Tag: building your business

5 Ways to Better Engage Your Audience

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better engagement with your audience

Looking for better ways to engage your audience?

Every time a user comes to your website or social media page you have the opportunity to interact with them and turn them into lifelong customers! We want your customers to enjoy coming to your page and to look forward to viewing your content. So that leaves us with the question, what does your target audience want to see on your page?

Here are some of the top ways that you can encourage viewers to get involved on your page:

Trivia Questions

Give your followers a chance to show off a little bit of their knowledge! Also, if you can come up with interesting bits of trivia for them, it will spark a lively conversation on your page and give viewers a reason to share your post.

Interactive Infographics

These are a great tool because they are visually pleasing and eye catching, but they also can pass along useful information about your business or industry to your potential customers.

Polls

A poll shows your audience that you want to hear what they think and gives them a chance to make their voice heard on your page.

Live Video Streaming

There isn’t a better way to make the viewer feel like a part of your company then by giving them a live window right into your office! They can feel confident knowing exactly who you are and what you do!

Interactive Mobile Apps

Make an easy to access App for your customers to use. It will allow them to stay constantly connected to your business.

All of these tactics are going to give your targets the opportunity to engage with your business. This will show that you care more about just making the sale; you care about your customers and want to hear from them. This will go a long way towards building followers that will stay with your business for a lifetime.

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 Long It Does Take to See the Results of Digital Marketing?

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digital marketing results

Are you impatiently waiting to see the results of your digital marketing efforts?

This is a frequently asked question. The answer depends on what you are looking to accomplish and the strategy that you have put together.

Are you looking for short-term results or are you planning for next year?

If immediate short-term results are your aim, then you should choose pay-per-click advertising (PPC). The results can be seen in 2 days or in a week.

Comprehensive keyword research and continuous monitoring and optimization of your PPC settings will maximize performance and yield ongoing positive results.

If your vision is for longer-term gains then consider search engine optimization (SEO). A comprehensive and thorough SEO campaign will start to yield results after a few months. This may take 4-6 months or 6-9 months.

Successful results mean not only increase your website ranking on search engine results but also receiving leads that lead to sales.

Visit our website to learn more about our marketing audit and blueprint consulting services.

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 Much Should Your Marketing Budget Be?

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marketing budget allocation

It’s important to set a budget for marketing.

Do you have a set rule for marketing budget allocation?

Or do you just allocate marketing whatever is left after all of the projected business expenses for the year have been set?

USBA suggests 7% to 8% for small businesses. However, you can shoot for up to 20% if you really want to smash it hard in the marketplace.

A survey from the CMO Council, on the other hand, comes with similar results with 74% percent of marketers allocating 4% to 6% of their annual gross revenue to marketing, while only 2% apportion more than 20%.

The size of your marketing budget will fuel your marketing efforts, and so if you’re in a very competitive industry, and most especially if you’re in the early stages of your business, then you should really have a strong budget.

How do you structure your marketing budget?

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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Leverage Digital Word-of-Mouth Marketing for Your Business

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word-of-mouth

Word-of-mouth marketing is the best recommendation you can get.

But many businesses seem not to be taking advantage of online word-of-mouth marketing.

In fact, some businesses don’t understand how it can be leveraged so that they can take advantage of the huge rewards it brings.

One thing to remember when it comes to word-of-mouth is that friends and family will believe what they hear from each other over any other form of advertising. Word-of-Mouth has moved to the digital realm.

Online review sites exist for a few reasons, but one of the most popular reasons is that these reviews attract a lot of attention to businesses they are written for, and people love to read reviews.

They especially like to find reviews on a business they are thinking about doing business with. And some businesses have taken advantage of this situation like Zappos.

Zappos decided to do something different than other big companies and instead of spending tons of money on advertising, they invested that money into creating an exceptional customer experience by having the best customer service they could offer.

The result has been nothing short of amazing as Zappos is well known for providing the best in customer service. The reviews they get drive their bottom line because those happy customers leave reviews, and those reviews get read by other prospects. Not to mention that this form of promotion costs less to manage than other forms of advertising.

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 Customer Lifetime Value Is Important

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measure your clv

Are you measuring your CLV?

When starting a business, it’s easy to overlook some of the more important details once you start getting a customer base. Most businesses rely on getting as many customers as they can as cheaply as they can. This may have been the way to do things in the past, but now things have changed.

So what is Customer Lifetime Value? CLV is something that all big businesses focus on because of its importance. It is the measure of dollars coming in from a customer over the entire relationship with that customer to the business. However, since you cannot speculate how long each customer you have will stay loyal to you, you look at it over a certain period of time. Once you start doing this, the data you collect can show you some fascinating things.

One of the things you might find is where your marketing efforts fell short compared to one customer over others. The other thing measuring Customer Lifetime Value can do is help you refine your marketing strategy so that you are targeting the right customers.

There are many benefits that come from analyzing Customer Lifetime Value including maximizing your return on marketing campaigns, helping to identify and reward those customers who are loyal, and managing your customer relationship as a monetary investment instead of counting them as a number.

Huge industry leaders in eCommerce are outperforming all the rest because of their focus on retaining customers. Some eCommerce giants are reporting 60-80% retention rates while others are reporting only a 20% rate!

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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5 Ways To Be More Engaging On Social Media And Gain More Customers

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engage on social media

To reap the rewards of social media, you have to engage.

Social media is not a place where people go to view advertisements, browse through all of the business pages, or read long technical updates about a company. Social media is a place to be social! This means that people want to be engaging in conversations and making their voice heard.

We want to share five of our tactics to make sure your followers stay engaged with your business and ultimately become your customers.

1. Initiate Conversation with your Social Media Followers

If you are at a social event and you want someone to talk to you, how do you do it? You have to talk to them first! Show them that you care about what they have to say by making the first move.

2.Ask For Feedback

Let your followers know that you value their opinion and that you want your products and services to be at their best.

3. Do Surveys and Polls

People love sharing their thoughts and opinions on the internet. The surveys can be things directly related to your business, or just fun questions to get the conversations rolling.

4. Organize Giveaways, Contests, and Promotions

This will get people excited about visiting your page! You can even gain more followers and recognition by having the contest entry include sharing the post or tagging a friend. Even for those who do not win, the excitement for the contest will now be associated with your business.

5. Live Q & A Sessions

Live sessions show your followers that you actually want to hear from them. It also gives you the opportunity to tell your audience the things that they actually want to know about your business instead of just guessing what questions they may be having.

The right digital marketing consultant will be able to incorporate all of these into your marketing plan so that you can see your followers begin to engage with 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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How Online Review Sites Have A Huge Impact On Businesses

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online review sites

How do online review sites impact your business?

Most small businesses and companies don’t think about online reviews and the impact they can have both positively and negatively on your business.

Some business owners are afraid to find no reviews, while others are afraid of finding bad reviews. These are definitely not reasons to ignore the power of review sites.

Business reviews are more important now than ever for several reasons. It might come as a surprise to find out that business reviews for some sites now show up in the top search engine results for that company.

For example, try doing a search such as reviews for ‘company name’ and look at the results. Review sites such Angie’s List, Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Yellow Pages, and Better Business Bureau are going to show up at the top of the list due to the ranking power of a website that gets thousands of visitors leaving comments about ‘x-brand’ company.

Moreover, it’s clear that business reviews aren’t going anywhere. In fact, they are becoming more and more popular.

That is why it’s more important now than ever to get involved and build a presence in the online review community. These types of reviews are invaluable to any business for many different reasons. If you get good reviews, then you can look at those and see what you are doing right that makes your customers happy.

On the other hand, negative reviews can show you where you need to improve, and you can either defend yourself online if you’ve done nothing wrong, or you can make things right with an unhappy customer — which shows that you are accountable and genuine.

This builds trust and authority for your small business and also confidence in any future customers that might be looking at how you handle complaints.

The one thing that you don’t want is to have unmanaged online negative reviews without taking the necessary action. This will hurt your business.

Anyone knows that having a good reputation can drive conversions. And with so many businesses out there competing for business, it’s a good idea to manage your online reviews.

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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Grow Your Business through Storytelling

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telling stories for business

Get the attention of your audience through unique and authentic storytelling!

“A story can cross the barriers of time – past, present, future – and allows us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others,” says Andrew Stanton, a filmmaker at Pixar.

Customers are looking for something that is unique and relatable to them and storytelling is an age-old method that allows businesses to relate to potential buyers.

Here are 3 elements of storytelling that can help turn the mundane into something of great appeal:

Emotion. Take your customer back to those times they will never forget with emotional appeals, such as sympathy, envy, or intrigue. Move them through from one emotional state to another as the narrative unfolds. This only intensifies their connection with your product and brand.

Authenticity. Be honest. Speak truth and life about the brand and the audience it is speaking to. This will grab their attention while also creating a reputation for your brand.

Relatability. Make a connection to your audience. Do your research on who you are targeting. Appeal to your audience through situations they have also experienced, and also challenges they have overcome.

Use these strategies to make a connection with your audience:

Make Your Story Centered around their Situation and Needs
Make People Feel a Part of the Story Experience
Listen & Create a Relevant Context
Showcase Your Values

Once you have made an effective connection, your message will be absorbed deep in their hearts and minds.

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 The Voice Of Your Customers Is A Valuable Marketing Tool

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reputation marketing is the voice of your customers

Do you care what your customers think?

Digital marketing generally means getting the word out online about your brand and getting customers to see why they should buy from your business.

But in today’s hyperconnected world, your customers can also shape the reputation of your business online in (nearly) real time. This is very important as 77% of consumers read online reviews before making a decision.

While talking about how good your products and services are is of course useful and necessary, what your customers say about your company can also be used as a marketing tool. This is called Reputation Marketing. What makes this strategy different from other types is that it puts the “voice of the customer” as the central focus.

What your customers say about your business is not something you can control, buy, or make them do, but you can use the positive reviews they do leave to shape the narrative of your business’ reputation.

It’s amazing how many business owners are keen on running all sorts of online marketing campaigns, yet they don’t take the time to have their customers write a comprehensive review about their products.

Can you imagine how many of your “would-be customers” end up buying from your competitors, all because they couldn’t find any reviews about your product or service?

It’s essential for potential customers to know that others have used your business and had a good experience doing so, giving your business a reputation of trustworthiness.

Reputation marketing today is a must.

How do you get these positive reviews for your business and strengthen your reputation? There are many ways.

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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Should You Hire A Full-time Marketing Director?

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should you hire a marketing director

Should you hire or contract the services of a Marketing Director?

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

As with any HR activity, there is additional work required of you to hiring a Marketing Director, such as;

  • Job Description Preparation
  • Job Posting/Advertising Cost
  • Interviewing
  • Background Checks
  • Qualification/Certification Checks
  • Evaluation
  • Employment Agreements
  • Onboarding
  • Training

Do you think hiring a marketing consultant to perform a marketing director role for your business at an hourly or contract rate for a few hours a month would make more sense?

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.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

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