Gamification In B2B Marketing: Why You Need It + 8 Real-World Examples

Gamification. Sounds fancy, right?

It is, and it isn’t. Essentially, gamification is a marketing technique that engages people through the use of game-like elements. Typical examples of gamification in marketing include contests, loyalty programs, quizzes, and actual games.

Some advantages to using gamification techniques in your marketing are customer engagement, more time on-site, improved brand awareness, and increased loyalty. For example, after Verizon used gamification on its website to encourage more engagement, they found that customers spent 30% more time in the gamified environment.

Likewise, in a report by SNIPP, gamification increased a brand’s client engagement by 47%, brand loyalty by 22%, and brand awareness by 15%.

All of these measures are intertwined. Customer engagement with a brand leads to loyalty through repeated interactions. Loyal customers are more likely to develop a brand attachment and spread the word about the brands they love. Word of mouth drives brand awareness among a customer’s audience who are more likely to check out your brand because someone they trust recommends it.

Now to find a marketing tool that can do ALL of that? Sounds like any business’s dream. It’s easy to see how well these tools are suited for B2C marketing. For example, a makeup company could include a quiz to help customers choose the right shade of lipstick, or an ice cream shop might use a loyalty program to get folks coming back again and again. However, it might be harder to conceive how gamification might work for B2B marketing.

In fact, B2B marketers have PLENTY of opportunities to effectively use gamification in their marketing. Below you’ll find eight examples of B2B businesses using gamification to collect leads, educate their audience, and gather user-generated content (UGC).

#1. HubSpot – Make My Persona Tool

If you’re a B2B marketer, you’re probably VERY aware of HubSpot. If you’re not, HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that does it all – from marketing automation to sales enablement, customer service to content management.

HubSpot is well-known for its inbound marketing strategies to grow its business. One of the strategies they deploy is offering free business tools. These tools are quick and easy for people to use, and they give HubSpot a load of leads.

Many of the tools are also a great example of gamification in action. Take the HubSpot Make My Persona tool. Marketing and sales professionals can complete seven easy steps to generate a buyer persona that their company can download and use. In return, HubSpot asks for a bit of information, including an email address and company stats.

#2. Neil Patel – Spin to Win game

Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics. He’s also a very well-known marketing expert and influencer. Much like Jeff Bullas is known for providing top-notch B2B advice, folks go to Neil Patel for his SEO and traffic generation insights.

Neil Patel’s website offers several free tools to generate inbound leads, much like HubSpot. However, he’s also leveraged other tactics, like contests. He ran a Spin to Win contest where folks could enter their email for a chance to win a prize. After submitting, entrants would spin a wheel to see if they won access to some of Neil’s paid resources. By giving away his resources as prizes, Neil could generate a list of leads who were interested in his services.

#3. Stemcell Technologies – “Which Immune Cell Are You?” Quiz

Stemcell Technologies is a biotech company that provides specialty cell culture media and separation products for scientific research purposes. During the pandemic, the scientific community stopped in-person conferences. However, it’s important for the community to continue to share knowledge.

They created a fun and timely quiz to help raise awareness of their submissions for a virtual immunology conference and a cell therapy conference. The “Which Immune Cell Are You?” quiz asks participants questions to reveal which immune cell fits their personality. The quiz garnered much attention, including an article on NPR.

#4. SAP – Community missions badges

SAP is an enterprise application software producer that develops solutions for some of the world’s most well-known companies. They have created a community of over three million individuals who use SAP products.

The SAP team gamified the community to encourage engagement. Community members can complete various missions to receive community badges. Members proudly display the badges on their profiles.

#5. FloQast – ROI calculator

FloQast is an accounting workflow automation platform that helps accounting teams streamline their processes and do more in less time. They know a thing or two about calculating return on investment (ROI). As a sales tool, FloQast provided an ROI calculator for companies to determine if using the platform is a good investment.

Potential customers must fill out a form with company information to receive the ROI report results. This data gives FloQast valuable insight into who the prospect is and how they could help the prospect’s team before the FloQast team reaches out.

#6. ShortStack – “Elf on the Shelf” website scavenger hunt

ShortStack is a SaaS platform for online marketing specializing in form-based and social media contests. They hosted an “Elf on the Shelf” themed scavenger hunt to raise awareness of new features.

Over the course of a month, the ShortStack team revealed a weekly clue that led participants to a page on their website where their elf named Jack was hiding. People clicked the elf to enter the contest, then had the opportunity to learn more about the feature highlighted on the webpage they had visited.

#7. Hootsuite – Social media trends knowledge quiz and contest

Hootsuite is a SaaS platform that helps marketers publish social media posts, engage with followers, conduct social listening and advertise on social media. In other words, they are the ultimate social media experts, so much so that they write an annual social media trends report.

To encourage people to read the report, they created a knowledge quiz based on the report findings. Once quiz-takers answered five questions correctly, they could enter to win a prize. Hootsuite could then use these leads to promote its social media tools.

#8. DEWALT – #TradeStory UGC contest

DEWALT is a well-known power tools company. Tradespeople who want quality, long-lasting products use DEWALT tools to help them do their best work.

DEWALT hosted a contest to help promote a more inclusive worksite culture and raise awareness of their brand among folks in this market. The #TradeStory contest encouraged tradespeople to submit their stories to help inspire job-site diversity for the chance to win DEWALT products. In addition to raising awareness, the contest also served as a way for their marketing team to collect UGC for future marketing efforts.

Time to get in the game

When creating your next lead generation or brand awareness campaign, think about how to make it more engaging for your customers with gamification.

Consider creating a contest where entrants can win a prize, a quiz where folks can show off what they know (or don’t), learn something about themselves, or offer a tool that will help them move their business forward.

By gamifying the experience for your customers, you make the lead generation process more enjoyable. You also boost the amount of time they spend with your brand, promote greater brand loyalty, and increase their likelihood of sharing your business with others.

Guest author: Jane Vance is the Marketing Director for ShortStack.com. Jane has over a decade of experience in B2B SaaS marketing and specializes in product marketing, customer experience, and lead generation.

The post Gamification In B2B Marketing: Why You Need It + 8 Real-World Examples appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

Start making $100+ per day this week with the best dfy system - Subscribe here!

The 8 Best Goal Tracking Apps for 2022 (Free and Paid)

“If a goal is worth having, it’s worth blocking out the time in your day-to-day life necessary to achieve it.”– Jill Koenig

We all have tasks and goals to achieve in day-to-day life. Many of us have a habit of writing goals in a diary or on sticky notes. But how many of us actually follow it?

Very Few.

Can you guess why?

Because there is no one to nudge us with notifications and reminders every time we try to run away from our goals.

Fortunately, we have goal-tracking apps that can help us in this case.

What are goal-tracking apps?

Goal tracking apps help you set goals and track them daily with reminders, calendars, and other smart features. These apps have changed the nature of habit building. Let’s have a look at the best goal tracking apps for businesses.

8 Best goal-tracking apps for businesses

1. SmartTask

SmartTask is an award-winning all-in-one project management software built to plan, manage and execute projects with ease. It has a simple user interface and does not require training to learn. It comes with project management, milestone tracking, task management, team collaboration, CRM, time tracking, custom analytics, and reporting features.

As far as the goal tracking aspect is concerned, you can create milestones and track your project’s progress. You can also set dependencies, create recurring tasks, track time on tasks, create custom fields, auto-schedule tasks, invite guest users on projects, chat, do video conferencing, and much more.

SmartTask allows you to manage tasks with the tasklist, board, calendar, and timeline views. You can manage multiple projects with the portfolio view and save your team from burnout with the workload view. You can also track the progress of your projects by creating custom project dashboards with the help of project analytics and global analytics views.

SmartTask also integrates with Zapier, Integromat, Pabbly Connect, Slack, Jotform, Google Sheets, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Dropbox, MailChimp, and 1000+ other applications so that you can work with your favorite tools.

Key Features

• Project Milestones
• Tasklist, Board, Calendar, and Timeline Views
• Portfolio and Workload Views
• Recurring tasks, Dependencies, and Reminders
• Time Tracking and Budget Estimation
• Call Tracking and CRM Analytics
• Instant Messaging, Video Conferencing, and File Sharing
• Custom Charts
• Productivity Scoring

Pricing

SmartTask offers free pricing with some limits and charges $5 per user/month and $8 per user/month for premium and business plans respectively when paid annually.

2. ClickUp

ClickUp is an all-in-one work management tool that can help you with your goal setting and tracking. It allows you to set, edit and track personal goals. You can set the name, due date, and other details with the Goals feature and edit it too. You can assign targets and track goals with the help of the “Targets” feature. You can also track team goals with the help of a weekly scorecard.

Key Features

• Set Goals and Track Progress
• Set Milestones
• 15+ Views to manage work
• Task Management
• Workflow Automation
• Team Collaboration
• Document Management
• Time Management

Pricing

ClickUp offers free pricing and a paid plan starts from $5 per user/month to $19 per user/month. It also offers customized plans for large enterprises.

3. Strides

Strides is a goal-setting and habit-tracking app. You can set and track habits and goals in one place. You can track your goals and customize them according to your needs. You can also get updates about your tasks with the reports feature and set daily goals with the help of the Daily Goals feature.

Key Features

• Goal Setting and Tracking
• Habit Tracking
• Charts
• Reports

Pricing

Strides is a good habit and goal tracker app with a free forever plan.

4. Way of Life

Way of Life is a very intuitive app for goal tracking and habit building. You can set up a fixed target and compete with your personal best week after week. You can track the trends of your habit with the help of charts. You can track anything with the help of customized tasks. Reminders also help you keep yourself in check.

Key Features

• Habit Tracking
• Reminders
• Charts
• Note-taking
• Color Blind Mode

Pricing

Way of Life offers free pricing and in-app purchases are available.

5. GoalsOnTrack

GoalsOnTrack is a goal-setting and goal management software. You can create SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals and break them down into smaller sub-goals. You can create goals with detailed action plans from inbuilt customized templates. You can also keep track of habits with daily check marks and goal journal features.

Key Features

• Goal Dashboard
• SMART Goals
• Multi-level Subgoals
• Progress Tracking
• Task Management
• Calendar
• Time Tracking
• Habit Tracking
• Vision Board
• Reports & Charts

Pricing

GoalsOnTrack offers an annual subscription at $68 per year with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

6. Coach Me

Coach Me has taken a very personal approach to goal setting. You can choose from the predefined goals that it has in its app. You can also choose from habits that you want to quit, for eg. smoking. You can also get personalized coaching services from the coaches and share experiences with the community.

Key Features

• Predefined Goals
• Personalized Coaching
• Community Support

Pricing

Coach Me offers free pricing for their app along with community support but they do charge for the coaching services that start from $25 per week and vary depending on the services you choose.

7. ATracker

ATracker is a goal-setting and habit-tracking app that can also be used to manage time. You can view time spending histories in a list or calendar view. You can create reports of your goals and share them via social media. You can track and set weekly and daily goals. It also has cross-platform synchronization.

Key Features

• Goal Tracking and Setting
• Time Spending History
• Reporting
• Widget and Watch

Pricing

ATracker offers a free version and then it gives multiple options to upgrade for iOS and Android users starting from $2.99.

8. Habitica

Habitica takes the habit-building approach to a whole new level. They have created an experience where the app treats your life like a game. You will have to track your habits and manage them to earn rewards. Kids will love this app for sure.

You can view your overall progress with the help of a leveling system. It also has customized color themes with light and dark modes.

Key Features

• Habit and Goal Tracking
• To-Do Lists
• Streak Counters
• Reminders and Widgets

Pricing

Habitica is free software that offers an optional in-app subscription starting from $4.99/month.

Wrapping up

Woah! This was some kind of a list.

I have curated a list of all the best goal setting and tracking apps. They all have various functionalities ranging from setting goals and tracking habits to managing time and gamified experiences. Every app has its own functionality. So, now it’s on you to decide which app will suit you and your team.

Guest author: Shyamal Parikh is the Founder of SmartTask, an online work management/automation software that helps teams streamline their processes may it be sales, hiring, customer success, or projects. He actively shares strategies and techniques that improve a team’s productivity.

The post The 8 Best Goal Tracking Apps for 2022 (Free and Paid) appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

Start making $100+ per day this week with the best dfy system - Subscribe here!

Your 6-Week Checklist For Launching A Digital Product

A good digital product is worth its weight in gold. While most content can be recycled (and indeed, recycled content may be part of your new digital product), having something stationary to offer your audience – whether that be an ebook, a webinar, a video series or anything else – is great for building brand loyalty, increasing visibility and generating conversions that your blog just won’t give you.

But how exactly do you properly launch one? We all know that good things take time. Giving your digital product the boost it needs to be successful takes a bit of preparation.

There’s a lot of conflicting advice on the internet about the ‘right’ way to approach launching a digital product, and not all of it is worth your time. In this post, I’m going to give you a set of guidelines based on my own experience and the usual time block I use in order to launch my own digital products.

These guidelines are based on the assumption you have a clear idea of what your digital product is and you are almost done building it – so it doesn’t include obvious things like brainstorming the concept and researching the demand in the market. All of that should be completed in the product conception stage.

Checkpoint #1: Six weeks til launch

At the six-week point, I am assuming you have almost built and proceeded to revise your new digital product. This is a very important period because this is where all the planning into the product itself takes place. The number one thing you need to do is research your keywords.

You have probably already done due diligence researching your keywords when brainstorming your product (if not, you’d better start now!). But it’s not just about choosing your core keywords you are going to optimize your product for; it’s about finding all those extra (probably longer-tail) search queries which will help you form your marketing strategy.

Look for keywords for:

• Optimizing your future digital assets (promo video, infographic, etc)
• Brainstorming ideas for guest posts that you’ll use to spread the word
• Optimizing social media assets that you’ll use to support the promotion (like a separate Twitter account, Facebook and Instagram business page, etc)
• Developing extra landing pages that will form your conversion funnel

A well-organized keyword list will help you define your marketing strategy and come up with more marketing ideas. I suggest giving Seranking a try for keyword suggestions. The platform has a robust keyword research feature that can help you group your keywords properly to keep your strategy organized.

From there, you can create a marketing roadmap of what should be written and published. Look into relevant hashtags and seasonal trends which can be used to attract more attention.

I tend to advise against creating a detailed editorial calendar at this point as it could be too overwhelming at the six-week mark. You will just need something that will give you a bird’s eye view of your future promotional efforts. A marketing roadmap puts everything in perspective and ties different pieces together.

Use dates, but try to avoid being too specific. Think of it as a draft before you go into more details.

Here are some ideas that you can use for your marketing roadmap:

• Visual marketing assets: explanatory videos, instruct-ographics, etc
• Newsletter blasts one week prior to launch, and on the day of launch
• Twitter party on the day of launch. Many of your readers will be more than happy to sit down for an hour and chat on Twitter celebrating your launch, which is a boon for promoting digital products you know they can benefit from
• Email to influencers on the day of launch
• Promotion of an announcement article, press release, video and/or infographic through Viral Content Bee on the day of launch
• Freebie marketing one week prior to launch. Plan what you can give away for free to generate some initial buzz. For example, if your digital product is a book, you can give away a chapter, or turn it into a mobile-friendly flipbook using a tool like Flipsnack, then use their lead form integration to collect more sign-ups:
  

Checkpoint #2: Five weeks to launch

This stage is all about making sure your site is ready. You are obviously hoping to bring a ton of traffic and conversions to your site with your product launch. So take care of the basics:

• Make sure your site is speedy and mobile-friendly. That’s the most important part! Don’t lose conversions because of a slow loading time! Traffic spikes cause downtimes which translate into lost leads and revenue. Use Google’s tool to make sure your pages load fast as well as tools like Pingdom to monitor your uptime.
• Switch to a secure connection and test that everything works smoothly. You’re planning to set up email sign-up forms and/or “buy” buttons, right? Unless you want Google Chrome to warn your users that your forms are not safe and scare them away, you need to switch to https:// now. Here’s a very thorough guide on what SSL is, how SSL/TLS handshake works and how to set this up.
• Check your site for error pages, outdated information and non-functional forms. You may want to make sure your basic SEO is properly set up too: look for missing or duplicated titles, ugly search snippets and broken images. Topvisor can help you diagnose most of the issues above with a page-by-page analysis.
  

You can start to release some hints about your upcoming product, now that you have it in the wings. That includes releasing bits and pieces for your audience to have a sneak peek at. If you have a digital product that is an app or software program, consider running a prototype release. A lot of startups who make digital platforms and apps are going down this route, offering a prototype view without the full list of features just to show what they are all about.

Of course, if you are making something else like an ebook, webinar, video series, etc, it becomes even easier. Just create an ad that offers a glance into the content itself; like a trailer, single page preview, or a podcast first-look.

This is also the time to set up your project mini-site or landing page to make sure you know where to direct those early birds. You’ll want to start building your pre-launch email list early!

Here’s a quick overview of which options you have when it comes to creating a mini-site to promote your new project. And here’s a great tutorial on creating a landing page with WordPress.

Checkpoint #3: Four weeks to launch

This is where you need to identify the influencers who will support your launch, if you haven’t already. During this week, start looking for places to promote your product. For example, if you know some owners of good blogs, ask if you can write a guest post promoting it. Offer anyone who wants to review it on their site, video channel or podcast a chance to get it ahead of launch. Offer opportunities for interviews, or even ask for interviews to publish in your own posts that relate to the topic of your product.

Email your existing contacts and start building new ones. Come up with powerful incentives that will encourage influencers to help you. Create a spreadsheet or a separate email list of those well-known names in the industry who agreed to help you to easier contact them when the time comes to launch.

Getting all of this lined up now means you won’t have to rush when it comes time to launch.

Checkpoint #4: Three weeks to launch

Now that you have all of your ducks lined up, it is time to put together a very detailed editorial calendar. Be as specific as you can to make sure you won’t forget any important pieces of content once you launch. List specific days and timing for everything: when you are sending out newsletters, when and where you will announce your Twitter party, who you plan to tag in social media announcements, etc.

Refer to your marketing roadmap often to make sure you can still see the bigger picture once you start working on those details. This is also the time that you start making those promotional posts and materials. You could also start planning your social media strategy and consider creative options that work for you.

By now you will have an exceptional idea of what your audience wants and needs, so use this knowledge to come up with taglines, brainstorm promotional angles and produce captivating content. Plan to spend the majority of this third week working out those kinks, scheduling blog posts and social posts, designing promo visuals and preparing for direct social engagement.

Checkpoint #5: Two weeks to launch

Now it is time to begin building hype. Many people will choose to do this early, which I can understand for certain products or services. However, my own digital products tend to be media based, so I find two weeks is the sweet spot for getting the word out and keeping the flames hot until launch day. Any sooner and the enthusiasm is at risk of running out before the product itself is actually released.

I usually put up a blog post explaining what is coming and when – I also write a few social media posts and answer any questions. I generally start promoting in places where I already have a basic presence, or by finding relevant platforms where it can be organically promoted. One such platform is Quora, which revolves around asking questions. If people ask questions that my product can help with, I can provide an answer by inviting them to sign up for an update on the imminent product launch.

A landing page is crucial here because it gives you a place to put a sign-up form for the public to be informed when the product launches, which has the crucial added benefit of creating an email list (and we all know how great those are).

Lastly, set up some paid ads to generate more email sign-ups. I personally prefer Facebook, but other platforms like Instagram are also helpful. You can set a budget for yourself, so don’t worry about it getting too costly.

Checkpoint #6: One week to launch

Everything should be in place now and ready for action. Take a day or two to go over every detail to make sure things are all in place and that there are no outstanding issues. Also make sure to have a plan for post-launch, as you will need to continue to fan the flames and get your product out to wider and more diverse audiences.

But this week is also a very exciting one because the big day has finally come when you will be launching your digital product so try to look after yourself, get enough sleep, and trust in the process.

Wrapping up

With these tips, hopefully your first or latest digital product launch will run smoothly and be wildly successful. You can no doubt see how important it is to plan – there’s a lot to think about! But proper planning is how you achieve all the benefits you set out to achieve when you first created it.

Have a tip to add to the list? Let us know in the comments!

Guest author: Ann Smarty is the brand and community manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas and co-founder of Viral Content Bee, the free platform helping your content reach social media influencers!

The post Your 6-Week Checklist For Launching A Digital Product appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

Start making $100+ per day this week with the best dfy system - Subscribe here!

What Digital Marketing Skills Do You Need for Web 3.0 and the Metaverse?

Web 3.0 is the next step in the evolution of the World Wide Web. It promises to connect us in new and exciting ways thanks to more mobile-centric, app-based functions that give users control over how they access the Internet.

As people continue to get more control over their digital lives, we will see the Internet become more decentralized, leveling the digital field for everyone with emerging technologies such as blockchain. This promises to democratize data as we know it.

In Web 3.0, users will be able to exert greater control and ownership over their data and even use it as an asset.

This gives marketers an unprecedented ability to use customized and user-generated content to achieve their goals. They can take advantage of the hottest new eCommerce marketing trends to create immersive content, NFTs, etc.

But it also means that many of you will have to level up your marketing skills to keep up with the pace of technology. Let’s figure out what that means.

Why should marketers upskill and relearn for Web 3.0?

The issue with Web 2.0 is that digital superpowers like Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Google dominate it. Brands and content creators are no longer in control of their virtual ‘property’ and must constantly submit to the tech titans. More data gathered by these companies means more power, money, and regulations about what we may do or say online.

Image Source

Web 3.0 fills the void. It combines Web 2.0’s current functionality and attractive UX with Web 1.0’s decentralized, community-minded attitude. So instead of profiting from consumers, tech giants invest directly in the creative services and products that users perceive worthy of investment. Users own their data, not Facebook.

Web 3.0 closes the gap between the physical and digital worlds. Creating an online identity profile is just the start of your adventures on Web3.

The good news is that Web 3.0 is already here, and you are on it. It hasn’t taken over yet, but a lot of effort is being made to provide the foundation for a better tomorrow for the projected 4.66 billion users who have access to the Internet. Virtual reality, the Metaverse, and non-fungible tokens are all part of it.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Metaverse evolved as a powerful new marketing platform. So much so that Facebook rebranded itself as Meta and started marketing its own exciting new virtual world with the same name.

Here, you can build entire worlds and interact with your friends and others who live in the same world as you. And since it’s a digital ecosphere of sorts, businesses too can stake their claim in it.

Marketers have taken the use of Facebook to promote businesses to the next level. As banks open virtual branches and athleisure brands start selling their products as virtual goods, there are tremendous opportunities to make their mark in the Metaverse.

The question is – do you have the ability to take advantage of the opportunities this presents?

Metaverse and Web 3.0 – Preparing for the future of marketing

Metaverse and Web3 development promise to substantially affect future marketing trends. This paradigm change can be a wonderful opportunity with digital marketing possibilities.

Sooner or later, online marketing courses will teach Metaverse and Web 3.0 to allow marketers to adapt to the upcoming internet transition. In the meanwhile, spend some time working on the following skills on your own:

1. Semantic Content Marketing

Developing content marketing techniques and skills is vital as the web becomes less consolidated. As a result, the large firms dominating today’s digital space are losing their monopoly.

Web 3.0 will force marketers and brands to create content based on semantics rather than keywords or phrases. Using a semantic approach, you may create targeted content that perfectly matches a user’s search intent.

In the age of the Metaverse, strengthening your content marketing skills will promote actual engagement and improve your rankings in the SERPs.

2. Advanced UI (UX)

User experience (UX) has long been a priority for digital marketers, and in an increasingly immersive, decentralized world, honing your talents will provide you with a competitive advantage.

Websites, platforms, and online commerce must be 100% interactive, user-friendly, and even 3D to survive in the Metaverse. Improving communication abilities and UX design is critical to meeting changing consumer expectations. You can use business texting to establish proper communication with your clients.

Furthermore, you will win tomorrow’s commercial battles by creating a frictionless experience that connects users to your brand. That’s why improving your UX skills is vital.

3. Immersive Marketing

Building on the preceding point, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are becoming increasingly important in providing a valuable user experience as we go into a more participatory, immersive realm.

Mastering immersive marketing technology, methods, and platforms will be important in Metaverse and Web 3.0. Users can expect a three-dimensional experience that connects the physical and digital worlds in various ways.

Implementing this technology can be costly, but you need to act now if you’re willing to step up your marketing game. Don’t worry about the budget. You can always go for personal loans, especially when you know the investment will pay you back in more significant numbers.

4. NFTs aka Non-Fungible Tokens

NFTs, aka non-fungible tokens, are digital assets that you can buy and sell, just like anything else you own. There are many ways for marketers to leverage the cross between art and technology to boost brand awareness, expand audience reach, promote new product lines, and improve brand image.

Image Source

Granted, the novelty reward will dissipate once trading NFTs for a practical purpose becomes mainstream. However, many Web 3.0 applications are still in their infancy. Those profits can be reaped in a variety of ways.

B2B marketers also have a stake in the Metaverse

The potential and challenges for B2B marketing are immediate and numerous. An NFT’s potential value proposition today and in three years, for example, is crucial. Now is the time to think about where you can put NFTs to work for you and your clients in the real world.

Soon, most conference and other event tickets will be NFTs to decrease ticket fraud and preserve the integrity of ownership. After the event, tickets can be resold on the secondary market for additional cash and long-term benefits to the new owners.

Gary Vaynerchuk’s Veefriends project is an excellent example of what the future holds for NFT artists and owners. NFT ownership with them entitles you to three years of conference access. Additionally, and perhaps more crucially, an exclusive status of the membership adds value to the meeting and project.

It’s critical for B2B marketers to develop the frameworks for high-profile programs like Veefriends to continue to see how they and their clients may creatively place themselves and their initiatives to align with similar best practices and rising trends.

Wrapping up

There’s no reason to panic as a new era begins. Change can be an opportunity if you have the necessary planning and digital marketing know-how. With each new idea you implement, you can use your imagination to remain one step ahead of the competition.

Guest author: Nahla Davies is a software developer and tech writer. Before devoting her work full time to technical writing, she managed — among other intriguing things — to serve as a lead programmer at an Inc. 5,000 experiential branding organization whose clients include Samsung, Time Warner, Netflix, and Sony.

The post What Digital Marketing Skills Do You Need for Web 3.0 and the Metaverse? appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

Start making $100+ per day this week with the best dfy system - Subscribe here!

9 Blogging Tools That Will Take Your Process to New Heights

Blog traffic increases by 53% when you have 51 valuable posts. The number triples when you have 100 valuable blog posts. Thus, blogs are essential in increasing website traffic.

However, as per the Food Bloggers of Canada survey, bloggers spend 4% of their time creating new blog posts. Because let’s admit, creating blog posts is hard work. 

This guide makes blogging less painful and more rewarding. In the next five minutes, learn about 9 tools you can use to ease your blogging.

1. Sendible

76% of marketers support and improve their SEO efforts using social media. And why won’t marketers use a platform that over three billion people use each month? 

Sendible helps you leverage social media the right way. Here are a few benefits of using Sendible:

• Allows you to manage several accounts at once.
• Allows you to post content on multiple social media channels. Sendible integrates with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest, among others.
• Offers in-depth analytics and reporting to better gauge what your audience wants.
• The user-friendly interface allows you to manage tasks with ease.

2. HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator

8 out of 10 people only read the headline of a blog. Furthermore, readers make 73% of buying decisions while reading the headline.  

If you have a tough time creating stellar headlines, HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator is the perfect tool for you. Enter up to 5 keywords and the Blog Topic Generator will offer a week’s worth of blog topic ideas within seconds.

Furthermore, if you open a free account, you can get a year’s worth of blog topic ideas as well.

3. Fyrebox

Forbes generated 75,000 views and over 1,000 social media shares from their quiz ‘Which College is Right For You?’

Zenni Optical generated over $1 million in revenue along with a 9,665% ROI and 29,410 leads, thanks to their quiz ‘You’ve Been Framed.’

Fyrebox helps you create such quizzes. The tool offers you:

• The ability to create quizzes in over 30 languages including Italian, German, and Arabic.
• In-built analytics to analyze the answers of the participant.
• The option to create mobile-friendly quizzes.

4. Trello

Small businesses lose $420,000 each year due to communication gaps. The number rises to $62 million for large businesses.

With the rise of freelancers and remote workers, the issue intensifies. 88% of remote workers face miscommunication from other team members.

Online project management apps such as Trello offer a solution. Trello offers:

• A visual representation of all your projects, team member roles, and assignments.
• The ability to break down projects with the help of boards, lists, and cards.
• The ability to use the app cross-platform. Laptop, mobile devices, smartwatch — take your projects wherever you go.

5. LinkedIn Pulse

80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. Furthermore, 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as a content distribution channel.

Thus, when LinkedIn offers a publishing platform — LinkedIn Pulse — you must pay attention. With LinkedIn Pulse, you can:

• Receive better brand reach. LinkedIn Pulse promotes each post to the relevant people in the niche. Thus, your content won’t just reach more people, but people who are more likely to turn into your clients. 
• Build credibility. A high-value article or post will portray you as an industry expert and increase awareness of your brand.
• Receive better content marketing. LinkedIn Pulse allows you to publish articles without the knowledge of running a content management system.

6. Ubersuggest

Moving up one spot in the search results hikes the CTR by 30.8%. Furthermore, the top listing in a Google search receives 33% of the traffic.  

If you’re struggling to improve the SEO of your blog, Ubersuggest is the perfect tool for you. With Ubersuggest, you can:

• Find long-tail keywords based on your preferred keyword.
• Receive data in each keyword such as SEO competition, monthly search volume, average CPC, and PPC competition.
• Find keywords in the forms of questions, comparisons, and prepositions. 

7. Evernote

How many excellent blog post ideas have you lost because you didn’t (or couldn’t) write them down? With Evernote, you’ll never have such issues.

Evernote allows you to:

• Create text notes, store images with texts in them, upload PDF files, and record audio notes. Furthermore, you can even clip content from the web.
• Search and find text on images, thanks to Evernote’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature. If you have a premium account, you can search PDF file content with OCR as well.
• Manage your content cross-platform as the app supports Windows, Android, and iOS.  
• Divide notes into separate notebooks. Furthermore, you can create ‘stacks’ by joining multiple notebooks as well. 

8. Squirrly

Each day, the internet is flooded with over 27,000,000 pieces of content. Squirrly offers your blog a chance to stand out in this sea of content. Over 3 million people have downloaded the plugin. The number alone should tell you something.

Squirrly offers:

• An accurate, real-time ranking for your keywords
• An SEO green light for publishing your content
• A detailed SEO audit for first-page ranking
• Auto content recycling
• A rank tracking tool to monitor your competitors

9. Grammarly

Every time you make a spelling mistake or grammatical error, you miss out on brand opportunities. The solution? Grammarly. Over 10 million people worldwide use Grammarly.

Grammarly offers you:

• Over 400 types of checks and features
• Real-time grammar correction
• Ways to strengthen your blog such as removing adjectives and adverbs
• Easy-to-understand explanations
• The ability to customize the features including your preferred language

The tools will help you create new blogs in half the time

You’ll need up to 2 hours to create a 500-word blog post. However, with the above-mentioned tools, you can cut down the time by up to 50%. You’ll be able to concentrate on other essential aspects of your business such as perfecting your product or service and promoting the same.

Guest author: Nevilson Christian is the founder of SeekThem, a creative design agency which helps businesses with all of their design support.. Nevilson thrives for business growth and is always excited for all things digital.

Gravatar ID – nevilson@seekthem.com

The post 9 Blogging Tools That Will Take Your Process to New Heights appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

Start making $100+ per day this week with the best dfy system - Subscribe here!

12 Steps To Build A Successful Employee Advocacy Program

It’s common knowledge that people don’t trust brands – they trust other people. All too often, digital marketing can come across as cold and lifeless. But it’s not hard to warm up your digital marketing, and win the trust of prospects and customers.

Why? Because your company consists of people: people who probably have a healthy appetite for sharing their thoughts via social media.

At the risk of lowering the temperature, I shall now introduce one of those frigid-sounding marketing terms: employee advocacy.

But really, it’s a term with a lot more warmth and appeal than you might imagine.

In a nutshell, employee advocacy is the promotion of a company by its people. It involves them talking your business or brand up on social networks because they want to… and it helps boost your company’s visibility and credibility by showing you have a strong relationship with your employees.

Many brands don’t encourage employee advocacy, but they should. If you’re not empowering employees to advocate for your company, you’re missing out on a huge PR opportunity. The conversion, retention and engagement potential is huge.

Check out just some of the benefits companies claim they’ve experienced from employee advocacy, courtesy of a study conducted by Hinge Marketing and Social Media Today.

Data from Smarp, an employee advocacy software company, indicates the average employee advocate has approximately 420 Facebook friends, 400 LinkedIn contacts, and 360 Twitter followers. It’s easy to see how getting them to give you a shout-out on social media has the potential to dramatically amplify the reach of your company’s messaging.

Here is Smarp’s formula for estimating potential reach boost via employee advocacy. It makes a compelling argument.

“Employees who share company content on social media… and spread the good word around can do wonders for your employer brand,” notes Smarp’s Content Manager, Annika Rautakoura. “Employees who feel empowered and in charge of their work will gladly advocate their work and the employer to their social networks.”

Smarp’s platform helps marketers promote internal communication and employee-driven content sharing with features such as a gamified leaderboard and data-rich analytics that can help calculate advocacy-based ROI.

Employee advocacy also overlaps a great deal with employee engagement. “When employees become brand ambassadors, they feel a vested interest in the company’s success and are therefore engaged in exceeding the stated requirements of their job,” writes Sapir Segal on the Oktopost blog. “And the more employees feel engaged, the more they want to continue talking and promoting the company’s brand.”

Providing an end-to-end solution for enterprising B2B social media marketing, Oktopost’s employee advocacy tools enable marketers to post content to themed sharing boards which aggregate to dedicated mobile apps as well as the employee’s web browser. Marketers can easily browse through the platform’s content curation and social listening modules to find the most relevant and fresh content to push to these boards.

Oktopost’s “Social Advocacy” mobile apps make it easy for employees to find relevant suggested content to share, which marketers can organize by topic.

But team members aren’t necessarily going to share content about their employers without a dedicated employment advocacy program to encourage them to do so. “[Employment advocacy] requires proper training, a significant time investment, and the appropriate software tools,” the authors of Understanding Employee Advocacy on Social Media point out.

“The most effective way to motivate employees to advocate the brand on social media is to explain why they are being asked to do so. Both managers and advocates agree that this communication is the biggest motivator, more so than gifts, monetary incentives, or public recognition of performance.”

So what’s a marketing organization to do to foster participation in its employee advocacy program? The following 12 steps are bound to give it wings.

1. Gain buy-in from the top

You want to begin by securing organizational buy-in from C-level executives. LinkedIn’s Sean Callahan recommends that you:

• Convey the importance of employee advocacy and emphasize the low up-front costs and increased ROI.
• Present how employee advocacy can increase engagement resulting in higher productivity and customer satisfaction.
• Show how it will lead to increased revenue.

2. Create a strategy

You need to create a program with some degree of structure. That is, you want to document your goals and a framework for measuring them. One of the best things about employee advocacy is that it’s scaleable. Goals might include:

• Increased website traffic
• Increased social shares
• Lead generation
• Event registrations

However, you don’t want to dictate exactly what, when, where and how your employees share content on social media. Just give them encouragement and a healthy dose of latitude.

3. Create a policy

Obviously, there are risks involved with employee advocacy. As such, you’ll want to document a policy outlining acceptable protocol. The idea is to provide direction regarding social etiquette and tone, not iron-clad rules.

4. Appoint a leader

Designate an employee advocacy leader who you believe can help generate favorable results. The leader might be given specific responsibilities such as:

• Generating interest in the program
• Sharing ideas with employees
• Helping you understand the employees’ point of view
• Collaborating with employees to come up with new ideas for employee advocacy and ways to improve the program

The ideal person will encourage and guide employees, not boss them around. Employee advocacy relies on goodwill and trust.

5. Use alphas as guinea pigs

Rather than roll out the program to every employee at once, start with specific employees who have demonstrated that they are interested in participating and in providing feedback.

“Our research found that 77% of those employees who do advocate is a manager or above, so clearly brands have not yet figured out how to tap their broader base of individual contributors.”
~ Ed Terpening and Aubrey Littleton, Altimeter

6. Incorporate social media training

Don’t assume your employees know how to use social media effectively for business purposes. Deliver training and learning resources. Make them engaging and fun.

Potential topics to address in training may include:

• Reasons to participate
• Social media guidelines, and do’s and don’t’s for your company
• How to use a specific social media dashboard
• How to engage on specific social media networks
• Tips and tactics to build relationships on social media
• Techniques for personal branding and influencer marketing
• Best practices for effective copywriting in digital media
• Success stories and testimonials

7. Support personal development

Your employees may enjoy positioning themselves as subject matter experts. Support this idea. Serve employees by helping them raise the status of their personal brands and/or development.

8. Recognize achievement

Reward participants in your employee advocacy program with the recognition they crave. Create programs to showcase and reward the accomplishments of your leading advocates. Consider running contests. Top participants can be rewarded with money, gift cards or a day off.

9. Provide top content to share

Obviously, sharing useful content is central to your employee advocacy program. You want your employees to spread the word about your company’s blog posts, eBooks, infographics, videos, podcasts and more.

Marketers can work toward encouraging the sharing of relevant content in a variety of ways:

• Create an employee advocacy hub where approved content can be easily discovered and shared.
• Provide employees with a link, image, and suggestions regarding what to write.
• Share examples.
• Recruit key employees to participate in the content planning and creation process.

The list of content types you can use in your employee engagement program is long. Need ideas? Here you go:

• Company blog posts
• Company news
• Media mentions
• Promotional offers
• Industry developments
• Industry research
• Behind-the-scenes photos
• Client work and success stories
• News about specific employees or company leaders
• The company’s community activities

These are the most common types of posts shared by employees, as reported by Altimeter in Social Media Employee Advocacy: Tapping into the power of an engaged social workforce.

10. Get the right tools

There are several social sharing tools you may want to consider equipping your employees with. Consider free and/or subscription-based platforms such as AgoraPulse. Highly effective tools that are dedicated to employee advocacy include the aforementioned Oktopost and Smarp, as well as GaggleAMP, LinkedIn Elevate and Social Chorus.

Smarp’s analytics reporting can demonstrate impact per content item or per team member.

11. Host events

Give employees something fun to share with their followers and they will, so take them out to the ballgame! Host theme parties! Bring in speakers or entertainers! Do whatever you can to make sure they are quite literally a part of the party.

12. Offer cool swag

Give employees some cool branded swag such as shirts, water bottles, backpacks, etc. You might want to throw a custom hashtag for sharing it on social media as well. Just sit back and watch what happens.

In conclusion

Your employees are the human face of your brand and they have valuable connections across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Plus, because they’re real people rather than a faceless brand, they’re more trusted than anyone in your C-suite or marketing department.

Marketing leaders should no longer think of social at the department level only, and recognize the company’s workforce as a tremendous asset for social media marketing.

Reaching new levels of achievement in employee advocacy comes with numerous challenges, including: winning buy-in from leaders and the workforce; managing risk; building skills; making content available; and using metrics to prove value.

Overcoming these challenges takes a systematic approach to employee advocacy. And now is the time to take action, build a strong employee advocacy program, and inspire employees to share content regularly.

Guest author: Barry is the author of The Road to Recognition and  SEO Simplified for Short Attention Spans. Barry operates Feldman Creative and provides content marketing consulting, copywriting, and creative direction services. He contributes to top marketing sites and was named one of the 25 Social Media Marketing Experts You Need to Know by LinkedIn. To get a piece of his mind, visit his blog, The Point.

The post 12 Steps To Build A Successful Employee Advocacy Program appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

Start making $100+ per day this week with the best dfy system - Subscribe here!