Tag: marketing strategy

Why Digital Marketing Campaigns Fail

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reasons why digital marketing campaigns fail

Digital marketing campaigns fail for specific reasons.

Do you recognize any of the following 3 signs?

1. You’re not visible on search engines and if you are visible, no one clicks to visit your website.
2. If visitors do click through and visit your website, they leave almost immediately.
3. You’re getting clicks, and website visitors aren’t leaving your website, but they’re not buying anything!

Sound Familiar? I’m sure you’re asking, “What can I do?”

It’s all about understanding who your real customers are, their search behaviors, and the digital channels they use – and having the right product.

Luckily for us, online marketing allows your potential customer to be matched with your service to ensure that your product is the perfect one for them!

Here are three additional tips:

1. Make sure you are doing SEO. This includes optimizing the titles and description of every page and optimizing your content to match the intent and context of the search.

2. It’s not just about getting potential customers to visit your website. You want them to become engaged with your content.

3. Make sure your written content (the actual words/explanation/description of the product or service) is engaging, interesting. Relevant content will build trust and increase the probability of a visitor becoming a buyer.

So, know your audience, decide on your strategy and use the correct tactics. If you are unsure, seek advice.

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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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.

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Aligning Your Digital Marketing Strategy With Your Business Goals

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marketing evaluation

Your digital marketing strategy needs to be aligned with your business goals.

Nearly half of businesses (44%) don’t have a clearly defined marketing strategy. For firms that are active in digital marketing, nearly half do not have a defined digital plan or strategy (47%).

No wonder many small businesses are struggling to understand why their online marketing campaigns aren’t delivering an ROI.

Successful businesses that are running online marketing campaigns that impact their bottom line are NOT doing it merely because their competitors are doing it too, but because they have drawn a clear path to how online marketing can help achieve their business goals.

A Marketing Audit has to be performed for you if you have a digital marketing campaign currently running or had one in the past. The next step is to consult with an expert to identify your goals, budget, benchmarks, implementation plan, and targets — producing an online Marketing Blueprint in the process.

Can a building be constructed without a blueprint? Can a building stand without a foundation? No. These principles hold true for your marketing.

Here are some variables that will shape your Marketing Blueprint:

Marketing Audit
Business Goals
Budget
Benchmarks
Consulting Services
– Strategy Recommendations
Marketing Services
Backup Plan
Targets

Your marketing needs a foundation to stand on — your business goals. You need a plan for your marketing with all of the parts working together to reach new heights in line with your goals.

Your goals could be a mix in any of these categories:

Brand Exposure
Social Media Engagement
Website Traffic
Sales Targets
Target ROI

If you are willing to spend $1,000 to $3,000 a month – or $12,000 to $36,000 a year – on your marketing, doesn’t it make sense to invest in a Marketing Blueprint to ensure a spot-on marketing campaign.

Contact us today to learn more about a Marketing Evaluation and creating a Marketing Blueprint for 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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Using Reputation Marketing to Gain Customer Trust

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reputation marketing strategy

Looking to gain customer trust online? Try using reputation marketing.

Any smart business that is keeping up with current business trends will know all about how reputation marketing can affect their business, and how it directly affects things like customer retention, brand awareness, and most importantly, consumer trust.

And if you aren’t taking advantage of online review sites for your business, you could be missing out on gaining more customers and clients.

Having a good reputation marketing strategy where you have someone manage the aspects of online reviews can be very rewarding especially when it comes to building trust for your brand.

Getting listed on these review sites is the first step in wowing potential customers, and at the same time showing these future prospects that you care about your brand, and care about customer experience. If you don’t do this, your competition will, and are already likely taking advantage of getting positive reviews.

Don’t wait a minute longer to find out that your business has unchecked reviews online. Take control of your reputation marketing strategy now.

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.

Online Advertising Benefits vs. Traditional Advertising

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online or traditional advertising

What’s better? Online or traditional adverting?

There are many benefits to doing online advertising over the traditional model. One of those is the cost between the two. Traditional advertising, such as billboards or television spots (commercials) can cost quite a bit of money for a single 30-second spot.

Online advertising uses a platform where you are charged by how many times an ad is clicked. This is called Pay-per-click or ‘PPC’ advertising. It’s not nearly as expensive with an average cost per click of 0.60 cents.

With online advertising, you’re getting instant traffic. You could run traditional advertising and online advertising in a race side by side, and you’ll get online customers a lot quicker than traditional.

However, the biggest benefit is that with online advertising is that you can get detailed data on everyone that sees your ads.

You can also split test ads for the same cost, find out who interacted with your ads, where they were from, which ad they liked better, and what converts and what doesn’t. You can then optimize your ads with the data you collected.

Let’s say you ran an ad and 100 people clicked it, but no one bought anything, then you would know there is a problem somewhere and be able to fix it and optimize each ad.

Once you spend money on a television ad, that’s it. No way to optimize it. Having control over your online ads such as when they are shown, and how much money you are spending is crucial for success, while not breaking the bank on ads that aren’t converting.

But running a successful online advertising campaign can be tricky. It takes some knowledge and learning how to setup everything properly to run highly successful campaigns.

There is a lot of competition, and you need every bit of experience you can get on your side.

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.

How To Build Trust with Reputation Marketing

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building trust online with reputation marketing

Using reputation marketing will build trust online.

You might not know that there are many places out there where people can leave reviews telling their experience with your business.

Some businesses choose not to get involved because it might be too much work. This can be a huge business mistake that you will want to fix right away.

In a recent online poll, it was found that 84% trusted online reviews as much as they would a recommendation from a friend or family member. That’s up 4% from last year showing that more people are looking at online reviews and that you need to have reputation management in place taking care of these reviews and making sure you are getting authentic reviews.

Most businesses are starting to see the importance of managing their online reviews, and even getting customers to leave them reviews. With that being said, it is very important not to have fake reviews for your company, intended or not. And it’s always a good idea to know all the popular review sites out there so you can manage any reviews that are being left.

You should never let a bad review go unchecked. This can show people that you don’t care, and are likely guilty as charged. And some businesses have been completely destroyed by bad reviews.

Don’t let this happen to 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.

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

Taking Advantage of Reputation Marketing to Gain Customer Trust

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gain trust online

How do you gain trust online?

Any smart business that is keeping up with current business trends will know all about how reputation marketing can affect their business, and how it directly affects things like customer retention, brand awareness, and most importantly, consumer trust.

And if you aren’t taking advantage of online review sites for your business, you could be missing out on gaining more customers and clients.

Having a good reputation marketing strategy where you have someone manage the aspects of online reviews can be very rewarding especially when it comes to building trust for your brand.

Getting listed on these review sites is the first step in wowing potential customers, and at the same time showing these future prospects that you care about your brand, and care about customer experience. If you don’t do this, your competition will, and are already likely taking advantage of getting positive reviews.

Don’t wait a minute longer to find out that your business has unchecked reviews online. Take control of your reputation marketing strategy now.

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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