Pop-ups on websites are controversial. Some successful website owners swear by them, others will not use them under any circumstances. Another group uses them carefully by controlling when and to whom they get shown.
According to his article, over 50 % of consumers say they would not revisit a site that used pop-ups.
Wearing my consumer hat, on my first visit to a site I can tolerate a small pop-up asking me to subscribe to a newsletter or promoting a special offer. If the pop-up is delayed until I am about to leave the site, I find it less irritating.
However, successive pop-ups promoting different products or services or pushing me to subscribe do annoy me intensely and have caused me to leave sites never to return.
Pop-ups From a Marketing Perspective
Wearing my marketing hat, I use pop-ups carefully. My experience is that they do work for certain calls-to-action if used with restraint.
On our Tiny Home Geniuses site, you will see a small pop-up subscription form after 20 seconds and as you leave after your first visit, a second different pop-up again asking for your email address.
Our statistics show us the following rate of subscribers who subscribe using forms on our site. About 40% of our subscribers come from landing pages.
Exit pop-up = 50%
Regular pop-up = 40%
Static sidebar form = 10%
Both the regular pop-up and the static form are created using our MailChimp autoresponder service. The exit pop-up is created with the Sumo WordPress plugin and is integrated with MailChimp.
We do not use pop-ups to advertise any products or services.
I follow the same procedure on my personal blog PeterWrightsBlog.com. I have not received any negative feedback about pop-ups on either site. But we know that many dissatisfied visitors will quietly disappear without giving reasons.
Conclusion
Pop-ups work for us when used carefully. They do not work for all sites or all audiences. You need to try them and assess the results on your own sites. Because of my own dislike of big, flashy intrusive pop-ups, I only use small forms, never huge ones that obscure most of the page.
Last thoughts
In our previous post, we recommended 3 tools to help your marketing efforts. We have found another one Ad Inserter Pro we want to tell you about. It is the best tool we have found for inserting adverts into your posts, or anywhere on blog or static pages on a WordPress website. If you want to generate revenue from your blog, this is a must.
Clicking on some links on this site will let you buy products and services which may result in us receiving a commission, however, it will not affect the price you pay.
Whether you are an eMarketer, blogger or a marketer directing traffic to a corporate or non-profit website, you need to know that you are creating the right content for your audience, promoting it on the right platforms and monitoring it with the best marketing tools.
Our previous post gave you 5 tips about blogging, this post highlights 3 tools to help you make your blog successful.
Here are three that you might not know about. We find them very useful.
Ask the public has a free version which is great for generating content ideas and blog titles for bloggers and entrepreneurs just starting out. There is a premium paid version designed for marketers, agencies and anyone wanting more details. The premium version can be used by teams.
The free version will generate questions about a keyword and present them in the form of a wheel like in the image below or as a csv file for downloading.
Questions generated for “Widgets”
2 BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is one of the best marketing tools for finding the best content ideas for your market. It will show you which are the most shared articles in your category or for a keyword.
It has a free trial period and can be used for free subject to a monthly search limit. The paid version offers many advanced features.
3 Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest was developed by the brilliant eMarketer and SEO specialist, Neil Patel. This marketing tool will give you an overview of how your domain is performing compared to others in your industry or market niche.
It will show you top SEO pages, keyword suggestions, content ideas and backlink data.
Ubersuggest has an SEO analyzer and a tool to find backlinks. Best of all it is free.
Conclusion
These three marketing tools are useful additions to any marketer’s toolbox. Give them a try and come back and leave a comment about your experiences with them.
Clicking on some links on this site will let you buy products and services which may result in us receiving a commission, however, it will not affect the price you pay.
Internet marketing is going to experience major changes in 2019. These changes will have an effect on your own marketing activities – whether you are primarily an online or offline marketer.
Here are 5 areas that will see huge advances in 2019:
Voice Search
Chat Bots
Voice DIctation
Micro Influencers
Personal Interface
Voice Search and Internet Marketing
ComScore estimates that by 2020 50% of all online searches will be done by voice not typing on a device. Increasingly people will be using smart home devices – Google Home, Alexa.
Neil Patel has published an article about this trend and other interesting facts including that there are now over 1.8 Billion websites.
This will require a new approach to SEO
Chat Bots
What are chatbots? Those little message boxes that pop up, generally on the bottom right corner of the screen with a message “Hi, how can we help you”.
They work because of advances in Artificial Intelligence AI which allows them to respond faster than a human, work 24 / 7 without complaining and with very low operating costs. No salaries, payroll taxes, medical costs, vacations or bonuses.
Set up effectively, they can access your customer’s profile and personalize responses and suggestions. A great tool for internet marketing, but one that needs careful design and management
Voice Control and Activation
How much time would you save if you dictated your emails, articles, blog posts, all your content creation? It’s possible and it is going to become easier to use. An increasing range of computer applications will be controlled by your voice.
With the penetration of voice-activated smart home devices and growth in the use of voice search mentioned above, we could see disruptive effects in many industries from keyboard suppliers to printer manufacturers.
Micro Influencers and Internet Marketing
With the demise of traditional advertising and the “old” media it used as platforms, we have seen the importance of “influencers” rise. We have been used to seeing celebrity endorsements used in mass consumer advertising of, fashion, sports equipment and other major product and service categories. Names like the Kardashians stand out.
Now that is no longer the exclusive domain of big brands or big names.
Young children and cats are becoming YouTube millionaires because of their appeal to smaller groups of consumers. On a smaller scale, people you and I have never heard of are being paid to promote products or services to comparatively small numbers of social media followers.
The secret is relevance. Followers of a skateboard champion are probably not going to buy products designed for the recently retired.
Almost counter intutive to the 4 trends mentioned above which are possible because of advances in technology. This trend recognizes the need for human connections.
AI, chatbots and warm voices on smart devices all help to deliver a more personal experience to a consumer or new contact. Chatbots can quickly address the enquirer by name, scan data to “know” where the customer lives, what he or she has bought before. If there have been complaints or returns. In a service industry, the payment history can be checked and much more information can be used to enhance the customer’s experience.
That’s all because of technology. Sometimes that is not enough. At some point, many customers want to talk to a “real” human. You may share my frustration with automated call answering when none of your problems fit in the standard “Press 1 for sales, 2 for……” list of options.
The businesses that will excel will be the ones which marry the best technology with just the right amount of human contact for each interface with customers, clients and prospects.
Some businesses have become highly successful by putting more responsibility in the hands of the people in the organization who deal directly with the customer.
In some cases, this results in cutting back on some uses of technology.
A great example is Timpson in the UK who introduced their “upside down” management policy with only two rules for employees.
Technology can alienate customers when low-level decisions are taken at corporate head offices based on historical data used to make decisions based on changing circumstances.
Timpson had taken all the network connected point of sale check out machines from its retail stores and replaced them with simple cash registers. Decisions on refunds, discounts, special offers are taken at store level.
There is more on the success of Timpson on Wikipedia.
Conclusion
Changes in marketing and especially, internet marketing are rushing towards us. Advances in technology and changes in consumer demographics, lifestyles, attitudes, buying habits will all be affected by and influence marketing strategies and tactics.
Our objective as marketers is to adapt to the changes, use technology to enhance our customer’s experiences, not be a slave to it and to never forget the importance of the human connection.
That can be difficult for you as a small business owner or solopreneur, that’s why we have started a new service to provide qualified IT workers at rates you can afford.
While online marketing is set to exceed television as the number 1 advertising medium for 2017, that doesn’t mean that print has become completely obsolete. In fact, I was actually curious about this and set out to do a little investigating. Every Wednesday I receive a neatly bundled mass of flyers, circulars and coupons tightly bound with an elastic. It made me wonder how many other households receive the same stack which eventually finds its way into the recycle box? How many people actually go through them? The answers may surprise you.
The Decline of Print Advertising
Would you believe that in North America alone, over $15 billion is spent on flyer advertising? Clearly businesses still see the value in the printed ad, but why? One of the reasons is that print is viewed as a more credible form of advertising. With increased use of the internet and social media, identifying truth from fake news may require more critical thinking. While printed ads may appear as more trustworthy, this type of marketing continues to decline in favour of the digital media. Predictions indicate that it will continue to decline well into 2019.
Despite the rise of internet marketing options, most marketing experts would agree that print isn’t going away anytime soon. Surveys show that when it comes to looking for a bargain, paper-based flyers and circulars continue to be sifted through even over digital flyers. This is especially true with an older demographic that still appreciates the tangibility of paper.
Retailers have moved to a combination of print and digital flyers. Although they recognize that the digital world continues to be on the upward trend, they still dedicate a smaller budget to print. There are many advantages to using the internet and social media feeds for marketing but the main reason is cost. It’s far less expensive and sometimes even free.
Print advertising may not be as popular with some businesses these days, but it is still a very useful method of promotion. The best option is to use a combination of both online and print marketing, to reach as many people as possible in as many ways as possible.
As for that pile of flyers I get every week? Well, to be honest, I rarely go through them. In fact, it often goes from the front door straight into the recycle bin. I simply don’t have the time or inclination to go through them. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Please don’t hesitate to connect with me.
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