Forty years ago, the world we live in today existed online in the movies. We have cars that drive themselves, supersonic airplanes, and almost all of us carry the internet right in our pockets. And because of that, everything and everyone seems to have a website these days – even your neighbor’s dog, Bruno. Over […]
Over 750 million active users log in to LinkedIn every single month, and that includes many Fortune 500 execs and loads of other successful business people. Sure, LinkedIn still doesn’t have the same audience size as Facebook or Twitter, but LinkedIn provides a space with business-focused content aimed at its educated and well-earning members. LinkedIn’s […]
They say that a goal without a plan is just a wish. SMART goals have existed since the 1980s and have been used by companies ever since to be successful. But lately, many startups and multinational enterprises are switching to the objective and key results (OKRs) method. Why is that? Well, the methodologies both provide […]
You’ve completed some serious market research. The production and prototyping couldn’t have gone better. Finally, you have a groundbreaking app you’re sure will prove popular. At least, that’s what you thought. Sure, there was a fair bit of fanfare when you launched, but now downloads have plateaued. This is what you’re up against: Google Play: […]
We all know it’s more challenging than ever before to capture that elusive organic engagement on Facebook. But how about advertising? Is the Facebook of 2022 still a valuable platform for your next event or product launch? Let’s take a look at some statistics: CPC on Facebook remains under $1 on average (Databox) Facebook has […]
People have been saying “email is for old people” since at least 2007. That you still hear this claim being bandied about in 2022 is really far more of a testament to the communication medium’s longevity than anything else. In fact, email is expected to grow to 4.3 billion users by 2023. That’s just one […]
Here’s the scenario. You’re a busy marketing manager for a local business—let’s say a trendy high street eatery—and your boss is keen to get more customers through the door to make up for two years of low to no business. (Ugh, COVID, am I right?) You’re well aware that social media is the place to […]
Whether you’re running the marketing for a multinational clothing brand, B2B Saas startup, or solo-preneuring it, we’re pretty sure you’re keen to achieve more from your email campaigns. More leads. (Does 451% lead growth sound good?) Lower unsubscribe and spam rates. (Somewhere between 0.43 and 0.02 percent.) Greater sales productivity. (Is a 14.5% increase what […]
When you realise that you can get any digital marketing service as needed on a temporary basis without committing to permanent staff costs, you are free to develop a strategy that is not constrained by limited tactical ability. This is what Viral Octopus Founder and CEO Pietro Bonomo said to Payoneer in their recently published guide to […]
So, you’ve decided to run a competition to launch a new product. Let’s say, it’s a new line of sneakers. You want to offer your customers a one-time chance to win a brand new pair of these shoes. Since it’s a one-off giveaway, it’d be weird to publish the competition on your website, right? You […]
You can’t execute a marketing strategy if you don’t have one. And if you want to get that marketing strategy executed, you are going to have to explain it unless you do all of it yourself. So you need to create a brief. Everyone uses briefs. CMOs brief their internal staff or agencies that they […]
People have been skimming and skipping around websites pretty much since the dawn of internet history. More than twenty years of eye-tracking research by Nielsen (and many other analytics companies) proves this definitively. And as far back as 2015, people were spending just 37 seconds on average on a webpage. In 2021, websites were among […]
While a whopping 90 percent of users say Google ads influence their online purchases. Why, then, do only around 60 percent of SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises) have a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign? It’s because they don’t understand the power of the “audit advantage” when it comes to getting the most out of your Google ads performance. They […]
That is a good question to ask because once you realize what this term means, a whole new world of possibilities opens up. The answer is fairly simple. Programmatic display advertising is simply automating the process of bidding on ad space in display ad markets. The term display advertising is used to contrast ads placed […]
What is a good CPC for e-Commerce Facebook ads, you ask? Well, that’s a surprisingly complicated question. While the average is cited at around $1.72, it varies according to industry. For example, if you’re selling apparel, you’re in luck since you’re looking at about $0.45 per click. Of course, this all depends on how well […]
How much does it cost to advertise on LinkedIn? Every business and every campaign is different, but we can also make useful generalizations about Linkedin ad costs and set some benchmarks. So let’s discuss how LinkedIn ad prices work and what you can expect. We will answer the question “What bidding options are available for […]
We’re all busy. Most of us would probably consider ourselves really busy. But few people are as tight for time as those working in marketing or running their own business. Marketing professionals waste almost 6 hours a week doing the same tasks twice. (Insight) Over 40% of American office workers check their emails every couple […]
Your E-commerce store product pages are an important determinant of success or failure. You might think it is easy to create a product page, but people often underestimate the importance of small details. On average, only 2.17% of eCommerce visits convert into purchases. So anything over 2.17% could be considered a good result. Since good […]
Good chat marketing is a multi-channel approach to instantly engage customers on their preferred platform, whether they are interacting with your brand on your own website or on Facebook or Instagram or you are reaching them with automated SMS communications. Chat marketing is growing explosively. Why did the use of chatbots increase by a whopping […]
A project probably won’t succeed without several critical factors, among them, a good strategy and clarity about roles and responsibilities for people participating in the project. Even a great plan is probably doomed to failure if there is not a clear understanding of who is doing what. You can use a responsibility matrix, also known […]
Publishing E-Books, White Papers, and Case Studies can be a great way to generate B2B leads. By discovering what your customers want to learn and giving them great information, you can build trust and convince them to give you their email and begin a relationship. You can use your social media accounts and your website […]
Neil Patel, Seth Godin, and other top marketers often return to a common theme: stop bothering people and start helping them. “Marketing” and “advertising” used to be used interchangeably. To market something, you would put an announcement about it somewhere where it would interrupt content that people were interested in, like buying an ad in […]
Ever since Boston Consulting Group founder Bruce Henderson came up with the idea for the BCG Matrix in 1968, this simple framework has helped companies clarify and prioritize opportunities for their business with the goal of maximizing profits over time. From Fortune 500 giants to small businesses, and even one person operations, everyone can benefit […]
Back in the day, E. St. Elmo was on fire. One of the first people to apply the scientific method to advertising, he is credited with coming up with the AIDA model, one of the oldest advertising theories. In the late 1800s, E. St. Elmo Lewis built on the ideas of pioneering ad men Fred […]
Harvard professor Francis Aguilar created a paradigm for getting the big picture in his 1967 book, “Scanning the Business Environment” that endures to this day. Not being skilled in acronyms, he called it ETPS, which was subsequently rearranged to PEST for pronounceability and later augmented with a couple new components, bringing us to the modern […]
Building on the early work of Art Schneiderman, Robert Kaplan and David Norton developed a tool for strategic management that they called the Balanced Scorecard in a 1992 Harvard Business Review article. Their approach represents a fundamental change in performance management. Prior approaches to measuring success in a company arose from financial departments. These managers […]
In this installment of the Viral Octopus knowledge series, we are going to talk about a powerful business management theory for understanding the competitive environment that a particular business faces. Michael Porter developed his theory of Porter’s “Five Forces” analysis at Harvard Business School and published it in 1979. Since then it has exploded in […]
In this installment of the Viral Octopus knowledge series, we are going to talk about the Ansoff Matrix. This popular tool for assessing the options and risk inherent in various growth strategies is also called the product/market expansion grid. Applied mathematician and business management theorist H. Igor Ansoff spent his teenage years in the nascent […]
In this installment of the Viral Octopus knowledge series, we are going to talk about Monroe’s “Motivated Sequence” – a five-step method for persuading people to do something that’s been around for a long time. This effective template for communication is named after professor Alan Monroe of Purdue University who laid out the details in […]
In this installment of the Viral Octopus knowledge series, we are going to talk about what psychology can tell us about influencing people. Understanding how people make choices can help us nudge people towards making decisions we want them to make. Five core concepts of marketing psychology provide useful insight into subconscious processes that influence […]
Clear Strategy (CS) has released an impressive whitepaper on the marketing industry entitled ‘From Chaos to Clarity’ outlining the current state of affairs and pointing toward the future for marketers. 2020 was a very chaotic year. CS spoke to over seven hundred CMOs, CEOs, and senior marketers around the world to discover the key issues […]
This week in Viral Octopus Magazine’s Knowledge series we’ll take a look at nine emerging technology trends identified by technology research and advisory company Gartner in their annual Top Strategic Technology Trends report for 2021. The nascent “Internet of behaviors,” distributed cloud computing, AI engineering, cybersecurity mesh, and composable business are among the trends we’ll […]
Welcome once again to Viral Octopus Magazine’s Knowledge series. This week, we are talking about tech adoption insights. Research and advisory company Gartner’s Jackie Fenn put quite a feather in their cap back in 1995 when he came up with a general hypothesis about the typical technology adoption curve that came to be called the […]
Welcome once again to Viral Octopus Magazine’s knowledge series. In our previous article, we talked about five easy to increase customer loyalty. The most important concept is quite simple. To create a real bond with your customers, you need to focus on serving them. If you really want to create a deep bond, you need […]
Welcome back to Viral Octopus Magazine’s knowledge series. The previous article in this series discussed the concept of putting your customers first to enhance brand loyalty and lifetime customer value. Obviously, having a great product and great service that are designed around your customers is a good starting point. But what else can you do […]
Welcome to Viral Octopus Magazine’s knowledge series. This is an article for anyone who wants to get beyond a single sale, and beyond basic metrics of repeat business to build a deep and abiding relationship by truly putting customers first. Moving Past A Sale To A Larger Goal – LTCV What is marketing? […]
It’s true. Everybody and their cat are listening to podcasts in 2020. And it’s not surprising, since we’ve all been stuck at home with not much to do. With people around the world shut away in their homes due to pandemic lockdowns, podcast listenership is on the rise. According to Edison Research, the number of […]
Viral Octopus strongly believes in a society where there are no limits nor boundaries: no gender, no race, no color or sexual orientation matter. Viral Octopus supports #DrawYourPride, the initiative where artists draw their own pride float and share it with the whole world! …Because in Viral Octopus only Excellence matters! #Drawyourpride was conceived by […]
