How To Make Your Business Stand Out from the Crowd

stand out from the crowd

Making your business stand out from the crowd!

SEO is a great marketing tool. Social Media is a great marketing tool as well. You have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. at your disposal.

Many businesses fill their feeds with discussions about how reliable and celebrated their products or services are. Many have the persuasive copy needed to convince people to buy from them.

All of these tactics are good. Nonetheless, self-promotion alone is not enough to make yourself known to your target market. This is where Reputation Marketing comes into play.

Reputation marketing is about building a positive online reputation, which allows you to use that stellar reputation to gain the trust of your target customers.

With reputation marketing, you now have more authentic content. Content that draws people’s attention to how reputable your business is!

As your customer is contemplating their next purchase, they go through a process to decide if they want to buy. Some of these stages include Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. For some, this process is instantaneous, and for some, it could take months. Your reputation and reviews can help them jump into action!

Use reputation marketing to validate your potential customer’s decision to buy from you!

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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What Goes into Creating Optimal Content and Customer Experience

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Creating the optimal customer experience requires optimal content.

On the internet, standing out poses a daunting challenge, and at the same time, the best opportunity for creativity and bringing some attention to your site. Adding the extra “POW” to your content will pique a customer’s’ curiosity, build their interest, and over the course of a few transactions, earn their loyalty.

This is achieved through web content that goes far beyond ordinary but without all of the sensory overload. Each aspect of your site should have its own purpose—from the background to the logo to the informative blog. Every part is a solid brick in the foundation of your establishment’s site.

Here are some possible “add-ons” to consider to make your site stand out:

– Demo/explainer videos
– Client testimonials
– A page for reviews
– Informational text that actually informs—as opposed to simply luring the client
– Interactive questionnaire
– Easy-to-follow graphics
– A healthy combination and balance of “all-the-above”
– The compelling story of your business began and most importantly, where it’s going

And don’t forget a user-friendly “contact us” page or even an option for a live Chat with a knowledgeable representative from your company. You’re only limited by your own imagination.

So the time has come to set that staff meeting and do a plus/delta on your site’s current features. What’s working and drawing in an audience, and what’s not working? What is the purpose of each and every feature of your site? What are some viable changes that can be made? Who is your target audience? How can you make your site not only engaging but also user-friendly?

As you can tell, some guidance from an experienced marketing consultant should come in handy. You are the experts in your product or service; so allow some room for the marketing experts to help.

Essential Questions to ask about Customer Experience

User experience with your site can make or break your business. Think about it. A slow interface, a shopping cart that’s difficult to navigate, or even one small glitch can drive traffic away and steer potential customers toward the next result that showed up on the list of search results. So how do you keep this from happening?

Working with a knowledgeable and experienced team of designers and developers can make quite a difference in creating the best customer experience possible. When searching for such a team, you might need to keep a few ideas in mind such as

– Can they reduce my site’s loading time?
– Can they create engaging content that includes images?
– Can they strike a balance between SEO and treating my audience like “real people”?
– Can they build a user-friendly check-out?
– Can they build a user-friendly customer service Chat and/or Email page?

Thus, looking at these many aspects related to a customer’s experience is as vital to us as it is to you. Helping your business to thrive is our ultimate goal and mission. By joining forces with your team, we can assist you in improving the customer’s experience.

What if you’re just barely getting started? We can build on that foundation as well. Either way, we’ll explore several options, analyze data, and minimize as much trial-and-error as possible to get your site running as quickly and smoothly as possible.

So don’t worry about a design that’s full of bells and whistles as opposed to substantial, engaging content and usability. Your clients are the bosses, and we’ll consider both their needs and your expectations of what makes a great, user-friendly site. Therefore, there’ll be no more worries about dead links or useless features. Would you like to find out more about what we can design for you?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

 

To Hire or Not to Hire a Full-time Marketing Director?

hiring a marketing director

Should you hire a marketing director?

To get your digital marketing performing at its optimum, you would need a Marketing Director to oversee the strategy and implementation. However, a Marketing Director would cost you $11,000 to $15,000 a month. This is a huge cost to businesses, especially for most small business owners like you.

As with any HR activity, there is additional work required of you to hiring a Marketing Director.
  • Job Description Preparation
  • Job Posting/Advertising Cost
  • Interviewing
  • Background Checks
  • Qualification/Certification Checks
  • Evaluation
  • Employment Agreements
  • Onboarding and Training

Do you think hiring a marketing consultant to perform a marketing director role for your business at a rate of $125 an hour for a few hours a month would make more sense?

This is a win-win solution. What do you think?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Why You Should Optimize Your Website

optimized website

An optimized website means that it is structured, coded, designed, and has content published in a way that will allow Google to rank it.

Why is this important? Well, if Google can read your website correctly and interpret your content then it will understand the product or service that you are selling and so present it to your potential customers searching on the Web.

So, how do you ensure your website is optimized?

Certain basics need completing such as keyword research, great content, and some technical criteria that a consultant can help you with such as tags, architecture, crawlability, among many other things.

Every worthwhile endeavor takes some amount of effort. Such is the case with optimizing your website to gain more visibility and traffic.

Think about your own experience when searching for information or a particular product. You will most likely click on the top results on the first page never bothering to check the second page when a list of results appears on the screen that “matches” what you’re looking for.

In today’s fast-paced world, customers have access to more information than ever, and they want results quickly. This means that they will choose from the top of the list, which is where you want your site to be.

Optimizing your site can get you there. This ongoing process requires regular maintenance and changes.

SEO rapidly evolves. So keeping up with the changes with your SEO consultant will give you an edge over your competitors.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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2 Simple Digital Marketing Success Stories You Can Copy

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Digital marketing success stories.

Dacia and Facebook

Dacia is one of Europe’s fastest growing car brands.
The Goal: Their aim was to grow their brand and to generate more leads.

The Result: 60,000 extra cars sold in the last three years. That’s a huge success!

How did they do it?

1. They decided to use social media.
2. They chose Facebook to get their message across.
3. They targeted desktop-using customers and customers who primarily used their smartphones.
4. The tool they used was Facebook’s boosted posts. This allowed them to test the market and find out where their potential customers were and the best time to place an ad in front of them.

The Girl Scouts and Twitter

The Girl Scouts are well-known for making and selling their own cookies to raise funds for the local community.
The Goal: To increase downloads of their mobile app.

The Result: Nearly 20k extra downloads as a direct result of their Twitter campaign!

How did they do it?

1. They decided to use social media.
2. They chose Twitter to do their promotion.
3. They added images to the app to show how delicious and inviting their cookies were.
4. They used the Twitter App Card so customers seeing their Tweet could access the app directly from their Tweet. Simple!

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Organically Building Your Brand: Content Marketing on Linkedin

content marketing on linkedin

How to build your brand with content marketing on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has many marketing tools that can be used to grow your business. Using these tools to raise awareness for your business, its credibility, and its impact will put you on the path to building your brand in an organic way. Here is a brief guide on some of these tools and how they work.

LinkedIn Company Page

Catch the eye of your prospective customers with a Company Page. It should be a place where you can engage your target audience with things relevant to them such as links to your best white papers, e-books, case studies, how-to content and thought leadership content. Your Company Page should spread your company’s overall message by publishing content you know your target audience will want to see.

Showcase Pages

You love your business and think of many different parts of it as equally important in their own ways, but does your audience know that? Showcase pages are for creating a distinct platform for each aspect of your business that has its own message to share with its own target audience. By giving each part of your business its own distinct voice, you can extend your LinkedIn presence to reach the audience it needs to reach.

Long-form Posts

Should you go long on LinkedIn? The answer is yes! Publishing long-form content can position you as an expert and thought leader on the subject, giving your business credibility and authenticity. Another benefit to writing your own posts is giving a chance for like-minded professionals to interact and contribute while simultaneously spreading your message. If your post becomes a hot topic of discussion it will be a trending topic where it can be distributed and recommended to a much broader audience, giving you even further reach than before!

These tools and more are part of a larger LinkedIn toolbox that can help your business grow in an impactful way.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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How Accreditation by the Better Business Bureau Increases Sales

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How Better Business Bureau Accreditation Builds Consumer Confidence

The Better Business Bureau is a non-profit accrediting organization that gives its stamp of approval when a business meets high standards of quality, responsibility, and trustworthiness.

So why is this BBB logo so important? Recent studies have shown that 8 out of 10 consumers recognize the BBB seal, and when they see it displayed on a website or business, it instills confidence and trust.

And those consumers are likely to purchase based on this. Reviews are important online, but 90% of consumers don’t bother hunting for a lot of reviews and will read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion.

Most of those consumers are going to go right to the Better Business Bureau first. And sometimes that one review is enough to make their decision. But what if your business is not accredited? This could actually hurt your business as becoming accredited shows that you’re a company that is accountable and can be trusted.

And a company that is trusted, makes more profit.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Follow-up with your Potential Customers through Ad Retargeting

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What is ad retargeting?

When it comes to remarketing, some businesses have no idea what it means, or the benefits that it can bring by getting visitors (who left your website empty-handed) back to your website and purchasing what they were looking for.

It is important for a business to take every advantage that there is to convert a potential customer or client into a happy and satisfied customer. But this isn’t the only benefit of remarketing.

In fact, you can get some pretty interesting data by showing different ads to a customer who leaves your website and goes to another website.

This type of remarketing can serve to the visitor a reminder that they are looking for a certain product or service, and if they are moving around the web looking for this product or service from someone else, there is a good chance they might see your ad and return to convert. For example, you could show a different ad group to visitors that leave your website with a discount if they return to get what they were looking for. This strategy works so well that you are likely to see a 2-3 times increase in click-through-rates for these ad groups.

It might sound like a complicated process, but if you are already using Google AdWords, then you can take advantage of Google Ad Retargeting. These ads will be shown on other websites through the Google Content Network which are amazingly effective.

The benefits of a solid remarketing campaign strategy, and having Google Retargeting setup correctly are huge. The benefits range from having your ads in front of people when they are finally ready to buy, a much larger scale reach as these ads are shown on over 2 million websites, and much more efficient pricing, easier ad creation, and so on.

And there are many different ways to remarket with Google Adwords besides this. There is video remarketing, remarketing for mobile applications, having remarketing lists for search ads, and email-list remarketing which works by uploading your list of email addresses you have collected from your visitors.

When anyone on this list are signed into YouTube, Google Search, or Gmail, they will see your ads.

If ad targeting or remarketing is something you haven’t been doing, then don’t wait a minute longer to get started.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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8 Reasons Why You Need Google Analytics for Your Website Today

8 reasons for google analytics

Why do you need Google Analytics for your website?

As business owners, we must ensure that our marketing efforts are worthwhile.

We need to make sure that our website’s design and structure is at optimal levels to maximize our marketing campaigns.

Having someone on your team that can analyze your website traffic data will help ensure that your efforts are worth every little bit of time and money you spend on marketing.

Installing Google Analytics makes acquiring this information easier than ever. Understanding this information will help you strategize and improve your marketing efforts.

Here are 8 simple ways to use Google Analytics to advance your business to next level:

1. Identify the Sources of Your Traffic

Use analytics to track the traffic on your website. This will help you understand what sources send the most traffic to your business.

2. Determine the Path that Leads to Conversions

Determine what pages are driving conversions for your business. Conversions could be making a sale, the download of a white paper, a filled out contact form on your website or one of many other actions that positively impact your business.

The quality of your traffic relies on if you’re bringing the right buyer personas to your website who are genuinely interested in your company’s offerings.

3. Understand Which Relevant Keywords Drive Traffic

Analytics informs you how your business is ranking for key search queries.

Ranking highly for the most important long-tail keyword phrases related to your business can drive quality visitors to your website on a regular basis, which is why marketing around these search phrases is essential for your business.

4. Understand Time on Site

Start by understanding how engaged your visitors are by using the engagement report to better understand their time on site.

The reason why this is so important is that the longer someone is on your website, the more likely they’ll perform an action with your business whether that’s a download, completing a transaction, etc.

5. View Multi-Channel Funnels to Locate Understand a Visitor’s Path

The multi-channel funnels report in Google Analytics is one of the most important to monitor. It provides an overview of the most common paths to conversions. Take a look at which funnels are driving the most activity for your business and try to spur more movement across these channels.

6. Know Which Device Users Drive Results

Improve the quality of your ongoing traffic by analyzing and catering to where your traffic is coming from –desktop, mobile or tablet devices.

7. New vs. Returning Visitors

This report is important to monitor regularly to see if your existing audience is continually returning to your website, while also informing your business of your audience growth over time as seen through new visitors.

Ideally, there should be a healthy balance of both new visitors and returning visitors to inform the quality of your website.

8. Manage Your Backlinks

This can help your business understand what websites are linking to your site, which is a major factor that Google and the other search engines take into consideration when ranking your website and driving traffic to your business.

Your backlink profile is a crucial factor to help ensure that only quality websites are linking to your business and that you’re building trust with your customers and the search engines.

Be sure to learn more about how to use Google Analytics to improve your website and your business.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Catch More Customers with a Customer-centric Web Design

catch more customers

Looking to catch more customers?

You’ve done your research, and you know what your customers want. You worked hard to bring about a good product that you know will solve their problems, *it* is ready for the market and you know the market is ready for *it*.

Now the only question is, do you have a customer-centric website where your products can be promoted and showcased?

If the answer is no, then there are some factors you need to consider when designing a site such as…

1. Buyer’s persona – who’s the target audience for this product? Who would realize its value the most?
2. Buyer’s journey – what does your customer have to go through to finally get your product in their hands?
3. Ease-of-use – ultimately, is the website for your product easy to use? Or is it fraught with hard to navigate pages that could put buyers off?
4. Answers questions – Are there plenty of chances to learn more about your product in an easy, accessible way? Don’t be vague, customers want to know what they’re buying.

These factors and more should all be considered when designing a website where your products will be sold. Want to learn more? We’d be glad to help.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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