting, it can be a...

Valentine’s Day: A Digital Marketing Love Affair

Looking for a Valentine’s Day gift that will win your sweetheart over?  Look no further than your favorite digital device. Valentine’s Day is known not only for love and romance, but also for business and consumer driven behaviors: shopping and advertising.  According to momentology.com, data from recent years shows that couples are not the only consumers driven to spend this...

The Agile Marketing Phenomenon!

Getting involved with digital marketing is one of the smartest things you can do for your business. Digital marketing gives consumers the access to products and information at any time or anywhere. While it’s not impossible to run a business without digital marketing, your company would be at a severe disadvantage. However, when approaching this field, it’s important to...

The Power of the View-Through

How many display ads do you think you are exposed to in one day?  Tens, twenties or even hundreds?  Believe it or not, the number falls closer to the upper levels of the spectrum. Between the countless billboards, magazines, television and internet ads we pass by hundreds of times a day, it is apparent that display advertising has made a...

Is my A/B test done yet?!

I can relate to the excitement of getting definitive answers, especially when those answers will directly affect your business. Unfortunately, A/B testing is something that depends on waiting until the right moment. So how do you know when that right moment is? A test stopped too early can yield inaccurate results. These results can range from merely inaccurate to completely...

Should you invest in a mobile app? Hmmm…maybe not.

Making an app for your business seems to be what everyone's doing right now. 2014 was even referred to as the “year of mobile," however, the roles mobile played in 2014 will be changing in 2015. Mobile is expected to become such a normal part of one’s daily life, it will eventually fade from consumers' consciousness. The differences between accessing...

Don’t Make the Same Digital Marketing Mistakes in 2015

At only 2 weeks into the new year, there have been plenty of new tips created on how to make 2015 your most successful year yet.  But reading lists on top of lists about what your business should be doing but isn't doing yet can be intimidating and overwhelming.  It takes time for you and your consumers to adapt...

Mobile Window Shopping: Look but Don’t Buy

As smart phone usage increases rapidly in America, the technical abilities of new phones become more and more advanced to add convenience to their users’ lives.  The smart phone population realized that their phone is essentially a mini desktop computer that allows them to fulfill any task on the web without the constrictions of desktop computers or even Wi-Fi. Despite...

Your 2015 New Year’s Resolution: Effective Marketing

The end of another holiday season also marks the end of a new year and the beginning of new opportunities in 2015.  Although you might have a list of important resolutions that you promise to keep this year, the fact is you may only keep them for 2 weeks, or through the entire month of January if you’re lucky. ...

The Omnichannel Experience: Coming to Screens Near You in 2015

The Omnichannel Experience may sound like an action movie you would see in an IMAX theatre, but this concept is a new marketing trend that is expected to explode in 2015. The omnichannel marketing experience is a term that describes the seamless, cross-channel shopping habits that consumers have latched on to this holiday season and are expected to stay latched...

Tips on Talking to Young Women

Millennials, or the generation born between 1980-2000, have inherited a reputation of being “entitled,” “enigmatic,” and even “slackers.”  Unfortunately, it is not only the millennials as a whole who are underestimated and underrepresented, it is the women within the 16-34 age group who are the most misunderstood, despite their huge buying power.  Small businesses seeking the attention of women...

Quick- How Many Pages Are On Your Website?

It's a fact: Google loves content creators.  And the more credible, keyword rich content on your site, the better Google ranks your website.  So how many pages do you have indexed in Google? It's easy to check! Step 1: Go to Google.com Step 2: In the browser field type "site:http://insertyourwebsite.com/" (no spaces, don't forget the colon!) Step 3: Google it! And voila! The...

Desktop is Not Dead! The Evolution of Desktop and Mobile Marketing

Desktops computers soared to popularity in the 1990’s and became a household item, like a microwave, or a television.  In the 2000’s a new normal revolutionized on the go technology with mobile phones.  The evolution of mobile phone technology ultimately lead to the status quo of the smartphone, which are ultimately monopolized by Android and Apple.  Easy access to...

From Google: 5 Things You Need to Know About SEO

Are you looking for ways to organically increase the traffic to a website?  If so, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will improve the overall structure of a website which will help drive traffic. How? An SEO specialist has many different ways to optimize a website. Below are 5 examples taken straight from the "Search Giant" itself, Google. 1) Create unique and accurate...

Generation X Edges Out Millenials in Facebook Use…But Not Selfies.

Generation X, the middle population of 65 million Americans ages 34-49, are frequently recognized as being squished in between the older, dominant Baby Boomers and the young, free-spirited Millennials.  And boy does Generation X love their mobile technology and social media!  Despite blatantly targeting every new tech trend to be marketed towards millennials, it's Gen Xers that spend the most...

2014 – The Year Of Mobile Domination

It's official - mobile rules when it comes to media consumption.  The average person consumes 7 hours of media a day and mobile is number one, accounting for about 35% or 145 minutes of that time. The 2014 "Marketing In A Multiscreen World" report found similar results with smartphones at 35% of daily screen time, far outpacing T.V., tablets, and...

The Need to Move Faster

Technology is affecting customer behavior and the changes are opening and closing customer touch points with businesses. With businesses in markets across America, the advertising mix is changing, and with that advertising revenues are shifting from legacy media to all things digital.  Yet I feel that many in the media sector don’t understand the velocity of the change and...

9 Things You Didn’t Know About SEO!

In this digital marketing age, it's no wonder people are putting so much emphasis on SEO.  Search Engine Optimization. It's making your site more visible on search engines so that people can find you!  And don't we all want people to find us?  SEO's increasing popularity, however, has lead to several misconceptions about its use and how to optimize...

UTM Codes?! I’ve never heard of UTM Codes!

If you are like the majority of the population, you might have never heard of UTM Codes.  And why not?! I don't know - because they are a great tool to use for measuring your digital campaigns! UTM stands for Urchin Traffic Monitor.  And that's what it does - it monitors traffic coming into a site, and specifically names where that...