Tag: science of marketing

Ways to Grow Your Business through Storytelling

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , , ,
storytelling

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

You’ll know you have made an effective connection is when your message was absorbed deep in their hearts and minds.

Find out more about how to become an effective storyteller 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.

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

Your Small Business Can’t Afford to Make these Online Advertising Mistakes

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , ,
online advertising mistakes

Don’t make these online advertising mistakes.

Are you new to PPC (Pay-Per-Click) digital advertising campaigns? Or, maybe the time and money you’ve invested in your PPC campaigns haven’t been paying off?

At Agapi Marketing & Consulting Ltd., we are familiar with hundreds of successful PPC campaigns. Take our advice: Here are the top 5 PPC campaign mistakes we see all the time that you and your business should avoid at all costs:

Launching a Campaign Without a Clear Strategy

It’s impossible to measure success without defining clear goals. Ask yourself these two questions: What is your primary goal for this campaign? Who is your target market to reach that goal? Then set up an action plan of specific tasks that will help you reach success.

Taking a “Do-it-all” Approach

As you may already know, PPC marketing is much more complex than it seems. You need to make sure that you have access to a digital marketing consultant.

Effective campaigns address the 3 basic types of PPC traffic separately: search traffic, display traffic, and social traffic. Delivering different ad experiences to each type of traffic increases your odds of success.

Failure to Identify a Realistic Budget

Think of your first few campaigns as tests. They may not be profitable, because you don’t know what will work and what won’t. Your budget shouldn’t be too low or too high. Your budget should be enough to test your campaign for future optimization.

Having Unrealistic Expectations

You may expect to see immediate results from your PPC ad campaign, especially if your website is optimized for SEO. Be patient for the first few weeks of your new campaign.

Not Testing Your Conversion Funnel

Make sure everything is working correctly by using test users. Have them experiment, use the site to perform tasks, and don’t forget to have them test the site from a variety of devices!

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.

8 Questions You Need to Be Asking to Win More Customers

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , ,
website design

Wouldn’t you like to know how what your customers are thinking?

How are they going to act?

Well, you can! You just need to track how your current customers are interacting with your business.

You or someone on your team needs to be continually answering the following questions in order to get to know your potential customers.

  • How many customers are you getting every month? Even in the craziness of running your business, you need to make sure you have a way to keep track of all of your customers that you are serving. You also need to make sure that everyone on your team is on the same page and using the same system for tracking.
  • How many of them are coming from your website? You need to be asking how your customers found out about you and keeping track of customers that are coming from your site.
  • Are they coming from your SEO efforts? Social Media? PPC?  You or someone on your team need to be monitoring how users are finding your website to learn what is working for you and what can be tweaked.
  • By what percent of your visitors are converting? Track how many people who are coming to your site are actually becoming customers.
  • How high is your bounce rate? Monitor the percentage of people visiting who are just viewing one page of your site and then navigating away.
  • Which pages are most visited? Take note of the pages that users are going to the most often and see if they are the pages that will lead them into making conversions.
  • Which pages do they spend most of their time on? You should study the pages that users are spending a lot of time looking at and see how you can make other pages interesting to your potential customers.
  • What’s the winning conversion path? Find out what path the customers are taking to make conversions and make sure that your site is designed around making that path as easy as possible.

Make sure someone on your team is answering these questions often so you can optimize your website design to get a greater number of conversions.

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.

Rev Up Your Revenue By Getting Customer Reviews

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , ,
Rev Up Your Revenue By Getting Customer Reviews

Online reviews are crucial to managing your reputation, gaining trust and building confidence.

Trust is a key element to gaining and maintaining customers.

Do you remember asking for a friend’s opinion about a product before deciding to buy? Didn’t you become more excited after hearing encouraging feedback?

That’s exactly how online reviews work.

Let’s take a look at these statistics from BrightLocal:

• 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
• 7 out of 10 consumers will leave a review for a business if they’re asked to
• 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business
• 54% of people will visit the website after reading positive reviews
• 73% of consumers think that reviews older than 3 months are no longer relevant
• 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
• 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is most important

Your potential customers are now checking what others say about your products or services before buying!

So you need to always provide a good experience, earn those positive reviews, get them published, and see more repeat and new sales coming to your business.

There are additional benefits to getting positive reviews and 5-star ratings:

Improved Organic and Local Rankings
Google gives priority to businesses with stellar reviews on rankings.

Increased Click-through Rate
Consumers will most likely click on a business with impressive reviews in the search results.

Create Consumer Loyalty
Your customers who take the time to leave a 5-star rating are far more likely to feel a certain bond with your business.

Let your Customers Do Your Marketing for You
Even just a handful of positive online business reviews are worth a great deal and can attract new customers to our business.

Contact us at to learn more about boosting your revenue with 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.

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

Is Blogging Dead?

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , , , , , ,
blogging

Is blogging still relevant?

Yes, and here’s why.

Do you remember when the concept of blogs first started? Well, I sure do.

Back then, I remember the arguments for and against blogging. The pro-camp thought it was a great way to share ideas and content, even though content marketing was a foreign phrase. The naysayers believed that nobody would care what others had to say, and thought that blogging was simply a platform to boost one’s own ego.

Last week, a colleague of mine stated unequivocally that blogging was dead – at least for most industries – given the immense focus on various social media platforms. But I respectfully disagree with my colleague, and here’s three reasons why.

1. Blogs remain on your website.

In most cases, the main purpose of using social media is to drive traffic to your website. Of course there are exceptions to this, but most industries use social media as a source to drive their inbound marketing. You can also post your website content on your social media sites, ensuring that there are outbound links and lots of opportunities for prospects to find you.

By blogging regularly, you are providing new material to your followers, eventually creating a loyal audience and beginning to build online trust. Blogging also provides a virtual “library” of curated content that your audience can reference back to. Over time, this will increase the likelihood that people will use your products or services, as well as increase the amount of time visitors are staying and engaging on your website.

2. Long-form content.

As the use of social media has exploded over recent years, people have become used to seeing and reading the equivalent of “soundbites”. Twitter used to limit you to 140 characters with which to express yourself. Instagram is all about capturing the attention of your audience by using an image. And as for Facebook and LinkedIn, well, most people simply aren’t going to read anything longer than about four sentences.

Enter blogging. By creating a blog, you are able to take subjects and musings and expand on them. As a business, it simply makes sense to have an outlet and a repository to place more detailed content. Your readers will start to expect your content after you’ve been blogging for a while.  In fact, in my own case, website statistics demonstrate that the days that I blog have significantly more traffic than other days.

3. Search engine optimization

Once upon a time, SEO marketers would most likely have relied on tactics like keyword stuffing on your website to boost your rankings. But that landscape has changed.

Most of us are aware that Google continues to change their algorithm regularly in and attempt to head off black hat SEO tactics, and the best way to achieve good rankings is through publishing original, relevant content.

And what’s the best way to do that? Well, doesn’t it make sense to blog about content that is relevant and engaging to your audience and to share it through your website?

So if this article has inspired you to revive your blogging efforts, or even to just start blogging, remember that you will be rewarded for your efforts. Engage your audience by providing content that matters to them, ask questions when and where appropriate, and be sure to include a call to action at the end of your post asking your audience to share.

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.

A Perfect Referral Strategy In 6 Steps

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , , , , , , ,
referral business

Looking for referral business?

Who isn’t?

It’s common knowledge that referral business is great for your business on many levels. First of all, there is the fact that you are being recommended by someone who has already done business with you and has developed a trusted relationship. This alone speaks volumes to the new prospect, as there is already an inherit level of trust. Secondly, it results in deeper an longer lasting relationships.

We also have seen the statistics about how much it costs to get a new client, vs. the cost of keeping a client. Referral business, although not without some cost, is more about an investment of time than money.

Today, we reveal our simple, 6 step strategy to gaining referral business. Here’s the blueprint:

Step One:

Identify the top 10% of your higher-level clients who you believe would be open to giving you a referral. (Try to keep the numbers below 50, as managing more in any one campaign can be difficult to manage properly). In some cases, you many have already received one or more referrals. And don’t make the mistake of automatically adding your biggest clients based on revenue alone. You want to make sure these are clients who you think are most likely to provide referrals.

Step Two:

In the first month, mail these clients a simple gift, like a Starbucks Coffee card. Be sure to include a handwritten note saying something like, “Thinking of you. Your next cup of coffee is on me.” When mailing this gift, be sure to address the envelope by hand as well, and use a stamp on it, not your postage meter. This demonstrates personal attention and thought.

Step Three:

In the second month, mail them some information related to services or products that you think would be of interest to these folks, based on their individual history with you and your business.

Step Four:

In the third and fourth months, simply repeat steps 2 and 3.

Step Five:

In the fifth month, pay an impromptu visit to these clients to hand deliver a different simple gift. Try to find something that relates to your clients’ interests or hobbies. It needn’t be expensive; it’s the thoughtfulness that counts. Don’t overstay your welcome. As these are unplanned visits, keep them to about 10-15 minutes in length.

Step Six:

Keep working this program for the balance of the year, but in the fifth to sixth month, start asking these clients for referrals. You can do this in person or on the phone.

This process should result in tons of referrals, and you are likely to net about half of them as new clients.

The following year, keep those referring clients on a quarterly “maintenance program”, ensuring that they stay loyal to you. Then, identify another group of clients and run them run through this same program. .

This specific strategy dovetails perfectly with the ideal concept of a client service model that continues to add value and build business friendships. By mixing the components of added value and business friendship and respect, this program should keep you in referrals as long as continue to implement it.

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 consider forwarding this post.

Understanding Analytics – Part 5

Nancy Boisvert Video Blog , , , , , , , ,
time on page

Interpreting “Time On Page”.

What exactly does it mean?

Another analytic that can be difficult to interpret is that of “time on page”.  At first glance, it may seem obvious, however if you look a bit deeper, you will find that the numbers can be misleading.

Our final instalment of this series will help you understand what this analytic does and doesn’t tell you about visitors to your website.

Watch today’s video to learn more.

Please join us now, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you won’t miss any of our upcoming tips.

Watch our video now, or watch on YouTube.

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

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

Understanding Analytics – Part 4

Nancy Boisvert Video Blog , , , , , , , ,
demographics

What about your demographics?

 Why you need to know about them.

Last week, we took a short break from our series on understanding your analytics. But now its time to continue!

The next instalment in our series helps you understand the role of demographics. Learn how to discover this analytic and why it is such an important factor in your marketing strategy.

Watch today’s video to learn more.

Please join us now, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you won’t miss any of our upcoming tips.

Watch our video now, or watch on YouTube.

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

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

Top 12 Tips For Defining Your Marketing Strategy

Nancy Boisvert Video Blog , , , ,
defining your marketing strategy

Do you have a marketing strategy?

Without one, you are sunk!

In order to effectively promote your business, you need to develop a marketing strategy. These 12 tips will give you a great starting point to creating something that will work for you.

So, what are you waiting for?

Watch today’s explainer video to learn how to structure your marketing strategy.

Please join us now, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you won’t miss any of our upcoming tips.

Watch our video now, or watch on YouTube.

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

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

Secrets To Finding Your Dream Marketer

Nancy Boisvert Video Blog , , , , ,
dream marketer

Marketers are a dime a dozen, right?

Well, yes and no.

It’s true that everyone and their dog are now claiming to be marketers. But are they really marketers or are they salespeople pushing the next big thing that’ll make your business an overnight success? Yes, tools and delivery of services is important, but without proper planning and execution, you are wasting your time and your money.

So, in the sea of marketers, how do you find your dream marketer?

Watch today’s explainer video and learn the secrets to finding and securing your dream marketer.

Please join us now, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you won’t miss any of our upcoming tips.

Watch our video now, or watch on YouTube.

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

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

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn