Do You Have The Right Content for Your Website | Jeff Kamikow

We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king,” but its ubiquity is in part due to the fact that it is true. We’ve all gone to websites where the content was bad or tried too hard and sounded more like a term paper than a conversation. Visitors who come to your website should be able to understand what you do, what services or products you provide, and what makes you stand out with ease. They should be able to accomplish what they want to on your site without too much trouble. Jeffrey Kamikow started out in print, so he could tell you that the content still matters greatly in marketing. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Keep It Conversational: If your visitors need a dictionary to understand your content, you are trying too hard. The goal of your website copy should be to appeal to as many people as possible – not just those in the industry. If there is too much jargon or technical terms, you may be turning off a key part of your potential base. Keep it conversational, but obviously make the content good. Check for grammar and punctuation too as this will make your site look unprofessional.

Keep the Home Page as Concise As Possible: In a few seconds, a visitor who comes to your site will make a decision whether or not they should keep looking or hit the back button. If there is too much content or, even worse, not enough, they’ll quickly choose to go elsewhere. Stick to the point and use your homepage content to show what you do and why visitors should choose your offerings.

Update Your Content When the Information Becomes Old: Like we said, Jeffrey Kamikow was a print man. In print, the content must always be relevant and up to date to maintain readership. The same holds true with your website. It’s important to update content when necessary to ensure it is relevant and obsolete information is deleted. If your information isn’t relevant, your visitors will quickly click the back button.

Coaching Tips from Jeff Kamikow

 Media specialist Jeff Kamikow spends some of his free time coaching little league baseball with his father. He had the pleasure of coaching his team to a championship, so he knows what it takes to coach winning ball. Here are several tips if you decide that you want to coach your child on a winning team:

Know that Every League Is Different: When you’re getting started, you may not realize how different one league game could be from the next. Three outs, nine players on the field, four balls equals a walk…how different could it be? Each league will have different rules and regulations though, so you should get acquainted with those before you decide to coach your first game, so you and your team are prepared.

Coach Safety: Before hitting or playing good defense, the first thing you’ll want to do is teach your kids the importance of safety. Show them the proper way to slide, how to stand on the plate to protect against a wild pitch, and what gear is needed. You are responsible for them when they’re on the field, so be sure to show them how to play the game safely to protect against injury.

Be Confident In Yourself: Remember, these are just kids. They have the innate ability of being able to spot someone with fear a mile away. If they don’t respect you, they’ll never listen to you. Coach Jeff Kamikow was able to coach his team to victory because he was confident in himself and always spoke with authority to his team. Now it’s okay to be afraid starting out, but remember that you are the coach. You are the one who is responsible for teaching the kids what to do and what not to do. The only way to successfully do this is to believe in yourself first.

Good luck on the diamond! It is a great time and you’ll feel so rewarded the first time you get a W.

Hack These 3 Ecommerce Trends | Jeffrey Kamikow

Jeffrey Kamikow has noticed the distinctions between ecommerce and “regular” commerce are falling fast, if they ever really existed at all. No matter what your business does, who it sells to, or how it’s built to make money, it needs a cohesive ecommerce (or at least e-conversion) strategy.

What this looks like on the ground, of course, is up to you. No one can hold your hand and tell you that this is how you turn your online dross into ecommerce gold.

What experienced marketing professionals like Jeff Kamikow can tell you is how to capitalize on late-breaking ecommerce trends — how to ride the wave that everyone knows is cresting, but few are exactly sure how to catch without wiping out.

These three ecommerce trends are all set to build or crest in 2016. Which are you most looking forward to capitalizing on?

Multichannel Is the Way to Go

Ventureburn has an in-depth look at the emerging power of multichannel marketing and sales. If you have time, definitely read the whole thing. Here’s the short version: Since your customers access your ecommerce platform on a variety of devices, you need to tailor your marketing campaigns to capture them all.

Use mobile ad networks to turbocharge conversion rates and reach customers opportunistically, retargeting systems to catch prospects on the conversion bubble, traditional PPC and search campaigns to draw in desktop-bound users, video and email to build awareness and loyalty, and non-digital word of mouth campaigns (brand ambassadors, anyone?) to develop legitimacy.

Content Marketing Works Pretty Much Everywhere

Think no one reads your product descriptions, ad copy or “about us” blurb? Think again. Content is the once and future king of ecommerce, naysayers be darned. What’s different for 2016 and beyond? In a word, quality. We’ve been hearing the drumbeat about quality content for years, but it’s (unfortunately) been possible to skate by with subpar, corner-cutting content until relatively recently. That’s certainly not going to be the case in 2016, and likely won’t be for the foreseeable future. Make sure your ecommerce portal’s content engine is well-oiled and primed to purr. From your product descriptions and reviews to parent-page content, blog and sales collateral, everything you produce needs to be on-message, authentic and structured to sell.

Responsive, Ready or All In? Either Way, It’s Mobile Now & Mobile Forever

Mobile ad networks aren’t the only mobile-centric ecommerce trend set to shake up the digital landscape in 2016 and beyond. Thanks to recent algorithm changes by Google and other search engines, ecommerce sites that don’t have mobile-friendly architectures and designs risk drastic hits to search visibility and performance.

If you haven’t already, get on the stick and invest in a mobile-friendly overhaul that touches every aspect of your ecommerce operation — including ancillary pieces like confirmation emails and tracking tools. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure here.

This Is How You Drive Quality App Installs Without Losing Money

MediaPost has a great look at the value of quality mobile app installs, and offers some tips for business owners and developers looking to drive quality installs without paying through the nose. The whole article is definitely worth a read, but here’s a summary of the main takeaways:

Take Your Apps to the Movies

For some moviegoers, the trailers are the best part of the whole show. Who doesn’t want to peek around the curve at all the exciting (hopefully) movie events slated to drop in the months ahead. If the main event is subpar, at least you have the promise of better flicks ahead to buoy your spirits after the letdown.

App trailers work by the same principle. Just as movie studios use feature trailers as implicit votes of confidence in their upcoming content stable, savvy app developers use app trailers to tease hot new concepts and convince (with or without justification) viewers that upcoming apps really are as awesome as they sound. For best results, embed your app trailers with clickable or easily searchable calls to action.

Explore Your PPE (What?) Options

Pay per engagement (PPE) is an innovative marketing strategy with roots in the tried-and-true subscription model. PPE apps basically follow the freemium model. Instead of asking for upfront payment, they ask for skin in the game only after users complete a specified action, such as purchasing a separate service offered through the app, paying for a piece of premium content, or buying credits through an embedded game.

Given their inherent barriers to conversion, PPE apps typically don’t generate eye-popping revenues and generally have high acquisition costs. But their acquisition quality metrics are off the charts — and, for many types of marketers, that’s what matters most.

Invest in Retargeting

Mobile retargeting is a great way to bring dormant app users back into the fold. All you need to do is invest in retargeted mobile PPC ads aimed at users who’ve been away from your app for a set period of time: a week, a month, whatever. The concept isn’t all that different than those “We miss you!” emails you’ve been using since 1998 — just way less annoying, and way better at keeping your brand top of mind.

Deep Link Nine

Deep linking is a relatively new, really simple concept personalization concept: links to specific pages within your apps. Deep linking is a great way to improve geotargeted campaigns or drive specific buyer personas to take specific actions around your brand. In other words, it’s catnip for your numbers guys.

It’s Not a Quality Install Without Quality Analytics

None of the preceding app install strategies would be possible without analytics. If you’re not measuring and analyzing your mobile apps’ performance on a regular basis, you’re simply not getting the most for your money. Pay special attention to attribution analytics, which assign user actions to specific sources or campaigns. Once you know where your traffic originates, you can figure out why some sources are more effective than others and improve your overall app campaign’s ROI.

How are you planning to drive quality app installs in 2016?