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For many people, scrolling Facebook, chatting over Twitter, and surfing Instagram is now part of the daily routine. Our social media today is a result of all twists and turns we’ve endured over the pandemic. It has forced businesses to rely more readily on social media channels to communicate and engage with their customers. Today, social media apps are some of the leading tools making up a relevant portion of income streams from both large and small businesses. Moreover, social media statistics reveal that social media has the ability to influence consumer behavior to a brand’s advantage. How? In this article, discover how consumer behavior relies on social media today and how you can leverage your residential home service business to consumers on social media apps.

A Social Media Dependent Society

Deep down, underneath the calm exteriors, people are driven by one inextinguishable desire to belong. Social media, in one way or another, appeals to the inherent desire for belonging by enabling people to create an online persona that projects their ideal self. Through social media sites, you can be up-to-date with the latest trending news. You can also upload posts and stories that entertain your target audience, aligning your brand identity with their personal identity, and giving them a sense of belonging with your tribe (brand). On the flip side, we cannot downplay the negative effects of social media. It has created a window to access and covet other people’s lives, breeding an even stronger desire to keep up with the Joneses. This is a big reason why businesses thrive on social media. Social commerce allows businesses to meet consumers where they already are, at the peak of their whims and fancy. For this reason, social media today is no longer merely about connections but also conversions. Businesses have infiltrated social media networks because of how fast the market grows within each platform. A company that doesn't include social media in its digital marketing strategy is ignoring an inexpensive, practical, and quick way to reach half of humanity. Calling society social media dependent is a bold claim but current data indicates it’s a hard truth. Let’s explore the numbers below:

How many people use social media today?

Compared to previous years, 2022 has marked the era where more than half of the world’s population uses social media. According to Datareportal, 58.4 percent of the world’s population is on social media today. That number accounts for 4.62 billion people around the world. Within only a year, social media users have bumped up by a staggering 424 million who spend two hours and 27 minutes daily across seven social media platforms, on average. With that in mind, it’s likely that the majority of your prospects in the residential home service industry belong to those numbers. According to Deloitte, 40 percent of users utilize social media to find home improvement providers. That accounts for 1.8 billion people worldwide.

How do social media users connect with brands?

In many ways, social media is comparable to TV and radio. First of all, it doesn’t cost a dime for consumers to watch or listen to commercials in your social media feeds. Secondly, it’s the brands that want to be featured who shoulder the heaviest advertising costs. The real trick to winning on social media today is entertainment. Entertainment is the currency of a too-busy public, and on social media, people are looking to decompress from their busy lives and have a chuckle. This makes social media advertising particularly important when it comes to your overall marketing strategy. Social media sites are governed by patented algorithms that control the information every user receives. Brands can use advertisements to reach out to their market. Alternatively, you can use behavioral retargeted ads to recapture the attention of users who expressed interest in your products and services but didn’t convert. This is helpful because SproutSocial says one in three customers prefer social media to learn about brands moving forward. The numbers make it clear that social media has become a pillar in today’s society, not only for social circles but even for businesses. If you want your residential home service to dominate social media today, Wizard of Ads® has the chops to make that happen. Book a call.

Generational Consumer Behavior in Social Media

Social media today offers countless opportunities to tailor-fit your products and services to the right customers. However, comprehensive demographic data is required to define your target audiences. Every generation has its respective nuances that determine how people will interact with your brand and it’s imperative to know these subtle details if you want to maximize your social media advertising efforts.

Generation Z

Born: 1997 onwards Age range: 18-24**Who are they?**Generation Z, otherwise known as Gen Z or Zoomers, are the most digitally native among all generations. Given their youth, most of the people belonging to this category have had social media interaction for almost half of their lives. For this reason, they are tech-proficient, 66 percent say social media is a vital component of their day-to-day living. However, unlike other generations who prioritize connecting with family and friends, Gen Z primarily uses social media platforms as a pastime. Despite that, I do urge residential home service businesses not to sleep on the tech-savvy generation. They will be the huge drivers of the social media landscape in the years to come.**Consumer Behavior in Social Media?**Given Gen Z’s proclivity to social media today, they expect brands to be in step with them. It’s very important for this generation to have initial online interaction before storefront transactions.

According to the SproutSocial findings, 76 percent of Gen Z say that social media allows them to interact with brands. Seventy-eight percent report that social media helps them discover new businesses. Unlike other generations on the list, Gen Z people are fully aware of how businesses use their personal information. For this reason, 64 percent expect businesses on social media today to craft more personalized experiences to appeal to them better. They suggest that companies should analyze their posts, activities, and previous interactions to create a “level of familiarity” with them. In other words, the majority of Gen Z’s are relational buyers who value affinity prior to purchase.**What does this mean for residential home service businesses?**The best way to appeal to Gen Z is through ads or posts that spark engagement or interactions. Your aim is to involve them in relevant conversations surrounding your niche. This may not be so easy in the residential home service since you’re selling a grudge purchase. Nevertheless, maintaining active interaction with this group is the key to winning their loyalty. Work on your buying experience by being more active in responding to questions, comments, or messages. Make this the forefront of your strategy and you will win Gen Zers over.

Millennials

Born: 1980-1996Age range: 25-40**Who are they?**Although Millennials are born the closest to Gen Z’s, their consumer behavior varies significantly when navigating through social media today. Most information regarding them is plagued with obsolete stereotypes, so don’t be confused. The majority don’t primarily use social media to kill time like the tech-savvy bunch. Rather, 61 percent use social media today to reach family, friends, and colleagues. Only 51 percent use social media platforms as pastimes, while 47 percent use it to discover new trends. Forty-three percent use it to know the latest news. The best way to describe Millennials is that most are starting to navigate through adulthood. This includes every nitty-gritty detail that comes along with it: work milestones, parenting, property-owning, household management, etc.**Consumer Behavior in Social Media?**Since Millennials are slowly dipping their toes into adulthood, they value businesses to be instrumental in their major life decisions. Compared to other generations, Millennials approach their careers, family, and future differently and it shows in their social media behavior. Since they prioritize making the best choices, they’re keen to join online communities and interact with other customers or with your business to know they’re in the right hands.**What does this mean for residential home service businesses?**A Millennial, say, with a new property, will be particular in selecting the business they’ll trust for their HVAC installation. Assurance also matters so much for Millennials and this can be challenging for residential home service providers. The best course of action to appeal to Millennials is to build your own online community via social media today. I see this benefiting your brand in three ways:

1. Previous customers can share their past experiences working with your business. They can post pictures, upload videos, and testify to how your brand has helped them. In other words, free word-of-mouth marketing.
2. You gain a free space where you can present the newest services or limited-time offers to encourage your previous customers to repurchase.
3. You get a higher chance of tipping the scales into a sale once non-consumer Millennials part of your community validates the legitimacy and effectiveness of your services.

Generation X

Born: 1965-1979Age range: 41-56**Who are they?**Have you heard of Gen X before? Not too many have, but we are the small group in between the Boomers and Millennials. Don’t sleep on us just because we’re small in number. We may be the best customers you can get for your residential home service business. Despite our small size, Generation X accounts for a large proportion of users in social media today and we’re not slowing down. According to research, 74 percent of Gen X users see social media as a vital pillar in their daily lives. Among the social media platforms, Youtube and Facebook are their most preferred apps through and through. This means they are likely to stick with these social channels for years to come. With that in mind, casting your net over these sites will give you better odds with Gen X prospects.**Consumer Behavior in Social Media?**Compared to Millennials, Gen X’ers use social media platforms more habitually. They average around six hours and 58 minutes of social media usage per week. The latch key generation is also known as the counter-culture generation because of their penchant for independence and smart purchase decisions. Gen X’ers are more likely to fall under the category of Transactional Shoppers. This means they care about the ROI, logic, and product research to make their final decision. According to studies, 56 percent of Gen X consumers discover new brands through social media. **Sixty-eight percent base their purchases on online reviews. What does this mean for residential home service businesses?**If you wish to target GEN X’ers, the best course of action is to acknowledge what motivates them the most– independence. Allowing them to dive deep and learn more about your residential home service business will help them develop their final purchase decision. In other words, whatever educates them, excites them. Keep their excitement at an all-time high by providing resources, videos, tutorials, and in-depth explanations that illustrate how your brand can solve their felt needs (money, energy, and time). You will want to cover your solutions’ features and benefits too, and how these elements can give them the advantage they’re looking for. Convincing customer reviews are another method for capturing the hearts of Gen X’ers. Similar to Millennials, fostering an online community where they can interact with other customers will facilitate them to choose you over competitors. Moreover, work on your local SEO strategies to ensure better odds if they decide to check your Google Business Profile listing. Finally, DIY videos that explain how users at home can troubleshoot, say, a minor plumbing problem demonstrate your care for customers. You can use videos like this to your advantage when targeting Gen X’ers. Edutainment is the name of the game.

Baby Boomers

Born: 1946-1964Age range: 57-74**Who are they?**Baby boomers were the slowest to adopt social and only 40 percent believe that social media today is a relevant component of their lives. Nevertheless, the recent social distancing brought about by the pandemic led this generation to embrace social media as a means to communicate with family and friends. Similar to Gen X’ers, Boomers prefer established and popular platforms like Facebook. Experts project that this group will increase its usage of social media in the next 3 years. This is following the nearly doubled number of Boomer Facebook users in 2012 and 2019.**Consumer Behavior in Social Media?**Baby Boomers share similar similarities with other older generations when it comes to social media behavior. According to research, only a measly 35 percent of Boomers use social media today to discover new brands. That’s even though 48 percent report that social allows them to interact with companies. That said, Boomers are likely to stick with the social media platform they’re accustomed to, primarily Facebook as a brand discovery and communication medium. Taking Boomers beyond the awareness stage will take up time since data suggests that only 20 percent have finalized a sale from a social media platform. Most will choose physical interactions over online shopping.**What does this mean for residential home service businesses?**Social media today is still useful to provide Boomers with information when finalizing their final purchase decision. However, it’s not ideal to push them down the sales funnel online. You can make the biggest impact with your residential home service business when your campaigns complement their brick-and-mortar preferences. What this means is strengthening your local SEO performance through local SEO tools. You can win Boomers by publicizing your address, and contact details, and dominating the Google Map Pack and Google Local Service Ads ranking. While you can use your online presence to share timely store updates, offer value stacks, and post new products that will motivate Boomers to visit your office.

How Many Sales Are Made Through Social Media?

Social media influence can never be underestimated especially when we’re talking about sales. The reason why social media has become one of the frontrunners in sales is because of its accessibility and the unspoken mental gymnastics that push people to buy your products and services. In recent social commerce research from Business of Apps, they revealed that a whopping 82 percent of social media users made a purchase after seeing a product on social media. Another report from The Influencer Marketing Factory found that more people now prefer online shopping (40 percent) over in-store shopping (13 percent). E-marketer predicts that social commerce sales will grow to $56 billion in 2023 and boom into a staggering $80 billion industry by 2025. While the information above covers eCommerce more than residential home service businesses, we can infer that online transactions generally matter more in social media today. What this means for your residential home service industry is that you must pace up to meet your audience where they’re at. While the best sale you can make is an appointment, your first goal should be to endear yourself to your target audience so they feel they know, like, and trust you before they even need what you sell. It’s hard to imagine a life without social media, but eventually, the main competitive field could very well be within the social media platforms.

The Impact of Stories on Consumer Purchase Decisions

Social media is but a singular piece in the myriad of tools businesses use to sell their products and services. We have to keep in mind that using social media today as a means to leverage your businesses will not always reap rewards. The truth is, it’s just a medium — a communication channel. Roy H. Williams once said: “The media doesn’t make the message work. The message makes the media work.” Media platforms will remain platforms until you put them to work for you. If you want to influence your customer’s purchase decision, you need to craft impactful and moving stories and not ephemeral content. You heard it right, stories. Most consumers, even the radically ROI-driven Transactional Shoppers, like to think logic is what drives their purchase decision. Here’s the thing: it isn’t. We like to think we’re logical beings that weigh all relevant information prior to purchasing. However, research shows that all of our decisions, both major and minor, are made subconsciously with emotions, only being justified by logic once the decision has already been made. Persuading consumers to use your solutions means speaking their language. Focus on developing stories, high-quality content, and ads that make your prospects FEEL your products’ benefits. You also want them to EXPERIENCE how your solutions can give them the advantages they desire. Why? People make ALL their purchase decisions from the area of their brain that EXCLUSIVELY FEELS. A part that doesn’t listen to logic and doesn't have the faculty for words. That’s why helping your clients imagine your solutions through persuasive stories is your key to sales success on social media today. Your prospects are ripe for the picking, but sometimes, you need expert advice to show you the tools for the harvest. Book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads® if you want your residential home service to dominate social media today.

Ask any business owner, contractor, or entrepreneur you know, and they'll 100% agree that it's facts, figures, and logic that matters when running a company. They're absolutely right. Analytical thinking is a predominant driver in business, but what they might not realize is that magical thinking is a powerful tool for business growth, too. Wait, what? Allow me to retort. Businesses want consumers to believe that their products or services will make them happier. That means soothing a pain point or caressing a pleasure point. This is what magical thinking is all about. It’s a form of psychological persuasion aimed at transforming externally motivated, grudge-driven buyers into happy customers. Intrigued? Let’s take a closer look into magical thinking and how you can implement the mental game for your residential home service business.

Win the Heart, the Mind will Follow

Magical thinking is the belief that our thoughts, words, and actions can influence the world around us in ways that are seemingly unrelated or illogical. This type of thinking has been linked to success in various areas of life, including business. Come to think of it, people see something they want and they buy it, believing that it will improve their lives one way or another. In Roy H. Williams’ Monday morning memo, he said: _“The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.” That’s a universal truth of business. Everyone who steps foot into a store already harbors internally motivated perceptual reality. In a customer’s mind, they may be looking for products that make them look pretty, or fidgeting through the latest and greatest tech, or embodying that beach body just in time for summer. Like waving the red cape on a raging bull, there’s no stopping a customer once their heart latches onto the desired outcome. The aim of magical thinking is to relate to your client's perceptual reality. By infiltrating their thoughts, illustrating how your products or services will have their felt needs MET (money, energy, and time), and satisfying their pain and pleasure points, you will have better odds of selling your solution. Looking for a magical-thinking expert that can help leverage your residential home service business? Watch your sales skyrocket through Wizard of Ads® proven skills in psychological persuasion. Book a call.

Documentation of Brain Lateralization

The concept of magical thinking follows closely the theory of brain lateralization, introduced by Dr. Roger Sperry. According to the Nobel Prize winner, the brain isn’t simply divided into two hemispheres but is composed of two competing and practically independent minds. Below we’ll explain how brain lateralization works and describe how they relate to marketing and business.

The Left Brain

The left hemisphere, otherwise known as the digital brain, houses the human ability to be verbal, analytical, factual, and orderly. Based on Sperry’s research, the left brain helps people with:

• Logic or deductive reasoning
• Reading
• Writing
• Computing
• Sequencing
• Linear or systematic thinking

The left hemisphere understands fact from fiction. What’s real and what’s fake. It’s the part of the brain that links people to the real world and leans towards suspicion and doubt. In business, the left brain is the part that rationalizes every purchase decision that customers make. This is more evident during grudge purchases like in residential home services. Your customers don’t find pleasure in hiring you. They simply want a contractor that will help have their felt needs MET (money, energy, and time).

The Right Brain

The right hemisphere, also known as the analog brain, is the part believed to be more visual and intuitive than the left hemisphere. Unlike, its counterpart, the right brain is less orderly but more creative. Sperry suggests it helps people with:

• Feelings
• Holistic thinking
• Imagination
• Intuition
• Artistry
• Music

Revisiting Roy H. Williams’ quote earlier, you may imagine the right hemisphere functioning as the heart. It harbors every desire, dream, and yearning of a person. Unlike the left brain, the right hemisphere connects you to a desirable world where a customer’s perceptual reality comes to life. Here’s the rub. Despite any customer attempt to rationalize their purchase decision, a business owner who masters the craft of magical thinking can guide prospects into a desirable mindset - from an externally triggered cause to an internally motivated purchase decision. You’ll learn how below.

How to Use Magical Thinking

Magical thinking is a useful skill to learn for all types of businesses, but most especially, those that belong to residential home services. As opposed to conventional businesses like health and beauty where people WANT what they sell, you’re selling an externally triggered grudge purchase. In other words, people don’t want to avail your products or services, they have to. Unlike new bling, it’s hard to imagine a customer flaunting her new unclogged toilet. These ‘unsexy necessities’ are the reason why selling home services is more challenging. People would rather spend on things that align with their innate impulses. They want things they can show off. Even if internally motivated and externally triggered purchases have their differences, they share one thing in common: desirable outcomes. Customers may not obtain instant gratification from a grudge purchase, but underneath their annoyed exterior, they’re still after an advantageous perceptual reality. Whether that’s the kiss of cold air of a new HVAC system or the shimmer of a well-illuminated room. This is where magical thinking shines through. Another word for magical thinking is cognitive distortion because you want to distort customers’ cognitive motivations away from the angle of necessity (why they need the solution) into the angle of advantage (how the solution will make them feel). In magical thinking, it’s not enough to give your prospects a detailed list of your product features and benefits. Your task is to identify the features that make them FEEL, walk them through the benefits they will reap, and link their feelings to their desired perceptual reality. Once they feel the advantages of having your product or service, they’ll be more inclined to choose your solution. Why? Because people’s decision-making is anchored in the part of their brain that HOPES and EXCLUSIVELY FEELS (right brain). You can incite that emotion through magical thinking.

You Need A Frustration-Free Solution

In any case, there are perks to selling home services that other industries don’t offer. For example, if a prospect experiences a breakdown, they don't have to be convinced to take action. Anyone in need is already highly motivated to purchase from people who can help them — that’s you. All you have to do is persuade them to choose YOU. What makes your solutions better than your competitors? Even with all the social psychology magical thinking you employ, unless your products or services don’t ease their pain points or satisfy their pleasure points, don’t expect a sale. You can’t sell something that doesn’t solve their felt needs. At the core of your competitive advantage is an irresistible value proposition. This is not merely a feature or a benefit that makes your products attractive to consumers. Your value proposition embodies that value you promise to deliver, the pain and pleasure points you aim to please, and the positive impact your solution has on their money, energy, and time if they decide to buy your solutions. What is your value proposition, then?In a grudge-purchase-battlefield like the residential home service industry, most customers seek affordability. All things being equal, customers will gravitate toward companies that charge cheap. A lower price for your home services is a low bar to entry in a saturated market and you’ll be forced to compete in the market share with countless others like you. In that case, a lower price as your value proposition isn’t ideal, whereas, if you bump up the price tag in exchange for a tremendously huge value, you will influence the demand in a much more powerful way than by selling cheap. I call this your perfectly fair competitive advantage. _A lifetime non-prorated service warranty? Waiving the diagnostic fee if they decide to hire your services? Free unlimited drain cleaning if they sign up for your club membership? A 10-year no-risk lemon replacement guarantee if the same thing breaks 3 times? Whatever it is, your value proposition should set you apart from the competition. You need to make them think that they’re getting more value from the sale than what you are willing to offer. When you create a unique offer that your competitors refuse to do, you establish a perfectly fair competitive advantage. Craft a unique value proposition combined with genuine self-imposed punishment should you fail to deliver on your promises, woven in a magical thinking offer — you become the front runner among your competitors for a sale.

Want to employ the Power of Magical Thinking?

Magical thinking is a fancy word to describe sales psychology, which is a skill every entrepreneur must be comfortable employing. But even the best negotiators pale in comparison to businesses that are willing to offer immense value at reasonable prices. To be the residential home service leader in your community, create a tremendously irresistible value that’s easy to say “yes” to. Drizzle psychological persuasion over, and the market is yours for the taking. Leverage your residential home services through magical thinking. If you need help, book a call with Ryan Chute at the Wizard of Ads® and watch your sales accelerate by multiples.

We've all seen and heard a business promote itself on our local TV or radio station. They shove their store hours, phone numbers, and address in the face of their audience. They’ll occasionally even turn toward giving directions. Something called the “door in the face technique.” Thus eating up all of their advertising space. Why? They believe the only thing holding their consumers back is a lack of information. In other words, they assume their audience can’t connect the dots and get from point A to point B. With that in mind, they invest countless time and money into ensuring their audience knows precisely how to find them. This is one of the biggest marketing mistakes a business owner can make. On the surface level, there appears to be nothing wrong with this approach. After all, most business owners only see their customers when they walk through the front door. Naturally leading them to believe that is the beginning of the process. However, in reality, it's just a continuation. The customer's journey begins long before they step foot in the store. And long before the business owner becomes personally involved. It starts with persuasion. It’s the art of convincing your audience not to find you, but rather think of your business as a great choice they need to find. When you use persuasion, you won’t need to advertise your phone number or store hours. Your audience will find all the information they need on your website. That's what Apple understands arguably better than any other business on the market. Apple knows how people are influenced, and why people are persuaded. This understanding allows them to create advertising campaigns that speak to their customers on an emotional level, which results in more sales and loyal customers. Now, we must consider using the same persuasive techniques to achieve results. So, how can you start persuading your consumers? That’s what we’ll discuss below.

How To Get In Touch, Rather Than Why

You likely understand why you should use persuasion techniques to get in touch with your audience. However, that still leaves a critical piece of the puzzle. **How?**How do you redirect your marketing efforts and ensure you’re persuading your audience? Look toward the biggest brands. Big brands, like Apple, already understand how to connect with their audience. No Apple commercial that has ever made it out of their doors has given directions to their stores. You don’t see Tim Cook on the screen saying, “Come to Apple, on the corner of main street and something-or-the-other.” They simply don’t do it. (Not to mention it would be awkward seeing Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in an ad when it’s usually some celeb.) Every advertisement from Apple or other brands such as Volvo skips directions. Instead, they focus on one thing—value. Value is easily the most important component in marketing. Prove to your audience that your product or service will add value to their life. They’ll jump through the necessary hoops to contact you. Think of all the memorable commercials you’ve experienced that listed off their convenient hours, directions to their location, and friendly, knowledgeable staff. Drawing a blank? Me too. However, if the commercial just told you a story about a customer facing a problem and the win they got working with you, you’d remember that. Even assuming you didn’t Google the industry, you’d be able to pick their name out from the crowd. That’s the power of focusing on value. That’s how you become genuinely persuasive. Book a call with the Wizard of Ads®. We can discuss how to connect better with your audience. Click here.

Spend More Time Persuading Consumers = Less Worry

It starts by using more persuasive words. Words such as “easy,” “free,” and “results” are some of the many powerful words you may want to use. For a complete list of 26 of the most persuasive words in marketing, visit this article from LinkedIn. When you use persuasive rhetoric in advertising, your business will be better off. You will spend less money and effort on ads, as each dollar spent will go further. You can also enjoy being less anxious about whether someone will walk through your front door.

Apple Doesn’t Give Directions to Their Stores

Let’s watch some advertisement examples, together. It’s called the Best Apple Commercials in 2021. Wait, don’t roll your eyes. Take five minutes and watch the video. It’s worth it. You’ll see my point. There’s a reason they are the best advertisements. Each commercial in that video has one thing in common. There are no directions. They don’t include their main office’s phone number or address. No matter how crazy the plot of these commercials become, they follow a similar pattern—benefits, benefits, benefits, brand. That simple pattern is one of the most persuasive strategies. It captures your audience’s attention. It informs them of what you offer. They infer the value. Then finally, it gives them what they need to continue their customer journey on their end. In Apple’s case, it’s the simple image of, you guessed it, an apple. Using a symbol or a name instead of directions allows your audience to continue if they want. Another thing to note is how selective Apple is with its words. Apple doesn’t slap a paragraph on the screen, short of Star Wars movie intros, nobody will read those. So, they keep it simple. They often only have one word on the screen at a time, giving all persuasion words individual impact. That’s how good advertisements should be. You'll do great if you can mimic that same rhetoric in advertising your business. Even outside of persuasive ads, in blogs, you want to follow that same method. Create persuasive articles by using impactful persuasion words regularly instead of filler.

The 95% Law of Influence

All of this brings us to one rule you should follow above all else. Invest 95 percent of your effort into telling your audience why they should contact you. Not how. That builds the credibility of your brand, and it helps the audience trust you. Once they do, they’ll seek you out on their own accord. All that you need to do at that point is ensure that your brand pops up when they hit search. Not too hard, right? Here’s how you can invest that effort:

• Discover what your audience wants and address it with persuasion words.

Apple and other big brands, like Nike, know what their audience wants to see and hear. Apple’s audience wants sleek, high-functioning technology that isn’t complicated to use. Nike’s audience wants a product to help them surpass their limits and be great. They want to just do it. Meanwhile, other brands are trying to convince their audience with all the boring bits. Whatever your audience wants, find it and leave out all the boring bits.

• Speak about an entry point that is a no-brainer.

It makes sense that “free” is one of the most persuasive words. Everyone likes free, and everyone likes a good deal. Mention those in your advertisements.

• Use Positive Mental Images.

Another thing that Apple does well is paint in a positive light. Most of their commercials are visually appealing and mentally light, capturing our imagination much more.

Become a Preferred Brand

An individual's preferred brand is the brand they consistently choose over others. Most consumers develop their preferred brand after a few trial runs. But the majority of brands don’t even make it into the competition. No consumer will try every brand in a given industry. At most, they may try five brands and find the one that works best for them. You need to be among those five with persuasion-based marketing. From there, it’s only a matter of how good your product or service is compared to the competition. With that in mind, you may want to ensure that your business as a whole is ready. That way, it can match your new advertising and outperform your competition. Then achieve the highest goal in business—being a preferred brand. If you can do all of that, you can relax and enjoy your business with less stress and anxiety. If you would like help becoming a preferred brand, book a call with Wizard of Ads® here.

Everybody looks after the bottom line. After all, it’s one of the best indicators to describe the status of an enterprise. If you’re a business owner, you may have devised ways to improve your bottom line and it typically falls into two approaches:

1. Increasing revenue
2. Cutting costs

It’s always a good idea to improve your revenue and efficiency, but if it can’t be helped, prioritize increasing your sales if you can spare cutting costs. In the words of acclaimed accountant, Adrian Van Zelfden, “You cannot shrink your way to profit.”While cost-cutting is a popular business strategy, it's not without its risks. When done correctly, being cost-effective may improve a company’s bottom line by becoming more efficient. However, cost reduction can also lead to problems that can affect a brand’s customer base and jeopardize the future of a company. In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into what cost-cutting is, why it’s a counterproductive strategy if you want to build your business, and what are its risks for residential home service businesses.

“You Don’t Understand Business”

The cost-cutting process is used by companies to reduce their expenses and increase their profitability. The most common time for a company to implement cost-cutting measures is when it is undergoing financial stress or experiencing an economic downturn. In some cases, if a company's management anticipates profitability issues in the future, then cost-cutting can become part of the business strategy. While there are a number of reasons why businesses may choose to cut costs, it’s not an ideal practice to sustain a company’s longevity as I’ll explain later. In Roy H. Williams’ recent exposition on cost-cutting, he explained briefly explained the dangers of cutting costs as he revisited the rise and fall of the once-pinnacle of American automobiles, General Motors. For context:General Motors was formerly described as the world's richest and most powerful automaker. The year 1981 marked GM’s slow and painful death with the installment of Roger Smith as the company’s CEO. Although Wall Street saw him as a brilliant businessman who maximized profits through his cost-cutting strategy, anyone who was passionate about cars saw that he was destroying the American icon from the inside out. The fruits of Rogers’ approach failed as GM’s one-of-a-kind identity slowly fell into the Sea of Sameness along with other car manufacturers. The 46% market share that GM held prior to Roger’s arrival dropped to 35.4% after 9 years. Finally, GM ended its downhill reign in 2009 with a net asset of -$91 billion. Whenever Roy voiced his complaint regarding GM’s market performance, his brother-in-law would retort, “You don’t understand business.” The same 4 cold-hearted and demeaning words every single time. The thing is, it’s easy to understand. You cost-cut your way through business, always looking for ways to save a few bucks. And it worked. By reducing expenses, your business increased its profits, boosted the bottom line, and remained competitive in a tough market for a while. Eventually, your cost-cutting caught up with you. Your residential home service business went bankrupt. You're left scrambling to find a new job. If you're thinking about cost-cutting as a way to build your business, think again. It's a surefire way to ruin your business and end up jobless. Learn from GM’s cautionary tale and avoid making the same mistakes. Cost-cutting may seem like a good idea in the short term, but it's not a sustainable way to run a business. Do you know what’s sustainable? Increasing your sales. Wizard of Ads® will help improve skyrocket your revenue and improve your bottom line without the detrimental repercussions of cost-cutting. Book a call.

Depriving a Brand of the Oxygen of Creativity and Innovation

If you take a closer look at Wall Street bigshots and private equity firms, they’re typically always all-praise for cost-cutting CEOs. They hail them as heroes thanks to the short-term gains contributed by cutting costs. These people focus on the outward financial stature, but not the internal and revenue impacts of cost-cutting. The most common cost-cutting measures done by companies are the following:

• Laying off employees
• Decreasing employee salary
• Closing down certain business facilities or branches
• Streamlining the supply chain
• Downsizing offices
• Relocating to less expensive buildings or regions
• Limiting outsources services

The problem is that cutting costs limits a business and its constituents the room they need to grow. In a fast-paced, highly evolving, and viciously competitive market, like the residential home service industry, cutting costs may spell doom for an enterprise. Take an HVAC company, for example. A steady pool of readily available technicians provides the company a headroom to deploy people in multiple projects. A fleet may focus on installing ductwork for a large building, while another group is sent to a household for diagnostic and repair. Cost-cutting through employee terminations will hurt the business, especially during peak season. In the age of the internet, customers value speedy response times above all else. According to HubSpot Research, 90% of customers say that ‘immediate response’ to customer service questions is essential (60% agree that ‘immediate’ means 10 minutes or less). Moreover, McKinsey & Company says that 70% of customers’ buying decisions are based on how they feel companies treat them. With these data in mind, reconsidering cost-cutting should always be high up your priority list. Otherwise, you will likely lose your clients to your competitors. A focus on customers should always be maintained before, during, and after cost-cutting and the process shouldn’t be seen as a mere revenue-enhancing ploy. Residential home service businesses that ignore what customers value are at risk of wasting valuable revenue. Based on MIT Sloan’s assessment, cost-cutting companies that overlook customer value exhibited the worst gross margins. Conversely, companies with high levels of cost-cutting while retaining high levels of customer value displayed the highest margins. This is known as Operational Excellence. In other words, cutting costs and upholding customer value are two peas in a pod. With that in mind, before embarking on a cost-cutting strategy, it’s necessary to set up a strategy that will cater to the cutback procedure. There are some non-negotiable costs to keep the biz in operation, so it’s a good idea to segregate each before you arbitrarily and haphazardly cut costs. Cutting costs isn’t a sustainable bottom-line-boosting measure. However, if it can’t be helped, focusing on customers is the key to a more effective cost-cutting strategy.

Risks of Too Much Cost Cutting in Home Services Businesses

As the United States is slowly reeling into recession, Residential Home Service Businesses may find it more difficult to generate the usual number of sales. This may even force some companies with tight cash runways to cut costs in order to keep the business running. These are dire situations and often, they also demand extreme measures. Cost-cutting is an effective band-aid solution to the problem, but it doesn’t come without possible backlashes. Below, we outlined some of the risks associated with too much cost-cutting among home service businesses.

1. Severance Pay

Laying people off is one of the hardest cost reduction approaches you must do as an owner because it means having to cut jobs. Severance pays are compensatory benefits that employers extend to employees when the employment comes to an end. Some contracts require employers to issue severance pay, while others include severance packages that include benefits and health insurance. Employers are required to provide severance If a clause of a residential home service technician’s contract indicates it. There are severance packages that also cover employees who resign or are fired. Factors such as length of employment and cost-cutting measures can influence how much the employee receives. These costs add an additional burden on behalf of the company, especially if they’re going through economic distress. Unless otherwise stated in the contract, an employer may decide whether or not to offer severance pay. In some cases, it could be a gesture of goodwill to help employees have a buffer until they secure a new position.

2. Unemployment Benefits

If residential home service businesses do not indicate a severance pay clause for employee downsizing, they may still suffer financial losses from unemployment benefits. Unemployment benefits, more commonly known as unemployment insurance(UI), are state-imposed insurance for eligible individuals who lost their jobs. That includes those people who were downsized. Commonly, people who qualify are those who were separated from their work due to cost-cutting. On the other hand, those who resigned or were fired with just cause don’t qualify for UI. Although unemployment insurance is a federal law, each state is responsible for administering it. Workers who aspire to join must meet the State’s required work and wage, including the time rendered. The UI program is funded through taxes on employers. This includes the state tax and Federal Unemployment Tax Act. In other words, it remains a part of a residential home service business owner’s obligation to support downsized employees.

3. Rehiring Costs

One reason why many companies are reluctant to downsize is that cutting costs can backfire on the business and hurt their economics further. If economic downturns and the threat of failing businesses happen to be short-lived, another heavy toll on the finances is rehiring costs. On-boarding new employees is daunting, especially in industries like residential home services where technical training is required. The actual cost of hiring employees means more than just their salaries. If you factor in the cost of recruiting, training, and the 5 to 8-month period before newly hires reach full productivity, business owners will feel the cost surge. For this reason, it’s best to give it some time and thought before home service businesses engage in cost-cutting. Expertise takes time to teach and acquire. In extreme cases, choosing other cost-cutting measures like relocating or decreasing office hours is better.

4. Lowers Morale of Retained Employees

Downsizing can have a significant effect on employee morale. When cost-cutting measures result in layoffs, employees who remain with the company may feel insecure about their own jobs and worried about the future of the company. This can lead to decreased productivity and engagement, as well as increased absenteeism and turnover. Employees who are affected directly by downsizing can also experience a range of emotions, including sadness and betrayal. These feelings can be exacerbated if they are laid off without warning or given insufficient severance pay. Residential home service companies should communicate openly and honestly with employees about the reasons for cost-cutting measures such as downsizing. By being transparent, companies can help to build trust and maintain employee morale during difficult times. While downsizing can have negative consequences for employees, there are steps that companies can take to mitigate these effects. For example, offering outplacement services and providing counseling can help employees deal with the psychological impacts of downsizing.

5. Overworking the Remaining Employees

When cost-cutting or downsizing measures are implemented in a company, the remaining employees often have to pick up the slack. This can lead to overwork and burnout among these employees. In the residential home service industry, this is often seen when housekeeping or maintenance staff are cut. The remaining employees have to work harder to keep up with the demand, leading to longer hours and less time for breaks. This results in lower quality of work and disgruntled employees. While cost-cutting measures may seem like a good way to save money in the short term, they can actually lead to higher costs down the road in the form of employee turnover and lower productivity. When employees are overworked, they are more likely to make mistakes, miss deadlines, and have accidents. This can cost the company money in terms of lost productivity, legal fees, and insurance claims. It is important for companies to find a balance between cutting costs and maintaining a happy and healthy workforce. downsizing should only be done as a last resort, and even then, care should be taken to ensure that the remaining employees are not overburdened. Otherwise, the company may end up spending more in the long run.

Is There Such Thing as “Good” Cost Cutting?

Asking if there’s a “good” form of cost-cutting is a double-edged sword. The very reason for cutting costs is anchored more often in an unfavorable situation that coerces management to adopt cost-reduction strategies. Moreover, companies are often accused of cost-cutting at the expense of quality, customer service, and employee morale. Alternatively, sometimes new technologies or economies of scale allow for cost savings that aren’t detrimental to the employee or buyer’s experience. For example, if you have optimized your radio buy for frequency and reach, there is no need to spend more budget if the job is being done. There's no denying that cost-cutting is detrimental if done for the wrong reasons. Cutting costs to improve the bottom line is usually not a good idea. This can lead to corners being cut and quality plus customer service suffers in the exchange, which ultimately does more harm than good. In reality, there are some ways cost-cutting can be beneficial, especially when they’re done for the right motives. To understand the concept of good cost-cutting, it’s important to first know what good, bad, and best costs are:

• Good costs

Good costs are the expenses dedicated to the growth of a company. They are aligned with the company’s customer values and are either used to meet your customer needs or product/service needs. Good costs help your business achieve its goals by providing room to train employees, support their growth, or allow your company as a whole to innovate. An example of this cost would be resources used for advertising and marketing.

• Bad costs

Bad costs, on the other hand, are expenses that don’t reflect the company’s growth strategy. They are often overlooked and waste valuable company funds. Some bad costs may be necessary but are not significant in improving your business or reaching your goals.

• Best costs

Your company’s best costs are the expenses associated with the elements making your company unique. They tie in closely to your unique sales proposition. For example, a residential home service business may waive diagnostic fees if customers decide to commit to a full repair or installation. These costs fall into your best cost because it makes your company what it is. Your company is on the right track, a.k.a. Implementing a good cost-cutting strategy when you minimize bad costs. This way, your company can free up resources that you can use for more productive endeavors. Like improving the efficiency or streamlining operations that save more money in the long run. Do note that not all cost-cutting measures mean cutting a cost. For example, using applications that allow companies to monitor employee productivity and time spent on projects or tasks is an example of optimization and efficiency. The management can introduce time-saving ways to make task accomplishment more efficient.

You Cannot Shrink Your Way To Profit

“It is easier to increase sales than it is to cut expenses.” - Roy H. Williams

If you had to choose between maximizing revenue streams and cutting costs, choose the former. You may suffer irreparable consequences in extreme cases. Cost-cutting measures should always be approached with caution. They should only be enforced if there's a clear benefit to the company, and they should never come at the expense of your product’s or service’s quality. When done correctly, cost-cutting can be a good thing for your residential home service business. It can improve efficiency, save money, and help simplify operations. Just be sure to approach it carefully and always keep the best interests of your company in mind. Don’t wait until you have no other choice but to cut costs. With the help of Wizard of Ads®, you can increase your revenue and propel your bottom line without cost-cutting measures. Book a call.

In a world where tons of content is published every second, the need for high-quality content can never be understated. Businesses creating content shouldn’t settle for merely good material. Otherwise, you’ll risk producing content that gets lost in all the noise. It’s the premium quality blog posts or ads that matter most if you want to rise above your competition. High-quality content development secures an exceptional conversion rate and makes your brand the saving grace for search queries. Think of it this way: High-quality content is your diamond in the rough. The boat in a swarm of gators. The Mufasa in a pack of hyenas. You will have confidence in the success of your content strategy when you consistently produce high-quality content. That said, what are the factors that make you say “Eureka! This is the quality post I’m looking for!”?Check them out below.

Quality Content Defined

The definition of quality content can be traced back to Jeff Cannon’s interpretation of content. According to him: “In content marketing, content is created to provide consumers with the information they seek.” Any high-quality material answers the public’s most pressing queries on a particular niche. The problem is that it’s a low bar to entry in today’s content marketing landscape. After Google’s Panda update, low-quality sites were de-ranked and only high-quality pages are left to rule the roost. In other words, you’re competing with brands creating content that already answers consumer questions. You’ll need to step up your game to claim Google’s top spot. Unfortunately, nowadays many marketers still give in to the delusion that high-quality content is simply attributed to these aspects:

• The overall content value
• Number of words
• Visual appeal
• Spelling and grammar
• Formatting and readability
• Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness (EAT)

If that’s the case, publishing quality content should be a walk in the park. Moreover, finding success with your content marketing efforts must come easy, but why isn’t this the case? Don’t get me wrong, these are all necessary attributes of quality content. All I’m saying is that they’re not enough metrics to describe what quality content is. Targeting these markers is already second nature to all content creators. Therefore, if everyone does the same things, how do we now segregate high-quality content from obscurity? There are 6 benchmarks. High-quality content is hard to come by, but with expert guidance, it’s within reach. Wizard of Ads® vows to help residential home service businesses with their content marketing endeavors. Book a call.

How to Measure High-Quality Content?

The attributes I’ve mentioned above matter. Quality posts still abide by those standards. In measuring high-quality content, you must also consider the statistics on top of the non-negotiable attributes. Here are they:

1. KPIs and Data

At all costs, avoid measuring the perceived quality of your content based on how much time and money you poured into making it. Always base your definition of quality content on measurable data and statistics, otherwise, your view will be biased. Remember that content marketing is all about audiences and search engines. They’re the ONLY objective judge of good quality. Using data will help you segregate high-quality content from plain garbage a.k.a. your diamonds among the coal. KPIs, or key performance indicators, are measurable elements that are used to help companies understand how they’re progressing towards achieving their marketing and business objectives. In the case of content marketing, your KPIs may fall into these 4 categories:

• SERP ranking position
• Amount of traffic
• Number of engagements
• Number of leads generated

Diamond content is your array of the best-performing content among your archives. They hover between positions 1-3 in SERPs, drive a majority of your traffic, boast a consistently high engagement rate, and yield most of your leads. High-quality content usually comprises only 3% of your entire artillery. On the other hand, coal is your average (or even sub-standard) material that takes up 97% of your collection. Inferior traffic. Lousy SERP ranking. Little to no leads. Segregating your content into these two clusters will give you actionable insights into what went right on the diamonds, to help you refine your coal. If you completely rely on gutfeel when describing quality content, you’ll have no clear direction on what content to follow.

2. Marketing Objectives

The cornerstone of every high-quality content is how well they achieve your business’ marketing objectives. It doesn’t matter whether that goal is to generate traffic, win in SERP rankings, or increase engagement or conversions. As long as your content meets or exceeds the standard you’ve set for it, they’re considered high-quality. Think of it this way. NBA teams don’t draft new ballers based on looks, social media following, or eloquence. It always boils down to stats: Points Per Game, Field Goal Percentage, Free-Throw Percentage, and Assist-To-Turnover Ratio, among others. The same principle applies to quality content. Even if diamond content fails in some of the important attributes, like spelling or grammar, it can still be high-quality as long as they help achieve your marketing goals.

3. Search Engine Rankings

Top search engine results pages are saturated with high-quality content. But retaining a position in the top spots is still as fickle as those in latter SERPs and we’ll explain how below: After Google carried out its RankBrain algorithm, the search engine implemented machine learning to identify the most relevant results for queries. Here’s the catch: machine learning rewards results that incur high engagements. The more people click on your result, albeit possibly lower in SERPs, you will observe rank improvement thanks to RankBrain. Google measures engagement via two factors:

• Click-through rate or CTR (The rate of people clicking on your results)
• Time on page (The length of time users spend or engage with your content)

Naturally, higher CTR means enticing content at face value while a longer time on page suggests engaging content. They’re two peas in a pod, why? A high SERP CTR but low time on page signals Google of misleading content which can then penalize your page by ranking down. What does this mean for residential home service businesses? Work on crafting winning meta-titles and meta descriptions to make your content enticing. Your content should then follow through with a high-quality, engaging post.

4. Remarkable Ad CTR

Your content and RankBrain’s machine learning technology are not limited to helping you dominate SERP ranks. As a matter of fact, before being one of the SERP ranking signals, Google ads benefited from machine learning. Google and other social advertising sites like Facebook and Twitter reward high-quality content with lower costs for ad boosts. How do these platforms measure quality content? Click-through rates. Getting the coveted clicks on your ads indicates that you’ve produced high-quality content. While promoting low engagement ads punishes you with more expensive boosting costs and lower impression share. Once you craft the killer ad that gives you all the clicks, replicate the same success by following a similar route in your succeeding advertising efforts.

5. Conversion Rate

A remarkable engagement rate normally leads to desirable conversion rates as well. You know you harbor quality material if you can get people to click through your content and convert thereafter. However, there are instances when CTRs and conversion rates are incongruent. In this case, you may want to give your content a hard look to see which areas need renovation or CRO (conversion rate optimization). Always remember that quality content gets admirable conversion rates.

6. Promising Facebook Engagement

Do you know why fake news proliferated on Facebook? Well, at least before the Facebook fact-checkers hunted down and purged fake news peddlers. It’s for one simple reason: Facebook’s machine learning algorithm prioritizes content popularity over authority (unlike Google). What this means is that the more people clicked, commented, reacted, or shared a post, the more likely Facebook spread the post on users’ news feeds. Let me illustrate their algorithm: As a user browses their feed, Facebook occasionally displays posts it thinks the user will find interesting or appealing. Facebook then acts depending on the user’s behavior in light of the post. If a user scrolls past your post, Facebook won’t bother showing updates to the user. On the other hand, engagement suggests interest and Facebook will act on the interest to show the user similar updates in the future. Then why did I use fake news as an example earlier? Making rounds on Facebook leans more on publishing content that triggers emotional responses among users. On social media platforms like Facebook, the quality content are the ones that achieve high engagement. The main idea in defining high-quality content is not input-centric. It also taps into information once the content is deployed into the world. This must be the focus of content marketing. Here’s a thing that I noticed among diamond contents: they do well on all marketing channels. If they do well in social media, they’ll likely rank positively in SERPs and have high conversion rates. In the same way, content that bags organic search results tend to do well on social media and other channels. A good rule of thumb to remember is that diamonds are excellent performers for search engine optimization, paid and organic social media, emails, conversion rate optimization, etc.

Final Thoughts

Of course, defining high-quality content from output performance comes second to a well-thought and inspiring concept, along with the implementation of good content attributes. Unbiased statistics are primarily used to refine and further improve an already engaging idea. Needless to say, if you want to be more successful, brainstorm a better vision. Once you find your diamond among your long list of coal, capitalize, leverage, and maximize its reach to squeeze the highest possible ROI you can muster. Moreover, replicate the same success by understanding what makes your diamonds precious. This will help you improve your existing citrines and serve as a blueprint to follow for your succeeding content. Finding your super rare diamonds can be daunting, sometimes, you may not even have them in the first place. If you need support, Wizard of Ads® can help materialize your high-quality content. Book a call.

In recent years, there has been a digital revolution occurring in the marketing world. The rise of the machine has changed the landscape on how businesses market their products and services. (In case you’re wondering, AI stands for artificial intelligence.)

AI marketing is a term that refers to using AI technology to automate marketing tasks. It includes creating and managing ad campaigns, analyzing customer data, and generating leads.

The [future of marketing in AI](https://ied.eu/blog/how-ai-transforming-the-future-of-digital-marketing/#:~:text=Since the rise of AI,%2C and self-driving automobiles.) holds a lot of promise. For businesses, the benefits of AI marketing include increased efficiency, better customer targeting, and improved results. For customers, AI marketing can lead to more personalized experiences and relevant content.

AI advertising is one of the most promising applications of AI marketing. By using AI to automate the creation and management of ad campaigns, businesses can save a lot of time and money on guesswork and experimentation. Additionally, AI in advertising can be more effective than traditional digital ads, as they can be targeted specifically to the customer’s needs and interests.

In the future, AI will play a more crucial role in marketing. As technology develops, we will see more and more applications of marketing AI and advertising. That list goes from automated email campaigns to personalized product recommendations.

Want to find out more? Read this article about all about AI marketing and the digital revolution.

AI: Described as Human Thinking as a Symbolic System?

Yes, if you look at the history of AI, it can be described as human thinking as a symbolic system. That’s because human beings are the only species that associate meaning with symbols. AI looks to emulate this online. AI uses symbols to reason and solves problems. Symbolism is a key part of human cognition, and AI can be seen attempting to mimic our own cognitive abilities.

However, AI is not just limited to human-like reasoning. You can also use it for more creative tasks, such as generating new ideas or creating art. In fact, some of the most successful AI applications combine logic and pseudo-creative thinking.

For example, Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence system has been used to create realistic 3D images from simple 2D sketches. And IBM’s Watson AI system has been used to generate new flavor combinations for food and drinks.

So, in summary, AI can be described as human thinking as a symbolic system, but also much more than that. It is an incredibly powerful tool to use for a wide range of practical and creative tasks. With the right application, AI has the potential to transform the way we live and work for the better.

Are you interested in exploring the world of opportunities AI can offer you? Depending on your needs, Wizard of Ads® works with leaders in the Artificial Intelligence universe. Book a call.

The First AI Programs – in Marketing and Advertising

Today, AI is used in several different ways, from helping fight crime to improving the accuracy of medical diagnoses. And as technology develops, even more, fascinating and life-changing applications will likely be found for it. Who knows what the future of AI holds?

At least we can go through the past and a brief history of AI in advertising.

1998: Amazon Begins Using “Collaborative Filtering”

In 1998, Amazon launched a now-defunct program called “MARKETPLACE” which used “collaborative filtering” to recommend products to customers based on their past purchase history.

2013: AI’s Natural Language Content

In 2013, natural language processing algorithms were used to automatically generate content summaries, making it easier for people to find the information they needed.

2014: AI Optimizes Decision-Making

In 2014, AI was used to create a system that could help make better decisions by accounting for several factors and objectives.

2015: AI User Intent Capability

In 2015, AI was used to develop a system that could understand user intent to provide more relevant search results.

2016: AI Speech Recognition

It wasn’t until 2016 that AI was used to develop a speech recognition system that could understand human speech.

AI is Transforming the Face of Digital Marketing – A Digital Revolution?

Artificial intelligence  continues to play a bigger role in marketing. As technology evolves, advancements in decision-making, automation, and content creation will transform the face of digital marketing.

One of the most significant ways is the expertise gained from using AI. Marketing components, such as customer segmentation and target audience analysis, can be completed more accurately, quickly, and effectively using AI.

In addition, AI is also helping automate some marketing tasks traditionally carried out by people. This includes marketing tasks such as content creation, social media management, and email marketing.

Several AI marketing tools are available on the market. These tools can help businesses automate their marketing processes and gain customer insights.

In Google Search Algorithm

Google is using AI to improve its search algorithm. In 2015, they announced the RankBrain update, which used machine learning to fully comprehend user queries. Then, in 2016, they announced the Panda 4.0 update, which used artificial intelligence to identify low-quality content.

These updates demonstrate how AI is transforming the face of digital marketing. With each new update, Google understands user intent better and delivers more relevant results. That means that marketers need to be aware of how AI is changing the landscape of search engine optimization (SEO).

Marketing Automation and Personalization

One of the most vital applications of AI marketing is personalization. Personalization is the process of tailoring content and offers to an individual user’s needs and preferences.

It’s become increasingly easy to collect data on users’ behavior. With the help of cookies, trackers, and other technologies, businesses can gather data on what users do online and offline. That includes finding out what they buy, where they go, and more. You can use this data to create profiles that reveal users’ interests, needs, and desires.

With this information, businesses can send personalized content to users through email, ads, website experiences, and more. This kind of content is more likely to convert leads into prospects and prospects into loyal customers.

Personalized content is not a new concept. It’s been around for centuries in the form of direct mail marketing. However, with the advent of digital marketing, businesses now can personalize the content on a much larger scale. And with the help of data and technology, they can do it more accurately than ever before.

AI Content Writing

The rise of artificial intelligence has led to the development of new content writing tools that can help businesses create personalized content at scale. These AI-powered tools use natural language processing (NLP) to analyze data and understand user intent. They then generate personalized content relevant to the user’s needs and desires.

Some of the most popular AI content writing tools on the market include:

• Persado: Persado uses AI to generate emotionally intelligent content that resonates with readers. It analyzes data points such as age, gender, and location to understand what kind of language will resonate with each reader.
• QuillBot: QuillBot is an AI-powered writing assistant that helps businesses create better content faster. It analyzes data points such as topic, tone, and audience to make suggestions on how to improve the quality of your writing.
• Articoolo: Articoolo is a tool that can generate articles on any topic in minutes. It uses NLP to understand the user’s desired topic and then creates an outline for an article. The user can then edit the article and add their content.
• WordAi: WordAi is a tool that helps you spin articles and create unique content. This tool also uses NLP to understand the user’s desired topic and creates an outline for an article. The user can also edit the article and add their content.
• Content Creation Tools: These tools help businesses create better content faster. They analyze data points such as topic, tone, and audience to make suggestions on how to improve the quality of your writing.
• SEO Tools: These tools help businesses optimize their website for search engines. They analyze data points such as keyword density, meta tags, and backlinks to make recommendations on improving your website’s ranking.
• Social Media Tools: These tools help businesses manage their social media accounts. They provide scheduling, reporting, and analytics features to help businesses grow their reach and engagement.
• Email Marketing Tools: These tools help businesses send newsletters, promotional emails, and other automated messages. They provide segmentation, personalization, and autoresponders features to help businesses increase leads and sales.
• Analytics Tools: These tools help businesses track their website’s performance. They provide data on website traffic, conversion rates, and other key metrics to help businesses improve their online presence.
• Web Design Tools: These tools help businesses create beautiful, responsive websites. They provide features such as templates, drag-and-drop editors, and custom-coded solutions to help businesses build websites that their customers will love.

Email marketing tools, analytics tools, and web design tools are just a few of the many types of marketing technology that businesses can use to grow their reach and engagement. Each tool type provides different features and benefits, so it’s crucial to choose the right ones for your business. By using the right marketing technology, you can take your business to the next level.

Personalized content is an effective way to reach and engage your target audience. With the help of AI-powered tools, you can easily create personalized content at scale. So if you want to improve your content marketing strategy, give these tools a try.

AI-Driven CRM

Customer relationship management (CRMs) are software that helps businesses manage their customer data and interactions.

AI-driven CRM tools take things a step further by using artificial intelligence to automate some of the most common tasks, such as lead generation and customer segmentation. It allows businesses to focus on more essential tasks, such as building customer relationships.

Some of the most popular AI-driven CRM tools on the market include:

• Salesforce Einstein
• HubSpot Sales Hub
• ZohoSalesIQ
• OroCRM
• SugarCRM

If you’re looking for a way to improve your customer relationships, then AI-driven CRM tools are definitely worth considering. These tools can help you automate some of the most common tasks, freeing your time to focus on more important things.

Are you a residential home services business owner? Are you interested in exploring the digital revolution that is AI? Wizard of Ads® can point you in the right direction. Book a call.