Kingfisher Marketing Group provides a unified marketing approach with all services under one roof offering, direct sales and marketing jobs across New York. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.kingfishermarketinggroup.com

We wish the team at Kingfisher Marketing Group the best of success.

If you’ve been approaching web design agencies or freelancers with a view to getting your first website or a revamp of your current one, you might be worried about going with the wrong company. Will they create your vision properly? Will they abandon you halfway through the job and leave you with an unfinished, non-working website? Or will they be a nightmare to work with?

These are all valid fears, but being a nightmare to work with works both ways. You want a great website that hits all the sweet spots and brings in lots of new business. Well, it helps if you’re a good web design customer, too. You might think it’s down to the web designer to do what you tell them – that the customer’s always right, etc., but this won’t do you any favors and it certainly won’t get the best out of your partnership.

So, how can you be a good web design customer and not a nightmare? Here are a few tips.

Don’t Let Your First Question Be: “How Much Does a Website Cost?”

Yes, of course you want to know how much a website’s going to cost. But until the designer knows the scope and extent of the work, they can’t give you an accurate estimate. Have a look through their portfolio to see who their clients are and if their sites are similar to what you need. This way, you’ll not only see if they can undertake a site on the scale you’re after. If their portfolio is full of fashion brands and you’re an accountant, you might not be the best fit for each other.

Once you’ve found a few designers you like the look of, let them know the kind of site you’re looking for along with your budget. They’ll let you know if that’s something they can work with. You wouldn’t expect a decorator to know how much they should charge to decorate your house until they’ve seen exactly what it is you want done, would you? It’s the same with web design.

Have a Good Idea of What You’re Looking For

Web designers aren’t mind readers. Although you might not know exactly what you want, it’ll be helpful to have some idea of sites you like or dislike. Also include info on why you like or dislike them.

There’s a good chance you’ll be sent a questionnaire to fill in and there’s also a good chance it will be long and daunting. But fill it in as completely and with as much detail as you can. It’s a key document that will help your designer know the type of site you’re after, design- and functionality-wise.

Make a List

Most small businesses need a small site. You can go a long way to becoming a good web design customer by listing the pages you need, for example: a home page, an about page, a contact form, a services page, a features page, and your terms and conditions. Just list the pages you think you’ll need, and you’re well on your way to a proper spec.

Write Some Copy

The number one thing on any website is the words. Cast your fancy graphics and transitions aside, because people will not glean anything from your website without reading the words. Heed this advice: copy comes before design. So, draft some words, start at your homepage and write down what you want to say. If that’s too hard (because copywriting is hard) then try the about page – write about yourself, what do you want to say?

If you’re stuck, then start with the easy stuff and write down what you want to say on your contact form – what do the field labels say? Every little nugget of copy helps the designer get a better understanding of what you want.

Give the Web Designer What They’ve Requested

For you to be a good web design customer and your web designer to do their job properly, you need to give them exactly what they’ve asked for and how they’ve asked for it. For example, if you’ve been asked to provide large hi-res images in a Dropbox link, don’t send a Word document embedded with small compressed images.

Also, don’t just dump everything on them and disappear. Answer their queries promptly and let them have anything else they need, such as copy and images as and when they ask.

Don’t Ask for Free Major Changes After It’s Complete

Your site’s finished and you decide you don’t like blue after all and you want it to be more pink. A few tweaks to get your site exactly how you want it is fine, but with a nod to the decorating analogy above, you wouldn’t expect your decorator to repaint your house pink for free, after you’d asked them to paint it blue, would you?

Don’t Expect to be Number One on Google the Next Day

If you’ve chosen a decent web designer (which you will have done if you’ve read this post covering questions to ask your web designer), they’ll have built you a user-friendly, accessible site with fast-loading images, etc., which are all things that make Google happy.

There’s a lot involved with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that might be out of their scope (optimized content, for example), but you can ask at the beginning how they can help with this and what you can expect. Just don’t expect miracles.

These are just a few ways you can make your web designer’s job easier and make you a good web design customer. A good working relationship makes things easier for everyone and leaves everyone happy.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Gary Bury
Gary Bury is co-founder and CEO of Timetastic, an independent and profitable web app for managing time off work, used by thousands of companies around the world.

Article Source: www.smallbusinessbonfire.com

Originally Posted on: Jan 10, 2021

Email marketing is one of the digital marketing strategies used by small businesses to generate leads and drive more sales. 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.

While some record a lot of success with it, others don’t. Businesses that don’t have digital marketing experts to help them with email marketing may struggle.

If your business isn’t having success with email marketing, this article should help. Here are five email marketing mistakes small businesses make and how to fix them.

Let’s first look at the basics.

How does email marketing help small businesses with their marketing? Email marketing:

• Builds trust and strong relationships with customers through frequent helpful emails
• Cuts down on advertising costs with a large email list
• Offers solutions to problems because it understands the pain points of the target audience

Let’s go to the common mistakes.

#1. Not analyzing email campaigns using A/B Testing

You may have launched different email campaigns and never bothered to analyze your results to evaluate if you met your goals. In email marketing, the only way to improve your results is to analyze the success of your campaigns.

Assessing how your audience reacts to your emails when they land in their inbox is key.

How to fix it

Use an A/B Testing feature to analyze various campaigns you launched, and the results related to your marketing goals. Email marketing software like SendX has a feature that allows you to test how your subscribers react to your subject line, content, call to action button, etc.

#2. Lack of personalization in emails

How does it feel to receive an email with the sender not addressing you by your name?

Sometimes you might see it as spam. And that’s how some of your audience may react when you send them emails without personalizing them. Occasionally, they may immediately trash it (or even block you) – even though they willingly signed up to receive your emails.

That means they haven’t given you the chance to convert them into buyers.

How to fix it

For a small business that has a blog and acquires subscribers through sign-up forms, ensure you create a field for first name. That way, your audience will enter their first name when signing up.

Also, be sure to check that your message is inserting the first name correctly by sending yourself a test email. Don’t skip this!

#3. Sending emails without segmentation

If you don’t segment your email list, you’re likely to send emails to a person who didn’t subscribe to a particular list. That’s annoying and will turn some people off.

How to fix it

Email marketing software like HubSpot Marketing Hub has the segmentation feature. Use it to categorize your subscribers according to the list they signed up for.

#4. Adding a broken link

When you launch email campaigns, you may add a link that will send your subscribers to another page. Sometimes those links are broken and a customer will get a 404 error (page not found).

How to fix it

Check any link you add to your email campaign to be sure it is working.

#5. Forgetting a call to action button

Call to action buttons are important for your subscribers to convert to sales. If it’s missing, your subscribers may find it difficult to understand what you want them to do.

How to fix it

Use a bold, clear, and simple call to action button telling your subscribers what you want them to do. An example could be “Learn more here” or “Claim your discount now.”

Also, be sure to place it in an obvious location where it will be visible.

Email marketing can help you grow your small business – but only if you do it right.

The mistakes discussed here stop small businesses from seeing results. Implement the solutions offered the next time you launch an email campaign to improve your email marketing.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Chuks Chukwuemeka
Chuks Chukwuemeka is a Content Creator, Blogger and Digital Marketer. He’s the founder of Depreneurdigest, a blog that focuses on helping online businesses succeed. He specializes on providing consultancy services to small businesses on how to grow their online presence through blogging.

Article Source: www.carolroth.com

You may have thought of social media as a passing fad, but it's clear that it is not. Businesses everywhere are now looking to social media to help spread the word about what they do. Can social media and blogs help with business development? Here’s how you can use them.

Develop a relationship with your audience

The communications you put out on social media don’t happen in a vacuum. Whenever you make a post, you’re starting a conversation with your audience. It’s the easiest way to get talking to your customers and really find out what they want. Customers also appreciate when companies respond to their queries online too, so you can build up goodwill this way.

Business development is cost effective with social media

Any business can get started on social media, as it’s totally free to create an account. It won’t cost you a thing to keep posting and interacting with your followers. When it comes to getting the word out there, there’s pretty much no cheaper option. There’s a reason why start ups love using social media.

Even if you do want to advertise, most social media advertising packages are particularly low cost options. You really can get the word out there, without breaking the bank.

There are online tools to help you

Even if social media looks easier, getting the balance right can be difficult. Luckily, there are lots of tools online that will help you get the most out of your online presence. Here are some good services to get you started:

• Blogs and Resources: These blogs offer all kinds of helpful advice on social media, including how to deal with negative feedback and how to use certain social networks for business.
• Wordstream: This cost effective service helps you get the most out of your advertising, and helps you generate more leads through social media and blogging.

Social media has a huge reach

There’s no bigger audience than that on social media. On Facebook alone, it’s estimated that 65% of US adults are using it. When you think of it like that, it’s almost compulsory for you to create and maintain an account. You’ll never have a bigger audience, so be sure to take advantage of it.

Share more about what you do

Want to reduce some of the mystery about your business? give your customers a glimpse behind the curtain? Then social media lets you do that. You can share as much as you’d like with your audience, encouraging them to trust you and buy from you. Getting your brand known to the world by social media and blogs are an easy way to see business development.

Social media posts are indexed by Google, so you can get more information out there about what you’re doing.

Social media is everywhere! Almost no one would be caught dead without their smartphone these days. That means that they’re constantly connected to their social media accounts, 24/7. You can take advantage of this by making sure you’re posting regularly. That way, whenever they open up the Twitter app when waiting for the bus, they’re more likely to be exposed to your work potentially leading to increased business development.

As you can see, social media is vital to a modern online presence. Maintain accounts correctly, and you can reach out to more people than ever before. Give it a try for yourself, and you’ll see how much your audience grows.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Rachel Summers
Author at Exodus Digital Marketing.

Article Source: http://www.exodus-digital-marketing.co.uk/

Ever since Instagram launched in 2010, it has steadily scaled from a photo-sharing app to a marketing platform. With the introduction of Instagram Stories, IGTV, Q & A Instagram Live, new profile view, video calling, shoppable posts, push notifications, and insights along with several other new features, it is clear that Instagram is turning into the most powerful marketing tool for businesses. In 2020, Instagram released nineteen innovative features to improve user experience and engage more customers.

One feature that was introduced in 2016 and has gained a significant amount of momentum has been Insta-stories with over five-hundred million daily active users. While the idea of Instagram stories was picked up from Snapchat, Instagram has added augmented filters, question poll, GIF stickers, hashtags, music, emoji slider, and a lot of other improvements to increase interactivity and bring in more sales. You even have the option to add multiple photos or videos from your camera roll to your Insta-story. Stories disappear after twenty-four hours, but they can live permanently on your profile through Instagram Story Highlights.

What are Instagram Story Highlights?

Instagram Highlights are archived photos or stories that you can pin to your profile. In other words, once your story vanishes after twenty-four hours, they become a part of your archived gallery. You can either create a Highlight by adding stories from your archived gallery or save it directly as a Highlight after you upload a story. Note that they will remain for your followers to see until you choose to remove them.

Instagram Story Highlights gives clarity to your profile by allowing users or consumers to identify the personality of your brand or business. Brands use story highlights to feature their events and promotions, showcase their products or services, and so on. This long-story format has helped many brands draw in more consumers and build a stronger connection with followers. However, if you want to take full advantage of Instagram stories and integrate them into your digital marketing strategies, you need to be aware of all that Instagram Story Highlights has to offer.

Here are a few ways you can effectively use Instagram Story Highlights to represent your brand in the best possible manner.

Tip #1: Categorize your highlights.

When a new user visits your profile, they will likely view your Instagram Story Highlights after reading your bio. To make a great first impression on them and potential customers, it is advisable to organize your content into distinct categories by creating multiple story highlights. For instance, if you have a catering business, you can create separate highlights for your recipes, recent events, client reviews. By utilizing Highlights to categorize your stories, it allows you to display your most valuable content to your followers and gives you the freedom to set the tone for your brand image.

Tip #2: Keep a short name for your story highlights.

By naming each story highlight, you are summarizing exactly what you do or offer in a few letters. Ideally, the entire name or title of your highlight should fit within the area. However, as it is a small space, there is a limit on the number of characters your highlight can have. Ideally, it should be up to fifteen characters long, but if you want it to be fully displayed, keep your highlight name around ten characters.

Tip #3: Use a custom cover image for each highlight.

If you want to come across as a professional brand and set yourself apart from the competition, consider uploading a custom highlight cover to give your profile a cohesive look. Make sure your cover image is not only eye-catching but also in line with your brand identity. You can either design a cover on Instagram or use more resourceful editing apps or software. To establish uniformity, try to create similar covers for your highlights; it could be adding a standard color or background, typography, image, etc.

While Instagram is continually rolling out new features and updates to help business owners boost their brand, there are other digital marketing strategies such as SEO, email marketing, content management, social media promotion that can raise brand awareness and fuel business growth.

As a leading provider of digital marketing services in North America, Webware.io has helped hundreds of small businesses successfully navigate the digital landscape and create a powerful online presence. By providing all the tools, services, and support in one place, your business gets everything it needs to grow.

To learn more about our services, check out our website, or book a growth session to learn more about how our team can help.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Melinda Viegas

Article Source: www.webware.io

Fenstermann LLC offers custom window treatment services including window coverings, blinds, and shades in hundreds of fabrics, prints, and colors across Toronto, Ontario, Montreal, Quebec. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.fenstermann.ca

We wish the team at Fenstermann LLC the very best of success.

FLO State Studio - Yoga & Pilate Studio in Oklahoma City, OK, offers yoga, pilates, HIIT, and HIIP classes. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.flostatestudio.com

We wish the yoga & pilates instructors at FLO State Studio the best of success.

Heart & Soil LLC offers realty services, home staging services, knock home swap, drone, and notary services across Arizona.  To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.hasarizona.com

We wish the team at Heart & Soil LLC the very best of success.

Breakthru Your Health offers disease and infection prevention supplements and immunity-boosting supplements that are shipped across Canada, the United States, and internationally. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.breakthruyourhealth.com

We wish the team at Breakthru Your Health the best of success.

Upper Appleby Eyecare provides comprehensive eye health assessments, ocular disease diagnosis and treatment, and other eye care services to patients from in and around Burlington. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.upperapplebyeyecare.com

We wish the team at Upper Appleby Eyecare the very best of success.

If you’re a small business owner that cares about your success, then you probably already have a website. It’s important to understand that with so much competition online, merely having a website is not enough. The key question is whether your website is actually working for your business. Furthermore, how much available time do you have to maintain your website without affecting your day-to-day operations?

If your website is not bringing in enough traffic or you spend too much time trying to figure out how you can be successful online, then you probably need some help. Here are 10 most common signs that you need help with your website:

1. Your website is not mobile responsive. Even worse, you’re not sure what mobile responsiveness is. You want to make sure that your website is designed to fit all devices so you can provide a consistent user experience without sacrificing results.
   
   80% of online users in 2019 used mobile devices when searching the internet. On top of that, if your website is not designed for mobile you will notice a big drop in your search engine rankings or might not even get ranked at all. If you’re interested in learning more about how your website’s responsiveness could be affecting your ability to be found on search engines, you should speak to an expert immediately.
2. You know SEO is important, but don’t know how to get it to work for you. If you don’t know how to utilize Search Engine Optimization tools, this is a sign that you need help. SEO is an essential component of a successful and effective online strategy. Search engines, like Google, run algorithms that measure a number of criteria on your website when deciding where to rank it in the search results. Some of the things that affect your SEO include keyword selection, website content, mobile-friendliness, internal & external links, search relevance, site structure, location, and the overall quality (load speed, duplicate pages, broken links, etc.).
   
   If you can’t find your own website online, how do you expect your customers to find it? If you have trouble finding your website online, without typing in your business name, then that means there is plenty of room to optimize it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an essential website practice that makes it easier for search engines, like Google, to find you. There are a number of online practices and strategies, which will affect your website’s SEO. Being able to implement and execute these practices effectively will drastically improve your ability to be found online.
    

   

3. Your website has little to no traffic. If your website has very little or declining traffic, then that is a clear sign that you need to adjust your current website strategy. Even in heavily saturated industries, there are always opportunities to improve your rankings by trying out new keywords and increasing links. A little help from SEO experts can go a long way.
   
   Sure, there are tons of places where you can go online to learn about setting up your website's SEO, but how much time do you really have to become an SEO expert? Developing a high-quality SEO strategy for your business is a complex process. You need to make sure that your content development, website design, and overall brand story work together to engage audiences. If you feel like ongoing SEO planning and maintenance is outside of your comfort, you will likely need some help.
4. Your website visitors are not moving past your home page. If your website has a high bounce rate, your visitors are either clicking the “back” button to leave your site, closing the tab, or going dormant. In any case, your website is not captivating them which could be due to a few things:
   • The keywords your audience is searching for does not fit your content.
   • Your content and messaging is confusing or difficult to understand.
   • Your website is difficult to navigate.
   • You do not have the right CTAs (Calls to Action)
   • Your website is attracting the wrong traffic.

   Whatever the reason, if your website visitors aren’t moving past the initial landing page, now is a good time for a general website review.

5. Your website isn’t updated regularly. Regular updates help search engines understand that you have an active website with relevant content. If your website does not contain keyword rich content, a regularly updated blog, and consistent updates, you will likely see a decline in traffic which will affect your search engine rankings. If you’re unsure of the type of content that you need to add to your website, how to edit or add pages, or don’t even have time to manage a blog, you probably need to speak to an expert to get you on track.
6. Your website has 404 error pages. You might have seen these messages in the past when you visit a link or a website page and see a message that the URL doesn’t exist anymore. This is either because the page was moved or deleted. This can be an annoying and frustrating experience for visitors who are navigating your website and searching for information. Search engines like Google do not like 404 errors either. This will be reflected in the search engine results page (SERP) with a low rank. A review for 404 error messages and broken links should be a regular part of your website maintenance plan.
7. Your website was designed by you. This might have been an important first step in establishing your initial online presence, but successful companies understand how their website can be used as an effective tool to generate business. A well designed website will help you drive more traffic, improve the user experience, and deliver new leads for your business. If your website doesn't look professional, you could be turning away valuable customers.
   
   Professional web designers don’t just create a beautiful website. They understand the psychology behind how a user behaves when they arrive on your website. The chances are that if you’re busy running the day to day operations of your business, you do not have the time nor the expertise to manage your website properly along with all the other optimization activities needed .
8. Your website doesn’t have an online marketing plan. Even if your online marketing strategy is not complex, this is still something that needs to be carefully considered. Start by asking yourself the following questions:
   • What is the goal of your website?
   • What do you want your customers and prospects to do when they get to your website?
   • How is the user experience going to guide the customer to achieve that desired outcome?
   • Why should they care?
   • More importantly, how are you going to get them to your website?
   
   
   If these questions are not keeping you up at night, maybe they should be. Website design, blogging, having a social media presence, email marketing, reputation management, as well as the initial and ongoing development of your SEO, are all things that need to be considered in your online marketing plan. Many of these marketing channels can be executed for free, but can be daunting if you’re trying to manage them all on your own. You also do not want to be engaging with multiple vendors in order to understand what’s working and what’s not working for you. Without a plan for finding new customers, continuing to keep customers, and converting online traffic, your website may not be as effective as you expected.
9. You don’t know exactly who your ideal customers are. If you don't have a good idea of who your best customers are, you probably should. Not only will this help you create better content to engage them, you will be able to add other elements such as promotions and videos to better communicate with them. This will help your website and business stay top-of-mind to keep people coming back.
   
   At the end of the day, your website should be contributing to your business. If any of the 10 signs mentioned stand out for your, then it is likely that you could benefit from some help with your website. Making the decision to update your online presence could be one of the most valuable decisions you could ever make for your business.
   
   Not sure where to start? Webware.io offers a complete tool-kit to help businesses navigate the internet. Your toolkit includes: a content website or an ecommerce website, blog plus all the digital services your website needs to thrive online.

There are seemingly countless things to feel uncertain about right now, but we can be sure of one thing – online shopping will continue to be a big part of most Americans’ lives. We can also be sure that the holiday shopping this year will be unlike any we’ve seen before. Is your online store ready? Whether you’re peddling pet clothes, furniture, or even medical essentials, you’re going to see a surge in orders as the pandemic holiday crush arrives. Here’s some easy-to-digest advice on shoring up your online store before the winter rush.

Make It Easy, Make It Clean

Regardless of how long your ecommerce solution has been live, there is probably an opportunity to smooth some rough edges. Double check to ensure your order process is simple, quick, and seamless. Go through the process yourself to make sure the road to check out is less than four clicks. Make sure all the information your customer needs, like photos, specs, and reviews are skimmable on one page. Choose the product, add delivery or pickup address, billing information, and you should be at the end.

If you’re currently asking customers to sign up for an account or email list, or bouncing them in and out of their cart every time they add an item, you’re likely to lose a chunk of potential sales. Make setting up an account or opting in to emails a one-click situation at the end of the process.

After you have done a gut check, check the data. At what point are customers bouncing from your site or abandoning their cart? Give those bits a closer look, and if the issue isn’t obvious you may want a review by a user experience designer.

Reassure Your Customer at Checkout

There are some simple ways to reassure your customers that you’re legit even if you’re a new brand.. PayPal and Visa both offer checkout options which you can add to your website. These payments are processed and backed by huge companies, ones which most people recognize immediately. Additionally, computer security companies like Norton can provide digital seals for your checkout page, as can the Better Business Bureau. Small logos and confirmations of steps taken can lead to a trusted relationship between the user and the checkout process.

Consider a Subscription Service

Everything from household goods to whiskey flights have adopted the subscription-based model. Monster brands like Amazon rely heavily on committed monthly refills of goods like toilet paper and soap, while smaller companies like coffee and pet food providers are starting to see the benefits of subscribed customers. Not only can it lower the costs for both you and your customers, it can help predict future income and give your business valuable insight into your own inventory needs.

Upgrade Your Server Capacity

We’ve all been there. You go through all the steps to grab your favorite on-sale item, get to the check out, and are hit with an error message. It’s not uncommon these days for websites to collapse under increased demand. Some customers may try a second or third time, but many will give up after the first. Check with your website host and see if there’s other tiers you can upgrade your service to. Often you can pay more to accommodate increased data usage and processing power, and you can quickly cover that cost by creating a shopping experience your customers are happy to repeat.

Provide Support During the Holiday

Ok, so you’ve made sure your warehouse is stocked, upgraded your server, and provided a seamless checkout process for your customers. No matter how much work you put in, something will eventually go wrong. Be sure to provide access to customer service for your customers, whether that’s an easy-to-find phone number, a designated chat bot on the website, or contact information provided with the order confirmation email. Even if something goes wrong, a helpful and eager solution can actually enhance the customer’s perception of your business.

Who’s Doing It Right?

There are plenty of companies, both large and small, who are getting it right when it comes to e-commerce. Their websites look awesome, their checkout processes are seamless, and they have excellent customer support. If you’re looking for some inspiration, take a gander at websites like Casper, Chewy, Warby Parker, and our client, Accu-Chek. While some require a few more steps to customize the order (Warby needs your prescription, Chewy has a bespoke subscription service), they all offer amazing customer service, simple pathways to checkout, and easy-to-navigate websites.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Mike Metz
Mike Metz is the co-founder and CEO of FATFREE, a full-service digital marketing agency providing lean solutions for businesses of all sizes. Since founding the agency in 2005, Mike has developed a talented team of innovators that guide clients in deploying digital strategies that have a meaningful impact on business.

Article Source: www.smallbizdaily.com

Originally Posted on: November 12, 2020

How do you market during uncertainty to keep your business going?

When‌ ‌your‌ ‌business‌ ‌faces‌ ‌unpredictable‌ ‌health‌ ‌and‌ ‌economic‌ ‌challenges‌ ‌how‌ ‌ do‌ ‌you‌ ‌do‌ ‌handle

• Lost revenue, longer sales cycles, and delayed payments,
• Reduced budgets including employee layoffs, and
• Less resource and supply chain availability and/or obstacles.

But don’t worry-you’ve got this!

Because major corporations, competitors and substitute offerings face the same problems.

So let’s examine the strategies you can use to navigate this uncertainty. As a result, your business keeps going, maintains brand visibility, and builds the resilience and foundation for future growth.

Use Data To Inform Your Marketing During Uncertainty

Living in the most connected world to date, global events and trends have an impact on your business and marketing regardless of your focus or geographical footprint.

Macro Trends Create Uncertainty For Businesses And Individuals Globally

COVID-19 has created health and economic uncertainty so people face very real health concerns that can result in death. Further, we lack the data to predict this virus’s longevity or chance of recurrence. To slow its spread, non-essential businesses are closed.

At a macro-level regardless of business focus or location, you face 3 major trends:

• The longevity of COVID-19 and its spread across geographic locations remains unknown. On average, people believe that the impact of COVID-19 will last over 6 months globally. Businesses and schools are work remotely and/or cancel operations. As a result consumers, cancel, restrict and/or redirect spending. This accounts for roughly 70% of the US economy.

  

• The start of a US economic slowdown, the economy shrank by an annualized 4.8% in 1Q2020. Since the coronavirus creates rapid changes in demand, this decline could reach 40% on an annualized basis.

  

• The move to school and work-from-home, and to online buying and streaming entertainment accelerates digital transformation.

To keep your business going think scrappy, lean startup. Study the current playing field for your business, its product categories, and broader markets to find opportunities and problems.

Look for new ways to work in current unfilled needs and/or other ways to focus your business resources.

Also involve people from across your organization in this process to get insights based on their skillsets.

Actionable Marketing During Uncertainty Tips:

• Analyze global business markets for potential opportunities and risks.
• Examine major players across categories since their global reach yields greater internal information. Also assess different industries for insights and work approaches.
• Reassess your competitive field across channels to determine their approach.

Micro Consumer Trends Create Business And Marketing Uncertainty

COVID-19 has a complex and uneven impact on consumer behavior.

Because people:

• Moved to shelter-in-place with family or safer locations causing unusual buying demand.
• Stocked up on food and other goods. This created short-term shortages and distribution issues, not manufacturing or resource problems.

Consumer increased purchases of:

• Foods, prepared and made-from-scratch due to people only eating at home.
• Household essentials.
• Entertainment to replace live options.
• Exercise equipment supplement gyms and other outdoor activities.

The impact of COVID-19 on oil prices acts as a broad economic indicator. Since global oil prices dropped to the lowest levels since the 1970s.

Because when sheltering-in-place, people don’t:

• Commute to work and school.
• Drive to recreational activities and socializing.
• Do non-essential shopping.
• Travel for work or vacations. This also hurts related industries like airlines, hotels and business conferences.

Short-term behavior changes include:

• Increased school and work-from-home. While businesses changed to remote work quickly, they may re-think on-site jobs in the future.
• More healthy habits including family time, food preparation and exercise.

But these changes lack:

• Dedicated work spaces, technology and software, and work-grade internet connectivity when everyone is home 24/7.
• Support systems including schools, childcare and eldercare.
• Time and/or space to decompress increasing mental fatigue and/or anger.

Your marketing during uncertainty must answer:

How will my business meet new or unfilled needs from these changes?

Actionable Marketing During Uncertainty Tips:

• Plan for 3 distinct business phases:
  1.  Active COVID-19 sheltering-in-place
  2.  Slow emergence from COVID-19
  3. New “Normal”

RECOMMENDED READING:

Consumer Attention

Marketing During Uncertainty: 5 Tactics To Keep Your Business Going For The Long Term

When facing health and economic uncertainty, marketers have a responsibility to:

• Bring in sales to cover short-term costs to keep their businesses open,
• Take care employees, customers and community, and
• Keep their businesses and brands visible and viable for the long-term

During the current crisis and beyond allocate scarce resources to support your audience and improve and/or expand existing assets.

So you prove marketing’s ability to drive profitable revenues . In the process, you lay the foundation for future business growth and an expanded marketing role going forward.

1. Assess Current Business Financials And Resources

   With senior management and other departments, examine your business’s actual sales, costs and resources on hand NOW. Also track outstanding receivables and unpaid bills.

   Revenue:

   • Understand your cashflow. Examine the source of current revenues and percentage of sales closed and collected. Check the past 30 days and recent weeks to show true sales during this period.
   • Analyze each product and/or service for on-going demand. Determine the resources needed to create, market and distribute them. Also, assess customers’ ability to pay.
   • Identify products and/or services with reduced demand. Find the cause. Include lack of short-term need, limited internal resources, distribution problems, and/or ability to pay.
   • Assess customers and leads. Start with your best customers. They account for most of your profitable sales. Examine them by different segments to see trends.

   Expenses:

   • Reduce unnecessary costs without hurting current and/or future growth.
   • Keep employees working even with reduced hours or salary.
   • Provide necessary support to communities where you do business, and
   • Adjust marketing spend to meet audience needs and stay visible.

   Supply chain for a global, national and/or local changes:

   • Track inputs for products and/or services. What do you have in stock? Do suppliers still have resources? Do you have cash to buy them? Is geographic location an issue? Do you anticipate problems getting inputs?
   • Check distribution for products and/or services. Are stores and/or other outlets closed or out-of-business? Do substitute distribution channels exist? Can sales move online?

   Cashflow opportunities:

   • Assess pricing changes. But measure fully-loaded costs before cutting prices.
   • Add other forms of payments. Include online and limited touch options. Also, change terms for key customers.
   • Renegotiate expenses including rent, resources and/or salaries.
   • Assess co-marketing and/or barter opportunities.
    

   

   RECOMMENDED READING:

   • How To Calculate Sales
   • How To Determine Costs
2. Help Leadership Show The Path Forward During Current Challenges

   While more trusted than government leaders and officials, your CEO is less trusted than your technical experts and regular employees. (2020 Edelman Trust Barometer)

   

   To build trust during the COVID-19 uncertainty, encourage your senior leaders to speak truthfully and transparently without sugar-coating or misrepresenting facts. Further, they should propose achievable solutions with realistic deadlines.

   During COVID-19, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has shown this type of leadership by:

   • Meeting with state and local officials and government employees, health providers, businesses, and others.
   • Working with other governors and the federal government to redistribute resources to COVID-19 hotspots based on need.
   • Staying visible and talking honestly about the virus and the economy.

   Actionable Marketing During Uncertainty Tips:

   • Work with senior executives to determine what your organization can and/or must do across locations. Also provide care for essential employees who must work.
   • Redistribute work and customer interactions based on need.
   • Create trustworthy, consistent messaging and communications with your c-suite and front-line managers.
   • Coach senior executives and other public-facing managers on presentation skills and work-from-home technology. Beyond empathetic messaging, help them to present an in-touch image. This includes: appropriate clothes, lighting, background and practice.

   RECOMMENDED READING:

   • How To Build Customer Trust
3. Support Your Business’s Broader Audience

   Your business’s audience extends to your employees, customers, supply chain, and local community.

   

   According to Tien Tzuo, Zuora CEO, a subscription software platform:

   “[i]t’s time to double down on relationships. … If the Subscription Economy is about anything, it’s about a fundamental return to relationships, as opposed to transactions.”

   During uncertain times your broad audience worries about their personal well being including health, home and financial means to take care of their family.

   So skip advertising as if nothing has changed. People dislike it! (GlobalWebIndex)

   

   Your business’ actions do matter, The crowdsourced, Did They Help, assesses brands reactions to COVID-19 in real time.

   

   Actionable Marketing During Uncertainty Tips:

   • Keep employees safe, especially essential frontline workers. Provide necessary protective work gear and instructions for proper use.
   • Set up and communicate special processes for this uncertain period to support employees, customers and/or others. Distribute and post this information across channels.
   • Reach out and offer to help your customers and local communities. Listen to what they say their challenges are and respond accordingly. When customers talked about the stress of child care and homeschooling, Degreed created an Activity Book for Kids.

     

   • Support local communities with money and/or necessary supplies. For example, New York hotel, The Four Seasons, transformed 225 of their rooms with enhanced safety protocols for medical workers.
4. Invest In Marketing To Grow Your Business The Long-Term

   Research proves continued marketing helps businesses to survive economic downturns. So show your marketing value to avoid management’s urge to cut your staff and budget.

   Bain & Co’s Great Recession analysis of 3,900 companies worldwide revealed 2 types of performance during and after the 2008 economic downturn.

   • Winners grew at a 17% compound annual growth rate (or CAGR) during the downturn and increased growth to an average 13% CAGR after it!
   • Losers remained flat during the downturn and barely increased post-downturn.

   

   So align and optimize your marketing during this uncertainty!

   Use a variety of tactics like small businesses during the Great Recession.

   

   Also, continue advertising during a downturn since:

   • Lower advertising rates due to reduced demand.
   • Easier to break-through and get attention due to fewer advertisers.
   • Improved brand image due to continued advertising stability.

   Actionable Marketing During Uncertainty Tips:

   • Take advantage of reduced advertising demand and prices to stay visible. P&G and Kellogg’s did this during the Great Depression.
   • Audit, assess, improve and optimize existing marketing assets to increase traffic and conversions and improve search rankings. Transform content into other formats and create new distribution presentations.
   • Review, create, and/or update customer acquisition, sales enablement, on-boarding and retention processes and communications.
   • Reach out and build customer relationships. Document and use these conversations to create different products, services and/or payment terms to maintain inflow.
   • Document internal processes. Where appropriate, adapt this information to create content.
   • Test co-marketing with peers and/or frenemies to expand reach.

   RECOMMENDED READING:

   • 7 Steps To Audit Your Content
   • 100+ Ways To Reuse, Repurpose And Repromote Your Content
5. Create The Foundation For Future Business Growth Post Uncertainty

   Regardless of your business type, size or location: Now is the time to think like a scrappy startup!
   CLICK TO TWEET

   Based on your financials (see Tactic 1):

   • Diversify and/or increase revenue streams and clients. (Also, consider business acquisitions),
   • Source new customers, suppliers and/or distributors to reduce risks, and
   • Reduce costs and/or un-market unprofitable customers.

   Your objective is to develop marketing resiliency so you can deal with environmental uncertainty.

   Actionable Marketing During Uncertainty Tips:

   Create new products, services and content to diversify revenues and/or take advantage of emerging trends and opportunities. Get ideas you can adapt to your specific strengths and resources from your competitive analysis.

   

   Based on client conversations, Jimmy Daly and his Animalz team applied “Paired Programming software collaboration” to content marketing. They created a new “test” offering, “Feedback As A Service”.

   It supports clients’ need for strategic content marketing guidance. Even better, it provides monthly recurring revenue.

   Do “Someday” Projects. Work on projects that your organization never finds time to do. Include fixing and cleaning factories and machinery, auditing company files, and repairing existing data.

   Prepare your teams for the “New Normal.” Use this time to upskill. Take free and/or low cost courses. Also attend virtual conferences. Employees seek highly transferable or flexible skills that help manage change.

   

   RECOMMENDED READING:

   • Best Business Books Recommended By 50 Marketers

Marketing During Uncertainty Conclusion

Marketing during uncertainty provides opportunities to create the basis for your business’s future growth.

While stress-inducing in the short-term, economic downturns change the business playing field to the advantage of astute marketers.

Start with your business’s actual sales, expenses and cashflows now to determine:

• Unnecessary costs you can eliminate (but take care to protect future growth),
• Products and services customers find attractive in this context to promote, and
• Customer collections worth renegotiating based on sales-to-date and payment history.

Then, use competitive analysis to find potential opportunities and/or unmet needs your business can fill. Where appropriate consider partnering to expand your reach..

Based on changing use and demand:

• Redistribute your paid promotion (including advertising) to keep your brand visible consistently over time.
• Change you messaging to be empathetic and relevant based on context to build your brand and trustworthiness.

Before you object about your lack of resources or experience:

Realize your peers face similar obstacles.

Further, the current uncertainty allows greater leeway to test new products and marketing.

So put on your big girl pants and find your path to future success for your business.

And if it doesn’t work out, then pivot to other more profitable options.

Article Source Credits:

Author: ‌Heidi‌ ‌Cohen
Heidi Cohen is the President of Riverside Marketing Strategies.

Article Source: heidicohen.com

Originally Posted on: May 4, 2020

Every brand wishes to become famous. Well, every entrepreneur, business owner, and marketer wishes for its brand to become famous.

But as you might guess, popularity doesn’t happen overnight. Not for brands. They don’t wake up famous; instead, slowly and steadily, they grow brand awareness.

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness defines the extent to which consumers are familiar with the qualities or image of a particular brand of goods or services.

The goal of marketing, PR, and even customer service is to grow brand awareness – to make sure people know the brand, talk about it, and recall it when the brand’s industry is discussed. These are the primary perks of brand awareness, but there are others, too.

Brand awareness fosters trust – people rarely buy important products from unknown brands. It creates brand equity – people pay more due to higher perceived value.

Brand awareness also creates communities of loyal customers who keep buying the brand’s products not just because they like them, but also because they associate themselves with the brand and feel as a part of the community. Think about the Apple vs. Microsoft battle, Coke vs. Pepsi; recall people who stick to the same brand over decades, be it cars or cereal.

How do you measure brand awareness?

Growing anything doesn’t work well without regular measuring. Brand awareness is no exception: despite the obvious difficulties – it’s impossible to accurately calculate how many people know your brand – it’s the metric you can’t ignore. In fact, it’s a number of metrics. And here’s how to get some numbers.

1. Surveys

   Asking a random selection of people over the phone or email whether they’ve heard about your brand is the first step to getting a vague understanding of brand awareness. Ideally, of course, the selection should be representative of your target audience.

   Asking existing customers how they heard about your brand is another approach which addresses a different issue. It gives you an understanding of how the word about your brand is spread and which channels are effective in growing brand awareness.

2. Social listening

   Social listening metrics are the metrics that get you as close to measuring brand awareness as possible. Social listening tools search for mentions of your brand (tagged and untagged) on social media networks, news sites, blogs, forums, and the web. They calculate the number of people talking about your brand, which must correlate with the number of people who know your brand.

   Besides, social listening tools show the overall sentiment of brand mentions, allowing you to dig deeper into how people feel about your product or service. Social listening metrics also include the Reach metric. Reach shows the number of people that see mentions of your brand online multiplied by the number of times they see them. This reveals whether you have influential brand advocates (e.g., social media influencers) and/or popular sources (BBC, CNN, etc.) that have mentioned your brand.

3. Website traffic

   Measuring website traffic is another way in which you can assess brand awareness, not as a total number, but as an increasing or decreasing metric.

   Unfortunately, Google Analytics doesn’t show the number of people who’ve arrived on your site by using branded keywords. All you can do in terms of assessing brand awareness is look at Direct traffic – these will be the people who’ve typed your URL into their address bar, along with the ones that arrived on your site through untracked links.

4. Search volume

   Search volume data adds to website traffic metrics. You can use Google Adwords Keyword Planner and Google Trends to check the volume of your brand searches over time. This, however, will only work if your brand name is unique.

   Unlike with social listening, you can’t add “negative keywords” to specify your search, so if your brand name is “Apple”, the data you get will be meaningless.

Top 3 tools to measure brand awareness

1. Survey Monkey

   

   Creating surveys isn’t as easy as you might assume. Survey Monkey does most of the work for you. It’s one of the best – and definitely most popular – survey tools out there, and it’s great for creating in-depth online surveys.

   Pricing: Free for Basic, $25/mo for Advantage, $75/mo for Premier, and Enterprise pricing is available upon request.

2. Awario

   

   Awario is a social listening tool. It crawls all major social media networks, news sites, blogs, forums, and the web for mentions of any given keyword (usually a brand). It analyzes mentions’ growth, reach, sentiment, as well as popular topics around the keywords and the authors’ gender, locations, and languages. It also finds brand advocates and industry influencers.

   The tool has a Boolean search option which ensures that the results include relevant mentions only, even if your brand name is a common or ambiguous word.

   Pricing: $29/mo for the Starter plan, $89/mo for Pro, and $299/mo for Enterprise. Save 2 months with a yearly plan and get a free 7-day trial.

3. Brandwatch

   

   Brandwatch is another social listening tool. It’s more sophisticated than Awario and fits enterprises and agencies better. Brandwatch covers all social networks, including niche and local ones, as well as review sites, news sites, comment sections, blogs, forums, and the web. The tool finds not only mentions of the brand’s name, but also images related to a brand, for example, its logo.

   The tool analyzes mentions’ growth, reach, and sentiment, and the authors’ demographics, psychographics, locations, and languages. It also reveals trends most popular in your niche.

   Pricing: Available upon request.

How do you grow brand awareness?

Now that you know how to keep an eye on your results, let’s talk about all (or some of) the ways you can grow brand awareness.

1. Social media marketing

   Social media is where communities are built. It’s where the word about a brand (or anything else) spreads far and wide.

   Interestingly enough, it’s also a place where people want to hear about brands and to talk about brands. Although social media is often perceived as a place to chat with friends and take part in political discussions and nothing else, for many, it’s also a place to talk to brands, to follow their news, and to discover them.

   66% of Facebook and 90% of Instagram users follow at least one brand. 80% of Twitter users have mentioned a brand in a tweet, and an average Twitter user follows five businesses.

   Social media marketing has many aims. Here are some of them:

   • Creating social communities around a brand;
   • Spreading the word using promotional, entertaining, and educational content, both from brands and user generated;
   • Attracting new people with your brand’s amazing personality that especially shines on social media.
2. Influencer marketing

   Influencer marketing is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing, and it’s especially useful for growing brand awareness. Influencers are the people with a large following by definition and if they advertise, review, or even simply mention a product, they get the word out.

   While offline influencers are usually extremely expensive, when it comes to online, there is a whole spectrum. You can find niche influencers with an average but dedicated following genuinely interested in products like yours. You can also find Internet celebrities with millions of followers. And, you can find anyone in between.

3. Content marketing

   Today, people turn to the Internet to find answers to all kinds of questions. And if your product or service might raise some, it’s time to answer them – for free.

   Creating free content attracts people looking for content and not, necessarily, ready to buy a product right now. Content gets spread around quicker than anything promotional. It’s the easiest way to establish your brand as a source of information about your industry – the source people will turn to, tell their friends about, and share on social media and beyond.

Over to you

Brand awareness might seem too vague and complicated to mindfully measure and grow. However, it doesn’t mean you should neglect brand awareness, especially considering how vital it is for a brand’s success. Get out there and tell people about your brand!

Article Source Credits:

Author: Aleh Barysevich
Aleh Barysevich is Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at companies behind SEO PowerSuite, professional software for full-cycle SEO campaigns, and Awario, a social media monitoring app. Aleh is a seasoned SEO and social media expert and speaker at major industry conferences.

Article Source: www.jeffbullas.com

Originally Posted on: November 10, 2020

9th Floor Design offers residential design services, home expansions, renovations, and new home development services across Kirkland. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.9thfloordesign.com

We wish the team at 9th Floor Design the best of success in their projects.

Paramount Executives is a marketing company assisting clients with debt relief and financial services in Texas. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.paramountexecutivesinc.com

We wish the team at Paramount Executives the very best of success.

Farm Fresh Choice is an organic microgreen/urban farm in Edmonton, AB, providing a variety of microgreens across Spruce Grove, Fort Saskatchewan, Leduc, St. Albert, Edmonton, and the surrounding areas. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.farmfreshchoice.com

We wish the team at Farm Fresh Choice the best of success.
 

Leaside Dentistry is a dental clinic in Toronto, ON, specializing in root canals, wisdom teeth removal, implants, gum therapy, laser treatment, and more. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.leasidedentistry.com

We wish the team at Leaside Dentistry the very best of success.

one27 Photography offers product, headshot, residential & commercial architecture photography services across Acton and the surrounding areas. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website last week - www.one27photo.com

We wish the team at one27 Photography the best of success.

Crowfoot Vision Centre is a family eye health clinic and full optical dispensary offering vision test, eye examination & comprehensive eye care services across Calgary. To help them reach a wider audience, we launched their new website - www.crowfootvisioncentre.ca

We wish the team at Crowfoot Vision Centre the very best of success.

There’s search engine optimization, and then there’s seasonal SEO.

One is a constant companion that deserves consistent attention and focus to drive traffic to your pages and visitors to your profiles. The other – when done correctly – can give you a sweet little bump depending on the time of year.

Search engine optimization is easy to grasp, but more difficult to master. It’s the art of getting your content to rank well in the Google search engine.

Our digital lives revolve around the search engine. Whenever we want to know, buy, or do, we head on over to Google (it’s responsible for 94% of organic traffic) or Bing. And ranking is important:

• Three-quarters of people never scroll past the first page of search engine results.
• Most people ignore the paid ads that appear on the front page.
• Leads that arrive via search have an average close rate of 14.6%, but it’s only 1.7% for those from outbound channels.
• 92% of organic clicks are captured on the first page.
• The result in the #1 spot gets 32.5% of clicks.

If you don’t appear on the first page, it’s like you don’t exist. Outside of the top three spots, the click-through rate or CTR drops very quickly even if you are on the first page.

That’s not to say you won’t see a lot of seasonal fluctuation throughout the year. And you can capitalize on that. “Seasonal” refers to more than just the uptick in spending and buying we see in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It includes Black Friday, Cyber Monday, back-to-school shopping in late summer, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, the seasons themselves, and much more.

Whether you’re a small business looking to capitalize on the trends or a seasonal business only open in the summer or holidays, there are steps you can take to catch those waves of increasing demand. With a little planning, you can produce a consistent uptick in your organic traffic at the same time each year.

Meet the Customer’s Needs

Taking advantage of seasonal SEO is not a shady tactic. You’re going above and beyond to meet consumer needs. They want this, and they want it now. If they’re looking for Christmas decorations in November, it’s because they’re ready to buy. They’re happy. You’re happy. Satisfied customers increase traffic and profit.

Google Trends

Your first step is to identify the naturally-occurring highs and lows for a particular keyword or product. If you sell Christmas ornaments, then you know you’re going to see increased demand in the lead-up to Christmas.

Others may be a bit more difficult to pin down. Maybe it changes from year to year, or maybe there’s more than one uptick. There are simple SEO and keyword research tools to help with this part, including Google Trends, which is free.

It’ll show the relative search volume for any keyword. Choose a geographic region, time period, or type of search, and Trends will display a line graph. You can also compare several keywords on the same graph.

Down jackets experience a major spike in demand starting in the fall and peaking in the winter. Makes sense. But let’s say you sell raw honey. When’s your season? You might think spring or summer.

You’d be wrong.

The highest search volume for ‘raw honey’ occurs every year in early January. Why?

You’d have to do some research, but it may be because that’s the time of year when people set resolutions. Healthy eating is a common one, and raw honey is a healthier alternative to processed sugar.

So, as a raw honey vendor, you’d want to accelerate your SEO efforts starting in November, with content that pushes the health benefits of your product. Then, you’re perfectly situated for the rise in demand. When they go looking for it, they’ll find you.

Google Analytics

If you have a website, you can dig into your own data to find the highs and lows for your traffic. Using Google Analytics, you can get valuable insights into your traffic trends over the course of a year.

The Audience > Overview graph provides a convenient snapshot of the peaks and valleys over time.

Check out Acquisition to see where your visitors are coming from. This data provides a roadmap for the seasonal niche events you should be targeting.

Combine it with insight from the Google Search Console on specific keywords and how much traffic they generate, and you know exactly what’s bringing in traffic at any given time, and where customers are going on your site.

Keyword Research

What are the keywords that people are using to find your products or service? You might turn to a keyword research tool to find new opportunities. Make a list of those words bringing in the most traffic, and the relevant keywords you’d like to add to the mix.

Don’t forget about long-tail keywords. They may have a lower search volume, but they represent a much higher level of searcher intent. Long-tail is the difference between searching for ‘shoes’ versus ‘brown leather shoes for men’. Lower overall volume, but much more intent to purchase.

Put It All Together

Once you’ve analyzed everything, you should see some clear patterns on what (keywords) and when to use them. Create content to match – content that reflects the peak engagement period and the slow-down period.

Create seasonally-specific calls-to-action, pages, and navigation menus on your site. Highlight the seasonal niche events. Give yourself enough time to generate awareness and momentum. Start your efforts at least a month or two before the peak, and continue them for about a month after it.

Keep your SEO healthy at all times. Create and share high-quality and relevant content. Build and earn strong backlinks. Seasonal spikes can be very lucrative. Find them. And grab them.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Jeshue Betts
Jeshue Betts is the regional marketing representative of LawnStarter.com, an online and mobile platform that connects homeowners with lawn care professionals for care-free and efficient services.

Article Source: succeedasyourownboss.com

Originally Posted on: September 29, 2020

Do you know how to enhance your social media marketing performance using an ambitious yet achievable strategy?

Actually, this is what the majority of marketers think they know. But the truth is many of them are not successful in marketing and usually get low ROI.

In fact, marketers and brands of all sizes and types don’t use social media to its full capacity.

They consider digital marketing to be posting several pics/clips and advertising their products.

This is what any common social media user can do. So what are the differences?

The greatest mistake they’re making is that they think social media is all about the number of followers.

They sometimes don’t care about the followers’ relevancy and the engagement rates they can bring to their accounts.

In other words, they ignore and avoid building a niche community to make their audience consider them as a leader in the community.

Many of them don’t know anything about “Brand Storytelling” on social media, and the only thing they want is to get more followers.

Many of them even try to acquire existing accounts to gain instant access to thousands of followers.

It is clear that building a niche community is not an easy task, and not all marketers can afford to do it.

A versatile and robust strategy is a must in this regard. Otherwise, you’ll repeat your previous mistakes without knowing the reason it isn’t working.

This is so important that many medium and large companies assign their marketing campaigns on social media to agencies.

Table of Contents

• How to Build Efficient Social Media Marketing Strategies
  1. Analyze your social media performance
  2. Define S.M.A.R.T goals
  3. Know your target audience
  4. Choose the right channels
  5. Generate informative content and post them at the best time
  6. Constantly survey your industry
     • Tom Siani
     • Latest posts by Tom Siani (see all)

How to Build Efficient Social Media Marketing Strategies

The most important thing these agencies do is to build efficient social media marketing strategies.

That would be especially useful during the COVID-19 pandemic when the staff’s physical presence is limited, and the threat of the coronavirus is still with us.

The time of social media usage per capita has globally increased, and this is a unique opportunity to build a social media marketing strategy.

If you can strengthen your brand identity through informative content and targeting organic audiences, you’ll have a brighter future in the aftermath of COVID-19.

Here is a step-by-step guide through which you can build your own company’s marketing strategy on social media.

1. Analyze your social media performance

First, you have to analyze your current performance to know how well you’re generating leads.

One of the most beneficial aspects of using analytics tools is to recognize your strengths and weaknesses.

Google Analytics is also a great software in this regard.

You can also perform social media A/B testing to know if your ads are of interest to your audience.

2. Define S.M.A.R.T goals

After analyzing your previous performance and knowing what has performed well and what hasn’t, you can define your next objectives.

They need to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound so that you can be sure you reach them.

You also need to define certain metrics to measure these objectives and optimize your activities.

3. Know your target audience

Social media marketing is all about reaching out to the most probable customers and encouraging them to buy from you.

So you have to exactly recognize your potential customers to be able to speak with them like them.

Age, gender, location, job, and many other factors can significantly change people’s thinking and buying.

So you can’t have a single strategy for all social media users. Fortunately, there are several useful tools to find and reach out to a niche-relevant audience.

4. Choose the right channels

When you know your audience characteristics, you can target them on social media platforms.

The question is which social network is the best one for your business.

Of course, top social platforms are being used by billions of people, and you have to consider using them.

But you need to be more specific as any social app has its own audience demographic, and you can’t use a single content strategy for all of them.

For example, Pinterest’s users in the U.S. are mainly women. But on the other hand, LinkedIn is being used by CEOs, job seekers, professionals, etc.

So you need to prioritize your marketing strategies based on these differences.

5. Generate informative content and post them at the best time

Content is king! You must have heard this sentence thousands of times. But along with generating informative content, you need to put it in the eyes of as many niche audiences as possible.

Try to use social media scheduling tools to post your content at the best time to get maximum exposure.

6. Constantly survey your industry

Even a strong marketing strategy can fail you if you don’t know the competition well.

If you constantly check out your competitors, you can predict whether your strategy will be successful or not.

You have to track all their activities, including social channels they’re using, content style, followers, posting schedules, etc.

To understand these steps better, you can look at the infographic below.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Tom Siani
Tom Siani is the Content Manager at Blogwaves.com where he shares his years of experience related to social media marketing, brand marketing, blogging, and search visibility.

Article Source: growmap.com

Originally Posted on: October 4, 2020

Once upon a time, LinkedIn was only known as a job-related social media platform "for professionals". Now, with over 700 million active users, LinkedIn has become the second most used platform for B2B marketers.

As a small business owner, LinkedIn marketing should be another priority on top of having an active Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram presence. However, in order to do that, you will need to understand how LinkedIn works to make sure your presence is felt.

Unlike with other social media platforms, obvious sales tactics and spamming your business will not work on LinkedIn. People are not expecting you to sell products or services on LinkedIn. What they are interested in is the information and expertise you have to share. Marketing on LinkedIn requires a different approach if you want to get results.

To help you add one of the world's largest professional networks to your marketing toolkit, we've listed some tips and tricks to help you scale your business.

1. Complete Your LinkedIn Company Profile

Did you know that Company Pages with complete profiles receive up to two times more visitors than those with incomplete page profiles?

For a complete profile, it’s essential to have the following items:

• Logo
• Company description
• Website URL
• Company Size
• Industry
• Company Type
• Location

To fully complete your LinkedIn profile, head to your Company Page and select “Overview.” There you can upload a high-resolution image for your company logo as well as a cover image that represents your brand. Along with that, filling out the "About Us" section will provide your visitors with more information.

Beneath the "About Us" section, you will find more fields to complete your profile by entering your website URL, company size, industry, type, and location. All of this helps make your business' LinkedIn profile look more legitimate and professional, giving potential customers the opportunity to connect with you.

2. Get A Custom URL.

As part of your LinkedIn marketing package, you can claim a custom URL for your business. This makes it easier for people to remember your brand if they want to contact you, especially when they search for your company online. This is especially useful in the B2B sector where people use LinkedIn regularly to learn more about a business.

3. High-Quality Content = High-Quality Returns

Content is king and the more you post, the more likely you are to get tangible results for your business. LinkedIn helps improve their user experience by integrating content natively into their platform, videos included. All content you post should accomplish either of the following goals: teach people to solve a problem or how to do their job better.

Not only will this make you become a thought leader in your space, it will lead to more business by delivering more value to your customers.

It is also important to brand your LinkedIn profile the same way as your website and other social media accounts for consistency. This includes imagery, colours, content tone, and more.

4. Create A Regular Posting Schedule

According to LinkedIn, businesses that post at least once per month gain followers 6X faster than those that don’t. However, you should aim to post at least once per week to keep your followers engaged. To help you post consistently, create a scheduling template so that you can easily plan your posts each week.

We’ve found that LinkedIn content performs really well if you include a descriptive caption, eye-catching images, and relevant hashtags. As a bonus, you can add emojis, questions, and bullet points to switch up the look and feel of your content.

5. Every Connection Can Lead To A Business Relationship.

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals to connect with other professionals. As a business owner, you can connect with prospects, partners, and other business owners to reach your goals. You will also be able to reach your target market with the ability to nurture them through the buyer's journey.

Once these connections have been strengthened, you can decide which should be developed into business relationships and which can continue as connections.

6. Join Groups And Stay Active.

By joining relevant groups, you will be able to participate in relevant discussions to better reach your target demographic and learn what your competition is doing. Groups are an excellent way to listen to what your audience is talking about and answer any questions they might have. On top of that, being a part of a group gives you access to more connections than ever before.

7. Boost Your Email Marketing List.

Linkedin lets you communicate with fifty people at a time, a feature that should be taken advantage of to increase your email list. You can include a link for them to sign up for your emails directly along with a special offer. Offer to look at something of value for them in order to generate goodwill and get some replies.

8. Target Specific Segments With Sponsored Posts

Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn offers a very specialized advertising platform that is unparalleled. You can zero in on the exact industry, company size, and job roles to reach the people who typically buy your products or services.

For example, if you are selling translation software to small businesses in Canada, you can set your campaigns to only show for businesses with under 100 employees, that are based in Canada, and only to executives at those companies.

9. Promote your Company Page Beyond LinkedIn

A LinkedIn marketing strategy on its own will not get you results. It is essential to promote your presence across different channels in order to maximize your growth.

For example, have a link to your LinkedIn profile in your marketing communications, email signatures, blog posts, and more. You can also add a LinkedIn “Follow” button to your website and make it easy for people to share content at any point throughout their reading experience. By adding a LinkedIn “Follow” button to your landing pages or using sticky social media sharing buttons in your blog posts, you set yourself up for long-term success.

LinkedIn is an untapped market for many small business owners. As one of the top digital marketing service providers in Toronto, Webware.io wants to help you take advantage of every tool there is to help you grow your business.

If you’re a small business owner and know that you need to take advantage of social media platforms like LinkedIn, but don’t have the time to learn and manage these tools on your own, we can help you. Webware.io gives you the expertise, tools, and support to help your business navigate your digital channels. To learn more about our services and how we can help maximize your business’ exposure online, please click here.

If you have any questions about how we can help with your digital marketing needs, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact our experts here.

Are you here, but not convinced you need an online marketing plan? Let me explain why you do. A small business owner has to be smarter than a corporate business; simply because they have limitations in resources. A corporate business can easily spend thousands of dollars for their marketing campaign, while a small business has a limited budget and needs to be cautious about the strategy they are going to use because they have no room for mistakes.

Though in my experience, many small business owners give little value to online marketing; they think it would be a waste of time or simply they do not have any idea about it.

But the true fact is, by using online marketing to advertise their small business has the potential to increase sales without much effort. Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, a website has automation procedures thus increasing efficiency and reducing costs. On top of that, your small business can get thousands of new customers from other locations that would otherwise be impossible.

All big brands run their businesses in both brick-and-mortar stores as well as online shopping sites. In the last 6-7 years, online sales have been increasing every year. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, brick-and-mortar stores have been devastated because of social distancing while online stores achieved record-breaking sales. And experts believe that this is just the beginning, from now on online sales will continue to rise even more.

So it is imperative to leverage online marketing to increase your small business’s sales. However, without prior knowledge in online marketing, it would be very hard to make a stand in today’s competitive market. You need proper direction on how to do it from beginning to end. And that’s why I am writing this guide to give you a clear direction towards your goal.

Let me show you how you can take your small business into the next level with a simple yet powerful 27-day online marketing plan.

Days 1-7: Build Your Online Presence

Before we start your online marketing plan, you may already have some knowledge or even used Google Ads or Facebook Ads for your online business. Though they are very powerful platforms, but also very costly when compared with offline marketing.

For example, in Google Ads, every click in your advert may cost you from $0.20 to $2 depending on the competition level for that specific keyword you have chosen. Thus in order to receive 1,000 targeted visitors you have to spend $200 to $2,000. The same goes for Facebook Ads. Like I said before, for corporate business spending thousands of dollars is not an issue. However, for small businesses, every dollar counts.

Therefore, building a website for your small business is vital to increase your efficiency and reduce cost in marketing.

Many small business owners may think that spending money on building a website is a waste of time. But the true fact is, the website will get popular day by day and after a while, you will receive thousands of organic visitors from search engines like Google with $0 cost. Not just for a website, this will happen in every online platform like the Facebook page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn profile, Instagram, etc.

From day 1 to day 7, your task is to build a website for your small business along with a Facebook page and Twitter profile. If you have products to sell like leather goods or furniture then do not forget to build an Instagram page as well.

On your website try to showcase all of your products and services and also link up your Facebook page, Twitter profile, etc. Then share with your customers to gain exposure. For website help, read these articles:

• Three Options for Getting Your New Small Business Website Up and Running
• Do You Need a Custom Website or Can You Use a Site Builder?
• Shopify SEO: A Detailed 5-Step Guide to a Perfect Online Store

Days 8-14: Leverage Content Marketing to Increase SERP Rank

Content is the king of all online marketing. As I mentioned above, after a while when your website becomes popular you will receive thousands of free organic visitors from Google. But how will you become popular? By creating great content for your customers.

Google loves content and ranks websites in their SERP (Search Engine Result Page) based on that. A website with high-quality engaging articles has a greater chance to get ranked high than the website without any content. For example, you have a small business of leather products. On your website try to create high-quality articles that are related with leather products & make sure your customer would love to read it.

In case you do not have the necessary skill to write a quality article, you may use freelancer article writer service to create high-quality articles for your site. Depending on article size you may have to spend $100 per 1,000 words article.

Another great tool is the email marketing campaign. Your website visitors can subscribe to your email newsletter then you can send promotional offers directly to their inbox. A great way to increase your sales without any additional advertisements.

Web push notifications are a rather new invention in the online marketing platform. It is similar to email marketing however, instead of sending promotional offers to customers email, using push notification you can send messages directly to their device like PC, laptop, mobile, etc.

Try to create several high-quality contents from day 8 to day 14. And set up an email marketing campaign as well as a push notification. More on email marketing:

• A Guide to Launching Your First Email Marketing Campaign
• Beginner’s Guide on Starting with Email Marketing

Days 15-27: Search Engine Optimization

After you have done all of the previous tasks it is time to dive into the technical side of the online platform. Let me tell you in advance, if you do not have any problem with funds then this technical part will be in full automation. There are many website optimization services out there just do some Google search.

In case you do not have enough funds or want to do it by yourself, then read on I will explain how to do it all.

Let’s talk about onsite optimization. After building your website check whether you have used your focused keywords in blog, product page/service page and homepage. Remember, in title, slug, headlines, meta description & paragraphs focused keyword must have to include. When choosing a keyword always try to use low competitive and high volume search keywords. For doing your keyword research use Google Keyword Planner tool, it’s free.

For small business owners, local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is essential. Do not forget to build a contact page with your business details like name, address, contact no, etc. To get more help you may use some tools specifically designed for local SEO optimization.

Finally, you have to use analytics to measure the performance of your website. Use Google Analytics tool, it is completely free.

For more on SEO:

• Five Ways To Boost Your SEO And Online Presence
• 12 Deadly On-Page SEO Mistakes In 2020 (And How To Avoid Them)
• Digital Marketing Services For Small Business

Summary

From day 1 to day 27 of your online marketing plan, all you have done is prepare for a great journey into online business. Like a brick-and-mortar store, you always learn from your surroundings and try to beat your competitors. The same goes in online business. You have to learn more and implement this knowledge in your online business. When your website and social media profiles and pages become popular you will enjoy increased sales with low expenditure.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Arif Chowdhury
Arif Chowdhury is the founder of Cliobra. An active digital marketer specialized in both search engine marketing and social media networks. His website Cliobra is all about modern technology in the Cyberworld. Arif contributed to several blogs and websites that specifically are technology-related.

Article Source: www.smallbusinessbonfire.com

Originally Posted on: Oct 2, 2020

Updating your website during COVID-19 highlights that your business is aware and concerned. It tells your customers that you are keeping an eye on the situation due to your concern for clients. Not only does doing so help consumers get a better idea of any new policies (such as shipping changes or rescheduling) and measures you’re taking, but it also shows you in a positive light. Updating your website also shows that you have taken the appropriate measures to protect customers in case of any interactions and that you care about them enough to change policies.

Let’s look at some examples. We’re sure you’ve seen some variant of these pop up on a number of websites during the pandemic:

Here are three entirely different websites—a federal center for disease control, a news page, and an airline—but they all have something new on their website that wasn’t there before COVID-19. The CDC has a huge banner that’s exclusively dedicated to the virus; The Guardian has a separate page for news related to COVID-19; Emirates has a notification at the top of its homepage informing flyers of “new guidelines.”

They’ve all done what you ought to do as well: upgrade your website for the pandemic. Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Start with the Header, Not Just the Heading

There’s a reason the update on the CDC website catches the eye instantly: it’s because their website sports a large, attention-grabbing banner at the very top of their home page—with a big, menacing artistic interpretation of the virus. Considering current customer interest in the virus, you’ll have to do something similar. Give them visual cues before you give them textual, anecdotal consolations.

The header is a great place to start. But there’s a catch: this header shouldn’t just be a decorative piece that you use on your home page. While you probably get the most traffic re-routed to your home page, most users don’t land on this page when they come across your website. Use Google Analytics to find out which of your internal pages receives the most traffic. If we were to take a guess, we’d say that most traffic was landing on… landing pages.

After all, Google ranks pages—not websites. Here are a few tips on what to do with the header:

• Keep the text short and attention-grabbing. For instance, which of these is easier on the eyes: COVID-19 Update or SARS-CoV-2 Reparations.
• Action-oriented language works best in this case. If you’ve added too much text to your main notification, declutter and keep it simple. Something like “Follow our updates” or “Read our new shipping policy.” Don’t write a thesis.
• Create an ALERT bar—but make sure users have the option to collapse it, because it can get annoying.
• Use bold colors and block texts.
• Keep it easily customizable.
• Use high-quality, high-resolution images.

2. Make a Separate Landing Page

If your services and products have been particularly impacted—positively or negatively—just a header won’t be enough. Let’s say you sell masks and PPEs; in this case, it’s best to have a separate landing page for COVID-related products, because several visitors are bound to click through for those alone. Moreover, keep the URLs consistent for these pages.

This will help users bookmark the page, and search engine spiders will have an easier time crawling and indexing it.

3. Update the URL

If you do have a separate landing page for COVID-19 updates/products, you should really optimize its URL. Not only is this SEO-friendly, but it can also help you keep track of your content in the future. This also helps SERPs group all your blog posts together.

4. Updating Business Hours? Spread the News

Most businesses that are delivering products—and those that depend upon dispatching people working on-ground (such as plumbers)—have changed their business timings. If your business has also undergone a similar change, ensure that this is reflected not only on your website, but also on:

• All your social media pages
• All listings and local directories

Similarly, update all your logistical and scheduling details. It’s best to have a 24/7 customer service option on the side. This helps users know that you’re still here for them, 24 hours a day, despite the pandemic and all the problems it poses.

5. Keep the Content Relevant

We’re assuming that blogs and articles are a regular part of your SEO campaign. And perhaps you also do infographics and videos, which are great add-ons. We’d suggest keeping the content relevant to the times and uploading COVID-related blogs, articles, and interactive videos. Make sure your business is somehow related to what you’re putting out there—make a connection.

Use royalty free images to keep the content visually attractive. The goal is to ensure that your customers are hooked to your content. It’s even better to have a comment section below the blog posts, to encourage visitors to leave comments or start a discussion. This helps you interact with customers, relays useful information about your business, and is also useful for other onlookers who might be scrolling through.

6. Add Cashless Payment Options

If you haven’t already implemented it, having a cashless payment option on your website is imperative. E-commerce rules in the pandemic, and no matter how small a local area you operate in, it’s best to offer online orders and delivery options during this time. Ensure that your checkout process is simple, easy, and quick. Customers shouldn’t face long delays or glitches when they’re trying to order something. Send quick notifications.

And don’t forget to optimize for mobile. Most of your customers won’t just be shopping online—they’ll be doing it from their smartphones.

Article Source Credits:

Author: Joseph Dyson
Joseph Dyson is a website optimization services and SEO specialist from Search Berg. He’s been closely following the COVID-19 pandemic, especially how businesses have been impacted by it. Under his guidance, many businesses have updated their websites for the pandemic, and have seen a boost in organic traffic, CTR rates, and ROI.

Article Source: www.smallbusinessbonfire.com

Originally Posted on: Sep 24, 2020