The Quick Beginner’s Guide To Adobe Marketing Cloud

Adobe Cloud Marketing, Adobe social, Analytics, content marketing, Key Performance Indicators, KPI's, Mobile Marketing, Small Business Marketing, The Quick Beginner's Guide To Adobe Marketing Cloud, , , , , ,

The birth of the internet has forced change upon most industries, but marketing has arguably faced the biggest revolution of all. As the internet has developed, so have the tools to track what is happening on your website.

What began as a simple code change – the addition of a site visit counter – has grown into the embedding of complex tools such as Google Analytics. Now you don’t just count hits; you can see where your visitors came from, what they looked at and what attracts them to your products and services. In turn, you can feed this back into market research.

Analytics tools are now an essential part of the marketer’s arsenal, helping them to understand whether their campaigns, promotions and adverts are having the impact they want. Adobe Marketing Cloud is specifically designed to help develop and control how a business goes about marketing its products and services.

So What Is Adobe Marketing Cloud?

Adobe Marketing Cloud combines a number of tools, each designed to meet a different marketing need. It’s aimed at professional market researchers and other staff working in similar jobs.

Each application in the suite is run from the cloud. This means that you don’t have to worry about installing software on your computer. The applications are designed to integrate well with each other and are kept up-to-date by Adobe, so you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues or having to install updates.

Most importantly, with your work being stored and run from the cloud, it will be available across a variety of devices wherever you have access to the internet. If you need to work on your laptop whilst out and about you don’t need to find it on the company network before you set off. If you want to discuss a strategy in a meeting, you no longer need to spend time printing documents to show to your market research colleagues. Just take your tablet in with you.

Apps in Marketing Cloud

There are five main Apps which make up the tool set in Adobe Marketing Cloud.

  • The first is Adobe Analytics, which is a tool for analyzing the behaviour of your customers when they visit your website.It’s similar to Google Analytics and could help to reinforce your market research activities.
  • Adobe Target is a tool for testing different marketing strategies for your website and and finding out what works and what doesn’t.
  • Adobe Social helps you to manage the social side of your marketing, whether it’s interacting with your customers, tracking the performance of your social media campaigns or identifying new trends which may impact your brand.
  • Adobe Experience Manager is designed to help organise and manage the production of your marketing campaigns, promotions and adverts.
  • Adobe Media Optimizer is designed to help you optimize the mix of marketing strategies you use and ensure you get a good return on your investment.

Why Use Marketing Cloud?

Whilst there are many sides to marketing, finding out when and why it works is essential for developing new strategies, whilst understanding when and why they are failing gives you the opportunity to act before too much damage is done. Adobe Marketing Cloud could therefore make market research jobs easier.

Adobe Marketing Cloud gives marketers the tools to facilitate this new wave of marketing activity, so it’s worth spending time getting to grips with this type of software to make sure you can get the best out of it.

Our guest blogger, Sam Wright is a journalist working with Brand Republic.

Content Marketing – More Than Just Text

Blogging, Content creation, content marketing, Infographics, SEO, SEO video, Small Business Marketing, Video marketing, YouTube Marketing, , , ,

The hidden power of alternative content marketing

alternative content marketing

Content marketing is a very powerful tool. It can be used to bring in new customers, retain existing customers, and help your brand to establish its authority. All in all, content can do a great number of beneficial things for your brand when it is marketed correctly.

Beyond the blog

There is more to content marketing than simply posting in a blog. Content marketing extends far beyond basic text content – if you want to reach as much of your market as possible, you will need to explore alternative types of content marketing. With different types of content you can appeal to people with different learning styles and those who prefer to receive information from sources other than plain text.

Why alternative content rocks

alternative-content-ideasFor a visual learner there isn’t much that’s more difficult to get through than a wall of text, regardless of how much they need the information it contains. For someone who learns best when someone else is demonstrating a process, text isn’t going to do much good unless it is accompanied by images or a video of some kind.
Alternative content appeals to individuals like these as well as others with similar learning styles.
Examples of alternative content include:

    • Infographics – An alternative to typical text-based content, an infographic can provide consumers with a more visually appealing representation of the information that they need. Infographics are ideal for visual learners and are well-suited to instances where the information that needs to be shared can easily be illustrated by a knowledgeable professional.  Take for example the infographic below, the idea is to take a subject matter of expertise and create something unique and entertaining that has never been done before.

    • Videos – Videos can attract consumers and can be used alone as well as in combination with test, images, and more. Videos appeal most to visual and auditory learners because they can simultaneously show and explain an idea. Video marketing is very popular, and there are even video search engines (think YouTube) to help locate just the right video for your needs.

Video: Why Use Video Marketing?

Alternative content allows you to diversify the content that you offer and broaden your brand’s appeal by reaching out to a wider audience. There is no more need to worry about alienating anyone by not providing the right kind of content; now you can build your audience with as much content as you can afford to create.

Your takeaway

your-takeaway-bags
In the early days of the internet there were no alternatives to plain text. The most that could be done at the time was basic formatting; text could be bold, italic, or underlined. Lists could be made, and text could be separated by headings and subheadings, but that was the extent of a brand’s ability to make their content stand out and be easier to consume.
Fast forward to today and there are so many more options than the early founders of the web might have ever dreamed of.
Now is the perfect time to invest in an alternative form of content and see where the experience will take you and your customers – who knows what your first infographic or video series will bring to your brand?

infographic-about-infographics_5089d6abbf593

Our guest blogger, Kris Dietz, loves creating something amazing then spreading the word about it! My mission is to develop and mold SEO into an amazing outlet of sharing valuable resources. I enjoy networking and meeting like-minded individuals.

Getting the Most ROI From Your Social Media

content marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, , , ,

Getting the Most ROI From Your Social MediaSocial media is very common for today’s business and many brands are doing all they can to establish themselves via these platforms. As many big brands have learned social can be a very challenging platform when it comes to measuring return on investment.

For companies that developed on conventional metrics and advertising models, it can be troubling understanding how valuable the online ROI is to their brand. Luckily, there are several must-know social media ROI growth tools that can be used to help succeed in this emerging marketing area.

Engage

The internet is full of user-generated content, chatter, tweets, videos and blog posts. You can empower participation by addressing customer concerns, fixing problems and harnessing the authority of brand advocates.

Remember, it is easier to fix problems than it is to ignore them. People are looking to interact and establish relationships with brands on the web. Indulging those fans through social interactions, real replies and product giveaways separate the companies or businesses that succeed from those that get stuck in the dark.

Keep Content High Quality

You should make sure that all content you publish is premium. Take advantage of Tumblr, social media and WordPress to craft strong messages. Be familiar with the rules and ensure you follow them.

Each network calls for a particular approach and language (Facebook posts are not written in a similar manner as tweets for example). Abide by a calendar for posting, and center on making the followers feel as part of the brand’s family. Applying platforms solely as selling instruments rapidly alienates clients. Employ social media experts and fight the lure to convert websites into content farms or computerized feeds.

Be Real

It is impossible to fake it on the web. You might think you have it all under control but people will smell your lies, and this will not go well for your brand. Very committed brand advocates who support your product will be the initial ones to make a noise when they sense shady behaviour or content which does not tie in with the brand culture.

When unsure, it is advisable to ask your community for assistance whenever it comes to content (they will appreciate being taken into consideration).

Incorporate Real-Time Apps

Integrate social media in all aspects of what you do. A good number of companies using Twitter feeds, ratings, reviews and comments on homepages have increased user engagement. Although this might sound very easy, adding these tools is very crucial. It empowers users to connect and share content. Moreover, constant updating betters search engine visibility more than pages that are static.

Experiment

If you do not risk something, you will gain nothing. This is true, particularly as far as social is concerned. Test tone, style as well as fresh monetizing tools, for example ‘native advertising’, which supplies sponsored content, Facebook stories and also tweets. As social media is always changing it is very important to keep experimenting with new strategies and tools to keep at the very forefront of this medium.

Our guest blogger, Jon, works with many large brands social media accounts in Perth. When not on the laptop, he is out surfing the waves of the Australian coast.

Quickest Methods To Design A Dreamweaver 8 Website In 5 Minutes

Content creation, Small Business Marketing, Web Design, , ,

Quickest Methods To Design A Dreamweaver 8 Website In 5 Minutes

Like many other programs available on the market Dreamweaver 8 is a software program that helps people to design different websites. This kind of program is quite suitable for both experienced or beginners because it is quite efficient and at the end anyone can have a great result in an optimal period of time. Dreamweaver 8 includes an interface that allows a person to see how the initial web page will look, while editing it. But here are some great tips about how to design websites in this program in five minutes.

Layout Of The Web Page

Usually, a web page in Dreamweaver 8 includes three sections where a person can edit facts like the logo of the website. The page also includes footer at the end of the page, where you can still have a text box for writing the wanted words. That is how you can type in a few seconds the wanted words and make the website look more familiar. Also in the layout sector a person can choose to work on the bulk section where there are two parts that include the skeleton of the future menu. Therefore anyone can replace these spaces with the wanted information in order to start having a nice page.

Work At The Page Title

For any websites, the page title is also quite important in order for other visitors to see exactly what the page contains. So usually the title of the page appears as “untitled document”. A user just has to put the mouse and click in the box where are written these words and include there the name of the page without any problem. Still, the words will not appear in the body of the page, but it will be quite useful for the searching motors to find your website and make it available for anyone.

Adding Content To The Web Page

In addition, to modify a text in your web page you have to work with the right column available. Any kind of content can be put there either if is about describing your activity or putting some interesting quotations. Adding text is quite easy in Dreamweaver 8, as it works similar to other programs that are based on writing, like Microsoft Word for instance. Sub-headings can be also done by the help of Dreamweaver 8, by making an entry in order for the cursor to move to another line. After that you can write the wanted text and format it in sub-heading type.

Finally after doing the right edits, you just have to save the page. Then it will have to be uploaded on a web server in order for the web page to be visible in any kind of engine motor, and be accessible for the users that want to visit it. Also remember to check if the page works properly, right after you have added your page to the web server. That is how you learn from dreamweaver 8 training and create a great website that will be quite accessible to any person.

Author Bio

Ashley Gardner is a private tutor and advocate of continuous education. She writes for the local paper and writes tips for college students.